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The biggest heat pumps

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Re: The biggest heat pumps

#181

Post by bratwurst3000 »

lnsru wrote: post #38
moooo99 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a German, I find the popularity of heat pumps in the nordics especially amusing. In Germany heat pumps were an incredibly political topic and people were pushed by some media outlets to really hate heat pumps. One recurring topic was that heat pumps can‘t work at German temperatures.

Nothing amusing. Germany is not really rich compared to nordics. And now let‘s do so math! Electricity: 0,3€/kWh and gas 0,1€/kWh. I need ~3x more gas to get same temperature in my room. And gas heating costs €10k while heat pump €40k without subsidies and probably raw €15k material cost if I install it by myself. So why should I pay more by €30k to install experimental thing for a decade when my low cost gas heating…

that doesnt even make sense. if gas is 3x of electricity it should be the same cost but for every watt of electricity you get 3 watt of heating. so by your math if I pay 1w gas but need 3w for 1w of electricity and heatpumps give 3w on every watt of electricity heatpumps are 300% more effective then gas. sooo your point is also heatpumps ftw ;)

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#182

Post by bratwurst3000 »

mk89 wrote: post #175
xeromal wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I installed mini splits (small heat pumps) in each of our rooms. Everyone gets their own temperature and they were only 800$ a piece. Did installation myself and it was pretty easy. Hardest thing was pulling a vacuum in the lines before releasing the freon (or whatever it's called) but all I did was watch a youtube video. They've been going strong for several years. I looked at the prices and they are still the same.

BTW, in Germany you're not allowed to install it yourself. At least that's what I read some time ago. I guess nobody checks, of course, but in case things go bad and you need insurance, probably they can invalidate it due to the fact you did something illegal. Not saying it makes sense, though.

i installed mine myself and probably illegaly. But its super easy and those people who install it do a shit job sometimes. I watched professionell people flushing those pipes with compressed air....

And the fine is nonexistent so everyone should do it themself.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#183

Post by bratwurst3000 »

lnsru wrote: post #68
stefanfisk wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the calculus behind 40k? I just checked some Swedish vendors and here they calculate 12k for hardware and installation of a fairly large heat pump. https://www.polarpumpen.se/kunskapsbanken/varmepump-kunskaps...

State subsidies and insane overregulation. Think about replacing the cabinet for electricity meters (+4000€) for heat pump installation.

smart meters are paid by the grid operator and you have to pay maximum 50€ a year for a smartmeter. I honestly dont know where you get your numbers. a friend with a big house and 3 children switched to air water heatpump with floor heating etc and it was 18k€ and half of that paif by the state and the smart meter was mostly free( he pais 25€ a year for it).

and this is a hugeeee house. No solar but he is working on it.

could you link some proof of this smartmeters I have to pay? Or some calculations from firms it whatever that proof your point.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#184

Post by bratwurst3000 »

skeletal88 wrote: post #164
holowoodman wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Everything in Germany has been three-phase since forever. But especially with old houses, with any "not insignificant change" to your electrical setup, you have to bring everything up to modern standards. Also, and connected with that, metering is weird in Germany. If your consumption rises above a certain amount (I think 10MWh for a single-family home) you are required to get a "smart meter", meaning a digital m…

wtf, this is totally insane. Here the upgrades for meters are paid for by the grid operators. No changes to the cabinets are required, old analog meters were replaced by them for smart meters, at no extra cost to the consumer, and now they will replace them with new meters capable of metering by 15 minute interval. This cost in germany is really only created by overregulation and insane bureaucrats creating work for…

no people are stupid. Smart meters are paid by the grid operator like everywhere else. Friends of mine got one and it was 25€ a year for it. Yes germans are very stupid. we fight everything new because we think this country worked rly well in the 80s and thats where we want to be 1980

Digital and Smart thats for othet countries.

I got air air heatpumps for 3 rooms 1000€ a room and it slashed my heating cost to 1/3. And I have to explain that its not foor cooling but for heating and then the response is " heatpumps are like 20k plus you liar" or " heatpumps dont work in the cold" ... germans

Still many people dont switch because the read somewhere about magic costs that dont exist. Russian Gas propaganda is big here

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#185

Post by sokoloff »

seec wrote: post #180
sokoloff wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a typical new install, the outdoor unit contains the charge and unless your lineset is unusually long, you just use that, releasing it with the valves after installing and leak-checking the lines. In the US, you can get your EPA 508 cert online in a couple hours and buy the refrigerant online. (You need the cert to be legal, but it’s not really checked just to buy.) Tightly regulated is not true in practice. You…

Yes, in the US I think it's fine; you have a lot more freedom. In France, access to the gas technically requires a certification that is not available to regular people. You need to be professional and bow to the bureaucracy. I know somebody who was required to pay the full installation price for a heat pump he installed himself because there was no professional that was willing to charge and launch the installation…

For your friend’s new install, the refrigerant was in the outdoor unit when shipped from the factory. Accessing that gas just takes an ordinary hex key/Allen wrench. Only if they’d made a mistake and let the refrigerant leak out (or had a ridiculously uncommon length of lineset) would they need access to additional refrigerant.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#186

Post by yetihehe »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #123

I keep wondering if instead of moving water they could use "solid state" heat pipes instead. Especially for geothermal where you could just drive them into ground, no need to actually drill or circulate water.

