The energy crisis

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

We certainly haven’t. What happens when you go awy for 2 weeks in January? Temperature outside is sub-zero. House cools down to not much above zero; temperature outside rises to the same. There is no heat to transfer into the home.

I believe this is frustrating technology - you’d need a backup heat source- like the one you’ve just switched from.

Like EVs, we’re not there yet., imo.

From the limited research I have done already, I would tend to agree with you at this point. From what I can see, the devil is in the detail and this is rarely discussed on the information I can see in the public domain.

Originally Posted by Chris

I did extensive research into heat pumps before eventually installing a wood pellet biomass system because the heat loss at my old house was awful and remedying it was non-trivial due to its construction. At the time I was looking at ground source with a borehole and sealed loop collectors due to lack of available land for trenched ground loop collectors and the relatively poor efficiency of air source heat pumps at the time.

However, that was 15 years ago and in that time, air source heat pumps have become as efficient as ground source pumps were back then. So I’m guessing what I learned then pertains to what you need to do now, which is get a surveyor out who is qualified to do a full heat loss survey on your house (ideally the one where they tape up your front door with plastic sheeting and blow warm air into the property). Find out exactly what the heat requirement for your house is, then get a heat pump installer to specify and cost quote a system for you based on that precise requirement.

Discuss with them whether you’re sticking with radiators, and how much larger the panels will need to be in each room (if at all - if your rads are very old, simply replacing them with super-modern efficient ones *might* be enough). Consider whether you’d like to switch to underfloor heating, downstairs at least. This is the most efficient way to heat a home and is ideally suited to the lower heat output of a heat pump.

As I said, all of this research led us not to go ahead with it, as we learned our house was particularly ill suited. So I can’t advise you on what actually happens when you put one in. But it is definitely worth doing the research.

Thanks so much for taking the time to detail your past experience. Our house is a 1906 semi but with (old-ish) cavity wall insulation and a modern loft conversion, so it sort of meets the minimum bar. However saying that, the energy rating is probably about a D, most in our road are D.

Our rads are modern but would need some replacing with a larger "footprint" to accommodate the lower heating flow temperatures. We had a quote from Octopus who seem hot (!) on this at the moment. This came in approx 6.5k inc. fitting and new rads where required. Our concerns are how the new (external) unit integrates with the current 22mm CH circuit and so what additional building work is needed to interface into the current circuits, given the current Combi is on the 1st floor.

The other concern is the noise of the unit as we are close to our neighbours and we would not want to create a noise problem. Given that our Combi is still under the 10yr warranty, my instinct is that this is a no for us at this house. I can see though, sooner rather than later, Electricity costs decoupling from Gas given that our Wind, etc. provision will increase significantly and so this option becoming more price competitive.

It is always good to get other's opinions and hear their experiences. It helps to validate (or not) your instincts.

No problem

I would say if you have a modern gas boiler, on mains gas and in good working order, now is not the time. Even when your current boiler comes up for replacement you might find we’ve switched to a hybrid methane-hydrogen mains gas network that will allow you to continue with most of your present installation.

My gut feeling is that beyond a certain date all new build houses are going to be compelled to be all electric, for cooking as well as heating, and that heat pumps will be mandated, but for a variety of reasons it will be a long, long time before they become very widespread on older housing stock. I should add, despite the house construction our next door neighbours installed an air-source heat pump about a year before we sold and moved on, and they opted to sacrifice a little internal living space in order to do the necessary insulation (building the walls in rather than out, given the difficulty of doing anything with the timber shiplap exterior wall). I never heard their unit operate, but it wasn’t exactly right under our noses and I did note that they had it placed as far from their house as possible, presumably at the installer’s suggestion. So yes, in confined urban spaces noise could be an issue.

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by SnoopZ

Wouldn't it be easier to rent a place with double glazing than than wait for it to get fitted, unless your rent is cheap?

No, the current rental market is pretty broken.

I have been looking to move for almost two years.

What should be happening is proper enforcement of the energy rating legislation which requires an E and soon will require a C, mine is F.

[Jaymoss]

Unit Prices not rising next month

https://www.theguardian.com/money/20...-means-for-you

True, but everyones costs will still rise by £66 a month as EBSS is ending.

