I remember living in a property with an outside oil boiler. Those things were just as large as heat pumps, and they have the large oil tank and are quite noisy when running. I find it astonishing that the matter of planning permission is raised at all for heat pumps, given their nose levels. There’s absolutely nothing written about outside boilers in terms of planning permission, and yet matters related to oil storage and transfer inevitably raise questions about spillage and resultant soil contamination and containment, which are very much within the remit of consideration for a planning authority.
Interesting thanks Oliver, hope you can get your planning permission through soon. A couple of other points from my own experience in having an ASHP installed. Don't go for the "just enough" heat pump, go for one with more than adequate heat capacity. On those very very cold winter days like mid December 2022 you'll need it. Secondly do look carefully at the radiator sizing and your room usage. If you have children at home that may study or play in their rooms in the evening you probably need a higher heat output in those rooms. It's only a hundred pounds or so to change another radiator during installation rather than have to do it afterwards. Don't undersize the radiators, they should ideally all be oversized. The recommended radiator in our lounge was twice the size of the existing one; we didn't like that so had one that was 50% bigger and the room never got quite comfortably warm enough with the heat pump. I fitted computer fans underneath the radiator to increase airflow which worked a bit, and then had the radiator changed for the biggest we could fit in - it's now very comfortable. I may well replace the kitchen towel rail as I'm not happy about the temperature in that room either. Be aware of how much plumbing is required for the heat pump and the distances between things. Our site survey didn't really cover this properly, there is a buffer tank fitted between the heat pump and the heating circuit. Ours ended up in the loft but a friend's all had to go in their utility room to be near to the heat pump. And finally you do not want to run the heat pump at 55 degrees, but that's what they design and set it up to be but the SCOP gets progressively worse the higher the temperature and it costs a lot more to run. 45 degrees if possible. We run ours at 48. You may need more radiators replacing if you are at a lower temperature. Octopus should be able to tweak the design
Me too :). Been trying to get in touch with council planning today but with no luck, will try again throughout the week. It's taking far too long now :(
I installed a 10kw Vaillaint heat pump which has an internal size of >0.6m3, hence planning permission was required (I'm in England). Took over 6 months for Wandworth Council to turn it around, which was extremely annoying, especially considering all the positive noises they make about going green
Yup, seems very silly to me and something that'll need reforming if we're going to streamline the process of installing these. I think the whole requirement for planning permission for heat pumps needs to be re-thought.
Just looking on planning websites, in Northern Ireland your heat pump has to be 30m from any neighbouring properties or you will need planning permission! Glad I didn’t need planning permission in England
The planners may want to see scaled elevation drawings too if you've not supplied them. Proposed site plan are normally to a scale of 1:200 or 1:500, again them may request them to that scale. 3m to the boundary is interesting, I guess Wales is a lot quieter than England with its 1m boundary rule.
You're probably right but I don't really have any easy way to create those plans. I'd probably have to use an online service to draw those or something. We'll see if it comes back rejecting it or not. When I spoke to the council they said if it's floor-standing then I wouldn't need elevation plans, but they didn't specify the requirements for the site plan other than 'a defined scale' which is wooly af!
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech I hand drew my elevations using an old school scale rule and they were happy with those. Hopefully they are not bothered and won't request them.
I had a quote from Octopus. It consisted of one entry - a total cost - plus major caveats and a jobslist for me. Ummm?? Oh yes, and I would need to destroy the kitchen in an undefined manner. Is it worth it, I ask myself?
I am an Octopus Energy customer in a largish 3 storey 2018 house with a replaced Worcester boiler CH system. I put in 18 solar panels and 4 Fox Li batteries June 2021. I have requested a heat pump 3 times from O. E. but they refused to install one, so I am spending £ 3195 with another nationwide firm to install a 7/8 kw Daikin split on the permanently cold North facing lowest floor in a week's time, with zero subsidies off anyone. Wish I lived in Scotland (an ex Scot in Devon). Like many, I have thought of putting a wood burner in but I am really against polluting (unlike my neighbour 3 m away) and a 4 storey flue is not cheap, nor a semi-automatic chip-type burner. A 'whole house' heat pump using expensive, huge 3 times the present size radiators plus hot water gubbins is absolutely out as, like all newish houses the tiny microbore plastic pipes would all have to be replaced too.
Hi just moving to Wales and need to replace a LPG heating system. When I spoke to Octopus they stated that they didn't have installers in South Wales. Which council do you come under?
I'm in Neath Port Talbot. I think the nearest installers are based in Cheltenham or Bristol but I could be wrong about that. At the time of the survey I think I was the third survey they'd done in Wales, and they'd only done one installation in Wales, near Newport.
