We claimed £70,000 in grants for a heat pump – but it still saved us NOTHING… and it’s so chilly our daughter keeps her coat on indoors
By Paul Homewood
Another heat pump tale of woe:
The greeting as I step inside the kitchen is open and friendly, but not particularly warm. This has nothing to do with the hospitality extended by homeowners Lee and Jane Roche and all to do with the room’s rather chilly temperature.
Welcome to the world of heat pumps, the technology that the Government is banking on to help it meet new and bold carbon emission targets. Fine in theory, underwhelming in practice. The Roches now question their decision to have the heating system installed in their detached four-bedroom home, situated in the village of North Luffenham in Rutland.
Just a couple of inches below my feet lies a labyrinth of tubing filled with tepid water – pushed around by a giant £30,000 ground source heat pump that hums away in its own room next door.
The Government has just announced it will offer grants of up to £6,000 to install such eco-friendly technology from next April. Yet what it is less keen to promote is that this ‘bribe’ is far less generous than a previous deal that is quietly being dropped in March – and one which the Roches took advantage of.
They were able to claim £70,000 in grants to install their heat pump under the ‘renewable heat incentive scheme’. Yet, even with such a huge bribe, Jane is not convinced the heat pump saves them any money – or was even worth installing for free.
The kitchen’s temperature is such that ten-year-old daughter Imogen keeps her coat on to stay warm. Jane admits she would prefer it to be perhaps a couple of degrees Celsius warmer.
To raise the room temperature you do not simply turn up a thermostat as you might with a traditional gas boiler. Instead, you adjust heating control in the pump house. As these units are designed to push out relatively modest heat levels, the extra energy required to reach a higher temperature means it is often not cost effective – ramping energy bills even higher.
The kitchen’s warmth depends in part on £10,000 of triple-glazed patio windows that must be closed immediately once you step inside. I fail to observe this rule – and apologise profusely.
Mother Jane, 46, whose other child is Nicholas, 12, says: ‘This kitchen is a barn conversion, so we were able to dig up the flooring to install the pipes when it was built. But this wasn’t practical for the rest of the house as we live in a 400-year-old Grade II listed building.
‘Instead, it meant installing massive radiators, powered by the same ground source heat pump. They look unsightly and are rarely used because to get them to work effectively they burn a lot of electricity.’
Stepping into the main house, there is indeed a chill in the air. The radiators are 6ft long, 4ft high and stick out from the walls by six inches. The ugly metal behemoths look out of place in this tastefully decorated period property. Instead, the Roches use wood burners to occasionally heat the rooms, with the logs sourced from local trees that had to be cut down. Although despised by eco-warriors, it is hard to argue with the appeal of a roaring fire.
Despite radiator prudence, the family calculate the energy bill for their large stone-built farmhouse is still a costly £350 a month.
This is despite spending £40,000 on secondary and triple glazing throughout the home. Part of the problem is that although the heat pump system is efficient, the temperatures pumped out can be 20 degrees Celsius lower than a traditional boiler.
More electricity is used, too, as it takes longer to heat rooms and an energy boost is also required to get sufficient piping hot water for a bath or shower. In installing the ground source heat pump, the Roches faced practical challenges that most other households would not be able to overcome. The pump room looks like a Wallace and Gromit invention. The size of a double bedroom, it houses two giant heating tanks, each the size of telephone kiosks, plus the burly 4ft cubed pump. This emits a low hum – like that from an electricity pylon – which could keep light sleepers awake for longer than they wish. Then there is the acre of lawn outside the Roches’ back door where a maze-like mile of piping was laid 5ft underground.
The Roches’ heat pump relies on the underground pipes being warmed by the soil, where temperatures are typically between six and 12 degrees Celsius. The pump then uses compression technology to further boost the heat. The other heat pump alternative – that will benefit from a £5,000 grant – is air sourced. It costs less money – typically £15,000 compared to around £20,000 for a ground source pump. But you might still need to spend a further £10,000 on double glazing and cavity insulation if you do not have a modern airtight home.
