Heatgeek.com

Not been through the process as a customer, as I’m a ‘Heatgeek’!
Fully guaranteed, and designed correctly, it will be a good installation.
However, it will be expensive, but, going cheap for the install could cost you £1000’s extra in electric bills in the future.
Saying that, I do a good install, design it properly, and compete with the low end market, but I cannot compete with Octopus, as their prices are almost cost price for materials for me. And, I’ve stopped doing the grant too, far too much hassle, when I'm busy at most times, I really dont want to be paying someone else £2k to process my paperwork per install, so I got rid of grant work.

Because of that site I have a stack of extra large radiators in my hallway ready to install 🙂

I can't seem to find any reviews on them that hasn't come direct from them (marketing) which seems really odd. Have they not done many installs or are they just taking action to remove reviews. Genuinely interested to hear more about actual peoples experiences.

I think the theory with 'heatgeek' engineers is they sign up to some sort of quality framework, , so rather than just chucking in a bunch of standard size rads and a boiler into an installation, they look at the specific size of your house, and requirements and put a bit more thought into the whole system design, size of radiator per room, correct capactiy boiler etc, etc, so in theory it should be a more well thought out bespoke/taylor made job depending on application.

I've just had my Heat Geek ASHP installation done - been up and running for 10 days so far.

I had 2 designs done - one from Octopus, and one from heat geeks - they came up with similar heat loss calculations, but quite different designs.

Octopus would have given me a system that was amazing value, and would have kept me warm, but they weren't able to be flexible on the design to exactly fit my house.  They were going to give me a pump that was oversized, so would not have run particularly efficiently.

Heat Geeks were able to be much more flexible, they came up with a better design for my house.

They took more time on the install (going under the floorboards instead of through the loft), they used a sensibly sized HP from a superior brand.

Costs for me (after the £7.5k grant) were £3.5k for Octopus vs £6.5k from Heat Geeks.  In the end, Heat Geeks only installed 4 out of the proposed 6 radiators, so the cost came in under £6k.

If you can afford the capital outlay, I'd deffo recommend heat geek, and I'm happy I went with them instead of Octopus.

@leonthepro did Michael Podesta (protonsforbreakfast) use a HeatGeek? Or was it another similarly nerdy company?

Good and bad things about them.

concept is good, the disciple like following of the boss is annoying.

As is his the claim of inventing a combi heat pump which as far as it looks is a thermal store, and his claim that if your installer has been in the heating industry a long time then he has probably only got bad habits and doesn’t understand the heat pump way. That really annoyed me.

I also believe they are now owned by an investment company and have a big budget to push themselves.

Think that you either pay a monthly subscription or per lead. The training is quite good though.

Alan is correct about the paperwork side of the industry, we have a lot of office staff just to ensure compliance.

Some good info on skill builder:

Heat Geeks

There is another one where they fix a very poor system.

And, I’ve stopped doing the grant too, far too much hassle, when I’m busy at most times

Is the idea that the homeowner applies for the grant, or do they just accept that the price is £7,500 higher?

Thanks @marko. I have seen them and some good information there. I am just wondering if its too good to be true though. Might just be overly cynical though.

Is the idea that the homeowner applies for the grant, or do they just accept that the price is £7,500 higher?

The Installer applies for the Grant. The Homeowner shouldnt be paying any of the £7500, but I have heard of some Installers who ask for the £7.5k, and then repay it when they get it from the Govt. I think this is against the MCS rules, in that the Customer should not be paying it upfront, to reclaim it later.
MCS are the governing body who oversee the grants.They are very paperwork orientated, and are not easy to register for. Thats one of the reasons why small plumbers/Companies are not bothering with it, far too much paperwork involved, and some stories of them not being paid the Grant due to paperwork errors, though these may be apochryphal.
There are far too many Companies jumping on the bandwagon to install the HPs and claiming the grant, and making a decent profit on each install.Many of these Companies will not be around in a few years time. It happened a few years ago when there were RHI payments for fitting renewable heating. I’ve seen some of those installs, and they were terrible.
A typical HP install for me would cost around £6k in materials, and I reckon a week to fit and get it working correctly (from a gas boiler to HP). If rads need changing, it’s usually £200+ for each rad, as they have to be larger and 2 or 3 panel, so you can see the £7.5k would not cover my charge, it’d have to be nearer £9k for me to fit one. Octopus have been fitting them complete for £7.5k. The only way they can do that is to run the HP at 50 degrees, whereas I’d be looking at 40 or lower, the 10 degrees difference means around 25% electric cost, so their cheap install cost is negated in a few years, as you pay more for the electric it uses whenever it is turned on. They do other cost cutting things too, but no point going over that here.

