Heat Pumps are Pants!

[jennyjj01]

mods. Feel free to move or sanction this post if there's a better subforum or if it's too controversial.


So, it seems that the government are failing dismally to encourage the take up of Heat Pumps as replacement central heating solutions... Quel surprise!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64710225
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/arti ... trade.html

"The Boiler Upgrade Scheme grants households £5,000 to help switch from a gas boiler to a low-carbon heat pump.
On Wednesday, the Lords Climate Change Committee said grant take-up is so low the national target for green heating is "very unlikely to be met".
The government responded by saying it would launch a marketing campaign"

DOH! or for want of a better word FFS!

The scheme is failing because it's ill conceived nonsense that will never cost in for most folk.

1) The £5,000 is a small fraction of the cost of replacement. Typically >>£10,000
2) Radiators and internal plumbing will need chunky replacements at great cost and mess. IF even possible! You may need to replace rads with under floor water pipe heating! Few homes are suitable for HP heating.
3) HP systems are very bulky, require hot water reservoirs and are nothing like slot in replacements.
4) In the absence of GREAT home insulation, heatpumps will barely warm the home.
5) Much of the time, efficiency is so low that the system reverts to simply heating some water DIRECTLY using ELECTRICITY!
6) Electricity is three times the price of gas, totally negating the 3-3.5 coefficient of performance. A GREAT Heatpump system will cost as much to run as an old gas boiler system, just because of energy price disparity.
7) If it's cold outside, efficiency plummets... just when you need it!
8) Take the grant and you can never revert to a gas boiler?
9) HP systems wear out quickly.

So, what's the government's answer? They are going to spend an arm and a leg on an advertising campaign! A Bi006y ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN! That will fix nothing! A Pig in lipstick is still a pig!

No doubt, the next leg of their answer will be to wean us off gas by bumping up the price of gas, and by further legislating against gas heating.

Sorry folks. We are being sold a pup! Beware of us getting steam rollered, by any government!

Ethics? We householders MUST surely improve our home insulation. If the grants covered that, for all of us, then we might find Heatpumps make their own case. I don't want my tax £££s wasted on advertising campaigns that attempt to deceive

[Yorkshire Andy]

I agree unless the house is well insulated and built for the set up it's like chucking money on a fire with the windows wide open

Also they seem to be going after gas cookers as they are "unhealthy"

[jennyjj01]

I agree unless the house is well insulated and built for the set up it's like chucking money on a fire with the windows wide open

Also they seem to be going after gas cookers as they are "unhealthy"

I hadn't heard about the gas cookers..... INSANITY!

[Yorkshire Andy]

I agree unless the house is well insulated and built for the set up it's like chucking money on a fire with the windows wide open

Also they seem to be going after gas cookers as they are "unhealthy"

I hadn't heard about the gas cookers..... INSANITY!

It's going full on tinfoil hat bonkers ..

Pass me the Kelly kettle I need a brew

[GeeGee]

I know someone whose brother got a heat pump installed cost a absolute fortune I couldn't believe it
Frozen solid in house sat with hat and coat on and kids are going mad freezing cold ..parents even up and left to go home to get warm
App they dont pump out as much warmth as we are used to
Imagine forking out all that money to sit shivering ...
No thanks
Cant afford it anyhow ...ill be sat warming hands by a campfire in garden ...
If we are still allowed the basics of making fire..which i think we have done since more or less the beginning of humans..

[jansman]

I’ve thought the same too. Read about it on Money Saving Expert. The folks who have the heat pumps there tend to be totally positive- they would ,wouldn’t they? - but all the above information is what I concluded too.
In fact, there are even ‘sneaky’ rules being brought in about what GeeGee mentioned - fires. We have been solid fuel since day one here,so that’s a third of a century! I can see those being banned. Irony is ,there are no rules about barbecue,fire pits and bonfires. I won’t go on…
As for ASHP rules,there’s no way one would be any good in our place. 120 year old single-skin granite. I’ll stick with the wood and coal! Just like GeeGee,I couldn’t afford an air source pump either.

[Vitamin c]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... th-experts

Interesting read ,I wasn't aware of the fumes in the home bit...

[diamond lil]

Our local council is going into this in a big way. any council/HA house with coal fired heating is being swapped to these things and the fb groups have been full of complaints since they started doing it a couple of years ago. The govt can plug them all it likes but that won't work when every local tenants group are going mad with freezing cold homes. And up here it's rural with hills and open moors and it's cold.
I think the wee old hidden ex-shepherd and gamekeepers cottages have the best of it - hidden miles off the main roads with free wood all around and no neighbours within sight... wish I could get one!

[jansman]

Our local council is going into this in a big way. any council/HA house with coal fired heating is being swapped to these things and the fb groups have been full of complaints since they started doing it a couple of years ago. The govt can plug them all it likes but that won't work when every local tenants group are going mad with freezing cold homes. And up here it's rural with hills and open moors and it's cold.
I think the wee old hidden ex-shepherd and gamekeepers cottages have the best of it - hidden miles off the main roads with free wood all around and no neighbours within sight... wish I could get one!

I’ll bet you are glad you moved from your coal fired house.

[Frnc]

What is needed is for the government to insulate our houses.
New builds should need almost no heating and have heat pumps.
Electricity price for renewable must be decoupled from gas - REDUCED.
Cavity wall houses done, loft topups, double glazing, draught exclusion. Some of these might be suitable for heat pumps if done properly.
Note: concrete etc will store heat. So solid floors might not necessarily need replacing. However, concrete also conducts heat. So maybe they will. The logic of this is concrete, brick etc is good if insulated ON THE OUTSIDE.

Victorian houses are a problem. Retrofitting is a massive skilled job. You have to move out, have expert architects etc. Ideally they need cladding on the outside which ruins the look and brings the value down. Insulating on the inside doesn't make use of the thermal storage of brick, but would be more acceptable. But it's a massive job. Houses would need to be done by the state, street by street. They still might not be suitable for heat pumps. But they can use green electricity and gas mixed with hydrogen, and they should need much less heating. It is NOT possible to do this piecemeal, with grants. The whole house has to be gutted. It needs to be planned by expert architects and done by builders contracted by the state. Payback is a pretty long time, but cost can be cut by doing it to scale, on an industrial scale.