Which GSHP?

[patp]

We live near the Finn Geotherm base in Norfolk. I managed to collar a worker and asked him for advice on heat pumps. Unsurprisingly, I now know, he recommended Lampoassa (they are the sole suppliers I believe). Has anyone fitted one of these? I did a quick search and found a site where there were lots of complaints about faults in the boiler and about Finn Geotherm's response to the those complaints.

Any recommendations of any other GSHP's? 

[scottishjohn]

why do you want one ?

climate is never so cold in uk  thats its superiority  in COP over ASHP in very low subzero conditions   like -20c for months will ever make up for initial costings 

 most parts of uk have an an average winter temp ABOVE zero degrees 

if you are in canada   that would be a different thing

Your choice of course ,but having looked at it   and costs for the ground works or bore holes etc   

It did not stand up as a good alternative to ASHP

-yes you get more rhi --but if building a thermal efficent house  then  that will not be that big anyway 

 look very closely before deciding  is my suggestion 

you could have a situation where it might be better --but most cases it will end up more expensive 

 

 

Edited August 29, 2019 by scottishjohn

[patp]

 Thanks for the reply. We asked the Finn Geotherm chap which was "best" and it was his recommendation that sent us off down the route of GSHP. Also we had heard bad reports of ASHP from our friends who moved into a house with one fitted. Firstly, the house was cold and secondly they had all sorts of electrical problems with it. As it turns out they were using it like an oil fired system and turning it off when "not needed" and the whole electrics of the house were crap so probably not the fault of the pump??

Once heard, though, an experience like that is hard to forget

[scottishjohn]

15 minutes ago, patp said:

 Thanks for the reply. We asked the Finn Geotherm chap which was "best" and it was his recommendation that sent us off down the route of GSHP. Also we had heard bad reports of ASHP from our friends who moved into a house with one fitted. Firstly, the house was cold and secondly they had all sorts of electrical problems with it. As it turns out they were using it like an oil fired system and turning it off when "not needed" and the whole electrics of the house were crap so probably not the fault of the pump??

Once heard, though, an experience like that is hard to forget

If you put a post on this forum for other peoples views I think you will get a better perspective on the thing 

 i have one leave it turned on 24/7 and it just comes on when the room stats say it needs too -simple 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

I was set on installing a GSHP, and did a fair bit of work getting prices, working out the most cost effective way of getting a ground collector in place, etc.  The lowest price I could come up with, with me doing the GSHP installation work myself, was a bit over £8k.  That was for a small Kensa GSHP (Kensa were very helpful at that time, BTW).

 

Two things swayed me away from installing a GSHP in the end.  We stayed at a holiday place that had a GSHP and found the noise from the unit very intrusive.  The main thing that persuaded us to switch to an ASHP though was cost.  The 6 kW ASHP we have cost about £2k, installed, compared with over £8k for the GSHP.  Even though the GSHP was, on paper, a few percent more efficient, it would never have come close to paying back the additional £6k before it died from old age.

 

I've really glad we opted for the ASHP, as it's extremely quiet, and in practice is performing better than the predictions we had for a GSHP.  It was also very quick and easy to install, just a concrete pad for it to sit on, a flow and return pipe and the wiring.  Took me less than a day to install it and get it running, and I'd never seen one before.

[patp]

Thank you for the personal experience side of things @JSHarris

 

We, too, had heard that GSHP's were noisy. The engineer we spoke to recommended them being installed in the house too. Said something about them being easier to service ??? We had thought that we would put it in an outbuilding because of the noise.

 

I think we may well go down the ASHP route now.

 

Any recommendations?

[SteamyTea]

5 hours ago, patp said:

Any recommendations?

Any Carrier unit.  Many are rebranded.

Also the Japanese ones are good.

I keep banging on about this, but look at CO₂ ones as the current generation of refrigerant gasses are being phased out, so long term servicing may be a problem.

Not that they should leak gas.