Pipes moving water are cheaper than heat pipes, which are not "solid state", typically heat pipes contain a lot of water in liquid and vapour form under low pressure. If you wanted to move a lot of heat, you would need bigger pipes, which would need to withstand more force, so thicker. It's cheaper to just move that water with pump and if you place your inlet in proper place (higher than your machinery), you could even get some energy from flow of water.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#187

Post by brandhout »

wkat4242 wrote: post #29
jack_tripper wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sign of a rich and very developed country. A lot of buildings in Austrian cities are still heated by burning oil or wood and the whole city smells like a bonfire. Probably gonna have my lifespan shortened by at least a decade from all that fossil fuel pollution, but at least we banned that dirty nuclear from killing us.

Yes heat pumps are expensive and you need different radiators and more insulation than with traditional gas central heating. That's why it's an issue in Holland too. Not many people have the investment for all that. It's mainly worth it when you have solar panels but that requires another big investment. I'm lucky to live in Spain where it's not that cold so I just have one little plug in radiator I use a few months…

It isn't more interesting with solar panels because they won't generate nearly enough electricity in the winter. You should see both as entirely separate energy saving investments, not dependent on one another. (I'm however very happy with "free" cooling in summer)

You might need other radiators if your current radiators are very small. But you also might not in a recent house, or in a recently renovated house (e.g. the radiator are still sized on single-glazing-glass when having double glazing installed).

You can also choose in-foor heating with the next renovation, a lot of homes already have in-floor heating and it's very comfortable. You can probably also boost existing radiators with small fans on the bottom or choose an electronic back-up module which boost the temperature a bit on the coldest days.

Tldr: it really isn't that hard. The focus on hybrid systems in NL is purely thanks to a lobby from gas-boiler installers and manufacturers. Air/water heatpumps are a drop-in replacement in a lot of cases.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#188

Post by brandhout »

jaapz wrote: post #173
wolvesechoes wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> more insulation Nothing to do with a heat source.

In the netherlands we were used to really cheap gas (groningen gas field). This meant that, instead of adding more insulation, it was cheaper to just install a bigger gas powered heater to heat our homes. This means that people now really need to improve insulation of their homes big time, before even being able to consider switching to a heat pump. My house has a 30kW gas heater. When I switched to a heat pump, firs…

You can switch to a heatpump before insulating your house; you just need a bigger one. Which isn't really great thanks to our struggeling energy grid but its still cheaper than a gas heater.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#189

Post by brandhout »

euroderf wrote: post #150
wkat4242 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes heat pumps are expensive and you need different radiators and more insulation than with traditional gas central heating. That's why it's an issue in Holland too. Not many people have the investment for all that. It's mainly worth it when you have solar panels but that requires another big investment. I'm lucky to live in Spain where it's not that cold so I just have one little plug in radiator I use a few months…

> more insulation Why is this ? (Sorry if it's a stupid question.)

A misunderstanding. A lot of people (at least here in the Netherlands) believe that heat-pumps just actively refuse to heat a home when it's not up to spec, isolation wise. That of course isn't true, you'll just need a bigger heatpump.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#190

Post by seec »

sokoloff wrote: post #185
seec wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, in the US I think it's fine; you have a lot more freedom. In France, access to the gas technically requires a certification that is not available to regular people. You need to be professional and bow to the bureaucracy. I know somebody who was required to pay the full installation price for a heat pump he installed himself because there was no professional that was willing to charge and launch the installation…

For your friend’s new install, the refrigerant was in the outdoor unit when shipped from the factory. Accessing that gas just takes an ordinary hex key/Allen wrench. Only if they’d made a mistake and let the refrigerant leak out (or had a ridiculously uncommon length of lineset) would they need access to additional refrigerant.

Yeah, I know they come pre-charged now. But I can't remember what his problem was back then. Maybe he didn't know, or he fucked up…

From what I understand, self-install should be fine up to a 12m run, but if you let too much gas leak, you may have issues because of low pressure.

At least now you can buy them for relatively cheap. Mine required a swap of the control board on the inside unit, and it was ridiculously expensive (almost as much as buying a new unit). I am not sure why it fried, but probably bad solder from old age (it's about 15 years old at this point).

It's an excellent technology, but the surrounding business feels extremely shady.

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