A heat pump heated house will be all electricity so you will see a noticeable increase in your electricity bill but if the house retains enough heat it should be more than offset by the decrease in gas costs.Hi, hoping people out there will be able to give me feedback on the following situation either through professional expertise or experience of using a heat pump.
Apologies in advance for the long post but I wanted to ensure I got the details across.
I had a technical assessment carried out on my small 3 bed semi and not surprisingly the BER was E1 despite having had the attic insulated to 200mm under flooring and 400mm elsewhere. The house if freezing within 30 minutes of switching off gas in winter. I was told that I can get to A2 if I do external insulation, new windows and doors to bring the Heat Loss Indicator to 1.9, and then junk the heating system in favour of a heat pump (air to water) with new radiators and zone controls. Cost of this (including grants) will come to approx 33/35K - I don't have a final estimate for windows/doors element so need to finalise that part to be more certain of final price.
From what I can tell, if I leave out the heat pump and just do windows/doors/external insulation then the cost will be about 26/27k and I will only get a grant for the external insulation. Existing plumbing is a one pipe system so I will probably have to look at changing that to a 2 pipe system either way in order to add zones for upstairs and downstairs and to allow individual rads to be turned off in the future to be more cost efficient.
Given how cold the house is at present, and that I will have to invest money on updating the plumbing, and that I will get windows / doors grant by going one stop shop that I won't get otherwise, and that ultimately the difference is at most 9k, I am thinking it might be best to go for the heat pump and not throw good money into fixing a gas heating system that will eventually have to be replaced in the longer run? I think I will achieve B2 rating if I fix the existing system, add external wrap and upgrade windows/doors. I'm in my fifties and so realise it probably won't pay for itself but then again it would be nice not to have to live in a cold house as you get older. I won't have a big pension so definitely can't afford to renovate then. However, I am very concerned by suggestions that the cost of running a heat pump is very expensive and I certainly won't have any spare money after the cost of taking out a loan to do all this on top of an ever increasing mortgage. Any advice/ feedback would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
Perfect, thanks. Do you need to keep it running in summer for water? And if so, are prices a lot lower?Yes our house is heat pump but it is an a3 rated new build (well new 6 years ago)
Yes runs in the summer for water, usage is a lot lower but obviously electricity is a lot more expensive now, but generally running costs in the summer would be a third or so compared to winterPerfect, thanks. Do you need to keep it running in summer for water? And if so, are prices a lot lower?
The bolded sentence above is key. Your house does not suffer from an insulation deficit. Therefore adding ewi (external wall insulation) will do little for your heat retention. I reckon your main heat loss issue is 100% an air leakage issue. Was your house tested for air tightness during the technical assessment? (with a large fan installed in the front or back door).Hi, hoping people out there will be able to give me feedback on the following situation either through professional expertise or experience of using a heat pump.
Apologies in advance for the long post but I wanted to ensure I got the details across.
I had a technical assessment carried out on my small 3 bed semi and not surprisingly the BER was E1 despite having had the attic insulated to 200mm under flooring and 400mm elsewhere. The house if freezing within 30 minutes of switching off gas in winter. I was told that I can get to A2 if I do external insulation, new windows and doors to bring the Heat Loss Indicator to 1.9, and then junk the heating system in favour of a heat pump (air to water) with new radiators and zone controls. Cost of this (including grants) will come to approx 33/35K - I don't have a final estimate for windows/doors element so need to finalise that part to be more certain of final price.
From what I can tell, if I leave out the heat pump and just do windows/doors/external insulation then the cost will be about 26/27k and I will only get a grant for the external insulation. Existing plumbing is a one pipe system so I will probably have to look at changing that to a 2 pipe system either way in order to add zones for upstairs and downstairs and to allow individual rads to be turned off in the future to be more cost efficient.
Given how cold the house is at present, and that I will have to invest money on updating the plumbing, and that I will get windows / doors grant by going one stop shop that I won't get otherwise, and that ultimately the difference is at most 9k, I am thinking it might be best to go for the heat pump and not throw good money into fixing a gas heating system that will eventually have to be replaced in the longer run? I think I will achieve B2 rating if I fix the existing system, add external wrap and upgrade windows/doors. I'm in my fifties and so realise it probably won't pay for itself but then again it would be nice not to have to live in a cold house as you get older. I won't have a big pension so definitely can't afford to renovate then. However, I am very concerned by suggestions that the cost of running a heat pump is very expensive and I certainly won't have any spare money after the cost of taking out a loan to do all this on top of an ever increasing mortgage. Any advice/ feedback would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
Thanks a million for the detailed reply. You raise a very interesting point on air tightness, I don’t think that was done - I presumed all assessments were standard so bit annoyed to find out something was missed. Do you know if there is anyway to get this done as a separate test? The front door definitely leaks air but there is a single glazed porch door too. We do have a cat flap in one wall but the technical assessor said that wouldn’t make much difference. The front wall is cavity and the side and back are hollow block. They do feel quite cold to touch in the winter. The windows are mostly very old double glazing.The bolded sentence above is key. Your house does not suffer from an insulation deficit. Therefore adding ewi (external wall insulation) will do little for your heat retention. I reckon your main heat loss issue is 100% an air leakage issue. Was your house tested for air tightness during the technical assessment? (with a large fan installed in the front or back door).
