The company was established in 1980 and in the early days had close links with The Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales. During the 80's I designed, manufactured and installed a wide variety of water-to-water heat pumps with power-output capabilities from 1Kwatt to 70Kwatts. Some of our earliest installations are still in use in 2008, namely, three community swimming pools near Penrith in the North West of England. (see archive). The various contracts over the years have included; river-sourced and ground-sourced domestic installations, hydro-driven systems, low-energy refrigeration, heat-recovery applications for milk-cooling, solar-heating applications, and even some research on hydrocarbon refrigerants for an ice-making project to be implemented in developing countries.

The company moved from Penrith to Lancaster in 1991, I then returned to Machynlleth in 2003. We have remained a small business and believe that heat pumps should only be used in situations where high energy-efficiencies can be achieved and where the overall picture relating to energy-use has been considered.

I am now mainly involved in consultancy and trouble-shooting, along with modifications and servicing of existing equipment. I can also give bespoke training sessions on saving energy with heat pump systems.

We have the capability to monitor water flow-rates, temperatures and power input. Thus monitoring the COP of an installed system.

We still have a service engineer based in Lancaster who is mostly involved with swimming pool heat pump equipment.

Machynlleth, Powys, Wales. SY20 8EE UK

johncantor@heatpumps.co.uk