Posted by: @editor

I have to say they’ve nailed the styling - it does look really, really good.

What do you think of the way the Red heat pumps look @oswiu?

My only concern with the Samsung is how devilishly hot it might get inside if we have another 40C heatwave and it's sat out in the sun because of how dark it is. The electrical components in computers can get extremely hot, but they also have cooling, so the question is if they thought of it and if there's any monitoring or protection.

I think the RED heat pumps are fine aesthetically. They're not ornamental pieces certainly, but there is something about them that fits into a garden vibe, and one could perhaps mistake them for a fancy compost bin. I must say I myself am not particularly fussed about looks, but I completely understand why one would be and I certainly don't begrudge my wife for it even if it means higher cost.

The key think in all installations is to get the controls right. Avoid on off controls and stick with the heat pumps own controller.

@alec-morrow oh absolutely. There's no way I'm letting my installers shove my weather comp equipment in a cupboard like @editor 's. My ideal would actually be to control it with my own code because my house gets quite incredible solar gain on the east side which really changes the characteristics in the spring heating season, and also so I can take advantage of my PV array to "charge" the house with heat on a sunny day, and not heat so much overnight. COP doesn't matter in that circumstance, because the energy from the sun is free. If the new Samsung unit has a modbus interface like gen 6, that would be ideal, but otherwise I guess we'll be fine with standard weather compensation and maybe the occasional manual increase to target temp in an app on a sunny winter's day. But apart from those two things, steady low temperature heating is the aim.

At the very least I want to be able to get performance data from my prospective heat pump to check it's working well. How that will work depends on the heat pump. 

@oswiu if look at vaillant and the sensocomfort or vrc700 controls

their diagnostics codes reveal lots of information and the app shows energy usage etc

as to integration with your own stuff good luck! Opentherm may be your friend here though, i think a few heat pumps have that

@mars i would but its not in yet, samsung are waiting for mcs at the ned of the month, then mine arrives, but ive seen it and its lovely. 

So we had another heat loss survey today, and of course I asked a few questions. I say a few, but the guy said no one had ever asked that many questions or the kind of questions I was asking. I guess most people don't go down a rabbit hole of reading technical books when they just want their boiler replacing.

I was told they don't do weather compensation by default, only when customers request it. Your guess is as good as mine as to what tiny percentage of their customers know what weather compensation is and/or think to ask for it...

The chap also suggested we put the heat pump in a small alleyway between our house and next door where there is only just over 1m clearance and it would be directly facing a gas fire vent on next door's living room wall. He said the ASHP didn't need much room in front of it, and didn't seem persuaded by my argument that blowing so much air into next door would be neither pleasant for them nor meet MCS noise requirements. Naturally I said we wouldn't be putting it there.

He did, however, say that he just does the heat loss surveys and won't actually design the system, so he said the person who does that would be in touch with my questions. He also took lots of photos of round the house such as where I thought we'd actually put it, and said we could opt to either trench the pipe work or not.

He also said they'd be happy to upgrade the pipework on the living room radiator (the room with the biggest heat loss) even if it wasn't necessarily required.

Overall I was not left very impressed with this chap's knowledge, but at least they seem very flexible to a demanding customer (that's me), so there's no reason why we couldn't get a decent install assuming I go through the details. I do wonder what kind of installs they do for people who haven't read on the subject before though. I'm assuming a boiler drop-in-replacement type.

Offered ASHPs are Mitsubishi Ecodans and Midea models. He said their supplier is Freedom, and that they would do install anything that Freedom offer. I'm not sure what I think about an installer installing a heat pump they've never worked with, but we'll see what happens with the quote before thinking about it too much.

I wrote a book answering all these questions its on amazon, but why on earth would you buy a unit from someone who cant answer the qs? , getting idiots online to answer your questions is madness, you are giving these people a load of money, its probably a good idea you ask them. I wouldn't take dental advice from anyone but a dentist, i definitely wouldn't ask online mentalists for dental advice, heating is no different. 

Manufacturers need to be more closely involved with much of the process in purchasing installing and commissioning heat pumps, may be their own certified system to ensure installers, or at least some one has competence in the technology at easy reach with in the installing company

too many manufacturers, if not all, train to the lowest common denominator among installers and as a matter of economic sense sell to any one who will buy

and manufacturers need to embrace the technology that enhances comfort and efficient  aka weather compensation. No installer or vendor of heat pumps should be concerned about radiators not drying clothes..in fact on a clothes drier weather compensated system dry clothes indoors equally well.. add a dehumidifier and you get free heat!

Posted by: @grahamh

I wrote a book answering all these questions its on amazon, but why on earth would you buy a unit from someone who cant answer the qs? , getting idiots online to answer your questions is madness, you are giving these people a load of money, its probably a good idea you ask them. I wouldn't take dental advice from anyone but a dentist, i definitely wouldn't ask online mentalists for dental advice, heating is no different. 

I did not post this or my thoughts to replace interaction with an installer, but rather to be a check on what installers and their sales representatives say. Someone in sales is always incentivised to sell you something even if it won't work very well and even if you don't need it, so appealing for answers here helps get some balance. In addition, a sales rep is always going to come across as sleak and knowledgeable to a lay person - that's how they do their job.

If you were specifically talking about the person who did the heat loss survey in my last post, then yes it is a bit concerning that they don't have all the knowledge, but also it's not them who do the designing, so it's then a question of getting through to them to check if that other person is competent. And again, I can only verify someone's competence through questions here and other reading eg your book.

Posted by: @alec-morrow

Manufacturers need to be more closely involved with much of the process in purchasing installing and commissioning heat pumps, may be their own certified system to ensure installers, or at least some one has competence in the technology at easy reach with in the installing company

 

too many manufacturers, if not all, train to the lowest common denominator among installers and as a matter of economic sense sell to any one who will buy

 

and manufacturers need to embrace the technology that enhances comfort and efficient  aka weather compensation. No installer or vendor of heat pumps should be concerned about radiators not drying clothes..in fact on a clothes drier weather compensated system dry clothes indoors equally well.. add a dehumidifier and you get free heat!

Totally agree with this. I think a good start would be a new rating for heat pump efficiencies based on how they're actually installed in the real world rather than a hypothetical SCOP. If a manufacturer doesn't care how their products are installed, then lots of their installs are going to be high temperature on/off timer types, and they would have a low rating. If a manufacturer enforces weather compensation amongst other things, then they'd get a better rating. I know there are lots of variables to this, but there must be a better way to educate potential buyers on how heat pumps should be run to minimise costs, especially with current prices.

@oswiu 

actually on off controls need to be removed in their entirety from the market 

Compensation controls are just glorified on off controls any way!

@alec-morrow Cool Energy seem spot on in this regard, directly involved in the design and installation of the products they sell (granted, they are OEMd by Sprsun, but the quallity seems decent). I had some technical queries regarding UVC coil sizes and the MD was spot on with the communication.

@oswiu have you thought about just designing the system yourself and paying a plumber to fit it? You've read the books, you seem perfectly technical, and you're going to control it with modbus anyway. If you want I'll ping you over the modbus registers for the Cool Energy 9kW unit and you can take a look at what you can control from in there.