Welcome to the forums @nicholab.

Before I comment, could you please provide more details about what the £25,000 quote encompasses? Additionally, do you have the results of a heat loss survey? I'm assuming your current oil boiler is keeping your home adequately warm - could you also share the total size of your home?

@niholab

could you post one of the quotes and your yearly oil use too please. 

Interested to know the details, heat load etc. 

I never got full details as they walked away form it due to other more profitable work they were doing for us.

We are using around 1500ltr per of heating oil but that only normally for heating for an 1.5 hours in the morning.  We do have top up times but often use our stove to supplement this with wood and coal.

According to EPC the total floor area is 184m2 using 143 kWh/m2 per year.  We are a C71 on a 2013 EPC in Northern Ireland.

@nicholab According to your oil usage, you are using about 12000 Kw house per year, according to the EPC (which will be woefully inaccurate) you will be using about 28000 Kw hrs per year, assuming it is actually mid-point as you top up with wood, you can expect the heat pump required to heat your house will be in the region of 9-10Kw. Not very big and not difficult to install. Generally a heat pump installation of this size, with replacing all the radiators and cylinder would be in the region of £15000.00, certainly not £25000.00.

I have found that most Heat Geeks, have an inflated sense of superiority, why, I have no idea, the course is online modules, and you work your way from one module to another with no time limits, if you get stuck, they do it for you, effectively tick box theory with very little practical content. I have seen the course, and it really is not that difficult if you are mathematically inclined.

Please do not be put off by them, you actually said it yourself "they walked away form it due to other more profitable work they were doing for us".

A heat pump will work in every installation and every property, it is just the design of the system that matters. PM me if you want some help or someone to look over a quotation for you.

@heacol it seems most heat geeks are keen on heat pumps.  The contract I used said a number of times that someone that they had fitted a heat pump for was to do finding it expensive to run.  I would be embarrassed if I said someone was unhappy with my work.

@nicholab I am not sure I understand what you have said, are you saying that the contract they gave you said it would be expensive to run?

That backs up exactly what I have said, a correctly installed heat pump should be between 30 and 50% cheaper to run than a fossil fuel equivalent, if it is not, there IS a problem with the design or the equipment.

Unfortunately, like in every field, not all equipment is the same, some are exceptionally poor, and others are exceptionally good.

In reality, it is just simple thermodynamics, not difficult or complex, you MUST move sufficient water at the LOWEST possible temperature to match the LOAD at any given TIME. In reality, with the right equipment (that does most of the work for you) it is not difficult to achieve. Choose the wrong equipment, and you will be lucky to get any for of reasonable performance.

@nicholab That beggars belief! Surely a Heat Geek trained installer installed Heat Pump is going to be a well specified pump that is well set up and adjusted? The only thing I can imagine in that case is that the dwelling is a large volume building and the previous heating mechanism was fuelled by a very cheap means! Allowing for the present “Let’s charge the Gas Premium to the users of Electricity via a Levvy’, powering a pump with less than a COP of 4 is unlikely to be cheaper than an efficient Gas Boiler but it shouldn’t be outrageously more expensive should it?! Quizzically, Toodles.

@toodles The Heat Geek brand is just that, a commercial, moneymaking brand.

@heacol That I don’t doubt! As I see it, Adam Chapman and friends set up a franchise via popularisation on YouTube and invited installers to carry out training on their course; a sort of self-appointed certification scheme that might infer a certain standard of workmanship. Adam claims to back up installs carried out by HG trained installers I believe but I have no direct experience of this nor of the standard they claim to work to. The ‘Brand’ seems to suggest that their installers will achieve very high standards of install and of performance (COP) thus being very economic to run; as I say, I have no personal experience and am basing my previous comments on here-say only. Regards, Toodles.

@toodles don't get me going