So a few things to query/ note here: What SCOP did they quote for your heating? What SCOP did they quote for your hot water? The biggest cause of the difference in Heat Loss Calculation numbers seems to be due to the Air Changes per Hour (ACH) that Octopus use. For us they said they set it to 0.5 ACH. We thought our numbers looked VERY low..... Our house is 3 years old. The lounge has 2 x 600 x 600 Type 11 Radiators. At the design temp Delta 50 these output 1200watts of heat energy. Octopus stated that our HLC was 591watts for the room. Looking at your numbers suggests the following Gas @ 6847kw x £0.0751pkWh = £514.21 Energy 13,000kWh/pa likely split 80% Heating, 20% Hot Water Your numbers are so similar to ours I will use that as an illustration: Energy 13,043kWh/pa @ Heating SCOP (3.65), Hot Water SCOP (2.695), gives ASHP of 2740kWh Heating + 894kWh Hot Water + 1per week Anti Legionella cycle 250l @ 10'C (50'C to 60'C) @ 3kw = 2.92kWh/week x 52 = 151.84kWh. Grand Total of Electric kWh = 2740 + 894 + 152 = 3786kWh If you are able to power this at the best Octopus Cheap Rate @ £0.075 = £283.95 Its more likely that you will be something like 50/50 across the whole year I would suspect so 1893 x £0.075 = £141.97 + 1893 x £0.395 = £747.73 = Grand Total £889.70
Wow, incredibly similar to ours. Seems pretty low don't u think?? According to Heat Geek a "well designed" system should be getting apprx 4 or better. I couldn't get any reason why its so low. Pretty certain our 10mm Micro Bore is one factor. But can't help wondering if the Daikin ASHP they are using are at the bottom end of the efficiency scale say vs Vaillant? 2.7 SCOP on Hot Water is poor. Def need a better Cylinder design. At the end of the day its £6k, EDF wanted £11k. Maybe this is a case of you "get what you pay for". Waiting on British Gas to install in our area - they are offering to beat any quote + offer a money back 5year performance warranty! Biggest worry is paying £6k and finding the house is not warm enough in winter + costing more to run than on gas!
I also have 10mm microbore but to be honest I don't think they're being inaccurate. Their low predicted SCOPs are probably realistic ones at a worst case. Keep in mind they're not replacing ALL radiators, they're just trying to give us a reasonable boiler replacement at an affordable price. That's based on running at 55 degrees too. If I'm able to run at a lower temperature then the SCOP will improve, but I probably won't get a good enough flow rate through the microbore. SCOP of 2.7 on hot water sounds good to me from a couple of other systems I have seen. You can always do better... got to draw the line somewhere though :)
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech The 55C running is why the cylinder is 250 litres. Your smaller cylinder will have been specified based on 70C, so it will have been smaller as a result of this.
I've also been using Evohome for 5 or so years in a large end of terrace Victorian property. I've noticed that start-up energy usage from cold for any zone is disproportionately high when compared to maybe 30 minutes later when it's still on a the heating gradient. I've always put it down to the need for the boiler to heat itself then the relevant pipework before it can make any impact on the room. Yours is an interesting approach. Really helpful video, thank you.
Evohome has certainly paid for itself over the years but it’s time for it to go when the heat pump is installed. One large thermal zone instead of many
When the boiler starts up it pushes the power to max. Your going to heat up all the water in the system and until that is done there’s no point in modulating. It’s only once the return temp starts to normalise that it’s worth modulating the power to maintain the best condensing temperature. That is assuming you have a condensing boiler. If not and you have the older type it’s pretty much the same as it gets the water temperature up to where the boilers thermostat says switch off. The pump keeps going and the boiler cycles until the room thermostats say the room is up to heat and then it stops the boiler and pump (unless you have a run on in the boiler in which case it it will keep the pump running for a time)
That’s a shame. I know they’re not silent but some models are much louder than others. The spec sheet for mine is maximum 60dBA but I’ll measure it. My boiler flue by comparison is 71dBA! There are rules about requiring planning permission when facing a public highway so hopefully that was considered when they installed it.
New to your channel so apologies if you answered this already but will they remove your old boiler? And does the ASHP have to connect to your heating circuit at a particular point or can it be anywhere in the circuit? (there's only one point where the ASHP could go on our property and its quite a distance from the current gas boiler).
Yes they’ll be removing and recycling the old boiler and hot water tank. I don’t know about the heating circuit connection though that would have to be a question you need to ask the surveyor
You may not need planning permission depending on the distance between the window and your unit / the sound levels of the unit. If you go through Section 3 of MCS Planning Standards for Permitted Development Installations of Wind Turbines and Air Source Heat Pumps on Domestic Premises (MCS-020), there's a nice table that talks you through the steps needed to calculate the sound impact. If this is below 42, then I suspect you won't need planning permission.
i thought MCS guidelines only had noise regs for line of sight to neighbours not planning permission? so its a distance vs noise calc (and helped if you have a wall to help)
Yes it is noise regs, and because it doesn't meet MCS noise regs I have to apply for planning permission. That's the first clause on the planning guidelines page about meeting meeting MCS standards.
I'm honestly not certain sorry but as soon as I know I'll provide an update. I have a feeling that the environmental team who review planning applications for the council will be involved for that, which is why I attached the heat pump's spec sheet which includes the dBa noise levels
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech I don’t think anyone assesses in person - you don’t have it installed to do a measurement. MCs regs state target db at neighbours windows - so you have to quote distance, db of heat pump from specs, and any mitigation like indirect line of sight or a wall breaking the sound path. It should be a rubber stamp if you meet the regs
Thanks for the spreadsheet, it must have taken a lot of dedicated effort to put it together. Having said that, the answers its producing don't seem plausible for my property; any ideas as to what could explain it? A few examples: Its telling me that the radiators deliver 155% more heat than the required load (at 55C flow) but experience tells me that I need to start raising the flow temperature when the outside temperature drops below approx. 7C, implying an even higher radiator output is needed. Last winter, I peaked the flow temperature at 66C when it was -5 outside. Note - I run my system as a crude weather compensation model, setting the flow temperature as low as I can get away with based on the outside weather. To make it worse, I've also got a gas fire (typically used a few hours a night in winter) which would add even more to the heating surplus, plus electric convector heaters powered by my solar PV system (in a typical year they add another 900 kWh). So overall my heating demand is very much higher than your sheet predicts. My house is a detached three bed, which is pretty well insulated but I struggle to accept the target load of 2741 kW. Your rule of thumb predicts that a 3.2 kW heat pump (annual gas consumption of 9,282 kWh) is needed, but my gas bill is artificially low because of the solar heated hot water (circa 750 kWh) and convector heaters mentioned above. Sorry to be a pain. Thanks in advance.
