Heat Pumps - post here.

ColemanY2K

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120998525#Comment_120998525

For heat pumps? I was quoted a similar price for a heat pump and cylinder by a local distributor in Cork. In the end I went with a supplier from Louth. Both were competitive compared to the quote I got from a supplier in Larne. That is supply only, my plumber is fitting.

poker--addict

hadn't considered self ordering need a plumber and a spark though?

ColemanY2K

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120999455#Comment_120999455

indeed. my plumber was happy for me to order it from the distributor. i got it for the same price he was quoted previously.

i discussed the various brands out there and he personally recommended thermia as he had installed a number of them including at his brother and sisters homes respectively without the slightest issue. the spark ran the cabling for the thermostats, outdoor unit and cylinder. it ain't rocket science to these lads.

randombar

What kind of price are we talking for labour and documentation for grant etc?

it doesn’t seem to be that big a job but I’m getting a couple of crazy prices for the labour.

ColemanY2K

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121001837#Comment_121001837

It depends on the make of unit. My outdoor and indoor units are thermia. According to the plumber they are a fairly simple design and easy to install as the cylinder is pre-plumbed. He advised against other named brands which I won't mention as they are difficult (he used more colourful language) to get at when a problem occurs or he has had to return to sort out warranty issues with them.

When it comes to installing what the plumber has to do is run two 50mm (I think that's the diameter) pipes from the outdoor unit to the cylinder and connect the cylinder to the rads/UFH manifolds and mains. It isn't rocket science and doesn't take very long. Depends on location but my house took a couple of days max. The sparky has to run power from consumer unit to the outdoor unit, a thermostat cable to the outdoor unit and thermostat cabling throughout the house. He then needs to wire the cylinder.

Cyrus

Basis some of the advice here and given we have a night rate i have set my samsung system to heat the water during the night (there was no timer set before). I have it on for 3 hours from 4am to 7am and then two hours from 6pm to 8pm in case anyone needs a late shower.

Does that sound like enough, or too much? i know its how long is a piece of string but there are 4 people in the house, 2 are under 9 so only showering once or twice a week and then 2 adults showering daily.

ColemanY2K

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121019848#Comment_121019848

well it depends on a number of factors e.g. how many litres is your tank, how long do the adults take in the shower etc.

the best way to find out is to record what happens on a daily basis and judge over lets say a two week period. the data should inform whether you need to reduce or extend the durations the HP kicks in. it might take a few goes before you're happy with the output from the HP.

Cyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121019884#Comment_121019884

yes you are right,

what happens say if i have it set to hear water from 6pm to 8pm, does it just heat it to 48.5 degrees or whatever its set at and then stop once it reaches temp?

ColemanY2K

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121020406#Comment_121020406

I'd imagine so although the user guide should be able to tell you that. the thing is though is if the tank doesn't reach the desired temperature in that timescale will the HP cut off? highly unlikely not to reach that temp in two hours but lets say you change it to 1 hour.

KCross

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121019848#Comment_121019848

What size is your tank?

For now, I would stick with the 4-7am and disable the 6-8pm.

What is probably happening now is that you are really doing all your hot water heating during the 6-8pm period which defeats the purpose.... the reason being is that day 1 you heat the water from 4-7am and take a shower at 8am, the water temp drops so now at 6pm it heats it again and now that hot water sits there until 8am the following day so on day 2 the 4-7am has nothing (or very little) to do and you take your 8am shower and the process repeats (heats water again at 6pm as you used it at 8am)... making sense?

Its all down to the size of your tank and whether it has enough capacity to take your normal daily load from one heating session (4-7am). There's really only one way to find that out and that's disable the 6-8pm schedule and see if the wife complains! 😉

As a reference, I have a 300l tank. It heats exclusively at night rate and we rarely run out of hot water. Happens occasionally if someone takes a long shower or there is extra hot water used at the sink or something like that. House of 5, so lots of water being used with power showers.

Cyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121020463#Comment_121020463

seems a good plan ill try that! no idea what size the tank is, will see if i can find out.

graememk

Keep reducing it until you get complaints!