@alanl this may be a stupid question but can you run period style (either proper cast iron or modern steel column) rads on a heat pump? What about in a 1930s house.

It all depends on the heat output of the radiator. Being as HPs run at a lower temperature, they need a bigger area of radiator to output that heat. The heat loss survey for the house will tell you what size (wattage) radiators you need for each room, then you need to look up what the output is for the radiators you have now.

Cool, thank you.

As Alan said, yes you can it is all about getting the correct output. I have a heat pump with a mix of modern column rads and ordinary steel panels. No difference in performance from either rad.

Well after a week without heating and hot water last month we are looking to replace our aging gas boiler next year. Initial thought was system boiler and new tank but we've now booked a heat geek assessment. From reading around so f I'm fully expecting to need a lot more radiator area (though have some ideas on how to achieve that). I know what make the radiators are now so going to work out what output we already have. The initial online estimate was 10.2 kW loss and a 12Kw HP. Trying to work out in my head where I want a 1565x1100x449 mm grey box to go :/.

A typical HP install for me would cost around £6k in materials, and I reckon a week to fit and get it working correctly (from a gas boiler to HP). If rads need changing, it’s usually £200+ for each rad, as they have to be larger and 2 or 3 panel, so you can see the £7.5k would not cover my charge, it’d have to be nearer £9k for me to fit one.

@alanl I don't understand. Surely the grant is subtracted from whatever you charge the client and they pay the difference. From your statement above you seem to think the grant should cover everything. If you are charging £9k for a typical installation then surely you would charge the client £1.5k and get the rest from the grant. If you don't do grant work then why would I pay you £9k for an installation which would cost me £1.5k anywhere else?

 If you don’t do grant work then why would I pay you £9k for an installation which would cost me £1.5k anywhere else?

sounds like he has plenty work without offering the grant which suggests he provides tangible value in someway.

 If you are charging £9k for a typical installation then surely you would charge the client £1.5k and get the rest from the grant. If you don’t do grant work then why would I pay you £9k for an installation which would cost me £1.5k anywhere else?

Aye, Octopus quoted me just over £10k, which worked out about £2750 when they'd subtracted the grant.

Has anyone got a good link to a radiator size calculator? I know all the manufacturers have one but anything suitable for running low flow temps?

If you download the proper MCS calculator spreadsheet it’s not too bad to input everything and then start playing with rads and flow temps

My Octopus online quote is half the heat geek online estimate (both after grant) buuut we have nice radiators and do not want them replaced with soulless panels. More or bigger rads yes but not interested in 'standard' appearance rads. That basically counts Octopus out as they only deal in their supply choice plus I still think the running cost may be high in this house so every bit of efficiency will count.

This might be an odd question but has anyone come across repurposing cast iron fireplaces as emitters? We have a number of these with large surface areas in prime positions. They are part of the history of the house so they are staying but I wonder if they could be heated from behind and become emitters.

If you don’t do grant work then why would I pay you £9k for an installation which would cost me £1.5k anywhere else?

….sounds like he has plenty work without offering the grant which suggests he provides tangible value in someway.

