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Heat pump sales rise across Europe

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Re: Heat pump sales rise across Europe

#131

Post by mikestorrent »

bluGill wrote: post #61
ndr42 wrote: post #26

> [it] become[s] cheaper than gas heating within 11 to 14 years This a no-brainer for buildings with high energy use. But we looked into getting a heat pump last year but it doesn't pan out because our house (15 years old) has a very low energy use and we would not recover the costs (about 20K euros after subsidies) for 20+ years.

Your existing system will not last forever. When you have to spend money anyway that changes things.

It did for me. 40-year old furnace was starting to sound bad and subsidies locally were excellent; I now have a 3-ton heat pump and my house is fine in winter or summer for far less money than gas. It might have been harder to justify without subsidy, but we do need people to make this shift and a lot of homeowners will not consider things with 20-year ROI.

Re: Heat pump sales rise across Europe

#132

Post by maxerickson »

double0jimb0 wrote: post #58
adonovan wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the ground source heat up (or cool down) over time, making it less effective? The deep ground is very well insulated, which is why after a century of operation the London Underground is 10 degrees warmer. I wonder whether GSHP users need to balance their load by (say) consuming more heating than they actually need in winter so that summer cooling remains effective.

I think there are two types of this, only have experience with 1 so far. Within a single season, absolutely. In deep winter entering water temp (EWT) is around 30degF (this is a pretty accurate measure of bulk ground temp). Typical for where I live is 50degF. Other type is permanent change that persists year over year. Haven't lived here long enough to measure this. But if you pull more heat from the ground in the wi…

I wonder if you could cost effectively store heat during the summer, running a system strictly to do that vs doing it as a side effect of conditioning.

Re: Heat pump sales rise across Europe

#133

Post by stephen_g »

jakozaur wrote: post #8

A heat pump could win as the best HVAC technology, though a better drilling for ground-sourced ones. Just a shallow drilling (up to 100m) that works in retrofit mode, such as drilling from the basement, would be a great upgrade: - No outdoor unit that looks awful in many settings - works well, even in the coldest winter, without a spike in electricity usage, COP 5 - very reliable with long durability - super quiet, n…

The 'outdoor unit that looks awful' is an interesting quirk especially with US equipment - most Japanese and European residential units actually look fine, I'm not sure why American ones have tended to look especially ugly.

I notice this with electrical stuff too - things like switchboards etc. in residential and light commercial installations we have quite neat stuff that's usually quite streamlined and in light white/grey/cream colours, whereas the switchboards and conduits and thigns I see in videos of US home installations look like grey chunky metal stuff that you'd only see in heavy industrial sites here!

Re: Heat pump sales rise across Europe

#134

Post by coryrc »

stephen_g wrote: post #133
jakozaur wrote: post #8

A heat pump could win as the best HVAC technology, though a better drilling for ground-sourced ones. Just a shallow drilling (up to 100m) that works in retrofit mode, such as drilling from the basement, would be a great upgrade: - No outdoor unit that looks awful in many settings - works well, even in the coldest winter, without a spike in electricity usage, COP 5 - very reliable with long durability - super quiet, n…

The 'outdoor unit that looks awful' is an interesting quirk especially with US equipment - most Japanese and European residential units actually look fine, I'm not sure why American ones have tended to look especially ugly. I notice this with electrical stuff too - things like switchboards etc. in residential and light commercial installations we have quite neat stuff that's usually quite streamlined and in light whi…

Buying the panel box which is unchanged from the last 70 years and costs $50 less than a nicer new style, but also our houses are big enough the panel is nearly always in a mechanical room so who cares what it looks like.

Re: Heat pump sales rise across Europe

#135

Post by gopperl »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #111
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #43

For anybody in TVA's electricity networks (mostly: Tennessee): they offer an annual promotion to single-family homeowners only to purchase an $1800 AO heatpump waterheater for only $250 . Maths: 85% discount on fancy new waterheater, which also dehumidifies and cools your house (passive result of heatpump). TVA usually offers this promotion between Thanksgiving and NYE. You can order online from HomeDepot, or walk in…

> which also dehumidifies and cools your house (passive result of heatpump). Wait do you install these indoors? I get it's pretty hot in Tennessee, but still got some winters? Also isn't noise an issue? In most of Australia these are installed outdoors. Pool heaters is another one where one could harvest indoor heat.

I recently had mine installed indoors and regret it.

It's not so much the noise, it's the vibration. The damn thing reverberates through the whole house. In some areas it's quiet, in other areas there's a very disruptive hum.

The worst part though? It has an app which is infuriatingly shit. None of it makes sense, and much of it is silently locked down without informing the user (get used to "Oops! Try again!" messages).

There is no way to shut it up during sleeping hours. I cannot believe there is no option to do so. If I had kids trying to sleep here, I would demand a refund for this reason alone. It is marketed as a super quiet heat pump for indoor installation.

The firmware is cooked. Sometimes the compressor just stays on... I've left it for 36hrs+ and it never turns off. I have to power cycle it.

Fortunately there is an option in the app to use the backup electric heater instead of the heat pump. I'm willing to just use it as a poor electric heater at this point. But... It's broken. It just silently doesn't take effect. Literally as I'm typing this, the room is vibrating due to the compressor while the app reports the electric heater is off.

And now I'm mad again. Fuck Stiebel Eltron.

