Whilst I fully support diminishing gas as a heating source, it was never going to work.
Houses in Britain are too inefficient for heat pumps. We needed to have listened to Insulate Britain, and that’s what Labour should be focusing on instead of forcing heat pumps.
This was something the Lib Dems focussed on during the 2010 coalition. Many older houses had loft insulation installed for free, greatly increasing efficiency. I wish more people voted Lib Dems.
That’s not how this works. Even without decent insulation, a heat pump is still the most efficient way to warm a home. I have shit insulation in my house; the heat pump is my only source of warmth and it does a damn fine job.
Efficiency =/= load capacity
Which can be solved by installing a bigger heat pump. No boiler can compete with 300% efficency.
Which brings us back to efficiency, this time cost efficiency.
If the heat pump costs more than insulating would have, then obviously you’ve not so much solved the problem but rather made it bigger.
My understanding is that heat pumps are too slow for old Victorian houses for them to be more efficient than gas boilers (which are pretty fast comparatively). I’m glad your heat pump was viable though!
it was never going to work.
I’d rather have a ten year target and fail to hit it, than have no target.
I’d rather have a ten year target and fail to hit it, than have no target.
Than you don’t have a clue. Unrealistic targets are demotivating and counterproductive - why to try if you don’t have a chance to hit it?
Targets should be realistically achievable with the best effort. This one never was.
10 years to say no new boilers can be installed is not unrealistic. All you need to have is a good supply of an alternative and a supply of maintenance parts for current boilers. You can set that up in 5 years.
10 years to say no new boilers can be installed is not unrealistic.
Says who? At the moment replacing of the boiler is a couple of grand. Replacing it with a heat pump means replacing boiler, radiators and insulating home. It is completely unrealistic.
In 25 years of house owning I’ve never had to replace a boiler. Service…yes. Repair…yes. Never replace. I’ve even had boilers that are no longer made due to safety regs changing.
Nobody is telling people to rip out their boilers.
There are much better 10 year targets to have. Too many 10 year targets dilutes them all and soon people don’t pay attention and so you fail them all.
As such I agree - everything I know about the UK (I’m an American who has never been there so not much!) says their insulation levels are world leading pathetic. Fixing insulation would make a much larger difference than just about anything they could do as such I would (again as an outsider who doesn’t know UKs problems) place insulation as what should be a top priority because of how much larger the impact it would have. A 60% boiler (something 50 years old) in a well insulated house would use similar energy to a heat pump in an uninsulated house (there are so many variables in that statement that you cannot actually find any comparison to verify it)
The issue we have is that we have a large supply of housing stock built 80-120 years ago that cannot be efficiently insulated without it costing an obscene amount of money. A lot of these older houses also have no wall cavity, meaning wall insulation can’t be done (without adding thick panels to the inside of every room, making each room smaller).
It’s a tough situation, so I don’t envy the government. Much like our roads, we are massively impeded by the fact that we’re an old country and we tend to not want to knock things down and build from scratch.
A lot of these older houses also have no wall cavity, meaning wall insulation can’t be done (without adding thick panels to the inside of every room, making each room smaller).
Where is this one coming from now?
You can insulate terraced housing perfectly well from the outside. Added benefit is increased aesthetics of such solution.
I live in a conservation area where external insulation will be a hard sell. There’s a lot of such areas around, some a lot more restrictive than where I am.
And many more areas which are less restrictive. Your point is?
My point is that not all houses can be insulated externally. In fact, many cannot even if it would be technically viable.
I thought it was pretty obvious but happy to clarify!
Not knocking things down and rebuilding is often a problem. People get too caught up in things they can see would be lost (those old buildings which often were beautiful) but fail to see what they are missing: a well insulated building that meets/fits modern needs.
Of course it is expensive to rebuild from scratch so you wouldn’t do it too often, but don’t be afraid to do it either - it should be a great long term investment (paid off in lower HVAC bills, and layouts that are more modern)
Still banned for new builds, however anybody whose boiler breaks won’t be forced into moving to a heat pump.
Bad for net zero, good in that people who may not have the money won’t have to potentially uproot their entire house’s heating system (adding even more cost and downtime) if their boiler breaks.
I’d hope that grants on heat pumps are good enough that they’re a competitive choice over going for a new boiler when someone’s old one packs in, but I’ve not looked into it.
Wouldn’t have stopped repairing old boilers when they break. My old house had a back boiler of a type that was banned in the 80s. It broke a few times, but never had to replace it.
Heat pumps still need to get much cheaper to be viable for most people.
It’s not just the cost that prevents heat pumps from being viable, there are other costs too. In order to have a heat pump the house needs to be fully insulated, not just loft insulation. Radiators need changing, and there needs to be sufficient space for the heat pump unit.
