Worcester Bosch CEO Is Wrong About Heat Pumps. Here Is Why. 

One thing people forget it that victorian terraces are TERRACES! A mid-terrace house ( which of course most are) has another house on each side, which are usually occupied and heated so the temperature delta across the side walls is low, so very little heat loss! Also, most of these houses are longer "back to front" than across the frontage, so over 50% of your external walls are in effect very well insulated. With decent loft insulation and double glazed windows, the effective amount of uninsulated walls is only a small proportion of the total envelope!

Great video. Same misinformation here in Germany. "You have to insulate your house, you need floor heaters, costs for this are above 150000€" etc. In Germany it's the fossil lobby. My heat pump is running at the first winter with a COP of 5, cost for gas and electricity are similar, 12ct/30ct

The major issue is cost! How much was this job, fully installed and commissioned? 10k? 20?

Last time I checked Worcester Bosch had more than 30% of the UK gas boiler market but less than 1% of the heat pump market

WB CEO is bound to talk down ASHP. A turkey is NEVER going to vote for Christmas. Another great vid. Keep them coming

Hit the nail on the head carful design and carful installation is the key

Good video with solid info from the owner and the system. Clearly a decent system and a good COP.

You worked out how much the difference is and its pretty sizeable at £125 less, but how much is he paying per month to pay off the cost of getting the heat pump installed in the first place?

You are right. They are trying to push expensive products with higher profits. Here in cold northern Sweden, we have lots of older draughty houses with heat pumps. Just remember to open up for air transfer between the rooms.

I'm wondering if we are comparing apples to apples here. 500kwh of electricity in jan 23 with an average cop of 4.1 (I assume jan cop was lower but let's give the heat pump a slight advantage) is roughly 2050kwh worth of heat. A gas boiler running at the same temps as the heat pump would be running at what, 90% efficiency? That's 2800kwh * .9 = 2500kwh worth of heat so that's already a 20% more heat that was needed to heat the place assumingly due to a colder weather (apparently 3.1 degree average in jan 2021 and 5.1 average in jan 2023). Were the rads the same? Because if as part of the heat pump install you installed larger rads and the old boiler was running hotter temps due to smaller rads, that again decreases it's efficiency. If we were to take .9 efficiency of a boiler to output the 2050kwh, we woul be looking at roughly £266 of a gas bill, that's £90 dearer than a heatpump so less than what was mentioned in the video. Not bashing heat pumps, I like the idea of effectively stealing heat from outsite and bringing it inside thanks to this technology however like with all new things, the devil is in the minute detail and I'm just getting a feeling some detail is not talked about here. I love the vids btw despite personally being against global push towards everything green, electric and generally rainbowy. Edit: Also, did they heat the place to the same temperatures in the two months? Jan 2021 would have been a pandemic month so they would have probably been in the house more therefore needed to keep the house at the comportable temp for longer periods of time? I would love a brakedown of ALL the figures, it would make for a very good and informative video!

We're currently renovating a 300 year old period property in the North West. I'm putting in as much insulation as I can where I can but we may not be able to change the wooden sash windows at the front of the house which are quite drafty. I'm also installing UFH at 150mm centres on all the ground floor and one or 2 upstairs rooms. Currently has 3 year old Combi boiler which is servicable - do you suggest looking into a heat pump? How do I decide please.. I don't want a cold house in winter! Thanks for all your incredible videos!!!

This video is a riot when the auto english subtitle keeps talking about victorian terrorist houses :)

I live in a 220-sq metres new build with air source heat exchange pump with underfloor heating in both storeys. This is the Czech Republic with its colder winter and longer hotter summer than England where I used to live. Air recuperation helps heat distribution, recycling and loss in winter. Triple glazing cuts down heat loss further and configuring the heat pump to operate in reverse keeps the indoor space cool in hot days in summer. The electricity bill is about 2/3 of that of combined gas & electricity in an apartment with smaller living space in England. I believe the milder winter in England would allow heat pumps to replace gas boiler however the lack of good, experienced heat pump engineers in the UK would mean sub-optimal installation leading to fewer satisfied customers in the UK.

My gas boiler was purchased for £800 and installed for £500. That was 11 years ago and it's still working perfectly with only the electrodes having been replaced. How much is a heat pump installation and how long will it run?

