ICanHas, it gets a lot colder than that here. The coldest I have known it at my home is -39C, but of course that was exceptional. It regularly goes below -20C though, and is usually below 5C for several months. This is why I thought the splits would only be of use for a short period at the start and end of the heating season, and it seems that is correct.
The GSHP is installed and has been running for a few years now, using pipe work buried under a field out the back. We installed double the amount of field loop we thought we would need so we could support a second heat pump if the first one was not enough (it was theoretically borderline) but it is fine most of the time. The splits are a new aquisition that came in a job lot of stuff I bought. They weren't the reason I bought that bunch of stuff, so I am trying to work out whether I should keep them or sell them on.
NiHaoMike, I like your thinking about using a heat pump to make a water heater, but I will pass on the idea. Solar panels plus lots of additional insulation on the hot water tank mean we use very little paid-for energy to provide hot water.
It seems clear that these units won't be much advantage to me, so I will try to move them on.
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