Heat in the home

[ANTONISH]

Even industry sources suggest that the overall energy output is often no more than 200% of input.
One industry source suggested that you will need to use an immersion heater to get the hot water you need because the heat pump produces water at a much lower temperature than a gas boiler.
That suggests that at current prices the cost of the electrical energy used will be higher than the cost of gas used for hot water and heating at current prices.

Those are wide of the mark, so I guess the "industry" is "gas boiler plumbers". On its worst day (including a control system error running it hotter than needed), our CH+HW ASHP has done more than 200%, and the immersion is only used for anti-legionnaires cycles in deep winter when it's cheaper than running the HP that hot. The immersion is fitted mostly to be able to use excess solar generation.


At current prices, mains gas is a cheaper way to heat, but that won't last once electricity prices are unlinked from gas prices like they should be. Heat pumps are already cheaper heat than oil.

I would also like to see the cost of modifying the heating system - increasing radiator size larger bore pipes etc and upgrading the insulation of a dwelling to the point where the level of house temperature produced by an air source heat pump matches that of a gas fired boiler.
I am in no doubt that the cost will not be within the reach of the majority of the population.

The cost will be both beyond most (there is a cost of living crisis) and not that much compared to the heat pump. Plumbing changes of maybe 20-25% of the cost of the pump, with pipes only needing replacement if uninsulated microbore was widespread.

Meanwhile I'm quite happy with my oil fired boiler (1000 litres a year) and my multifuel stove ( used only during the colder weather burning smokeless fuel - 225kg last winter)

And you feel no guilt over the pollution?

The industry sources I have looked at and listened to are heat pump manufacturers not your friendly plumber.
Microbore is a problem because of the flow rate not the insulation.
I don't even have to think about legionaires disease.
If heat pumps were taken up at a massive scale we would have problems in electrical generation in that the use of renewables would need to grealy increase but we have no comensurate large scale storage capacity - unless you would like to go back to producing electrical energy by fossil fuels. There would also need to be a large scale increase in transmission and distribution capacity.

I don't feel guilty about pollution - I have had the system for a long time and have no intention of spending thousands of pounds to "upgrade" to a system that I'm pretty certain will not perform as well.

That will go for a large part - probably the majority of the population who will not have the resources to fund such a project.

[mjr]

The industry sources I have looked at and listened to are heat pump manufacturers not your friendly plumber.

What heat pump manufacturer says they can't achieve 200%?

I don't even have to think about legionaires disease.

Nor do I now the system is designed and in! But if you mean that your heater has no legionella prevention cycle, that probably means you have no hot water tank or it is heated and stored inefficiently hot (or your system is at risk but I hope not).

If heat pumps were taken up at a massive scale we would have problems in electrical generation in that the use of renewables would need to grealy increase but we have no comensurate large scale storage capacity - unless you would like to go back to producing electrical energy by fossil fuels. There would also need to be a large scale increase in transmission and distribution capacity.

Not as much as you might think. A domestic heat pump spends most of its time using less power than a kettle and many heat pump controls are smart grid ready to avoid them all powering up together, plus heat pump tanks and heating systems are basically energy storage for slow releases.

I don't feel guilty about pollution - I have had the system for a long time and have no intention of spending thousands of pounds to "upgrade" to a system that I'm pretty certain will not perform as well.

How does a systembeing old excuse pollnting and poisoning one's neighbours?

Pretty certain based on misconceptions, it seems.

That will go for a large part - probably the majority of the population who will not have the resources to fund such a project.

Indeed. This should be the biggest challenge.

[Nearholmer]

This should be the biggest challenge.

And that’s where the government should come into the picture as the broker effectively, to take tax revenue from people who can afford to pay more tax, and route it into very tightly targeted schemes to improve energy efficiency in the homes of those who can’t afford themselves to make the necessary changes, which ought to include things like training up engineers and technicians to do the work.