Hi, as much as I would like to take credit for that spreadsheet it is actually the work of Michael from the Proton's For Breakfast blog (protonsforbreakfast.wordpress.com). It's a 'rule of thumb' calculation to help give a rough estimate as to the requirements for heating your home for a general lumped variety of scenarios. There are many edge cases which will break the calculation and give inaccurate results (such as my own home) and artificially low gas consumption is one of those things that breaks it. Michael has said that he hopes to update it to take into consideration more external factors and improve the accuracy, but no timescales on that.
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech Thanks for coming back so quickly. I had another thought, my boiler modulates down to 5.2 kW but fires continuously on the coldest days of winter so the peak load must be at least that. I don't see how the model's suggestion of a 3 KW heat pump would meet that demand.
I've amended the model to add in the electrical (solar + grid) power to the house heating input, minus the power exported or used to heat water. It drove a 30% increase in the calculated heat pump power to 3.4 kW. That still seems too low to me. That change is still wrong as it doesn't account for electricity that doesn't end up heating the house (e.g. dishwasher) but it seems a bit closer to the truth. The model is still telling me that my radiators are oversized, still trying to chase that one down.
I'm still digging into the model, but one problem seems to be that the calculated heat pump size assumes 24/7 continuous running, whereas most of use set-back overnight and need a higher power to get back to temperature in the morning. I found that doubling its rating made the model a reasonable match for my system in terms of radiator output vs flow temperature. Explains why I need 65 C flow on the coldest days.
By the look of your plan, you wouldn’t be able to see the heat pump from next door, as I assume, as most are, there windows will be set back, even if not you would have to put your eye right against the glass!
Plan A, it would be very difficult to see (and indeed hear due to reflection from the wall it would go against) the heat pump from my neighbour's windows. Plan A is not allowed due to being less than 3m from the boundary AND the noise level calculations not meeting the threshold. Plan B however, where it's rotated 90 degrees and put against a wall aimed straight at my neighbour's property IS allowed because it's > 3m from the boundary and the noise levels are within tolerance - this location will be visible from their windows without much effort.
Yes all being well I’m pressing ahead with a heat pump. Planning is a slow process. I saw your comment saying 3 weeks for your extension. The notice period alone is 3 weeks and then there are the other various queries and decision meetings to wait on. It’s an over complicated process for something that’s intended to have widespread adoption
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech what’s the payback period looking like? At the moment, my perception is that heat pumps are something you do for environmental rather than environmental and economic reasons. I've been wondering if a thermodynamic water heating system might be a smaller and better monetary investment, since it pays back all year round.
I have looked at adding further batteries to my PV system to cope with the extra demand of our ASHP in the winter and the payback is awful, between 9-22 years. Trouble is that even on a 9.5kW battery I'm only saving a pound or two on cheap rate electricity each night, x5 winter months vs £4k battery cost. And that's before considering if I can can actually fill it up in the cheap rate period depending on the inverter and battery charge rate 😢
Have you spoken with the DSO / Western Power / National Grid?. Wondering if they have any special considerations if you're having a HP with your solar on a single phase.
Octopus are dealing with all of that. Submitting all of the required notifications and things. I’ll get copies of them as they’re submitted I was told.
@Speak to the Geek Brilliant 👍. Like you I'm dubious of the P1 sizing being correct. That being said, I've done calculations where P1s are perfectly adequate.
Shouldn’t be an issue. Although the DSO want everything recorded including your waist size they are only really concerned about the solar output to grid. The draw from grid is unlimited to the size of your consumer trip (either 80 or 100 amp).
As far as I understand, it's a notification only. All meter tails will be upgraded to 25mm where necessary so as I am '100A-ready'. National Grid (formerly WPD) will then most likely come out and replace my 80A fuse for 100A. Apart from that I'm pretty sure there are no other actions needed. Octopus said they'll take care of all of that for me though. Surveyor noted the battery and solar, but it wasn't particularly a concern - more of a concern was conducting a load test so he made me shut off the solar and battery, plug in the car and charge it whilst also running the ovens, microwave, kettle and heater. Topped out at 18kW import for a few minutes while he did that.
Here in sunny (not) Swansea I’m about to ignore planning permission , not necessarily a good idea , but if they bleat on about climate emergency they really have to make their minds up which is more important . May end up being a retrospective application and I’m in a big space , the rules are nuts , and like the oil tank location rules on our last property where you could not locate here there or somewhere else it turned out the rule could be ignored .
I wish you the best of luck! I was trying to do it all by the book. It turns out the alternative location is not too bad at all so I’ll probably leave it there
It must have been very frustrating for you , I fume at bureaucracy it’s delayed us two years minimum , for such as bats for example present on one night in all the surveys .
When the whole project is complete I’ll do a cost video but for now I’d rather not discuss it because it would be an incomplete story. They can give you a cost over the phone though without a visit provided you have a valid EPC.
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech no problem thanks for the response 🙂 I’ve got them coming out this month they have quoted 3k online and are doing a free epc for me the only issue might be cavity insulation as the house builders have faked to install it drilled the holes but not actually put anything in 🤦♂️. Hopefully cavity insulation won’t be to expensive on a small mid terrace.
I am also on the Octopus Heat Pump journey, after going to the Fully Charged North show. I also have a four bed detached house. And have also been quoted the same 6.2kW Daikin heat pump. I’m curious to know what your fixed price quote was to compare with. are you able to DM me? Good luck with it, I’m following in your footsteps.
