Quote for ashp - didnt expect that much!

[Dave Jones]

On 08/08/2024 at 17:50, JohnMo said:

If you go on to City Plumbing site they a build your heat pump package, (based on knowing your heat loss or they have a calculation tool) so you can get an a idea of what parts are involved and the true costs.

 

Just deselect the buffer and secondary pump.

 

blatant fraud.

 

even the nomadic tarmac con men dont ripff that badly.

[JohnMo]

1 hour ago, Dave Jones said:

 

blatant fraud.

 

even the nomadic tarmac con men dont ripff that badly.

Which bit?

[SteamyTea]

3 hours ago, JohnMo said:

4 hours ago, Dave Jones said:

 

blatant fraud.

 

even the nomadic tarmac con men dont ripff that badly.

Which bit?

I am confused as well with that statement, and that is allowing for @Dave Jones usual ridiculous 'statements of fact'.

[Dave Jones]

16 hours ago, JohnMo said:

Which bit?

 

sorry the picture didnt quote for some reason

 

[Gone West]

40 minutes ago, Dave Jones said:

sorry the picture didnt quote for some reason

 

Any idea what's in the 'Parts & Fittings', the most expensive part of the estimate?

[JohnMo]

47 minutes ago, Dave Jones said:

 

sorry the picture didnt quote for some reason

 

What you are showing is a complete rip off, buts not from City Plumbing heat pump builder.

 

For one they are just a wholesaler, so would not be doing a survey or taking your old stuff and recycling nor doing install.

 

I plugged in the parts on your quote and including all the secondary circuit and buffer etc, which can all be deleted, it came out at £3700 plus vat. Only bits to add were pipe and insulation.

[Dave Jones]

5 hours ago, JohnMo said:

What you are showing is a complete rip off, buts not from City Plumbing heat pump builder.

 

For one they are just a wholesaler, so would not be doing a survey or taking your old stuff and recycling nor doing install.

 

I plugged in the parts on your quote and including all the secondary circuit and buffer etc, which can all be deleted, it came out at £3700 plus vat. Only bits to add were pipe and insulation.

 

not my quote, someone posted it earlier on.

 

Any quote for parts over £4k is a con. Same for labour over £1k to fit it.

[TheMitchells]

1 hour ago, Dave Jones said:

 

Any quote for parts over £4k is a con. Same for labour over £1k to fit it.

The second quote I had was for £8500 for materials (this was the Steibel Eltron ashp and cylinder) and 33200 labour, plus the electrician costs to connect theconsumer unit to the rotary isolators.

[TheMitchells]

Here's another possible example of Rip off Britian - we just had a quote for supplying a scaffolding tower to access the house roof verge and soffit for painting and  repair.  One tower either side of the garage with beams across the top - £1500 plus vat.  Am I just out of touch for prices or is this silly money???

 

[sharpener]

13 minutes ago, TheMitchells said:

The second quote I had was for £8500 for materials (this was the Steibel Eltron ashp and cylinder) and 33200 labour, plus the electrician costs to connect theconsumer unit to the rotary isolators.

 

I am hoping the labour is £3320 and yr finger slipped off the shift key! Presumably that is after deduction of the BUS grant?

 

You can expect it to be silly money for any system with the Stiebel Eltron name on it (or Nibe for that matter). I have just paid around £7500 net for a Vaillant 12kW HP with  custom 270 litre thermal store and 6 new radiators installed to a good standard with several complicating factors in a house nearly 3 times your floor area. So I would hazard a guess you are getting quotes from ppl who are either making an enormous profit or do not really want the job.

 

17 minutes ago, TheMitchells said:

Here's another possible example of Rip off Britian - we just had a quote for supplying a scaffolding tower to access the house roof verge and soffit for painting and  repair.  One tower either side of the garage with beams across the top - £1500 plus vat.  Am I just out of touch for prices or is this silly money???

 

 

Sounds like Oxon is an expensive county. Here in Devon we had scaff along the whole gable end to do similar on the barge boards. IIRC 5m wide x three lifts high was £400 + VAT, certainly nowhere near four figures. Other end is lower so carpenter did it from a ladder saving us a packet.

[JamesPa]

 

3 hours ago, sharpener said:

  4 hours ago, TheMitchells said:

The second quote I had was for £8500 for materials (this was the Steibel Eltron ashp and cylinder) and 33200 labour, plus the electrician costs to connect theconsumer unit to the rotary isolators

 

 

Unfortunately MCS is currently a government sponsored private closed shop, very similar to a Government licenced monopoly.  The result is the same as with other private monopolies (did I hear someone say 'Thames Water')?  Its inevitable with private monopolies, its just human nature at work!

 

Unlike water supply the fitting of heat pumps is not a natural monopoly, ,its manufactured by humans (ie its avoidable).  The MCS monopoly is enforced through the BUS grant and planning permission permitted development rules, which MCS wrote themselves into (!).  The former I can just about understand, the latter is scandalous IMHO.  

