Air Source Heat pump grants?

angelboy

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I've a company coming round this week to talk about a new Government grants available for ASHP.

I'm currently on oil (which is so expensive to run we hardly turn the heating on!!!) so mainly use it just for the hot water.

Is an ASHP a viable option to replace the oil completely or am I going to see my electricity bills skyrocket instead?
 
I've a company coming round this week to talk about a new Government grants available for ASHP.

I'm currently on oil (which is so expensive to run we hardly turn the heating on!!!) so mainly use it just for the hot water.
If your eligible for a Govt. grant then first port of call is external insulation IMHO.
 
Oil is cheap at the moment and will beat ASHP hands down on a price per kWh into the home.

ASHPs with RHI need air to water (large tank) and low temperature circulation so much larger radiators than normal (or underfloor wet). Buildings need super insulating and draught proofing to benefit properly and that also costs money.

In fact money spent on that will benefit an oil heating system and reduce consumption.

Don't be too surprised if the ASHP salesperson arrives wearing a stetson, with bottles of snake oil, on a horse. ;)

MSE forums have a long dedicated section on these GSHP and ASHPs and is worth skimming through. LPG, Heating Oil, Solid & Other Fuels

They can be worthwhile when designed and installed properly - sadly that rarely seems to happen.
 
Oil is cheap at the moment and will beat ASHP hands down on a price per kWh into the home.

ASHPs with RHI need air to water (large tank) and low temperature circulation so much larger radiators than normal (or underfloor wet). Buildings need super insulating and draught proofing to benefit properly and that also costs money.

In fact money spent on that will benefit an oil heating system and reduce consumption.

Don't be too surprised if the ASHP salesperson arrives wearing a stetson, with bottles of snake oil, on a horse. ;)

MSE forums have a long dedicated section on these GSHP and ASHPs and is worth skimming through. LPG, Heating Oil, Solid & Other Fuels

They can be worthwhile when designed and installed properly - sadly that rarely seems to happen.


Thanks. That all makes pretty good sense.

I'm a salesman's worst nightmare, by the way, so unless it's all free then they won't get 1 penny out of me.
 
If your eligible for a Govt. grant then first port of call is external insulation IMHO.

I contated a company about this but on the new Gov Green grant insulation is a secondary measure and to qualify for a secondary you must have a primary measure installed - like ASHP or GSHP.

Makes no sense to me at all.

I think this new grant is BS to grab headlines but in reality, it means sweet FA!
 
 


The crazy thing about this Green Grant is that you have to have a primary measure fitted before a secondary.

So before I can get some old draughty doors and a single glazed porch replaced I have to spend £10K on a heat pump.

Surely, the best way of reducing energy consumption is to make sure you're not wasting the engery you're using. So make sure the house is well insulated and airtight (which also means good ventilation) THEN consider the source of energy.

This grant is bollocks and a waste of time.
 
We’ve got some loft but because we have some then I don’t think they’ll top it up.

We’ve had cavity wall - but it was don’t under a warm front grant and they blocked up all the air vents and we’ve had issues ever since.

I contacted a company about external insulation but they said they couldn’t do it because we’ve already had cavity wall.

As far as floor insulation, I have a parquet floor through the entire ground floor which is directly on concrete. If they can pull it all up without damaging it and then lay it all again then fair enough. A replacement floor like the one we have would be over £10k. I get the distinct impression that the floor would get damaged then they’d leave it for us to sort. Maybe not, I will enquire first.
 
Thanks for bringing this up - it had totally passed me by. Seems we're eligible for the full £10,000 grant to get internal insulation fitted - our home is an 1800's old barn with no insulation in the walls at all! Should make a massive difference to the overall cost of keeping the place warm. We'll see what the surveyor has to say in a couple of weeks. :smashin:
 
Been looking at this to, as we have a boiler from 1985 original, with micro bore pipes on rads, and no cavity wall insulation we are aware of, not sure if easy to tell if have it or not.
I guess we would need to insulate first then the ASHP if did.
I like the idea of ones seen from Panasonic that do heating using old rads and hot water, plus provide air con in summer.
 
Been looking at this to, as we have a boiler from 1985 original, with micro bore pipes on rads, and no cavity wall insulation we are aware of, not sure if easy to tell if have it or not.
I guess we would need to insulate first then the ASHP if did.
I like the idea of ones seen from Panasonic that do heating using old rads and hot water, plus provide air con in summer.

What are you running your boiler on? If mains gas, then an ASHP will never pay for itself. ASHP vs Oil is only marginally better, and it's only really when you compare to bottled gas, or coal, that an ASHP might win - with year on year savings of (maybe) a few hundred pounds. Of course, this ignores the capital outlay of the ASHP itself, the underfloor heating and/or the larger radiators required.

The only way we could make an ASHP to work would be to have more solar panels, and a household battery system to run it - at vast expense. Never say never, but for the time being we'll stick with oil, and (hopefully) just make sure the house is well insulated.

A simpler solution would be to change to a modern boiler - a modern condensing boiler is pretty efficient when compared to older tech. And all heating systems become more efficient if the property is properly insulated - so IMO, that should be the first priority.
 
Has anyone applied for this grant yet? Seems only a few companies that cater for it?

Building a large flat roof as we speak and wondering if we can top up the specced insulation with a grant funded additional layer. Imagine it is against T&Cs but can't find anything yet.
 
The grant depends of how inefficient your current system is... so if you burn coal or oil and your upgrading to nice clean ASHP you have the potential to get the full grant over about 15,000,000 years....

If you're already using a efficient source such as lecy or gas, you're screwed....

