Spent the weekend dispensing bon-mots and advice in Harrogate at the
Homebuilding & Renovating show, one of six held throughout the UK each year. This year I have been delivering a short lecture on sustainable homebuilding and it has sparked some interesting questions and comments from the audience. However this Sunday it all got a little fiery when someone asked about the difference between air source and ground source heat pumps and whether either made sense for his building project. Rather like the output from these heat pumps, my response was just a little lukewarm.
What I specifically said was that heat pumps don’t make much sense if mains gas is available but that there should be a reasonable payback against oil. “You are doing well if you get a Coefficient of Performance of more than 3.0,” I said. I have been consistently saying this for some time now and at least one heat pump manufacturer,
Kensa, seem happy to agree with me.
But up stands this man in the audience who said that heat pumps could now deliver over 6.0 — i.e. twice as much heat output for the power input. Before I could stop myself, I blurted out “That’s rubbish.” It obviously hit a nerve, because he stood up and started getting shirty with me. “What do I know about it” sort of stuff. I have no idea who he was but can only guess he was working for one of the many heat pump suppliers exhibiting at the show.
This made me go all defensive and I started quoting a couple of studies back at him that showed that heat pumps often don’t deliver what manufacturers claim. If only to prove that I do know something about it, if not exactly ranking at world expert status. This of course made matters worse and our man turns around and walks out of the seminar theatre in an act of brazen defiance.
You could have heard a pin drop. Normally, these events pass by without any rancour at all and everything is sweetness and light from start to finish. Here there was a definite feeling that someone thought I that I was being out of order and should be upbraided.
What I think this shows is that the heat pump market is maturing fast, perhaps a little too fast. By all means consider the merits of using a heat pump, but don’t get sucked in by
the hype, and beware claims of extraordinary efficiencies achieved.