Do Octopus have a bulk buy on the 6kw Daikins? If so could this be a limited window to get an unbeatable deal? We've been offered a survey but so far have not taken them up on it.
@@AndrewEblingyes, I think they bought loads and have also purchased a manufacturer in Wales. They're definitely working to economies of scale. My concern when I got the quote (last year) from them is the Daikin model they suggested was already 2.5 years old. Things have progressed hugely in the past 5 years for heat pumps and this didn't inspire confidence.
I haven't decided if I'll share the specifics over costs yet - if I do it'll be in a future video once it's all over I imagine and I know all of the involved costs. But to answer your other question, no the quote did not change after the survey. Fixed price before, same fixed price after.
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech we have a four bed detached home. Originally they quoted £6,700. My wife found our EPC and they re-quoted £5,900. Our current gas yearly estimate is £640. So 9 years + was a little to long.
So you're thinking of a return on investment/break-even? I am not - my perspective is that a heating system is designed to heat my home therefore that is the value I'm getting from it. It's not like solar PV which is intended to provide you with energy, and therefore can have a return on investment. From my point of view, I need to replace my heating system, I don't want to put in a gas system, so a heat pump is likely to be the most cost effective, irrelevant of how that cost compares to gas.
Trust the welsh government, Labour! to make things far more difficult than necessary. It would seem to me that their just plain bloody minded for the sake of it.
A high-power heat pump costs only a few quid more than a low-power one and is marginally-less efficient at low-power outputs, so I don't see how all these calculations are that important. I even question whether they're worth the trouble of a technician going to your house and calculating heat losses. I would go for a 12-14 kWh pump to be on the safe side on a bitter-cold day and call it a day. Does Octopus have to give you permission on which pump you are allowed to get in order for you to qualify for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme? Also, I don't understand how Octopus and other heat pump companies come up with these ridiculous quotes of £10-!5 grand for heat pump installs. A top-of-the-line Samsung heat pump with a top-of-the-line water tank costs £5,000, VAT-free. OK, you may need a few dozen metres of 28-mm copper pipe, and a few oversized radiators. Let's add another grand on top of that for materials -- no, let's be generous and add 2 grand. Do Octopus charge £5,000-£9,000 for installing a pump, re-piping a house, and hanging a few radiators? I reckon that should be a couple of days' worth of labour for one person.
For anyone else reading this please check out the Heat Geek channel to understand why you shouldn't massively oversize your heat pump. If you are getting a SCOP of 2 from your 12kW heat pump when an appropriately sized one (maybe 8kW or lower) would achieve a SCOP of 4 then you are essentially spending almost twice on your energy running costs than you could have. They only sound like small numbers until you realise the implications for your bills.
@@SpeakToTheGeekTechOK, I was going by the figures in the datasheet for Samsung pumps, and the COPs are very similar for all their pumps, but I'm going to guess now the COPs provided are valid only when the pump is operating near its maximum heat output? (In fact, Samsung doesn't actually provide COPs in the brochure. Instead, they provide maximum heating capacities at different ambient temperatures and a corresponding power input for that heating capacity. Dividing one by the other, you obviously get the COP.) If this is correct, a heat pump only approaches maximum efficiency for a given ambient temperature near the pump's peak power outut? If your 5 kW pump is operating at 2 kW its COP goes down to 3 or to 2? This is a big problem that will destroy all the financial viability calculations. On top of that, you have an additional problem: when temperatures get proper cold -- 0 C or less -- the maximum heating capacity nearly halves. A 16 kW pump's heating capacity, for example, goes down to 10 kW; a 5 kW pump goes down to 3 kW, and so on. All this while the heating power requirements of your house increase. Power output (and COP) is decreasing while power requirement is increasing. No good. Too big a pump and your COP goes down. Not big enough, and you'll freeze your balls off. Ideally, you would have two different-sized pumps, if pumps were free (I wonder if some of Samsung's models, which have two fans, are actually a double pump, which would have the best of both worlds?). Anyway, I was thinking I might be interested, but this is looking more and more like the juice isn't worth the squeeze, even after a £7,500 gift courtesy of the government (that is, your hard-working neighbour).
I was also thinking... if a heat pump only gets its best COP for a given ambient temperature while its operating near its maximum output capacity, what's stopping you from doing a low-frequency "pulse width modulation" on the pump? That would be a three- or four-line script. You'd think the pump manufacturers would have already considered this and incorporated it in the pump's firmware, wouldn't you? Samsung, for example, is in its 6th or 7th generation already. Heve they not thought of this?
I remember living in a property with an outside oil boiler. Those things were just as large as heat pumps, and they have the large oil tank and are quite noisy when running. I find it astonishing that the matter of planning permission is raised at all for heat pumps, given their nose levels.
There’s absolutely nothing written about outside boilers in terms of planning permission, and yet matters related to oil storage and transfer inevitably raise questions about spillage and resultant soil contamination and containment, which are very much within the remit of consideration for a planning authority.
It is very frustrating
Really useful. Have my survey from Octopus in a weeks time.
Good luck!
Good luck.
Interesting thanks Oliver, hope you can get your planning permission through soon.
A couple of other points from my own experience in having an ASHP installed. Don't go for the "just enough" heat pump, go for one with more than adequate heat capacity. On those very very cold winter days like mid December 2022 you'll need it.