The air pump extracts warm air from a box outside – the size of a small washing machine. This air is then blown into the home – or used to heat up water or big radiators. But it may struggle to heat a house when the outside temperature is close to or below zero degrees Celsius.
Roger Bisby is a plumber for website Skill Builder and not a fan of heat pumps. He says: ‘Make no bones about it, for most people the energy bills from an air or ground source heat pump will be pretty much the same as with a gas boiler.
‘Although you may be tempted by the grants available from April, you may end up out of pocket with an unwanted heating system unless you have a well-insulated modern house.’
A heat pump might typically provide 40 degrees Celsius of warmth compared to a traditional gas boiler offering at least 60 degrees.
A poorly insulated home using a pump might also use 40 per cent more energy to keep it properly heated. The good news is a new pump might produce 30 per cent less greenhouse gases.
Bisby adds: ‘Heat pumps are not the answer. They rarely save you money and they’re noisy. Unlike a traditional combination boiler, these pumps are usually on 24 hours a day.
‘Air source heat pumps are the noisiest as they have boxes fitted on the outside of the house that whirl around like an air conditioning unit. The noise is constant and if windows are open they can keep you and even the neighbours awake.’
Heating and insulation grant specialist Warma UK is also concerned many people will be lured in by the new grant without realising there are pitfalls. Emma Garner, a director, says: ‘There will be a lot of sharks out there, talking about all the upsides but none of the drawbacks.
‘The tasty grant on offer could end up being consumed by extras sold to you at a massive profit – such as double-glazing – or the installer simply bumping up their charges.’
The grants are being made available from a £450million pot and will cover up to 90,000 pump installations over three years. Those who opt for an air source pump are being offered a £5,000 incentive, while for ground source pumps it is £6,000 as these are more costly to install.
Warma UK believes 19million heat pumps must be installed countrywide by 2050 to achieve a net zero target.
So far, only about 300,000 have been put in and as the Roches have discovered, they’re not quite what they are cracked up to be.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
EON are running a 2020 trial in Newcastle on Tyne. Free heat pump, free installation, free insulation, up to 250 on offer, results in 2022. Little information is available, just a few youtube home videos, but they struggled to get much interest once the upheaval to install was explained. I await the report next year.
https://www.eonenergy.com/About-eon/media-centre/eon-to-upgrade-homes-to-low-carbon-heating-together-with-beis-and-newcastle-city-council/
Air source heat pumps (air to water) are often quoted as having a Coefficient of Performance of 3 (1 unit electricity in for 3 units of heat out) but this is measured against EN16147. This standard is for an outside air temperature of 7°C and an inside water temperature of just 35°C (hence the need for bigger radiators).
The mean daily temperature for Newcastle is lower than 7°C for a full 5 months of the year!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcastle_upon_Tyne#Climate
Hardly surprising nobody showed much interest as I doubt they would manage a CoP of 2 through the winter PLUS having to use electrical resistance heating to top up the domestic hot water to a safe 60°C to avoid Legionella.
heat pump water heaters get the water above 60C Just got to chose high temperature heat pump.
Low temperatures outside more of a problem which for UK is why many should stick with gas
Ray,
as I have pointed out before, using electrical units gives a false picture, and indeed some use CoP as ‘efficiency’ which it is not. Once you take all the losses in making and distributing the electricity into account, a conservative 50% they don’t look so good, especially considering the cost of electricity..
Duker,
to get higher temperatures means more power, either resistance heating or running the compressor much harder (I’m not even sure if it is possible to get 60 degrees just from the compressor?) hence consume more power.
Correction, a £70,000 transfer from the needy in society to the rich.
Yes, and of course only the wealthy can go hunting for £70,000 grants. But what it does do is plainly illustrate that Professor of engineering Michael Kelly was right about bringing a house up to NetZero standards would cost householders between £75,000 – £100,000.
When, out of curiosity, I inquired about a heat pump installation I was told that no matter what I did to my Victorian cottage it just wouldn’t work.
I can’t guarantee that I didn’t occasionally doze off during ‘O’ level physics classes 65 years ago, but I do recall something about heat passing from a hotter to a colder body.
If I am right, then no matter how large the radiators, the temperature in the room cannot exceed that of the water in the central heating system.
