[Challisstern]

This section may be the wrong section, but its the section Engineers congregate at Smoko.( Moderator feel free to move the topic and leave a note/link).

UK government are going to force the public to change from predominately gas fired CH boilers to Heat Pumps.

These heat pumps are AC units running backwards in effect, discharging heat into the house.
So what gas are they going to use ? Nasty Freon ( none are ozone friendly) anybody?
Or CO2 . Both are No No's.
NH3, doubt it.

Will the system be hermetically sealed like our fridges? This would help as there would be less chance of gas leaks due to poor workmanship by these 3 week wonders that will be installing them.

How do these gasses perform when you are approaching Freezing point? I know in Florida those people with heat pumps cannot use the compressor below a certain temperature and have to revert to black heating strips like an emersion heater in the air flow. It doesn't really get cold there.
What effect would prolonged -5°C or lower ambient have on the system , would you get supercooling and liquid forming with the consequences or will the expansion valve take care of that.

Judging by lack of longevity of most appliances now , how long would these units last or any components in them. Then you have the cowboys installing them and sourcing cheap and nasty units from China.

Thoughts anybody?

 

[Nova Scotian]

This section may be the wrong section, but its the section Engineers congregate at Smoko.( Moderator feel free to move the topic and leave a note/link).

UK government are going to force the public to change from predominately gas fired CH boilers to Heat Pumps.

These heat pumps are AC units running backwards in effect, discharging heat into the house.
So what gas are they going to use ? Nasty Freon ( none are ozone friendly) anybody?
Or CO2 . Both are No No's.
NH3, doubt it.

Will the system be hermetically sealed like our fridges? This would help as there would be less chance of gas leaks due to poor workmanship by these 3 week wonders that will be installing them.

How do these gasses perform when you are approaching Freezing point? I know in Florida those people with heat pumps cannot use the compressor below a certain temperature and have to revert to black heating strips like an emersion heater in the air flow. It doesn't really get cold there.
What effect would prolonged -5°C or lower ambient have on the system , would you get supercooling and liquid forming with the consequences or will the expansion valve take care of that.

Judging by lack of longevity of most appliances now , how long would these units last or any components in them. Then you have the cowboys installing them and sourcing cheap and nasty units from China.

Thoughts anybody?

Heat pump systems are quite common here in Nova Scotia, Canada. I would say a majority of houses have them now. We frequently have temperatures well below - 5C for long periods of time from December to April. In Halifax today the temperature has been around -10 C all day and forecast to drop even further through the night. This will not affect the operation of a heat pump system as far as I know.

 

[Challisstern]

Thanks NovaScotian, if they can cope with your low temps then they should be able to cope with ours which are not quite as low for long periods.
Presumably yours is AC & Heating?
Does the heatpump feed a water system or an air system as the ones they are talking about here is that it heats water up that is pumped round the radiators in the house and also heats the hot water tank for DHW.
I doubt they will be able to reverse it in the summer and chill the rads, but they still would need it in heating mode for DHW at some point.

 

[Nova Scotian]

It varies and I’ll give you two examples. My son lives in a new house and the heat pump, a single system, provides heat or air conditioning that is ducted throughout the the three floor house. My daughter’s house is much older and is heated by oil fired hot water base boards. She has recently had installed five wall-mounted hot air systems throughout the house from a heat pump system. This system will greatly reduce her oil consumption and can be reversed to provide air conditioning during the warmer months.
Many homes that have used oil fired, or electric heating systems, have installed heat pumps. It represents a great saving in heating costs and lessens our dependence on oil. The Province provides some generous dollar incentives for those to go that route.

 

[Challisstern]

Thanks Nova Scotia, good to have first hand experience.
Presumably the units are air effect rather than ground effect?
We haven't got the time served trained people over here for domestic install and maintence. There are refrigeration companies but its mainly commercial or heavy refrigeration systems.
I can see them training up 3 week wonders and calling them 'engineers'.
Canada and the USA have an industry just on Domestic A/C, never mind chillers etc.

Heat pumps have been round a while, but not really taken off, perhaps the early ones still had a few teething troubles especially when you changed from cooling to heat or vice a versa.

Do they give much trouble now and is much maintenance required, regassing and component failure?
Thanks for your input.