Went through the whole process a few months ago and in the end the cost would have been about 17 grand and I'd have got about 48 pence back....

Went with a modern efficient system boiler and that still cost me 5k...!!! 😳

I think where the benefits are gained is with new homes. Where you can build the cost into your build and offset at scale if you're a contractor.

Great idea.... but crazy expensive until the tech gets more widely adopted and cheaper.
 
What are you running your boiler on? If mains gas, then an ASHP will never pay for itself. ASHP vs Oil is only marginally better, and it's only really when you compare to bottled gas, or coal, that an ASHP might win - with year on year savings of (maybe) a few hundred pounds. Of course, this ignores the capital outlay of the ASHP itself, the underfloor heating and/or the larger radiators required.

The only way we could make an ASHP to work would be to have more solar panels, and a household battery system to run it - at vast expense. Never say never, but for the time being we'll stick with oil, and (hopefully) just make sure the house is well insulated.

A simpler solution would be to change to a modern boiler - a modern condensing boiler is pretty efficient when compared to older tech. And all heating systems become more efficient if the property is properly insulated - so IMO, that should be the first priority.
Did this counter the RHI? As this seems to cover the cost of the install over 3 or 4 years
 
Did this counter the RHI? As this seems to cover the cost of the install over 3 or 4 years

No, it was just using a price comparison type site, which showed that a modern condensing boiler is almost as efficient as an ASHP (in terms of cost to run).
 
Thanks for bringing this up - it had totally passed me by. Seems we're eligible for the full £10,000 grant to get internal insulation fitted - our home is an 1800's old barn with no insulation in the walls at all! Should make a massive difference to the overall cost of keeping the place warm. We'll see what the surveyor has to say in a couple of weeks. :smashin:


Well this has proved to be a total waste of time.

Surveyor came round today and preliminary quote came in at......



£24k+ !!!! :rotfl:


You've got to admire their chutzpa - their rates for internal insulation are £140, per square metre!!!

Given that 50mm Celotex runs at less than £15 psqm, and plasterboard about £3 - retail. They are charging over £120 per square metre in labour. Let's say a pair of blokes could fit two boards up per hour, which is just over 2.5 sqm per board. So 5 sqm total, which equals £600 of labour. That's £300 per hour per person. A pretty good hourly rate!

So OK, I'm being a little disingenuous here, as there are other factors - working around reveals, removing and refitting radiators, electrical sockets and the like.

But even allowing for this, it is roughly twice the price I was expecting - in my worst case calculations!

I figured I might have to find a couple of grand, which is manageable - but to find £14K, which I am never going to recoup in my lifetime, is quite simply never going to happen!

I think these companies just see 'government grant' - let's double our prices! :rolleyes:
 
No, it was just using a price comparison type site, which showed that a modern condensing boiler is almost as efficient as an ASHP (in terms of cost to run).
My understanding is the RHI for the air source heat pump can be worth up to £1000 per year for 7 years. A boiler is just as efficient but all new builds will soon be built without a boiler anyhow. The RHI makes up the installation cost in the first few years
 
I think these companies just see 'government grant' - let's double our prices! :rolleyes:

The only potential confounding is the COVID, we've been trying to get a builder to give us some quotes for quite some major building work but having zero luck.

We've had 2 builders just say they aren't interested in giving a quote because they are so busy. One builder quoted 30% above what our max budget was, he even said not to bother going ahead as COVID has put up prices for everyone.

We are putting putting building plans back by another 12months till things settle down and the COVID effect is lessened.
 
I used to fit a lot of ASHP systems in the past, often paired with a Heat Recovery Ventilation System.

They're pointless unless the house is insulated correctly.
In the right situation they're very, every efficient. Initial installation costs are prohibitive for some.

Just a point to note, the constructions trades are extremely busy atm, demand is high, prices are high, materials are difficult to procure.
 
FWIW we built our house and put an ASHP in to feed underfloor heating. It’s massively insulated as you expect. Bills for a big five bed house are less than it was for the three bed terrace we were in during the build. The build was back in 2008. Since then we’ve out in some solar to power the pump and other stuff for a lot of the time, which is working out ok so far but obviously PV has a long payback.

ashp retro fit on an existing house may not work. For new build it can be quite a good option.
 
We have a GSHP in our new build, cost around £16k including underfloor heating and are getting back around £13k RHI over 7 years.

Works extremely well, from what I remember RHI on a ASHP would have been roughly half of our RHI payment.
 
I've a company coming round this week to talk about a new Government grants available for ASHP.

I'm currently on oil (which is so expensive to run we hardly turn the heating on!!!) so mainly use it just for the hot water.

Is an ASHP a viable option to replace the oil completely or am I going to see my electricity bills skyrocket instead?
the grant is called rhi and how much you get will be dependant on the kw usage of the house it will need surveying. Also if the company are doing a proper job they will more than likely need to upgrade your rads k1s to k2s.
how much it costs to run will depend on the kw output of the ashp size of house etc, would suspect leccy bill world likely incearse by 4/600 pounds pa.
 
The crazy thing about this Green Grant is that you have to have a primary measure fitted before a secondary.

So before I can get some old draughty doors and a single glazed porch replaced I have to spend £10K on a heat pump.

Surely, the best way of reducing energy consumption is to make sure you're not wasting the engery you're using. So make sure the house is well insulated and airtight (which also means good ventilation) THEN consider the source of energy.

This grant is bollocks and a waste of time.
its all stalled anyhow.
 
I've been looking into installing an ASHP, although without a grant would be incredibly (probably unacceptably) expensive. Is the RHI part of the Green Homes Grant and therefore defunct, or is it still running?
 

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