A heat pump utilizes the residual heat from air, water or the ground around your home and converts it into usable heat inside your home for very little electricity costs. Many other appliances use this kind of technology in your home but in reverse, such as a refrigerator or an air conditioner.
Heat pumps can provide heat in winter and cooling and dehumidifying in the summer, depending upon the variety you choose. Heat pumps are a great way to reduce your carbon footprint as well as delivering significant energy efficiencies and cost reductions for your home.
Ground or air source?
Ground source heat pumps are geothermal heat pumps, and, in this category, there are many sub-types such as closed and open loop, vertical, horizontal, pond systems and standing well systems.
It is important to decide which is best for the job that you need it for! Our technical surveyors and energy advisers are on hand and available across the whole of Scotland. Our aim is to provide information, advise on solutions and costs. Costings vary wildly as various civil works are required (digging up the ground, boring holes, running pipes etc).
Another popular type of heat pump is air source which uses vapour compression and can be air to water or air to air. Air to water uses large radiators like conventional heating systems and air to air uses vents and blowers like conventional air conditioning systems.
The typical components within an air source heat pump consist of a compressor, condenser, expansion valve and an evaporator, all meaningless to most, but trust me they work, and they work extremely efficiently! Modern high-efficiency air source heat pumps convert a single unit of electricity into 5 or more units of heat (extracted from the air from outside your home). This is called COP (Co-efficient of Performance) and it is this measure that is used to ascertain the efficiency of heat pumps!
The main reason for using a heat pump would be to heat and potentially cool your home. By installing a heat pump, your energy bills would hopefully be significantly reduced, along with your carbon footprint. Electrical energy is needed to power the heat pump, but this is only a small amount and overall, they are still extremely environmentally friendly.
The cost of heat pumps does vary, air source heat pumps costing between £6000-8000 and a ground source heat pump potentially setting you back around £10,000-18000. As mentioned previously, the cost is more for ground source heat pumps because it is a slightly more time-consuming installation due to pipes having to be installed around your house. They are however, the more efficient of the two, so it can be worth it in the long-run.
The government currently offer RHI or the Renewable Heat Incentive which offers money towards renewable heating costs if you live within England, Scotland or Wales.
