With 20 years of heat pump service and repair work behind us my advice is simplest controls are the best, don’t overly controls on the heat pump. I would just go pure weather comp and keep as much open circuits as possible. The NIBE can work directly to any decent solar PV inverter that has modbus sun spec protocol. Saves you an hot water diverter also. Panasonic are also a great brand. But units can do cooling also in the summer (they might tell you they don’t but they can). Hope this helps a small bit. I’m also redoing a bungalow at the minute so I’m enjoying your journey. Well done
Thanks for sharing, a dilemma that's going to affect more and more people. Thanks for going through so many considerations, it's very interesting and helpful.
Thanks Rob, it is indeed a bit of a dilema. We wont know until next winter if we made the right choice as the build was not airtight when it was cold and we used lots of electricity just to make it comfortable to work in. I have to say that the combination of Heatpump, Solar and Battery seems to be a good choice. My bills for the last few days have been less than a pound a day, yesterday was just 30p and we are charging the car and doing several loads of washing. The heating cut back in last night when it was cooler but that battery had enough stored energy from the solar to run that.
Thanks for the feedback. I plan an update on our experience but may wait until next winter. Our heat pump costs were very high over winter but the house is not insulated yet and there are open holes so it’s not fair to compare. As we moved into spring and the house became more complete costs did drop considerably. I would say that the combination of ASHP, battery and solar feels a very good mix. Our average electricity cost is around 14p by making use of as much off peak energy as we can. My energy costs at the moment are typically in tens of pence per day even charging my car. We do a LOT of laundry from our holiday rentals which impacts us by several pounds a day when we have 8+ loads of washing. Our solar is not MCS registered so unfortunately we don’t get paid for any export but try to minimise that by charging the car or boosting hot water.
With 20 years of heat pump service and repair work behind us my advice is simplest controls are the best, don’t overly controls on the heat pump. I would just go pure weather comp and keep as much open circuits as possible. The NIBE can work directly to any decent solar PV inverter that has modbus sun spec protocol. Saves you an hot water diverter also. Panasonic are also a great brand. But units can do cooling also in the summer (they might tell you they don’t but they can). Hope this helps a small bit. I’m also redoing a bungalow at the minute so I’m enjoying your journey. Well done (lols, that video was a year ago😮)
Thanks for the suggestions, I plan an update but will probably wait until after the winter. I have a Daikin heat pump installed and linked that via modbus to my Loxone system. Loxone can control the ufh valves but I do understand your suggestion to just leave it all open. Loxone has login to apply weather compensation and adjust the requested flow temperature, I have also left the Daikin controls in place if it makes sense for it to just be dumb. Loxone will allow me to see the details of each room temperature over time and adjust things. I am not sure solar divert makes as much sense as it used to with current export prices and logic with octopus. I have been very happy over the summer with my total energy costs being less than £50. That includes all my car charging and loads and loads of washing for our holiday business.
I'm in Bournemouth, I got quotes from several local companies but in the end went with Meridian Cooling in Poole. I supplied my own Plumber and Electrician. Whilst they didn't do a particularly in-depth heat loss calc this was mainly to do with the fact I got it installed right at the start of a renovation. Like yourself I got very deep on research, did my own heat loss, and it was near enough to what the company suggested. In the end I felt in a renovation property I felt it better to get a slightly larger heat pump than my heat loss strictly required. My property is a 1930s bungalow which will be 120sqm when done with 50mm PIR internal wall insulation, 100mm PIR in a suspended timber floor and 300mm in the loft. Our heat pump is an 8KW Daikin Altherma Monobloc unit which has excellent controls. The main reason I chose them is I wanted as much control on the project as possible. The other firms wanted to handle the entire job which for me came with extra cost. I'm a Carpenter/Builder and since I have access to my own reliable tradesmen it was a no brainer. They supply and locate the cylinder and outdoor unit, run the control cabling (but no power supply or primary pipework). The cylinder they supplied was preplumbed, an easy jigsaw puzzle for a competent heating engineer. They then return with their excellent commissioning engineer who is as geeky about it as you or I. Definitely go with ASHP, with your solar plans you'd be absolutely mad not to.
