@siko Hi Siko,

Did you manage to perform the suggested test? Feedback is always useful.

Hi Derek, I've not got anything suitable to measure it with TBH.

Posted by: @siko

Hi Derek, I've not got anything suitable to measure it with TBH.

Hi Siko,

If you stand naked outside away from your heat pump and then stand behind it, if it feels perceptibly colder then you may have a problem.

Joking apart, a simple thermometer would be adequate, you are looking for a difference in the temperatures.

@cally-m Just a quick update ref our elec usage for Oct. Yes, it was a relatively mild one sofar, but we have been using the pump a fair bit for heating (often a few hours in the morning and a few in the evening too) to maintain a steady temp and the kids love having baths so lots of hot water used. As I mentioned before we are very heavy users of electricity as a busy family of four with washing machine, condensing dryer, dehumidifier, dishwasher etc all on permanently along with various computers, monitors, phones and lots of other things. So I appreciate it is a mild (ish) Oct sofar but I am very pleasantly surprised that our total Elec usage for Oct is still only 843 units (633 Day and 210 Night), which even with our expensive variable tariff works out at £180 total.

Now here's the impressive bit - last Sep and Oct we used 1304KwH just on hot water and everything else electric related. This Sep/Oct using the ASHP instead of log fires and immersion heaters (on cheap overnight rate) we have used a grand total of 1367KwH or just 63KwH (about £13) more. I appreciate that it was colder last year and we were all wfh during that period but I am really very impressed with that. I know the real test is yet to come when the cold long winter months of Dec-Feb really hit home and the ASHP is working harder to keep the house warm, but sofar I could not be more impressed.

So as an update, I think November has been the first real 'cold' month we've experienced and we had some really hard frosts aswell out here in the middle of nowhere. As expected our usage has gone up considerably but the house has been really quite warm throughout. Our thermostats are still set to 17-18 in 'quiet' times and 19 during peak hours in the house and we have used the fire in the lounge sporadically in the evening a few times, but only because my wife likes it!

Scores on the doors for our total electrical usage are 920kwh Day/365 Night=1285kwh and total cost for my non-fixed expensive rate was £269 with Octopus. I still think this is quite reasonable as our previous Nov usage was in the region of 800kwh, so whilst the bills are definitely higher this is a small price to pay for a warm house which was sporadically heated by logburners before.

Only issue I have noticed is the system struggling to heat the kitchen and bathroom, although I can't really fault the installation. The reason is these two rooms have floorboards rather than tiles and are an insulator of course! When it was really cold (-2 or so outside) the kitchen just didn't warm up at all and eventually went up but I think it was more warm air from the rest of the house circulating. Longterm we are going to replace the floorboards in the kitchen with tiles which should work much better(the boards are crap anyway) but we are probably stuck with the bathroom.