Environmental concerns and the move towards Heat Pumps

Mollygo

We had a replacement gas boiler recently.
Where is all the money going to come to ensure that 80% of the population has heat pumps?
The lady in the recent advert said she only saves so much money because she has a battery which charges up for use.

She had a Tesla heat pump 😉

Ground source heat pumps need a lot of land Casdon. Air source heat pumps are more usual. However they are not going to be suitable for a lot of existing homes as we have seen here. So for the foreseeable future heat pumps on existing homes have to be optional unless people are to be denied the ability to heat their homes.

I know Barleyfields, and both have their pros and cons. There are alternatives though. I’m actually all electric, I’ve got a very efficient electric boiler, which costs less to run than gas. I believe some people also still have electric storage boilers. A number of people around me also use pellet fed boilers, which I don’t think are going to be prohibited. The point I was really making though is that gas is finite, and whatever people do, keeping gas boilers is not going to be a long term option.

The important question is, who is going to fund the new heating systems?
It’s OK to talk about things running out, but for those who can’t afford replacements, are they condemned to freeze?

There are not enough engineers to service and repair heat pumps because we have not been training them according to out BG man. We won't be having one until we are forced to.

Homestead62, Summerlove is right.
Today's heat pumps work efficiently as low as -25°C.
Norway is full of them

I suppose it won’t be an issue for many of us older people, as we won’t be here,

I doubt very much that an electric boiler is cheaper to run than a gas one Casdon given that gas is a quarter/third of the price of electricity.

A friend had one installed last year at a cost of £4000 (double the cost of a gas one) and although it is 99% efficient against 92% for gas, it doesn’t make up the huge difference in running cost.

We are looking at a Heat Pump but it’s a 1970s bungalow, insulation will need to be improved, dry lining external walls and triple glazing to make it an economic option. Likely cost £20k plus

As I type there are hundreds of new homes being built on our farm fields and every available space around us, in an area that was taken out of the green belt a couple of years ago.

All with small gardens, very few with garages, a handful with solar panels and none with heat pumps being installed. If the government are serious about heat pumps they should, by now, have insisted on all new builds being built with them.

There seems to be no sensible thought with the new energy saving ideas being imposed by any government, just hot air talk and the expectation that people will do as they are bid, never mind the cost and impossibility of their plans.

I know it’s surprising *Pantglas, but it really is good value. We have no gas here, and we had an electric storage boiler prior to this one, which was much more expensive to run. I’ve also got an Everhot electric range which is on all the time for 9 months of the year (it makes the house too hot in the summer). I’ve just checked my annual estimate following the January price rise, and it is £1071.

I’m very surprised at what you say shandi, because as from this year low carbon heating systems such as heat pumps are mandatory for new builds in the UK.

Barleyfields

I’m very surprised at what you say shandi, because as from this year low carbon heating systems such as heat pumps are mandatory for new builds in the UK.

That would be the place to start - installing them in new builds. But what about the numerous flats that spring up all over the place? How would a heat pump work there?

They can be used for flats.

Barleyfields

I’m very surprised at what you say shandi, because as from this year low carbon heating systems such as heat pumps are mandatory for new builds in the UK.

It depends when the Building Control Approval/Building Warrant was granted. There's a 3 year limit so if granted before January 2024 the mandatory heat pump legislation won't apply. (I'm assuming England & Scotland are using comparable legislation).

NotSpaghetti

*Homestead62*, Summerlove is right.
Today's heat pumps work efficiently as low as -25°C.
Norway is full of them

Norway isn’t full of drafty Victorian terraced houses or the many older buildings we have in the UK. It also has a small population, less than London alone.

I do think solar panels on new-build houses should be mandatory, at the very least. They’re not much use in deep winter but now the sun is shining mine are making about 4kw of energy a day, which is about half my daily usage.

I wasn't implying all properties are suitable - but was agreeing with Summerlove that being in Scotland is not relevant to the heat pump issue.

But I agree about solar panels and building regs. Especially now we have better looking solar panels - including some that look just like tiles!

