One Year Temperature and Heat Pump Performance for a Micro-Community of low Carbon Dwellings, in Wales, UK

This paper discusses some of the findings from a InnovateUK funded Building Performance Evaluation programme project, which finished in 2015, at a micro-community, of Low Carbon Dwellings in Wales, UK. The paper focusses on the 12 month (July 2013 to June 2014) monitoring of the buildings, in terms of temperature (external and internal) and performance of the heating systems. The case study micro-community consists of nine and four low impact single storey flats and two storey houses respectively. All the units at the scheme use exhaust air source heat pumps (EASHPs), deemed by their manufacturer to be smart efficient heating systems which are used extensively in Scandinavia to provide hot water and space heating needs, coupled with underfloor heating. The EASHP is a heating system that supposedly requires little human intervention for sustainable operation. The project monitoring and reporting completed in 2014 and 2015 respectively, and the findings discussed in this paper demonstrate that the installation, commissioning, operation and maintenance of the EASHPs has not been as-designed, such that a Performance Gap exists and is less than ideal for a sustainable future. Indeed, the weaknesses are multi-facetted including foremost the thermal performance of the component elements. This paper will be of interest to building services engineers, architects, housing associations, developers, building contractors, academics, policy makers and the manufacturer of the EASHP.