I thought some people considering a heat pump might be interested in our experiences of getting one installed, so I wanted to share what we went through. Feel free to ask any questions which I haven't already answered. Contact online >>
I thought some people considering a heat pump might be interested in our experiences of getting one installed, so I wanted to share what we went through. Feel free to ask any questions which I haven't already answered.
We moved into a house with an oil boiler at the start of 2023. The house is about 100 years old (built in around 1920s) but had reasonably good insulation (double glazing everywhere, and some loft insulation). When we bought it, the EPC was rated D(54).
We wanted to replace the oil boiler for several reasons (in approximate order of importance to us):
Initially we looked at a couple of local installers, who quoted us £18k and £13k respectively - these prices are before the BUS (boiler upgrade scheme) was applied. Both installers were going to charge additionally for any radiators that needed to be upgraded, or other remedial work (which could have added another £2k to the quotes). At least one of the installers didn't include the heat pump base/plinth in the price - meaning I'd have had to get a builder in to create a concrete slab or other suitable base, at my own cost.
In April I spoke to Octopus, who were just starting up doing heat pumps, and they said our house would be suitable for them to install. They quoted £11.5k - and this was a fixed price quote, so included everything. HP base, radiator upgrades, and any other work to the heating system was all covered, so significantly cheaper than the local installers. At the time the BUS grant was £5k, so this would have left me with £6.5k to pay. So we paid the £500 deposit to kick off the process.
Boiler Upgrade Scheme/Insulation Requirements
In April Octopus came to survey the property, and after doing all sorts of heat requirement calculations confirmed that it would be suitable for a heat pump. They recommended a 9kW Daikin pump and a replacement hot water tank. They confirmed that 4 radiators would need to be upgraded, and a consumer-unit extension would need to be added to provide the two mains connection ways for the heat pump - but all of that this was all included in the original £11.5k quote.
The conditions of the installation were that I needed to:
Get planning permission (because we are in a conservation area).
The requirement for the heating source in the bathroom was removed about 2 weeks before install, so it turned out it was unnecessary – but it''s still useful to have a heated towel rail.
Planning took a while; we applied for pre-planning (because our Council wasn't actually sure if we needed full planning permission...). This was supposed to take 28 days, but actually took 9 weeks! The outcome was that we needed full planning, so we put in the application in late May. The application was very simple; the most tedious part was having to spend an evening creating elevation drawings (I used Powerpoint) but it wasn''t difficult.
Planning took 3 months to be approved. During this time Octopus sent us a bouquet of flowers to apologise for it taking so long to get our installation booked in - despite it not being their fault at all!
We finally got planning granted late in the summer and booked in the installation to go ahead in the second week of December; it seems like there''s typically a couple of months from confirming the install to actually getting a team in to install. Two weeks before the installation lead visited the property and checked we'd done everything we needed. He confirmed it would be a relatively straightforward installation.
The team arrived early on the Monday morning - 3 heating engineers and one electrician. They immediately got to work, focusing on getting ready to replace the hot water tank, so putting everything in place to do that as quickly as possible, so as to leave us without hot water for the shortest possible time. They also brought 3 fan heaters with them to keep the house warm - but we fired up our wood-burning stove which kept the house warm through the installation.
On Day 2 an additional engineer arrived, who worked on upgrading all of the radiators. The team also removed the old oil boiler, built the base for the heat pump, wired in the extra consumer unit and switched the hot water tank over, as well as solving a whole load of other heating related problems that were there when we moved into the house (it turned out our D2 pipe from the tank wasn't done to regulations, and so they completely replaced that). By the time they left at the end of the day we had hot water from the immersion heater.
Day 4 they completed the radiator installations, and wired up the Daikin MMI controller and the Madoka thermostat, and then filled the system.
Day 5 they commissioned the system - firing up the heat pump and warming up the radiators for the first time. I was quite surprised at how warm the radiators became; lots of people stated that the flow temperature was very cool, but it's actually quite warm - certainly warm enough to dry a tea-towel on a radiator, etc. The hot water tank heated 150L of water from 11C to 49C in around an hour, maybe less. The Daikin controller is neat and simple, and was very easy to configure to control using the app on my smartphone.
The installation team's work has been exemplary, and they've done a superb job. Neat, tidy, with very good workmanship and extremely friendly and good humoured whilst installing the system. They were clean, and left everywhere tidy at the end of each day. Overall, I'd definitely recommend Octopus if you're considering getting a heat pump fitted.
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