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!

The comments on this post over at that other site are quite insane…

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.

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.