A frustrated woman says she has been left cold in her new-build as the home's heat pump is struggling to warm the property up. Christine Douglas, 59, moved into her Gusto Homes retirement bungalow in Collingham in July 2021, describing it as a "dream come true".
Later that year, Christine noticed she had been struggling to keep warm and claimed the ground source heat pump is not strong enough to keep her bungalow warm, with temperatures usually staying around 16C rather than her desired temperature of 19C. She said: "It was mid-November and one evening I was sitting at my desk and realised I was cold and couldn't understand why."
However, Gusto Homes has disputed Christine's claims. A spokesperson for the organisation said: "The team at Gusto Homes and Vaillant have worked tirelessly to ensure all our residents are happy and understand their heating systems.
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"Whilst the systems were designed to current requirements for new-build homes we realised that a few of our residents' desired room temperatures were far in excess of any heat pump's potential. We also understood that many of the residents had moved from homes with gas or oil central heating which provides a rapid increase in room temperature when compared to clean energy heating."
Christine described the last two winters as "bitterly cold" and said the situation has impacted her mental and physical health. She claimed other people had the same issue and said Gusto Homes gave residents the opportunity to have two radiators removed from their properties which would be replaced with an air conditioning unit that could blow out hot air in the winter.
She said: "I can't tolerate blown heat so that wasn't an option and I wouldn't have used an air con system in summer." Christine said that due to her heating system not being able to reach its goal temperature it was using up more energy.
She added: "Mine is on all the time. It's chewing up something like 55% more electricity than a house here that works properly." The 59-year-old complained that she is being left "significantly out of pocket from high electricity bills".
In August, Christine said she was using around 6kWh of electricity a day, significantly less than the 20kWh she was using daily January 2023, with some days using 39kWh. In addition to the underground pump, Christine's bungalow also has a direct electric back-up heater to support the system.
She claimed Gusto Homes wants the outdoor heater set to come on at 7C, but this meant it would be on "for over a third of the year". Christine described it as "an expensive way of mopping up the shortfall in pump power".
Christine also has concerns over whether the back-up heater works. She said on December 15, 2022, she had the heater on for almost five hours and the temperature did not change, but still used 13kW.
Christine said she has had several independent experts look at the system, who described the heat pump as "undersized for the property". The experts turned off radiators in the house to decrease the demand by 50%, but it still took nearly two hours to reach the target temperature, she added.
Christine told Nottinghamshire Lives she has been advised to replace the ground pump with an air source version, which she asked Gusto Homes to fund but the developer only offered £1,500 which was around 10% of the cost. Christine said: "They won't pay because they say I'm to blame for the issues.
"They say I don't use the system 'as per design' but never explain what that means. They say I don't use the back-up heater but I do use it according to design and it still doesn't work."
She added: "The latest thing I do wrong is set the thermostat above 18 degrees which is crazy. How can an extra-care retirement property not set its thermostat above 18 degrees, and why did we only find out about all the faults and failings in these systems after we'd moved in.
"We bought heavily marketed eco properties from a builder with a solid reputation but it's just turned out to be a sham. I came here for a peaceful retirement but instead they've made me physically ill and desperately unhappy."
A Gusto Homes spokesperson said: "As a gesture of goodwill and to ensure parity we offered all residents the option of an air-to-air source heat pump, or £1,500 towards an efficiency upgrade of their choice. Christine's claims of the system being undersized and not getting the property to over 15 degrees are untrue and purely due to her ongoing refusal to have the settings correctly configured."
Gusto Homes said the property has been visited multiple times and digitally monitored, and that "the system still met the designed temperatures and performed satisfactorily as with all other 59 near identical heating systems on our development". "We have offered Christine the same enhancements or financial contributions that every other resident has had," the spokesperson said.
They added: "Our warranty provider requested we offer an independent survey of the system by an engineer of Christine's choice, and if the system was found to be working correctly the cost of survey would fall to herself, and if the system was found to be faulty Gusto would cover the costs. Unfortunately, Christine has declined to pursue this offer."
Christine has disputed these claims and said she is in talks with Vaillant and RECC over the ongoing issues.
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