Heat pumps by Octopus

Hi,
Had an online quote for a heat pump, 3 bed house semi £2750.
Including government grant.
Anyone had one from them fitted?

is that the indicative price prior to survey or is it the firm price post survey? I have just received an initial price of £3000 for 4 bed detached with EPC 'A' rated. Need to pay £500 before they will come out and do survey.

Jon-boy
They claim that's the price.
They have cut the price so much, I think they are just testing the water. They only install (daikin which are a good pump) in a low heat version. I require a high heat pump as I have micro bore piping.
The company I've been dealing with, with the same brand are £5000 dearer. Not sure what to believe. Need someone to tell me if Octopus are the right firm for the job? They tell me that the Daikin pumps they sell are only in the low type and daikin do not sell anything else! But the website says differently.

I've paid my deposit (which is supposed to be fully refundable), and am waiting for a date for a full survey.
I have heard that Octopus tend to upgrade fewer radiators than their competitors (resulting in a lower install price, but higher running costs), but I won't be able to confirm/refute that until survey.

I've been told you can use https://heatpumpmonitor.org/ to compare performance of Octopus installations vs others, but haven't yet figured out how the filtering works.

I had Octopus quote which was £3700 5 bed detached house initially paid the £500 and got survey which came back another £4400 so over £8000 because of having micro bore pipes (8mm) which would have had to be replaced through out also quite a few new rads heat loss was good though just over 8 . I also would had to brick up a door and cut out my decking and redecorate if I needed to at extra cost so said no and got my £500 back very quickly . I still think it was worth it so now I know.
This was plus the £7500.

Had an Octopus quote of £4100 for a 3 bed bungalow with 10mm microbore inc rads, tank and grant. Not sure why you need high rated heat pump for microbore? Get a second/third/fourth opinion. I think their new Cosy one is going to be high temp next year

DD Type 'Octopus Energy' into the filter field on the top right.

Their blind online quote for my 4 bed terrace was a very precise £2,816. I'm still researching (and holding out for planning reform).

SimonClarke
I was told by a rep from octopus that their offer of a low heat pump would work with 10mm. So it would imply that there are mixed messages depending on who you speak to!

Alfieri14 when I asked of the price that I thought was very low. The reply was that's it unless I had to have pipes changed. Radiators were included if they needed to be changed. I do not trust this carrot dangling strategy.

neil_hartup they never asked the question of pipe sizes radiators were included I believe . But it’s just the upheaval as well as the extra cost.
I might look into air to air in future and get cooling in summer as I have solar panels would cost virtually nothing to run on sunny days.
Would have been nice to be CO2 neutral running house though.

Alfieri14 Try EDF

SimonClarke My pipe is only 8mm, so it requires a high temp to circulate according the the company i'm in touch with.

neil_hartup would have thought a more powerful pump rather than higher temperature. I would definitely get more quotes

I'm currently considering moving to a HP at the moment. My house is 2019 build with 10mm plastic microbore.

I have been quoted by Octopus who refused last year because of the microbore. This year they have provided a quote (£2.7K after BUS). Their initial quotation also included replacing radiators.

Prior to this I followed the Heat Geek article on generating a rough Heat Loss Calculation. Based on that my heat loss was about 5.8kW and I would need to replace 8 of 12 radiators. I then paid a respected HP installer to do a separate HLC, which took the best part of a full day and cost me £500. He calculated the HL at 5kW, also replacing most radiators. His report worked on a 40C flow rate. His quote was £13K after the BUS.

I have heard that the Octopus systems end up on a 50C flow rate, which is a bit high. You can tweak the flow rate though and alter the weather compensation.

For me, there is just too much variance in the quotes being provided. If I proceeded with the Octopus quote I would expect it to increase following survey. It's all a bit of a minefield to be honest and as the UK industry is so far behind our continental cousins the end user does have to do a lot of homework to be in a position of knowledge.

