@lucia I have just spoken to Octopus and the installation is likely to be March. Which actually suits us in fact I may delay it to April. I suspect that resurvey was just to delay the install date, however I am pleased that you have got yours next week.

@jancold The list of those having heating systems installed during the winter are unlikely to include wimps such as myself. Though, having said that, it wasn’t very warm when ours was installed in February of ‘23! Wimpelly, Toodles

So.... work starts.

The last few days I have had random parcels delivered to my house. The first time I thought it was someone else's delivery gone astray - two large boxes of cable. Then I saw my name and 🐙.

Yesterday, 53kg of K2 radiator (for the living room) was delivered by a very strong, smiley man. I had no idea this was arriving separately. Sadly, it's the wrong height.  I phoned my co-ordinator and when she praised my laid back response, ever the opportunist, I lobbied for the replacement to be a .... K3 🫢😁

Watch this space. (I don't really mind as long it is the correct height).

The local plumber has drained the system and installed a nice aluminium radiator in the shower room. 

The (ever friendly) 🐙 (unofficial) heat pump owner's Facebook group is full of people (male people, actually) all getting excited about temperatures dropping, heat pumps firing up and sharing weather compensation curves. 😂

Posted by: @jancold

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@lucia I have just spoken to Octopus and the installation is likely to be March. Which actually suits us in fact I may delay it to April. I suspect that resurvey was just to delay the install date, however I am pleased that you have got yours next week.

@jancold

You are very patient. Apparently 🐙 are absolutely flooded with applications and are permanently advertising for fitters. The same for local independent fitters in my area too, allegedly. 

Did the resurvey change much? 

I am grateful that 🐙 advanced my installation date because of my lack of heating & hot water. I've been lighting the wood burner.

The only downside of pushing your installation back from March to April is the chance of half decent weather (ha!) and not being able to run the system to find your feet with it. I've heard other people comment on this re their own installation. 

The 🐙 (unofficial) FB group is worth a look. 

@lucia Well having taken two years to get to this point another 6 months is ok. I am surprised that the 6 week difference in our respective  applications has led to a nearly 6 month delay on install but I am confident that the boiler will struggle on with some tlc. Just now it's set to 24 hours and 40 C. I have a lead installer coming to explain how/why I need to supply piping to the two new rads and confirm they will do the trenching under the 700 mm wide path. I am tempted to tell them to supply the rads and I'll install them myself! I'm not going to drain the system to fit pipework guessing where the rad goes as normally you fit the accessory (rad) and work back to the supply.

The re-survey changed nothing at all.

I am happy to have the system over the summer to learn about the controls and consider the possibility of BESS.

I now have an "install coordinator" who was worried my pump was too close to a property boundary. I had to point out the position was as far from any boundary as possible and suggested looking at google maps! 

I'm looking forward to somebody who actually knows what a piece of  copper tube looks like and doesn't simply rely on a camera, tape measure and software.

@jancold My day 1 of install over.

It started at 7 with the first of multiple deliveries. Very nice team. Easy to have around. All very experienced. 

Pump is on its base, tank pipework is on its way but as the tank is in my cellar (back-to-back with the heat pump) they have decided to make a base for it.  Thus it's only resting in place for now.

The gas is gone! Yay! But they are installing new inward water fittings from the street as mine are ancient, apparently. They're very 'no sweat' when they encounter a problem. 

So far all the technical staff I've encountered have been pretty good.