Then you will know when you've reached the limit,

Dozz

https://youtu.be/AXamAjE0juw?si=UBfmhYDjiEhCZJ-1

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121030898#Comment_121030898

Give us a tldw or an overview, or your opinion.. or even a title!

randombar

What are peoples advice on wall vs ground mount for a heat pump?

Nelbert

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121031023#Comment_121031023

Mine is fairly sizeable so I doubt anyone involved would have fancied wall mounting it.

Plan to wall mount a smaller air to air unit for AC above it though.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121031023#Comment_121031023

Urban plumbers just touched on that in his last video, usually wall mounts if in an alleyway to avoid micro climating

randombar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121031714#Comment_121031714

Was watching that all right, need to change footpaths outside and trying to line up everything. i.e. don't want to put unit down on footpath that needs to be ripped out.

podge3

Heatgeeks seem to think alley ways are less of a problem:https://youtu.be/L5O2BSFqWwY?si=-QKnC6OlIs1lgKd_

poker--addict

What sort of money have people paid for larger pumps including labour? Ideally looking for some ground source replacement comparison

munsterfan2

Hi,

Have a waterkotte geothermal heatpump, anyone know what the settings for cooling should be ? Not sure if mine are correct and cant find anything in the manual / online

Madgolfaddict

Hello Thread people. I am new to Boards.IE so go easy on me. I hope I am posting in the corect Forum. Apologies if not. Please excuse the long post, but I need to inmpart and request some information.

I have recently moved into a 370 sq meter Dorma bungalow with radiators in all rooms and Zoning. Itis BER rated A2 with good roof and reasonable cavity wall insulation and double glazing.

I have two Mitsubishi 14Kw heat pumps and a 170 litre hot water cylinder. The cylinder is topped up by 19x .4kw so;ar panels.

All works fine in the summer with the heating off but when heating is selcted my bills are extremely high with an average of 800-900 euro bi-monthly and with rads not getting particularly warm with temp set to 19 degrees or lower.

I am based in South East Ireland and a reputable renewables company (air and ground only) has quoted me €30K to get my ssytem working properly which includes upgrading the rads to run with lower flow temperatures (45 out and 40 return), a buffer tank, removing the zoning and increasing size of the hot water cylinder and getting the heat exchangers to run weather biased in cascade rather than in in parallel. I have no problem with their recommendations apart from ofcourse the cost which amounts to what the original install would have cost. The other issue is that even with this expenditure ther is no guarantee that I will be roastie toastie....affordably.

I would like to look at a hybrid system. Something like a pellet boiler / heat pump/ buffer tank combination that doesnt require the costs of radiator upgrading and would hopefully achieve hotter radiator temps in winter whilst being able to turn off in the summer months.

My biggest problem is that I am new to Ireland and as soon as I Google "Proffesional Hybrid system installers" there is a dearth of information out there as to reputable Companies that could (importantly) quantify and install and maintain such a sytem.

Is there anyone out there that has had a hybrid sytem fitted professionally and well and can comment on such an install or know of anyone that could (whilst observing Forum protocols) ?

Any helpful comments taken with thanks.

All the best

Madgollfaddict.

MOD NOTE. As suggested below, I'll move this thread.

con747

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058313107/hybrid-heat-pump-heating

A thread on heat pumps here https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2055433218/heat-pumps-post-here#latest it might be of help.

Biker1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121093640#Comment_121093640

If two 14kw heat pumps can't heat the house then you have a major heat loss issue and no matter what heating system you install it is going to be very expensive to run.

Mr Q

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121093882#Comment_121093882

It also shows the flaws with the BER. No way an A2 rated house, even one that size, should need heat pumps of that capacity.

graememk

yeah, you have 28kw of heating power, But it is a large house too. I wouldnt be jumping to a hybrid or whatever, a heat source is a heat source be it a heatpump, gas, oil, or even turf!

Id say its more of a control/configuration issue. Diagnosing and then repairing the faults can be costly in time. And most people dont want to touch previous work, just rip out

Urban plumbers is a good youtube channel to follow : May give some insight into your systems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn9huaryC_E

You also have 19 400w panels? I'm assuming they are PV, They generate electricity.. While they can top up the cylinder with excess via the likes of an eddi, that isn't their primary function.

