Oil fired boiler v heat pump

[aoxomoxoa]

While checking the price of new oil fired boilers, in case my current elderly looking one konks out for good, I came across this page:

Ecovision Systems - Buy A Heat Pump Instead of An Oil Boiler

Does anyone here use one of these heat pumps? Are they as good as the blurb on that page claims?

I find it hard to believe they can extract on their own enough heat from the air to heat a hot bath, or anything come to that in the dead of winter. Seems to contradict the basic laws of thermodynamics.

Have you tried bleeding the radiators before spending a shed load?

[rich_e]

Air source heat pumps are best suited to new build houses with very high levels of insulation and airtightness, and work best with underfloor heating. The average moderately insulated, draughty home will be very expensive to heat with a heat pump, even compared to oil.

Heat pumps work better with underfloor heating as this only requires a flow temperature of around 40-45degC, your oil central heating will have been designed for a flow temperature of 80degC. You would probably have to replace all your radiators with larger surface area types if you replace your boiler with a heat pump.

Most people don't realise that domestic heat pumps have 6kW direct electric heaters built in (think immersion heaters) which kick in when the heat pump cannot meet the demand (which is in the middle of winter just when you need it!). It is this boost heating that increases the running costs.

[ZARDOZ]

Not yet from personal experience, but I'm told my place will cost about £700 per quarter which doesn't seem too bad.

Of course it depends on the hot water and heating settings (i.e. "on all the time" v "configured hours")

As late of 2009 oil was fairly reasonable. Now it's almost double the price. £600 is around 1000 litres. In the winter that would last us maybe 2.5 months with very moderate use (couple of hours in the morning. about 4 hrs in the evening).

From my experience oil costs at least 60% more than Gas for the same output.

Looked into ground heating, but they require digging up to be maintained. Might look into air source heat pumps and wood pellet burners at some point.

[Coalman]

With heat pumps, both air and ground, if you house is poorly insulated they will not get the efficiency they claim.
Have you looked at biomass boilers? More expensive but the fuel is a lot cheaper, about 4 pence per kilowatt.

[OwlHoot]

Oil fired heating has to be expensive - do you have any figures for dwelling cost per year you could share?

Not yet from personal experience, but I'm told my place will cost about £700 per quarter which doesn't seem too bad.

Of course it depends on the hot water and heating settings (i.e. "on all the time" v "configured hours")

Out of interest, Gittins Gal (or anyone), do you know if any brand of oil burner that has a reputation, cost aside, as better quality than the rest, in the way that Vaillant are the generally regarded as the best gas boilers with Worcester a close second (although opinions may differ on the exact order) ?

[d000hg]

An oil or gas range doesn't really count though in my book. They are actually controllable. Coal (I think ours was anthracite) is far better/worse - you have to keep it lit all the damn time unless you want to wait hours for it to get going, and cooking is very much a matter of trial and error.

Fun though.

[Gittins Gal]

I certainly wouldn't describe them as glamourous. They are inefficient, a PITA to cook on and lack fine-grained control for heating.

It's more like owning/driving a classic car, it makes little logic but they're intrinsically nice. Like an open fire, it feels cosier.

No, they are not at all efficient. We need 500 litres every 2 months during the winter months to keep a 3 bed cottage (albeit a very drafty one) heated. Though it does all our cooking & hot water too. In the summer months we turn it off and do all our cooking on the bbq, an induction hob, microwave or in the crockpot. There's an immersion for the hot water.

They seem to be a must have for all these PITA chattering class downshifters who seem to be moving in everywhere around here. Along with the f*****g yurt in the garden and the herd of alpacas.

[d000hg]

I certainly wouldn't describe them as glamourous. They are inefficient, a PITA to cook on and lack fine-grained control for heating.

It's more like owning/driving a classic car, it makes little logic but they're intrinsically nice. Like an open fire, it feels cosier.

[VectraMan]

Ah, the joys of an old-fashioned Rayburn/Aga.

I lived in a house with whichever the coal fired one is. My Landlady mostly lived in her kitchen (where it was) as that was the one room that was properly warm in winter.

I don't quite understand the glamour that seems to be attached to them; must be really inefficient for one.

[d000hg]

Ah, the joys of an old-fashioned Rayburn/Aga.

[Gittins Gal]

Oil here.

No gas mains but could have a gas cylinder that gets topped up in the same way as oil. I'm sure some of the time oil is more expensive than gas and other times the opposite is true depending on the geopolitical situation.

Haven't looked into solid fuel though. My recollections of solid fuel fired boilers are of them going out a lot. At the most inconvenient times. That was with Welsh anthracite too which was top quality fuel. You probably can't get that any more so I dread to think how the imported stuff from Colombia, or wherever, performs.

I also considered converting our Rayburn (it does everything - cooking, heating and hot water) to electric. There are a few companies round here offering this conversion but I was talking to the chap who came to service our appliance a while back and he didn't think these conversions were up to the job. Not man enough, in his words, when you're heating 12 radiators as well as everything else.

[d000hg]

Air based heat pumps will work just fine - even at 0 celsius that's still a lot of energy in the air.

My mum looked at having it done, but they were really not very good. Told her the house would not be visually impacted then turned up on the day to stick pipes all over the place. Turns out the salesman was making promises without consulting the engineers. Then they argued all the parts were already made and she'd have to pay thousands even though she told them not to install it or do any work - a recently widowed pensioner. I think she ended up getting most back, but down a grand or so.

Seemed all a bit of a kerfuffle just to change the heating over.

[Troll]

Oil fired heating has to be expensive - do you have any figures for dwelling cost per year you could share?

[VectraMan]

What you want is a ground sourced heat pump, though that does mean digging a big hole / trench. That's because the ground temperature is pretty stable all year round once you get a few metres down. The air pumps lose efficiency rapidly once the air temperature drops. They claim up to 400% efficiency (obviously that's bollocks but it means for every KW of electricity you get the equivalent of four 1KW electric bars in heat), so that's pretty good.

That's what I know from researching it. My Dad was going to do this for his house in France (which doesn't have gas), but decided the air pump wasn't worth it.

[OwlHoot]

While checking the price of new oil fired boilers, in case my current elderly looking one konks out for good, I came across this page:

Ecovision Systems - Buy A Heat Pump Instead of An Oil Boiler

Does anyone here use one of these heat pumps? Are they as good as the blurb on that page claims?

I find it hard to believe they can extract on their own enough heat from the air to heat a hot bath, or anything come to that in the dead of winter. Seems to contradict the basic laws of thermodynamics.