Roger440 Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 12 minutes ago, S2D2 said: In the radiator schedule which is included in the MCS quote along with the stated SCoP. I do agree with everything else, companies are free to register with MCS then break the rules. The umbrella companies are less risky in this regard, they would prefer to fix one bodged install than lose their entire business model by having MCS registration revoked. But yes, that shouldn't be the only tool consumers have when things go wrong, especially with the amounts of money involved. A radiator schedule is not a guarantee of being warm though is it? When you are not warm, someone pointing to a schedule is no help. How is the customer to know if the schedule and calcs are correct. They cant. Thats what professionals are supposed to be for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S2D2 Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 8 minutes ago, ReedRichards said: My understanding is that Heat Geek is a training/accreditation company. An installer pays them a sum of money, undertakes a training course, or several, and then gets to call themselves a Heat Geek. I presume those trained installers undertake to work to certain standards but I don't know if they suffer penalties if they don't maintain these standards. This too, but you can get a heat pump quote through them which they will "guarantee" by providing the MCS component to a heat geek trained installer who is not MCS registered. It's a more recent initiative than their training/accreditation business. To complicate things, some heat geek trained installers are also MCS registered, so you can go directly to them instead but you are not covered by the heat geek SCoP guarantee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S2D2 Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 2 minutes ago, Roger440 said: A radiator schedule is not a guarantee of being warm though is it? When you are not warm, someone pointing to a schedule is no help. How is the customer to know if the schedule and calcs are correct. They cant. Thats what professionals are supposed to be for. Yes, unless the heat loss calculation is not accurate. Which yes, it might not be, even with an MCS registered installer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilT Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/octopus-raises-the-temperature-with-cosy-heat-pump/ Following up on the original post, the Octopus strategy (and others will almost certainly follow) as demonstrated by their media splurge of their Cosy 6 heat pump, will offer simple boiler replacement which could cost net nothing with the BUS grant, or modest extra cost with larger rads. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is the way things go now, with energy companies taking the lead, and is a potential game changer in terms of mass conversion of old housing stock. It would be really interesting to see how such an installation performs especially in terms of running costs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReedRichards Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 4 minutes ago, PhilT said: It would be really interesting to see how such an installation performs especially in terms of running costs. You can bet if it performs badly that will be well-publicised. Promoting heat pumps as drop-in replacements for fossil fuel boilers seems like shooting yourself in the foot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S2D2 Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 4 minutes ago, PhilT said: https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/octopus-raises-the-temperature-with-cosy-heat-pump/ Following up on the original post, the Octopus strategy (and others will almost certainly follow) as demonstrated by their media splurge of their Cosy 6 heat pump, will offer simple boiler replacement which could cost net nothing with the BUS grant, or modest extra cost with larger rads. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is the way things go now, with energy companies taking the lead, and is a potential game changer in terms of mass conversion of old housing stock. It would be really interesting to see how such an installation performs especially in terms of running costs. Somewhat unbelievably, Octopus will not install rads larger than those for a design flow temp of 50°C. So this is definitely the way they're going. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilT Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 8 minutes ago, ReedRichards said: Promoting heat pumps as drop-in replacements for fossil fuel boilers seems like shooting yourself in the foot. Not if they can demonstrate with real world examples that running costs are at least on par. They invest a huge amount on research and are extremely media savvy, so it's only a matter of time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvin Posted January 2 Author Share Posted January 2 1 hour ago, Roger440 said: But its still not a guarantee of result. As i said before, i can have a guranteed SCoP. Where my gurantee of being warm.? Yes, IF its designed correctly, then i will be warm. Emphasis on "IF". "IF its designed correctly, then i will be warm." Er... if the building has the designed thermal resistance and air tightness...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 There does seem to be a 'mind set' that gas and oil boilers well always deliver, and if there is a problem, putting in a larger unit will sort it. I would like to see a 45 kW boiler heat my house cheaply, especially if the radiators were sized correctly for the heat losses i.e. 1 kW spread over 5 rooms. I am starting to think that the whole plumbing industry is not fit for purpose, and never was. It has only survived because real heating engineers, working for manufacturers, can design easy to fit systems that bail out the knobs that fit the units. