[nexsuperne]

My HP is on r407c, has a cap tube, and really is just 'quick and dirty' just because thats how it was made.I removed the casing and then basically put the condenser into a container with a lid to be able to pass water through it. It isnt a hack as such, because I havent cut into the refrigerant line. I will post some pictures.
AC is quite right about the hx, and when I can snare my local aircon engineer and bribe him with beer, then I will get a proper refrigerant to water hx brazed on, and loose the container.He has the Maap gas, the nitrogen, gauges and the r407c license.

I have a 4m2 30no 58mm x 1800mm evacuated tube solar array that feeds the store. For 8 months of the year, I need no other backup heat, and in July (northern hemisphere) it regularly shuts down the circulator at 90C. Thats after 4 showers and a couple of baths a day! The backup heater was electrical resistive at 2kw. This would boost the tank to 80C on cheap rate electric overnight, and then switch back on if the temp fell below 45C in the day.

Last year I built a wood burning water heater from an old propane bottle, put that into an oil barrel and then filled the space between with vermiculite. The bottom 2/3 is firebox, the top 1/3 has a 5/8" soft copper coil wound into it. This is my heat exchanger and runs back to the store via a 24 plate 100kw heat exchanger. I have various sensors on it, so that the controller works out where the best heat source is and uses that. The woodburner runs on old pallets that the couriers wont take away when they deliver here, so there is no shortage of wood.

I've only been running the HP for a week, but already it is easy to see the huge financial savings compared to resistive or oil heating.

I got my 1 ton air con from freecycle, the guy bought it 10 years ago, but stopped using it 7 years ago when it got noisy. I got it back to mine, blew it through with the airline, cleared the dust and it worked perfectly! Funny thing is a friend of mine was asking if I could build an ashp from an aircon, and until 2 months ago, I couldnt have. The guys on this site have been extremely helpful, and they do know their stuff.

I am on a mission to make my house as cheap to run as possible. I already have 500 watts of solar pv, and a 1kw wind turbine, connected to an old compaq r3000h pure sinewave 48 volt to 230 volt uninteruptable power supply. This puts out 2.5kw and runs the lighting, cctv, all the circulator pumps for the heating systems. When the power goes out here, we still have light, heat and can make hot food. The HP hasnt been tested on the UPS yet, but I always have the solar or woodburner to keep us warm and in hot showers.
All of my lighting is LED, with lumen outputs higher than halogen bulbs, but on only 9% of the power. These are on PIR detectors, so no lights get left on when not needed.
I put in a grey water harvesting system a few years ago, made from a 1000 litre IBC and a pressure boost pump for running water on a boat (12 volt). Total cost was under £100 ($160us) It runs on rain water, and when that runs out, the water from the bath/showers gets diverted into it. We flush the toilets and wash the cars with it. We now use as much water as 2.2 people, yet there are 4 of us.
My truck runs on waste vegetable oil, not diesel, so again, people throw that stuff out, and I go driving for free! But thats a whole other story.....