My heat pump journey with Octopus Energy
Mum's Daikin EDLA04E2V3 heat pump
We started to look at getting a heat pump in September when we filled in the Octopus Energy heat pump survey form. We quickly got a reply. It would be £3,100. This included any radiators that needed replacing, a new water tank and of course the heat pump. This also included the government grant of £5,000. On the 23rd of October the UK government increased the grant to £7,500. This brought the quote down to £600.
As we live in a new build of sever years we don’t need to replace our gas boiler. The reason we are going to go forward is, we have solar and batteries, also it will be nice to have one less gas boiler in the world. One issue for us is, we have a gas hob and it will take some work in the kitchen to replace it. We don’t want to do that yet. This means we won’t be able to cut off the gas completely.
To get a full survey you have to pay £500. This comes off the £600 and is fully refundable right up until installation should you decide to change your mind. We paid that on the 25th of September and waited for a survey date. This took much longer than expected as due to the grant increase Octopus were overwhelmed with requests. As an aside. My Mum followed the same process starting in August and had her installation at the end of February.
We finally had our survey on the 12th of January. The surveyor was here for around four hours measuring all the rooms and planning out the installation. Below are the floor plans.
Ground Floor floor plan
First Floor floor plan
The survey came back with a suggested 4 kWh Daikin EDLA04E2V3. This is the same model as pictured above. Only two radiators need replacing.
Below is the data regarding the heat pump and the radiators that need replacing.
Heat Pump System Performance Estimate
Radiator replacements
Unfortunately there was one fly in the ointment. We failed the MCS noise assessment. It has to be 42 db or less. We were 43 db. This means we need to get planning permission for 1 db. In fact it is worse than that. If you look at step 9 below, the number has to be rounded UP. We were actually 42.1 db which rounded to 43 db which is a fail. I will write more about the planning permission experience once I know the result. I can say, it cost £322!
Octopus has told me that a heat pump is at its most noisy when it defrosts. This will be in deep midwinter when your neighbours will have their windows closed! After seeing my Mum’s heat pump, it is not noisy at all.
MCS noise assessment
We are making some progress. My DNO has approved the installation. We are hoping for an installation in July/August time if the planning permissions is approved.