 

[taffe65]

The majority of UK housing stock is not suited for heating by heat pumps ( air or ground) without huge expenditure and disruption to modify the building, I should imagine that homeowners in Canada and Scandinavian countries etc supplement their household heating with wood or biomass burners (I could be mistaken).
I,m pretty sure that electricity and maintenance costs will be be higher due to the running time of these units, on very cold days they probably run continuously for lengthy periods to compensate for heat loss due to just entering or exiting your property.
Without a doubt there is insufficient "skilled" manpower to look after these heating systems, although I've seen from my own eyes local heating firms quick to jump on the bandwagon and at a guess they have probably sent their employees on a course to become "qualified ", it's like the double glazing scam years ago when every man and his dog were expert installers.
Lastly if they have to offer grants (bribes) to convince people to buy and fit these heating systems then something smells fishy, think I'll stick with my trusty old gas boiler (non condensing) for now and continue to enjoy a boiling hot shower in the winter .

 

[Ian860B]

There is a lot of what are called "reverse cycle units" in Australia, I live in South Australia and it gets down to 0 deg some mornings, if there is some humidity the outside unit does frost up after running for a while but generally thaws out during the "off" cycle. So for what we need it works OK although at 3 KW it does eat through the dollars it supposedly pumps out 7 KW of heat but it does not feel like it.
Jock

 

[taffe65]

Thx Jock for the feedback/user experience, for the UK climate I,ll continue my scepticism especially with our ripoff lecky prices.

 

[DickGraham]

Isn't the main problem with Heat Pump systems the fact that the circulation temperature is 45C whereas a gas fired system circulates at 65C? So if you want to change from gas to HP you have to double the size of the radiators.

 

[taffe65]

Isn't the main problem with Heat Pump systems the fact that the circulation temperature is 45C whereas a gas fired system circulates at 65C? So if you want to change from gas to HP you have to double the size of the radiators.

Plus the pipework supplying the rads, 15mm pipework won't permit enough heat transfer/flow for the increased radiator size to work to their full potential. As a lot of people have found in older homes the salesmans pitch has resulted in cold homes.

 

[jmcg]

Interesting topic Challis.

I can declare an interest. Not too far from where I live a new housing development is before the Council Planning Dept. We (locals) are objecting on many fronts including one cultured soul who has based his objection on subject matter.

He has noted from the impressive developer information provided to the Council that they have failed to include any reference to heating of these £890,000 (starting) barrack like properties. He made some inquires and was informed by the developer that it would cost in the region of £25.000 to install heat p/ps to each property at construction phase. They had no plans to accommodate any request to install.

The Government plan to force us to have heat pumps is just plain bonkers & will surely fail. Woke thinking I say.

BTW. Some years ago Powergen (now Eon) collaborated with a New Zealand outfit called Whispergen and built a distribution centre near Coventry. It was to build and supply a type of domestic heat p/p no larger than a small fridge. Supplies came from NZ and were assembled at the unit. The venture never took off and within a few years the unit was closed down.

BW
J

 

[Challisstern]

Bbc article.

Heat pumps: Lords slam 'failing' green heating scheme

Government unlikely to meet its green heating targets as take-up of the grant scheme is so low.

www.bbc.co.uk

Note where the gvt will force people to have them. Is this a police state or what?
The grant at the moment is £5k, but the cost on top of that is £6-8k.
If people are going to food banks for the forseable future where are they going to find that sort of money. Why go into more debt with a loan to pay for it.
You have a fan and a compressor eating up electricity with a boiler you have a small Grundfoss circ pump and like you say the house has to be turned into a building site with new pipes, radiators, damage to fittings and furnishings.
Like you Taffe, I will stick with my CI Ideal boiler with a pilot light, non condensing, that I fitted myself 22 years ago, not been touched by any of the corgi 'experts'.
Its the same with the Ev directive from our leaders. All they are doing is lining their pockets.
Are they going green in China, India, Africa course not, so why in Europe and particularly Britain as if we would stop the world melting while the same money men are cutting down forests all over the world. You notice they are not stopping them or the coal fired stations in China.
So as Ian in Os said a heater comes on at 0°C to stop it icing up, then this winter it would have been on a lot of the time especially at temps down to -10°C. Of course we don't have the power in the grid to supply all the electrical systems, thats why they want you to have '$$$$mart ' meter$ so they can charge a premium at 6-8pm when they have to buy in power from the continent from Coal stations.
It all makes sense "Not" . Perhaps its called 'political logic' or political science.
JMC, I am just a grumpy old git with lots of time on my hands and a Marine Engineers logical brain like most of you have plus a sense of fair play.
With people power we can turn any gvt policy, look at all this vegan and other rubbish they have now because they kicked up.

