We must ban boilers to force public to switch to £10k heat pumps' | Hacker News Reader

We must ban boilers to force public to switch to £10k heat pumps'

express.co.uk

13 pointsalexellisuk26 comments

> The only way you can make such a significant shift is by saying from a particular date, you won't be able to buy a new gas boiler."

Or... subsidize the installation of new heat pumps via tax credits or whatever mechanism makes sense in the UK?

The whole "big bad out-of-touch government wants to take away your Thing That's Perfectly Fine and force you to do Wasteful Extravagant Spending instead" headline is pretty obvious outrage-bait (which makes sense given the piece's provenance), but the article itself is also pretty light on supporting details... imagine that.

I thought the article was pretty trashy. But just to point it out if people missed it - I realized there is a minute long video-rticle at the top that explains there is a tax credit to cover £5000 of the switch.

Anyone who has ever stayed in an English house will know that the majority of them are terribly insulated (walls and floor - windows are often fine) and require lots of heat. Some are even windy when the windows are closed! (I don't know how).

A lot of people won't be able to afford fixing this, even though it will save money long term. This is where the government could step in to promote a greening england energy plan with tax credits. It would provide an economic boost after covid too.

There was actually a scheme a few years ago to get cavity wall insulation for free. I know because I took advantage of it, although the work was not exactly first class.

Insulating the loft ought to be cheap because it's simple and material is cheap. I DIY'd it.

On the other hand, insulating the floor is a b*tch. I did it myself as well and lifting the floorboards of the whole ground-floor was a massive pain but now I have 10cm of Celotex underneath and enjoy warm wooden floor all year long with no draft.

I keep being tempted by retrofitted cavity wall insulation, but then I read some of the horror stories and it puts me right off. However our house is reasonably well insulated otherwise, and mid terrace do I’m not sure if it would make that much of a radical difference.

I've had cavity wall insulation added to the last two houses I've owned. Made a huge difference to both, especially noticeable was how much longer the house stayed warm when the heating was off. Both were detached which will make a difference in terms of surface area impacted.

Yeah, I know the benefits, just worried about the damp issues. We are on the boarder line of areas where it can start to be an issue, worked out based on amount of rain and wind as I understand it.

The Green Homes Grant covers 2/3rds of the cost for improvements up to £10k. Part of the issue is people don't use the schemes and they get scrapped for not hitting targets.

Poorly insulated houses are windy with the windows closed because cold air drops. Air close to the windows gets cold (a single pane of glass doesn’t provide much insulation) and the cold air drops to the floor displacing the other air in the room, thereby creating a current. It’s like opening the fridge with bare feet. You can feel the cold air falling on your toes.

And the fact it used to be standard to leave small holes in walls and floors for ventilation. Then when the wind blows outdoors, it also blows indoors.

I can't help think that these mandates are being made by people who are out of touch with everyday people.

So everyday people don't want to fight climate change? I know some do.

They might want to, but can they afford to?

Definitely. As a smallish mid terrace, our house has very little exterior wall space that isn’t already taken up with doors and windows. Air source heat pumps are being pushed by people with well insulated semi or fully detached houses with space for a tank and who have the cash to splash on the work that would be needed to replace a compact combi boiler.

If someone can work out a more compact system that could perhaps go in our loft then that might work, but that would probably require roofing work to accommodate the largish ducting that you would need.

I’m all in favour of decarbonising, but it needs to take into account how mostbof is actually live. For example, I’d love an electric car, but we don’t have off street parking, so can’t guarantee charging up overnight.

why 10K when you could buy a $1.5K unit? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omivdhxdGv0

UK boilers are rather different from US water heaters. UK boilers run at much higher temperatures and are typically un-insulated or poorly insulated, in order to heat the room that they're contained in. They do make high-temperature heat pumps that work for this, but they're much more expensive than the small units used in US hybrid water heaters. There's never really been any incentive in the UK to switch to more modern types of appliances.

Depending on how much water these boilers are supposed to heat, £10k still sounds a little high.

The most economical solution for smaller houses is typically: air-to-air heat pump for indoor room temperature, and exhaust-air-to-water for warm tap water.

For larger water heaters, end consumer products might not be commonly available so prices might be much higher, idk. If the boilers are used for circulating water radiators, then that requires larger heat pumps for which £10k is reasonable, but air-to-air is typically more economical. I think part of the reason is the temperature-delta is much higher with water radiators which makes the pump less efficient.

Uk houses are not designed around warm air heating, wet radiator systems are the norm. I’m not sure you could retrofit warm air into most two storey brick houses in the UK particularly easily.

Split systems are more efficient than ducted air anyway.

Heat Pumps are Not Hard: Here's what it will take to start pumping https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43XKfuptnik

Maybe you could retrofit freon lines inside of hot water pipes?

Heated floors work best for wet systems because you don’t need huge temperature delta

There is a big markup on heat pumps because you aren't eligible for the government assistance unless you hire a certified installer to install it...

That means obviously the certified installers charge very high installation prices because they know you can't just DIY it.

Saw a really excellent/overkill install of a heatpump this morning that's worth sharing. It shows what a chore a real install can be. https://youtu.be/ZEJ0VUINV0s

This is obviously super nicely done, no expense spared. ut there's some real difficulties it shows off. Heat pumps dont generate as big a differential, so you have to upsize radiators... a lot. Pumping becomes a new expense whereas boilers could generate pressure, and oh yeah, high temperature pumps are crazy expensive.

It's a gorgoeus video. I want someone to go through & explain in full each of the little devices & their purpose, translate a lot of this shop talk down to us. Good potential use for video annotations.

I once rented a place where the landlord had a really old and inefficient heating system. He didn't care that the heating bills were hundreds of dollars more per month in the winter.

The UK requires an energy efficiency inspection of all rented houses. If you don't get a minimum standard, you can't rent a house.

If they ban gas boilers I reckon many people will switch to electric boilers because they are basically the same price and a drop-in replacement while many people cannot afford to spend 10k on a heat pump, nevermind being able to install one even if that means higher bills...

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