There are plenty of houses with solid brick walls rather than cavity, which costs a lot more for external/internal insulation installation. Older houses were never built with the idea of heat pumps in mind, and so I think there needs to be a much more realistic and viable solution.
My house was built in 1800. The level of work needed to make it ready for a heat pump would ruin me financially, even if a heat pump were a suitable alternative to my combi boiler.
An electric combi would be a much more straightforward alternative - but I never hear anyone suggesting them when we discuss moving away from gas in UK homes?
Are electrical combis actually better than gas though? Sure there will be fewer emissions on the edge (the end user house) but it’s not nearly as efficient as a heat pump, which would put pressure on the grid, increasing the need for gas and coal power plants.
I’m wildly speculating here though, I have 0 data to back up this hypothesis.
According to the article new builds still can’t use gas boilers so I suppose there is that. Dealing with our existing housing stock is going to be a challenge though. Although I plan to eventually replace the gas boiler I’m not sure what with yet. I don’t think air source heat pumps will be able to warm my stone build Victorian house.
I’m glad the new builds are still required, there is no good reason a new build with proper insulation and appropriate radiators cannot be heated by a heat pump.
WRT your property: The only big practical difference in heating between gas and heatpumps, is the flow temperature of the radiators that can be reached while maintaining efficiency.
So while getting things insulated is definitely the preferred change to make, increasing the size and output of the radiators can also get an old property in range. If you currently run your radiators at 70 to heat the house(so, water delta of 50), dropping it to 40 (delta 20) for a HP reduces the effective output by 70%.
To make that up, the radiators either need to be sized for outputting 3x as much, the insulation/air tightness improved to reduce heat loss by 70%, or a combination of the two. If there is a possibility of installing underfloor heating, for example, that can make things a lot easier.
The important thing is that properties are properly surveyed, and options worked out, rather than just rule-of-thumbing everything.
I’m doing an ongoing project on my own house; gradually improving things from all angles, and as I go lowering the flow temperature of the boiler. Once I am happily running at 40, I plan to switch over to an ASHP.
I was amazed the difference swapping out the 60s radiators for new ones made. At a guess, they’re putting out 4x as much heat.
Not bad for £90!I’ve been doing a load of research on heat pumps, upcoming renovation. (Preface, Canadian living in Scotland) The issue we’re having in the UK is that we’ve lagged behind in terms of heat pump training and installation experience. So we’re in a situation where we really need to stop reliance on natural gas, heat pumps are a viable option for reducing that. Plumbing/heating firms are reluctant to recommend them, you have right wing media screaming straight misinformation or misrepresentation of facts to skew reality to fit their narrative. On top of this, a fair number of firms that do installs of heat pumps have under trained staff that are installing loops incorrectly, over complicating things, or installing HP systems in homes that are too poorly insulated. It’s a self-feeding cycle of distrust in the technology.
So, from my deep dive into heat pumps. If you’re dead set on classic style radiators, they’ll need to be at minimum ⅓ larger, preferably larger, as you said, the temperature it’s running at is significantly lower. You need a larger radiative area, and the heat pump will take significantly longer to get the room to temp. This in mind, underfloor heating is actually ideal. Radiative area the size of the whole room, with a large mass to retain the heat as it’s building and continuing to radiate after the HP shuts off.
Essentials:
-proper insulation throughout, the expensive stuff, and if you end up losing some floor space because you had to false wall every room, do it.
-minimum double glazed everything.
-radiative surfaces need to be significantly larger than for with a gas boiler, underfloor heating if possible.
-look very hard into the firm you hire to do the installation, even firms with a good reputation for plumbing and gas heating may not be properly qualified to do HP installations and may make a system so complicated that any efficiency gains from the HP are lost to the point that you have no heat at all.
You’d be able to, but you would need to either insulate the interior with PIR, or clad the exterior with PIR insulation.
Admittedly my property is a 1960’s brick build with wall cavities, but we’re build on the side of a hill with soil retaining walls so we aren’t the most efficient property, though overboarding the walls has made a big difference. There is a lot of improvements people could do even remaining on a gas boiler.
IMHO, exterior cladding and insulation seems to be the best option for actually making the properties warmer with minimal disruption to living in them, alongside upgrading fibreglass insulation in the loft spaces.
We have gotten a heat pump installed and it’s doing a good job so far, and that’s without a lot of the main upgrades to the insulation don’t, unfortunately the installers have been a pain in the ass.
Starmer and Co are u-turning on something, must be a day ending in Y
This is an extremely sensible change.
And I want the government making sensible decisions.