 

Fleix-orb are working up a standard in competition, but as yet have not published a date for go-live.  It will be interesting to see how that works out.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 22 by JamesPa

[haythorn_1]

On 08/08/2024 at 12:24, haythorn_1 said:

 

 

Insane! Now I see why ev

To humour myself I did go back and ask for a break down, here’s the response 

 

Heat pump £4,311

Parts and Fittings £5,510 – new 28mm runs of pipe to connect heat pump and hot water cylinder, pipe fittings, heat pump controller, feet, flexible hoses, external weatherproof insulation, Homely smart thermostat (more here Homely: The smart controller of choice designed for heat pumps (homelyenergy.com)), purpose built base for heat pump, electrical cable, isolators, new small fuseboard, waste collection.

Installation £4225 – 15 man days for the works, this is our typical install time.

 

They have offered a call but it’s so far off being reasonable I’m not sure I can be bothered.

 

[sharpener]

9 minutes ago, haythorn_1 said:

Installation £4225 – 15 man days for the works, this is our typical install time.

 

That at least sounds about right, my recent experience:

 

Heating engineer, plumber and apprentice from Mon-Thurs.

Electrician made brief reconnaisance visit then worked like hell Weds and Thurs.

Basic funtionality achieved Thursday night.

Heating engineer back some of Friday to set up internet connection and again the following Friday morning for some snagging.

 

Total 15 1/2 days.

[haythorn_1]

@sharpener was that including installing the 6 new radiators you mentioned

[Nick Laslett]

Just for a laugh, as I’m currently on a train journey, I went and had a look at the only quote I got back in June 2020 for a heating systems install. This was via a recommendation from my Architect. 
 

The good news is the RHI which was running at the time had a payback of £11,000 over 7 years.

 

The full quote included installation of ASHP, UFH, UVC, MVHR and ducting. Total price £41,601 ex VAT. (I know this is zero rate for new builds)

This is from the quote, in the RHI section. 

Quote

The EPC you have provided states your annual Hot Water and Space Heating Demand to be 25000 kWh’s

I sent them a SAP, not an EPC, so I think they’ve just made up these numbers for the RHI grant. 
 

Here are some individual line item values: Please remember these are from 2020.

 

1.  Nibe F2040 16kW ASHP = £6784.11 (I fitted a 5kW Panasonic based on my heat loss calculation using J Harris spreadsheet and the LoopCAD UFH software.)

2. Buffer Tank = £556.80 (with the Panasonic there is enough volume in the UFH loops, no need for a buffer tank.)

3. Nibe Megacoil 300l UVC = £1635.47

4. ASHP Circulation pump = £373.87 (I think this is needed due to the buffer tank. )
5. UFH - design, materials and installation = £9030.00 (This was being subcontracted. Their quote listed materials, but not individual item prices. They had a 4 manifold design, I went with 2.)

6. Zehnder CAQ450 = £4246.00. (I actually went with the Q600, when I did the volume calculations the Q450 wasn’t big enough. The Q600 with enthalpy exchanger cost me £3,785.8.)

7. MVHR ducting, manifolds, plenums, etc = £4895.00

8. Installation costs for MVHR, ASHP & UVC = £5650.00

9. Zehnder ComfoPost = £2450.00. (I didn’t remember that they quoted for the ComfoPost. Some people on here give me a hard time for spending £950 on the ComfoPost I installed myself.)

 

I’m confident that I spent less than this including the RHI deduction, but a lot depends on how you value your own time. For the ground floor UFH, the pipe install was included in the price for the insulated raft foundation. 

 

Edited August 23 by Nick Laslett

[TheMitchells]

^{It certainly seems the case that they can quote whatever they like.  We'll just have to bite the bullet and get it installed before the weather gets colder.} 

[sharpener]

13 hours ago, haythorn_1 said:

@sharpener was that including installing the 6 new radiators you mentioned

 

Yes. The plumber and apprentice did this while the lead person did all the complicated pipework in the utility room. They would have taken less time if they had correctly plumbed two of the rads TBOE first time round (this allowed me to drop one size in each case). The instructions to do this were not only on the laminated job sheet the office had sent but also written in pencil on the wall where they were to go (!).  But the end result looks pretty good now.

 

They all thought the hard part was going to be getting the 28mm primaries through a 600mm stone wall, but actually it was drilling through an internal 100mm block wall which turned out to have a concrete lintel with rebar in it.

[Dave Jones]

On 22/08/2024 at 22:06, haythorn_1 said:

To humour myself I did go back and ask for a break down, here’s the response 

 

Heat pump £4,311

Parts and Fittings £5,510 – new 28mm runs of pipe to connect heat pump and hot water cylinder, pipe fittings, heat pump controller, feet, flexible hoses, external weatherproof insulation, Homely smart thermostat (more here Homely: The smart controller of choice designed for heat pumps (homelyenergy.com)), purpose built base for heat pump, electrical cable, isolators, new small fuseboard, waste collection.

Installation £4225 – 15 man days for the works, this is our typical install time.

 

They have offered a call but it’s so far off being reasonable I’m not sure I can be bothered.

