We have an old stone walled home and while we do have gas central heating, we only use it sparingly as it’s not on mains gas. I would like to replace the boiler with a suitable heat pump but the cost is considerable. We’re not retired but we only have a low income. We do depend on savings, too. How do we find out if we are eligible for grants for replacing our gas boiler with a heat pump? Has anyone here succeeded in getting a grant?
I think you should start here >>
MaPrimeRenov
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Unless you have massive modern CH radiators, the ones you have would need to be replace due to the lower output temperature of a PAC.
I think that might be outdated information with the latest heat pumps. The radiators are relatively new. Also we only heat part of the house during the winter. I expect to pay more in electricity than we save in gas and firewood. It would benefit us in convenience as dealing with 10 stere of firewood is a lot of work. We would still use the wood burners, but a lot less. And we don’t run a warm house - 19C is fine for us.
Whilst that might have been true in the past it is no longer the case with modern PACs.
Do you think a heat pump is practical to heat a stonewalled house ? It’s ok if the property is well insulated. Maybe et a couple of quotes and ask the advice of the heating engineer.
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We have a six hundred year old stone house and four heat pumps. I suspect most old stone houses are better insulated than most from the mid-C20th
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Why four heat pumps ?
Or you can buy a higer specced PAC that is built to output at close to 85°C.
Comprehensive guide on the technical issues here.
As you will see, additional insulation or larger radiators are not always necessary these days. Financial assistance in France depends upon your most recent fiscal revenue declaration from the Bureau des Impôts. If you are just fitting a heat pump the grant can extend up to €9,500 but if you are also insulating and raising the energy performance of your house by two levels, e.g. from D to B , in the best case you may get an 80% contribution on work up to €40,000.
One in each salon and one in each bedroom (no radiators). They were put in by the previous owner. I think they’re better as can also be used as air conditioning, dehumidifiers, or simply as fans.
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talking about Heat Pumps… I thought these took heat from underground or were ground connected somehow… ???
Heat Exchangers… for want of a better name… are those which have a panel on the outside wall and a panel indoors… ???
is this vaguely correct… frankly, I find the whole thing very confusing… 
‘pompe de chaleur’ covers both sources
gosh… that’s a bit confusing…
so which sort do you have ???
Daikin air pumps - the ones that take in heat from the air outside, rather than from under the ground outside.
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Fair enough… so you have 4 thingies inside and 4 outside… ???
or can 1 outside run more than just the 1 inside ??
Four boxes on the outside (two at the back and two at the front of the house) and four units inside, one in each room.
The positioning of the outside boxes is pretty flexible, I think ours are where they are because it was the shortest route and the bottom two floors of the house are built into a cliff at the rear so the third floor bedrooms’ units exit at the back on what is ground level there. Hope that’s not too confusing
I’m getting out of my depth now, but I think the single external units are for more integrated radiator/hot water systems, whereas ours is simply a pump for each room and as such they operate independently of one another with hand controllers for each units functions - mode, timer movement sensor strength of fan etc.
Stella, there are two types of heat pumps. The first, most common by far, take heat from the air and then warm the house by warm air or warm water.
The second type take heat from underground. They deliver the heat into the house as warm water.
Schoolboy physics says that about 2m underground the season’s temperatures are reversed - max in ~Jan, min in ~July.
Clearly the second type are much better. But much more expensive / difficult to install, needing serious excavation over 100m² (buried plastic pipes containg a water mix) or so or a deep (50m+) borehole about 30cm dia., again water pipes bringing up the warmth from underground.
In answering another point: yes, one outside air unit can supply up to four internal air units. They are not usually called heat pumps, more often reversible aircon units … ‘reversible’ because they can cool the house in summer, heat it in winter.
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