Thanks, that's really good to hear. I have had so many quite different proposals for pump make and sizing. They have varied from 6-14Kw which means some of them have got it very wrong. I feel the 6Kw and just a 180lt tank is cutting things a bit fine. I have a builder doing most of the heavy work but I am owning the project so having a supplier that can work with my schedule is important as we don't want to be in the caravan over winter. Daikin seems to be the popular pump so great to hear you have had a good experience with that.
@@JurassicJungle I would suggest either doing your own heat loss or the simpler option would be to pay someone just for the heat loss calc - I think heat geek may have offered this service at one time but not sure if that's changed. Tank size is more personal choice and based on how many people live there I think. We're only 2 people but when for a 250L as we will be starting our family here.
This video popped up on my recommendations, so I realise that I'm over 2 months late here and things may have changed since. If you know your annual gas usage from beforehand, Michael de Podesta (Protons for Breakfast) has done a video and blog post on estimating the heat pump size from that. The renovations should make it so that would be around the maximum needed for the main area of the house. The extension you can ballpark based on size compared to the rest of the bungalow. Putting those together should allow you to at least eliminate ones that are way oversized. It isn't the end of the world going the next size up in heat pump (e.g. 6 to 8kW or 7 to 10kW), you're just mainly paying the extra upfront cost for the larger unit, and it may cost a bit more to run at the warmer ends of the heating season. Obviously, you want to factor in a lower heating demand with installing UFH if there were rads previously. Possibly worth seeing if you can get a Heat Geek Assured install as well, you pay extra, but if the heat pump they quote turns out to be undersized, it should be covered with swapping it out for a larger unit.
Hi Ben, thank you so much for your comments. I am pleased to be able to say I have chosen an installer who was recommended by my heat pump supplier. He is a heat geek and has also taken on the UFH and DWH installation. He also has some expereience with my chosen home automation system. I will be adding video as we go through our journey. The only point of discussion at the moment is the pipe spacing (Currently 150mm centres has been proposed with a 40C flow tempareature). I want to consider tighter spacing with potential to lower flow temperature and improve SCOP but they are saying what we have is fine and going tighter will increase costs quite a bit as there would be more pipe, more manifolds and its more difficult to install. The problem is you can only really do this once. We hope to install UFH in just over a week.
Thanks Colin. I had no idea how complicated things could get acting as the prime. I have worked on many very complicated and expensive contracts over the years but getting this one right decides if I live in a caravan this winter or not!
Hello, Just found your project. It's very interesting and enjoyable as I'll be doing a similar renovation in March 2024. Learning loads from your journey. Thanks for sharing and keep going well. Regards Alan
Thanks Alan. I have so much more content to add, the Heatpump went in 2 weeks ago and our solar and battery are now also live. It has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride as we are watertight but nothing like airtight (a long story in a future episode). So while the systems are working we are still living in the caravan. We are very happy with our pump installer, I will record an update in the coming days.
Hi, thanks it’s a good question. The pump is installed and working well. We costs in the winter were very high BUT we had many wide openings as the building was not sealed so it’s simply not fair to make a running costs comparison until next winter. I may do an update on who we bought from and why and the installation process if that would be useful. I can then follow up on costs over next winter.
I think you’re worrying too much about being cold. The extended part of our house built according to older regs from 2010 never really gets especially cold, and we paid no special attention to insulating it at the time. I would say there are probably only a handful of days where this part of the house needs us to turn on any heating… of course the heating is on anyway to warm up the rest of a draughty old 1930s property!
Thanks Duncan.I think my challenge with this technology like under floor heating and air source is that it feels a bit like Las Vegas (which I hate). It feels like I am putting money on Red or Black but it is not just about ongoing cost as we don't want to be ripping the fabric of the house appart again later.
You need to be careful with UFH, builders think its simple and suppliers think they know it all, it’ll work but not the best it can, find a proper Heat pump enthusiast ie Heat Geek Elite or similar and you wont go wrong, not cheap but you pay for someone who cares and has good backup from the group.
