Heat pumps for Havelock North and the coast

Havelock North sits at the foot of Te Mata Peak where cold air drains off the hill and settles overnight, and Clive, Haumoana and Te Awanga sit on the shingle coast where the sea keeps the frost away and replaces it with salt and easterly wind. The two halves of this area want different things from a heat pump, and the housing differs as much as the weather does.

Frost off Te Mata, and why the vineyards give it away

If you want to know how hard the frost gets around the village, look at the vineyards: the frost fans standing over the rows are not decorative. Cold air slides off Te Mata and pools on the flat below it, and the clear still nights that make for good growing are exactly the ones that bite.

So the figure that matters is the heating output at low temperature, not the headline rating taken at 7 degrees. Ask what a unit does at around 2, because that is the morning you are buying it for.

Aspect matters as much as altitude here. The newer builds on the Te Mata hillside and through Iona catch real sun through the middle of a winter day and need less capacity than the same house down in the shade of the hill. Your installer looks at which way the living rooms face before recommending a size.

Village cottages and hillside builds

Around the village centre the housing is older: timber cottages and bungalows with high-ish studs, single glazing and walls that were never insulated. They lose heat steadily all evening, which suits a unit that holds a low continuous output rather than one that boosts hard and stops.

Up the hill and through the newer subdivisions it is the opposite: well insulated, double glazed in places, and open plan with a lot of glass to the north. Those houses often need less capacity than owners expect, and the real question is whether one unit can reach the far end of a big open living space. Usually it cannot, and a second head in the bedroom wing does more than a bigger single unit would.

The sizing calculator gives you a starting point, and the heat pump installation cost page sets out the ranges by unit size.

The shingle coast: Clive, Haumoana and Te Awanga

Four kilometres east and it is a different climate. The sea moderates the overnight temperature so the hard frosts largely stop, and in their place you get salt in the air and an easterly that comes straight off the water with nothing in the way.

That makes the outdoor unit the thing to think about. A corrosion-resistant model is worth specifying here, and so is a position on the landward side of the house rather than the elevation facing the sea, even if it means taking the pipework further through the ceiling. Under the eaves beats out in the open, because rain rinses salt off and wind-driven spray only adds more.

A lot of the housing along here started as baches and became permanent homes, so insulation is patchy and rooms have been added over time. One well-sized unit in the main living space is usually the best value, and a gentle freshwater rinse of the outdoor coil a few times a year does more for its life than anything else. That is the sort of thing heat pump servicing covers.

Getting the install right in an older village house

Placement is the awkward part in the old cottages. Sash windows, a fireplace on the chimney wall and picture rails often leave one usable stretch of wall, and it is rarely the one you would pick. A high-wall unit angled down the length of the room beats a neater position that blows into a doorway.

Drainage deserves a thought too. On a flat coastal site with little fall, the condensate line has to be run properly or you get a drip mark down the wall within a season. The heat pump installation page covers how that is set up, and what the day itself looks like.

Suburbs and villages covered

• Havelock North
• Clive
• Haumoana
• Te Awanga

Elsewhere in the bay? Your local installer also covers Hastings and the Plains, Napier and Flaxmere and Camberley. The full list is on the areas we serve page, or get a free quote for your place.