Regarding microbore, do not automatically assume that you need a high temperature HP. These tend to be less efficient. The installer that did the HLC reckoned that my 10mm wouldn't be a problem, especially as my house is zoned into ground/1st floor.

Have a look at the Heat Geek site...there's loads of information on there. Also have a look at this excellent video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxKEx1z00-4

Also this one which shows that a HP can be installed in all sorts of properties:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHsp7fDw_bg

neil_hartup Try EDF

British Gas are also doing heat pumps. They gave me a quote of £5717 (4-bed detached, with about 6kW calculated heat loss, replacing most/all radiators), compared to Octopus's quote of £3385.

(I have few qualms about asking these big companies to do a free heat pump survey.)

This might help some people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxKEx1z00-4&list=WL&index=68

Looked into this with Octopus as well recently, got the preliminary quote, looks encouraging, i belive that was for the Cosy 6, I dont think my radiators and/or hot water tank needs updating so interesting to know that this might just be an intial indicative quote based off 5 pretty generic web based questions.
I think the higher flow rate means the radiators dont need updating as much. the below article covers some but without going too into details
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/octopus-raises-the-temperature-with-cosy-heat-pump/

The octopus rep indicated the cosy 6 is the one they are rolling out, next year they hope to have the bigger models cosy 8 and cosy10 IIRC, the 8 would be very interesting for me. but with the backlog they indicated they had currently then that all might work quite well ready for winter next year.

Perhaps time to pay the 500 to get things rolling.

This is such a minefield. It's exactly the same as when the Solar PV revolution started, so many cowboys and simply installers with good intentions but who do not know what they are doing.

If you can afford to pay for a HLC from qualified installers - try Heatgeek - I think its £300.
https://www.heatgeek.com/find-a-heat-geek/

One of the large companies, OVO, are using Heat Geek installers to install their equipment.
https://www.ovoenergy.com/heat-pumps

EDF use CB Heating which they recently purchased. I believe CB Heating are not tied to particular brands.
https://www.edfenergy.com/heating/electric/air-source-heat-pump
We did speak to them briefly, they indicated they would need to fit a High Temp Heat Pump due to the micro-bore and that a "typical cost" after the £5,000 BUS Scheme would be around £12k-£14k.
They did come back to use after we said we had Octopus quote for £6000 and asked us to provide them with a copy of that quote which they would try and use to reduce the overall quote. We did this and never heard from them again.

British Gas, using their own installers?? Partner with Vaillant and Daikin so presumably offer both brands.
https://www.britishgas.co.uk/home-services/boilers-and-heating/air-source-heat-pumps.html

1. Warm Home Promise (Heating you'll love - guaranteed)
   We know changing to a new kind of heating might seem like a big move, so our Warm Home Promise is there to give you total peace of mind.
   Our engineers will only install a heat pump if we’re confident it’ll heat your home as well as a traditional boiler.
   We’ll design your new heating system to reach the right temperature for your home. And if it doesn’t, we’ll come to put things right – or give you your money back. (2)

2. They also did offer installs @ £4999 - not sure if this is still running??
   https://www.centrica.com/media-centre/news/2022/british-gas-offering-heat-pump-installations-for-4-999-to-help-customers-lower-their-emissions/

You could also try Aira.
https://www.airahome.com/
We recently had them out. The HLC came in @ 3.5-5kw depending on what number of Air Changes per Hour (ACH) was used. They quoted for a Vaillant 5kw ASHP @ £4,000 after grant.

1. They also have a Comfort Guarantee
   Our industry leading 10 Year Performance and Product Guarantee promises 20°C comfort on even the coldest day of the year (based on minimum expected temperatures).
2. Include 10 year warranty and servicing in the price

They are booked to come back in January 2024 to carry out a technical evaluation - they will produce the various documents that are required for the MCS showing the SCOP's their proposed system will generate.
I can say that their proposal said that our current, averaged, monthly spend was £148/month and the new monthly spend would be £138/month (6.76% saving).
Saving £10/month with a £4000 outlay gives a ROI of 400 years.....................!
Full disclosure - our current monthly spend is less than £60 for both gas & electric. although this December (2023) is looking like it will cost £100, maybe £120 if the very cold weather continues.