Very interesting, I am retrofitting a 1960s house and have a simple heat loss model - my house will need 4KW with an airtightness of 3 ACH, if I get the AT to 0.6 I would only need less than 2KW eg a Nilan Compact P unit - There are AT paints that make it easier like blowerproof.
@@taptaps8432 I have to say we didn’t go into this with airtightness in mind and my builder has not really worked that way. We are at a point where I am hoping we can do as much as we can and trying to avoid thermal bridges which has been tricky in some spaces. We are using wet plaster rather than dot and dab and the old suspended floor will all be replaced with 100mm of pir and 50mm of ufh. I am aware that mvhr can be an issue if we are not airtight. The original building was terrible as it had little ventilation and several hidden water leaks causing a lot of mould issues. The few original walls that will be external will have 50mm of external insulation.
Hi there I think the people that recommended 5kw reckoned your house would turn out close to a passive house if you go by sq meterage 160sqm calls for 12kw Dorset is very far south so I think 8 or 9 kws would see you right Have you considered a hybrid AC DC heat pump it comes with its own 4 or 5 dedicated solar panels These panels run directly to the heat pump thus reducing or eliminating battery or grid usage On sunny summer days it would cool the house and heat the DHW for free if you wanted greater efficiency put these panels on a dual tracker if your site has a good east south west view Best of luck with the project Denis
Thanks Colin. I have not seen any AC/DC units. I guess that's more efficient than going through several stages of conversion with associated losses. I am refining my choice and an 8Kw does look to be about the right size. 6Kw just felt a bit too close for me. There are some incredible discounts available at the moment but these tend to restrict you to their one recommended pump, probably why I have not seen anything like you suggest. Daikin seems to be the product of choice from these providers.
With 20 years of heat pump service and repair work behind us my advice is simplest controls are the best, don’t overly controls on the heat pump. I would just go pure weather comp and keep as much open circuits as possible. The NIBE can work directly to any decent solar PV inverter that has modbus sun spec protocol. Saves you an hot water diverter also. Panasonic are also a great brand. But units can do cooling also in the summer (they might tell you they don’t but they can). Hope this helps a small bit. I’m also redoing a bungalow at the minute so I’m enjoying your journey. Well done
Thanks for sharing, a dilemma that's going to affect more and more people. Thanks for going through so many considerations, it's very interesting and helpful.
Thanks Rob, it is indeed a bit of a dilema. We wont know until next winter if we made the right choice as the build was not airtight when it was cold and we used lots of electricity just to make it comfortable to work in. I have to say that the combination of Heatpump, Solar and Battery seems to be a good choice. My bills for the last few days have been less than a pound a day, yesterday was just 30p and we are charging the car and doing several loads of washing. The heating cut back in last night when it was cooler but that battery had enough stored energy from the solar to run that.
Thanks for sharing! I am just about to strat similar journey as a homeowner and renewables contractor and I can learn a lot from your journey!
Thanks for the feedback. I plan an update on our experience but may wait until next winter. Our heat pump costs were very high over winter but the house is not insulated yet and there are open holes so it’s not fair to compare. As we moved into spring and the house became more complete costs did drop considerably. I would say that the combination of ASHP, battery and solar feels a very good mix. Our average electricity cost is around 14p by making use of as much off peak energy as we can. My energy costs at the moment are typically in tens of pence per day even charging my car. We do a LOT of laundry from our holiday rentals which impacts us by several pounds a day when we have 8+ loads of washing. Our solar is not MCS registered so unfortunately we don’t get paid for any export but try to minimise that by charging the car or boosting hot water.
