Amid the many complaints about the deficits of modern life, grumbles about gas-fired central heating are extremely rare. For sure, radiators are not as cosy as an open fire. But the convenience of warming a home at the push of a button on a device that can fit in a kitchen cupboard is unmatched. Yet banning the gas boiler has been at the top of recent governments’ policy agendas. But their determined efforts to make the world – but not our houses and flats – a better place were dealt another blow this week by an analysis from the Energy and Utilities Alliance (EUA). Among the EUA’s findings is that there were fewer than 300,000 heat pump installations in the six years 2019-2024.
Worst still for the Gaia-botherers of SW1A, people are increasingly turning their noses up at the inferior appliances – the rate of household’s adoption of heat pumps is falling, despite new regulations. 1.5 million gas boilers are relaced each year in Britain’s 28 million or so homes, at an average cost of around £2,500 each. With just 50,000 or so opting for a heat pump, it would seem that the Clean Heat Market Mechanism (CHMM) or 'boiler tax' of £36 per unit, which requires an increasing proportion of heat pumps to be sold, is having little effect. Mike Foster, CEO of EUA, explained: “Instead of stimulating demand, the CHMM has delivered higher costs with declining installations — the opposite of what ministers promised.”
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Excellent in content and tone Ben.
From what I see one of the problems of net zero policies is the why. I cant recall anyone explaining , in detail,what will be the outcome if the so called global warming isnt addressed. My assumption is we’re going to die. Yet people are dying now to deliver the chosen solution.
Not that I’d ever have one in wet, windy and cold North Wales but what are the maintenance costs of a heat pump, how long will it last and will the subsidy apply when a replacement is needed? I don’t hear this talked about.
Latest lunacy. Mad Ed is planning to ban conventional tumble dryers in favour of ones using a heat pump. These are more expensive, take twice as long, and still don’t get stuff properly dry. I used one whilst staying at a friend’s house with one – they are useless.
“… the convenience of warming a home at the push of a button on a device that can fit in a kitchen cupboard…” and provide near instant hot water by turning on a tap without the need to have a storage tank.
A “heat pump” is NOT a heater – implying otherwise is deceitful,
Its name refers to its ability to move heat energy from one environment to another isolated from it, pumping compressed gas (not heat) through heat exchanger.
Therefore a heat pump moves heat from a sealed box (fridge) into the outside environment. A heat pump (air-con) moves heat from inside a building to the outside. A heat pump (central heating) moves heat from the air outside (or underground, or water) to the inside of a building.
Heat pumps are not new, decades old in fact with tens of thousands installed all round the World, Apart from refrigeration, their primary use has been for air-conditioning, but depending on the climate these can be reversed in Winter to heat interiors.
My point: It’s old technology. if “heat pumps” were a more effective and cost-efficient means of heating indoors compared with other means, they already would have been widely used… Read more »
A logical argument. We had aircon in our previous house and used the units in spring and autumn for a bit of extra daytime heat when we didn’t want to fire up the boiler. It made sense because the solar panels covered the electricity usage. But once it got really cold outside they were useless – it could take 20 minutes of intense operation by the inverter before the heat started coming through, and even then it only worked intermittently.
My local council, along with most if not all the others, laughingly declared a “climate emergency” in 2019. One of their taxpayer-funded actions was to build a small eco estate of social housing, including heat pump technology, solar panels and high spec. building techniques.
They’ve been reluctant to say what they learned but are pressing ahead with implementation of the spec. for all housing. They also paid a university over £100K (our money again) for what sounds like a pretty flimsy study, results not forthcoming, so they’ve been FOI’d. What are the chances that the project wasn’t a glowing success?
A total of £13700 to install, plus £130 more per year to run for something that will probably last about 10 years. It’s the future non of us asked for. Net zero is immiseration by design.
The Climate Change Act was passed with support from all the then Westminster political parties. Just five Tories voted against. When the public are in the mood for retribution there will be a shortage of sack cloth.
“The only solution that those 650 green zombies have come up with about the serious question of heating our homes is to apply an incremental tax on the sale of gas boilers. Meanwhile, the public’s lack of interest in heat pumps could not be clearer.”
Petulant authoritarianism. It’s the term I’ve just invented for everything this Government does. It applies not only to the Net Zero insanity, but to everything they do.
Petulant authoritarianism means attempting to subject the world (reality, people) to the awesome, shining Power of your Vision. And when it becomes evident that, er, actually, the world and people don’t really work according to the Vision, lash out in fury, and pass more Laws, imbued with even more of holiness borrowed from your Vision – Laws which the world and people will, in turn, ignore.
The fury arises because the resistance of the world (and people) no longer qualifies as a reality you have to deal with: it lands only as an insult to your Vision, and your Authority.