Octopus, currently only install Daikin. IMHO these are slightly older units and therefore slightly less efficient than say Vaillant or Ideal. This should be changing at some point to their own product.

Our personal experience with Octopus was that they offered a Daikin Unit also @ £6000 (after £5k BUS).
This included changing 11 of the 13 radiators.
They also contacted us again after the BUS scheme was increased (£7500) with a new cost of £3,500.

We have plastic (Hep2O) 10mm microbore drops to radiators with 15mm plastic (Hep2O) for the flow and return pipework.
We were told this wouldn't be an issue......

They intended to run a Flow Temp of 46'C and where the system failed was from the predicted SCOPs:
Heating: 3.65
Hot Water: 2.70
On those SCOPs the financials do NOT stack up.

- Heating

• 1kw of Electricity in, provides 3.65kw Heat Out @ 30p/kwh = 30pence
• 3.65kw of Gas / 85% = 4.56kw actual gas energy @ 7.38p/kwh (SVR) = 33.65pence
  So at SVR we are paying 10% more but would have to spend £6k
• However were are probably closer to 90% on our boiler and only paying 5.5p/kwh average atm
  3.65 / 90% = 4.06kw x 5.5p = 22.33pence
• Which in REALITY means it would COST us 34% MORE to operate.

- Hot Water

• 1kw of Electricity in, provides 2.7kw Heat Out @ 30p/kwh = 30pence
• 2.7kw of Gas / 85% = 3.17kw actual gas energy @ 7.38p/kwh (SVR) = 23.44pence
  So at SVR it would cost us 27.99% MORE to heat our water.
• However were are probably closer to 90% on our boiler and only paying 5.5p/kwh average atm
  2.7 / 90% = 3kw x 5.5p = 16.5pence
• Which in REALITY means it would COST us 81.81% MORE to operate.

What does all the above mean.

For it to be FINANCIALLY viable, for us, we need to see SCOP's of 4 or more on both Heating and Hot Water.

What about the impact of Solar PV and/or Battery on the system

Our current system is 5.6kw Solar PV + 9.5kw Battery, Eddi Solar Diverter
1) During summer we, rarely have the heating on (perhaps a few days in total) - hot water would essentially be free (from solar) but it already is using the Eddi - ergo: little benefit.
2) When there is little or no solar our 9.5kw battery doesn't meet our current household needs (ie. when there is no solar our battery drops to 0 by 4/5pm). So any additional electricity demand would be in addition to our current use and typically, most of this, would be @ the expensive Time of Use rate @ 30pkwh.

Conclusion: Existing Solar PV & Battery provide little to no benefit when adding a 6kw ASHP.

I also found I need COP of over 4 to make it financially worthwhile but I'm struggling to size radiators at the moment so it might not be possible without adding extra ones with all the cost and irritation that will cause. Haven't given up yet

CharlieSays was the Octopus rep able to share a datasheet for the Cosy 6? The specs seem a bit of mystery at present. And is it really… errr... purple?!

Look at Air to Air heat pumps. Daikin Multi-split can run upto five indoor units. COP of 5. You can ditch all of you radiators. Also - half the price of Air to Water ...

Not everyone can get on with blown air

Slartibartfast

You won't qualify for the £7500 Boiler Upgrade Scheme. You would also need to retain the boiler for DHW or install alternative DHW heating.

Our octopus "quote" was about £3,300 including "radiators where needed" and a water cylinder. Our cylinder is fairly new and is heat pump ready (whatever that means) and they already said they would knock some off. We had planned to change rads too as part of a wider renovation so could make use of their offer that way.
Having read some of the above I'm not convinced they really know what they are doing so I will definitely be going down the route of other suppliers when we get to it.
My reservation is around how to power it. A second 9.5 battery is certainly an option but I am also looking at the likes of Sunamps as an energy store. This would allow greater flexibility as we could create heat for the house directly via that should the heat pump be out of action or need to be turned off.

