Heat Pumps on Channel 5

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slartibartfast

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On C5 last night there was a programme asking if heat pumps were worth getting. A guy on there paid £12000 for a ground source heat pump in 2021 and saves £450 a year. He reckons it will pay for itself in 7 or 8 years. How does that work then? More like 20 years plus.
Another couple paid £9000 for an air source heat pump and save £200 a year. Even worse. I suppose it makes slightly more sense if your current has boiler needs to be replaced but you wouldn't want to replace a working boiler.
 
slartibartfast said:
More like 20 years plus.
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And now factor in the interest paid / lost on that 12,000 borrowed/paid up front, and see how many more years that adds...

Had someone try to sell me a home power battery system last week.
Not taking electricity price changes into account, by their calculations I would have paid off the cost of the battery in 7.5 years. Doesn't sound too unreasonable.
By my calculations, properly factoring in winter (lower solar generation, even here in Sydney ;)), interest, and declining battery performance I was looking at at least another 6 years to reach net zero in cost.
By which time the battery is well out of warranty and possibly not far off needing to be replaced.

On the plus side I would still have been able to listen to my wiim in a blackout :)
 
Mr Ee said:
And now factor in the interest paid / lost on that 12,000 borrowed/paid up front, and see how many more years that adds...

Had someone try to sell me a home power battery system last week.
Not taking electricity price changes into account, by their calculations I would have paid off the cost of the battery in 7.5 years. Doesn't sound too unreasonable.
By my calculations, properly factoring in winter (lower solar generation, even here in Sydney ;)), interest, and declining battery performance I was looking at at least another 6 years to reach net zero in cost.
By which time the battery is well out of warranty and possibly not far off needing to be replaced.

On the plus side I would still have been able to listen to my wiim in a blackout :)
Click to expand...
Of course that is something else to consider. Once your heat pump has paid for itself you may well need to replace it ☹️. Maybe prices will come down in a few years 🤞
 
Had a heat pump which came with previous house. Would never put out enough heat in Winter, though it was fine in our hot Summer heat. Replaced it with a gas HVAC unit. Much warmer in Winter, still nicely cool in Summer. I’ll never get a heat pump.
 
Mr Ee said:
And now factor in the interest paid / lost on that 12,000 borrowed/paid up front, and see how many more years that adds...

Had someone try to sell me a home power battery system last week.
Not taking electricity price changes into account, by their calculations I would have paid off the cost of the battery in 7.5 years. Doesn't sound too unreasonable.
By my calculations, properly factoring in winter (lower solar generation, even here in Sydney ;)), interest, and declining battery performance I was looking at at least another 6 years to reach net zero in cost.
By which time the battery is well out of warranty and possibly not far off needing to be replaced, Rheem might offer alternatives or solutions for extending battery life.

On the plus side I would still have been able to listen to my wiim in a blackout :)
Click to expand...
The payback periods presented are optimistic. With a £12,000 ground source heat pump saving £450 a year, it would take around 26 years to pay back, not 7 or 8. Similarly, the £9,000 air source heat pump saving £200 annually would take 45 years to pay back. It might make sense if you're replacing an old, inefficient boiler, but replacing a working boiler with a heat pump doesn't offer enough savings to justify the cost in most cases.
 
Heat pumps are like electric cars. Great in theory, but a bit sh*t in practice.

I'm sure that, given time, they'll iron out the problems, but at the moment, imho, fuggetaboutit.
 
Most sensible way is a hybrid system. This would still reduce gas usage but still allow cosy houses in winter. Since you don't get a £7500 payback from the Government this way it would cost more but at least there's no-one snooping on what you're doing.
 
We have 4 heat pumps and no complaints. We live on an island so it's a good option for us since gas isn't possible. A big one for the main house, a mini-split for my office, another one for a hard to reach spot and one for the pool. With an island climate, it's not cold in winter and moderately hot in the summer - good things for heat pump efficiency.
 
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