Thats about right. I’ve done two HPs under a Grant Umbrella scheme, they charged me around £2k each for their service, so the grant worked out at around £5.5k. Of course, I could register for MCS myself, but really, it is far too much paperwork and hassle getting it sorted, it isnt a quick form filling exercise, there really is far too much paperwork involved in being registered to collect the grants. And, as seen from quotes I’ve seen, my price isnt too much different from some who are offering the grant, it’s well known that some are just pricing it as normal then adding £5k plus onto the price. Octopus were fitting them at cost price a couple of years ago, they are now pricing them a lot more, but still on the cheap side, £10k is quite cheap for a large company to fit them, but be aware, they will probably design their systems to run at 50 degrees, so it will cost around 25% more to run that a well designed lower temperature system, running at 35 degrees.
So I’m mostly now fixing poorly fitted, and inefficient HP systems, servicing air source heat pumps, and still doing oil boiler fitting, spares and repairs.
There are a lot of Companies jumping on the HP grant bandwagon, many of them will be gone in 3 years time when the grants run out, from then on there will be a lot of people who need servicing of their systems, and few people offer that, so I’m well placed for that.

Octopus might be sizing their systems to run at 50C yes, but they are also able to offer you a tariff to make it cheaper even so, which other installers are not.

The initial online estimate was 10.2 kW loss

Wait, your house is losing 10.2kW to the outside?  Do you live in Antarctica? Do you have windows or just holes in the walls?

I haven't done a survey, but in our house when it's as cold as it gets here (0C or thereabouts during the day) the heating is running about 30% of the time.  It's a 15kW boiler that throttles down to 9kW, and then cycles. So I'm guessing that we are putting in maybe 7kW during the burn and that is for 1/3 of the time. The temperature is set to the same most of the day and drop 3-4C at night, so it seems that we are losing something like 2kW ish during the coldest days. Right now, the heating is coming on about twice a day for 2o-30 mins at a time (and it's only set to 40C flow temps).

I don't know if the heat loss survey counts it like that though. I think they just look at the building and don't take into account all the draughts I've blocked and the curtains on the door etc.

Wait, your house is losing 10.2kW to the outside?

Estimated so don't know if that's what it's actually loosing and I think that's estimated at a certain outdoor/indoor temp. I'm assuming they use the mapping data for external wall size and the EPC details. It's modern windows though wooden framed. House is a detached box built 1930 ish. It's been around 11-13 Deg here and we've burnt 62Kwh of gas to heat to 18deg (yesterday was similar). Boiler is 30Kw

we’ve burnt 62Kwh of gas to heat to 18deg

Since when?  Today? That's about £5 worth right? So £150 a month at current temps? That's quite a bit.

Yeap today, just under £5 according to octopus app. Jan this year was £250 on gas alone with several months either side around £200! On the cold days that's supplemented by a wood burner as well. So yeah quite a lot (though we are both WFH so not heating and emptying house).

Ouch. My estimated annual cost for gas for cooking at heating is £760 on my current bill.

Last 1 years usage was £1500 with the majority over the 5 coldest months, that's heating and hot water. Cooking is all electric and we fare much better on that front, our export has covered 85% of our import this year (which includes charging the car). If nothing else I hope the assessment will highlight what could be improved.

Last 1 years usage was £1500 with the majority over the 5 coldest months

My colleagues heat pump was that for January alone..... So much so that after 5 years of this he's going back to an oil boiler.

Done by the cheapest sub contractor on. Grant based work not disimilar to the octopus deal.

Devils in the details. If they get it wrong your on the hook for the bills

My sister complains that her heat pump is expensive. But she won't be told how to set it up properly.

Last 1 years usage was £1500 with the majority over the 5 coldest months

My colleagues heat pump was that for January alone

Either he has an absolutely huge uninsulated house, or he isnt telling the truth.
£1500 a month is roughly 10kW use for 18 hours a day. Even the worst HP will achieve a COP of 2 while doing the CH, so he’s pumping in around 20kW of heat into the building for 18 hours a day. The typical house uses between 6 and 14kW depending on age/size/insulation, and that figure is when the temperature outside is at -3 degrees. Theres no way the temperature was below -3 for a month solid, so it is near impossible to use so much electric to heat a house unless it is huge.