With 20 years of heat pump service and repair work behind us my advice is simplest controls are the best, don’t overly controls on the heat pump. I would just go pure weather comp and keep as much open circuits as possible. The NIBE can work directly to any decent solar PV inverter that has modbus sun spec protocol. Saves you an hot water diverter also. Panasonic are also a great brand. But units can do cooling also in the summer (they might tell you they don’t but they can). Hope this helps a small bit. I’m also redoing a bungalow at the minute so I’m enjoying your journey. Well done (lols, that video was a year ago😮)
Thanks for the suggestions, I plan an update but will probably wait until after the winter. I have a Daikin heat pump installed and linked that via modbus to my Loxone system. Loxone can control the ufh valves but I do understand your suggestion to just leave it all open. Loxone has login to apply weather compensation and adjust the requested flow temperature, I have also left the Daikin controls in place if it makes sense for it to just be dumb. Loxone will allow me to see the details of each room temperature over time and adjust things. I am not sure solar divert makes as much sense as it used to with current export prices and logic with octopus. I have been very happy over the summer with my total energy costs being less than £50. That includes all my car charging and loads and loads of washing for our holiday business.
I'm in Bournemouth, I got quotes from several local companies but in the end went with Meridian Cooling in Poole. I supplied my own Plumber and Electrician. Whilst they didn't do a particularly in-depth heat loss calc this was mainly to do with the fact I got it installed right at the start of a renovation. Like yourself I got very deep on research, did my own heat loss, and it was near enough to what the company suggested. In the end I felt in a renovation property I felt it better to get a slightly larger heat pump than my heat loss strictly required. My property is a 1930s bungalow which will be 120sqm when done with 50mm PIR internal wall insulation, 100mm PIR in a suspended timber floor and 300mm in the loft. Our heat pump is an 8KW Daikin Altherma Monobloc unit which has excellent controls.
The main reason I chose them is I wanted as much control on the project as possible. The other firms wanted to handle the entire job which for me came with extra cost. I'm a Carpenter/Builder and since I have access to my own reliable tradesmen it was a no brainer. They supply and locate the cylinder and outdoor unit, run the control cabling (but no power supply or primary pipework). The cylinder they supplied was preplumbed, an easy jigsaw puzzle for a competent heating engineer. They then return with their excellent commissioning engineer who is as geeky about it as you or I.
Definitely go with ASHP, with your solar plans you'd be absolutely mad not to.
Thanks, that's really good to hear. I have had so many quite different proposals for pump make and sizing. They have varied from 6-14Kw which means some of them have got it very wrong. I feel the 6Kw and just a 180lt tank is cutting things a bit fine. I have a builder doing most of the heavy work but I am owning the project so having a supplier that can work with my schedule is important as we don't want to be in the caravan over winter. Daikin seems to be the popular pump so great to hear you have had a good experience with that.
@@JurassicJungle I would suggest either doing your own heat loss or the simpler option would be to pay someone just for the heat loss calc - I think heat geek may have offered this service at one time but not sure if that's changed.
Tank size is more personal choice and based on how many people live there I think. We're only 2 people but when for a 250L as we will be starting our family here.
This video popped up on my recommendations, so I realise that I'm over 2 months late here and things may have changed since. If you know your annual gas usage from beforehand, Michael de Podesta (Protons for Breakfast) has done a video and blog post on estimating the heat pump size from that. The renovations should make it so that would be around the maximum needed for the main area of the house. The extension you can ballpark based on size compared to the rest of the bungalow. Putting those together should allow you to at least eliminate ones that are way oversized. It isn't the end of the world going the next size up in heat pump (e.g. 6 to 8kW or 7 to 10kW), you're just mainly paying the extra upfront cost for the larger unit, and it may cost a bit more to run at the warmer ends of the heating season. Obviously, you want to factor in a lower heating demand with installing UFH if there were rads previously.
Possibly worth seeing if you can get a Heat Geek Assured install as well, you pay extra, but if the heat pump they quote turns out to be undersized, it should be covered with swapping it out for a larger unit.
Hi Ben, thank you so much for your comments. I am pleased to be able to say I have chosen an installer who was recommended by my heat pump supplier. He is a heat geek and has also taken on the UFH and DWH installation. He also has some expereience with my chosen home automation system. I will be adding video as we go through our journey.
