I live in southernish Sweden, in a 2 story house, but only use the ground floor as I have a bedroom and bathroom on this floor. The ground floor is about 60m2, windows are janky old double glazed, and the walls are solid timber 7cm thick, ie. badly insulated. Upstairs is left unheated, so I lose heat through the ceiling, and underneath is an unheated cellar.
There is no mains gas here, so my main source of heat is a single air source heat pump, basically a split a/c unit on the wall of the living room. Its a Mitsubishi unit kicking out 7kw at 7˚ outside temp, dropping to 4kw at -10˚. It draws about 1.2kw at full chat. I keep the house at about 20/21˚, and as its not really open plan, temperature drops about 1˚ per doorway, so kitchen and bedroom are a degree or so cooler. This works fine to down to around minus 10 if its not windy, or minus 5 if its blowing a bit.
So I can’t understand why the UK has so much trouble with heat pumps. If a small single unit can work here with my poorly insulated house and much colder temperatures, they should work well in a more temperate climate. I think a lot of it comes down to method of use, ie. it needs to be run at the same temperature 24/7, and not the british way of turning it up and down constantly. I remember the old british way of setting the timer and fannying about with the thermostat constantly.
Of course, the economic factor of gas and electric prices is something else.
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