My sister complains that her heat pump is expensive. But she won’t be told how to set it up properly.

thats all very well but you have the theory but no practical in the matter . .

this chap has had several sets of professionals in to rectify the issues and its just been badly installed . no Adjusting of settings will solve it. Its a crippled system installed on the cheap - Watch your quotes is more the warning than "heatpumps are bad mmmkay"

AlanL - its two heat pumps i believe its a 14 and a 10 or similar feeding a converted steading.

They have combined them into the pre existing  28mm pipe feeding the building and it runs under the floor and through walls and the preexisting  pipework is uninsulated so much so that they can feel the floor and wall warm in the areas of the pipes.

We had a week of -8- -10c at night between the 14-21st jan  and a months average of 1.3c

So with that in mind  - i would say there might be an element of exaggeration in his number - but i don't think it would be far off given he is looking at fiting a new oil boiler as a cost alternative.

thats all very well but you have the theory but no practical in the matter . .

Right but she is doing the thing they all tell you not to do which is run it hot like a gas boiler, and she won't do proper experiments with it.

AlanL – its two heat pumps i believe its a 14 and a 10 or similar feeding a converted steading.
They have combined them into the pre existing 28mm pipe feeding the building

So it is huge, or over-specified. 28mm pipe is not large enough to run efficiently. If both are running together, 28mm will never be able to carry the output. I cant comment any more on it, but if they cannot get the primary pipe size right, have they got anything right in the design.

So it is huge, or over-specified. 28mm pipe is not large enough to run efficiently. If both are running together, 28mm will never be able to carry the output. I cant comment any more on it, but if they cannot get the primary pipe size right, have they got anything right in the design.

your not telling me anything he doesnt (now) know .....

But you pay peanuts you get monkeys ....

Slight tangent - can a HP be used to run underfloor heating instead of radiators?

Slight tangent – can a HP be used to run underfloor heating instead of radiators?

They are better at running UFH, as UFH requires a lower flow temperature, so perfectly suited to a HP as the heat source.

I seem to have a mix of 22mm and 15mm in my house with 10mm spurs running behind dry lining to the rads, and I am looking at a 6kW heat pump which I think will be plenty. I'm running the gas at 40 +/- 5C now.  Does that sound reasonable?  15 year old 3 bed semi. Octopus thought I'd be ok as long as there wasn't any  8mm.

22mm will run 6kW at a DT of 5. 15 will run 2.75kW, and 10mm will run 1.15kW.
If the 22mm runs for a way, then splits to upstairs and downstairs in 15mm, then it may be OK with the existing pipes.
If there is only a small section of 22, and large runs with multiple rads in 15mm, then you will not get a well run system, as the DT will need to be larger (the difference between flow and return), and having a larger DT means more electric to heat it up.
See what your heat loss survey says, it should have room by room details, if you can find out which pipe feeds which room, you can then work it out to see if any pipes need changing. For example, if the living room heat loss is 2kW, and you have a 10mm pipe running to one large rad, then it isnt going to be efficient, as 10mm will only comfortably run 1.15kW. You can get it to work by running the HP at a higher temperature, and increasing the DT, but that knocks efficiency, whcih shoudl be designed out to get the best and cheapest running system.

I don't know where all the pipes go. I just opened up the kitchen ceiling to lag the (15mm) from one side to the other and I saw both 15 and 22 so I am guessing that it is as you say - that would seem logical, but who knows.  When you say DT in that sentence do you mean the drop across the pipes before it hits the radiators?

I've got the boiler set to 40C, which means it will top out at 45C. I haven't measured the temps yet because I have lost my thermometer but the hottest rad is about 42C or so once it's reached max temp  using the IR probe.   I can't measure the outflow but based on this and what I have exhaustively measured before the boiler return will be about 30C or a little less. It's certainly only a little warm to the touch.

