Greetings,

I'm from the southeast of France. I am renovating a big old stone house that was previously heated by a big old groundwater source heat pump. The installation is a mix of underfloor heating, 50 years old radiators, a bunch of mysterious pipes going who knows where, and way too many circulators.

I had hoped the heat pump would last until after I had renovated the heating system, so I could retire it and replace it with an air source heat pump, but it blew a heat exchanger in December last year. So I accelerated the plan to replace it with an ASHP. Contacted a few installers. Hilarity ensued. Got fed up so ordered a LG 16kW R290 off the internet, installed it myself, put an enormous plate heat exchanger from an Olympic swimming pool heating system between the brand new machine and the old installation (still running on mostly rust and sludge), and tada! It works absolutely fine.

Still have to design and install the new system though. Then... I saw the heat geeks guys on Youtube. So here I am lol

Posted by: @bobflux

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Greetings,

I'm from the southeast of France. I am renovating a big old stone house that was previously heated by a big old groundwater source heat pump. The installation is a mix of underfloor heating, 50 years old radiators, a bunch of mysterious pipes going who knows where, and way too many circulators.

I had hoped the heat pump would last until after I had renovated the heating system, so I could retire it and replace it with an air source heat pump, but it blew a heat exchanger in December last year. So I accelerated the plan to replace it with an ASHP. Contacted a few installers. Hilarity ensued. Got fed up so ordered a LG 16kW R290 off the internet, installed it myself, put an enormous plate heat exchanger from an Olympic swimming pool heating system between the brand new machine and the old installation (still running on mostly rust and sludge), and tada! It works absolutely fine.

Still have to design and install the new system though. Then... I saw the heat geeks guys on Youtube. So here I am lol

Thanks for posting and we look forward to hearing about your journey.  It sounds like your system has considerable scope for improvement as you work your way through it, and its encouraging that you have taken matters into your own hands by just getting on and replacing the 'motive power', there is nothing like being in control of your own destiny.

Feel free to ask any questions as you develop your refurb ideas.  Being mostly UK based, where electricity is four times the price of our insanely cheap gas,  people here are very conscious of getting maximum efficiency out of a heat pump, so we spend a lot of time thinking about it.

@cathoderay Thanks

@kev1964-irl At the outset just to say I am not a plumber or engineer so I'm on this site to learn! The discussions from the community of experts and enthusiasts here will certainly inform and help you ask the right questions of any installer. 

I extensively renovated my house (a 1950s dormer bungalow) in 2008 and tried to make it as energy efficient as possible. It was expensive to do even then but has proved well worth it in terms of overall comfort and running costs in the intervening period.

I had my solar panels installed in 2021 by VeepEnergy whom I would recommend. However, they were a smaller company then, operating under a different name, and now seem to do mostly large-scale industrial installs. I would also recommend SPV Energy who installed my Zappi EV charger and who have done PV installs for several people I know.

I had my Viessmann 151-A ASHP installed in 2023 by BK Heatpumps. The installation was pretty good, done over 4 days and has operated fantastically well since then. I had a problem with the electrics, whereby the HP was occasionally switching off, and this took a bit of pushing on my behalf to have repaired. If the Viessmann unit itself is to be believed, I'm getting a SCOP of 5.5 which is more than I had hoped for. However, the Viessmann is very expensive, so you're kinda paying for a Porsche rather than a Golf!

In Ireland, as you know, electricity is very expensive and, with limited suppliers, smart tariffs are not especially competitive. As yet we do not have dynamic pricing, so Octopus Energy if you're reading this, please consider the Irish market! It's somewhat debatable, however, on whether a home battery makes sense as export tariffs are still pretty decent, but I expect these to fall substantially over the next couple of years.

Anyway, good luck on your journey and if you need any additional info just give me a shout. I would recommend you read all of the different threads here as you'll find a lot of value in what's being discussed.

Thanks a lot GC61 - I'll open a separate thread in due course. Best regards.

Hi there,

I have been installing and maintaining heat pumps since 2012. I have worked on & designed a huge variety of installations which range in size and purpose. Throughout my journey as an installer, and now company owner, I see the industry from the 'other side' to some here.

I wholeheartedly sympathise with the many people whom have had bad experiences after handing over quite considerable amounts of money for this technology. Unfortunately this industry has been plagued with issues that range from poor advertisement (by both companies and government), false promises and unscrupulous installers.

After often coming across this forum over the years I have now joined and hope to contribute when I can to see if there is anything that I may be able to offer.

Kind regards,
Liam

@liam-dr Welcome to the forum, its always good to have a professional here.  I look forward to your comments.

@liam-dr, I’d like to echo James’ welcome, and we look forward to assistance and insights on technical issues, and it looks like you’re experienced with a number of top brands that many users and members on these forums have and often struggle with.

Hi - After two plus years of dithering, we had a sales rep from Aira visit and if all continues to go to plan, will have the installation up and running within a month of the initial visit. We went with Aira somewhat because they dealt with the sales process extremely efficiently and mostly because my wife liked the idea of few user controls, which trumped my concerns at the paucity of pre-purchase performance information and paucity of post-installation monitoring data. My plan is to see how it performs as installed and then modify as needed.

Getting it installed so quickly has been great and the installation team is doing a good job so far so fingers crossed.  I'll post a review of the installation and background on the design journey in due course.

Some other background info: we have 8kw of solar and 26kwh of battery storage and an ev.  

Excellent site Mars, well done.

@pt151 welcome to the forums, and looking forward to hearing about your experience with Aira.

Feel free to supplement the definitive Aira thread with your experience and how the next steps go: https://renewableheatinghub.co.uk/forums/renewable-heating-air-source-heap-pumps-ashps/aira-heat-pump-stylish-scandinavian-heating