Replacing a 12 year old air source heat pump

[NeetieM]

Hello, I hope someone can give me some advice on replacing an old air source heat pump.
We moved into a shared ownership house last year which has a Daiken air source heat pump fitted to provide heating and hot water. The unit was fitted when the house was built 12 years ago. It seems that the previous owners of the house weren't too bothered about getting the unit serviced and the unit has died on us, although I think 12 years is about the average lifespan for older ASHP units.
We had an engineer out to try and fix the problem but he says that the unit is beyond economical repair and refilling the unit with refrigerant alone would cost a lot and wouldn't necessarily guarantee getting it working again so he recommended getting a new unit.
We need a unit size of 7kw and have been quoted between £8-10,000 to fit a new one (though it is practically impossible to find anyone who even wants to quote as demand has increased massively due to gas and electric prices going up so much.)
We were a bit shocked at the price as we already have an ASHP water tank fitted and we just need a replacement unit, however we were also told that to decommission the old unit needed to be done by an aircon engineer and we should expect to pay around £3000 for that too! So what I am asking is are these quotes correct? I understand that the draining and disposal of the refrigerant liquid is a major factor but should that cost so much for a domestic heat pump?
Also does anyone know if we replace an old unit with a new one, we would still be able to apply for the RHI scheme? As far as I can see it hasn't be claimed at our address before. Does anyone know if there is any other financial help out there at all such as interest free loans to install renewables?
I have been a bit shocked at the cost of such a system in a shared ownership house. It's fine when it is working but devastating when you have to cough up £11,000 to replace our source of heating and hot water into a house which is supposed to be affordable housing! We're not sure how we are going to be able to fund it.
Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

 

[ShaunCorbs]

I agree refrigerant prices have gone up around 800 for 10kg but I doubt you would need that much

Also if it’s out of gas there will only be trace elements left so shouldn’t take an ac engineer long to make safe defo not 3k 😀

Have you spoken to Daiken maybe they have a decent service engineer in your area ?

 

[NeetieM]

Thanks, that's reassuring. i think having a second opinion from a Daiken engineer might be the way to go.

 

[oz-plumber]

Reclaiming of refrigerant shouldn't cost anywhere near what you were quoted.
As for the price of a 7 kW system, i think that's also way over.

For the quoted price, what are they replacing?

 

[Anita M]

We have a system with a 'hydrobox' but have been told that we no longer need that and there is just an outdoor unit now, I think it is a monobloc unit? I'm guessing that we are either being given high quotes as people either don't want the work as so they will price it to make it worth their while or they just want us not to contact them again.
We are having real trouble in even getting anyone to contact us. Having called 10 installers we have had 2 call us back both with fairly outlandish estimates. It's seems like a bit of an empty void of installers out there in the South West.
We have had no experience with these sorts of heating systems before so we are completely green and so all advice is gratefully received so many thanks.

 

[Anita M]

Reclaiming of refrigerant shouldn't cost anywhere near what you were quoted.
As for the price of a 7 kW system, i think that's also way over.

For the quoted price, what are they replacing?

What we have at the moment is a system with a 'hydrobox' as well as the outdoor fan unit but have been told that this is no longer needed and we just need a monobloc unit and have seen a Daiken 7kw monobloc unit for £2727 which is approved for RHI payments, but then you have the installation charge on top of that but as it is just replacing and not a new system installation surely it can't be that much. I wish I had a bit more knowledge about this sort of technology to know what is a reasonable price to pay. Thanks for the thoughts though.

 

[Jim09876]

Dang, seems like point to point heat pump swap is the way forward? Flow, return plus one wire 5k? Shop around OP is your best bet.

 

[poorman]

Hello, I hope someone can give me some advice on replacing an old air source heat pump.
We moved into a shared ownership house last year which has a Daiken air source heat pump fitted to provide heating and hot water. The unit was fitted when the house was built 12 years ago. It seems that the previous owners of the house weren't too bothered about getting the unit serviced and the unit has died on us, although I think 12 years is about the average lifespan for older ASHP units.
We had an engineer out to try and fix the problem but he says that the unit is beyond economical repair and refilling the unit with refrigerant alone would cost a lot and wouldn't necessarily guarantee getting it working again so he recommended getting a new unit.
We need a unit size of 7kw and have been quoted between £8-10,000 to fit a new one (though it is practically impossible to find anyone who even wants to quote as demand has increased massively due to gas and electric prices going up so much.)
We were a bit shocked at the price as we already have an ASHP water tank fitted and we just need a replacement unit, however we were also told that to decommission the old unit needed to be done by an aircon engineer and we should expect to pay around £3000 for that too! So what I am asking is are these quotes correct? I understand that the draining and disposal of the refrigerant liquid is a major factor but should that cost so much for a domestic heat pump?
Also does anyone know if we replace an old unit with a new one, we would still be able to apply for the RHI scheme? As far as I can see it hasn't be claimed at our address before. Does anyone know if there is any other financial help out there at all such as interest free loans to install renewables?
I have been a bit shocked at the cost of such a system in a shared ownership house. It's fine when it is working but devastating when you have to cough up £11,000 to replace our source of heating and hot water into a house which is supposed to be affordable housing! We're not sure how we are going to be able to fund it.
Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

We had our old nibe replaced last month, no aircon engineer, they turned it upside down and slid it down the path and left it, upside down, where it leaked oil out. When we had a problem.with it Nibe didn't have an engineer near us, told to ring local.Nibe installers, " did we install it" no, sorry mate to busy, same answer from 5 installers, cost us £558 to get a Nine engineer out, he fixed it but said it was getting noisy, perhaps we should think of getting a new one. At 77 that was so out of the question, then I discovered that living in an urban area I qualified for a free ASHP and PV panels with batteries, I now have a Valiant 7.5kw ASHP and boiler, both do.much smaller than the Nibe.
Without the grant I would never have been able to replace the Nine.
The PV panels are on their way