 

[jerome morris]

It really is basically a glorified refrigerator.
I’ve had a heat pump in my 300 sq ft. Workshop for the past 5 years.
I love it!
It’s quite , though I can hear the outside units fan occasionally it’s not obnoxious.
It works great in the cold winters here in Maine, though it did struggle to maintain heating when the temperatures dipped way below 0 last week. We had -20 Fahrenheit / -28 Celsius.
So it was cold in the shop. About 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
The unit is set to 60 Fahrenheit most of the time.
And you’ll find with heat pumps that you set the temperature to what is comfortable for you. Not by the temperature shown on the unit.
Say you like the temperature at home to be 68 Fahrenheit then you’ll probably find the heat pump needs to be set at say 72 Fahrenheit.
it an odd systems in that respect but easily worked out.
Most folk have a back up source for heat just in case.
Maine people have learned its best not to rely on one type of heating system.
I have a little Mr. Buddy propane burner which works good.
Heat pumps are very efficient with electricity usage.
Basically I get 3 units of heat for every unit of electricity drawn.
Mine is a Fujitsu brand heat pump.
I do have to clean the inside units dust screen a few times a year. Pretty easy.
The outside unit needs basic maintenance to keep leaves and such out of the screen.
It does run pretty much all the time, either in heat cycle or in defrost cycle.
It does this to make sure the outside unit works at peak performance and is automatic.
The inside unit on occasion blows cool air which is the nature of the system as it try’s to hold a given temperature based on the temperature of the air passing through the unit.
AND! The air conditioned aspect of it is very nice on hot summer days.
I would say every home should have one.

 

[taffe65]

It really is basically a glorified refrigerator.
I’ve had a heat pump in my 300 sq ft. Workshop for the past 5 years.
I love it!
It’s quite , though I can hear the outside units fan occasionally it’s not obnoxious.
It works great in the cold winters here in Maine, though it did struggle to maintain heating when the temperatures dipped way below 0 last week. We had -20 Fahrenheit / -28 Celsius.
So it was cold in the shop. About 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
The unit is set to 60 Fahrenheit most of the time.
And you’ll find with heat pumps that you set the temperature to what is comfortable for you. Not by the temperature shown on the unit.
Say you like the temperature at home to be 68 Fahrenheit then you’ll probably find the heat pump needs to be set at say 72 Fahrenheit.
it an odd systems in that respect but easily worked out.
Most folk have a back up source for heat just in case.
Maine people have learned its best not to rely on one type of heating system.
I have a little Mr. Buddy propane burner which works good.
Heat pumps are very efficient with electricity usage.
Basically I get 3 units of heat for every unit of electricity drawn.
Mine is a Fujitsu brand heat pump.
I do have to clean the inside units dust screen a few times a year. Pretty easy.
The outside unit needs basic maintenance to keep leaves and such out of the screen.
It does run pretty much all the time, either in heat cycle or in defrost cycle.
It does this to make sure the outside unit works at peak performance and is automatic.
The inside unit on occasion blows cool air which is the nature of the system as it try’s to hold a given temperature based on the temperature of the air passing through the unit.
AND! The air conditioned aspect of it is very nice on hot summer days.
I would say every home should have one.

Thx Jerome for your feedback, you didn't mention how much electrickery you consumed running this unit (kwh or dollars will do).Air conditioning is an added bonus but apart from the comfort factor has gotta be heavy on the wallet unless you have solar panels and the like?

 

[Challisstern]

Taffe,
Don't think we need domestic ac in Britain, especially us ruffty tufties that used to sail through the Red Sea during the summer without AC and work in 120°F, running up ladders and sliding down snakes.
Crankcase inspections at Panama with a hot dripping engine.
That first hot summer was a shock to our system but perhaps the humidity was high, yet this year the temps were higher but humidity was lower, so didn't feel so hot.
Of course now we are retired we can take an extended lunch and siesta (or whatever you call them in Wales) in a dark room at the high point of the day, usually 15-1600hrs, then go back out to play at 1700.

I do remember adding fibre glass in the loft to the house in Florida middle of the summer. For a start there was hardly any headroom as the pitch is so shallow, almost flat, there was no boarding over the ceiling joists, so had a few planks, there was a maximum of 3/8" plywood with tarpaper and fibre glass shingles on top , there was a vent on each end gable end but no breeze. Was wearing Marigols due to the fibre glass. I would start at 6 in the morning and work till midday, then collapse. 98°F and 98% humidity. But I was young then and had just come ashore.

 

[Challisstern]

Jerome, thats some model you have there, very good. Is it or will it be powered by any chance?

 

[taffe65]

Taffe,
Don't think we need domestic ac in Britain, especially us ruffty tufties that used to sail through the Red Sea during the summer without AC and work in 120°F, running up ladders and sliding down snakes.
Crankcase inspections at Panama with a hot dripping engine.
That first hot summer was a shock to our system but perhaps the humidity was high, yet this year the temps were higher but humidity was lower, so didn't feel so hot.
Of course now we are retired we can take an extended lunch and siesta (or whatever you call them in Wales) in a dark room at the high point of the day, usually 15-1600hrs, then go back out to play at 1700.

