Air, Ground, Water Source and Swimming Pool Heat Pumps

We are MCS Registered Heat Geek Elite Installers, Accredited with Vaillant, Daikin, Mitsubishi and Eco-forest to install their ranges.
We have a range of quality heat Pumps we can design for you to suit which is best for your House, and offer you a range of price and size systems available.  We pride ourselves on picking the Highest Quality, most Reliable and Energy Efficient Heat Pump systems on the market as experienced Installers with well over 6 years experience of installing regular Heat Pumps, and Engineers who have installed a wide range of systems over the years (including many more Brands than the ones we are accredited with), we ensure all of the Brands we install are top performing on Efficiency or SCOP, and great in other areas like sound, warranty, softwares and bonus functions they can do ie heat Hot Tub, cooling, connect to Solar PV, UFH etc.  Please contact us if you would like us to send you brochures of the different systems and to discuss the pros and cons of each system, including comparing running costs :-

Vaillant are our Top of the SCOPs range with using the new R290 Refrigerant, this brand has impressive energy efficiency and one of the quietest noise levels on the market, and the units look great.  
The Daikin is a very reliable brand who has been doing Heat Pumps for longer than other ones, the only brand offering a High Temperature Heat Pump we install, they have a range of sizes of pumps and looks, with the newest models being quieter and looking very nice with Black grills, plus they are experts in home cooling and they offer a great range of Convectors for this.  
Mitsubishi is a close follower Energy Efficiency wise of the Vaillant range performing up there at the top of the performance tables, and have just brought out an R290 range and also have the added bonus of being home made in Scotland.
Eco-Forest are our largest range with their highest outputs up to 20kw and the only range than can heat swimming pool or hot tubs as well as the home. 

As experienced Installers we know that the Energy efficiency and performance of a Heat Pump also relies on an Energy Efficient and Quality practical installation and Design of it all, ie locations and sizes picked of all the Units, pipe-runs, size of radiators etc, so some systems can actually perform better if installed well, even if their SCOP is listed different on the MCS listing and Calculations online.  We have completed the Countries top - Heat Geek Design Heat Pump Course which means we have studied a lot longer on how to Design the most efficient and best running systems than most of the Standard Heat Pump courses in the Uk.​

Heat Geek Guaranteed Installation - To have your Heat Pump installed by us through the Heat Geek network please apply by this link:  upgrades.heatgeek.com/.../apex-heating-renewables/

Fun Facts About Heat Pumps:

• Heat Pumps have been around for over 100 years and the technology is only getting better and more efficient.
• Heat Pumps are able to run in any building and heat it up if you get a powerful enough system, but are recomended to use in fully insulated houses to run with the best energy efficiency, to keep bills down and to be lower than Fossil Fuel Systems, and so the heat is held onto better in the house and the Heat Pump doesn't have to cycle a lot using up a lot of Electrical Energy. 
• We always calculate to see if your house is Heat Pump Ready first (checking piping, electrics radiators etc), which most are, apart from often some rooms need slightly larger radiators for the Low Temp Systems desired to make Heat Pumps so Efficient and some need an Electrical upgrade which is usually free of charge from the Energy Networks. The Government are also giving ECO funding grants to cover the full costs of Insulation if your house needs it - check the funding and grant page for eligability.
• Heat Pumps for very small homes/flats can nearly cost the same as Gas Boiler Install now, with the government Boiler Upgrade Scheme offering £5-6000 grant upfront, there can only be £4-5000 left to pay.  The average size house with 2-3 bedrooms will need a 7-9kw size Air Source Heat Pump will cost from £10-14,000 depending on the Brand you go for and then the BUS grant of £5000 off of this, so only ever paying £5-9,000 up front costs. Very Large Houses can need 2 Heat Pumps cascading, so can cost a bit more - the Largest output size heat Pump we install is 20kw and most ranges only go up to 13kw.
• Ground Source Heat Pumps can cost more - From around £30,000-£45,000 depending on if you get Bore Holes done, or how many Ground Loops you need for your size House and how large your field is.  Bore Holes are the more expensive option as they require a very specialist machine to dig down nearly 100m into the earth. But Ground Soruce Heat Pumps if Designed well, can reach higher SCOPs than Air Source Heat Pumps and save more on Bills, especially in the Winter as the ground is warmer than the Air then.
• Water Source Heat Pumps are a slightly Cheaper option than Ground Source and as consistent in the Efficiency (SCOP) and Flow - From around £25,000-£35,000 depending on the size heat pump needed, and the distance of the property to the water source and any work involved extra securing the Energy Blade.
• Heat Pumps are 3 - 5 times more energy efficient than Gas Boilers and could save you on your bills now compared with fossil fuels and their rising costs, with some people paying as much as 30% less a year and even more if you change from Direct Electric which are the most costly option - Heat Pumps are  considered 300-500% efficient:Comparison with other heating technologies:
  Condensing gas/oil boiler: 90-96% efficiency
  Conventional gas/oil boiler: 70-80% efficiency
  Oil or LPG: 87% efficiency 
  Direct electric heating: 35-45% efficiency
• There is already a special Electricity tarrif for Heat Pump owners with cheaper off peak rates, and talk of more coming out for the future, so things should sway in the favour more and more for Heat Pump owners for cheaper energy bills, as the Government push more for Carbon Neutral and in the UK we produce more Green Electricity from Source - In Europe where they produce more Green Electricity there are much cheaper rates of Electricity overall
• Your homes carbon emissions will be reduced by 70% and could be moved down to zero if you use zero carbon 'Green" electricity as there are no Emissions at the point of use in your house.  Heat Pumps contribute to an annual reduction of 9,16 million tons CO2 emissions in the EU. According to IEA, heat pumps could save 50% of the building sector's CO2 emissions, and 5% of the industrial sector's. This means that 1.8 billion tonnes of CO2 per year could be saved by heat pumps this is why the Government have targets to install as many heat Pumps in the UK as possible, and are putting a lot of funding into training up more engineers and for more Grants to continue.  And why they have goals to not allow any New Builds to have Fossil Fuels in from 2025, and even to stop at some point after 2035 to installing fossil fuels at all in any house
• Heat Pumps can work at temperatures all the way down to - 26 Degrees Celcius, due to the refrigerant inside them, so are no problem for our UK Winters and the correct size output is chosen for each houses Heat loss to work at minus temperatures - here at Apex we always very Slightly oversize as well just to make up for any possible extreme weather conditions, but never oversize a lot to over use any energy.
• Now could be the best time to get a Heat Pump, due to all the funding available. The government is aiming to phase out all fossil fuel technology by 2050 to achieve carbon zero.  Historically funding for any new renewable technology is larger at the start of the push and then goes down with time, so now you could save the most - But there has been talk of possible means testing in the future for Heat Pump grants.