I'm a mechanical engineer in Canada and our clients want heat pumps in older commercial properties. Problem is they don't have the electrical capacity and the space for large air handlers. Also, large delta T in Canada (50+ Celsius), so need back up heat.

Yeah, we worked out that an air source heat pump would cost far more than storage heaters running on night rate.

Szymon, thank you for such a good video and the HeatGeek link. I hope you are doing well and busy

Symon - great video and a superb install with a great outcome (COP) - a great one for your portfolio.😀👍

The biggest issue would be finding somewhere for the tank, combi boiler is nice and small and fits on the wall out the way. That tank would have to take up my wardrobe space

Great install. What flow temps were they operating at in Jan? Seems like flow temp is the make or break and I'm genuinely interested to know what sort of ball park this system is operating in. Cheers for the excellent videos!

I want to know how your client was getting electricity at 35p/kWh when mine was over 51p!

Great video. However,for the 1 sqm space, it is indeed 1 sqm, but it shouldn't be in the middle of the room, you must have a adequate space for it, like occupy the whole storage space etc, then you have to find another area for your stuff, which is sometimes impossible.

Just out of curiosity what was the installation cost?

It would have been interesting to know what the ambient temperature of the house was under gas and the heat pump for comparison. Was it the same, higher or lower using the latter?

Your Videos are great. Me and my wife are currently stuck with LPG Gas and are in the process of planning a full renovation, we have decided its best to make the switch to The aroTHERM plus system. I wish I could have the confidence that whichever MSC Installer we end up using to install our system would have the same level knowledge as yourself to make our system run to the optimal level. With this is mind I am leaning on the side of caution trying to pick the best person to fit our system and with being located in Southwest, Cornwall there is not a huge pool to pick from so if you could recommend anyone located down here feel free :). We are thinking of doing retro fit ufh system throughout the whole of our downstairs and recall seeing another video of yours where you say that because its a retro fit not a screeded ufh system the flow temp will need to be set to 45c appose to 35c. My only question is would it make more sense to have ufh throughout the upstairs as well or stick to rads for the upstairs? Thanks again

like to see this installed in the cottage i live in. and finding somewhere outside to put the main unit. good luck with that one.

the insulation thing I never understsnd. like for like an uninulated house would also use more gas.

What was the install cost and the expected lifespan of the system- and what are the annual servicing costs, and any annual/long term consumables?

My home build in 77 with cavity filled, standard pvc windows. Not insulated floor. Have panels with it. Samsung 8kw ASHP. In December entire cost of energy was 300 pounds keeping 20 in day 18.5 in night. Entire year of electricity cost me around 1k excluding money earn from exporting. With battery storage could go much lower.

It's a joy when a new vid arrives! Oh... Scop of 3.3 and £270 for Jan - well done, brilliant!

What about the fully internal ones. They just expell cold air out througu the wall Yes they are less efficient but super easy to install and in theiry you could even use them in flats assuming the freeholder will allow a few holes out of the external walls I mean they allow boiler flu out so most should be okay with a internal heat pump outlet

Managing director of leading manufacturer of gas boilers says heat pumps are no good. What's not to trust there eh?

How many Kilowatt hours of gas had the used in 2021,2020 und 2019 .

Can you come an install one in Ayr, South Ayrshire? happy to throw in an ice cream at the beach for you. The last combi I had installed the guy was clueless (although gas safe). I'm not scared of heat pumps, I'm scared of "ex boiler" guys installing them without understanding anything.

We have the choice between Mitsubishi, Samsung and the Stiebel Eltron. It is £3000 more expensive than the other two and the MCS listed SCOPs are lower too. I am wondering why the so much higher price tag and if it is worth paying the premium price for it.

Informative as usual. Keeo the videos rollkng please.❤

Haven't seen any other of your vids but did you use existing pipework for ASHP? or did you have to re-pipe.

I really like the followups, especially after winter and with high energy costs. That large tall radiator is the nicest I've seen of it's kind. In keeping with the style of old rads - albeit massive!