Re: Heat pump sales rise across Europe

#136

Post by ProllyInfamous »

phil21 wrote: post #130
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>IBEW electricians and know enough to be dangerous You definitely sound just like us =P >minimum flow [for tankless] Yes, my brother has a kitchen pretty far from his tankless and if you don't have a disrespectful (i.e. anti-environmentalist) flow going, it's going to get cold and then stay that way for quite a while. It is aggravating, even as an occassional guest in his house – the whole damn line has to heat back…

> . It is aggravating, even as an occassional guest in his house – the whole damn line has to heat back up, again!. For point sources located far away from the heater, you are supposed to install a return loop. Modern tankless have a tiny (1-3 gallon) superheated tank and recirculation pump designed specifically for this use-case. You can pry my continuous water heaters from my cold dead hands. What is much more anno…

In your personal usage preferance (tankless), the only reason you would consider using a tank again is if you wanted a reasonably-efficient backup generator/offgrid/standby (or the free dehumidification/energy savings).

I've used both and from an environmentalist living in a humid subtrop. rainforest, the hybrid tank (heatpump) makes most sense. Thankfully, they also have heating elements (and can run both heat sources, simultaneously).

Re: Heat pump sales rise across Europe

#137

Post by jmercouris »

pimlottc wrote: post #33
ejoebstl wrote: post #24

In DACH, there's not really an alternative for many homes. Heat pumps are by now cheaper, more efficient, more versatile and definitely greener than other means of heating. If you get one, just make sure to get the dimensioning right. They are WAY more complex to plan, install and maintain than traditional heating.

> DACH, an acronym for Deutschland (Germany), Austria, Confoederatio Helvetica (Swiss Confederation), the three major German-speaking countries I was not familiar with this term before, had to look it up.

It doesn’t even make sense though, shouldn’t it be DÖCH?

Re: Heat pump sales rise across Europe

#138

Post by ProllyInfamous »

phil21 wrote: post #129
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>fellow ratepayers This reduces electric infrastructure demand, which is why it's subsidized. Presumably, this saves money (duh) for the company (duh) and possibly the customers (presumable duh). Presumably people who care about the planet understand this. ---- Running a single heatpump waterheater is the equivalent of not driving your car, annually, according to TVA (in carbon footprint). I'm running four [two house…

> This reduces electric infrastructure demand, which is why it's subsidized. Presumably, this saves money Short term gain, long term pain. The story of our entire electrical infrastructure the past couple generations. Why invest in capital infrastructure like generation or transmission capacity when you can simply reduce peak demand via stuff like this. Eventually you run out of cheap tricks and need to actually buil…

TVA delivers among the least expensive power in the country. This is largely due to substantial nuclear and hydro, albeit with coal and gas-peakers to fill in gaps.

We also have a huge pump-storage facility, and are (foolishly, IMHO) pursuing a second pump facility in Alabama (instead, we should pursue battery electric storage at sub-stations). The currect structure can sink an entire nuclear facility (or deliver, relatively instantaneously by grid standards).

µicronuclear is the next big buzzword in TVA – which I think is smart but question-inducing (e.g. consider the multi-billion dollar Bellafonte facility, which has never generated a single kWH – and has largely been scrapped to lowest-bidding salvagers). I love nuclear energy, but TVA doesn't have the best track-record (despite substantial generation from current facilities).

My personal suggestion for a unified electric america would be to have Texas join the federal grids (i.e. accept national regulation) so that their massive wind and solar can then slosh around the entire continent (similar to how PNW buys most of California's main daytime generator: solar; then offset dips with their own massive hydro). As they operate now, they refuse federal regulation (so don't have any substantial cross-border connections). See: ERCOT (Texas Grid Operator, ideal crony capitalist market IMHO), particularly how they regulate/price MWHs.

Re: Heat pump sales rise across Europe

#139

Post by ProllyInfamous »

laurencerowe wrote: post #125
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>fellow ratepayers This reduces electric infrastructure demand, which is why it's subsidized. Presumably, this saves money (duh) for the company (duh) and possibly the customers (presumable duh). Presumably people who care about the planet understand this. ---- Running a single heatpump waterheater is the equivalent of not driving your car, annually, according to TVA (in carbon footprint). I'm running four [two house…

> Running a single heatpump waterheater is the equivalent of not driving your car, annually, according to TVA (in carbon footprint). This seems a lot but for utilities which still have coal plants it seems accurate if the reduced demand allows them to close the coal plant down. A typical car emits 4.6 tonnes CO2 per year. https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-t... Heat pump saves around 3,760 kWh…

/r/ TheyDidTheMath [thanks!], cited, too

You mean "clean coal" isn't clean?!?

[•] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwP2mSZpe0Q> ClimateTown

Re: Heat pump sales rise across Europe

#140

Post by ProllyInfamous »

gopperl wrote: post #135
dzhiurgis wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which also dehumidifies and cools your house (passive result of heatpump). Wait do you install these indoors? I get it's pretty hot in Tennessee, but still got some winters? Also isn't noise an issue? In most of Australia these are installed outdoors. Pool heaters is another one where one could harvest indoor heat.

I recently had mine installed indoors and regret it. It's not so much the noise, it's the vibration. The damn thing reverberates through the whole house. In some areas it's quiet, in other areas there's a very disruptive hum. The worst part though? It has an app which is infuriatingly shit. None of it makes sense, and much of it is silently locked down without informing the user (get used to "Oops! Try again!" messag…

I've never used a Steibel Eltron tank heater (but have owned their tankless), but neither the AOSmith nor Rheem require an app to use. Both can be placed into "Electric Only" mode via front control buttons == no noise.

The Rheem specifically has a time-of-use relay/powerbox, so you can put a timer onto it which will interrupt ALL heating with a rotary dial/timer. This is entirely mechanical, without computer/app.

Sounds like your unit is cooked (36 hours continues heatpump is very bad for the pump).

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