Neura Geothermal - Any updates?

mobfromcork

We are hoping to by a house over the coming weeks which had a Neura Geothermal Heating system installed circa 2007/2008. The house is 250 metres squared over three floors. I have read numerous threads in this forum and found other information online, which show most users having negative experiences with their Neura systems and the geothermal either being incredibly expensive to run or failing to heat the house adequately. I haven't found many recent posts on the matter or read how anyone resolved their issues.

Would anyone with a functioning Neura system mind shedding some light as to how they fixed the problems? Is there now someone in Ireland who can fix/service these systems? If the system isn't functioning correctly is it possible to change heat source and still use the underfloor heating? Is it very difficult to check the system thoroughly beforehand before buying the house or would an engineer be able to determine whether it is working properly?

Any information or advice would be very much appreciated. I would like to know if there is going to be a large potential cost to upgrade the heating just after buying the house.

Regards,

Mark

KCross

Hi Mark
I dont have direct experience with Neura but I think the simple answer, even if it was some other "super duper" heating system, you should get an engineer out to check it before you sign contracts on it. This is a must in my opinion.

Also ask the current owner for a look at their electricity bills.... as many of them as you can get and primarily over the cold winter months. That will be a good initial indication of whether it is running right or not.

The system might be a good system but poorly installed and you wont know that until you live there and geothermal isnt cheap if there are fundamental problems to be fixed. So, I think you have to get an engineer onsite and get them to run the system and test pressures and valves etc etc.

If the Neura heat pump itself is in trouble but the underfloor and collector pipes outside are good then you should be able to easily switch in a newer heat pump without much difficulty. The big issue is if the underfloor or the collector pipes have a fundamental problem like being badly laid or under spec for the size of the house. Then you have a major headache to deal with. No amount of conjecture or advice here will help.. you need someone onsite looking at it to determine whats what.

Just so that its not all negative.... there are lots of people on here VERY happy with their Geothermal systems, me included.

Best of luck!

mobfromcork

Thanks for the reply and advice Kcross. If I were to get an engineer to look at the system would they be able to conduct tests to check if it is functioning properly/efficiently or is it only through the electricity usage that I could check this? The vendor isn't currently living in the property and it might prove difficult to get access to ESB bills.


I was hoping that someone that owns a Neura pump which malfunctioned would have some advice on what options were available to them and whether they felt the changes they made were worth it. For example would it be possible to hook up an air to water to the underfloor and run it rather than the geothermal.

I hope to get someone out to look at the Neura system but I haven't lived in this area for long (South-east) so if anyone has any recommendations (by PM is fine with me if ok with mods) for someone to have a thorough look at the set up I'd appreciate it.


Thanks

Mark

KCross

mobfromcork wrote: »

Thanks for the reply and advice Kcross. If I were to get an engineer to look at the system would they be able to conduct tests to check if it is functioning properly/efficiently or is it only through the electricity usage that I could check this? The vendor isn't currently living in the property and it might prove difficult to get access to ESB bills.


I was hoping that someone that owns a Neura pump which malfunctioned would have some advice on what options were available to them and whether they felt the changes they made were worth it. For example would it be possible to hook up an air to water to the underfloor and run it rather than the geothermal.

I hope to get someone out to look at the Neura system but I haven't lived in this area for long (South-east) so if anyone has any recommendations (by PM is fine with me if ok with mods) for someone to have a thorough look at the set up I'd appreciate it.


Thanks

Mark

They will be able to tell if it is functioning correctly via an onsite visit but the ESB bills would also be useful as the house could be drafty and so the HP might be running alot of hours to heat the house and so you will have high ESB bills.

Is the system currently running/heating the house? If it is that will help as most systems have metrics that you can look at to see how long it has been running for and what energy it has used etc. If its currently off or in some "holiday" type mode the engineer might need to run it for a few days to see how it behaves but they will be able to tell alot by an initial inspection.

The HP/collector pipes/UFH could have issues that also cause the HP to run too long and have high ESB bills so you really need to see some bills along with an onsite engineers visit.

You could, as I said, swap the Neura for another HP (Geo or A2W) and it should work fine with existing UFH assuming the collector(for Geo) and UFH are in good condition.

If the collector and UFH are good there is no reason to switch to an A2W. The cost of a new Geo HP relative to an A2W is not that much more. The extra cost for Geo is in the collector, which you already have, so assuming that is in good condition I would stick with Geo as it is more efficient and likely to last longer than A2W.

Hopefully some Neura users will reply to your specific Neura questions.