Air to Water Heat pump - very high bills

Thoie

I moved into a new house with an air to water heat pump last summer. The plumber showing us the system just said to leave all settings as they were, and leave it running 24 hours a day, thermostats would kick in and out.

However, it seems to be running constantly. I have downstairs thermostat set to 20 degrees, and upstairs to 17. It also heats the water.

Actual (not estimated readings) electricity bill has been €630 for the last 4 months. This includes all heating/cooking/laundry/lights etc. After the last bill I changed the settings so that the heating goes off at night, but it doesn't seem to have helped.

Is average €160 a month for all heating/electricity normal? I know it will be lower in the summer, which will bring the annual average down, but it's been a fairly mild winter so far, so I'm a bit concerned.

dathi

put a power monitor on the supply to your heat pump, as that is the only way you will know how much of your electricity bill is for heating. then you will know if your adjustments will save you money

lucast2007us

Friend of mine got one in he said this was his experience

""We have an Air-Water heat pump and the costs are on a par (probably slightly cheaper) with the cost of the oil burner we had before we had this installed. The big difference is we have hot water 24/7, the house is a constant temperature (as the heating is on 24/7) and we aren't directly affected by the price of oil (alright admittedly everything including cost of electricity is affected eventually but not on the same scale!). So overall we're very happy with the product but the cost is a lot more than the brochures led us to believe and it will probably take a lot longer to recoup the original cost of the system than we thought - but as I said for the benefits I've outlined we're happy with it.""

That's why I'm thinking of doing the same

kieran.

if your bill is 160 per month not allowing for decreased usage during summer thats 1920 per year. say approx 1200 is for general electrics that leaves 720 per year for all heating and hot water ? seem reasonable to me.

What size is your house?

drunkmonkey

lucast2007us wrote: »

Friend of mine got one in he said this was his experience

""We have an Air-Water heat pump and the costs are on a par (probably slightly cheaper) with the cost of the oil burner we had before we had this installed.

That's why I'm thinking of doing the same

Get a free nest from electric Ireland first before you spend any money then do the sums again. We've destroyed our yearly oil bill with one and the house is now at a constant temperature with no issues with running out of hot water.

H3llR4iser

Thoie wrote: »

Is average €160 a month for all heating/electricity normal? I know it will be lower in the summer, which will bring the annual average down, but it's been a fairly mild winter so far, so I'm a bit concerned.

Depends on the number of people and size of the dwellings - I live by myself in an apartment and the bill is usually around 120-130 every second month, which would put the monthly cost at around 60-65.

Consider that:

- Everything in my place is electrical, including the horrible immersion tank;
- I'm out for about 11/12 hours a day 5 days a week;
- I almost never switch the storage heaters on as the apartment seems to naturally keep a good inside temperature even in winter (it's 18.5c right now);
- All lighting is LED;
- I do have a few things, mostly computers and accessories, powered 24/7/365

I have seen other people getting INSANE bills over the winter - Airtricity "merged" my account with those of the previous tenants, so I have access to meter readings and payments for the last few years and...some of the previous tenants regularly managed to rack up bills of over 600 Euro for TWO MONTHS consumption during the winter; The only explanation I have is that they left the electric panel and storage heaters on 24/7 at full blast...

lucast2007us

drunkmonkey wrote:

Get a free nest from electric Ireland first before you spend any money then do the sums again. We've destroyed our yearly oil bill with one and the house is now at a constant temperature with no issues with running out of hot water.

Maybe u picked me up wrong ha I'm 100 percent behind the idea of getting a heat pump

agusta

Thoie wrote: »

I moved into a new house with an air to water heat pump last summer. The plumber showing us the system just said to leave all settings as they were, and leave it running 24 hours a day, thermostats would kick in and out.

However, it seems to be running constantly. I have downstairs thermostat set to 20 degrees, and upstairs to 17. It also heats the water.

Actual (not estimated readings) electricity bill has been €630 for the last 4 months. This includes all heating/cooking/laundry/lights etc. After the last bill I changed the settings so that the heating goes off at night, but it doesn't seem to have helped.

Is average €160 a month for all heating/electricity normal? I know it will be lower in the summer, which will bring the annual average down, but it's been a fairly mild winter so far, so I'm a bit concerned.

Great value in my opinion.Temperature constant 24/7,constant hot water.Probably no requirement for coal/timber etc

HappyAsLarE

I’ve heard these heat pumps are cheaper to leave on 24/7 rather than timer controlled. How do they defy the laws of thermodynamics?

Sleeper12

Thoie wrote:

Is average €160 a month for all heating/electricity normal? I know it will be lower in the summer, which will bring the annual average down, but it's been a fairly mild winter so far, so I'm a bit concerned.

