For anybody installing heating in apartments, next year brings a real change to plan around. Under the EU F-Gas Regulation (EU) 2024/573, no new heat pump unit of 12kW or under can be placed on the market after December 31, 2026, if it uses R32. In practice that rules R32 out of most residential installations from 2027 onwards.

The prevalent replacement is R290. It is a high-performance refrigerant with high efficiencies, but it brings its own constraints. 290 heat pumps have traditionally been placed outdoors, often on balconies. For safety reasons, that is not an option in most apartment settings. So, installers have been left with a gap, the refrigerant the regulations point towards, and nowhere obvious to put the unit.

This is the gap Pipelife set out to close with Inova Indoor Heat Pump.

A fully indoor R290 heat pump

Inova is a fully indoor R290 heat pump, developed to Pipelife's own specification with the Irish apartment market in mind. The whole unit sits inside the apartment. There is nothing on the balcony and nothing on an external wall. The in-built safety features are designed around indoor installation from the start, rather than adapted for it.

The unit fits within an 800 by 800mm footprint and can be positioned up to 10m from an external wall, connected by 150mm or 220 by 90mm ducting, with no reduction in performance. That 10m figure matters more than it first looks. It gives the apartment designer real freedom on where the unit goes, rather than tying the layout to the position of an outside wall.

Inova has a capacity of 3.2kW and can deliver water temperatures up to 75 degrees Celsius, covering both space heating and domestic hot water. The 3.2kW figure was specified to suit the heating and hot water needs of most new-build Irish apartments. Heat losses vary from building to building and apartment to apartment, depending on structure, insulation and air tightness, so sizing always comes back to the individual scheme, but the unit has been designed to satisfy the heating requirements of the majority of Irish apartments.

There is also a ventilation advantages worth pointing out some alternative systems, such as exhaust air heat pumps, can lead to over-ventilation and the over-consumption of energy that comes with it if outdoor and indoor air are not mixed correctly. Inova uses only outdoor air, which removes that risk. It also means the unit does not need to be integrated with the ventilation system to work efficiently. The installer keeps flexibility on the ventilation specified, whether MEV or MVHR, and the heat pump runs independently of it. One unit per apartment, decentralised, doing its own job.

Will support Part L compliance without a PV requirement

On compliance, Inova is fully EcoDesign tested, to EN14825 and EN16147. It will support Part L compliance without a PV requirement in most Irish apartments. Whole-building performance still depends on the individual dwelling, so the usual scheme-level checks apply, but for most apartments the unit is designed to carry the renewable contribution on its own.

For installers, the practical picture is straightforward. Commissioning is as simple as any monobloc heat pump. And because there is no outdoor unit, Inova suits off-site fabrication well, particularly 3D volumetric MMC. The unit can be installed up to second fix in a factory setting, shipped to site without the complication of an external unit, and once water and power are connected it is ready to be commissioned.

Eoghan Considine, renewables specification manager at Pipelife Ireland, said: “We developed Inova in response to what Irish apartment schemes need; simple, compact, reliable heat pumps, with no outdoor units. Pipelife have extensive market experience in heating system design, and from that we could see where the issues existed, and where the opportunity lay to bring a new type of heat pump to the Irish apartment market. That meant focusing on simplicity. A compact unit that utilizes the latest F-Gas technology, is easy to install, and has been designed with the specific constraints of apartment design in mind.”

Inova is a new product from Pipelife Ireland, the latest from a company that has been part of the Irish building services sector for decades. For installers working on apartment schemes, it is worth knowing about now, ahead of the F-Gas changes that take effect from 2027.