Best Heatpump, Do You Have One And Would You Recommend Yours??

[NightShiftA]

Hey all, this looks like a very informative forum. We live in Canterbury, so we get a few chilly days and nights in winter. We're going to get a heatpump installed before winter comes. Our house is already quite well insulated.

If you've got a heatpump, what make is it and would you recommend it?

Thanks,

Andy

[JandM]

Hello and welcome.

[benandclare]

Welcome along NSA.

Alas cant help you as out in the sticks so have large woodburner and central heating .

[IanW99]

If you are a member of consumer then they have several reports and recommendations see heat-pumps

If you aren't a member then check out the local library as they often carry the magazine / reports.

Ian

[SteveR]

we have a Daiken inverter heat pump and would recommend it.

[Super_BQ]

In terms of space heating, there's really no 'BEST' heat pump you can buy. The consumer report does test a lot of models, but at the end of the day, we're not talking a world of difference in performance. Though you do want to buy a heat pump that is inverter driven.

We're in Christchurch and we have 5 heat pumps in our house (which built about a year ago - actually during this time last year, I recall a difficult job installing the copper refrigerant pipes through the floor joists). Two of them are unconventional ; 1 for the hydronic floor central heating and other for domestic hot water heating. The other 3 which may be of interest to you, are Mitsubishi Heavy Industries units. Our original plan was these unit were installed for air cooling during the hot summer. But so far, we never had to use them for cooling yet (or I did not anticipate the insulation performance of our house to be quite good). During the winter, we did manage to get some use for space heating and do like the programmable timer. During the off peak power (between 9pm to 7am), our bedroom unit would turn on at 6am and I would say it was important that the unit operated quietly. Noise may not be a factor if you are a heavy sleeper. It's almost important to know that Mitsubishi has 2 lines of heat pumps with different branding (Mitsubishi Electric and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries). They look different but the features and performance are pretty much the same. But I recall someone telling me that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will be phasing out of the NZ market and just focus on 1 line (seems repetitious to have 2).

When assessing energy star ratings, beware of the OLDER star rating or look at the total kW usage per year. The reason is you may look at an old unit 3 or 4 years ago that has a 4 out of 5 stars but in current star rating, it's more like a 2 out 5. The reason is heat pump technology has improved so much that they were able to go over 5 out of 5 stars - so they had to change the scaling to reflect these efficiency gains. Also it's important to know that smaller heat pumps will be more efficient than the larger units.

You may already know that there are 2 types of heat pumps; multi-split and single. We went with individual complete units instead of a single outside compressor split system because i've found that the split system doesn't really perform that well under high demand if 3 rooms with 3 blowers inside demanded heat at the same time. Also the efficiency isn't as good as having separate single units because the extraction of heat from the outside air is less on a big single unit vs multiple small units where the compressor is located in different areas outside the house. Furthermore in a multi-split, if the outside compressor were to fail then you've lost heating completely, whereas the single units, if 1 breaks then you still got another unit to use.

Apart from the top Japanese brands, there is a growing market for Asian generic name brands of heat pumps. Brands that NZ has never heard of but having quite attractive pricing. Our neighbour had a 3.5kW Taiwanese brand installed for less than $2000 with full warranty. I suppose in this day of age, regardless of any brand name, the units are made in China and the technology is of no secret. On a daily basis, we use a Chinese hot water heat pump (split system) for our domestic water and though Mitsubishi Ecodan was available (and strongly pushed by local installers), the price was 3 or 4 folds more - you have to question if it will last 3 or 4 times longer? I figured payback for the cheap chinese one was about 2 years with how much hot water we use.

[rogercruse]

we have a Daiken inverter heat pump and would recommend it.

We got Daikin system and got Dan Carter to install it!


OK, Not Dan Carter, but the man who installed Dan Carter's heat pumps.

[ralf-nz]

I too think that the make is not overly important ( we are very fine with our Fujitsi one though)!

It is much more about the right size(s) for your region, house and lifestyle.

[Tcam478]

Hey all, this looks like a very informative forum. We live in Canterbury, so we get a few chilly days and nights in winter. We're going to get a heatpump installed before winter comes. Our house is already quite well insulated.

If you've got a heatpump, what make is it and would you recommend it?

Thanks,

Andy

Hi NightShiftA

Sorry if this is too late to help you with your heat pump issue.
I've got a Mitsubishi heat pump and works fantastic. Quiet, just like the ads say, and keeps going even when it gets cold.

I'm in Christchurch and got mine installed by Heat Pumps Now. Gave me a great deal and did an awesome job. If you're still after a quote on a heat pump, have a chat with them www.heatpumpsnow.co.nz