Secondly do look carefully at the radiator sizing and your room usage. If you have children at home that may study or play in their rooms in the evening you probably need a higher heat output in those rooms. It's only a hundred pounds or so to change another radiator during installation rather than have to do it afterwards. Don't undersize the radiators, they should ideally all be oversized. The recommended radiator in our lounge was twice the size of the existing one; we didn't like that so had one that was 50% bigger and the room never got quite comfortably warm enough with the heat pump. I fitted computer fans underneath the radiator to increase airflow which worked a bit, and then had the radiator changed for the biggest we could fit in - it's now very comfortable. I may well replace the kitchen towel rail as I'm not happy about the temperature in that room either.
Be aware of how much plumbing is required for the heat pump and the distances between things. Our site survey didn't really cover this properly, there is a buffer tank fitted between the heat pump and the heating circuit. Ours ended up in the loft but a friend's all had to go in their utility room to be near to the heat pump.
And finally you do not want to run the heat pump at 55 degrees, but that's what they design and set it up to be but the SCOP gets progressively worse the higher the temperature and it costs a lot more to run. 45 degrees if possible. We run ours at 48. You may need more radiators replacing if you are at a lower temperature. Octopus should be able to tweak the design
Me too :). Been trying to get in touch with council planning today but with no luck, will try again throughout the week. It's taking far too long now :(
I installed a 10kw Vaillaint heat pump which has an internal size of >0.6m3, hence planning permission was required (I'm in England). Took over 6 months for Wandworth Council to turn it around, which was extremely annoying, especially considering all the positive noises they make about going green
Just over 2 months into my planning application now. So frustrating!
3m to boundary seems silly - lots of smaller houses simply wont have the space.
Yup, seems very silly to me and something that'll need reforming if we're going to streamline the process of installing these. I think the whole requirement for planning permission for heat pumps needs to be re-thought.
Just looking on planning websites, in Northern Ireland your heat pump has to be 30m from any neighbouring properties or you will need planning permission!
Glad I didn’t need planning permission in England
The planners may want to see scaled elevation drawings too if you've not supplied them. Proposed site plan are normally to a scale of 1:200 or 1:500, again them may request them to that scale. 3m to the boundary is interesting, I guess Wales is a lot quieter than England with its 1m boundary rule.
You're probably right but I don't really have any easy way to create those plans. I'd probably have to use an online service to draw those or something. We'll see if it comes back rejecting it or not. When I spoke to the council they said if it's floor-standing then I wouldn't need elevation plans, but they didn't specify the requirements for the site plan other than 'a defined scale' which is wooly af!
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech I hand drew my elevations using an old school scale rule and they were happy with those. Hopefully they are not bothered and won't request them.
Just had octopus install a heat pump for me, very thorough and nothing too much trouble
I had to get planning permission
Good to hear! I hope you’re pleased with it. How long did your planning permission take to get approved if you don’t mind me asking?
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech just over 2x months
2 months for planning permission is excessive. My extension PP took around 3 weeks which was extended, that was because of drainage issues.
I had a quote from Octopus. It consisted of one entry - a total cost - plus major caveats and a jobslist for me. Ummm?? Oh yes, and I would need to destroy the kitchen in an undefined manner. Is it worth it, I ask myself?
@@lawrenceharris1819 depends on the return on investment?
I am an Octopus Energy customer in a largish 3 storey 2018 house with a replaced Worcester boiler CH system. I put in 18 solar panels and 4 Fox Li batteries June 2021. I have requested a heat pump 3 times from O. E. but they refused to install one, so I am spending £ 3195 with another nationwide firm to install a 7/8 kw Daikin split on the permanently cold North facing lowest floor in a week's time, with zero subsidies off anyone. Wish I lived in Scotland (an ex Scot in Devon). Like many, I have thought of putting a wood burner in but I am really against polluting (unlike my neighbour 3 m away) and a 4 storey flue is not cheap, nor a semi-automatic chip-type burner. A 'whole house' heat pump using expensive, huge 3 times the present size radiators plus hot water gubbins is absolutely out as, like all newish houses the tiny microbore plastic pipes would all have to be replaced too.
Yeah, Scotland does get a great subsidy by comparison.
Hi just moving to Wales and need to replace a LPG heating system. When I spoke to Octopus they stated that they didn't have installers in South Wales. Which council do you come under?
I'm in Neath Port Talbot. I think the nearest installers are based in Cheltenham or Bristol but I could be wrong about that. At the time of the survey I think I was the third survey they'd done in Wales, and they'd only done one installation in Wales, near Newport.
So a few things to query/ note here:
What SCOP did they quote for your heating?
What SCOP did they quote for your hot water?
The biggest cause of the difference in Heat Loss Calculation numbers seems to be due to the Air Changes per Hour (ACH) that Octopus use. For us they said they set it to 0.5 ACH. We thought our numbers looked VERY low..... Our house is 3 years old. The lounge has 2 x 600 x 600 Type 11 Radiators. At the design temp Delta 50 these output 1200watts of heat energy. Octopus stated that our HLC was 591watts for the room.
