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06/11/2023 1:58 pm
I know of several people who have had A2A installed by a contractor - there was no planning or MCS involved, the contractor is f-gas qualified, and just cracks on. Perhaps if there's a complaint, then things might turn ugly ? The A2A units I've seen are small single head ones, and pretty quiet - quieter than a gas boiler outside I'd say.
I installed our own A2A ASHP and I would deem the outside unit to be quieter the indoor fan coil unit.
06/11/2023 2:03 pm
@derek-m Aircon units have no special rules, so either they are an ashp used solely for heating in which case pd may apply, or they are like any other development work and require express consent.
That's how it is in planning law, however to benefit from pd an ashp needs to be installed by an MCS installer to MCS standards as well as meeting the noise criterion. I'm not sure if MCS rules can be stretched to encompass air to air or not. As to whether you will find an MCS installer who will install A2A that's potentially a further hurdle. Others may know this part of the puzzle.
If the answer to the above is no, then it's yet another reason why MCS design and installation standards should have no place in planning law (as if there weren't already enough reasons!)
My understanding is that an MCS accredited installer is required for A2W to be able to claim the BUS grant. I believe that you can install a mono system yourself, since the refrigerant gas is pre-loaded, but of course you cannot then claim the BUS grant.
A2A are excluded from the BUS scheme so can be installed by any AC Engineer, or by anyone if the unit does not use an 'F' type gas.
That's true, but doesn't circumvent the requirement for MCS accreditation in order to benefit from permitted development. It's written into the general permitted development order 2015 and mcs-020
Of course, like all planning matters, you can just do it and, so long as nobody complains, irs unlikely that enforcement action will be taken. This applies equally to A2W.
18/11/2023 8:34 am
I promised to post feedback from my local authority on the criteria for statutory noise nuisance. It's wooly, but does at least give a list of considerations. I had a bit of tooing and fro-ing to get to this and I don't think I will do much better if I go back again.
So here goes
I asked:
Clearly I can't expect you to comment on an individual installation, however there must be some objective criteria which you apply to decide whether a complaint about a piece of equipment of this nature (whether it be an ASHP or other similarly necessary piece of domestic equipment) meets the threshold required to justify enforcement action. It is this/these objective criteria that I need to understand in order to assess my own proposed installation. For example you might refer to the table in BS8233 (Table 4 "Indoor ambient noise levels for dwellings" which sets out desirable maximum noise levels in domestic situations). Then you might consider that, if these levels are not exceeded in the premises of the complainant (if necessary applying an adjustment for tonality/intermittency) then there is (other than in exceptional circumstances) no valid claim of nuisance, whereas if these levels are exceeded (and provided of course that the reason that they are exceeded is the external cause about which the complaint is received, not other noise sources) then there is, or may well be, a valid claim. Alternatively you may refer to other standards or use other criteria.
So my question thus amounts to 'when a complaint is received in relation to a noise such as that emitted from domestic heating equipment (ASHP, Oil boiler flue, Gas boiler flue) or other 'essential' domestic equipment which emits external noise for lengthy periods of time, what criteria are used (and how are they applied) to assess whether a nuisance is occurring or not?'.
For the avoidance of doubt I understand that, ultimately, the definition of statutory nuisance is a matter for the Courts, and I am not asking you to provide legal advice, What I am asking you is to provide the criteria/threshold levels thatEHDCuses to determine whether or not enforcement action by the Council is justified, in situations such as that to which I refer.
My local authority answered:
For the noise to be considered a statutory nuisance it must do one of the following:
- unreasonably and substantially interfere with the use or enjoyment of a home or other premises
- injure health or be likely to injure health
The factors considered in the determination of the existence of a statutory nuisance include:
- Impact of the alleged noise nuisance
- Location
- Character of the area
- Character of the source
- Time of day
- Frequency
- Duration
- How easy it is to avoid the effects of the activity – e.g. is it maintained, does it need to be used in the manner in which it is, etc.