[Kursk]

Originally Posted by Paul

True, but everyones costs will still rise by £66 a month as EBSS is ending.

Yes, I’ll be closely watching this. The energy companies will be looking to up our direct debits to ‘compensate’ but I can think of more profitable places to stash cash than in their bank accounts. It might not suit some but being in debit suits me.

[Jaymoss]

Originally Posted by Kursk

Yes, I’ll be closely watching this. The energy companies will be looking to up our direct debits to ‘compensate’ but I can think of more profitable places to stash cash than in their bank accounts. It might not suit some but being in debit suits me.

you will have to pay what you owe still and losing this rebate will hurt for a while. July bills should drop and lets hope it continues for the next couple of caps

Martin Lewis has said there may be some deal start showing after July but I image they will be expensive especially if rates continue to drop

[Kursk]

Originally Posted by Jaymoss

you will have to pay what you owe still and losing this rebate will hurt for a while. July bills should drop and lets hope it continues for the next couple of caps

Martin Lewis has said there may be some deal start showing after July but I image they will be expensive especially if rates continue to drop

Yep, but I don’t want to over-pay as is the preference of my energy supplier which no doubt prefers to wallow in accumulated credit on the pretext that it’s better for me to have a ‘credit buffer’. They don’t pay interest on advance deposits but they will be receiving it

[amyjones]

Wam home discount ends in a few days, so make sure you take advantage of it while you can. It's really easy to sign up, just enter your postcode on the website and follow the simple steps.

[1andrew1]

I found this a fascinating read.

The Cornish village getting its heat from beneath the street

Could a new shared network of ground-source heat pumps provide a model for decarbonising millions of UK homes?

The scheme involves drilling boreholes 100 metres underground, where liquid can absorb heat at a constant 10C-12C. This is then piped into people’s homes, where the warmth is extracted by a ground-source heat pump. Like an air-source pump, this relies on refrigerant technology running backwards — crucially, though, it’s 30-40 per cent more efficient than the air-source version because it doesn’t have to cope with really low temperatures in winter.

In this scheme, however, rather than each heat pump having its own piping — which can make the technology incredibly expensive — residents’ boreholes are connected to a communal network of horizontal pipes just below street level.

The idea already looks attractive to some housebuilders who build new estates from scratch. It would be easy for them to lay a heat network alongside the water, power and telecoms as they lay the roads.

Read more at: https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www....3-e55f8e34385a
https://heatthestreets.co.uk/

[GrimUpNorth]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

I found this a fascinating read.



Read more at: https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www....3-e55f8e34385a
https://heatthestreets.co.uk/

We have installed something similar in Leeds, though the heat source are waste recycling centres, 26.5km of pipes so far and I believe it is set to grow as funding becomes available.

https://www.leeds.gov.uk/housing/hou...strict-heating

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by GrimUpNorth

We have installed something similar in Leeds, though the heat source are waste recycling centres, 26.5km of pipes so far and I believe it is set to grow as funding becomes available.

https://www.leeds.gov.uk/housing/hou...strict-heating

Yes. The article mentions that type too but cites a drawback in the way some have been implemented.

Under the Stithians model, Kensa Utilities will own the infrastructure under the street until it enters the property, after which the in-home pipework and heat pump will be owned by the homeowner — this, crucially, allows residents to choose their own heat pump and their own electricity supplier to run the pump.

Kensa says more than half a million households currently connected to traditional district heating systems, which pipe waste hot water from council incinerators, for example, can be at the mercy of unrestricted prices because they can’t switch suppliers. This has led to reports of communal boilers being switched off to save costs — or boilers being left on when they are not needed.

[Sephiroth]

Cornwall is radioactive - Radon, I believe.

Originally Posted by amyjones

Wam home discount ends in a few days, so make sure you take advantage of it while you can. It's really easy to sign up, just enter your postcode on the website and follow the simple steps.

In England, it was automatic, no signing up required.

While it probably doesnt matter now, as EBSS is ending, it seems British Gas did it differently - they credited the £67 to my bank account, not to my energy account balance.