CharlieSays b

MarkyG82 Hi there I have had a Sunamp since June I’m a fan! But it’s only electrically charged and ONLY for DHW. They are not normally used for space heating . I too am looking at ASHP but it’s an old house with some microbore upstairs. The grant system here in Scotland is different I can get a £9k grant plus an interest free loan for any excess cost of an ASHP installation.

BUT! Your ASHP MUST heat water and space!! I’ve argued that a Sunamp is equiv to a hot water cylinder. That took at least a month of argument as they have another rule that says they don’t support you having a Heat battery and an electric battery. Won’t explain why though! I may wriggle round that one.

So if I do go down the ASHP road I will really have to insulate the old 2 storey cottage ( knauf boarding on some internal walls , cost? £4K ? but I can get that 75% grant funded.) Probably have to get a 2 nd electric battery ? Otherwise HP running cost might be more than my oil costs?) plus get a newer Sunamp that can be Charged electrically and thermally to meet the grant criteria.

As an ex systems analyst / procurement person/ turned fundraiser this is stretching my skill sets. God knows how lesser beings get on!😊😊😊😊

We've gone Daikin air-to-air, actually two of them running 5 internal units. Very good and way less hassle than air-to-water. However, as mentioned above, you don't qualify for the grant. Bonuses are instant heat, no hassle with weather compensation curves and fabulous cooling in summer. Very hard for the installer to get wrong, unlike air-to-water systems.

We're looking at a heat pump water cylinder but we've also retained the gas boiler. It's important to note that unless you're hyper-imsulated and have a lot of battery storage, gas CH is still cheaper on extremely cold days when COP drops off. We've run "hybrid" like this 3 or 4 days this month when it's been zero or below for least overall cost. So air-to-air until the batteries run out (we have 19kwh) and then a few hours of the gas boiler. We're on gas tracker with Octopus which is still around 5p per unit, so there's a point where that is cheaper than ASHP on peak rates.

After my research and information given by you guys, I've cancelled the heat pump.
I'm not convinced it's the way yet.
In another few years when they get better, I'll look into it!
I'm possibly getting another 5 kW battery added to my other one. Then changing the tarrif to cheap evening. See how that goes!

I am a Chartered Engineer and I hate all these letters so try not to quote them - EurIng, BSc Hons, MinstE, FCIBSE and ran a Consulting Engineering practice of 1000 staff for 20 years.

Heat pumps are wonderful things in the right application ( Reverse Cycle heat pumps as chillers are brilliant), but the maths to do heating are pretty borderline.
They will save your CO2 emissions , but unlikely to save you £ compared to a gas boiler.
Then you have to factor in servicing and maintenance of a specialist product (heat pump) compared to a simple boiler

neil_hartup same my thoughts too I am going to wait as for me it’s all expense and no savings even with the £7500 my gas boiler is quite modern and heating works great but I can see in certain situations it could work . Also if I have a problem I can get some one out quite quickly to fix and there are a lot of trained expert gas engineers.

SteveCook They will save lots of pounds vs GCH but only when aligned with decent battery storage and cheap overnight tariffs. Also very sensitive to the differential between gas/electric prices. We benefit hugely from ASHP but have maintained our gas boiler for when ASHP isn't making sense i.e. when very cold and COP drops away significantly. It all depends on what kit you have and how you use it.

neil_hartup Makes sure your battery capacity is a bit more than your average electricity usage. Plus get PV if you’ve not already.

Much as I want to get off burning gas I must also recognise that the £13k quoted for a HP Nuys me over 12 years of gas.

Without the grant ASHPs simply don't make sense for most people. Lifespan of 15 years max, capital cost of over £10k (average), high repair costs compared to gas boilers, hardly any installers/maintainers with even a semblance of a clue....

