francovendee wrote: ↑22 Mar 2023, 8:25am
...
What has this got to do with heat pump installation? There is always a group of people who see the latest trend as a way of making money even if they don't have the required knowledge and skills.
Should installers be required to sit an exam?
It's often remarked that tradespeople in the UK are much less regulated than in some other countries, with the USA being a common comparator.
Is this generally true, or only cherrypicked anecdote?
al_yrpal wrote: ↑21 Mar 2023, 12:26pm
I dont blame the technology! I didnt say that at all.
The problem with heat pumps is probably plumbers who either dont know how to calculate heat loads and radiator sizes that choose inadequate kit. And, its made harder by the fact that our housing stock is designed for fossil fuel heating systems. Walk into any show home with gas and note the postage stamp sized radiators.
So, not daily, and only in the right wing press, owned by people who are prominent in climate change denial circles. The blog is clearly written by someone who doesn't understand thermodynamics ("latent heat from the air"!).
I do agree there are significant problems associated with retrofitting heat pumps, but it would be good to have a rational discourse rather than one mediated by Mail headlines or those pushed by the Barclay brothers.
And a reminder that ultimately, we don't have a choice; fossil fuels are finite and climate change is real. So it would be better to work out how to move these technologies forward rather than pretend we can all burn gas forever.
ANTONISH wrote: ↑22 Mar 2023, 9:39am
I note that Bosch have produced an ASHP with a propane refrigerant which has much higher efficiency than the existing ASHP.
Propane is still better than R32 and it is a quiet and more solid unit, so it is still worthwhile even if not more efficient.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
What has this got to do with heat pump installation? There is always a group of people who see the latest trend as a way of making money even if they don't have the required knowledge and skills.
Should installers be required to sit an exam?
The point that there is a shortage of trained and qualified system designers leaving plenty of room for cowboys has much to with heat pump installation. How is the average person to know if the design and install offered is any good?
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
ANTONISH wrote: ↑22 Mar 2023, 9:39am
I note that Bosch have produced an ASHP with a propane refrigerant which has much higher efficiency than the existing ASHP.
ANTONISH wrote: ↑22 Mar 2023, 9:39am
I note that Bosch have produced an ASHP with a propane refrigerant which has much higher efficiency than the existing ASHP.
Propane is still better than R32 and it is a quiet and more solid unit, so it is still worthwhile even if not more efficient.
Ammonia is the most efficient refrigerant and also the least costly.
Just a shame it's poisonous and reacts with copper pipes, eh? Someone will make it work in standalone domestic units eventually, though. It's used in some industrial and water-source units.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
Propane is still better than R32 and it is a quiet and more solid unit, so it is still worthwhile even if not more efficient.
Ammonia is the most efficient refrigerant and also the least costly.
Just a shame it's poisonous and reacts with copper pipes, eh? Someone will make it work in standalone domestic units eventually, though. It's used in some industrial and water-source units.
It's used in almost all cold store and food freezing plant.
There's no need to use copper pipes in a heat source pump or anything else using refrigerant for that matter. It's poisonous in very high concentrations in air but in an outdoor heat pump you wouldn't get that level from a leak - it gasses off immediately and being about half the weight of air doesn't hang about.
Any manufacturer can make it work in domestic units, and what's more work better than whatever version of freon they currently use.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
Out of curiosity, I checked the electricity tariffs for our old house in Devon. It's only electricity, as the heating was oil and solid fuel.
£175 a month (£0.39/kwh). That's a lot of money for running appliances and the lights. More than we pay here in Sweden for a house that's 2.5 times the size and where the electricity does the heating too.
Given that the wholesale prices have come right down, why are the UK tariffs still so high? £6/day really is a lot for a small 3 bed house where it doesn't do the heating.
Electricity price here today is £0.17/kwh including all taxes.
Jon in Sweden wrote: ↑25 Mar 2023, 4:51pm
Given that the wholesale prices have come right down, why are the UK tariffs still so high?
Time lag in the way UK retail energy prices are set, basically. IIRC, the May government set a method that fails when prices vary too quickly, the Johnson and Sunak governments tinkered at great expense (the energy price guarantee) but are basically stuck with it until things settle down.
So low wholesale prices now may be reflected in retail prices come July.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
Jon in Sweden wrote: ↑25 Mar 2023, 4:51pm
Given that the wholesale prices have come right down, why are the UK tariffs still so high?
Electricity price here today is £0.17/kwh including all taxes.
Be grateful for Sweden's plentiful supply of hydro-electricity and Sweden's relatively small population for the size of its landmass.
Electricity standing charges here are set to rise 15%, according to https://uk.news.yahoo.com/martin-lewis- ... 22874.html, further penalising those who use little. How can a pricing policy which favours higher consumption square with the Governent's agenda for reducing emissions?
Despite the impression they give occasionally I don't see any evidence that this government has an agenda to reduce emissions. Policies have consistently undermined initiatives to do so. Remember George Osborne removed regulations introduced by the previous government that would have ended the installation of gas boilers several years ago. Retrofit home insulation schemes were abandoned and 90% of that industry disappeared. As a result domestic heating costs in the UK have been reported as £2Bn a year more than they would otherwise have been.
And yesterday, this:
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theg ... l-aberdeen
They don't seem to have noticed the US and EU intitiatives to promote renewables and efficiency. All the hot air they produce talking about 'world beating' and so on is worthless if they pursue this approach and lock the UK industries into superseded technologies.
They mean they're beating the world with a big stick, and hoping they can break it completely.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way.No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse. There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.