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I use a Nibe heat pump which runs my hot water and wet underfloor heating. I also have 750m of external plain pipe in trenches that are in excess of 1m deep (no slinkies used in my installation). Heat pumps are a tried and tested technology that works very well when properly designed and appropriately utilised. Unfortunately there are a lot of less-than-scrupulous companies charging high costs for heat pumps to replace boilers in inappropriate heating systems that have to operate with high flow temperatures to achieve their output, and in these cases it is not surprising to hear that he running costs are extremely high (far in excess of the boiler they replaced) and have been unreliable due to not being plumbed in properly to ensure minimum flow rates are met (these systems almost never have a buffer tank as part of there installation). My system has been in and working faultlessly since I built my house over 8 years ago.
I'm a mechanical engineer by training who has worked in the commercial and residential energy efficiency/controls area for nearly 30 years so have spent a lot of time researching and working with all kinds of heat sources and system designs.
I'm hoping to add a wind turbine next - a 3kW model should be a good match for my heat pump demand (both in output and peak generation) and move me much closer to zero import. Depending on how well that goes I'd be more likely to revisit battery storage. However now that we have an electric car (which may be able to be used to store power and put this back into the local network when needed) we might not need to bother with conventional battery banks in future in any case. |
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