Moving our economy to sustainability is a huge task, and the sort of hands off and hope that the hidden hand of the market will magically sort it approach to life that new PM seems to espouse seems highly unlikely to achieve the necessary IMO.

Oddly enough, a sort of ‘sustainability crusade’ might actually be a way to revive the economy, by getting money flowing, as well as helping security and multiple other things like skills and national self esteem.

Rant temporarily suspended.

[ANTONISH]

That will go for a large part - probably the majority of the population who will not have the resources to fund such a project.

Indeed. This should be the biggest challenge.

We are not going to agree about the efficacy of heat pumps.

I am prepared to accept your assertion that " a heat pump spends most of its time using less power than a kettle" I'm not sure what power kettle you mean, but if heat pumps are installed in large numbers the load on the electrical grid will increase greatly and has to be accomodated.

My area has no gas supply so my neighbours use a variety of heating methods, bottled,stored gas, oil fired boilers, wood burners, electric space heating.
So if I'm poisoning them, most are similarly poisoning me.
My oil fired boiler is regularly serviced and performs to the required standards.

Heat pumps and electric cars are basically a wealthy man's answer to the climate crisis - dreamt up by a wealthy man's governmement.
What is needed is a reduction in energy demand which entails greatly improving the energy effiency of our housing stock.
If that could be done the heating requirement of an typical home could be met with electrical space heating.
There was some sort of "warm homes" intiative but I believe the take up hasn't been great.
My house has cavity wall insulation, double glazing and loft insulation - I could improve the latter which would be of marginal benefit.
I'd do that myself - I'm not sure tht I'd want a couple of half trained cowboys trampling around my loft space.

[Nearholmer]

I’d be very interested to hear what form of heating you think is more sustainable than heat pumps.

The “wealthy man’s” point is true, so long as we as a society, by voting in governments, decide that everything should be left to individual prosperity or otherwise, in which scenario wealthy men can get heat pumps, and poor men can get cold (because fossil fuel prices will continue to escalate).

Insulating and heating homes is way too big a thing to be left to chance, it’s like the creation of the national grid and centralised power generation a generation or more ago, it needs to be led from the front, nationally.

[ANTONISH]

I’d be very interested to hear what form of heating you think is more sustainable than heat pumps.

The “wealthy man’s” point is true, so long as we as a society, by voting in governments, decide that everything should be left to individual prosperity or otherwise, in which scenario wealthy men can get heat pumps, and poor men can get cold (because fossil fuel prices will continue to escalate).

Insulating and heating homes is way too big a thing to be left to chance, it’s like the creation of the national grid and centralised power generation a generation or more ago, it needs to be led from the front, nationally.

If we can improve the energy efficiency of our housing stock (proably including solar panels) then with increased renewable generation and much better storage - a very big problem - we would have sufficient electrical energy available to support electrical space heating - relatively cheap to install, little maintenance and certainly under those conditions sustainable.

While heat pumps by their nature are 200% + energy efficient the capital and maintenance costs make them prohibitively expensive.
Of course we have a government with a commitment to the efficacy of market forces and our form of government is such that a programme of implementing a decades long energy solution is unlikely.

[mjr]

We are not going to agree about the efficacy of heat pumps.

Fine. I'd still love to know which heat pump manufacturers you read "suggest that the overall energy output is often no more than 200% of input", if you'd be so kind?

I am prepared to accept your assertion that " a heat pump spends most of its time using less power than a kettle" I'm not sure what power kettle you mean,

A pretty typical for the UK 2.2kW kettle.

but if heat pumps are installed in large numbers the load on the electrical grid will increase greatly and has to be accomodated.

I disagree that it's "greatly" but there will be some extra load to accommodate. However, the grid already doesn't fail if most households put the kettle on together in something like an ad break of a popular football match. The challenge will be managing it so that there aren't unnecessary peaks and the smart grid should help with that.

My area has no gas supply so my neighbours use a variety of heating methods, bottled,stored gas, oil fired boilers, wood burners, electric space heating.
So if I'm poisoning them, most are similarly poisoning me.

