Ground Source Heat Pumps
Earn up to £3,054 per year for 23 years as a cash back for having a Ground Source Heat Pump installed under the Renewable Heat Incentive Scheme.
This scheme is programed to start next April 2011
To Qualify for this you will need
- An energy performance certificate (Sap report) we do this for free
- Upgrading of Loft insulation/cavity wall insulation we do this for free
- A consultation of what renewable energies are suitable to your property
- Have installed Microgeneration Certificated Scheme products by us
- Have an annual service scheme in place
Any (MCS) Products installed after July 2009 will be eligible for cash back in
April 2011 from Ofgem
Ground Source Heat Pumps involves utilising the thermal energy stored within the ground.
This form of heating energy is often used in mainland Europe, North America and many other countries but is now becoming more popular within the UK.
Ground Source Heat Pump systems work by releasing the ground energy to heat your premises for a fraction of the running costs of conventional heating systems, whilst helping to protect and save the environment for future generations.
Ground Source Heat pumps utilises the constant year round temperature of the ground to bring heat or cooling inside a premises.
One of the benefits of this system is that it can be used in the winter as heat and in the summer as a cooling system.
How Heat Pumps Work
A heat pump can be used to heat the space in your house there are a few ways this can be done one where the system works really well is, through underfloor heating, this is where pipes are laid in the concrete floor spaced out in six to eight inch gaps and then all looped back to a heat exchanger and then connected to the air source heat pump, the other way do do it can be done through a ventilation system this is where the air source heat pump is connected to ducting and the blown air is channeled throughout the rooms in the house. An air source heat pump works by utilising low class heat and upgrading it to high class heat, simplified they work like a domestic fridge but in reverse, for example the food you put in a fridge is generally warmer than the food that has been inside it a while. The domestic fridge extracts the warm air out of the food and displaces it to the outside rear of fridge, an air source heat pump works by having a large fan in its casings passing large amounts of air over an condenser this then goes through a compressor and is upgraded to high pressure which means high heat this high heat is passed over a heat exchanger this is the bit that heats your home, before going back through an evaporator which turns it back to low pressure and the cycle starts again this is the continuous cycle af an air source heat pump like the ecodan range these are becoming more and more popular its is best to have one of these fitted by someone who has been through the MCS accreditation so you can take advantage of the RHI which is where you get payed per every KW saved, a certain amount by the Government. This is similar solar panels Feed in Tarrifs.
The Difference Between Air Source and Ground Source Heat Pumps
The main differences between an air source heat pump and a ground source heat pump is where the low grade energy is collected from, all heat pumps need a source of low grade energy to convert to high grade energy. A ground source heat pump collectors are length of pipes layed in trenches in the ground about four foot deep and about four feet apart, an average ground source heat pump of eight kilowatts would need eight hundred feet of pipes, so you will need a large amount of back yard to accommodate these. The other way a collector can be used is by getting a drilling contractor to drill vertical boreholes with his drilling rigs these also need to be the same length of pipes, so you could drill a two four hundred foot boreholes or drill three two hundred an sixty foot vertical boreholes, the boreholes need to be about twenty feet apart so they don't use up all the energy from the ground, as the energy used is always being replaced by the radiance from the sun, drilling boreholes costs more money than laying the collectors in trenches but uses a lot less ground area. An air source heat pump like the ecodan fom Mitsubishi uses the ambient air as its collector the unit has a large fan that sucks large volumes of air over its condenser converting this low energy heat before upgrading it to useful heat to be passed on to the home, both types of heat pump are becoming more common in new build properties as with all new technologies these products are getting more efficient all the time.
Below is a video of the Geo-Mole installing ground loops verically without the need for a drilling rig
