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

[TominDales]

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

Sorry by 25% I meant his bill is 25% of what is was ie a 75% saving, which is quite an incentive, although his motivation is environmental.

Your are right that energy is too cheap, in historical terms its probably cheaper than its ever been. I suspect carbon taxes will rise across Europe that will bring the gas price up to that of electricity. The issue for governments is fuel poverty, this has to done carefully as there will be people left behind, another round of 100% grands for insulating old homes would probably help, uptake of past schemes was always low when energy was cheap.
My guess is renewable electric costs will fall and gas taxes will raise to incentivise consumers to switch away from gas.
In terms of water heating, most heat pumps will provide hot water at 55c, this is hot enough for a bath or shower, but it requires a bigger storage tank as gas C/H water is heated to 65c and then diluted with cold, so you need a bigger reservoir, I presume legionella protection is a bit different, but don't know.
I expect heat pumps will fall in price to become affordable as mass production takes hold, but subsidies would probably be needed to replace the entire national stock of gas boilers.

 

[TominDales]

Very interesing.

If they produce more energy than is needed to drive them then presumably they could be designed to power themselves?

Yes they can, but no-one has come up with a commercially viable system. As you point out working with very small temperature gradients makes electricity generation inefficient with high capital cost. I've seen the odd working example in academia. Such as this one using the thermoelectric effect, its aiming to remove the pump - a source of mechanical failure, use thermoelectric effect to directly generate electricity.
https://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newenergyandfuel/com/2011/05/05/a-totally-new-take-on-heat-pumps/As far a I know, nothing has been commercialised - at least not for domestic use. Thermoelectric mainly used in high temperature applications and can use exotic metals.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I did listen to someone one morning on the radio extolling the virtues of air source as being better than ground source ... (little wooden spoon symbol? )

 

[John Brown]

According to my father, who sometimes got things wrong, The Festival Hall, when it was built in 1952(?), the year before I was born, was intended to be heated in the winter, and cooled in the summer, by heat exchangers using water from the Thames.

I believe it didn't work out, and they had to add additional heating/cooling systems.

 

[Rorschach]

I am certain the way to solve the housing crisis is to make houses more difficult and more expensive to build.
Instead of not being able to afford a poorly built inefficient house now I won't be able to afford a nicely built energy efficient house.

 

[Bojam]

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

Apologies then - I misunderstood.

 

[John Brown]

I am certain the way to solve the housing crisis is to make houses more difficult and more expensive to build.
Instead of not being able to afford a poorly built inefficient house now I won't be able to afford a nicely built energy efficient house.

It's for the greater good, Rorschach, take some comfort from knowing that your inability to purchase a house is a consequence of trying to avert a global warming disaster.

 

[Spectric]

Maybe we are approaching this from the wrong angle, we tend to forget that central heating is a relatively new concept and now people want to walk around their house in almost nothing and feel hot, what about the days when you had no central heating, a fire in the living room and took a hotwater bottle to bed, waking up with frost on the inside of your windows. So we could reduce our expectations by wearing thermals and reducing the temperature in our homes and they would still be warmer as we now have plastic double glazing and not single panes of glass retained by putty.

 

[Cooper]

I am certain the way to solve the housing crisis is to make houses more difficult and more expensive to build.
Instead of not being able to afford a poorly built inefficient house now I won't be able to afford a nicely built energy efficient house.

You may indeed be right Rorschach but it is the profit being made from speculating on a limited amount of land that pushes prices up. If more homes were built by the public sector and let out at affordable rents, prices across the board would come down. Developers/Speculators don't want this but I'm sure the firms that do the actual building would go for it as there wouldn't be the stop go we have now. Council homes built after the war had dreadful thermal properties but other standards i.e. size of rooms set a bench mark that speculative builders had to better or no one would want their product. If local authorities built highly energy efficient homes that would lead the way. We could learn a lot from the Netherlands and Germany where build quality and energy efficiency is far better than here and prices are about the same or lower and pressure on space is possibly greater.

 

[Rorschach]

It's for the greater good, Rorschach, take some comfort from knowing that your inability to purchase a house is a consequence of trying to avert a global warming disaster.

Oh well that will help me sleep at night then while I line the pockets of those unaffected by "global warming".

 

[TRITON]

Electric cars, non gas heating,renewable energy, aiming for carbon neutral, all very good on paper.