The only point of discussion at the moment is the pipe spacing (Currently 150mm centres has been proposed with a 40C flow tempareature). I want to consider tighter spacing with potential to lower flow temperature and improve SCOP but they are saying what we have is fine and going tighter will increase costs quite a bit as there would be more pipe, more manifolds and its more difficult to install. The problem is you can only really do this once.
We hope to install UFH in just over a week.
Enjoy watching your work progress, and your honesty in explaining how hard it can be trying to manage your build.
Thanks Colin. I had no idea how complicated things could get acting as the prime. I have worked on many very complicated and expensive contracts over the years but getting this one right decides if I live in a caravan this winter or not!
Hello,
Just found your project. It's very interesting and enjoyable as I'll be doing a similar renovation in March 2024. Learning loads from your journey. Thanks for sharing and keep going well.
Regards
Alan
Thanks Alan. I have so much more content to add, the Heatpump went in 2 weeks ago and our solar and battery are now also live. It has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride as we are watertight but nothing like airtight (a long story in a future episode). So while the systems are working we are still living in the caravan. We are very happy with our pump installer, I will record an update in the coming days.
What about update on heat pump choice
Hi, thanks it’s a good question. The pump is installed and working well. We costs in the winter were very high BUT we had many wide openings as the building was not sealed so it’s simply not fair to make a running costs comparison until next winter. I may do an update on who we bought from and why and the installation process if that would be useful. I can then follow up on costs over next winter.
I think you’re worrying too much about being cold. The extended part of our house built according to older regs from 2010 never really gets especially cold, and we paid no special attention to insulating it at the time. I would say there are probably only a handful of days where this part of the house needs us to turn on any heating… of course the heating is on anyway to warm up the rest of a draughty old 1930s property!
Thanks Duncan.I think my challenge with this technology like under floor heating and air source is that it feels a bit like Las Vegas (which I hate). It feels like I am putting money on Red or Black but it is not just about ongoing cost as we don't want to be ripping the fabric of the house appart again later.
You need to be careful with UFH, builders think its simple and suppliers think they know it all, it’ll work but not the best it can, find a proper Heat pump enthusiast ie Heat Geek Elite or similar and you wont go wrong, not cheap but you pay for someone who cares and has good backup from the group.
@@tomplumb7754 Hi Tom, I am working with NuHeat on the UFH design and supply and one of their recommendations for install.
Very interesting, I am retrofitting a 1960s house and have a simple heat loss model - my house will need 4KW with an airtightness of 3 ACH, if I get the AT to 0.6 I would only need less than 2KW eg a Nilan Compact P unit - There are AT paints that make it easier like blowerproof.
@@taptaps8432 I have to say we didn’t go into this with airtightness in mind and my builder has not really worked that way. We are at a point where I am hoping we can do as much as we can and trying to avoid thermal bridges which has been tricky in some spaces. We are using wet plaster rather than dot and dab and the old suspended floor will all be replaced with 100mm of pir and 50mm of ufh. I am aware that mvhr can be an issue if we are not airtight. The original building was terrible as it had little ventilation and several hidden water leaks causing a lot of mould issues. The few original walls that will be external will have 50mm of external insulation.
Hi there I think the people that recommended 5kw reckoned your house would turn out close to a passive house if you go by sq meterage 160sqm calls for 12kw Dorset is
very far south so I think 8 or 9 kws would see you right Have you considered a hybrid AC DC heat pump it comes with its own 4 or 5 dedicated solar panels These panels run
directly to the heat pump thus reducing or eliminating battery or grid usage On sunny summer days it would cool the house and heat the DHW for free if you wanted greater
efficiency put these panels on a dual tracker if your site has a good east south west view Best of luck with the project Denis
Thanks Colin. I have not seen any AC/DC units. I guess that's more efficient than going through several stages of conversion with associated losses. I am refining my choice and an 8Kw does look to be about the right size. 6Kw just felt a bit too close for me. There are some incredible discounts available at the moment but these tend to restrict you to their one recommended pump, probably why I have not seen anything like you suggest. Daikin seems to be the product of choice from these providers.