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bozza Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 A game changer for ASHP etc will be when the UK produces 100% or more of our electricity consumption consistently from renewables and no longer needs expensive fossil fuels to do so. Some way off that though. Scotland has hit nearly 100% already, just need rest of GB to catch up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilT Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 (edited) 26 minutes ago, SteamyTea said: I am starting to think that the whole plumbing industry is not fit for purpose, and never was. It will be though, if heating engineers are increasingly employed by energy companies and heat pump manufacturers running properly organised boiler upgrade schemes, with proper training etc. Edited January 2 by PhilT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 2 minutes ago, Bozza said: A game changer for ASHP etc will be when the UK produces 100% or more of our electricity consumption consistently from renewables If we could produce 100% of our needs from RE, then we would not need ASHPs, resistance heating would do. Does make me wonder which is cheaper, over installing RE or retrofitting 30 million homes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iceverge Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 1 hour ago, billt said: I designed and installed my own ASHP. It works exactly as designed. It keeps the living room at 20C and the rest of the house at 18C. The SCOP since install is 3.96, CoP 5.2 over the last 24 hours. I hope to get it above 4 with a bit more adjusting. It cost me a fortune as I ended up replacing almost all of the existing system, but that was to some extent due to the existing pipe work layout being rubbish, some of the radiators that I chose were eye wateringly pricey, and I added an oem heat pump monitoring system. I could have installed a usable system for about £4000 using the heat pump that I bought but it would have been a bit less efficient and would have needed at lot of tweaking to get the flow rates right. Interesting. How did you size your radiators and what flow temp do you use? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 2 minutes ago, PhilT said: It will be though, if heating engineers are increasingly employed by energy companies and heat pump manufacturers running properly organised boiler upgrade schemes, with proper training etc. I would like to think so. I was a bit too young to see the change from system boilers to combi boilers. I wonder if there was the same sort of unfounded prejudice against the newer technology. I also wonder how much energy was wasted because we had unlagged DHW cylinders. Hard to believe that they came like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilT Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 5 minutes ago, SteamyTea said: I also wonder how much energy was wasted because we had unlagged DHW cylinders. Hard to believe that they came like that. Lol, not so bad if inside the heated part of the house hopefully! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilT Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 I wish the Octopus campaign highlighted in the original post had been around 3 years ago, I would almost certainly have gone for it. All I would have needed to do to get a free installation would have been to simply replace my gas boiler, which was running small rads at 70degC, with an efficiency of no more than 70%, meaning real gas costs of c. 11p currently, compared to electricity 27p therefore only need to achieve SCOP of at least c. 2.4 to be worth it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 Just now, PhilT said: Lol, not so bad if inside the heated part of the house hopefully We had cold houses back then, and the excess heat was drying the towels and bed linen. So not real benefit to house heating. It seems strange to me that my Father was getting cheap Indian labour flown out to the Far East to slap a mixture of asbestos and plaster insulation onto oil refinery pipes, while our uninsulated house in Essex had the heating left on 'to stop the pipes freezing'. Funny old world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 16 minutes ago, SteamyTea said: I would like to think so. I was a bit too young to see the change from system boilers to combi boilers. I wonder if there was the same sort of unfounded prejudice against the newer technology. I also wonder how much energy was wasted because we had unlagged DHW cylinders. Hard to believe that they came like that. Probably the opposite "Oh a combi great idea, no hot water tank, plenty of hot water on demand" Until the reality kicks in "Hot water takes ages to reach the tap, furn it down and it gets too hot to hold your hand under, go for a shower and the flow rate is pathetic and it goes either stone cold or scalding hot if someone in the house uses another tap or flushes a loo" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beelbeebub Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 3 hours ago, Roger440 said: What tapering price gurantee? The day someone gurantees running costs, (im NOT saying it nreeds to cheaper) is the day heat pump installations can make progress. As far as im aware, no one does that. Its always on the home owner if the system doesnt perform. Happy to be proved wrong. A proposal I made for a different model of subsidy from the current lump sum for install. In short, the HP is installed with a "smart heat