A Victorian home located off the Anglesey coast has updated its central heating system, moving away from solely depending on an oil-fired boiler and changing to a VortexAir heat pump/oil boiler hybrid which is now delivering the best of both worlds to the property.
A four-bedroom detached home, first built in the Victorian era, has recently made the transition to a hybrid heating system. In February, the installation of a Grant VortexAir Hybrid featuring an Aerona³ 17kW R32 air source heat pump and a 21-26kW blue flame oil boiler was completed at the property alongside a QR single coil 250 litre hot water cylinder, providing this home with a new, highly efficient heating system. We have caught up with the homeowner to learn more about why they chose a hybrid heating solution.
Q. What type of heating system was previously heating your property?
“We had a large Boulter oil-fired boiler which has given us many years of reliable service. The boiler was still working but our service engineer advised us that ordering replacement parts would become increasingly difficult as some parts were either discontinued or in limited supply. We therefore made the decision to start looking at a new heating system.”
Q. When researching a new system, what technologies did you look at?
“We did have a company visit to quote us for an air source heat pump to be fitted with a new underfloor heating system. We have solid floors and wooden floors throughout the property, original features that we did not want to remove or have lifted up to allow for an underfloor heating system to be installed and it was decided that a heat pump on its own would not get enough heat into our home using the existing radiators. This was why we went down the route of a hybrid.”
Q. Why did you explore renewable heating systems instead of a direct oil-boiler replacement?
“We wanted the new heating system to be more environmentally friendly and as a stand-alone heat pump would not be sufficient for us, a hybrid allowed us to benefit from the renewable energy of an air source heat pump with the back-up of the boiler. We also wanted to make use of the Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive and with the Grant VortexAir, the heat pump is eligible for these payments which we will receive over the next seven years.”
Q. Did you have to make any major changes to your system and radiators?
“No. The VortexAir Hybrid has been installed externally as a single unit and we have been able to use all of our existing radiators, excepting one single radiator, which was replaced by a double one.”
Q. Do you have any feedback and comments about your new Grant hybrid heating system?
“The installation was only completed a month ago but so far, the VortexAir has been performing very well. The air source heat pump has been working the most, giving our home the desired background warmth, and the boiler only kicks in when the temperatures drop. We have had a couple of very cold spells and the unit has coped well. We were not aware of hybrids before our installer, Anglesey Heating, introduced us to this technology but we are very pleased with our decision. The support from Karen at Grant UK has also been excellent – she was extremely helpful throughout and helped us with our RHI application.”
To read more about Grant UK’s hybrid range, please visit www.grantuk.com/products/hybrids.