I would be very wary of investing in what you have described in the absence on a proper air tightness appraisal (bare in mind that generally speaking windows and doors on their own are rarely the reason for excessive air leakage and ewi definitely does not address air leakage).
Caveat emptor!
Thanks a million for the detailed reply. You raise a very interesting point on air tightness, I don’t think that was done - I presumed all assessments were standard so bit annoyed to find out something was missed. Do you know if there is anyway to get this done as a separate test? The front door definitely leaks air but there is a single glazed porch door too. We do have a cat flap in one wall but the technical assessor said that wouldn’t make much difference. The front wall is cavity and the side and back are hollow block. They do feel quite cold to touch in the winter. The windows are mostly very old double glazing.
Also, does that mean you could have an A rated house that leaked air? Same with the fact that the report I got said I’d have a HLI of 1.9 after doing all the work. Does that mean the HLI is somewhat meaningless as a scale? Very annoying given the big money ordinary punters are expected to shell out for these assessments and work.The bolded sentence above is key. Your house does not suffer from an insulation deficit. Therefore adding ewi (external wall insulation) will do little for your heat retention. I reckon your main heat loss issue is 100% an air leakage issue. Was your house tested for air tightness during the technical assessment? (with a large fan installed in the front or back door).
I would be very wary of investing in what you have described in the absence on a proper air tightness appraisal (bare in mind that generally speaking windows and doors on their own are rarely the reason for excessive air leakage and ewi definitely does not address air leakage).
Caveat emptor!
Thanks for taking the time to reply to this, much appreciated. The worrying thing is that I did get an “independent” assessment.My understanding is that the test for air tightness does not make up part of the technical assessment and apologies if I led you to believe it was (I'm unsure because I resigned my ber assessor registration in 2009 when I realised how unfit for purpose the whole regime was especially for existing housing).
But it beggers belief that the government / SEAI encourage people to part with 30/40/50/60,000+ euro to these one stop shops on a promise that all will be good when the most basic heat loss test is not done to start off with. Using a flawed BER method to come up with a magical HLI figure is wet finger in the air stuff.
My best advice to you is to do your homework especially around air tightness, try to get an impartial independent assessment of your house to help figure out what are the best measures to employ and only then see if any measures are grant aided.
First off, thanks a million for those links, will look into those.Might be worth reaching out to your local library and see if this is any use
Home Energy Saving Kits available at all Libraries
Did you know you can borrow practical tools to help you save energy from your local library?www.dublincity.ie
Attached from Saturdays Cork Examiner may also help
Q&A: All you need to know about heat-pump technology
We ask the pros key questions about how to attain a sustainable gold standard and whether a retrofit will suit every homewww.irishexaminer.com
Heat pumps seem to be quite divisive and it's very unclear from reading online if they are any good or not. Is Solar an option instead?
The average winter temperature in Norway is -7 degrees, over 60% of houses use a heatpump. So there’s no real question over whether they're any good as a technology, the problem is putting them into houses that are not ready for them. Put one in appropriately and you'll do a lot less damage to the environment and your/your neighbours' health and maybe save a few quid too.Heat pumps seem to be quite divisive and it's very unclear from reading online if they are any good or not. Is Solar an option instead?
FWIW I retrofitted a heatpump a few weeks ago. It's summer so we're only heating hot water for showers at the moment using a 400L tank, heating it to 50 degrees (from about 40 degrees once 2-3 long showers are had). It runs for about an hour each night and consumes 1.5kWh, so €0.30 per day.Perfect, thanks. Do you need to keep it running in summer for water? And if so, are prices a lot lower?
20 cent a unit including VAT is a great price. Who is your electricity supplier?FWIW I retrofitted a heatpump a few weeks ago. It's summer so we're only heating hot water for showers at the moment using a 400L tank, heating it to 50 degrees (from about 40 degrees once 2-3 long showers are had). It runs for about an hour each night and consumes 1.5kWh, so €0.30 per day.
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