You'd have to save £1000/year in fuel every year just to recoup capital costs - and there's no way you're going to do that when gas is 25% of the cost of electricity per kWh.

We'd be better off if the govt paid for district heating pipework to be built rather than subsidising mass ASHP installs. Leave the ASHPs for more rural/isolated areas which are already off grid for gas. Not going to happen with the political fools we have in govt/waiting for govt though....

Vestas Sure, but a more useful question is whether they make sense with the grant. Sources seem to suggest lifespan of 20 years, vs 10 for gas boiiler (though my 20+-year-old boiler is still going).
They've been talking for a while about moving the green taxes from electricity to gas, which would change the relative costs. TOU tariffs do make it rather harder to calculate a representative unit price for electricity. And batteries complicate things further.
And it's not just about saving money...

DD I agree but the question is why are we going down a route which requires the regular replacement of ASHPs which generate 1500kg of CO2 each during manufacture?

District heating pipework will cost about the same as paying grants for everyone to fit an ASHP and will last orders of magnitude longer - oldest system still running is over 100 years old.

Simple heat exchanger at the end-users building (again will last decades longer than ASHP & cost a fraction of the price), will work with existing heating/water systems and can be supplied with heat via a variety of sources - solar thermal, heat recovery, geothermal, wind, whatever. As far as the end-user is concerned they get supplied with hot water & that's it.

ASHPs have their place but that place isn't in most urban areas IMHO.

However it doesn't matter what any of us think, the govt will screw it up in the worst possible way anyway - while enriching their chums of course....

sponev
I agree. My Eco 7 tariff. 33p/kWhr day. 15p/kWhr night. My gas 7p/kWhr.
So unless I have a heat pump with CoP greater than 33/7 = 4.7, then gas is cheaper.
If I had a big battery and store off peak electric, any heat pump with a CoP greater than 15/7 = 2.2, then gas is cheaper.
CO2 will be lot less than gas.
I dont know what your CoP comes out at, and what it looks like if you have to generate hot water for taps, but what you have done is what needs to be done, however you have the cost of heat pump, big battery and you still have your boiler, plus more specialist maintenance costs
Did you get the heat pump grant if you left your boiler in place.

SteveCook our set up has been part of an overall project which started with a 10.1 kwp solar array and then 19kwh of battery storage. We also have an EV which enables IO and 6 hours import at 7.5p per kWh. We're on tracker for gas, currently sub 5p per unit. In summer we banked well over £800 on export which covers our (low) winter bills and leaves a few hundred quid spare. We've also made over £60 on energy saving sessions. BUT to get there, we have invested around £26k on kit. Payback on the whole thing is around 8 or 9 years but I'm not tracking that too much as it wasn't the primary objective, I just wanted it to be reasonable. On its own, ASHP wouldn't have made sense, particularly as with A2A you don't get the subsidy. Very happy we've done it as for us, it works extremely well - but you need all the bits of the jigsaw.

sponev
Absolutely agree with you.
4 years ago we put in PV, more to do our bit for the environment (also got beehive, built wildflower meadow etc).
18 months ago added battery/inverter/more panels. Again for reasons above.
Then Russia invaded and suddenly the price of energy made it worthwhile in £ terms as well as doing good for world.
Next step is another battery for more off peak storage and leaves me the option for HP down the line.
Our house is 1907 but was fully refurbished 15 years with loaaads of insulation added.

The real thing that should be done is fix the holes in the bucket before deciding what to fill it with (gas or electric heating) and HMGov getting on and insulate the aging housing stock up and down the country.
Putting in HPs are probably all from other countries and no benefit to UK manufacturing.