Looking at your numbers suggests the following Gas @ 6847kw x £0.0751pkWh = £514.21
Energy 13,000kWh/pa likely split 80% Heating, 20% Hot Water
Your numbers are so similar to ours I will use that as an illustration:
Energy 13,043kWh/pa @ Heating SCOP (3.65), Hot Water SCOP (2.695), gives ASHP of 2740kWh Heating + 894kWh Hot Water + 1per week Anti Legionella cycle 250l @ 10'C (50'C to 60'C) @ 3kw = 2.92kWh/week x 52 = 151.84kWh. Grand Total of Electric kWh = 2740 + 894 + 152 = 3786kWh
If you are able to power this at the best Octopus Cheap Rate @ £0.075 = £283.95
Its more likely that you will be something like 50/50 across the whole year I would suspect so 1893 x £0.075 = £141.97 + 1893 x £0.395 = £747.73 = Grand Total £889.70
2.69 for hot water, 3.43 for heating
Wow, incredibly similar to ours. Seems pretty low don't u think?? According to Heat Geek a "well designed" system should be getting apprx 4 or better. I couldn't get any reason why its so low. Pretty certain our 10mm Micro Bore is one factor. But can't help wondering if the Daikin ASHP they are using are at the bottom end of the efficiency scale say vs Vaillant? 2.7 SCOP on Hot Water is poor. Def need a better Cylinder design. At the end of the day its £6k, EDF wanted £11k. Maybe this is a case of you "get what you pay for". Waiting on British Gas to install in our area - they are offering to beat any quote + offer a money back 5year performance warranty! Biggest worry is paying £6k and finding the house is not warm enough in winter + costing more to run than on gas!
I also have 10mm microbore but to be honest I don't think they're being inaccurate. Their low predicted SCOPs are probably realistic ones at a worst case. Keep in mind they're not replacing ALL radiators, they're just trying to give us a reasonable boiler replacement at an affordable price. That's based on running at 55 degrees too. If I'm able to run at a lower temperature then the SCOP will improve, but I probably won't get a good enough flow rate through the microbore. SCOP of 2.7 on hot water sounds good to me from a couple of other systems I have seen. You can always do better... got to draw the line somewhere though :)
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech The 55C running is why the cylinder is 250 litres. Your smaller cylinder will have been specified based on 70C, so it will have been smaller as a result of this.
I've also been using Evohome for 5 or so years in a large end of terrace Victorian property. I've noticed that start-up energy usage from cold for any zone is disproportionately high when compared to maybe 30 minutes later when it's still on a the heating gradient. I've always put it down to the need for the boiler to heat itself then the relevant pipework before it can make any impact on the room. Yours is an interesting approach.
Really helpful video, thank you.
Evohome has certainly paid for itself over the years but it’s time for it to go when the heat pump is installed. One large thermal zone instead of many
When the boiler starts up it pushes the power to max. Your going to heat up all the water in the system and until that is done there’s no point in modulating. It’s only once the return temp starts to normalise that it’s worth modulating the power to maintain the best condensing temperature.
That is assuming you have a condensing boiler. If not and you have the older type it’s pretty much the same as it gets the water temperature up to where the boilers thermostat says switch off. The pump keeps going and the boiler cycles until the room thermostats say the room is up to heat and then it stops the boiler and pump (unless you have a run on in the boiler in which case it it will keep the pump running for a time)
My neighbour has had a heat pump fitted that faces my road. I can hear it on the opposite side of the road.
That’s a shame. I know they’re not silent but some models are much louder than others. The spec sheet for mine is maximum 60dBA but I’ll measure it. My boiler flue by comparison is 71dBA! There are rules about requiring planning permission when facing a public highway so hopefully that was considered when they installed it.
It may have been installed poorly on say a base that’s not truly level and the bearing is wearing .
New to your channel so apologies if you answered this already but will they remove your old boiler? And does the ASHP have to connect to your heating circuit at a particular point or can it be anywhere in the circuit? (there's only one point where the ASHP could go on our property and its quite a distance from the current gas boiler).
Yes they’ll be removing and recycling the old boiler and hot water tank. I don’t know about the heating circuit connection though that would have to be a question you need to ask the surveyor
You may not need planning permission depending on the distance between the window and your unit / the sound levels of the unit.
If you go through Section 3 of MCS Planning Standards for Permitted Development Installations of Wind Turbines and Air Source Heat Pumps on Domestic Premises (MCS-020), there's a nice table that talks you through the steps needed to calculate the sound impact. If this is below 42, then I suspect you won't need planning permission.
Thanks, I'll go do some reading...
I do not see any reference to "line of sight" in the MCS or planning docs for England. Is this unique to Wales?
Page 15 onwards of MCS-020 mcscertified.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/MCS-020.pdf
i thought MCS guidelines only had noise regs for line of sight to neighbours not planning permission? so its a distance vs noise calc (and helped if you have a wall to help)
Yes it is noise regs, and because it doesn't meet MCS noise regs I have to apply for planning permission. That's the first clause on the planning guidelines page about meeting meeting MCS standards.
I'm honestly not certain sorry but as soon as I know I'll provide an update. I have a feeling that the environmental team who review planning applications for the council will be involved for that, which is why I attached the heat pump's spec sheet which includes the dBa noise levels
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech I don’t think anyone assesses in person - you don’t have it installed to do a measurement. MCs regs state target db at neighbours windows - so you have to quote distance, db of heat pump from specs, and any mitigation like indirect line of sight or a wall breaking the sound path. It should be a rubber stamp if you meet the regs
Thanks for the spreadsheet, it must have taken a lot of dedicated effort to put it together. Having said that, the answers its producing don't seem plausible for my property; any ideas as to what could explain it?
A few examples:
Its telling me that the radiators deliver 155% more heat than the required load (at 55C flow) but experience tells me that I need to start raising the flow temperature when the outside temperature drops below approx. 7C, implying an even higher radiator output is needed. Last winter, I peaked the flow temperature at 66C when it was -5 outside. Note - I run my system as a crude weather compensation model, setting the flow temperature as low as I can get away with based on the outside weather.
To make it worse, I've also got a gas fire (typically used a few hours a night in winter) which would add even more to the heating surplus, plus electric convector heaters powered by my solar PV system (in a typical year they add another 900 kWh). So overall my heating demand is very much higher than your sheet predicts.
