HEAT PUMPS

 Yep, old Charles nailed it there.

We've just had a couple of heat pumps installed - one in the lounge area and one in the main bedroom.

I've resisted doing this for years believing that it was 'wussy' and instead relying on the wood burners for the odd very cold winter days and nights and opening doors and windows in the summer heat.

The Old Girl is up here permanently now so things change.*

We need, apparently, machines to blow out cold air when it's hot and warm air when it's cold. We chose Mitsubishi as The Old Girl sought advice from the engineers at her work and that's what they recommended. We got the largest  residential one they had for the lounge as it's a very large area that's open to the kitchen area and a smaller one for the bedroom. The outside unit for the large one is humungous:

The installation guys had their work cut out for them (and had to do a lot of cutting) .....

...... as we have an old villa with very high ceilings. They had to spend a bit of time in the roof space running electrical cables down walls and in the ceiling. It took them two full days. I'm glad that I had the ceiling ladder installed last year allowing easy access. The main installer took extra care to get all of the internal lines behind walls as, he said he owns an old villa himself and would hate to see exposed cables running down the walls inside. Overall it was a very good job.

* An understatement.