Heat pumps do work. But they must be sized and installed correctly. I do think they require tinkering and tweaking to get them working efficiently, but the degree of tinkering will vary from person to person. 

The biggest issue facing heat pumps for the foreseeable future will be sky high electricity tariffs. This is going to make pumps very expensive to run compared to gas and oil. 

Leaks are not an issue reserved for heat pumps. Our leak that we dealt with recently stemmed from a vent on our back up oil boiler.

If you specific questions, I’d be happy to address and answer those.

New member here looking in earnest at ASHP for our imminent new self build.  I had assumed that it was a no brainer but am beginning to wonder…

I am particularly struck by how much ‘tinkering’ and hands-on adjustments have to be done just to keep it running - clearing filters, dealing with leaks, data monitoring and adjusting settings etc.  Is that because the systems are more fragile and unstable than the marketers would have us believe? 

We will be retirees and planning on using this system through into our frail old age, so want a system that will give us straightforward, reliable warmth as and when we are old and infirm.  We are beginning to think we would essentially be early adopters of a technology that still needs lots of maturing and therefore not a good idea at this stage?

Would be very interested in your views.

Partially good news is that we’ve found a wet spot that’s originating from behind our oil boiler (the back up) which indicates something’s gone wrong there. Contacted about six heat engineers yesterday who just aren’t interested in coming out or just cleared our calls.

Home Emergency insurance (AXA) equally useless in sourcing anyone. Hopefully Global Energy can send someone out early next week. House was snug though with the fires going. 

Our system went on the fritz last night, so we're without heating again. Smell of glycol in the utility room, pressure on the expansion vessel has dropped to zero and no visible or obvious leaks. Getting hold of a plumber is a nightmare (as always). So it's back to the fires for today and tomorrow and hopefully Global Energy Systems can get someone out to us early next week.  

Hi Mars,

Looking on the bright side, at least it did not happen in the depths of Winter. Have you tried re-pressurising your system and looking for leaks, also the rate by which the pressure falls will give some indication as to the size of the leak.

Unless your HW is set very high or it's very cold weather (well below zero) your immersion shouldn't be on.  As you say, your high temp Arotherm should just about be able to to do the Legio cycle itself so you should definitely have a word with the installer.  Is the heat pump heating the HW at all?  Can you turn the immersion off and see what happens?

We have a smallish 4 bed bungalow that's quite well insulated and our installer thought an 11 kW pump was too small.  We have a 14kW one.     

If there was a leak, it would have been better because we'd know what were dealing with - but we can't ID the issue.