Are you getting the feed in credit for them?

heat geeks are really starting to change the space too, and there is a few of them in ireland, Could be worth a contact? https://www.heatgeek.com/find-a-heat-geek/

poker--addict

Similar house to mine. The 14KW might struggle, but there is no way your house needs two 14kw. Oversized pump setups are as bad nearly as undersized for efficiency.

Also very important to start looking at things from a KW per day/hour perspective, monthly bills with go up and down with prices and contracts, there are enough moving parts to think about without bringing monthly bills in - that is where the marketing guys will screw you. the good installers will be working in energy units not euros/month.

Your bills sound low for 28kw system in some respects, they must not be running hard, but might be cycling , but then not sure why house wouldn't be warm even with sub-optimal rads, so you need to step back and ascertain what's actually wrong if house is cold.

a2 would suggest your heat loss is not bad, but solar can artificially boost that.

At the sort of money involved, it is worth getting 3 opinions from reputable people.

KCross

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121093640#Comment_121093640

I have recently moved into a 370 sq meter Dorma bungalow… I have two Mitsubishi 14Kw heat pumps and a 170 litre hot water cylinder. 

That’s crazy. Not wishing to offend but are you really sure you have 28kW of heat pump? Your house should be like a sauna with that volume of heat.

I am based in South East Ireland and a reputable renewables company (air and ground only) has quoted me €30K to get my ssytem working properly

Thats even crazier than the 28kW of heat pumps. It sounds like they are doing a rip and replace which is complete overkill. Assuming the heat pump is in good order they should be able to get it working for a fraction of that.

I have the same size house as you and have a 12kW heat pump. It does the job fine.

my bills are extremely high with an average of 800-900 euro bi-monthly

I wonder is your system running in failover mode (i.e immersion heating). That would explain it.

My advice is get another one or two installers out to take a look and fix what you have.

Forget hybrid, that’s just adding more expense and complication and maintenance and things to go wrong.

Wearb

What sort of electricity supply have you got that allows for those heat pumps, plus all the other items in the house?

Just asking in case you're mistaken in your heat pump sizes.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121096305#Comment_121096305

A 14 kw heatpump would only draw 4ish kw under max load, and you wouldn't have an electric shower if you have a heat pump either so would be close on a 12 KVA but I'd say it's a 16 KVA supply.

Wearb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121096351#Comment_121096351

He's got 2 of them. And if we had a real cold spell like in 2010, the cop would fall way back.

ECO_Mental

@Madgolfaddict

First things first you need to need to put an energy monitor on those heat pumps to live monitor them so you can see when they are coming on and off. Don’t know how tech savvy you are but you could put a ShellyEM on the circuit and set up Home Assistant but there are other options

See my graph below from last November I can see exactly when the heat pump is coming on, if I notice that it’s a nice day and it shouldn’t be coming on then I will look into it. Normally its one of my young fellas has his window wide open and its then calling for heat. Or the missus ramped the room temp up to 22-23 degs ☹

You are saying your bills are 800-900 in the heating season, but don’t forget the unit price of elect has doubled in the last 2 years so everyone’s bills are high. You have a big house so will require more heat than the average joe.

I wouldn’t bother with complicated hybrid systems, keep it simple at least you will only have one thing to worry about going wrong. Also I wouldn’t start shelling out any big money yet until you understand what is driving the consumption

I have also put in a graph below of my rolling 7-day average consumption of my heat pump over the last year, I live in a A1 230m2 house. During the summer I am 4-6 kWh/day during the winter that about 20-25 kWh/day. That big spike was that really cold snap last December when we had days reaching -5deg for a week or two.

Here is a typical day for me in late november last year, the yellow line is the HP, most of this is showers but there is a half hour in the middle of the night.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121096449#Comment_121096449

Yeah the output falls but input doesn't rise much.

