Heatgeek.com

Has anyone been through the heatgeek.com design consultation process?

They seem to know there stuff but can’t find reviews or know anyone who has used them.

Thanks

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.