But we'll be importing a great deal of foodstuffs from places like south America or Australia, consumer goods from Asia. Diesel powered container ships sailing thousands and thousands of miles.

 

[devonwoody]

re Tomin Dales comment. Paste The subsidised scheme for CFLs was to encourage a switch from incandescent (a 75% reduction in energy use), which preceded an outright ban of the sale of incandescent lights in the EU - at that time. The UK has maintained the ban post Brexit. LED lights are about twice as efficient as strip lights and nearly 3x more so than CFLs, (use about 10% of the power of an incandescent), the prices is such that for most people the payback is a year or so. As the technology is maturing the reliable lifetime of LEDs is rising, I've had some going for 4 years and the failure rate is falling with each new batch, so I guess there is no need to subsidise the switch. The other benefit of LEDs is the new phosphors give out a decent colour light and there is a wide choice of colour temperature. The biggest issue with CFLs was the poor light quality. So I guess there is no need to an incentive.
I read the above quote, I run 4 x 60watt CFLs old light bulbs in our main living room on a dimmer switch for convenience with no other lighting, but can I run a dimmer switch on those modern bulbs you mention?

 

[John Brown]

Oh well that will help me sleep at night then while I line the pockets of those unaffected by "global warming".

Hmmm. Why do those inverted commas not surprise me?

 

[Rorschach]

Hmmm. Why do those inverted commas not surprise me?

Because the current phrase is climate change, global warming is a boomer phrase.

 

[John Brown]

Because the current phrase is climate change, global warming is a boomer phrase.

Interesting.
I looked it up.
Turns out they are both current terms, one encompasses the other.
But I am a boomer. So you're right about that.

 

[SDev]

New to the forum but here goes. An interesting thread. Firmly believe the solution is more low tech than heat pumps etc. We just refurbed our 120 year old home by upgrading insulation (200mm all round) airtightness (<3 air changes per hour) and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery. We looked at heat pumps but were advised, correctly I think, that with mains gas and an efficient boiler it was uneconomic. Having lived there for 6 months it’s amazing - the boiler hardly ever comes on. No need to ban something that is so infrequently used. The house feels warm and fresh at 20C as there are no draughty or cold spots. Hot water 70% from solar thermal. On the downside: 1. not cheap and will take years to recoup costs if I live that long. 2. Most components had to be imported (German). 3 We were unable to access any “green” funding from government schemes which are pathetic, badly thought out and derided by those who know. 4. Few tradesmen understand the ideas, especially airtightness - I often had to stop people whacking holes in walls. Solutions. 1. Zero VAT for refurbishment of this type. 2. Regulate properly to force new builds down this route instead of pandering to the big builders bottom lines. 3. Long term commitment to educating the public and trades rather than promoting ill thought out schemes whose main purpose is political.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Electric cars, non gas heating,renewable energy, aiming for carbon neutral, all very good on paper.

But we'll be importing a great deal of foodstuffs from places like south America or Australia, consumer goods from Asia. Diesel powered container ships sailing thousands and thousands of miles.

Worse - not diesel, bunker oil. I did read that the thirteen largest supertankers kick out the same amount of pollution as the world's motor vehicles.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I read the above quote, I run 4 x 60watt CFLs old light bulbs in our main living room on a dimmer switch for convenience with no other lighting, but can I run a dimmer switch on those modern bulbs you mention?

You can buy LEDs that are dimmable, but not all are. You will pay a bit of a premium.

 

[Just4Fun]

We looked at heat pumps but were advised, correctly I think, that with mains gas and an efficient boiler it was uneconomic.

That is a very valid view. Cost data is OK but is much more useful if you have alternatives to compare with. Mains gas is usually very competitive if you have it. We don't, and a heat pump was cheaper than, say, oil which we had before.

Having lived there for 6 months it’s amazing - the boiler hardly ever comes on. No need to ban something that is so infrequently used.

Another valid point, different to the direct cost comparison. A Rolls Royce would use little fuel if you only went down to local shop once a week.

On the downside: 1. not cheap and will take years to recoup costs

I looked at improving insulation like that when we installed our heat pump. Costs prevented that but cost was not the only issue. Our house is wooden and I coud not find anyone who I was confident knew enough to be sure that additional insuation would not lead to rot or mold problems later on.

 

[John Brown]

You can buy LEDs that are dimmable, but not all are. You will pay a bit of a premium.

Added to which, you need the right sort of dimmer, which is also currently more expensive.
The good news is, they do work with incandescent lamps as well.