The air source heat pump absorbs heat energy from the outside air (heat energy exists in up to absolute zero or -273 degrees celcius) into a liquid refrigerant, which turns this liquid into a vapour at even very cold -25 celcius temperatures. Then using electricity, the pump compresses the lower temp liquid vapour with lots of pressure to increase its temperature up to what is needed - ie.55-60 degrees depending on how effective the refrigerent used is - the newest Heat Pumps use R290 refrigerent which goes up to 60degrees and don't need any immersion or back up heaters for legionella cycles - and there are some High Temp Heat Pumps which can go up to 70 degrees like a Gas Boiler but they have an extra indoor unit to boost the heat. It then condenses back into a liquid, for the most commonly used Air to Water systems, to release its stored heat into the system. Heat is sent to your radiators or underfloor heating and the remainder can be stored in your hot water cylinder. You can use your stored hot water for showers, baths and taps.  So you can see Heat Pumps work in very cold weather conditions and have been used in cold European countries for well over 40 years. Now adays much more funding has gone into making the technology much more efficient as we push for green systems and the effciency has improved from 200%-4-500%. 

Ground source heat pump uses fluid to absorb heat from the ground. Using electricity, the fluid is compressed and raised to a higher temperature, like with the Air Source heat Pump. Heat is then sent to radiators or underfloor heating - the remainder is stored in a hot water cylinder which can be used for showers, baths and taps. A ground source heat pump can increase the temperature from the ground to around 55°C, but because the Temperature of the Ground tends to be conisistent all year round at around 10 degrees celcius, than the Air, this won't use as much electricty and energy to heat it up in Winter, so Running costs will be similar and consitent all year round. With an ASHP electricity needed is quite a bit higher in the Winter from the Summer, but conversly if Air is warm outside, can be very very effcient and cheap to run. So overall average running costs can be similar for both Air and Ground Source heat Pumps, but slightly lower for Grounds as people use heating a lot more in Winter, but the best efficiency for a Ground Soruce System is to have warmer mositer ground where you put the loops and pipes in - some people try to put these in where there is warm water underneath to increase the SCOP and effciency to really high levels- like 600-900% has even been acheived by a few people. The effciency of Air Source heat Pumps in Winter has improved now though this last year or 2, with the newer R290 Gas, so the running costs are very similar now on average all year round, unless you design this super efficient superior hydropool Ground system.  

Water Source Heat Pumps - These are the same actual Heat Pump as the Ground Source Machines, but they work by extracting energy from a flowing or even a still standing river, and converting this into hotter water with the Compressing same systems described above.  We use the Energy Blade from Nuenta, as this can improve extraction up to 20kw if the river is fast flowing, and 8kw is still standing, than just standing pipes alone.  Temps of water like Air do fluctuate all year round, but are more stable than Air again, and it is easier for water to extract heat from water, so is slightly more efficient too.  These systems need the water source to be less than 100 metres away from the House for them to work.  And the further away the water is from the house, the less efficient they will be, unless the pipe is run very deep in the ground trench then to the house (which would make this a water and ground source heat pump really then).  

Below: "The Daikin Altherma High Temperature Air Source Heat Pump"
Can run up to the same Flow Temp as a Gas Boiler so Saves you from having to upgrade any radiators which may be needed with a Low Temp Heat Pump