How To Pick A Heat Pump Installer?
Today, we’re going to be sharing with you our tips on how we would go about choosing an air-source heat pump installer. When we were looking for an air source heat pump installer, it was about 2018. A lot has changed in the industry since then.
And that really is good for homeowners. It is very different to how it was when we were doing it.
The first thing that we think is a good starting point is to try and find somebody that’s government accredited. I think the biggest thing when we set out about doing this, we just thought that the government accreditation was going to assure us of a good quality installation.
Accredition
It still doesn’t do that, but getting an accredited installer, it please gives you a starting point. If something does go wrong with your installation for whatever reason, you can fall back on the accreditation authority to try and take action against the installer. Or to help you rectify your system.
The government website has a directory that you can actually search where you are based in the country. If, for example, you’ve had friends or family that have had a successful heat pump installation done, and those installers were accredited, irrespective of where they are in the country, it might be worth pursuing them to try and get the job done at your property, because a lot of these guys do travel.
Word of mouth
Word of mouth is absolutely the golden ticket here. Even if you just have to pay a little bit more to actually pay for the transportation or pay for someone to stay in a hotel, I really think if you can afford it, it’s really worth it because definitely what we have learned and we are still learning is not only from our friends and neighbors that have had air source heat pumps installed, but also from everything, all the hundreds of thousands of stories that we see on forums and Facebook groups is, installation is so critical to the success going forward of your air source heat pump.
If you have had a friend or family or somebody that you know have a really successful installation and they really believe that it was a good installation and they like the team and they felt they could trust them, it’s really worth reaching out to that team or that person and saying, Would you consider travelling to my place?
The only drawback of that is if they are located halfway across the country and you need to do maintenance work or if something goes wrong, maybe a year or two years down the line, it is a long trip for them to try and get that done. And you’re probably not going to get that done as an emergency job.
So even if you do appoint somebody that is located further out in the country, try and find somebody locally then that can just come and do the maintenance work because the most critical portion of this is getting an installation done properly.
So that means the design, the installation, and the actual commissioning of the heat pump. If that’s done properly, the chances of you having problems going forward are greatly lessened.
Clarity lies beyond the sales pitch
Typically you’ll get a sales guy that’s going to come to your property. Now, the sales guy’s job is to sell. So he’s going to promise you any number of things, and he’ll agree to anything.
And he’ll agree to the great majority of things that you actually want him to agree with. You will sign on the dotted line, and then the installation team comes, and then that’s where things get a little bit messy.
They can because if the installation team comes and they are competent, they will identify problems with what you’ve been sold. And if they’re an ethical company, they will say to you, Look, we need to change this. It might cost more money. This is where things get a little bit sticky.
So how would you avoid that? Would you say to a company who’s coming out, I want you to send the sales guy, meet the sales guy, get the quote, and then if you are happy with that, then say, Okay, now I want to meet an installer or a technical person from your team.
That would be the ideal scenario. If you have dealt with a specific company and you like the sales guy and you think that the company is good and you’ve done your research online and they’ve got generally good reviews and there’s no negative feedback regarding them, I think getting a technical guy to do a site visit after that to make sure that everything has been covered in the initial estimate, that that would be perfect.
That is precisely what happened with our solar panel installation, where we signed off on the estimate, and then they sent a technical manager out. And I generally found that that was a really good way of actually getting around any technical issues that you might run into at a later stage in the actual project.
Heat loss calculation
In my opinion, by far, the most important thing that you need to ensure that the sales guy does properly is do a thorough heat loss calculation through your house.
Now, heat loss calculations are time consuming and they’re tedious, and this is where installers like to cut corners. They’ll just try and guess them at something.
And that is, as far as heat pumps are concerned, probably the most critical piece of the puzzle, because a properly done heat loss calculation, they’ll be able to put in the proper size heat pump for your property.
So we had a total of six companies coming out and quoting us for a heat pump. Three of them didn’t even do a heat loss calculation. They literally just looked around the house and just guessed. Two of them did do heat loss calculations thoroughly, where they actually walked around with a little laser measure and measured the size of rooms, but they didn’t take any time to actually properly look at the windows, whether they were double glazed. They just assumed that all the windows were double glazed or that there was insulation here or there.
And that does skew the actual numbers in that heat loss calculation, and it can affect the size of heat pump that you’ll ultimately get.
I think actually, just to save yourself the headache and the time, maybe when you’re actually speaking to that company and saying, Oh, your salesperson is going to come. When are they going to meet me?
As you’re actually booking that appointment, as she say, And this salesperson will be doing a heat loss calculation when they come, won’t they?