My house is a detached three bed, which is pretty well insulated but I struggle to accept the target load of 2741 kW. Your rule of thumb predicts that a 3.2 kW heat pump (annual gas consumption of 9,282 kWh) is needed, but my gas bill is artificially low because of the solar heated hot water (circa 750 kWh) and convector heaters mentioned above.
Sorry to be a pain. Thanks in advance.
Hi, as much as I would like to take credit for that spreadsheet it is actually the work of Michael from the Proton's For Breakfast blog (protonsforbreakfast.wordpress.com). It's a 'rule of thumb' calculation to help give a rough estimate as to the requirements for heating your home for a general lumped variety of scenarios. There are many edge cases which will break the calculation and give inaccurate results (such as my own home) and artificially low gas consumption is one of those things that breaks it. Michael has said that he hopes to update it to take into consideration more external factors and improve the accuracy, but no timescales on that.
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech Thanks for coming back so quickly.
I had another thought, my boiler modulates down to 5.2 kW but fires continuously on the coldest days of winter so the peak load must be at least that. I don't see how the model's suggestion of a 3 KW heat pump would meet that demand.
I've amended the model to add in the electrical (solar + grid) power to the house heating input, minus the power exported or used to heat water. It drove a 30% increase in the calculated heat pump power to 3.4 kW. That still seems too low to me. That change is still wrong as it doesn't account for electricity that doesn't end up heating the house (e.g. dishwasher) but it seems a bit closer to the truth.
The model is still telling me that my radiators are oversized, still trying to chase that one down.
I'm still digging into the model, but one problem seems to be that the calculated heat pump size assumes 24/7 continuous running, whereas most of use set-back overnight and need a higher power to get back to temperature in the morning. I found that doubling its rating made the model a reasonable match for my system in terms of radiator output vs flow temperature. Explains why I need 65 C flow on the coldest days.
By the look of your plan, you wouldn’t be able to see the heat pump from next door, as I assume, as most are, there windows will be set back, even if not you would have to put your eye right against the glass!
Plan A, it would be very difficult to see (and indeed hear due to reflection from the wall it would go against) the heat pump from my neighbour's windows. Plan A is not allowed due to being less than 3m from the boundary AND the noise level calculations not meeting the threshold. Plan B however, where it's rotated 90 degrees and put against a wall aimed straight at my neighbour's property IS allowed because it's > 3m from the boundary and the noise levels are within tolerance - this location will be visible from their windows without much effort.
So you’ve gone for Planning permission which means you are going to get it done?
I’m just waiting on the report, survey done 2 weeks ago.
Yes all being well I’m pressing ahead with a heat pump. Planning is a slow process. I saw your comment saying 3 weeks for your extension. The notice period alone is 3 weeks and then there are the other various queries and decision meetings to wait on. It’s an over complicated process for something that’s intended to have widespread adoption
Will you install an extra battery to cope with the additional electricity demand?
Hopefully…
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech what’s the payback period looking like? At the moment, my perception is that heat pumps are something you do for environmental rather than environmental and economic reasons. I've been wondering if a thermodynamic water heating system might be a smaller and better monetary investment, since it pays back all year round.
I have looked at adding further batteries to my PV system to cope with the extra demand of our ASHP in the winter and the payback is awful, between 9-22 years. Trouble is that even on a 9.5kW battery I'm only saving a pound or two on cheap rate electricity each night, x5 winter months vs £4k battery cost. And that's before considering if I can can actually fill it up in the cheap rate period depending on the inverter and battery charge rate 😢
Have you spoken with the DSO / Western Power / National Grid?. Wondering if they have any special considerations if you're having a HP with your solar on a single phase.
Octopus are dealing with all of that. Submitting all of the required notifications and things. I’ll get copies of them as they’re submitted I was told.
@Speak to the Geek Brilliant 👍. Like you I'm dubious of the P1 sizing being correct. That being said, I've done calculations where P1s are perfectly adequate.
Shouldn’t be an issue. Although the DSO want everything recorded including your waist size they are only really concerned about the solar output to grid. The draw from grid is unlimited to the size of your consumer trip (either 80 or 100 amp).
@Dunc Lowe this is why I wanted to know if the DSO was making any decisions based on the installation. (I've been to olivers, I know the installation)
As far as I understand, it's a notification only. All meter tails will be upgraded to 25mm where necessary so as I am '100A-ready'. National Grid (formerly WPD) will then most likely come out and replace my 80A fuse for 100A. Apart from that I'm pretty sure there are no other actions needed. Octopus said they'll take care of all of that for me though. Surveyor noted the battery and solar, but it wasn't particularly a concern - more of a concern was conducting a load test so he made me shut off the solar and battery, plug in the car and charge it whilst also running the ovens, microwave, kettle and heater. Topped out at 18kW import for a few minutes while he did that.
Here in sunny (not) Swansea I’m about to ignore planning permission , not necessarily a good idea , but if they bleat on about climate emergency they really have to make their minds up which is more important . May end up being a retrospective application and I’m in a big space , the rules are nuts , and like the oil tank location rules on our last property where you could not locate here there or somewhere else it turned out the rule could be ignored .
I wish you the best of luck! I was trying to do it all by the book. It turns out the alternative location is not too bad at all so I’ll probably leave it there
If line of sight was interrupted by hedge or fence did that matter ?
It must have been very frustrating for you , I fume at bureaucracy it’s delayed us two years minimum , for such as bats for example present on one night in all the surveys .
How much did they quote you for the full install?
