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Long shot - anyone with experience of fake chimneys?

hc25036 said:
Agree that the house needs to be built around the heat pump system rather than the other way round. There no gas supply up here, so it was a good shout by the developer and we are very happy with it.
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Air or ground source? I'd have thought the latter would be better if you can fit from design phase. Air source is a lot easier to retrofit but seems to come with more problems...
 
We are well off topic now and apart from having one and doing some post hoc research I’m no expert. Air source heat pumps really need underfloor heating, zoning and excellent thermal insulation to be cost effective. Water comes out of the pump at about 45C, so for hot water and upstairs radiators it needs to be boosted by a high-tech immersion heater system - unless the system is running 24/7 so the room heat simply needs topping upon which case it’s just hot water that needs a boost. The system also needs regular heating to 90C to prevent legionnaires growth.

We run ours at about 19-20C and our total electricity bill (no gas here) is about £90 a month. The same house elsewhere on the estate set at 23C was costing over £200 a month until they changed to using alternative electric heaters for those extra 3 degrees. We did have some (hard to pin down but easily solved) problems early and I was amazed by the complexity of the controller which was disguising the fault by trying to compensate for it.
 
Update - builder plus a roofing contractor have been round with a cherry picker and sought leaks by chucking buckets of water round the chimney. Leaks found and sealed with CT1 and any cracked mortar replaced.

crucially, we have agreement that this is a temporary fix and the chimney will be taken off and refitted (or as we hope, removed completely) when the weather improves.

Thanks for all the comments on here.
 
Yay! Developers have agreed to remove our fake chimney and make good the roof. Others are being offered removal, the flashing doing properly and replacement....

Thanks to all for the advice. Oh - we still have a (reduced) leak after the ‘repair’ with proper mastic!
 
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hc25036 said:
Yay! Developers have agreed to remove our fake chimney and make good the roof. Others are being offered removal and the flashing doing properly...

Thanks to all for the advice. Oh - we still have a (reduced) leak after the ‘repair’ with proper mastic!
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result!!
 
Quick update and thread shift.

Well, would you believe it? Had a call from the appointed roofers (who we know and trust) who told us that the tiles are hand-made in France and that they are still waiting for some they ordered for a job last November. Seems they are in a container somewhere and no sign of them being released any time soon. The manufacturer doesn’t want to send any more until those get through......
 
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Final update....!

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In a skip where it belongs!
 
We nearly had the developer and crane driver believing that we wanted it delivered to the back garden as a water feature!

The crane driver was very much up for it...
 
Being serious for just a moment - I dread to think of the total cost. Just to hire a skip is over £200 round here.
Scaffolding and crane hire.............. One hell of a bill.
 
Yep. Scaffolding for two houses, crane for a day (£4000 was mentioned), cherry picker for a week and two roofing teams for 2-3 days. We’ve got a pallet of handmade french roof tiles and ridge tiles and associated mortar here as well plus six replacement plastic caps for the other chimneys that are being repaired rather than replaced. Got to be close to £10k.
 
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