You obviously were a fan of Flanders and Swan (those were the good old days).
Flanders and Swann sang a song about that !
“Fine in theory…”
Do not give them that! Shit in practice just like it it is shit in theory. Any fule kno that.
And it takes for ever for the heat to pass from the radiator to the room because of Newton’s First Law of Cooling.
It’s interesting that they reject fracking because of the “risk of earth tremors”, but they are happy for thousands of holes to be dug for ground source heat pumps. You do need a fair sized garden though.
95% will be for air source heat pumps.
At my last house my electrician told me of his woes when he fitted a ground source heat pump to his barn conversion, this was done during the conversion and had all the requisite insulation underfloor heating glazing etc.
He spoke of severe disappointment in the system which even in a ‘new build was far from cheap, the problem is as above during the coldest spells it simply does not provide hot water either for use or for heating, the auxiliary electric needed to cut in to bring the water temperature up to normal levels cost so much in those winter months as to make the system not worth the considerable effort and he is out of pocket bigly.
He now supplements the heating in winter with a large woodburner, which completely defeats the point of the heat pump.
I heard of another problem with a ground source heat pump: The ground did freeze and thaw repeatedly, casing the whole house to shift. Probably a bad design, though.
If like diesel cars as an example you had the misfortune to listen to a politician then you must be a glutton for miss truth and deserve all you get, the best way to avoid this is switching the TV and Radio off and taking a very large pinch of salt when reading the corrupted MSM (papers) sad but true. My car is a diesel and brilliant.
Not to worry – it’s other people’s money, and the government has lots of that to throw away. It’s like the broken window fallacy – it keeps people employed in green jobs doing nothing of any use.
detached four-bedroom home
There’s another problem. Get a smaller home and/or don’t get a heat pump.
We love our draughts, coal and log fires, slim radiators,and piping hot water from an oil burning stove. Oh – and our house has been here for over 600 years.
This is an excellent video from Laurence Fox at Reclaim. It explains the essentials of the consequences of net zero policy, and how democracy bypass is intended to function to support it. No over the top rant, but carefully put together. Recommended viewing.
A sealed up insulated house with all windows tight shut is an unpleasant environment.
We have an air source heat pump installed about 10 years ago. It keeps the house (a bungalow built about 20 years ago) at between 19 and 20 degrees and the hot water at between 45 and 55. It has operated at temperatures well below 0. The house is well insulated but not sealed (we have a log burner to raise the temperature in the lounge). It appears we are the exception to the rule, though I will say it is expensive to run. We could not have a gas boiler as there is no gas supply to the village.
Stephen, Birds of a feather.
My 11 year old diesel has just passed 65,000 and going like a sewing machine. Its our third diesel.
My real quibble is with (another) Tory crook called Leon Britton, who I member well telling us in his budget, that Diesel was the way to go and diesel prices would ALWAYs be lower than petrol.
Boris has plenty of lying precedents.
I worked in a medical professional building for a while. 10 stories, Used heat pumps ‘for efficency’. I was the building engineer. There were no ‘as built’ drawings, so I took it upon myself to walk the building and find every one of the suckers. About 30 per floor, stuck up in the ceiling plenum, each requiring monthly maintenance at an hour per unit, with a failure rate of 2 per week, 3 hours labor to replace, which I did on weekends, along with scheduled maint on units where the tenant said, ‘could you come back later? We’re busy’. Check it off and move it to Saturday or after hours. Those with maths will notice that this is a lot more than 160 hours per month. I was fired, not for excessive overtime, but for having the top 2 buttons of my shirt undone. Too sexy for my shirt, I guess.
I hate heat pumps. Hate hate hate. Also H8. Flimsy, persnickety, unreliable. Also useless and inefficient.
Don’t get me started about compact fluorescents, or the assholes who put the coffemaker under the t-stat. Or the computer server in the same outlet as the fridge.
There are some odd elements to this story.
Like: Why is the heat pump being used to heat water?
What is this – – “dig up the flooring to install the pipes …”
The radiators are 6ft long, 4ft high and stick out from the walls by six inches.
