Earth Save Products

[Heppy]

Has anyone got any experience  on esp products please

[Jeremy Harris]

I replied in the other identical post:

 

 

My experience was that they were a very helpful company.  I spent a long time talking to them and asking them all sorts of questions, and they responded well.  I didn't use them for a few reasons.  Firstly, it was pretty clear that they were importing Chinese units, adapting/modifying or even reassembling them and making sure they had proper (rather than fake) CE approval.  Nothing intrinsically wrong with this at all, but they weren't 100% transparent about it and only admitted this was what they were doing when presented with evidence of dozens of identical looking bits of kit on the Alibaba Chinese marketing web site.

 

Their prices were pretty reasonable, but the technology, especially inside the heat pumps, was a bit older than that in common use by the big name brands, like Carrier, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, etc.  In particular, when I was talking to them they didn't seem to offer any inverter controlled machines, although that may well have changed now.

 

As others have pointed out, low energy homes aren't really their forte.  They have installed systems that work OK in one or two, but they didn't seem to have an in-depth understanding of the very low heating requirements needed, and this then had knock on effects with the hot water systems they offered, as in the main their hot water systems are designed to draw excess heat from the house to heat the hot water, and in winter, in a low energy home, there won't be any excess heat.  This means the heating system for the house has to be increased in capacity in order to be able to supply the additional house heating needed just to then feed heat from the house air to the hot water system.  Not a particular problem, and it can be made to work, but it is a fair way from being an optimal solution, IMHO.

 

Finally, there was one thing  a year or so ago that really seriously annoyed me about them.  They were marketing a Chinese made MVHR with integral air to air heat pump, very similar to the much more expensive Genvex.  They were using the name Genvex in their advertising, and in the original user manual they had, or more likely the original Chinese manufacturer had, just lifted some images directly from the Genvex installation manual, showing a Genvex Premium 1 unit, and labelled as being their own machine.  This was copyright abuse, in my view, and should not have been allowed to happen.  Admittedly it was only on their Ebay outlet, I believe, and I'm far from sure that ESP realised that the images had been just copied from the Genvex manual, or that the unit itself was literally a "Chinese copy" of a Genvex, but even so it made me wonder a bit.

 

Having said that, in all the dealings I had with them they seemed honest and generally trustworthy.  If you are looking for a budget supplier, then they are probably around the cheapest going.  My only concern would be over long term support, given that a lot of their products are Chinese imports, in one form or another.  Nothing wrong with that in principle, many of the components in some of the big brands will be Chinese, and none the worse for that, it's really a question of whether ESP will have the resources to supply service parts and spares in ten years time.  Maybe they will, they've been around for a few years now, so there's no obvious reason to suggest they are likely to be unable to supply spares in the future.

[dogman]

@Heppy yes i have. Used them for our last build and fitted their Ecocent, and Classic heat pump. my equipment has going strong for 3 years now with them carrying out an annual service on both. 

 

I had a temperature probe go and they came straight out and changed it. As JSH states they are one of the cheapest around for a good reliable product. In fact i saw a prototype MVHR they are developing that heats and cools and is half the size of the Genvex.  Shame i have my Mvhr already.

Edited October 10, 2017 by dogman

[Jeremy Harris]

48 minutes ago, dogman said:

In fact i saw a prototype MVHR they are developing that heats and cools and is half the size of the Genvex.  Shame i have my Mvhr already.

 

Was that the unit that had a photograph on a Genvex Premium one of the front cover of the manual, with installation images that had clearly been copied directly from the Genvex manual?

 

If I hadn't already owned a Genvex Premium 1L and immediately recognised the image on their manual, even down to them using the Genvex badge, I might have been taken in.................

[dogman]

No its a complete redesign, something to do with a housing company wanting a compact version for a development. Its being sent off for testing and certification so is not yet available.

 

It was about 800 x 800 and 600 deep. In and out on the top 

the one in the warehouse was 2k  cooling and 3 k heating and max 300 m3/h

it had a co2 and humidity sensor as standard

 

It looked like a standard MVHR 

[EsaveP]

On 10/10/2017 at 18:57, dogman said:

@Heppy yes i have. Used them for our last build and fitted their Ecocent, and Classic heat pump. my equipment has going strong for 3 years now with them carrying out an annual service on both. 

