Anyone heating their property with a Heat Pump?

[Btuckey]

Hi Tony,

Our base is the 'Dalle de Compression' consisting of the now standard concrete beams with polystyrene in-fill.  Above this the electricity gaines and water pipes are laid which were encased in a 4cm chape.  When this was dry the Sofath contractor laid a covering of 2.5cm thick high density polyurethane sheet.  The heating pipes were then clipped to the poly sheeting.  I asked about the 'egg crates' but he didn't reckon on them at all.  Ok for DIY was his response!  The pipes were then encased in a further chape 6cm deep to a specification of 350kg/m3.  When all of this was dry the contractor returned and laid a self-levelling liquid chape 5cm deep.  On this final layer was laid the carrelage utilising a special heat conducting glue/cement (Parex 556 http://www.atoca.com/produits/cache/parexlanko/556_PROLIFLUIDE_ANHYDRITE.htm ).

Cheers.

Brian 

[Devon]

Thank's to all the contributors to what has become a very informative thread. I have just returned from a fortnight working on my build and giving further thought to heating my house.

My plumber suggests the geothermal, heatpump, underfloor heating. I am sure this would be the most economical system to run once installed but installation costs are prohibitive. I am also concerned about the working life span of the underfloor pipes and the pump. How long are the pipes guaranteed? I did hear of underfloor heating pipes failing after 18 months.  Concrete is corosive and renewing the pipes means breaking up the whole tiled slab floor [:(] Another downside to underfloor heating is the time and care required to dry the floor: I think I am right in saying the concrete slab can be damaged if it is heated too quickly too soon. The system also requires 2 days to 'get up to heat' I believe, not a problem for winter but not great during the odd Autumn/Spring cold snap.

I managed to find a couple of air heat pumps working on domestic buildings and, IMHO, the slight humming sound they emit would be annoying on a quiet day or during the night. I also thought they were unsightly.

At the moment a woodburner fitted with a heat exchanger (I have some trees to fell for a supply of logs) backed up with electric wall heaters would seem the most economical heating method once installation costs and lifespan of systems are taken into acount. 

Btuckey/Brian, the level and standard of insulation you have incorporated into your build is very impressive. I keep coming to the the conclusion that insulation would is the best place to invest my money to reduce heating running costs, complimented with doubleglazed windows.

[powerdesal]

[quote user="Devon"]

Btuckey/Brian, the level and standard of insulation you have incorporated into your build is very impressive. I keep coming to the the conclusion that insulation would is the best place to invest my money to reduce heating running costs, complimented with doubleglazed windows.

[/quote]

Insulation is, by far, the cheapest form of heating available. However, as in most things in life, a compromise is necessary to balance life style and aesthetics against massive insulation and reduced heating costs. It is of course perfectly possible to insulate to the level where body heat alone will be sufficient to maintain temperature but I personally would not like to live in those conditions.

On a pedantic note, double glazing is not complimentary to insulation, it is insulation. Triple glazing with large air gaps under vacuum is obviously the ultimate but not realistically cost effective or aesthetically  acceptable.

[Devon]

[quote user="powerdesal"][quote user="Devon"]

Btuckey/Brian, the level and standard of insulation you have incorporated into your build is very impressive. I keep coming to the the conclusion that insulation would is the best place to invest my money to reduce heating running costs, complimented with doubleglazed windows.

[/quote]

Insulation is, by far, the cheapest form of heating available. However, as in most things in life, a compromise is necessary to balance life style and aesthetics against massive insulation and reduced heating costs. It is of course perfectly possible to insulate to the level where body heat alone will be sufficient to maintain temperature but I personally would not like to live in those conditions.

On a pedantic note, double glazing is not complimentary to insulation, it is insulation. Triple glazing with large air gaps under vacuum is obviously the ultimate but not realistically cost effective or aesthetically  acceptable.
[/quote]

 

Also on a pedantic  note, Insulation is not, by far, the cheapest form of heating available: it's a material to reduce the unwanted loss or increase of heat [:)]

[powerdesal]

'Insulation' (adj) is a material to reduce the unwanted loss or increase of heat

'Insulation' as a verb - ie doing insulation could be said to be installing heating (in a European concept) or cooling (in a middle east concept), however I will concede [:P]

[kitty]

Hi,

We have pulled up all our floors and relaid them with underfloor heating pipes in the screed.  The system at present relies on evacuated tube solar panels which work fine when the sun shines.  The floor gets warm in an hour.  We have lots of data if anyone is interested.  Our progress is shown on our blog http://smartfrance.blogspot.com .  We have 2 Mitsubishi reversible aircon units as well for when the sun doesn't shine.  They work well except when it is really cold, then they struggle to cope.  The units are a few years old so may not have the latest refrigerant in them.  We are thinking of attaching a water/ water heat pump to the underfloor system and will probably buy that from Navitron who have a supplier in France.  The heat pump on the underfloor loop would make our system more flexible.  We may scavenge some of the heat from our swimming pool and the rest from ground loops.  As we have a digger and a large plot the groundwork should not cost much money, just time.  We bought our underfloor heating pipes from Brico Depot and so far so good (costs about 50 euro per 100m and we have 700m).  We had no leaks on installation and the pipes appear to be very tough.  Has anyone used a Navitron heat pump in France?

[plastered]

I have put underfloor heating into the renovated house I have completed using an air energy heat pump. It runs the underfloor heating downstairs and radiators upstairs and in its 2nd winter I have had no problems. I would recommend it everytime in a new build.

[Devon]

[quote user="plastered"]I have put underfloor heating into the renovated house I have completed using an air energy heat pump. It runs the underfloor heating downstairs and radiators upstairs and in its 2nd winter I have had no problems. I would recommend it everytime in a new build.[/quote]

 

Plastered, I see that, like me, you are in the Charente Marime region. Would you mind telling me, did you source your heat pump system locally? Did you install the system yourself? As I stated in an earlier post, I was going away from the idea of a heat exchange pump but I am still not decided. Installation cost seems to be the biggest bugbear.

[Irishryan]

I heat my hot water with an Air source heat pump. I bought it from the UK from Trianco, it is 3KW (output) but they do others at 5KW and 12KW for heating and hotwater. It cost around £1000 but I have since found a cheaper source.

They have a site here:-

http://www.trianco.co.uk/activair.cfm

I fitted it myself and after an initial start up problem which a forum user sorted for me it work perfectly. It is very quiet at about 50 decibels and heats the water very very well. It has only been in for about two months so the savings are hard to calculate yet but I believe I am saving about 66% of my old electricity immersion consumption. I did have to fit a new multi coil cylinder but I needed a new one anyway.

I could not have fitted solar because of the trees and the fact I work away a lot and the initial costs were a lot more. I intend using a woodburner to get rid of the tree problem and maybe add solar in the future and possibly an underfloor heating system.

I saved a fortune buying a UK product, I could speak to the technical helpline and could understand the installation manuals.

I lost out on some supposed tax breaks but saved a fortune by DIY install.

It begs the question why are French ECO technologies twice the price of UK /Irish systems ?