Most rooms now have 100mm type 21 radiators, the living room has two. It's certainly toasty in here now as the heating has just cut out having come on earlier.  I'm working on the assumption that if 40-45C flow temps can add 1C in half an hour, then 35C should be able to keep it topped up most of the time if run continuously.

We’ve got someone coming round tomorrow night from a Heat Pump installation company to do an assessment at our bungalow. What questions should I be asking? We already have solar power and, with 2 of us living in a 5 roomed house, our bills are pretty low. I’m looking to be convinced of the need to spend another big chunk.

^^^ Anybody??

You can ask them as many questions as you like, whether you get an answer that is truthful or that you fully understand may be difficult.

As always the best information will be if you have seen their work or know other people who have used them.

But ask them how big their company is, how many installers (employed and sub contracted), do they carry out servicing and maintenance, which units they fit, the number they fit per year (try to judge how many they should be installing compared to the size of the company). Types of system they install, air source only or ground, closed loop, open loop, cooling options. Workmanship warranties.

I would suggest if they only fit air, and Daikin, Samsung or cheaper heat pumps in big numbers with lots of sub contract labour then I would avoid as they are picking low hanging fruit just looking to make as much money without offering any aftercare.

If a company is prepared to maintain and repair then hopefully they will carry out a reasonable install as they are looking after it for you.

Feel free to message me if you have any queries.

Ask whether their kit is Kraken compatible for when Octopus take over the universe. I personally paid for a propane heat pump on the basis it is more efficient in cold weather than a standard R32 or R400 series refrigerant. We are still getting a CoP of about 6 even with temperatures dropping to near zero overnight.

A couple of bits dud annoy me about our install though. The first being that we had to replace a perfectly fine 250litre Worcester Bosch hot water tank as they wouldn't guarantee the system without replacement. The existing tank had as good insulation and basically the same coil area as the new one. Grr.

Second point was that they ended up having to run large bore (mebbes 30mm) pipes to and from the heat pump up into our loft to the balance tank they also installed. I know that the heat pump circulates hot water at a quicker rate than a gas boiler, but why don't they just stick in a more powerful pump so it copes with the increased pressure drop? It means we have two ugly lagged pipes running up the entire side of our house, instead of them just popping through the wall to the conveniently placed supply and return pipes from the old boiler. Also Grr.

edit - others more relevant

Thanks all. Appreciated. We’ll see what they have to say. ?

Second point was that they ended up having to run large bore (mebbes 30mm) pipes to and from the heat pump up into our loft to the balance tank they also installed. I know that the heat pump circulates hot water at a quicker rate than a gas boiler, but why don’t they just stick in a more powerful pump so it copes with the increased pressure drop?

It’ll be 28mm probably, or, 35mm pipes. They need to be that size to be able the transfer the heat at an efficient level. Gas boilers probably run the water at a similar speed, it is the difference between the flow and return temperatures that determine the pipe size. Gas boiler have at least 10 degrees difference between flow and return, and usually 20 degrees. Heat pumps want a 5 degree difference.
Because of the small difference, it impacts on the heat given out by the radiators by both having a lower flow temperature, and the flow/return being a lot closer. Yes, pump speed can be increased, but that causes more problems. The typical pump speed is 0.9 metres per second for a well deisgned system. It can be a bit either way, but 0.9mps is a good compromise. If its slower, the flow/return temps will have a larger spread, as the water is out at the rads for longer, but less heat is put out, as the water speed cannot transfer all of the heat from the heat source. Doubling the pump speed increases the internal pipe friction by 4 times,the pump consumes 8x more power, it can get noisy, and will wear out quicker.
So, keeping 22mm piping (at more than 6kW output power) will limit the output at the Heat Pumps most efficient range, and is pretty much a Manufacturers requirement, as all of the ones I’ve dealt with require a minimum of 28mm primary piping. Sticking it on 22mm piping will invalidate any warranty if it ever goes wrong.

Coming up to a week after signup now (tomorrow). I've had an 'Introducing' email for the installer from HG but radio silence from the installer themselves.