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visited a relative who just had one of these and was totally unimpressed.
definitely not a cosy house, radiators barely warm and water not very hot.
i'll take our gas boiler any day.
came home to a decent piping hot shower and warm radiators.
for the record they also use a lot of electric, noisy, take up space and don't work with microbore pipes.
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You will be forced to use heat pumps, and gas boilers will be reserved for the elite members of society.
The poor will have to set fire to a pile of locusts in their living room to keep warm.
They can't heat rads and water. To get rooms as warm as we're used to, you'll need either enormous radiators or underfloor heating. As you said, they're noisy - for the customer and the neighbours, and they aren't any cheaper than gas, probably more expensive nowadays. Even then your home needs a complete insulation job.
They're utter rubbish - I should now I used to sell them..
The golden rule is: always insulate and draughtproof your property as much as possible before considering any changes to the C/H system. In that way you will considerably reduce the amount of fuel you currently use and maybe get your property's heat load low enough that an ASHP could do the job. Unfortunately most people assume that you can simply replace an existing gas or oil boiler with an ASHP without following the golden rule.
I agree with the OP though that ASHP is best suited to UFH or if not feasible, install larger radiators and replace microbore pipework with 15mm/22mm. DHW will likely always be an issue though. Pretty sure that heat pump technology will improve and we'll get much better COP values in the future - hence another reason not to rush into installing ASHPs right now!
Another potentially useful thread spoilt.
We should start talking about Jesus and all that mumbo jumbo stuff, truthpaste will never find it hidden on a thread about air source heat pumps, imagine the fun we could have….i mean what the hell is John 3:16 anyway? I always remember seeing it in banners at world cups in the 80’s/90’s….
OK, don't shoot me but I have one.
To be fair, the house it's in is designed for it (18-inch-thick insulated walls, a heat recovery system, a small PV system, triple glazing and underfloor heating everywhere).
What I found at first was I couldn't get to grips with it and that it was totally frustrating. It took me a while to realize it won't work if you want instantaneous "on-demand" control. You have to leave it on almost all the time and draw from the slowly collected heat as you use the hot water and heating during your use of your house over a 24-hour cycle. Essentially, it's a system for people who are willing to plan.
It's actually very quiet. The house is cozily warm all the year and it's very cheap to run - my total electricity bill is less than 450GBP a year (I don't have gas).
Wow, you have a fantastic set up there. MVHR + massive wall insulation + PV + TG + UFH...... ideal! Out of interest do you how many kWh you use p.a. per sq metre of house? There are very few houses in the U.K. that come anywhere near that kind of construction, hence ASHP not really viable for the majority.
Is it passive house (PH) standard? Not sure if they have PH over there though?
From your figures I make it 12.5 kWh/sq.m., so yes, less than 15.0 = passivhaus! The electricity price is quite expensive there then: £450 for 1316 kWh is approx 35p per kWh but still £450 p.a. is still hugely different to the bill for an average house in the UK.
I hadn't thought much about volume as opposed to floor area (I'm just an enthusiastic amateur, not an engineer!). Does having high ceilings make a significant difference to heating costs?