With a myriad of heating solutions on the market, is a Heat Pump right for my property??
How do you heat your home?
Many home owners are now questioning which type of heating and energy system should they choose for their homes. For decades now the most common form of heating in our homes has been the gas boiler. Great when gas was cheap and no-one worried about sustainability and carbon emissions, but what should you do now? There is a lot to consider when you are thinking of what heating and energy system to heat your home!
How to choose your heating and energy system
The list of heating options is growing, but the most common include:
- heat pumps
- biomass boilers
- electric underfloor heating
- solar heating
- electric boilers
- gas boilers
But how do you compare them and how do you choose how to heat your home?
The cheapest to install is likely to be electric underfloor heating. Deciding on the lowest cost version to run and maintain will depend on your overall heating needs.
However, the government have announced that by 2025, all new homes will be banned from installing gas and oil boilers. They will instead be heated by low-carbon alternatives. The ban is part of a UK action plan to reach carbon net zero by 2050. So now is the time to consider future proofing your property.
In the UK, we will need to phase out oil and gas heating systems like boilers to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. Promoting the need to replace them with renewable, low carbon technologies. These systems can help to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from households.
In a typical household, most of the energy bought is used to provide heating. To cut your carbon footprint significantly, you need to look at whether you can fit a low carbon heating system
Low Carbon Heating System
Biomass systems burn wood pellets, chips or logs to heat a single room, or to power central heating and hot water boilers. While burning the wood does emit carbon dioxide, it’s at a lower level than coal or oil provided the fuel is sourced locally. Biomass is considered a sustainable option as long as new plants and trees continue to grow in place of those used for fuel.
Heat pumps are becoming popular and developing all the time. Ground source and air source are the two main devices, while hybrid, absorption and water source heat pump are also available. Heat pumps use less fossil fuels than most other systems, so are a more sustainable, low carbon source of heating.
They work by absorbing heat from a source and transferring it to a fluid, which is compressed to increase the temperature further. The heat is typically transferred from the fluid into water, which is then used to provide heating and hot water to your home.
Solar heating systems use solar panels, called collectors, fitted to your roof. These collect heat from the sun and use it to heat up water that’s stored in a hot water cylinder.
What is right for me?
Of course, various grants and support mechanisms can dramatically change the relative economics. Actually, it is not really possible to make a final choice without seeing the site and knowing about the overall statistics of the building that needs to be heated. That is where our site surveys can help. Site Surveys
For example, if you already have a gas pipe to the building on site or if there is no access to deliver biomass and the garden won’t accept ground coils or boreholes for a heat pump, then the choice will be limited. If you are in a rural site with no gas, have your own wood supply, then biomass makes a lot of sense.
However I keep coming back to the simple fact that they will all costs less to install, run and have lower emissions if you get the house insulation, air tightness right first and then make sure the heating is installed and set-up properly.
CLPM Heat Pump Advice
Green Energy
From a ‘green’ point of view, heat pumps are far more eco than fossil fuel boilers, but they still require electricity which is only as eco as the generation source. Whilst some electricity suppliers still rely on the use of fossil fuels in production of electricity there are green energy suppliers which invest in renewables and use these as the source of generation. Examples of these are wind turbines and solar panels.
Gas
Gas is still currently a cost-effective way of heating, with gas currently being around three times cheaper than electric at peak rate per kW, although this will fluctuate depending on the market prices.
We anticipate that in the near future government policy will begin to put pressure on reducing gas use for heating in response to climate change targets by raising green levies on gas utility bills whilst reducing the same levies on electric utility bills.
Heat Pumps
Heat pumps are around three times more efficient than gas boilers, so whilst electricity prices are currently higher than gas prices the greater efficiency of the heat pump should counter this and similar running costs would be expected. With heat pumps being far more efficient at producing heat than fossil fuel boilers, a significant reduction in your carbon footprint would be expected.
One of the main drawbacks with heat pump technologies is the limit of output of the units. The maximum heat output of a single air source heat pump on a standard single phase power supply is in the region of 12 kW. For a ground source heat pump on a standard single phase power supply it is in the region of 20 kW.
Issues
Another issue is that the technology to produce a heat pump equivalent of a combination (combi) boiler doesn’t currently exist. If a boiler with a built in instantaneous hot water feature, such as a gas combination (or combi) boiler, is replaced by a heat pump then a hot water cylinder has to be incorporated into the system, and physical room space has to be allocated to the cylinder.
In order to ascertain an accurate heat requirement figure for the property an in depth room by room heat loss calculation survey and report would be required. A decision on any thermal improvements would need to be made prior to the survey being carried out as the improvements would need to be factored into the calculations.
Ground source heat pumps derive their energy from the ground. They do this either via pipes buried under the ground, either horizontally, which requires a significant surface area, or vertically, by drilling boreholes. Either method is quite costly with disruption due to the ground works.
Heat pumps deliver heated water at around 35 to 55 degrees centigrade which is cooler than a conventional boiler. This means that existing radiators may not be effective and may need replacing with larger models.
Suggestions
We suggest that a buffer storage vessel is incorporated into the system if practical.
A buffer storage vessel increases the volume of water in the heating system. In doing so the vessel balances the system, so the heat pump works more efficiently by eliminating short cycling. Without this vessel the heat pump continually adjusts by turning itself on and off, especially in changeable spring and autumn weather, resulting in more wear and tear.
The vessel also allows the two circuits of a heat pump system to work both together and independently at the same time. This is advantageous because the two circuits need different flow rates and temperatures to work at their best. What’s right for the heat pump circuit isn’t right for the “giving out heat” (i.e. underfloor heating or radiators) circuit.
Finally, the vessel aids the heat pumps defrost cycle, allowing heat from the buffer to facilitate the defrosting without taking heat from the home’s radiators.
Help and Advice
If you have questions or just need a bit of friendly advice about which type of heating and energy system should you choose for your house? Please get in touch! Call our team on 01923 896550.
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