High thermal mass properties act like a heat flywheel. As long as the emitters UFH/Rads sized right and indeed commissioned correctly you will have no problems. Bivalent systems will be obsolete as soon as we gain confidence with the likes of viessmann, vaillant units Cheers Dave EH

I have tried lots of times to get an installer to fit an heat pump to my home , however 3 installers failed to return my calls or emails, 1 company turned up but when i started asking about cop and other things they didn't get back to me with a quote Its a big house around 350m2 but i don't see how this should be an issue . I want to change over from my oil boiler , i also have solar hot water so have a large water tank. will try contacting heet Geeks PS> Based in Scotland. keep up the excellent videos

My main issue with heat pump installations is the cost.. I know like all things as the technology is more widely used the cost will come down, but the cost alone to get a property optimally insulated and then add on the cost of the installation is far far out of most people budgets. The gov grants dont come close to making this a widely viable option for most of the uk. Great video though!

Great video. Have been telling people they work in old houses for last 3 years as our house is 220 years old and solid stone and we used 2000kwh of electricity for Jan Feb and March this year and our house is 200 sq metres. At constant 20 degrees internal temp. I've given up telling people they work as some just don't like change

Further q please Simon. You mention earlier about 0% VAT for a complete system/refurbish ? Could you expand al little for me please. I have not heard of this before unless it is a new build. Thank you

I have a similar old house, would love to slap some solar on the roof and have a heat pump - trouble is I enjoy nice cars and holidays too much to be able to afford it!

Good morning Simon. Apologies if this has been asked previously. Did the thermal requirements/insulation for this property meet the requirements/qualify for the £5000 grant. Solid walls, bare floor boards, no insulation ? Thank you.

We use a Vaillant heat pump as well, the larger VWL125/A6 with 12kW of heating power. Our House has a double brickwall, too. Insulated roof and relativly modern double glass windows with a total living space of 233m^2 and we have a cop of 4.2 (average over winter). We are five persons in our family.

Outstanding video..Great video. Great content. 💯👍💯👍💯

What are the annual service costs and repairs when they break down what was the installation costs

I am beginning to suspect that the difference between people who claim heat pumps don't work and people who claim they do isn't so much what house they are in, but whether they know how to use a heat pump properly. Of course a modern fully insulated house is a bit more forgiving if you don't, but that's not the point.

In the previous house I had that heat pump unit would take up all of the space in the yard, terraced house with extension on the back as had next door, yard only a few feet [less than 3ft ]wide and about 12 foot long Anyone with a vented central heating system could just buy a multi fuel stove with boiler and have that power the heating system

With the new EPC regulations coming in soon does installing an air source heat pump help improve your grade?

Another great video Simon, real world scenarios that many folk can relate to. Also opens up the benefit of ditching gas completely and avoiding the standing charge.

Is that a propane heat pump for space heating or hot water?

How much are these heat pumps ? What if the price of electricity goes up would the cost against gas then be more expensive , not had heat all winter gas boiler not working , looking for something for future, old now won’t make it through another winter without heat.

Another great video Szymon, can you remember what the heat loss calc was for that property, what flow temp did you design for and what size ASHP did you fit? Also, I've been told 'designer' radiators sometimes don't hit the required output numbers, which brand of triple column radiator did you install for the customer? Hope it's ok to ask. I wish you covered Norfolk.

At the end of the day whether a heatpump makes sense (permitting, permitting) if the electricity cost is proportional to the cost of natural gas (per kWh) multiplied the effective COP or cheaper. Solong as the temperature range of the refrigerant is compatible to the environmental factors. (Design and install what works for the property). Good windows (a ERV wouldn't be out of order - ??- to provide controlled ventilation (humidity control) without bleeding conditioned air.. Insulating the walls can only improve the economics, though the payback may indeed be minimal - at least having decent thermal mass allows diurnal averaging to help a little - the UK isn't all that cold for very much of the year - insulation would make more impact in regions experiencing "deep freeze".

What was the install cost?

I would say this property looks like has PVC double-glazed windows and probably no pine floorboards with gaps. So you can expect it's not a average single glaze wooden sash terrace. Most likely on average heat pump would perform ok. I would say if you going for heat pump get yourself solar panels and your own battery storage. This combo is definitely the way to go!

That is the main problem, gas boilers and systems get thrown in with hardly an consideration for anything. This will happen with heat pumps.

Would love to see you installing a Sunamp Heat batterywith Vaillant ASHP to see if the two can play nicely with each other.

What was their pipe sizes both flow and return and general pipes to the radiators.

so this is in england where the weather is mild. how about in northeast usa where winter can hit 0 F ( -15C) often. and also using forced air heating not radiators so to have air conditioning.