King Cnut, in the story, was a wise man who knew his limits. Our modern alt-Cnuts, rather then letting the waves lap over their feet, would have ordered… Read more »
So if we do some maths as it currently stands, near enough, as such:
£7,500 per unit government subsidy
X 1,500,000 units per year =
£11,250,000,000 PER YEAR!
Replacement of all 28 million gas boilers at £7,500 per unit gov subsidy=
£210,000,000,000 (210 billion pounds!)
Replacement of all 28 million gas units at full cost per household of £13,700 per unit=
£383,600,000,000 (383.6 billion pounds!)
I’ll have a look down the back of the sofa!
Hope it’s a big one!
The poverty of MPs intellectual is the problem. When chavs like Rayner can become serious politicians, we are in a doom spiral.
“Whereas the average gas boiler replacement costs around £2,500, the average air-source heat pump costs £13,700.”
What about the cost of upgrading the pipework and radiators? A quick search online suggests that, although existing pipework will probably cope, provided flow settings are managed correctly, there may be some radiator upgrades required. Retrofit Planner suggests a cost of £2000-£4000 for a 3-bed home.
And you will need some form of water heater as well. I have seen suggestions that the upgrading of radiators, pipework and insulation comes nearer to £20,0000.
Radiators need to be several sizes larger since the “hot” water from a heat pump is many degrees cooler than from a gas boiler. How much will upgrading radiators cost?
And the effect on room space given the much larger radiators !!
“But the major consequence – and therefore intention – of climate and energy policy since 2008 has been to make the rest of us substantially poorer. It was a deliberate policy…..”
Absolutely, and it’s never been hidden.
The intention is to lower our living standards. To make us colder, poorer, less mobile and to live restricted lives, via energy rationing.
We are “to own nothing” …. and never forget that Charles Windsor stood in front of the WEF and demanded it ….. not for him and the other Prize Pigs though.
This winter, some friends and I came back to the house after the funeral of a close family friend. We lit a fire and sat round it looking into the flames. It’s a basic, human instinct. Afterwards I said “I bet nobody ever came back from a funeral and stared at the heat pump.”
My ’60s built house doesn’t have a chimney and there is nowhere to place a log-burner, so several years ago I bought two bio-ethanol fires. They’re my back-up heat plan and I have at least a year’s supply of bio-ethanol in the garage.
The beauty is, they need no installation so the small fire can be moved to whichever room I am in (obv when it is not lit). In the winter I squirt some of the fluid into the chamber, strike a match and I have instant heat and a real flame.
And a major moisture problem. I hope you open some windows.
Never had a moisture problem. They’re not my main source of heating; they’re an addition/back up. A good option, which has worked for me.
Did you look into alternatives to a chimney? I quite fancy a log burner and we don’t have a chimney – I was hoping we could run some kind of pipe through the wall and up and out.
You can, but it’s an insulated stainless steel external flue pipe about 200mm in diameter that looks a bit like a commercial kitchen extraction unit. Not quite that bad but you get the idea. Plus you need a permanent non closable external vent of at least 100sq mm.
Thanks for the info
That doesn’t sound too bad
Our place is a drab late 50s bungalow so it’s not going to ruin the aesthetics
The need for a vent depends on the size of your stove. Mine is a 5kw and didn’t need a vent although there is one anyway.
Not possible because of the design of the house.
Whoop-de-doo.
…but even if you get a grant paid for by taxing people – including yourselves, you still have to stump up an extra £3,700. Even if you have the extra money in savings that’s 28 years to payback.
Except that it’s also cost you the (lost) opportunity cost of the £3,700. Oh, and the heat pump won’t last 28 years, and it will probably cost more to service than a boiler.
Apart from that, £130 per year! Wow! I could buy enough petrol to cover nearly a whole month of commuting.
Absolutely correct. A pump is a mechanical machine and therefore needs servicing. Evidence to date shows they are very expensive to service. Whether this is down to market forces of too few engineers, or that machines are way too complex. Probably both. A complete policy dead end.
Thanks Uniparty. Virtue signalling always wins the day when these scientific vacuums (aka MPs) vote. Treason May really needs to be in prison for her ‘legacy’.
That alleged £130 a year is based on current electricity costs, but the price of electricity will continue on the up and up as more wind/solar is added to the mix.
It won’t be long before that “saving” will be in negative territory.
I’m pretty certain the whole thing is 100% BS.
Having said that, I would be willing to have proper grown up conversations with anyone about the issue, and maybe even consider some sensible policy of climate reality.
The other side of the issue won’t even allow any dissent or discussion (which speaks absolute volumes) never mind meeting us half way.
They wont work in power cuts!