Most British homes haven't been built to support AC. Retro-fitting a heatpump for heating is relatively straightforward, as the heating delivery mechanism (pipes to transmit hot water to wall-mounted radiators) is already in place.

Although you could pipe cool water through the radiators, it's an ineffective form of cooling compared to blown-air systems, and retro-fitting a blown-air system is much more costly than a heating-only heat pump.

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multjoy 19 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I've had a cooling/heating heatpump fitted. Adding a couple of wall units bumped the price by about £1500, although the whole thing was softened by the grant for getting rid of an oil fired boiler.

While our house is relatibvely small and we kept the units (which also do heating as well) confined to the main living space, it wasn't especially burdensome. The bulk of the work was installing the behemoth of a hot water tank!

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adaml_623 18 hours ago | parent [-]

Did you consider going with instant hot water at the sink/basin/shower/bath? My house is also relatively small and has little room for a huge hot water tank.

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nothercastle 12 hours ago | parent [-]

That can’t practically be done electronically. Needs to be gas. The power demand is too high for electric water heating

	▲	adaml_623 11 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Original comment mentioned £ so they are in the UK. It's possible and not super uncommon to have electric showers in the UK because the 230V provides enough power for water heating unlike the US. I'm currently investigating options for kitchen sinks and such. It feels quite silly to have a long length of pipe leading from a central source for a small amount of warm water to wash my hands.

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throwawayffffas 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You can't just pump the cold water through the heating elements, because of condensation. The correct installation, requires special heating, cooling elements that include fans (it helps with the cooling) and drainage for the condensation.

	▲	jonasdegendt 16 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I have "cooled floors", so basically heated floors but you can reverse the circuit in summer. Condensation really isn't an issue unless the temperature difference is massive, say room temperature being 28 degrees C and then kicking the system into high gear trying to get to 20 degrees C. Once room and floor temperature match, condensation doesn't occur anymore as long as you keep it running.
	▲	19 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

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walthamstow 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You can't pipe cold water through radiators, all you'll get is a very wet floor. Think of an ice cold bottle of beer.

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nickserv 19 hours ago | parent [-]

You need a radiator with a built-in electric fan, this will all but eliminate the condensation.

However it will not cool like an A/C unit, only something like 5°C reduction. This can be enough to get a decent night's sleep during a summer heatwave.

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walthamstow 18 hours ago | parent [-]

We're talking about retrofitting to existing typical UK radiators. If I was buying new radiators (and paying an electrician to run electricity to them!) then I would want a better return on investment than cooling from 35C to 30C.

	▲	mitxela 18 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I visited a building once that had "cold panels" covering about half of the drop ceiling. Supposedly they made a difference in summer but I suppose they needed the massive surface area.