Solar friendly Heat Pump for UK weather?

Hi All,

I recently bought an old house and I'm currently renovating it. I was investigating heat pump technology as a way to avoid installing a gas boiler for hot water andheating and something that might be easy to connect to my solar system (soft start), but there's not a whole lot of agreement from what I can see on the subject, there's no clear brand to go with. It's all quite expensive, unjustifiably so in my opinion,for something that's pretty much a fancy reverse fridge (this might be a bit harsh!).

Does it make more sense just to go with a gas boiler for hot water and house heatingand leave my panels to power my electricity or is there a good heat pump product that's reasonable pricedfor UK weather? I'm aiming for my house to have a good level of insulation when the renovation is over. The house is107 m^2 in size.

All advice greatly appreciated.

Unless you want to retrofit UFH to all ground floors and take advantage of the reduced loop temperatures that brings, in turn enabling you to achieve a high COP from a heatpump, you're better going thermal store in my opinion.

I'm a big thermal store fan, but then I have a unhealthy obsession with heating from wood

I'm in Southern OR -a "Zone 4 (moderate)" climate and my goal is to be'off grid' capable to a reasonable degree.[size=small] I have a 12.8kwh PV array (45 panels).[/size]

I looked at fire places (very difficult to install for my house + wood management + pollution) and other means (1000gal propane tank)and the answer to me (with enough Solar)keptcoming up "Heat Pump".

So I went whole house heat pump. Thespecific equipment is
- Lennox "SLP98V" ...SLP98VUH090XV60C:5 ton Furnace/Air-Handler dual fuelw/gas as 2nd fuel, indoor unit. -https://www.pickhvac.com/gas-furnace/lennox/
- Lennox "XP25" ... XP25-048: 4 ton HeatPump, outdoor unit -https://www.pickhvac.com/heat-pump/lennox/
- System is SEER 20, HSPF 9.5 according to the installer

My consumption in kwh/month so far have been....




I love it that I can heat my house in March for 219kwh and cool it in Jul/Aug for 700kwh. I'm still waiting on Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb numbers.... which won't be so nice I'm sure.

Not sure of your vendors/equipment but seems like "4ton, 2600sq ft, SEER 20 / HSPF 9.5 in Zone 4 temp" should be pretty standard to search for equipment. Maybe my example/details will give a ballpark of what's possible.

107m2 is roughly 1000sqft. That's small. Have you considered a mini-split unit just for the hvac. They're great for heating up small areas. You can leave the existing system as almost a backup or to supplement.

Pollution with heating with Wood? Never heard it called pollution unless you use oil or plastic mixed in while heating its pretty Good in terms of single house to burn pure Wood with. New burner.

In My case i need 100kWh per Day in the Winter. Thats what i get per Day in Summer in solar during Winter i get 5 at Most.
So doing solar for heater is not Always easy. UK have almost same weather as me. Perhaps slightly Warner.

I would go air/air unit.

daromer said:

Pollution with heating with Wood? Never heard it called pollution unless you use oil or plastic mixed in while heating

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Yes sir - I live in a valley of 220,000 people surrounded by mountains and the smoke from fire places will smog up the valley - strictly controlled and people are 'shamed' these days for doing fire for heat as it can stress old people breathing. Not commenting on good/bad - just a reality of US living insome places these days and is strictly enforced with permits / special fire places required - big hassle to install wood burning heat and not allowed to operate it on heavy smoke days.

daromer said:

Pollution with heating with Wood? Never heard it called pollution unless you use oil or plastic mixed in while heating its pretty Good in terms of single house to burn pure Wood with. New burner.

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I've read that there's a strong indication that airborne soot can be blown quite a distance and land on ice and glaciers. Since the dark particlesabsorb sunlight much more than ice, it causes accelerated melting.

Still better than burning oil/gas IMHO, since it's recaptured carbon.

Im guessing that is due to people using standard open heating systems with no secondary burn chamber and stuff.. They are pretty inefficient and sot alot including alot of coloured smoke

For instance my system you cant see if its burning or not from the chimney. They are very very efficient anad the heat in the chimney is never above 200c meanwhile in the burn chamber you can easily glow iron . Of course they arent 100% so if you have 100 000 in small area it will be noticeable i guess.

Its basically almost same as the burners in the city here that heat the common hot water.

Note that proper setups set up in sweden today even have lambda meters and stuff