Did you see the report that boilers sales are to stop 2025

[D_W]

But not necessarily for the better, as we see with climate change.

We don't personally see a whole lot of impact at this point - we speculate on what the future impact would be, and it's not as if economic decisions were made to "make climate change occur".

 

[D_W]

Hi DW, I've not been very clear in the explanation. GSHPs when installed properly don't cause the ground to freeze, They extract heat from the ground and there is so much thermal mass below the ground that it has no impact on neighboring property or neighborhoods in cities. Widely used in German cities without a problem.
However there have been cases where the engineer got their calculations wrong and basically put in too small a borehole with pipes for the size of heat pump. The result is the small pipes caused the aggregate lining to freeze-up rendering the pump useless and in some cases breaking the system. There were quite a few instances of this happening early on as the calculations are quite tricky.

OK, that makes more sense to me in terms of the freezing - I'd figured you meant there was some error but wasn't sure what it would've been that could cause freezing. If the exchange points are where the freeze occurs due to poor calculations, that's understandable.

I asked my FIL how often he'd have to change the heat pump as the rule of thumb here in colder areas was that a main source heat pump would go for about 5-7 years (this being decades ago when they showed up with an induction booster and then blasted away all winter here). He said the installers suggested the pump part of the system has a longer life now.

AT the same time, energy efficiency rules have substantially shortened the lifetime of our gas furnaces and created stack problems with condensing gases (most now are vented through plastic pipe at a lower level here, but they still have drip back of condensation - which is stupid). I have a near-40 year old gas furnace that I will miss when it's gone.

So the enormous difference in reliability is getting erased quickly. My father still has a large oil boiler (180k btu or so) that requires annual cleaning, but his father heated with hand stoked coal, so to him, paying someone to clean the oil furnace once a year and arranging for oil delivery is no big deal. I would consider it a pain - my furnace has been serviced twice in 15 years (it has a heat exchanger design that is antiquated now, but makes it very easy to see if there's a breach - having seen oil furnaces, the inside of an older gas furnace is a delight - just the very lightest layer of dust on some internals).

But back to GSHP for individuals - I can't imagine that it won't become economically dominant -but more so here due to the distances, large houses and the now crack-addict-like dependency on A/C due to high summer temps.

 

[Bojam]

We don't personally see a whole lot of impact at this point - we speculate on what the future impact would be, and it's not as if economic decisions were made to "make climate change occur".

Right, from an environmental perspective there have certainly been peverse economic incentives. But the primary driving rationale until recently has been economic prosperity - i.e. improving living standards (even if we take issue with the distributional elements of this process). Making fossil fuels cheap and accessible allowed all sorts of things that made people's lives better. But this incurred an enormous environmental cost.

Moving forwards, we can disincentivise fossil fuels if we choose to. And incentivise other forms of energy and, more broadly, alternative "green" economic activities based on a more environmentally conscious agenda.

 

[Bojam]

We don't personally see a whole lot of impact at this point

BTW, I disagree with this part of your statement. I think the impact of climate change is evident. In many places (and for many people) it is alarming.

 

[D_W]

Right, from an environmental perspective there have certainly been peverse economic incentives. But the primary driving rationale until recently has been economic prosperity - i.e. improving living standards (even if we take issue with the distributional elements of this process). Making fossil fuels cheap and accessible allowed all sorts of things that made people's lives better. But this incurred an enormous environmental cost.

Moving forwards, we can disincentivise fossil fuels if we choose to. And incentivise other forms of energy and, more broadly, alternative "green" economic activities based on a more environmentally conscious agenda.

It's a little odd to me to see armchair blowhards (you not included in this) blasting people who spent their lives solving real problems so that we could live in relative comfort, health and prosperity, but in doing so, they're talking about potential problems and describing them as if they're worse than the real problems were.

Global warming is a problem to be solved, but it will be solved by the same problem solvers as those who brought us prosperity. The "you can't" crowd has always made noise from the sideline and little contribution.

When it is a real problem and imminent, we won't be flying for leisure. Until governments describe long commutes, large houses and airlines as a hindrance to long term quality of life, I'm out.

 

[D_W]

BTW, I disagree with this part of your statement. I think the impact of climate change is evident. In many places (and for many people) it is alarming.

My statement isn't to say it's not observable - it is. Of course, it is. How imminent it is compared to malaria, unexplained disease and war is not leaning toward global warming being a bigger crisis, though. It could become that in the long term, but we're working on what is a hallmark of anxiety - attempting a forced solution to a later problem when we don't have the full menu of options. And our assumption is that we either do all or none right now or everyone will die later ...or not, depending on what we do. It is a slow progression with observation and adjustment. Nothing else will be accurate or feasible.

 

[D_W]

(until then, I'd suggest anyone complaining about their neighbors' insulation and then flying to another continent for vacation should probably shut their trap).