If the answer is no, they won’t, then that should be a red flag, and you should be thinking, Okay, why? Why are they not doing that? Or what stage is that going to get done?
How can he give us a proper quote and actually tell me what the right heat pump is for us, the size of the heat pump is for us, if they haven’t done this calculation.
If they say that he is going to be doing a heat loss calculation when he comes, then make sure it gets done. Actually, even for a couple of rooms, just walk around with him and just see how he or she is doing it.
Make sure that you look like what they’re doing. I know that sounds crazy because you’re obviously not a heat calculation person yourself. How is he or she taking the measurements and how is he or she looking at the windows and the doors?
If you are a technical person and you don’t mind doing things like this, you can actually do the heat loss calculation yourself. There’s a lot of really good spreadsheets out there.
If you are struggling, again, the forums are full with people that actually have done this many times before. They’ll be able to guide you through the process.
What we are seeing on the forums is more and more people saying that actually the at this calculation, the installers are now trying to charge an additional service charge for that because it does take a few hours to do.
I think it’s really up to your budget as to whether you can actually absorb that or whether they even mention it or even try and charge you for it.
But it is something to be aware of that we are starting to hear more and more about that certainly wasn’t around a few years ago. It was definitely considered to be part of the service.
If you’ve got a room that really struggles to heat up and it’s really cold. And you know that that potentially will be an issue with an air force heat pump because they are a low, slow burn.
That cold room will take longer to heat up. It really is worth discussing that with yourselves, guy, and saying to him, okay, when you’re doing the heat loss calculations, I’m concerned about this particular radiator because this room is always cold.
Radiators
There seems to be a lot of conversation and reluctance with regards to upgrading radiators, and it keeps coming up even in the media or we see online the conversation, Oh, gosh, I can’t believe I’m going to have to potentially upgrade some radiators. I have to say, I think it’s maybe made a bit of a bigger deal than it is. When we did it from our personal experience, it was really simple, really straightforward. Honestly, of all the things that we’ve had to do with the central heating, that was probably the easiest and least painful thing that we had to do. Other than the cost and how much you want to then spend on upgrading that radiator, the rest of it is really straightforward, and it’s really not a massive overhaul problem, inconvenience. It can be done really just very simply in a couple of hours.
Training
It’s very important that you check that those installers have actually had the proper training from that manufacturer. There will be certificates because those manufacturers are trying to guarantee that if installer X is going to come and install that particular heat pump at your property, they actually do it in accordance with the standards and the documentation for that particular unit.
Installer reputation
Many of these installers are sole traders. They’re just one-man band companies. And so there is the risk of you pay a deposit and that company goes bust or they close and you’ve lost your deposit.
It was certainly something that we considered. And when we chose Global Energy to install ours, we knew that they were a really reputable company. We knew that it were big. They were working on a lot of big projects. They had some very big clients. A lot of the work they were doing at the time was commercial.
If they’re a good big operation and they’ve got a nice big team and they have got these commercial projects that they’re working on, then hopefully the chances of them disappearing overnight is very minimal. Sure enough, here we are three or four years later and they’re still around and being very successful.
Research, research, research
If you’ve received a quotation from an installer and you’re unsure about many of the things that are actually in there, I would encourage you to pop over onto the forums or Facebook groups. You can post your quotations there. A lot of people have done it in the past. You can actually remove the actual sum of money if you want to. Just share the actual specifics of the quotation.
People walk you through that and say, yes, this is correct, this is not correct, or there’s something missing, or this is a surplus to what you actually require. They’ll give you some advice with regards to, do I, don’t I go ahead with this quotation, and whether it’s well priced or not.
A quotation is a quotation. That is something hopefully on letterhead or that has the company details and has got details and then VAT and then an amount. A quotation is not a text message, one-liner from someone saying, Hi, Steve, this much for the job. That is not a quotation. And you should not be accepting that as a quotation.
That might be a ballpark to, this is what I think it’s going to be. Then when we do the calculations and we do everything else, we’ll make a formal quotation for you. But do not accept that as a quotation.
Again, if that’s all you’re getting is just either a verbal phone call in between his other jobs, and he phones and says, I think it’s going to be this much, or he just puts it on text message and there’s no detail and it’s not formal quotation, then that is a big red flag, and I would just avoid that altogether.
An accredited installer’s quotation has to be several pages long. They’ve got to share a whole lot of information with you with regards to your heat losses, to the performance of that pump, how it actually fares against gas or conventional air-conditioners or water heaters. It’s a very detailed document that does actually cover you should anything go wrong.
Note: Text trascribed from the video. Some edits were done in the transcription.
