LONG: I've had my ASHP installed.
Apologies in advance - this is very long as it describes over a week of work all told, so make sure you've made a brew first :D There will also be the odd retrospective edit here and there as I wrote this on mobile but I'm now on my PC with a proper screen to proof read it. The content is the same, it's just tidying up spelling and grammar etc.
So, we're now the week after our install was done. It started on 16/09, finished on 20/09. If you haven't seen my previous post about the survey, you can have a read here, although it's by no means required reading.
Recap
We live in a 78m2 2018 built 3 bed detached from Bellway. It's got a heat loss of 2.7kW, which is nothing in the grand scheme of things - an ideal house for an ASHP retrofit. For obvious reasons I'm not going to say where I live with any specific detail, but just so you've got an idea of our climate, I'm within the vague periphery of a major city in the North West of England in a non-coastal area.
We did not need planning permission after initially being told we did, so that was a hassle we managed to dodge thankfully. It's about as "plug and play" as a heat pump retrofit gets, which is nice as every other bit of writing or YouTube video I've found seems to be about putting a heat pump in some enormous old draughty house, which isn't really very useful info for our circumstances, as interesting as it is.
Installation
It’s been a bit hit and miss but we’re all in and working, which is a relief. I have got some photos but didn't want to get under their feet too much, so they're just taken as and when I'm not in the way.
Before Octopus even turned up, we got scaffolding delivered the Thursday prior to the install - we’d no idea this was needed, nobody had mentioned it so it’s just as well we were in!
Monday morning came, and they (2 plumbers and a spark) arrived as planned at 8am, followed by the delivery of the new hardware around 40 minutes later. Everything dropped off, they wasted no time turning the gas off and ripping the boiler out first - was a bit daunting seeing the empty hole in our kitchen, but at least we got a cupboard back. 😁
The flue was removed too leaving a giant hole, but that was filled with expanding foam, and a vent cover added outside and a bit of filler over the top internally. It’s not show home quality, but it’s behind a cupboard door so it’s really not a problem. Eventually we’re going to have the kitchen completely redone as the storage is pants, so we’ll have it properly skimmed then as the pipes also need to be removed from the wall. They did offer to do this but it meant removing a load of plaster, so we declined.
By the end of the first day we’d had the boiler removed, hot water tank drained and removed, the new tank put in and wired up temporarily via 3 pin plug and a lot of the external wiring done from the meter. The new pipe work had also started in the tank cupboard too. We also had the master bathroom and kitchen rads swapped, which took all of an hour to do.
New 180L Daikin tank with some piping done.
They left at 4 and we were left with hot water, or so we thought! Plugged in the immersion and it didn’t work. Turns out it was tripping, but it did it every evening through the week for reasons we can’t fathom so we ended up boosting it while they were here instead. No idea why but hey ho, we did have hot water most of the time.
Tuesday came and they cracked on with the pipe work again, starting to run it through the loft to the soffit and finishing the piping in the water tank cupboard as far as they could. Fairly straight forward, not much to report really. Heat pump was in the garden but still on the pallet in the box, and it was a bit of a state with stuff everywhere! Garden with all the various stuff laid about. We don't have kids or pets so really, it wasn't a problem.
Wednesday came and the plan was to get the pipe work up from the heat pump to the fascia, finish off the electrics externally and then crack on with the internal wiring. The heat pump was also moved to its final position, all bar the space needed to connect the pipes up at the back. Minimum space behind is 300mm so you do need some space, but it’s not too bad.
I should stress I’d also added trunking on, which was an extra and wasn’t delivered (!) but it did eventually arrive Wednesday lunch time after much chasing by the plumber. Annoying it’s not a standard bit of the install as it looks much smarter than a couple of lagged pipes and copex up the wall, but there we are. It also wasn’t upsold at any point - I only found out by complete chance it was an option.
Thursday arrived and the heat pump was pretty much in and done, it needed a few last things to sort (connecting to power, firing up etc) so we did have proper hot water again by that afternoon via heat pump. The controls were fitted and holes filled from our previous heating - we had dual zone heating but now it’s all off the one thermostat, so the walls had holes etc to fill.
The Daikin MMI is in the hot water cupboard hidden away, but honestly you never need to touch it anyway. The unit doesn’t seem to display SCOP (why?!) but does show energy used vs heat produced - annoyingly only with whole numbers, no decimals. I may tinker with ESPAltherma later on and use home assistant to display this though, will have to see if the board signs it off. cough
Friday came and I was in the office, but it was just tidying the trunking. Apparently it was a nightmare to do, it took most of the morning to sort!
I came home to a completed install, which was nice.
Other Photos
The finished install - note the flue cover and trunking, which really smartens everything up IMO. please ignore the broom I hadn't realised had fallen over
Initial niggles
The hot water was firing in the day due to the reheat setting being active and heating up the rads, so we were cooking away at 26c in the living room and no idea why! We sorted out a visit with Octopus once we worked out what the problem was (valve was set up incorrectly), and they were here less than 24 hours after reporting so 10/10 on that front. Rads were very hot though, so no worries about being cold.
The other one was the scaffolding… it took a week to remove after telling them I couldn’t get my bins out and I had landscapers due this coming Monday. It was a faff as the installation agent was AWOL, it was like they’d fallen off the face of the earth. It was eventually removed though… much stressing later!
Initial thoughts
We’ve had loads of hot water as it boosts to 48c overnight on the off peak rate, and then fires once it drops below 37c to bring it back up to 43c. Much more consistent than the old boiler, no worrying about boosting before a shower etc, it’s almost like a combi boiler in that regard which is very nice. Only the two of us and we’ve a 180 litre tank, so it works well for us.
Probably costs a bit more than leaving it set to only heat overnight (we're on Intelligent Go) but this was about quality of life as much as anything else. We also have the legionella cycle set to come on Sunday morning so we don't have a hot water schedule set specifically for Sundays, but you always end up with a tank of scorching hot water anyway.
The heating is now almost imperceptible when it comes on too. We have had a few mornings where the heating has come on but it’s all on weather compensation so it’s very low and slow, filling in the gaps as needed. Quite impressed so far!
They worked very tidily as well. They were very well house trained (not always a given, sadly…) and tided up thoroughly at the end of each day. We did take down the dining room table to give them room to store stuff inside, but we are replacing it anyway and the radiator needed to be swapped so it made sense. They are a credit to Octopus, really lovely people and were a pleasure to have in our house for a week. Not often you hear that with trades, but genuinely it is true.
We also had the gas meter removed on day 2, so we’re fully electric now. We had an induction hob fitted the week before they came so the boiler was the last gas appliance to go. No more standing charge!
If there's anything you're interested in that I've not mentioned or photographed etc, please do ask and I'll do my best to answer or take photos of - the app doesn't seem too bad either, can show screen shots of that too if anybody is interested.
The total for all of this work was... £1022. £841 for the actual install, then £181 for the trunking which is money well spent. 😁
Most importantly, The Boss also signed off on the work, so can't say fairer than that!