I do remember adding fibre glass in the loft to the house in Florida middle of the summer. For a start there was hardly any headroom as the pitch is so shallow, almost flat, there was no boarding over the ceiling joists, so had a few planks, there was a maximum of 3/8" plywood with tarpaper and fibre glass shingles on top , there was a vent on each end gable end but no breeze. Was wearing Marigols due to the fibre glass. I would start at 6 in the morning and work till midday, then collapse. 98°F and 98% humidity. But I was young then and had just come ashore.

Totally agree with you Challisstern, quick squirt with the garden hose and back on the lounger absolutely no need for ac In domestic buildings in this part of the world ,exemptions being where people are in ill health and need a more comfortable environment to minimise complications. I remember summer 1976 when it was hot for the duration of my summer school holidays ,the ground was cracking up like you see in some African do***entaries, people were fitter in them days and just got on with it, nowadays the country comes to a stop when the temps shoot up for a wèek.

 

[Peter Hewson]

I`ve been looking into this, for a possible future replacement for my 25year C-I gas Boiler. This is what I have discovered so far.:-
1) The current average cost is circa £8000 of an installation for your Average Home under 200M/2.
2) Changes to the heating system are said to amount to control`s and some larger Rads may be needed, and a new high insulation water storage tank.
3) The Government Grant(s) are in the region of £5000, but will run out when the current "package of cash is exhausted, so NOT infinite.
4) IF you "qualify" it brings the cost to £3000. About twice the cost of replacing a gas boiler.
5) They are, allegedly, no more problematic than a gas boiler, should be checked/serviced annually either way.
6) They no more noisy, less so, than an A/C unit. Use a relatively small amount of energy, to generate 3 to 4 times as much heat output.
7) It is likely that supplementary heating could be needed when outside temps go really low. In My case that would be the Wood Burner.
A potential, personal, bonus, is the fact that I generate about 6.5Gb annually from the roof solar. which would In theory run the system, obviously not the whole house, leaving just the Gas for cooking.

Pete

 

[taffe65]

I`ve been looking into this, for a possible future replacement for my 25year C-I gas Boiler. This is what I have discovered so far.:-
1) The current average cost is circa £8000 of an installation for your Average Home under 200M/2.
2) Changes to the heating system are said to amount to control`s and some larger Rads may be needed, and a new high insulation water storage tank.
3) The Government Grant(s) are in the region of £5000, but will run out when the current "package of cash is exhausted, so NOT infinite.
4) IF you "qualify" it brings the cost to £3000. About twice the cost of replacing a gas boiler.
5) They are, allegedly, no more problematic than a gas boiler, should be checked/serviced annually either way.
6) They no more noisy, less so, than an A/C unit. Use a relatively small amount of energy, to generate 3 to 4 times as much heat output.
7) It is likely that supplementary heating could be needed when outside temps go really low. In My case that would be the Wood Burner.
A potential, personal, bonus, is the fact that I generate about 6.5Gb annually from the roof solar. which would In theory run the system, obviously not the whole house, leaving just the Gas for cooking.

Pete

Kinda defeats the object if you have to flash up a woodburner to keep your tootsies warm ,otherwise a very informative post and one which gives people a pointer in them deciding what's suitable for them.The servicing of gas blrs yearly is a joke and just a money spinner for the energy companies, they have created fear amongst their clients (especially older ones) and i have personally witnessed the shysters condemning perfectly functional older blrs to fit brand new models at vastly inflated prices.

 

[Challisstern]

Totally agree with you Challisstern, quick squirt with the garden hose and back on the lounger absolutely no need for ac In domestic buildings in this part of the world ,exemptions being where people are in ill health and need a more comfortable environment to minimise complications. I remember summer 1976 when it was hot for the duration of my summer school holidays ,the ground was cracking up like you see in some African do***entaries, people were fitter in them days and just got on with it, nowadays the country comes to a stop when the temps shoot up for a wèek.

Taffe,
In 1976 we went through the Red sea twice and ended up in Thessalonica during August. The 3rd told the 2nd we are starting work at 4 am until noon and thats it. The 2nd aggreed, he didn't have much choice, it didn't make any difference to him as he hardly came down the ER. We were replacing a rotary exhaust valve on a Sulzer then retiming them all finishing off by retiming all the fuel pump blocks. The engine had to be kept warm, so it was a bit warm down there.

After discharge of frozen lamb we layed up in Malta, Mediteranian moored awaiting orders, so we just spent time on those small jobs you never seem to get round to. The agent arranged for some office girls to come on board for a BBQ on deck one evening. That was a very enjoyable and successful BBQ and other things ( say no more 💃).