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.

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.
 
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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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