I find the Coefficient of Performance value of 4.0 mind-blowing at 7:34. Do you know the value for the Annual performance factor?

I guess 3.5 annual COP… Excellent actual result!

Insulating the house is the best option. Whatever source of energy you have installed: boiler or heat pump is the speed of heat loose of the building. I would personally insulate the houses instead fitting a heat pump

I am curious as to how the device actually calculates the COP (?). (p.s. My car reports an mpg average, but this is an inflated figure.)

Wow , electricity is expensive in England. In Canada a kWh is 5-10 p (converted from Canadian $) depending on time of day.

Just reading the comments, trying to pick out the stats. 7kw heat loss and a design flow temp of 38 deg. Its very interesting for me. Looking at my house , just under 8k heat loss, thinking of using a 7kw unit.

You pose the situation opposite to what I have here. Installers that didn't want to run maths properly installed a heat pump that could handle a house with tripke the heat loss, but that with no changes to the radiators from the retired system boiler (which ran over 80 degrees Celsius) it runs under a COP of 2 when it's close to freezing. The result? A system that can keep the house warm when it's kinda cool by inefficiently turning on and off multiple times per hour as it heats the water too fast for the radiators. And breakers tripping when weather is actually below freezing.

Our 94yr old ‘ciocia’ has a big 1904 stone Victorian mid terrace (and huge cellar) in Yorkshire that actually had a cavity wall front/rear which was foam insulated. Even with tall ceilings it does not require much heat to retain a comfortable living. Her house is boiling and her gas bill is cheaper than our 3 bed ultra insulated brick semi. There you go…..

Great video. You really are starting to blow the negative myths of heat pumps out of the water! Heat pumps will replace gas soon. Shame about the location restrictions though. Another hurdle for heatpumps to overcome.

I agree looking at the energy consumption front is great but, but it's about economic viability how long will it take for him to pay that off for the installation cost. It's almost a false economy situation. what he has on the bill doesn't out way relative cost of install

I think the CEO is bound to say heat pumps don’t work as he’s the head of a company that sells gas boilers finally as ever a great video and insight to how with the right fitted equipment to a property heat pumps do work for me as with most things you need the right person designing and installing one congratulations mate 👏😎

Tell me what size Electrical Supply is required to supply the heat pump unit.

I have a 1989 detached 4 bed, well insulated, with micro bore to all the ground floor rads but 15mm to the upstairs rads.Couple of initial surveys said I need to replace the 10mm microbore with 15mm to get the flow rates I need. With a concrete floor that's just not going to happen within any sensible budget. Is this generally the case ? Or am I being hoodwinked ?

Is this cop including hot water or only heating? What was the yearly kwh of consumption using a boiler? How much kw is this pump?

How much?

Heat pumps are the way forward - nice work!!

Heat pumps are clearly part of our future and present and in many places they will be the best heating solution, but it does not mean that we must try to impose them everywhere and grant subsidies for them. This winter was a very warm winter; not only the heat pump takes up living space, but also the enlarged radiators; the space in the yard is also important if you live in a city where the land is relatively limited. with heat pumps, not only the operating cost should be considered, but also the purchase cost (and the non-subsidized price of the heat pumps should be considered!!! because the subsidies do not fall from the sky but are paid by the other taxpayers), installation and maintenance because heat pumps will break down after a number of years and the cost of repairs is higher than that of gas boilers + skilled technicians available to maintain them are perhaps 30-40 times less than those able to repair a gas boiler... the accessories inside the house are more difficult to mask like a gas boiler if you don't have a technical/laundry room

UP, It's a given that youre going to do everything perfectly and its no surprise your customer has such an efficient ASHP. Does payback time ever come into the equation? I'm assuming ASHP installation prices will wreck the cost/benefit calculation? Thanks for the video. Love your channel!!

How the heck were they spending £300 a month on gas in a relatively small terraced house with a small external footprint?? I'm only spending a bit more than that in an old, draughty 4 bed detached house in the Pennines that's even an odd shape to make it less efficient!!

I'm going to guess a COP of 4 and cost of January bill to be £300. What was the full cost of the installation over the cost of a new condensing boiler? Would it make back the difference in 5 years, say?

As usual knocking it out of the park and hitting a home run with all the correct data.