In other words, they poison you so you poison them back and two wrongs make a right? Surely those using electric space heating aren't poisoning you locally, so why poison them?

Anyway, it's similar here. No gas main, so there's a few houses still on the originally-fitted oil boilers, at least one has gone to wood pellet and burners (which smells bad and emits brown smoke when they start it up) and another is at least partly on solar. It would smell a lot nicer in the evenings if no-one was burning stuff.

My oil fired boiler is regularly serviced and performs to the required standards.

The appeal to required standards just reminds me of "In other words, it doesn't do anything useful and it's not your fault." https://dilbert.com/strip/1994-04-11

Heat pumps and electric cars are basically a wealthy man's answer to the climate crisis - dreamt up by a wealthy man's governmement.
What is needed is a reduction in energy demand which entails greatly improving the energy effiency of our housing stock.
If that could be done the heating requirement of an typical home could be met with electrical space heating.
There was some sort of "warm homes" intiative but I believe the take up hasn't been great. [...]

Like the heat pumps initiative, the "warm homes" scheme itself wasn't great.

I agree that we also need to insulate Britain, but it's an also, not an alternative. Everything becomes easier if insulated, but we still need to move away from burning things and especially fossil fuels.

Heat pumps shouldn't be a wealthy-man's alternative: the technology is very mature and used elsewhere, and — unlike electric cars — doesn't depend particularly heavily on any scarce minerals. Hopefully, the new flat-rate-per-home government incentive will be less market-distorting than the previous bigger-house-means-bigger-subsidised-loan system.

[Nearholmer]

If we can improve the energy efficiency of our housing stock (proably including solar panels) then with increased renewable generation and much better storage - a very big problem - we would have sufficient electrical energy available to support electrical space heating - relatively cheap to install, little maintenance and certainly under those conditions sustainable.

I will try to find/calculate relative efficiencies, but I have a feeling that centralised sources plus distribution losses may be slightly less efficient than using heat pumps, but the optimum solution is almost certain to need a mix of both for various reasons - some buildings are natural candidates for heat pumps, some are very much the opposite.

Insulate, insulate, insulate ........ except that the current approach is laissez faire, laissez faire, laissez faire.

[Biospace]

I don't feel guilty about pollution - I have had the system for a long time and have no intention of spending thousands of pounds to "upgrade" to a system that I'm pretty certain will not perform as well.

That will go for a large part - probably the majority of the population who will not have the resources to fund such a project.

I've never felt guilty about pollution from burning wood to keep warm and cook food either, provided the pollution hasn't hung around neighbours - it's fundamental survival if there's no other affordable way. Carrying (and for many, chainsawing, splitting and seasoning) every piece of fuel into the house encourages you to use it efficiently, less likely to be the case if there's a standing order and thermostat for an invisible supply. I once improved the efficiency of a woodstove by an estimated 50% by surrounding it with a couple of hundred bricks and firebricks, with ten layers of aluminium foil lining the space where it sat in the chimney and a computer fan blowing through the bricks.

Just as cars, telephones and fridges were once regarded as exclusively for the wealthy, it's very likely the affordability of heat pumps will increase progressively with or without sustained government encouragement until most of us have one whirring away, keeping us warm slightly more efficiently than the alternatives.

The improvement, even with 60-70% RE grid supply, is far less than is being suggested on account of the manufacturing process, refridgerant losses and poor installation/setting up. I see a trend towards citizens relying almost entirely on electricity for their car, their heating and their cooking, and another trend of production moving increasingly to China and the Far East.

Moving our economy to sustainability is a huge task, and the sort of hands off and hope that the hidden hand of the market will magically sort it approach to life that new PM seems to espouse seems highly unlikely to achieve the necessary IMO.

Oddly enough, a sort of ‘sustainability crusade’ might actually be a way to revive the economy, by getting money flowing, as well as helping security and multiple other things like skills and national self esteem.