 

I had a temperature probe go and they came straight out and changed it. As JSH states they are one of the cheapest around for a good reliable product. In fact i saw a prototype MVHR they are developing that heats and cools and is half the size of the Genvex.  Shame i have my Mvhr already.

Hi. I handle the marketing for ESP. You've made some really positive comments about ESP products & service which I'd like to use if possible. Supportive comments/reviews from satisfied customers are always very highly regarded and much valued by us.

[Frank]

Yes, I have had a mixed experience with this company. We have undertaken a new build and approached ESP at the NSBRC in Swindon for all our energy products, that is MVHR, Ecocent Hot water, Heliotherm ASHP and lastly, but the most painful, a 10kw PV as in-roof array. All in all we have spent over £50,000 on energy products. The "internals", UFH, MVHR, ASHP etc were all done professionally and as I would have expected by a competent company, the PV array however was a different story. The installation was done poorly, has taken over two years of constant communication with the chairman, Harold Wilson, re trying to fix poor paperwork, noisy inverter, mismatched panels, buckling flashing and lastly but not least, failing our 10yr warranty for the PV installer puncturing our roof waterproof membrane no less than 150 times with the fixing screws through the battening for the panels. Oh, I nearly forgot, we paid for a 10kw array and shifted from a single phase supply to three phase as  the best way due to the limit of 3.4kw on single phase by Western Power. Our reason for 10kw? Because we knew that the british climate meant we would struggle to get a full output throughout the year but at last we should get enough for home use during cloudy periods too with such a size. Our roof could take it and the cost was double but the output was treble. Unfortunately I had to find out myself that our 10kw array wasn't in reality a 10kw array but split into three over the three phases, which meant it was an impossibility for us to charge our electric vehicle via our purchased 7kw charging point without drawing from the grid as the max we could get on a bright sunny day was 3.4kw over that phase. When I approached Harold with this fact that we had been left with something that was not what we bought, he started quoting warranty and taking it up with the PV installer (subcontracted by ESP, which I was never made aware of, and subsequently gone bust). All in all, totally unhelpful and not what I expected, considering the excellent work done on the other aspects of the energy work.

To date over those two years of complaining, we have had the inverter exchanged for the obsolete model installed which has no fans, much quieter, but have lost the remote internet access we had with the former inverter, the incorrect paperwork was never corrected, the mismatched panel, never corrected, the buckling flashing, seems to be fixed after third visit and intervention of Nick Hales from ESP, but we await the hot weather to see, the incorrect design (split over three phase?), still denial from Harold, the latest 150+ punctures to the waterproof roof membrane?, no reply whatsoever from Harold. As you can see, this approach from Harold Wilson of ESP has left a blight on an otherwise dream build which is still ongoing and looks like it may well have to go to court to be resolved. Would I recommend this company to anybody? Mixed. I would deal with Nick Hales again as he bent over backward to help with any issues with the ASHP, UFH and MVHR etc. Would I deal with Harold Wilson? Absolutely not and I would definitely NOT recommend this company as he is the chairman.

[Frank]

As an Update, there is no update. Nothing has been done by ESP, no matter what promises, for the last two years. I tried to resolve via ombudsman, out of time, via regulatory bodies, out of time, even spent £1000 to progress with a lawyer however it seems, even with a good case, I would never get all my costs back, so decided I couldn't afford to pursue that avenue. It seems procrastination works for a company if you have a gullible customer prepared to trust you. I expect I will never get this resolved by ESP and will have to spend my own money to fix the issues in the future.

[Jilly]

Bad luck with that. I waited for a builder t return and fix things he promised and it cost me far more in rental costs etc. I should have just let it go at the outset. 

[Wil]

Just out of interest, doesn't your electrical meter do net metering? So if you have 3 phases totalling 10kW, you can draw 10kW on a single phase and the meter will not roll up?

 

Doesn't cover all your installation problems, but should allow you to use all 10kW of your array without (charged) import?