I would rather live in a house that I don't have to heat (or very little) than a house where I have to debate the cheapest way to do it

SteveCook Yes, it's all a bit arse-about-face in the UK at the moment, generally a debacle wherever you look. I already see the number of disgruntled new ASHP users starting to complain as the cold weather hits, but it's not the fault of the technology, it's ramming them in sub-standard and with the wrong expectations. That said, whilst our loft is now insulated properly, our walls still need upgrading, the survey for which is next Tuesday. I recently purchased a thermal imaging camera to go heat leak hunting - it's scary but very useful! We also need to resolve the hot water situation, currently still on gas so at some point it will likely be a tank with a heat pump. The heat pump tumble dryer also arrives next week - the old vented one was a huge energy sink. The efficiency journey certainly ain't cheap but overall well worth doing, even if just to get the big wins.

Curious as to how long people have waited from paying £500 to Octopus to actually having the survey carried out?

sponev What camera did you buy?

Vestas Topdon TC001. It's the Android version but they also do one for IOS. Plugs into the 'phone, very impressed. Got it off EBay for £199, (UK badged company but Chinese) - arrived in 3 days. There's a chap with a YouTube channel, Tim and Kat's green walk or something like that, where he does a handy review.

sponev I have one of the cheap laser/IR measuring guns B&Q sell, which is enough to find the leaks the sparkies/brickies left in this new-build but I'm not sure its up to the job for my daughters house which is 50 years older.

Didn't Octopus used to lend IR cams out? Or have I lost the plot entirely 🙂

Vestas no idea about Octopus to be honest and a few hundred quid was a bit of a splurge for a niche piece of kit. But with more insulation coming up and then my kid's houses, I went for it.

Vestas There aren’t enough JCB’s and migrant workers paid over £39k to built even a small amount of district heating schemes?

billG ..and there's zero capacity to build ASHPs in this country and probably a couple of hundred installers who know what they're doing...

Also we're competing with the entire world for materials to expand the electricity network so that isn't going to happen anytime soon. Waiting time for medium/large renewable connections to the grid is over a decade now for anything consented this year.

I got a remote reading temp gun for my birthday. A very handy tool I was amazed at the different temps across this 140 year old house. I’ve got 4kw PV + 10 kWh GE and 10 kWh Sunamp. Started to get quotes for an ASHP but decided it’s not worth it till I upgrade the insulation for which I can get 75% paid by the Govt. In the meantime our £500 Winter Heating Payment covers the majority of my annual oil costs for the foreseeable future. Octopus bought a Hp factory last year ….. might be worth waiting for if you have an older house? But I now think won’t necessarily save me much if anything on running costs, as it can shut down for 6 months if you use PV and a heat battery.( as that energy used is FOC)

billG We were going to buy a (nearly) 300 year old 12 bed B&B/Hotel a couple of years ago which was on-grid for gas (rare for that area) but even so the fuel costs were staggering. Fortunately the survey flagged up about £85k of work required within 3 years so we didn't proceed. Dodged a major bullet there as the fuel costs have increased 280% since then.

Old buildings (pre-1900) are a minefield in terms of upgrading insulation. Terraced houses are well understood but anything else needs careful consideration and a budget with a 20-50% contingency for "oh bollox" moments 🙂

I’ve been advised that injecting polystyrene beads into the 40mm cavity behind the approx 25mm of wooden lathe and lime plaster panelling is not the way to go. The contractor is suggesting various makes of insulated boarding fastened to the existing panelling , available in 25 to 55mm sandwiches of thin plaster board and foamed insulation, typically available as2.4mx 1.2m sheets.

There’s more specialist materials like Aerogel that are much thinner with very low U values and using boards that are much smaller and more expensive . I’m having a survey to decide the best way forward.

Main disruption with the work would be removing the picture rails skirtings , window architraves? + avoiding a few power sockets. I might be tempted to do the removal work myself and the reinstatements to cut the costs, and have control over the finishes , plus still benefit from the grant support for the panel supply & fitting. Knauf Boards £50 to £100ea?

New Knauf board will allow a couple of things.
Cut more sockets into the ring circuits before fitting the boards over the cables. That will give you some slack on the existing sockets to pull them forwards.
Give you nice new flat internal walls.

billG Lime plaster?