My friend has a period house, she has a heat pump and the house is never quite warm enough. She needs her wood burner.

We recently renovated outbuildings into our retirement home.The house is well insulated where possible but has loads of windows in the living room.We have underfloor heating and a heat pump which has kept the house cosy and warm even through the coldest part of the winter.The pump is not huge neither is it noisy, all we hear is a gentle hum. The upstairs radiator is no larger than normal,just a bit deeper. Best of all, we were given a government grant of 7500 pounds so the total cost of pump and installation was around 1500 pou

I certainly won't have a heat pump. The cost is horrendous and from a friend who lives on the south coast don't expect to be lovely and cosy. Bought a bungalow type property, had it fully refurbished, internal redesign, super location with access under house to accommodate pipes etc. They are not impressed. As for environment, my local council won't even collect glass (bottles etc) I have to collect and take them to collection centre when box full, or stick in landfill bin. Battery production/disposal, still not convinced they save pollution.

My gas boiler is at least twenty years old and working fine.
I had it serviced this year too.

I don’t like heat pumps and would never get one.
If the present one packs up, I’ll replace with another gas boiler.

There currently are grants for installing ghem
But you really need solar panels apparently according to our local energy experts and battery storage. And many houses will not. Be a le to have one, even if you have solar panels. And batteries. But think of all those back to bsck houses, and houses with a tiny back yard and no front garden, they won't be a le to have one
I can't have one in my current house

Homestead62

I will not be having a Heat Pump, they are no use in Scotland as it gets so cold here and the size of them and the noise! I have good relationships with my neighbours and want to keep it that way. Why are they being forced upon us, when our own Houses of Parliament refused them? Due to the noise I may add. Someone is getting very rich and my guess is Elon Musk because if the Heat Pump is made by Tesla, it's his company.

For you disdain of Musk, better look to this company who makes plenty of profit. No heat pump for me either.
Who is the biggest manufacturer of heat pumps?

Heat Pump Manufacturer Ranking

RankCompanyClick Share1Guangdong New Energy Technology Development Co., Ltd.11.5%2The Whalen Company9.5%3Daikin Applied5.6%4Systemair AB5.2%

We have had a heat pump for 16 years. It has just reached the end of its life.

Before it was installed, a lot of work had to be done to bring the house's insulation up to scratch.

Prior to having it, the house was (poorly) heated by a storage heater in the kitchen and a coal fire with backboiler in the lounge which provided hot water and heated two or three radiators upstairs. Oh, and the built-on downstairs bathroom/toilet had a tiny electric dimplex heater on the wall that struggled to raise the temperature in there above 8° in winter.

Our energy costs dropped dramatically once the heat pump (air- source) was up and running, and the whole house was so much warmer.
The electricity bill alone was lower than it had been previously, before even taking the saving on coal into account. (There is no gas in our village, so that was never an option.)

The system was entirely trouble-free for about 12 years, but has had many repairs over the last 4 years, often leaving us with no heat or hot water for weeks at a time while waiting for the repairs to be carried out. Now, after 16 years, it has reached its end and is due to be replaced in the next month or so.

But would I recommend this system? Not if you own your own home and want to save money.
We don't own our house, and didnt have to pay for any of the associated costs: the system itself; installation, servicing; replacement parts/repairs. Once those things are taken into account, I am not convinced that there would have been any savings whatsoever.

That said, some energy supplier offer cheap deals to some of their customers - our neighbour is about to have a heat pump put in for not much over £4,000. Personally though, I would still advise anyone to think carefully about it unless money is simply not an issue.

We replaced our very old gas boiler last year, so glad we did as I don’t want a heat pump. Who is going to pay for it and all the disruption they cause, new radiators, redecorating etc. I am a climate change non believer and in my opinion Ed Silliband is an idiot. It’s all about the money and whatever we do is not going to make one jot of difference if the rest of the world don’t join in. I looked back to the eighties at of a lot of predictions made by scientists and none of them have come true. Apologies to climate change believers.