Air Source Heat Pump

[Leoki]

Hello

I am a general domestic plumber and i have a customer who i am trying to assist with information regards their Air Source Heat Pump.

The customers are both elderly in their late 70's early 80's and they live in a detatched property with 5 bedrooms built circa 1920. The property has cavity wall insulation and some but not a great deal of loft insulation. The windows are mainly single glazed except for a couple of windows which have secondary glazing.

The couple had a Daikin Altherma air source heat pump installed in July 2009 to replace their then aged gas fired boiler. There is also a Heat Rae Sadia electric water heater incorporated into the system. Since the pump was installed they have struggled to achieve the heating and hot water that they hoped to get.

I understand how the technology works but i am not an installer. I know that heat pumps provide a lower mean water temperate, typically about 55 degrees celcius.

The company that installed the system gained their MCS certification in 2010 after the installation so i do not believe the customer can claim for any benefits from the renewable heat incentive scheme which will hopefully get going this year ?

I feel that the couple have been sold a product that is not suitable for their situation/requirement. Given the age of the building and the potential for heat loss as good as the technology is it is never going to provide what this couple need.

Can anyone give me advice on who i could talk too to get a view as to whether or not a product has been misold. I have been liaising with the company on the couples behalf but find them frustrating to deal with. At the moment the system is waiting on new back up heaters from Daikin which the company installing say will improve the situation (at the customers request i am going to be on site doing other work at the time the company sends it engineers to liaise with them)

The couple expected that the new system would be at least close to equal to their old system. The truth is they struggle to get enough heating and hot water and their energy costs (electricity) have increased almost 10 fold.

Given the company did not achieve MCS certification until 2010 is there a body/group with whom the couple could register a complaint ?


Thankyou for any responses that follow :cheesy:

 

[Barry98]

what have they got in writing ?

 

[Leoki]

Not totally sure. They have an amount of paperwork that came with the installation. The thing i think they should have but not sure if they do is the intial assesment for suitability. Would the company have completed a form taking into account the building, its age, construction and things like material heat loss ?

 

[Barry98]

i would of thought so , would need designs / plans. id check there paper work before you go any further otherwise its a case of he said they said etc

 

[Leoki]

bod - thanks for that. I will ask them this evening if there were any original design plans/specifications and if they company made any recomendations, e.g double glazing etc.

 

[ecowarm]

They would never get any RHI as it has gas to the property. The ashp will never compete with gas on cost and have been missold on this alone.

 

[eaton]

As said they could only get rhi if off grid, as for not running right, hot water will only get to 50c which is plenty so check that, best thing to do is get a thermometer and leave in each room to check temp of rooms, if not getting warm enough check flow and return temps at unit and each rad, if still wrong do your own heat loss of house and check rad sizes

 

[mooreofdevizes]

I have installed about 50 Daikin Althermas and seen quite a few that have been undersized. I've helped several people that have been sold a system that is not fit for purpose. Send me a private message and I will help all I can as it really annoys me that these people go around selling systems that are undersized. This is what gets heat pumps a bad name.

 

[quality]

They would never get any RHI as it has gas to the property. The ashp will never compete with gas on cost and have been missold on this alone.

How many times do we have to explain that this - gas v elec

 

[mooreofdevizes]

Quality, I know what you mean I get it all the time. Some people will sell the heat with total disregard to running costs etc. At best you will match running costs against gas but never get back your capital cost.