- Comparison standards such as BS 8233
There are no absolute values which determine whether something is considered a statutory nuisance or not, and the factors above are all that I would be able to provide at this stage.
Please rest assured that even if a complaint is received by Environmental Health and an investigation is initiated, the first port of call is to approach the subject of the complaint and advise them on how they can improve their specific situation.
18/11/2023 4:36 pm
Please rest assured that even if a complaint is received by Environmental Health and an investigation is initiated, the first port of call is to approach the subject of the complaint and advise them on how they can improve their specific situation.
Don't you just love official Local Council English! Reagan's nine most terrifying words in the English language also spring to mind...
Midea 14kW (for now...) ASHP heating both building and DHW
18/11/2023 7:19 pm
With all this talk about noise, I thought I would drop in a reference to a case where neighbours have (perhaps justifiably) complained about two ASHP installed at Reepham High School in Autumn 2021 without planning permission.
https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/11/17/residents-disturbed-by-noisy-school-heat-pumps/ (note the stock photo; the actual heat pumps are 140kW and one I guess is < 50kW).
and retrospective planning permission
“2022_10_10 additional technical report :1378088” makes for interesting reading. They state the operating hours will be from 0700 to 1700 Monday to Friday in the “winter”. Also the validation of their models (sans acoustic shielding) looks a bit off as they took measurements on an afternoon when it was 8 degrees outside running at “normal duty” (section 5.3.3); measurement P1 at 54.7 dB is remarkably close to the manufacturer spec of 54dB however the former has two reflecting surfaces within 1m and the latter is in “open field”.
My feeling is that the installer was trying their luck by installing without permission, using the higher noise (non-XL version) 140kW heat pump, declaring the place they are located to be the only possible location. Furthermore there is to-ing and fro-ing over the nature of the acoustic shielding (supply problems), and the heat pump consultant has decided that they need to operate the heat pump outside of 0700-1700 window (26 April 2023 “Agent correspondence”). I can not find any attempt to validate the acoustic barrier performance.
18/11/2023 8:13 pm
Thanks for this, very interesting.
The thing about retrospective planning consent is that the decision criteria are exactly the same as they would have been had the planning application preceeded the development. So anyone can do any development 'at risk', the risk being that someone complains, they don't get consent and have to undo it. On the flip side if nobody complains then the LPA is most unlikely to take action. In the case of the installation of a heating system it's very tempting to take the risk if you think it's unlikely to generate complaints, given the awkwardness of some LPAs when you do request consent. Who asks for planning consent to install a oil or gas boiler?
I read the officers report and to me it seems balanced and well informed.
Like it or not ashps (or gshps) are the only known way we can heat (the vast majority of) buildings efficiently whilst combatting climate change, and that more or less certain to remain the case for the relevant future. So we all have to accept a level of inconvenience to reduce the much greater inconvenience that global warming is going to cause.
Having regard to this, it's entirely unreasonable to expect that noise will be restricted to the background level of 20dBA, given that the WHO states that 30dbA is a 'desirable' level for sleeping and windows left ajar attenuate by 15dBA according to the relevant British standard. Thus, logically, a facade level of 45dBA or below should be acceptable, perhaps a smidgen less to give a bit of a margin for error. (This is not so far from the PD value of 42dBA albeit that this includes a (somewhat meaningless) 'assumed' 40 dBA background, so the ashp itself cannot exceed 37dBA. But at least it's in roughly the same ballpark.)
The report recognises all of this and recommends limited mitigation measures accordingly.
If only my local planning authority were half as enlightened!
This post was modified 3 weeks ago 6 times by JamesPa
11102
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18/11/2023 8:40 pm
I am surprised that the school did not opt for GSHP's, since they are much quieter, can be installed inside,and probably would be more efficient.
18/11/2023 8:44 pm
@derek-m I did wonder that. However the capital costs are much higher and they may not have a suitable place to dig. I briefly looked at gshp in my former work scenario but it was a non starter.
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