This was one of Boris' pipedreams, unlikely to happen given our system and now likely shelved. The UK has given a lesson in how to innovate, partially develop then give up (often for want of government backing) on technologies which could have earned us a lot of money and jobs over the last 80 years. We could have been world leaders in wind turbines, but it was the Danes who continued when we dropped our R&D; every month which passes while we stall on investing in the development of energy taken from the sea, we're less likely to ever prosper from it and will likely end up paying someone else when it's eventually realised that, compared with nuclear, it's good value for money and can very easily be modified in use to provide extra medium-term energy storage to see us through those mid-winter blocking highs.

Instead of starting with many smaller projects and seeing what works best, the idea is to start with a massive project (the Swansea tidal lagoon). It typifies the UK's dyslexic approach to energy supply over the last few decades, perhaps to be expected with so few in Parliamnent with any engineering experience.


If energy prices to the UK consumer remain high, there will be renewed interest in solar heating and solar electricity even with the huge increase in standing charges. Half the year in most of Britain, solar power can cover all or very nearly all demand with a little adjustment in consumption habits, for another 2 months bills will be significantly reduced. That's very likely to be over £1000 saved in just one season, so ROI Is possible well within a decade.

[simonineaston]

I can see the time coming, one way and another, when civil obedience and the rule of law will be incomptaible with the need to deal with climate changes. And furthermore, I think it looks like that time has already started.

[tenbikes]

I can see the time coming, one way and another, when civil obedience and the rule of law will be incomptaible with the need to deal with climate changes. And furthermore, I think it looks like that time has already started.

I agree.

[ANTONISH]

There are a lot of ideas here - both good and original

My difficulty is that most people in the UK have only a few hundred pounds buffer between them and descending into Micawber's misery.

I don't know how much the government proposes to invest in solving our problems - I doubt that many of those currently struggling to meet energy costs will have the wherewithall to pay for a solution to their individual problems - e.g greatly improving the energy efficiency of their home.

I'm altogether pessimistic about a national solution which will take decades to implement and is unlikely to survive a change of government.

IMO the major parties need to collaborate in the national interest - much as in WW2.

[Biospace]

I don't know how much the government proposes to invest in solving our problems - I doubt that many of those currently struggling to meet energy costs will have the wherewithall to pay for a solution to their individual problems - e.g greatly improving the energy efficiency of their home.

The more a national government invests in subsidising energy prices once it's already spending billions through borrowing or printing money, the greater the chances of its currency slipping, its credit ratings slipping and so price inflation. On the other hand, how many businesses can be allowed to go to the wall without that affecting our economy badly? The humanitarian aspects are interwoven throughout, it is a complex situation for any government, whether it leans to less regulation or more.

There has been little mention of 'conserving energy' by anyone, perhaps the situation is so serious people expect that this will happen as a matter of course, but there is a case for carefully considered information and education.

Years ago, living in one of the coldest parts of England in a very beautiful but very cold house heated by logs alone, I improved the efficiency of the single, small stove by at least half with almost no financial outlay using simple skills every able-bodied person has.

I imagine there are many simple improvements people can make to improve comfort in their homes which see good returns on tiny investments, which today's society has no knowledge of.

[Paulatic]

[
Years ago, living in one of the coldest parts of England in a very beautiful but very cold house heated by logs alone, I improved the efficiency of the single, small stove by at least half with almost no financial outlay using simple skills every able-bodied person has.

Wouldn’t you like to share this?

[Biospace]

Years ago, living in one of the coldest parts of England in a very beautiful but very cold house heated by logs alone, I improved the efficiency of the single, small stove by at least half with almost no financial outlay using simple skills every able-bodied person has.

Wouldn’t you like to share this?

I did, five or six posts upthread! Here it is again,

I once improved the efficiency of a woodstove by an estimated 50% by surrounding it with a couple of hundred bricks and firebricks, with ten layers of aluminium foil lining the space where it sat in the chimney and a computer fan blowing through the bricks