High-wall heat pumps for Napier homes

A high-wall suits most Napier houses. Whether it suits yours comes down to three things, and the brand isn't one of them: whether there's a clear stretch of wall up high for it to blow down from, whether it's big enough for a single-glazed room with a high ceiling, and whether the outdoor unit is specified for the salt at the coast or the frost out on the plains.

How much does a high-wall heat pump cost in Napier?

Fitted, a bedroom comes in around $2,000 to $3,000. A main living area is $2,900 to $4,500, and something large or open-plan $3,900 to $5,800. That maps to roughly 2.5kW, 5 to 6kW and 7 to 8kW of capacity.

Those figures are the job finished and working, not a box on a pallet. Indoor unit, outdoor unit, brackets, lagged pipework, a drain for the condensate, the electrical connection, and someone testing it before they go. If you have seen a much lower number somewhere, check whether it includes any of that.

What you actually pay comes down to how hard the job is. It is cheapest when the outdoor unit goes straight through the wall behind the indoor head, because the pipework never leaves that one wall. Every metre it travels beyond that is more material and more time on the clock.

What else moves it

Near the water you want a coated outdoor unit, which adds a modest amount to the price and a great deal to how long it lasts. And if the switchboard is already full, a new circuit goes on the quote, though plenty of Napier houses have the room for one sitting there unused.

The sizing calculator will give you a capacity and a figure for your own room in about a minute, and the installation cost page breaks down what moves a quote.

Salt at the coast, frost on the plains

Napier asks two opposite things of the same machine depending on which part of it you live in, and that's unusual for one city.

The outdoor unit is a copper coil threaded through hundreds of thin aluminium fins, and those fins are how it sheds heat outside. Out at Ahuriri, Westshore and anywhere near the water, salt settles on them and works its way in. Once they have gone chalky and started to crumble there's less metal left to shed heat through, so the unit runs longer for the same warmth and the bill climbs behind it.

A coated version of the same unit costs a little more and lasts a great deal longer. Where it sits counts for as much as what it's made of: out of the direct spray, with air free to move around it, and reachable with a hose.

Inland the problem turns over. Cold air drains off the hills and settles on the Heretaunga Plains overnight, so a house out there meets hard frosts the coast rarely sees. Every heat pump has to stop and melt the frost off itself now and then, and it's not warming your room while it does. On the plains, a unit that clears frost quickly and gets back to work is worth more than corrosion protection is.

So the useful question isn't which brand, it's which half of the district you live in. That's what the site visit is for.

Sizing a high-wall for an Art Deco or 1930s room

Napier has a lot of 1930s plaster with a high stud and the original glass still in, and both of those cost you more than the floor area lets on.

Start from 2.5kW for a bedroom, 5 to 6kW for an ordinary lounge and 7 to 8kW for something large or open-plan. Then adjust: an Art Deco front room or an uninsulated post-war weatherboard through Marewa or Onekawa wants the step up, while a newer place at Taradale will hold the same floor area on less.

Warm air climbs, so with a three-metre ceiling a good part of the output ends up over your head doing nothing. Single glazing then lets heat out through the window roughly ten times faster than the wall around it does. Put those together and a room can shed warmth nearly as fast as a modest unit supplies it.

Going big isn't the way round that. Too much capacity and the unit slams the room up to temperature, cuts out before it has dried the air at all, and leaves you warm and clammy. Too little and it never stops running and still loses on the coldest mornings.

Whoever quotes it should be measuring the stud height and looking at the windows, not working off the floor plan.

Where a high-wall goes in a high-ceilinged room

It only blows one way, so it needs a clear run of wall up high with the room open in front of it, pointing down the length of the space. Aimed into a doorway or across the back of a sofa it warms the air immediately around itself, decides the room is done, and stops.

In an Art Deco house the wall that works is often the only one without a window, a picture rail or a curved corner interrupting it, and it's not usually the one you would choose on looks. Take it. A slightly awkward position that reaches the far end of the room beats a neat one that heats half of it.

Where the ceiling is genuinely high, a high-wall is fighting that all day, and a floor console is worth pricing next to it. Same output, delivered at skirting level, so it reaches you on the way up rather than after it has already collected at the ceiling.

Outside, it comes back to your address: clear of the spray if you're near the water, up off the low ground if you're out on the plains, air all round it either way, and somewhere a person can physically stand to do the yearly service.

One high-wall, or more than one?

With the internal doors open, one in the main living area covers more of a compact house than people expect, and for a single living space it's usually the whole conversation.

What it won't do is get heat round a corner or along a hallway, because the air only goes where it's pointed. Bedrooms mean either a second unit or a multi-split, which hangs two to four indoor heads off a single outdoor box. The appeal is one thing bolted to the house instead of four. Pricing depends on how many heads and how far apart they sit, so it's quoted after someone has looked.

Flat ceilings and open-plan living out at Taradale suit a ceiling cassette, which sits in the ceiling and pushes air out on four sides rather than blowing from one end of the room. With roof space to spare, ducted does the lot off one system.

Whichever you end up with, it cools as well as heats. That's not a footnote in Hawke’s Bay, where February afternoons are hot and dry and a west-facing lounge is unusable by five o'clock. The same box you bought for July is what fixes it.

Not settled on the type yet? Types of heat pump puts a high-wall next to a floor console, a ceiling cassette, a multi-split and ducted, and heat pump installation walks through the day itself. For a number on your own room, get a free quote.