Heat Source Pumps.

[Chippy_Tea]

What planet are they on from what i have heard today its not a simple job of ripping your old boiler out and replacing it with one of these the radiators have to be much bigger for a start, they are making it out you are going to get one of these systems for £1000 (with the £5000 grant) i have a feeling its going to cost us a lot more than £1000.

Heat pump grants worth £5,000 to replace gas boilers not enough, say critics
Experts have criticised plans to subsidise low-carbon heat pumps in place of gas boilers for homeowners in England and Wales from next April.
Households will be offered subsidies of £5,000 from next April to help them make the switch.
Although up to 25 million UK homes have gas boilers, the grants will fund just 90,000 pumps over three years.
The government says this will boost demand for the pumps, but critics say the plan does not go far enough.
Homeowners will be encouraged to switch to a heat pump or other low-carbon technology when their current boiler needs replacing.
An air-source heat pump costs between £6,000 and £18,000, depending on the type installed and the size of a property.
Ministers say the subsidies will make heat pumps a comparable price to a new gas boiler. However, the £450m being allocated for the subsidies over three years has been criticised as insufficient.
Experts also point to the need for costly new insulation and other home improvements to help households get the best out of the switch.

Full article - Heat pump grants worth £5,000 to replace gas boilers not enough, say critics - BBC News

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I worry this will be a waste of good money and will be completely ineffective.

We have parts of the world using energy to cool themselves and parts of the world using energy to heat themselves. The solution might be to import and export hot and cold - a new economy!

OK, more seriously. I wonder if the great minds in this world have considered investment in solar energy in some of the underdeveloped parts of the world along the equator? It can’t be beyond the wit of man…or woman (homage to Life of Brian) to generate electricity where it can be produced cleanly and cheaply from solar, geothermal, etc. and export it to other countries.

Why are we spending a fortune on technologies that produce little more heat than a fart!

Edit: Yes, I’ve had a few beers.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Get a heat pump warm your house and save the world, oh dear a fall at the first hurdle.

This bloke is brilliant and doesn't pull any punches.

"Have you been miss sold a heat pump"

 

[London]

Well they sounded great for the environment and us plebs but then you see what the reality is and its not good, i think i may but a new gas boiler before they are banned

very interesting.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Immersion heater to top up the hot water tank when there isn't enough heat to heat the water hot enough to use.

Big water tank where is that going to go (we all ripped our airing cupboards out years ago)

Big box with noisy fan where is that going to go in a terraced street or block of flats.

Bigger radiators and probably the plumbing.

 

[London]

We’ve still got an airing cupboard as we didn’t want a combi boiler, it very handy for drying clothes and fermenting with Kveik.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

We’ve still got an airing cupboard as we didn’t want a combi boiler, it very handy for drying clothes and fermenting with Kveik.

My parents still have one with the big copper tank and slatted shelves to air clothes, it used to be heated by the coal fire back boiler before they went all modern many years ago and bought a floor standing boiler like the one below and it still works a treat.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Heat pumps are not the answer electricity is. I'm gettiing Economy 7 installed when our boiler packs in.
Electricity can be generated in so many ways.

 

[VW911]

We've still got an old gas back boiler, along with traditional immersion tank and airing cupboard.
It must be well over 40 years old - we've been in the house for 19 years, and I think it was over 30 years old then. Rarely use the central heating, and a couple of hours a day gives us more than enough hot water. Clean it out every year, change the thermo-couple every couple of years. Never given us any serious problems.
Buggered if I'm going to spend 10k+ on a heat pump that will probably only last a few years...

 

[An Ankoù]

Heat pumps are not the answer electricity is. I'm gettiing Economy 7 installed when our boiler packs in.
Electricity can be generated in so many ways.

The whole point is that these "heat pumps" need electricity to run. If we're talking about the same thing, there are quite a few of them in our neighbourhood and they work on a similar principle to a fridge, but in reverse, that is they cool the outside air and the heat exchanger is in the house warming the water which is circulated through the rads, also by electricity. They're not cheap to run- our neighbour spends as much on electricity in the winter as we do on wood for our wood burners. Some of them are fairly noisy and none of them are silent.