 

[TominDales]

Im not knocking them and I would give one a go myself if I could afford it but the two people Im aware of that have tried ground source heat pumps both feel its been and expensive mistake,,Perhaps the installers dont really know how to fit them correctly?

I've heard similar complaints on cost from a housing estate in Ripon, complaints to the local council about the electric bill. My guess is the same as yours they haven't been installed correctly or mis sold. Its quite a new technology in the UK. If the ground geology isn't right they don't work that efficiently.

The issue is that electricity is 5 or 6 times higher price than gas. Heat pumps tend to be 2 to 6 times more efficient than gas - up-to 8 in some cases, but average is about 3times, depending on the installation and ground type. With such high variation you either see a reduction in bill of 25% or an increase in bill or upto 200%. I'm tempted to wait for the technology to mature a bit more before going for it.
I have a colleague from work who is very into green tech and he insulated his house and installed a Ground source heat pump (GSHP) and his utility bills are 25% of what they were, so it is possilbe.

 

[Jacob]

I've heard similar complaints on cost from a housing estate in Ripon, complaints to the local council about the electric bill. My guess is the same as yours they haven't been installed correctly or mis sold. Its quite a new technology in the UK. If the ground geology isn't right they don't work that efficiently.

The issue is that electricity is 5 or 6 times higher price than gas. Heat pumps tend to be 2 to 6 times more efficient than gas - up-to 8 in some cases, but average is about 3times, depending on the installation and ground type. With such high variation you either see a reduction in bill of 25% or an increase in bill or upto 200%. I'm tempted to wait for the technology to mature a bit more before going for it.
I have a colleague from work who is very into green tech and he insulated his house and installed a Ground source heat pump (GSHP) and his utility bills are 25% of what they were, so it is possilbe.

25% of not very much is not very much.
My total energy bill is about £1000 - house and workshop, quite a large space but heavily insulated. Saving £250 p.a. is peanuts. Even double glazing not remotely cost effective for me
Energy is too cheap. It needs annual incremental tax increase so that people can get used to the inevitability of it and learn to adjust life and technology accordingly. And it could be reinvested in alternative technology and R&D.
PS the gas heating and hot water is about half £500 ish so a heat pump would save hardly anything - until they are much more efficient and can reach hot water temperatures etc

 

[Just4Fun]

HVAC companies here have taken to the game of "servicing" the GSHP systems each year for $300 or so. The service appears to be in proportion to the cost of the system, but time spent is about the same. FIL is hunting around for someone who doesn't charge $300 for 45 minutes of sitting in the basement after changing the air filter.

I am puzzled by this. Our GSHP does not require any annual maintenance so what do these HVAC companies do? I assume the air filter is on some kind of forced air ducting system, which we don't have, and changing that filter is a maintenance overhead on the heat distribution system, not the GSHP, and that cost applies reardless of the heat source.

I asked my FIL how often he'd have to change the heat pump as the rule of thumb here in colder areas was that a main source heat pump would go for about 5-7 years (this being decades ago when they showed up with an induction booster and then blasted away all winter here). He said the installers suggested the pump part of the system has a longer life now.

We would certainly not have installed our GSHP if we thought it would have such a short life. We installed ours in 2007 and I expect it to go on for a good few years yet.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

I think the developer / council power imbalance as described above is incorrect. Developers and councils are both under pressure to produce a lot of housing. And for a lot of it to be affordable. Councils have a huge amount of power over new build sites.

However, making passive houses is a LOT more expensive than a more ordinary house just built to regs. It needs better design, a lot of expensive insulation, very high build quality to achieve absence of air leakage, tends to take more space for the same internal area (insulated walls are thicker), uses more expensive materials that achieve higher insulation values (not all PIR foam is the same), ducting systems that normal houses no not have, much more expensive glazing, and so on. Not viable for affordable housing built for profit and without subsidy.

I think that:

1) The building industry generally is conservative (with a small 'c') and averse to change (unless change brings profit, perhaps, e.g. by de-skilling construction activities);

2) The oil & gas lobby is enormously powerful and ubiquitous.

3) A decent house ought to have a lifetime of many decades - for example, a large part of our housing stock is over a century old. Over the lifetime of a house, the additional incremental costs of good design (both aesthetic - some stuff getting built these days looks hideous) and "eco" (including where to build - not on a floodplain - and how, in terms of thermal performance etc.) is really a very small proportion - especially when you do this at some scale (there are very definitely economies of scale as the Chinese have demonstrated with solar panel production, for example). The costs of retro-fitting these eco-goods are generally significantly greater, which is problematic re. our existing housing stock!

