If you are happy, that’s the important thing. Try turning flow temp down a degree and running for longer.  And see if temp ok. Keep doing this weekly until too cold then turn back up. I’m running my ASHP for a year using Nest thermostat and then switching to weather compensation. To test. 
All good fun and congratulations for reducing your carbon footprint significantly 

@sapper117 Thanks Sapper. The £11 per day sounds like a lot but I guess its only relevent when compared to the cost other sources of heat. Also if averaged over the summer months I imagine that would decrease significantly. I have my heat pump set to weather compensation and it works great. I think PV panels are a match made in heaven for heat pumps and certainly want to max out my roof space this time.

@bontwoody the £11 is my total electric bill I'm sure i can interrogate the system but i cant be bothered i know from daily checks on my smart meter (I am accussed by SWMBO of being obsessed) that the actual electricity is about £7 for heating and red hot water and you have to remember that this heating is almost for 24 hrs not just the 3 hr then 4/5 hrs of the old gas system.

the weather here has been cold for the last few days so i expect the cost to drop as the temp lifts above 3 degrees. We are just waiting fro the power supply companies to approve our request to fir am 8kwh system in a field next to the house and tie it into a 8.2 kWh storage system, this will bring our costs down but I do think that this system is not a cheap fix unless you are running a new build, the system does work extremely well in an old retro fit but be prepared to shell out over 20k to ensure you get it right, and then if prices rise as expected who knows?

@sapper117 Thanks. Ill bear all that in mind.

Hello all, I am a self taught self installer I bought an air source heat-pump from china and set about plumbing from scratch. it has been a very ambitious and steep learning curve but i am glad to say I have a warm house and considerably cheaper bills than even I expected. I hope I can help with ideas and solutions I have worked out and also learn from others and their experiences. 

Simon 

@simonstengineer, impressive and welcome to the forums. Do you have a heating installation background (such as boilers) or is the whole plumbing and ASHP installation exercise all new to you? 

Please start a new topic when you get the time dedicated to your installation and set up. That way we can ask specifics related to your system and how you went about it.

@simonstengineer Hi Simon, I did a similar thing with my Ecodan. The hardest bit I found was getting the UFH controller to talk to the valve to divert the flow. In the end an old fashioned relay saved the day 🙂

Hello, my name is Alex, I live in North Hampshire in an old house with an oil boiler. Looking at ways to cut our massive energy use, and planning on being here for 20+ years so can take a long term view. I was pointed this way from another forum (PistonHeads) and will try to find the right section, but I have a lot of general questions!

Key one is whether an oil boiler can be used in combination with GSHP or WSHP?

I'm David and I live in a 4-bed link-detached house (100 m2) in Cambridgeshire. Heating is by a mains gas condensing boiler. Electricity and gas consumption is estimated at 4400 kWh and 11000 kWh. I have 4 kWp solar panels installed with a Solar iBoost hot water diverter. I am currently evaluating the case for solar batteries and ASHP.

The solar installation is 16 Phonosolar panels split in 2 blocks of eight, one facing east and the other west with a Fronius inverter. This orientation results in a higher summer generation than the south-facing configuration but sadly, next to nothing in winter. Annual generation is around 3000 kWh. It was installed during the later part of the FiT regime and should have an modest financial return over its lifetime. The financial case for the diverter has not been attractive so far. Maximum daily diversion is around 6 kWh, limited by the top placement of the electric element. I have been able to use about 70% of what I generate with a lot of effort on my part. The poor diverter return has largely been because mains gas prices have been very low until recently and the diverter is essentially displacing mains gas in my case. The case for solar batteries is being considered now as a way of using the solar generation to displace higher priced electricity consumption instead. I've run simulations based on smart meter and generation half-hourly data for a year and the financial case looks marginal even at current higher electricity prices.  Perhaps additional gains could be had through exploiting TOU tariffs like Octopus Agile?

I am considering ASHP as a greening strategy but it looks as if it will be more expensive to operate than mains gas, perhaps considerably so. The main issue is that the relative prices of electricity to mains gas must be significantly lower than the SCOP and it isn't so even with the current crisis.  It's very much one of those "I'd really like to but this makes no financial sense" issues.

Which comes down to the nub of the problem. Modern life is heavily based around the availability of cheap energy and that has been supplied (unsustainably) largely by fossil fuels. If fossil fuel use has the drastic downsides claimed in the climate change agenda, then its price must incorporate the cost of its externalities. That price should surely be many multiples of what it is now. The electricity price will be determined by its swing generation and that is from natural gas. It doesn't matter how "cheap" renewables are claimed to be, until the swing generation switches to some more environmentally acceptable source, the electricity price will be closely tied to the natural gas price and the ratio between the two cannot really rise high enough for most homes to make the switch to ASHP be economically justifiable.  If one actually prices fossil fuel correctly, then the public will revolt.  Of course, if there is not enough of any alternative acceptable energy source to meet needs, then our societies have been living beyond our means and the standard of living must fall.

I have a blog about my panels.

Hi @ronin92

Your set up sounds very similar to ours, the main difference being that we live in a detached bungalow, so it is easier for any heat energy to be distributed more evenly.

Over the past several years I have been exploring different ways to reduce our energy consumption by utilising more of the energy from our solar PV system. Like you, the initial method was to provide much of our hot water demand via an electrical diverter, which has been quite successful.

Since our diverter unit can supply up to three individual loads, I then connected a 2kW electric convection heater in the hallway, which is powered by excess energy from the diverter unit, which in turn is controlled by a thermostat. In this way I assess that we have reduced our annual gas consumption by approximately 25%.

Last year I installed a 2.6kW Air to Air ASHP, which I run when there is sufficient generation from the solar PV system, in that way I hope to reduce our gas consumption by well in excess of 25%. The added benefit is that the unit also provides air conditioning, completely free, on the hotter Summer days.

As a further way to reduce our energy consumption I am considering installing a battery storage system, which should enable us to not only reduce our overall electricity consumption, but also further reduce our gas consumption.

Posted by: @derek-m

Since our diverter unit can supply up to three individual loads, I then connected a 2kW electric convection heater in the hallway, which is powered by excess energy from the diverter unit, which in turn is controlled by a thermostat.

Hi Derek. Can you explain a bit more about the diverter please, a 2kW convection heater sounds like it could be a useful addition to the heating options of a friend of mine. 

@heat-pump-newbie

Hi Newbie,

Google Solar Electric Power Diverter.

Electric power diverters can be used with solar PV systems. They basically divert the excess solar power that would normally be exported back to the grid. There are various models available, iBoost, EDDI, ImmerSun etc. We have an ImmerSun unit which allows three individual loads of up to 3kW to be connected. It can only feed one load at a time, but could feed several electric convection heaters at the same time, provided that the overall loading does not exceed 3kW.

On our system the primary load at the moment is the immersion heater in the hot water tank. When the water has been heated to 65C the thermostat switches off, and the power diverter senses that there is no load, so automatically switches to the second load. The second output has a normal 13A electrical socket connected, into which I can plug a suitable load. At the moment this is normally the 2kW electric convection heater. I may in the future utilise the third output to feed a battery storage system.

I think that the main limitation is that the load should be resistive and should not exceed 3kW.

I think that some of the other available units have two outputs, but may not have the third one.