A dad said his £7,000 air-source heat pump system is a “money trap” and “not suitable for homes” as his bills are four times higher than if he had a boiler. Vahid Aminzadeh, 45, bought his home – which already had a brand new air-source heat pump – four years ago.
Having previously paid £80-a-month for electricity and gas, he hoped the system would see his bills at least stay the same. But he said his four-bed home has been beset by problems – and his family are freezing.
Back up heating options – like plug in fan heaters and a back up electrical hot-water system – are costing the family £15 a day. For the first winter he couldn’t get the temperature inside to go above 15 degrees. The next year, the dad-of-one, who has worked as a robotics engineer, thought he’d conquered the system with hours of research.
He managed to get the house up to 23 degrees, but it was costing more than £300 a month in electricity. The home is not connected to the gas network. And when he switched on the heating in October this year, it was running cold and showing an alert.
And despite three engineers checking over the system, at up to £180 an hour, he can’t get it back on track. He’s been quoted £500 for new parts which he says will take months to arrive – and he might not even need. Or £7,000 for a whole new system.
The family-of-three have spent the last two months wearing thermal layers and onesies all the time, Vahid said. Vahid, a software developer from East Molesey, Surrey, said: “This is horrible! It was here when I moved in so I didn’t choose it but I at least thought it would be cheaper and more efficient, but basically they’re a trap. The government gives companies a massive grant to install them but if they don’t work or something goes wrong you’re the one left freezing and no one will come and fix it for you.
“Companies are just interested in getting the grant and I don’t believe enough people installing them even know how they work and how to sort out problems. The very few people who do know how to help have a monopoly on the market so charge very high rates. You can have a gas boiler serviced for £50 – but it’s £580 plus vat for an ASHP.
“We’re not allowed to switch to gas because it would raise our CO2 emissions. All I want is a warm house, but we’re freezing to death and having cold showers every day. Someone’s house is their safe haven. When it’s cold and your family are cold and you can’t get anyone to fix the problem it has a huge impact on your mental health.”
Vahid, his wife and daughter, aged five, moved into their new-build house at the end of 2020. Their home is supposed to be heated by the ASHP. ASHPs circulate heat from the air around a water tank and then pump the heated water around the heating system.
The hot water is also pumped around another water tank to provide hot tap water. When the ASHP fails to heat the water for washing an electric heating system kicks in, but the tank runs out fast so the family are regularly having cold showers. They are relying on electric fan heaters which heat small areas of their home at a time and can’t be left on overnight or while they are out, and cost £230 a month to heat a quarter of the house, Vahid said.
Vahid’s home, which is energy rated A, also has solar panels to provide some of the electricity. Switching to gas isn’t a fix, because of the energy rating on the house, and if they could it would take three months to connect the two-storey house to the network Vahid said.
Vahid contacted the company that installed his ASHP when he moved in, but was told they wouldn’t service the unit, he said. When it finally stopped working altogether this year he was quoted £180 for the first hour for one engineer, and £90 for further hours, and £120 per hour by others: all before VAT. He’s been told it’s an electric pump that’s faulty, and then it isn’t.
And he’s payed £288 to have the system cleaned and £236 to have excess air flushed out. These efforts gained Vahid’s family a few degrees, but the system wasn’t working again at the start of November. Next Vahid was told a valve in a pump needs replacing, but he’s still waiting for the parts from the manufacturer, NIBE.
It would cost around £3,000 to replace the ASHP unit, Vahid said, but he can’t get anyone to do that because they’ll only offer him an installation of a whole new system for over £7,000 he said. He said: “I’m just not confident that even if the valve arrives it will fix the problem.
“I think the government is pushing a technology that is not ready, and installers are grabbing the grants and then washing their hands of the problems. They won’t help with a system that’s already up and running because they don’t get a grant for that.
“This is a complicated system, it’s like asking everyone to switch to driving a car with a jet engine: the government are focussed on meeting a target with no regard for the pain it’s causing people.”