Ecoforest Heat Pumps

tedimc wrote: »

Looking around at a few options at the moment and Ecoforest heat pumps arose today. The fitter couldn't speak highly enough of them. They are a Spanish company, but he reckons that they have a variable compressor which is great for keeping the bills down.

Has anyone come across them or have one fitted?

Thanks,
Ted.

What does that mean actually? A heat pump is running or not. A system pump has 3 speeds. Nothing new here that I can see. Ask him what the COP is at outside air temperature of 2ºc. Or better still ask him what temperature the ambient air needs to to get a COP of 4.5 which they boast about on the website. It means nothing without knowing the actual parameters being measured but in reality is a figure that cannot be achieved under normal operating conditions (but I am happy to be corrected).
Remember if you are heating rooms you need bigger radiators and a big coil cylinder for the DHW. What backup have they suggested for the cold winter days?
Ask the installer these questions and then tell us what he says.

tedimc wrote: »

Will let you know what they say. My interpretation was that the output of the HP varies by the demand.

That's correct. The technical term is that it's an inverter driven compressor, normally they can vary the compressor output from 10% to 100% ( actual range will vary depending on compressor manufacturer) Is makes the system more efficient. TBH any system that doesn't have a n inverter is a little low tech

GSHP should almost always be bet than ASHP in terms of efficiency and resulting running costs, but at a greater capital cost

SEI maintain the HARP register which will let you compare heatpump info

I have almost pulled the trigger on a Ecoforest, but getting cold feet at the last minute, mainly due to the costs to be honest and associated groundworks , the fact that ti will most likely need replaced in 15-20 years ( i will probably still be living here at that time hopefully ) antifreeze needing changed every 2-3 years at a cost of hundreds. Though this would be offset by the rhi scheme available here. We are now thinking oil and large wood burner with back boiler as we will have access to a lot of cheap or free wood.

No idea myself, just posting what I was told

I had an EcoForest GSHP installed in my new build.

My installer had been a Danfoss approved installer but changed to EcoForest just prior to my install.

He convinced me to go with EcoForest, but also said i could have stayed with Danfoss if i so wished as that is what i had originally agreed to.

There was a slight saving for the EcoForest but that never really took much importance in my decision.

I've been living there for just over a month now so its still early days to assess it.

It is variable i.e. it adjusts it power use to only what is required so in the current weather conditions it only seems to be using about 3kW when it comes on.

Its reading a COP of 4.5 on average.

I don't think the glycol needs replaced as frequently as mentioned above, although i dot know exactly the recommendations.

I do know the service interval is approx 5 years.

Although the installation and groundwork cost was high, i am glad i went with it as the power usage for the first month, admittedly not a winter month (but with Irish weather its never going to be that warm!), was quite low and it should work out at approx £600-£700/ year to heat my 3500 sq ft house>

Burning oil would be much more expensive.

If anyone has any questions on the pump or install let me know as i'll do my best to answer.

PS I'd be interested to know which installers you guys are speaking to and who is recommending EcoForest to you to see if you are speaking to the same installer as I had.

Hii in Just wondering if anyone installed the ecoforest system & how did you get on

Hi, we had an Ecoforest Heat Pump installed in our last house. Replacing an existing American Heat Pump that had failed.
It was an expensive exercise.
The heat pump itself was about £8.5k plus all the ancillary works such as flushing the pipe system and decomming the old pump all came to about £14k.
The new one shipped from the manufacturer turned out to be a show model and wasn't fit for purpose.
By luck another pump was also being delivered to another user the next week but that user put the install off for a couple of months (as their house wasn't ready) so we had it.
It took a fair bit of tuning to get running and we had an issue with it- kept resetting itself - that needed an engineer to fly in from Spain to resolve.
Once that was done it seemed to work pretty well though.
We sold up and moved less than a year later so I cannot advise as to longevity etc.
I was disappointed that it had no remote console capability as standard but apart from that all good.

We installed ecoforest heat pump before last winter and have had nothing but a nightmare with it since.

any updates...