If you have that then you are in a world of expense to avoid damp when adding insulation. Sounds like your builder has the right idea but you need to get it right or you're going to have damp patches appearing everywhere over the coming years.

We're looking at injected beads but we've researched the requirements to make sure it's done right and won't lead to problems down the track. So I'll be sticking close to the surveyor when he's here. Clean cavities and good brickwork are important. I'll also have the thermal imaging pre and post the installation to validate the work.

Vestas I said lime plaster but it may not be . The house burnt down in 1914 and was rebuilt a year or two afterwards so not sure what the standard plaster make up was then. NO damp in the house at all remarkable for a house with no obvious DPC , most walls whinstone rubble, one gable ( newer when it was extended in the rebuild, solid double brick but with lathe and plaster interior). The contractor seemed to think that maintaining the air gap would prevent any condensation issues.

sponev I was advised that for beads to work well you needed about 75mm minimum? Plus you needed to maintain circulation through the beads.

billG theoretically the beads do "breathe" and they also allow any water penetration to soak away vertically. Lots installed very successfully but also some horror stories. The right contractor is the key.

Vestas I'd love it if the government mandated communal HP systems for any new developments of 8 or more new houses.

Niceguy How does that save any energy costs in running unless the community network gets "free/cheap" heat from a waste energy source like a power station or a waste incinerator.
Pimlico and a lot of Vitoria were originally heated with waste energy from Battersea power station.
When the power station was turned off, big boilers were put in to run the network, however that still costs the same as gas boilers in each house to run.
One of the big data centres we designed in Europe injects all the waste heat into the town district network.
The point here is the town had a network in place to connect to.
HMGov views these networks as private concerns as opposed to forcing them to happen, so the operators have to take all the risk and if HMGov then changes policy after a few years, they take the hit. Puts them off setting up the networks and the big plant

Houses should be built correctly so they need b****r all heating. Built to Passivhaus standards a large TV will pretty much heat the room. The extra insulation also helps reduce summer overheating.

SteveCook One of the big data centres we designed in Europe injects all the waste heat into the town district network

They're all going to have to do that soon. From next year a minimum of 10% of waste heat from DCs in the EU must be recovered for use outside the DC. That ramps up rapidly to >50% by 2030.

Hell we've got an incinerator nearby which generates 42MW of electricity and the equivalent of 2.4MW waste heat which they're desperate to sell/give to someone. They can't as neither the local council/county council/govt considered this, despite being told repeatedly by the German manufacturer that it was an issue. It was classed as national infrastructure so the morons at Westminster are ultimately responsible for 2.4MW of heat energy now being dumped into an old quarry pit 24/7/365.

Any normal country would have considered this opportunity from the beginning and designed accordingly but this is the UK which would be better run by lobotomised monkeys....

SteveCook
When we built out new computer rooms at work in 2001, I specified that the air conditioning heat exchangers should exhaust the heat into the factory building next door. To be honest, 150kW of heat was probably neither here-nor-there given that in Winter, the same bay ran 1MW of gas fired infra red heating, But it might have helped a bit. In Summer, the doors tended to be kept open, so excess heat wasn't a problem.

I had a full survey completed last week. Our house is only 2 years old and we wouldn't need any radiators and piping changing. The old boiler would be decommissioned, air source heat pump installed at the rear with pipes going to the attic finding its way to our mixergy hot water tank.

I've had a quote after the government grant for 2750.
They want to install a Daikib EDLA06E2V3 which I can find online for 4500 (Inc tax) . Along with the the heat pump addon that costs 500 for the hot water tank, maybe generous 1000 on piping materials and 2500 for labour. I feel like it should be costing around 8250 (after octopus take some profit) not 10750.
What do you think about the cost? I'm no expert.

danerf

The grant amount is certainly influencing the prices quoted. Installers can make extra profit without the cost to the consumer seeming too onerous as the average person just looks to the net cost to them, and not, as you have correctly done, the true price being quoted.