When the whole project is complete I’ll do a cost video but for now I’d rather not discuss it because it would be an incomplete story. They can give you a cost over the phone though without a visit provided you have a valid EPC.
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech no problem thanks for the response 🙂 I’ve got them coming out this month they have quoted 3k online and are doing a free epc for me the only issue might be cavity insulation as the house builders have faked to install it drilled the holes but not actually put anything in 🤦♂️. Hopefully cavity insulation won’t be to expensive on a small mid terrace.
I am also on the Octopus Heat Pump journey, after going to the Fully Charged North show. I also have a four bed detached house. And have also been quoted the same 6.2kW Daikin heat pump. I’m curious to know what your fixed price quote was to compare with. are you able to DM me? Good luck with it, I’m following in your footsteps.
I might discuss costs and things in a future video, I'm undecided on that at the moment
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech I completely understand. Good luck on your journey.
Do Octopus have a bulk buy on the 6kw Daikins? If so could this be a limited window to get an unbeatable deal? We've been offered a survey but so far have not taken them up on it.
@@AndrewEblingyes, I think they bought loads and have also purchased a manufacturer in Wales. They're definitely working to economies of scale.
My concern when I got the quote (last year) from them is the Daikin model they suggested was already 2.5 years old. Things have progressed hugely in the past 5 years for heat pumps and this didn't inspire confidence.
So they quote a bigger unit for my bungalow than your 4-bed detached???? Someone at Octopus is seemingly lacking maths skills.
Hi, what was the original octopus quoteprice and did it change after the survey?
I haven't decided if I'll share the specifics over costs yet - if I do it'll be in a future video once it's all over I imagine and I know all of the involved costs. But to answer your other question, no the quote did not change after the survey. Fixed price before, same fixed price after.
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech we have a four bed detached home. Originally they quoted £6,700. My wife found our EPC and they re-quoted £5,900. Our current gas yearly estimate is £640. So 9 years + was a little to long.
So you're thinking of a return on investment/break-even? I am not - my perspective is that a heating system is designed to heat my home therefore that is the value I'm getting from it. It's not like solar PV which is intended to provide you with energy, and therefore can have a return on investment. From my point of view, I need to replace my heating system, I don't want to put in a gas system, so a heat pump is likely to be the most cost effective, irrelevant of how that cost compares to gas.
But, just for you, costs are in the same ballpark :)
Trust the welsh government, Labour! to make things far more difficult than necessary. It would seem to me that their just plain bloody minded for the sake of it.
A high-power heat pump costs only a few quid more than a low-power one and is marginally-less efficient at low-power outputs, so I don't see how all these calculations are that important. I even question whether they're worth the trouble of a technician going to your house and calculating heat losses. I would go for a 12-14 kWh pump to be on the safe side on a bitter-cold day and call it a day. Does Octopus have to give you permission on which pump you are allowed to get in order for you to qualify for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme?
Also, I don't understand how Octopus and other heat pump companies come up with these ridiculous quotes of £10-!5 grand for heat pump installs. A top-of-the-line Samsung heat pump with a top-of-the-line water tank costs £5,000, VAT-free. OK, you may need a few dozen metres of 28-mm copper pipe, and a few oversized radiators. Let's add another grand on top of that for materials -- no, let's be generous and add 2 grand. Do Octopus charge £5,000-£9,000 for installing a pump, re-piping a house, and hanging a few radiators? I reckon that should be a couple of days' worth of labour for one person.
For anyone else reading this please check out the Heat Geek channel to understand why you shouldn't massively oversize your heat pump. If you are getting a SCOP of 2 from your 12kW heat pump when an appropriately sized one (maybe 8kW or lower) would achieve a SCOP of 4 then you are essentially spending almost twice on your energy running costs than you could have. They only sound like small numbers until you realise the implications for your bills.
@@SpeakToTheGeekTechOK, I was going by the figures in the datasheet for Samsung pumps, and the COPs are very similar for all their pumps, but I'm going to guess now the COPs provided are valid only when the pump is operating near its maximum heat output? (In fact, Samsung doesn't actually provide COPs in the brochure. Instead, they provide maximum heating capacities at different ambient temperatures and a corresponding power input for that heating capacity. Dividing one by the other, you obviously get the COP.) If this is correct, a heat pump only approaches maximum efficiency for a given ambient temperature near the pump's peak power outut? If your 5 kW pump is operating at 2 kW its COP goes down to 3 or to 2? This is a big problem that will destroy all the financial viability calculations. On top of that, you have an additional problem: when temperatures get proper cold -- 0 C or less -- the maximum heating capacity nearly halves. A 16 kW pump's heating capacity, for example, goes down to 10 kW; a 5 kW pump goes down to 3 kW, and so on. All this while the heating power requirements of your house increase. Power output (and COP) is decreasing while power requirement is increasing. No good. Too big a pump and your COP goes down. Not big enough, and you'll freeze your balls off. Ideally, you would have two different-sized pumps, if pumps were free (I wonder if some of Samsung's models, which have two fans, are actually a double pump, which would have the best of both worlds?). Anyway, I was thinking I might be interested, but this is looking more and more like the juice isn't worth the squeeze, even after a £7,500 gift courtesy of the government (that is, your hard-working neighbour).
I was also thinking... if a heat pump only gets its best COP for a given ambient temperature while its operating near its maximum output capacity, what's stopping you from doing a low-frequency "pulse width modulation" on the pump? That would be a three- or four-line script. You'd think the pump manufacturers would have already considered this and incorporated it in the pump's firmware, wouldn't you? Samsung, for example, is in its 6th or 7th generation already. Heve they not thought of this?