I live in an all-electric house with a heat pump system. There is an outside unit with compressors and an inside unit – the air-handler. When in heating mode the system transfers heat from outside to the inside. When in cooling mode the heat is carried out and dispersed to the air there.
The transfer agent is a “refrigerant blend” – a chemical compound, not water.
My house has large ducts, not pipes. There are no radiators.
There’s more, but I’ve written such before.
I have wondered why conventional air conditioning units are not considered inside the home my daughter in usa had such a system which air conditioned in summer and heated in winter, the outside unit was on the roof, although to be honest it was not much good at either function, but at least they do exist and may have improved.
The sun is moving to a cool time as in the seventeenth century (or the Little Ice Age). By coincidence political policies seem aiming to do the same for people lives. Already we have ague and the plague and there are suggestions we be forced to ingest insects, and I am not sure whether witches will soon be the only ones allowed to fly, but the aristocracy will boost employment for jesters and soothsayers.
Perhaps the general population should adopt the “latest” 17TH Century technology and install Baronial Stoves – those vast fireplaces that heated the palace halls. Half a tree 2 or 3 times a day would generate lots of heat which would be absorbed and slowly radiated by the several tons of stone. It wouldn’t take up anymore room, perhaps less, than those heat pump radiators, and keep the house much warmer. And objections about burning wood can be dismissed because it is already known to be “good for the climate” e.g. Drax.
Yes, I concur, there are signs that we are heading for cooler times again. If anyone wants to see clear evidence of this which the media circus are not reporting, all one needs to do is check the official mean temperature data.
This important information is not being reported by our dumb media, however it is freely available for everyone to view for themselves. Here is the link to the longest continuous official instrumental mean temperature record which is being updated daily:
https://hadleyserver.metoffice.gov.uk/hadcet/index.html
Now pay particular attention to the fact that the warming trend in mean temperatures ended twenty years ago at about the turn of the century. This data supports the science which indicates that as we continue to come out of the current Solar Grand Minimum (GSM) event which the world has been experiencing, the warming trend will reverse to cooler. This official temperature data supports this and the media and Government don’t want to talk about it.
Make of that what you will.
The household in the article has log burners, which will require adequate ventilation to prevent asphyxiating the occupants. A well ventilated house, while having health benefits, is not compatible with high insulation levels required to make heat pumps viable, at least not without the addition of heat exchangers to warm the incoming air.
Just come from the site of nu-heat.co.uk, specialist installers of ground heat pumps. I wanted to know how much garden you would need for installation. Here’s a quote.
“To install ground loops, you need plenty of available land – at least three times the total floor area of the property, ground and upper floors combined.”
I then looked up the average floor area of a 4 bed detached house and it came up with 1582sq ft, so thats roughly 10,000 sq ft of garden needed. An area of roughly 30×37 yards
I picked a 4bed detached as I thought that category was the most likely to have a big garden. Thats a lot of land to dig trenches 5ft deep in and a lot of disruption and cost.
Reblogged this on Independent Citizens.
This family didn’t get the right advice. I would never have advised them to fit a GSHP in their old farmhouse. It’s completely the wrong application because they don’t have the modern thermal qualities inherent in the construction of their listed home. They were clearly tempted by the offer of grants and handouts which simply are not designed around stone built farmhouses hundreds of years old. The incentives are designed to tempt the majority of people in modern homes to swap their gas boiler with a typical 85% coefficiency with a modern air source heat pump which has a coefficiency of between 300% to 600% depending on the ambient outdoor atmosphere. When one takes into account the difference in cost between gas per Kw of energy and that of electricity there is a small gain. However, you still need to run a water pump and increase the sizes of your radiators and therefore any benefit in savings is lost and its becoming increasingly less beneficial as the Government has increased the costs of electricity dramatically. Personally I think the politicians have made a monumental cock up with this because they are backing the wrong technology. They should be encouraging everyone to rip out all their radiators, pipework and gas boilers and replacing with air to air heat pumps. But they wont do this because they deem them a ‘luxury’ because the cycle can be reversed in one minute to give air conditioning using the same equipment. Sigh!!! So the idiots just blindly continue in blissful ignorance.