Heat Pumps

CRua1996

Got an Air-2-water heat pump installed 5 years ago in my then new home. I was delighted with it, heat output was good and the KWh units weren't too bad either.

However the system failed over three weeks ago now due to -it seems- to the compressor.
I'm living in a rural area in the South of Ireland and it took three weeks to get an engineer to come and fix the unit.

He installed a new compressor (luckily the parts are under warranty but not the labour) and then mentioned that a faulty batch of heat pumps were made by this company in the recent past and this may have been one of those. He mentioned that they hadn't put enough oil in the compressors which led to them ceasing up after a period of time and failing.
Has anyone else had any experiences like this?

Should a heat pump from a reputable company break down after only 5 years!
These units are expensive and I'd hate to think that I'd have to do the same again in 5 years time with no warranty!!!

ClaraHigs

No it shouldn't fail after this time! I have had a geothermal heat pump for almost 10 years and yes as soon as the guarantee ran out I started having problems with it. One of the biggest problems is lack of experience in this country with heat pumps. The installers didn't really seem to know what they were doing. I didn't know how to use it properly. And I found it very difficult to find someone who knew how to fix it. Plumbers do not know what they are doing with these.. Fridge engineers do. This has been a learning experience for me to find out all this. The last time it broke down my engineer, Jimmy from Dublin, told me it was the compressor. He told me that if I fixed it it would more than likely break down again because it was an old and cheap heat pump and I should think about replacing it. The manufacturers, Kensa Heat Pumps, in the UK, who I have gotten to know over these years, told me after almost 2 years of me saving for a new heat pump, (price Jimmy gave €8,350 or thereabouts) that they would repair the pump for me free of charge, gave me a discount for a new compressor and organised a courier for me, if I paid the courier and got someone to uninstall the pump. Not bad at all! Jimmy didn't seem to take this news very well and the search was on for a new engineer. Not easy, when there are so few in the country! Stroke of luck someone else was recommended to me. Tom from Mayo. And he arranged to come out when we both had time. As soon as he arrived he announced there was nothing wrong with compressor(!!!) that a wire had been burnt out because the heat pump was too large for my house (10kw for a 145msize house) and the installers had set it at 50degrees and that was why I had so much trouble all along with it. Basically too much energy not enough output, I think. He fixed the wire, reset it at 30 degrees and hey presto for the first time in 2 years I had heat in my house. Before he even looked at it he said he knew it wasn't going to be problem with compressor as they are built to last!