MENACE2010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120926899#Comment_120926899

Hi

The system is supplied by Brunner Products - Heating center (brunner.eu).. I looked at it. it's expensive. Bear in mind if you upgrade your insulation as well as underfloor heating you will use less and less the open /stove. We're 10 years in with an Air-source heatpump and we only use the stove in the late autumn when the heatpump is not heating (yet) . Once the heating is on and we light a fire in the stove the house downstairs will get hot ( 23C) (this is due to latent heat in the floor before someone comments .. heatpump does not know about my need to light a fire 😋 ) . The concept of having a Thermal store to use solar heat, heat-pump and stoves is great but you need to calculate out your needs carefully. (And then calculate your savings v cost , ROI .. )

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121099958#Comment_121099958

Thats not what i was thinking of,

It wasnt either of these systems either, unless they rebranded, but its more what i was thinking of :

https://www.systemlink.ie/heat-genie.html

Or HeatHero:

https://heathero.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Heat-Hero-High-Pressure-Unit-Installation-Technical-Manual-1.pdf

They use plate heat exchangers to transfer heat between each system.

alfa_aficionado

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121096578#Comment_121096578

How easy are the Shelly din-rail power monitoring devices, e.g. Shelly Pro 1PM, to install for a non-electrician?

You mentioned other options??

HotSwap

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121103142#Comment_121103142

considering the bills your facing if consider spending the money to have this installed:

https://shop.openenergymonitor.com/level-3-heat-pump-monitoring-bundle-emonhp/

HotSwap

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121096578#Comment_121096578

Do you have a graph of your heat pump from a normal cold winters day? Like 5-10C outside.

ECO_Mental

I use a Shelly EM Shelly EM + 50A Clamp - Shelly EM + 120A Clamp - All products - Products - Shelly

They are easy enough to install, I am not an electrician but got it done. That saying you have to be VERY Careful as you are messing about in your main switch board and if you are anyway unsure then dont do it....get an electrician. I switched off every trip switch in the board (and don’t forget to isolate your PV) and even then I treated the board as it was live as well. You can log 2 circuits. Probably best even to trip the main circuit breaker in your meter box. 

I am very happy with the shelly, for €50 you cannot go wrong and it gives instantaneous readings so have not looked into other options but I know there are. 

ECO_Mental

Here is a graph from the 26th Jan 2023 the mean air temp on this day was 5.1c for the entire day never got about 7 and went as low as 3.3 deg. I cant differentiate between heating and hot water unfortunatley, but at night up until 7am its all heating. From 7am to 9 its proably showers, and again after 6pm there woudl be a coupld of showers again also. The HP consumed 40kWh for this day which is a lot I presume...

For the 22nd Jan 2023 the average day temp was 9 deg so still a cold day (never got above 10deg) a few degs makes a big difference (also if its very windy) for this day the HP only used 20 kWh and a lot of this is probaly showers.

Cyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121093640#Comment_121093640

whats your average annual energy usage and bill? do you have any other energy source or just electricity? and are you charging an EV aswell?

radiators with heat pumps dont get warmer than lukewarm, they dont need to generally.

HotSwap

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121104049#Comment_121104049

Do you have a buffer tank or zoned heating controls? Is it using weather compensation?

alfa_aficionado

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121103855#Comment_121103855

Would you happen to have any pics of how you have them installed? These are prob easier to install than the din-rail versions, which prob require a contactor to be wired in as well, given they’re limited to switching 16A loads.

poker--addict

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121104306#Comment_121104306

I dare say it's important to park the bill. It can take a week or two of getting used to but all that matters is average KW per hour or per day. If you think in KW you can act faster to adapt system settings and build a feel for the pump. Elec company changes their fees or fee structure and comparisons with peers or historic performance are immediately redundant.

Cyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121107138#Comment_121107138

maybe so but the real motivation for asking was the first part, annual usage. My house is all electric and we have an EV, my electricity bills are high but my overall energy bills are low.

ECO_Mental

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121106739#Comment_121106739

I did a write up of how i installed the ShellyEMs in another thread, here is the link

Power / Electricity Apps? — boards.ie - Now Ye're Talkin'

alfa_aficionado

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121108424#Comment_121108424

Great…I’ll have a look.

poker--addict

Please direct message me some names for ground loop pump installers and type of pump they do.

simpsimp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121108424#Comment_121108424

You recommended this to me before and am going to install for this winter - please remind me - if I'm monitoring indoor / outdoor parts of a split unit HP - do I need 50a or 120a clamps? Thanks!

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121112186#Comment_121112186

50 is plenty.

Only need 120 for the main grid power