Four adults living in my house. We pay slightly less than that & we have gas heating.

Dardania

Doesn’t sound unusual. Maybe it seems high to you because it’s one large number rather than 2 smaller numbers which you might be accustomed to previously.

You could look at getting a night rate metering tariff - if you’re elec consumption is around 30% or more at night it starts making sense. I think bonkers.ie have calculators to predict costs, and you can get the different night and day readings from your present meter by pressing the blue button on the front. Take a reading now for both day and night consumption and compare to a week later to get a feel for your proportions.

facehugger99

Thoie wrote: »

Is average €160 a month for all heating/electricity normal?

Doesn't sound too bad during winter - really depends on the size of the house. Is it detached? Well insulated?

Thoie

Thanks all for the replies - seems it may not be unusually high based on the responses. We've moved from a 2 bed apt to a 3 bed semi-d (well insulated, A rated BER in line with latest regulations). €160 a month is almost double the bill for the apartment, but that price for the apartment was balanced over the year, so I suppose the €160 average will reduce over time. Logically, the floor space has almost doubled as well, so it makes sense. Never had oil/gas to compare it with.

Just wanted to make sure there wasn't something "wrong" with the system. As lucast2007us said, the brochures/advertising seemed to suggest that it would be really cheap

agusta

Thoie wrote: »

Thanks all for the replies - seems it may not be unusually high based on the responses. We've moved from a 2 bed apt to a 3 bed semi-d (well insulated, A rated BER in line with latest regulations). €160 a month is almost double the bill for the apartment, but that price for the apartment was balanced over the year, so I suppose the €160 average will reduce over time. Logically, the floor space has almost doubled as well, so it makes sense. Never had oil/gas to compare it with.

Just wanted to make sure there wasn't something "wrong" with the system. As lucast2007us said, the brochures/advertising seemed to suggest that it would be really cheap

It actually is really cheap,you just dont realise it yet

B-D-P--

My A2W unit used average 500units per month last 2 months (Heating + Hot water only)
224msq house,
a3 rated.
MVHR

18 Degrees upstairs
22-23 degrees downstairs.

Thoie

B-D-P-- wrote: »

My A2W unit used average 500units per month last 2 months (Heating + Hot water only)
224msq house,
a3 rated.
MVHR

18 Degrees upstairs
22-23 degrees downstairs.

Thanks, that's helpful. Over the last few months we've averaged just under 600 units per month for all electricity, so it seems to be about right. Not having had an A2W unit before, it seems to be constantly "running", so I was just concerned that there was something wrong. By the sounds of it, all is normal.

wilmul80

Hi all, we moved in to our new house just before Christmas. Atw heat pump , ufh on both floors . The unit is on constantly relying on stats to call for heat. I got the shock of my life today , electric bill for 1157 from mid November to 1st week in February. House is a2 well insulated around 350m2. Before moving in bills were 150 every 2 months. Heating only, my question is this. I have the unit heating the water at 78 degrees as opposed to the standard 55. Would this have drove the bills th through the roof . Thinking of going on night rate to bring bills down .

Dardania

wilmul80 wrote: »

Hi all, we moved in to our new house just before Christmas. Atw heat pump , ufh on both floors . The unit is on constantly relying on stats to call for heat. I got the shock of my life today , electric bill for 1157 from mid November to 1st week in February. House is a2 well insulated around 350m2. Before moving in bills were 150 every 2 months. Heating only, my question is this. I have the unit heating the water at 78 degrees as opposed to the standard 55. Would this have drove the bills th through the roof . Thinking of going on night rate to bring bills down .

you can quite happily and safely keep domestic hot water at 60C - this is safe for legionnaires, allowing for 55C at the tap.
Heat pumps have a difficult time getting up to higher temps, so to get to 78C, it was probably using it's built in immersion heater (so you're getting a Coefficient of performance of 1, versus the more normal CoP of 3 or 4) - that would explain the heavy power use.

Night rate might help also - check your meter readings to see if you use approx 30% or more units at night. However adjust down your DHW temp first!

Thoie

wilmul80 wrote: »

Hi all, we moved in to our new house just before Christmas. Atw heat pump , ufh on both floors . The unit is on constantly relying on stats to call for heat. I got the shock of my life today , electric bill for 1157 from mid November to 1st week in February. House is a2 well insulated around 350m2. Before moving in bills were 150 every 2 months. Heating only, my question is this. I have the unit heating the water at 78 degrees as opposed to the standard 55. Would this have drove the bills th through the roof . Thinking of going on night rate to bring bills down .

