Environmental concerns and the move towards Heat Pumps

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).

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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 😉

I think we need to be clear that the phasing out of gas boilers is not something dreamed up by this government, it’s been on the cards for a long time, because the gas is going to run out. It was initially planned to ban the installation of gas boilers in new builds by 2025, and ban the sale of gas boilers to existing homes by 2030, but when he was PM Sunak amended this decision in September 2023, so that the government aim was to phase out 80% of the UK's gas boilers by 2035.

It’s not going to be optional, it may not be that exact timescale, but the gas will be switched off altogether at some point, so there is no choice but for householders to find alternatives. It doesn’t have to be a ground source heat pump though.

The whole thing is cloud cuckoo land, where Milliband lives.

I know two people who have heat pumps. One is in a 150yo Victorian stone built house which had inadequate heating before. They have a big garden so it’s complemented with solar panels too. It’s warmer now than previously and they have more hot water, however, it is quite noisy.

The other is in a one-off new-build property. I believe it works ok but it’s loud and you can sometimes hear it through my DD’s house’s granite walls, some 15 yards away. In a terrace, if everyone had one, I think the noise would get on one’s nerves.

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.

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.

Most, if not all, new builds and many older houses have been retrofit with heat pumps in Canada. So saying it gets too cold in Scotland seems a little shortsighted.

There are many different companies that make heat pumps. Samsung and Mitsubishi seem to be some of the most common.

Grantanow

We were given a quote by a respectable company of about £30,000 for a heat pump plus insulation plus new radiators, etc, We put in a new gas boiler for about £2,000. End of problem.

We had a similar quote a couple of years ago - told them we would think about it but still they phoned us up with the hard sell night after night and were quite rude when we decided to not bother in the end.

People we know who have heat pumps are either delighted with them or others claim there’s are always going wrong. I guess like everything it depends on the brand.

Our gas boiler is 5 years old. Hope it lasts for a few more years, then will replace with another one before they’re extinct, if we are still here.

As for cars, hope we have packed up driving before that is another concern.

Aely You've pretty much described the house we had a heat pump on. The heat pump was under the sitting room window (at the south facing back of the house). If we had the sitting room window or our bedroom window above it open we could hear the machine above all else.

We were given a quote by a respectable company of about £30,000 for a heat pump plus insulation plus new radiators, etc, We put in a new gas boiler for about £2,000. End of problem.