 

[Benfleet Brewery]

The whole point is that these "heat pumps" need electricity to run. If we're talking about the same thing, there are quite a few of them in our neighbourhood and they work on a similar principle to a fridge, but in reverse, that is they cool the outside air and the heat exchanger is in the house warming the water which is circulated through the rads, also by electricity. They're not cheap to run- our neighbour spends as much on electricity in the winter as we do on wood for our wood burners. Some of them are fairly noisy and none of them are silent.

In the UK we still produce electricity by burning gas.

Will we really be doing any good by burning gas to produce electricity to run a heat pump instead of burning gas in the boiler?
yeah, I’ve had a beer too

 

[Chippy_Tea]

They're not cheap to run- our neighbour spends as much on electricity in the winter as we do on wood for our wood burners.

As the guy in the video says who wants to run heating in the day when the air is warm and the system can run efficiently we need heat at night when the air temperature is low so the heat pump will not work as well this is when the immersion heater has to kick in to bring the water up to the heat where you can wash up or have a shower/bath, we all had our immersion tanks taken out donkeys years ago because they were expensive to run in summer when you didn't want the coal fire on to heat the water, this is a huge backwards step why don't they give grants so all of us who have old and inefficient gas boilers changed for modern ones.

 

[trummy]

So what,s the answer? Our gas supplies are at the whim of other countries,. coals dirty, wood polluting, nuclear leaves as many problems behind as it solves. Hydrogen is way in the future as is nuclear fusion. You can only put up a certain number of windmills, or only build hydro plants in suitable environments.
Anyway but how we look stuffed!
Interestingly sis has an apartment heated by wood pellets that costs a bomb.. (In France) Brother in Law reckons it would be cheaper to use electric storage heaters!
(They do have a top floor flat so all heat from below percolates up to their pad and good wall/roof insulation.)
No I don't think heat pumps are the answer. I just don't know what is!
I read today that the latest figures suggest that man made global warming is now accepted by 99.9% of the scientific community.

 

[MmmBeer]

I had some experience of heat pumps some years and they are incredibly uneliable.

I have a gas boiler that is over 30 years old, I have serviced it myself for the last 15 years and have only had to replace a few electrical ancilliaries; pump, timer and 3 port valve.

My advice would be 'don't be Mr Betamax', wait until technologies have proven themselves before committing money to them; with or without grants.

 

[johncrobinson]

Aye and todays babies will grow up to think in 30yrs from now that sitting in a cold house wrapped up like an "Eskimo" and paying 20 grand a year electric bills is just "Normal life".

Govenments are very good at this sort of thing.

 

[johncrobinson]

A few examples would be:-
North sea oil will have us all living like the arab Oil Shieks "loaded"
Atomic power would see electric so cheap it would be given away FREE.
With the silicon chip revoulution in the future no-one will need to work more than 1 day a week.

The list is actually far longer and more extensive than this.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

We are surrounded by water why not use waves?

 

[user 43495]

I read today that the latest figures suggest that man made global warming is now accepted by 99.9% of the scientific community.

That's because they want to keep their jobs and research grants pouring in. It's like saying 99% of vicars believe in God.

 

[Stevieboy]

Anyone else waiting for @The-Engineer-That-Brews to suggest a convoluted homebrew tie-in to a recirculating contra flow underfloor whirlpool wort chiller thingy ?

 

[Barleylass]

We installed a ground source heat pump in our previous house back in 2012. We did all the ground works ourselves and it still cost us £15,000 Back then. Got £11000 grant off the government, but I dread to think how much it would have cost if we hadn’t dug all the 3 x 60 meter, 1 meter deep and 1 meter wide trenches ourselves and laid the coils. The heat pump was the size of a fridge freezer and we had a separate hot water tank the same size, not to mention all the pipe work. It was a 4 bed barn conversion, but it was not a big house, 1.5 story with tiny bedrooms in the roof space. We already had underfloor heating which worked great with the oil boiler but it was never as good after because the heat pump works at a much lower water temperature, so the underfloor heating pipes needed to be much closer together. We ended up turning the temperature up on the heat pump which meant using extra electricity to bring it up to temperature which wasn’t cheap. A ground source heat pump is more efficient than air source, and in a highly insulated new build with available land it would be fine. I would never retro fit one again. There is no way I would have an air source heat pump. You still need a highly insulated house and all the radiators would need changing because of the lower running temperature. We have an oil boiler in this house and oil is getting expensive so we will use the multi fuel stoves more to supplement the heat.