“And you can hardly hear it at all,” says Food. In total, the family probably spends £140 a month on electricity, which is broadly in line with estimates for a combined gas and electricity bill in a large house. He says the new generation air source pump, built by Mitsubishi, is able to keep the whole house warm and produce enough hot water for the family of four. “Today, we’ve installed the ‘Rolls-Royce of heat pumps’ and it’s brilliant,” says Food. For seven years, the air source heat pump – which he says was “poorly installed, and poorly built” – struggled to keep the four-bedroom 1930s house warm during cold weather, and drew complaints from the neighbours about the noise. “We had our first heat pump installed about 10 years ago, and it was awful,” says Mark Food, from Felsted in Essex. “I wouldn’t consider a heat pump again until the technology has improved.” ‘Technology is improving all the time’ “I’ve got a mate and he’s had this done he’s got the double pump with underfloor heating in his new-build and it works great,” he adds. “I’ve spoken to other people about their heat pumps – there are some good Mitsubishi models – but I feel like I was given a cheap knock-off,” he says. The installer later admitted a double pump might have been a better fit and offered to upgrade the model, but Mangera told the installer “to take it away unless they’d put in underfloor heating too”. Mangera’s energy use surged from 500 units of electricity a month to more than 2,000 units and “everyone was cold”, he says. On days when temperatures were above 5C, the single-pump device was able to keep the house warm, but on days colder than 5C “it was as useful as a chocolate fireguard”. He believes his installer suggested a heat pump model which was not powerful enough to warm the house once the cold winter weather set in. So the next step was to get an air source heat pump,” he says. Mangera bought his new-build house nine years ago and has since undertaken renovation including new insulation, triple glazing and solar panels. I wouldn’t consider a heat pump again until the technology has improved My mate’s got the double pump with underfloor heating – it works great. “It was the biggest mistake I’ve made in a long time,” says Alf Mangera, a youth worker in Blackburn, on his decision to fit a heat pump to his home shortly before Christmas. “It’s no more noisy than the boiler and quite how it makes piping hot water when the air temperature outside is freezing is a mystery, but we’ll take that!” ‘As useful as a chocolate fireguard’ The heat pump cost £14,000 the government grant of £8,400, to be paid over a seven-year period, leaves a net cost of £5,600. “The second pleasant surprise was the running cost.”Īfter a hefty initial outlay, the couple’s solar panels now generate more than enough electricity to run the Mitsubishi heat pump, compared with paying £900 a year for oil. “The first pleasant surprise was how nice it was to have the whole house, which is about 1,700 sq ft, at 20 degrees all day, especially when Covid has confined us to our home for much longer than normal,” says Deed. The house already benefited from cavity wall insulation, loft insulation and double glazing. They settled on an electric heat pump to make the most of their green electricity tariff and planned solar panels, which they fitted over the summer. “We considered cost as well as environmental impact and this ruled out going with oil again – volatile in price, a pain for delivery and of course not good for the environment,” he says.
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