When I moved in the hot water temperature was crazy low. I eventually managed to persuade them to up it to 55 degrees. The plumber warned me at the time that putting the hot water to that temperature may lead to higher bills, so 78 does sound very high. My system periodically heats the water to 60 (for legionnaires) - that's built in, I don't have to do anything for that. As Dardania said, adjust it to max 60 (or even a bit lower if yours also does the anti-legionnaires thing, which I'd imagine most of them do) and see how you get on.

wilmul80

I've turned it down to 55 now . It was more the water was not hot enough for wifey than for preventing legionaired. I've taken meter readings and will do so for the next week to see if night rate is worth it .

Thoie

wilmul80 wrote: »

I've turned it down to 55 now . It was more the water was not hot enough for wifey than for preventing legionaired. I've taken meter readings and will do so for the next week to see if night rate is worth it .

As well as the temperature being set too low (I think it was set to about 45), there was a secondary problem that the plumber fixed before he adjusted the temperature of the tank. In the room where all the pipes and cylinders are, there was a valve somewhere which apparently controlled the amount of cold that was added to the hot flow (I didn't know that happened, so maybe it's unique to this house). He adjusted that first, which did improve things - it had been set to quite a large flow of cold mixing in with the hot, so while the tank was set to 45, I was only getting about 35 out of the hot taps. Use a thermometer to see if the temperature out of the hot tap is significantly different from the tank temperature - if so, that's a small tweak with a screwdriver (if you can find the right spot to tweak).

John.G

wilmul80 wrote: »

Hi all, we moved in to our new house just before Christmas. Atw heat pump , ufh on both floors . The unit is on constantly relying on stats to call for heat. I got the shock of my life today , electric bill for 1157 from mid November to 1st week in February. House is a2 well insulated around 350m2. Before moving in bills were 150 every 2 months. Heating only, my question is this. I have the unit heating the water at 78 degrees as opposed to the standard 55. Would this have drove the bills th through the roof . Thinking of going on night rate to bring bills down .

The extra units per 2 month billing period for heating the water to 78C instead of 55C would be 160 kwh, say €26 based on 100 litres/day usage of hot water @ 78C , 240 kwh, say €38 based on 150 litres/day & 320 kwh, say €51 based on the unlikely usage of 200 litres/day (@ 78C).

TheDriver

Plus 350m2 is a big house to state the obvious but it's never going to he cheap

wilmul80

Now that you mention it. The water from the hot taps would scald you but the water from showers was nowhere near as warm . There must be a setting on tank as you said otherwise the shower water would have been far hotter. Thanks for the info , always good to get opinions advice from others with same system.

wilmul80

TheDriver wrote: »

Plus 350m2 is a big house to state the obvious but it's never going to he cheap

I will post the difference when I get next bill.when it was heat only before we moved in bills were less then 150 per billing cycle. And ya it's a big house 😀

clfy39tzve8njq

Free ? 130 euro far as I can make out.

TPMP

Moved in to my new house about 8 months ago and also have an ATW heating system. I have UFH downstairs and electric rads upstairs. I've noticed that the upstairs thermometer never reaches the temperature i've set it to. Is this normal? It usually hovers around the 20 degrees mark, even though it's set to 22 degrees. I know the rads are only ever supposed to be lukewarm, but they're usually not lukewarm at all. Is there anything I can do about this or is it normal?

rightjob!

TPMP wrote: »

Moved in to my new house about 8 months ago and also have an ATW heating system. I have UFH downstairs and electric rads upstairs. I've noticed that the upstairs thermometer never reaches the temperature i've set it to. Is this normal? It usually hovers around the 20 degrees mark, even though it's set to 22 degrees. I know the rads are only ever supposed to be lukewarm, but they're usually not lukewarm at all. Is there anything I can do about this or is it normal?

Set it to 25 and see if the rads get warm

jb35a

You could get a refrigeration or air conditioning company out to check the charge on the refrigerant circuit. They're a beast on electricity when they run short of gas.

sad_hamster

wilmul80 wrote: »

Hi all, we moved in to our new house just before Christmas. Atw heat pump , ufh on both floors . The unit is on constantly relying on stats to call for heat. I got the shock of my life today , electric bill for 1157 from mid November to 1st week in February. House is a2 well insulated around 350m2. Before moving in bills were 150 every 2 months. Heating only, my question is this. I have the unit heating the water at 78 degrees as opposed to the standard 55. Would this have drove the bills th through the roof . Thinking of going on night rate to bring bills down .

Did you every figure this out?

Had similar experience last year with new build, ATW/UFH, where heating bill was €700 between Dec and Feb. Had assumed that was due to leak in bio-cycle tank and pump going non-stop.

Just now got a bill for approx €1000 for same period, now wondering if issue is leaky windows (wooden sliding sash) or else stats set too high, they are set to 22 degrees.

My lowest bill in June was €294 for a 2 month period. House is approx 185m2.