meter" basically the heat version of the smart gas and electric meters. It records the kwh heat delivered. It also records the electricity used (thus generating Cop as well). The energy Co rebate the consumer for the difference in price between the cost of the heat delivered assuming a modern gas boiler (let's say 110% of gas price to allow for inefficiencies) and the cost of the ekectricity used to produce that with a HP assuming Cop of 2.5 (the carbon break even cop). This lasts for 5 years then tapers out over the next 5 so after 10 years there is no subsidy (or the assumed scop climbs over 10 years) So the consumer is guaranteed (assuming their installation is at least SCOP 2.5) not to pay more than gas. In fact if their system is better than 2.5 they "make" money. That is the incentive to upgrade stuff like rads or insulation to boost the performance. The scheme is paid for via a levy on the gas price. There are some variation that can be played with like the starting scop, the taper rate etc. Also you coukd have it just make it so the cost is always the same as gas for the period, though that removes some of the incentive to upgrade. D You also continue to offer subsidised upgrades like insulation or (say) a radiator scrappage scheme with money off new high performance rads when replacing old ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeBano Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 2 minutes ago, ProDave said: Probably the opposite "Oh a combi great idea, no hot water tank, plenty of hot water on demand" Until the reality kicks in "Hot water takes ages to reach the tap, furn it down and it gets too hot to hold your hand under, go for a shower and the flow rate is pathetic and it goes either stone cold or scalding hot if someone in the house uses another tap or flushes a loo" Best thing I did move from a Combi to unvented cylinder, so much better. Most of the high spec houses I work in now days all have cylinders Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnMo Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 55 minutes ago, SteamyTea said: There does seem to be a 'mind set' that gas and oil boilers well always deliver, and if there is a problem, putting in a larger unit will sort it. I would like to see a 45 kW boiler heat my house cheaply, especially if the radiators were sized correctly for the heat losses i.e. 1 kW spread over 5 rooms. I am starting to think that the whole plumbing industry is not fit for purpose, and never was. It has only survived because real heating engineers, working for manufacturers, can design easy to fit systems that bail out the knobs that fit the units. Have to agree. My combi boiler when installed, used twice the calculated gas in year one. Lots of changes later I was on par with calculated/slightly better due to condensing.in year two. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beelbeebub Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 31 minutes ago, SteamyTea said: If we could produce 100% of our needs from RE, then we would not need ASHPs, resistance heating would do. Does make me wonder which is cheaper, over installing RE or retrofitting 30 million homes. But you would have to build more RE generation, say 2.5x assuming a national scop of 2.5. And more upgrades to the local grid to move even more power around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beelbeebub Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 3 minutes ago, JohnMo said: Have to agree. My combi boiler when installed, used twice the calculated gas in year one. Lots of changes later I was on par with calculated/slightly better due to condensing.in year two. The advantage of gas (aside from the space saving advantage with combos) is thry have so much reserve power and high temps that they can pull the insaller out of any problem. If you undersize the rads or pipes or have poor flow or whatever, you can just wind them up and away you go. I"ve just come back from odd jobbing at a friend's place and their new boiler in a new refurb and extend house was set to a flow of 80C. Easy for the plumber, no call backs for cold rads or not warm enough. It was a 30kw system boiler for a small and fairly well insulated house. No way they will ever need 30kw. But a 30kw boiler costs not much more than a 20lw or even 15kw boiler and isn't any bigger. So from the installers POV, why not. Makes it much easier. So we have a whole industry devoted to chucking in gas boilers by eye and a fi get in the air and forgetting about them. But that approach comes unstuck with HPs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnMo Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 6 minutes ago, JoeBano said: Best thing I did move from a Combi to unvented cylinder, so much better. Most of the high spec houses I work in now days all have cylinders Again another real example of shoddy plumbing, and UK treated shoddily. A combi in the UK has a flow restriction in the cold water pipe entry to the boiler to compensate for cold water in winter. A small 25L preheat tank, the flow restrictions is not required. I was able to run showers off my combi, shower experience is exactly the same as my now install UVC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnMo Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 Just now, Beelbeebub said: The advantage of gas (aside from the space saving advantage with combos) is thry have so much reserve power and high temps that they can pull the insaller out of any problem. Just the opposite with really you the end user live with short cycling all year and the energy cost hike. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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