 

 

15 days to install hahahahahha, Did our first and second fix in less time than  that including fitting the bathrooms.

 

I think they are taking the pi$$ out of you.

[PhilT]

45 minutes ago, Dave Jones said:

 

15 days to install hahahahahha, Did our first and second fix in less time than  that including fitting the bathrooms.

 

I think they are taking the pi$$ out of you.

15 MAN days, i.e. one guy for 15 days or 15 guys for one day

[Dave Jones]

3 hours ago, PhilT said:

15 MAN days, i.e. one guy for 15 days or 15 guys for one day

 

yup a joke.

[mk1_man]

Crikes, some of the those costs are eye watering.  I am just in final stages of installing a Vaillant 7kW unit plus new uvc and headline costs have been £4k for heat pump, £1k for uvc and around £1k for sundries   Granted it has been a fairly straightforward install with existing underfloor on ground and 1st floors, that said have still removed blending valves and pumps on manifolds to make fully open loop, that was quite and effort to get right.  It has taken me 4 - 5 days on my own and that is doing soldered joints not press fit.  Seeing quotes of 15 man days makes me think they must drink lots of coffee ...   Majority of suppliers appear to use the BUS grant as a nice little bonus instead of it being the fully passed on discount that it should be.

Edited August 27 by mk1_man

[Beelbeebub]

5 hours ago, mk1_man said:

 ...   Majority of suppliers appear to use the BUS grant as a nice little bonus instead of it being the fully passed on discount that it should be.

Which takes me back to my argument that rather than subsidise the installation and create a closed shop of subsidy harvesters we should subsidise the consumer directly. 

 

If the unit is monitored (power in vs heat delivered) basically using a prepackaged meter system provided as part of the subsidy, you can monitor how much heat was delivered. 

 

The scheme then looks at the difference between how much that heat woukd have cost if you had used a gas boiler vs how much you elec did cost. 

 

It then subsidies that difference - so the consumer never pays more than they would on gas. But also if they are more than 3.5 efficient they actually make money. 

 

The subsidy tapers off after (say) 5 years. 

 

Any money left unspent from the £7.5k pot would be split 50/50 between the installer and the consumer. 

 

This woiod give consumers certainty, 5 years to troubleshoot any problems and an incentive for both the installer to get it right. 

 

Would also allow a picture of installers efficency to be built up. 

 

The key but woukd be the monitoring package which would be a box with 4 ports (flow and return in and out) plus power in and power to heatpump and a radio/modem unit for sending results. Basically an open monitor but in a tamper proof box

 

Would be adminstered by energy suppliers so all done via your bill. 

 

 

This way the installers have zero incentive to inflate costs as they just won't get the job. It will go to another company who didn't pad the job.. But also an incentive to do a halfway decent job so they might get some windfall split in the future (the scheme might do it annually to improve incentive). As the payments are based on actual performance not estimated we coukd ditch the approved installer approach. The only qualifier beyond basic industry training eg electrician, would be thr installer using the monitor box (supplied by government) 

 

Would also build an amazing database of performance

[sharpener]

6 hours ago, mk1_man said:

Majority of suppliers appear to use the BUS grant as a nice little bonus instead of it being the fully passed on discount that it should be.

 

It's very difficult to design incentive schemes which don't further distort the market one way or another, in this case the market for HP installation services.

 

In general it is better to do things that will increase the supply of something rather then just increase the demand for it as the BUS does. So providing more training to increase the size of the workforce (this is happening) is better than just waiting for the excess profits to stimulate employment in the sector.

 

But you have to have the raw material. A lack of technical literacy at all levels in the UK from Prime Ministers down (M Thatcher perhaps excepted) is a long-standing problem which also affects many other facets of daily life.

 

Having worked in the DTI on various projects including the Action 2000 millenium bug mitigation schemes and long before that in contract R & D doing a number of govt-subsidised microprocessor application feasibility studies I can say there is no good answer to getting ppl to do things they do not know how to do themselves.

 

But the monopoly enjoyed by MCS is certainly not helpful and it is extraordinary that the many economists in OFGEM cannot or will not see this, increasing competion is after all part of their job description. As Adam Smith wrote nearly 250 years ago: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."

 

 

Edited August 27 by sharpener

[Dave Jones]

Even the slowest plumber can plumb a hot water cylinder and heatpump in 3 days, ignoring everything else. Sparks has half day couple rotary isolaters and wire the immersion.

 

It's a 3 way valve, supply and return not rocket science.

 

3 x 300 per day £900. For a priced job id expect day and half tops.

 

Takes longer to insulate all the pipework than solder it together!

 

 

[JohnMo]

1 minute ago, Dave Jones said:

solder it together!

You don't even do that anymore, push joints or pressed joints.

 

3 minutes ago, Dave Jones said:

Takes longer to insulate all the pipework

And really you only need those pipes within 1m of the cylinder and outside, anything inside the heated envelope is heating the house, so unless you are cooling below dew point not much need. In fact Heat Geek say don't bother.