4) While we rely solely on "Mr. Market" to provide new homes, almost nobody is going to volunteer to deplete their profit margin by paying the extra for decent design. Hence, we should have proper "rules" in place (e.g. laws which are actually enforced - it appears that safely cladding tower blocks is even now completely optional!) to force better design (this is where the pervasive lobbying driven by my points 1 and 2 comes in!).

I am not optimistic that change, of the right sort, will happen.

 

[Billy_wizz]

What you say is true to an extent, but even solar power has to obey the laws of thermodynamics.
If you use panels to absorb the energy, it is no longer absorbed (fully) by the ground beneath. This, if done on a large enough scale would affect the weather. Admittedly, we have more than enough sunny areas on the planet to power the entire world, hopefully without creating some kind of Armageddon wether event.
One other point, ground source heat pump systems, which are being mentioned, can, if not designed properly, lead to permafrost.
There are case studies on line showing this.
In my humble opinion, the whole energy and global environment issue is fully understood by very few people, of whom precisely none are in government.

The whole energy and global environment issue is fully understood by absolutely no one! And most of the people who think they know the most actually know far less than they think

 

[Bojam]

The whole energy and global environment issue is fully understood by absolutely no one! And most of the people who think they know the most actually know far less than they think

How do you know?

 

[John Brown]

The whole energy and global environment issue is fully understood by absolutely no one! And most of the people who think they know the most actually know far less than they think

Does that mean we can just sit on our hands, or should we be trying to find solutions?

 

[Billy_wizz]

How do you know?

Because it's such a complex problem that to think you know the whole answer is just proof of how little you know!

 

[Billy_wizz]

Does that mean we can just sit on our hands, or should we be trying to find solutions?

We should always try to find better solutions but to think we know everything about it is foolish to the extreme!

 

[Jacob]

We should always try to find better solutions but to think we know everything about it is foolish to the extreme!

But we do know a little!
Well I think we do.

 

[Bojam]

Because it's such a complex problem that to think you know the whole answer is just proof of how little you know!

I never claimed to know the whole answer. It is indeed a complex problem. Not sure there's any need for your condescending tone however. And your post contributes nothing meaningful. Do you even have a worthwhile point to make?

 

[D_W]

I am puzzled by this. Our GSHP does not require any annual maintenance so what do these HVAC companies do? I assume the air filter is on some kind of forced air ducting system, which we don't have, and changing that filter is a maintenance overhead on the heat distribution system, not the GSHP, and that cost applies reardless of the heat source.


We would certainly not have installed our GSHP if we thought it would have such a short life. We installed ours in 2007 and I expect it to go on for a good few years yet.

Figure that the mechanical systems companies set up here cleaned oil furnaces (which were dominant) once a year. That gave them a chance to come, clean the furnace, touch base with the customer, etc. They get revenue stream from that and they don't want to give it up. They suggest looking at a gas furnace and A/C here every year if you ask them, but they're looking to collect $185 or something to just browse over stuff with a flash light and they're also looking for work. When there's a heat exchanger involved, there is one safety issue there - that the exchanger is cracked and the breach allows CO into the ducted system.

For the GSHP, I asked my FIL what they did for $279 the first year and he said "not much". There's some kind of exotic air filter in the system that probably costs a mint, but other than that, they're just looking through it. If you are willing to keep paying them, they will keep coming.

I don't call them except once in a great while - why? because if the system needs replacing or there are issues, most of them I will notice (I am lucky to have a furnace design at this point that will flicker the flame in a visible way when the fan comes on if any significant heat exchanger breach...so I check it once or twice a year when it comes on). Other than that, by the time you roll $4k into 20 years of "inspections", you can buy another unit. I'll just buy another unit when it needs replacing.

I haven't asked FIL about this - he convinced the oil furnace service man in his prior home to show him what he was doing and describe the tools, and then he cleaned the boiler tubes and remainder of the furnace each year instead of hiring it done. I'm sure he's cut back to some extent with the GSHP.

I don't remember the quotes for system life - something like 50 years for the ground bits, but I can't remember exactly what they said about the heat pump other that "they will last a lot longer than the older ones did".

Forced air has become the standard here by a long way as I'm guessing that flexible ducting is installed in new homes (so no tinner to pay, and no tin to buy). Most of the home products seem to have two aims - take the cost of materials out, and take the skill out. If both of those aren't met, then most products don't get wide adoption).

When I see planned communites in the US on slabs like "the villages" and the houses are $350K for 2k square feet above ground and they're frame/drywall/roof/tons of MDF trim, and modular kitchen and bath products, I don't really get there the cost is in them, but I guess that's the point.

 

[Billy_wizz]

I never claimed to know the whole answer. It is indeed a complex problem. Not sure there's any need for your condescending tone however. And your post contributes nothing meaningful. Do you even have a worthwhile point to make?

The comment wasn't aimed at you the original post said few had all the answers and I was pointing out that no one has all the answers and that in thinking you have all the answers is a block on finding better answers