Cold out there, warm in here.
In the East of England, we have an “artic airmass” causing freezing weather. It’s 2°C out there at the moment, and has been as low as -6.5°C in our bit of the world over the past couple of days.
So, what is it like living with an air sourced heat pump in this climate?
It’s fine. Obviously, outside is chilly. But the house is maintaining its heat and the heat pump is working well. At 1°C, we’re getting a coefficient of performance of 11.5kW / 4.05kW = 2.84. In other words, nearly three times as much heat out of the system for each kilowatt consumed.
So, it is still out-performing a boiler.
We’re still getting some energy out of our solar panels – the pitch of our roof and the orientation mean that the snow melts well. That meant that yesterday, we got 5.1 kWh, and today we generated 3kWh.
Our daily consumption is quite high for heating. Yesterday, we used 58.8kWh for heating. Today we used 60.5kWh! During June 2025, our entire consumption for the month was 43kWh and that all came off our roof!
But, we’re sitting quite pretty. Our battery is carrying a little extra power, so if there is a power cut, we can keep warm for a little while. We also have a wood burner, if needed.
But so far, it all looks good. Hope you are keeping safe and warm out there.
Posted: January 6th, 2026 under Driving off the grid.