I’m very late to the party here, and I agree I’m coming round to the idea of this form of heating… but, and there is a big but these will not replace current units without a massive change for installers within the UK. And additionally customers need to be educated to this style of heating. The days of turn on and expect to be warm in 30/45 minutes does not work for these units simple as that.

With good cop heat pumps still save money. More insulation on front and back walls and tighter windows and doors and heating costs go even lower. With high gas costs heat pumps win on efficiency alone.

Fantastic example.... Victorian terraced house mid terrace doesn't have much by way of outside walls. To me the lack of underfloor insulation would be a bigger issue. What you haven't pointed out is the mysterious inefficiency of gas and oil fired boilers. SEDBUK ratings are all good and well but in real life there is a lot of lost heat somewhere. My installation in a more modern detached house extended now to have 5 bedrooms and 40 m2 of ufh has gone from 2400 litres of oil to less than 6,000 kWh of electricity. The COP is about 3 overall but I am using a time of use tariff when 6 hours of electricity overnight is 7.5p an hour and consequently it works hardest during the coldest part of the day. My 12 months electricity costs were £1750 helped by £750 from the govt. pensioners and disabled but that includes 5,000 miles of driving my EV car too. Oh and my system has 4 pumps including one of small commercial size. The pumps when running consume 275 watts and my 14 kW Mitsubishi heat pump is 10% less efficient than a single fan unit. One point I never considered is perhaps having an undersink water heater in the kitchen to provide water at 55-60 degrees for cleaning up greasy things that aren't suitable for the dishwasher... thus allowing the hot water cylinder to run cooler for showers.

Do you service heat pump and repair or do you install

Heat pumps works in any building, as we here in Sweden has known for decades!

Wouldn’t insulation be beneficial for cost saving thought?

I live in Belgium and I'm medically disabled, which means I get "social rate" for gas and electricity. The problem with that is the cost of electricity compared to gas is a ratio of about 7:1 while the kWh-consumption with a heatpump compared to an efficient gas boiler is only a ratio of about 1:4, making it cost double in consumption. Since the heatpump consumes the most electricity when you can't generate much solar, and injection rate in the summer is so low compared to consumption rate in the winter, it's pretty much impossible to compensate for the higher cost that way. Bringing down the social rate for electricity would 'cost too much' and probably encourage people to 'earn a buck' by f.e. letting their non-disabled friends and family charge their EVs at their home. Ramping up the social rate for gas would be a problem for the many disabled people who rent or otherwise can't choose to switch from a gas boiler to a heatpump, so I don't see the government fixing this any time soon... Result: I installed a brand new gas boiler last year, in my own home that's otherwise almost textbook 'heat pump ready' (insulation, large radiators, boiler temperature of not even 50°C when it was freezing outside). It's a shame really, but I can't afford spending more money on a heating system that costs me more in consumption out of idealism...

COP ~2,8, running cost in January 180 pounds

How about a similar property fabric but twice the size with about 27,000 kW heat loss. But the ability to run the heat pump / s with 9p per kilowatt continuously.

I don't know but whenever I'm somewhere that has heatpumps I'm always hot when it's hot and cold when it it's cold. Never had problems with regular heating and cooling.

still running cost is almost equal to gas boiler. 1kWh of gas 10p and 1kWh of electricity 35p. looking at tiny differences and installation cost massively different.

What about a detached property?

I think by lack of space he meant space to place outdoor condenser units. If you place too many outdoor condenser units too close together, their total delta is lowered as they cannot pull much ambient heat from the atmosphere. I did a service call last year for a church in New York. They had a 100’ x 50‘ building with five units spread evenly across the south facing wall. This wall has plenty of sun and plenty of ambient heat, yet the building was not heating properly because the units were too close together and there were too many of them causing them to pull heat From each other instead of from the atmosphere whenever the temperature dropped below 40°F, which is very common around here

It seems that Mr. Rajakoba made a mistake or was misquoted when he said `.... or are not detached'. Surely this should be that ARE detached. I live in a Victorian end of terrace house and my neighbour's influence on my home's thermal performance is quite noticeable because they run their home quite warm.

Heat pump are more efficient when underfloor heating - i think !!

@ 8:52 all you have to do is to call heat geek aproved installers 😁

So the average temperature In January 2021 was 2.2 and the average temperatures in January 2023 were 4.4 so it’s hard to make a comparison