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- cross-posted to:
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The benefit of heat pumps is substantially less in the UK V’s France. They are expensive in the winter as you have to rely on emersion heaters when there is not enough heat in the air. If I was going to spend some cash investing in green tech, this would not be it. My opinion is that we should be looking at solar panelling first. Anything after should be used on closing the oil burning power stations we have running.
This is the first video I have found explaining why I am saying this.
There’s a few issues with what you’re saying
- you don’t need emersion heating for space heating, but you will likely need a hot water tank for water heating for showers, etc
- “not enough heat in the air” is nonsense, heatpumps are standard issue kit in Scandinavia
- we barely burn any oil in the UK. Total installed capacity is ~370MW and is basically never used - see https://electricityproduction.uk/plant/oil/ ** The coal plants are nearly gone too, we do burn an absolute shit load of gas however, and that definitely needs reducing.
Heatpumps are not a one size fits all solution, and they are very expensive, that much is true.
If you watch the video he points out why it works in those countries. They have learned to live in a cold country by building housing to suit. We have not done this because we burned cheap coal instead. All those older housing is not up to scratch. One thing you cannot get away from is the noise. We live with a much smaller land foot print than they do in Scandinavia. You are right about the oil though. I should have said fossil fuelled. I will edit it.
I am also speaking from experience. My sister took advantage of the scheme. They are very underwhelmed. I am never said there is no benefit. I think there are better gains in other areas.
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My French relatives have some sort of ground source heat pump, having designed everything in their home to work on that basis, and it is everything you describe in terms of size - the pump unit is huge and impressively loud. It worked very well, when it worked. Unfortunately, the underground bit is also broken and the installers who broke it have refused to solve the problem. There is a fair amount of cowboy engineering going on in this domain, it turns out, a lack of reliable support for existing units/installs, and of course the usual attempts to extort money from people of a certain age. It makes me sick that they did everything right and were let down anyway. I’m not saying avoid this technology necessarily, but if you get a lemon and/or are unlucky and hire shysters there is practically no ceiling to the costs involved.
Air source, yes; ground source you don’t have to rely on immersion heaters at all.
Mandating newbuilds to use AS/GSHPs where appropriate should be a no-brainer for the regulators.
The french difference can be explained a little. Grants to retrofit HPs in the UK are nowhere near enough to cover the cost.
And when a HP puts you only at parity running-cost-wise with a combi at current gas prices, there isn’t much incentive.
In france, a brisk internet search puts natural gas at 30% more expensive than the UK, and electric 30% cheaper, tilting the scales more in a HP favor.Where are you getting those figures from? My impression was that the UK pays more than most. This is the first google search I found. This puts the UK at over double the cost in France for (51.85 v’s 23.2 pps). It also says higher than France, but does not give a UK figure.
The cost of electricity in the UK has come down since the chaos, thankfully.
Numbers are a little up in the air at the moment, as governments are shielding people by varying amounts. So picking a good source was a little tricky.This was the natural gas value I used (Dec 2022) (13p/KWh vs 10p KWH, expressed in GBP) And I used the data from here for electric. (June 2021) (17.3c/KWh vs 25.1c/KWh, expressed in USD)
France has a much larger nuclear fleet, and has generally had cheaper electric than the UK.
NG is about 40% of the price of electricity per KWh in the UK, vs 75% of the cost in france.
Energy prices have changed drastically in the last year alone. France has limited the amount energy firms could increase there rates by a large margin over even the subsidies Sunak passed out. Retail prices may have come back down, but ofgen has allowed energy companies to keep their prices much higher than in the EU. Some parts of the EU have higher prices, but this is down to cost of transport since the ban on buying Russian gas. There is a huge cost from moving to LPG from piped gas. Joebloggs has given many run downs on this on his youtube channel. Though there are no recent ones concerning energy.
I moved into a new build property just before winter. ASHP, hot water tank, solar panels and under floor heating. There were some teething problems with a frozen pipe, but that was due to an imbalanced feedback valve. Since that was solved I’ve had no problem with the system.
Ask me for an update after this winter and the system is a year old.
I did look into it when we had someone round talking about the government grant. But the grant is nowhere near enough to cover the overall cost for us.
From what I understand it’s suitable for some homes and not for others - I think it’s a great idea but might leave it a while until the technology improves and the whole thing doesn’t cost as much (our boiler is quite old so we probably should do something about it)
My boilers on its last legs so had a bit research on HP etc. Would love to fully electricify and get rid of the gas. Basically i need to spend thousands upgrading my insulation etc 1st before i could even think of spending the fortune needed on the HP itself. I don’t see how its doable without solar panels and a battery tbh.
In the end its worked out cheaper to install a wood stove in the front room as a stop gap as I get the money together to upgrade everything needed. Which tbh might never happen now all my cash has been drained away to nothing on energy bills and cost of living. Plus mortgage interest rates.
So my glorious vision of a more economical and eco friendly home has seen me turn medieval instead due to crippling finances
Similar thing with my Mum and Dad tbh. They moved to the west country and though the house has heating it’s evidently been designed when it was built to be heated most efficiently by the wood burner, which probably used to be a normal fireplace. (It’s not some isolated cottage, it’s just on a street, just to clarify…)
Theres a radiator in the spare room when we stay for instance but it might as well not be there for all the heat it manages.
So I think they’d be in an identical situation to you, they’d have to do up the whole house before it would even be worth looking at. But since they get hot water and they don’t freeze in winter they just stick with what they’ve got because they don’t really want to pay messing around with the house.
Yeah so many people are guna be in the same boat. No chance of getting mine up to standard now without some heavy grants. Its a 1950’s ex council house an designed to be heated by a central fire
Same with me. Bought home (20 years old, not a new build). Hot water tank needed replacing + energy company we’re doing grants. When I enquired, they replied my house was not suitable due to pipes being too small.
I wonder in the number of enquiries in to heat pumps between the two countries is just as wide, or if they’re a bit more similar?
I did the maths on a variety of electrification projects and I can not make a ground source heat pump pay for itself in 25 years. The solar is 7 years and it should last 25 so that is easy, battery storage for power shifting is about 3 years and obviously good on the right tarrif so I did both of those. I think maybe an air to air heat pump could pay for itself but installation is expensive and I have no idea how many zones I really need.
It isn’t surprising.
I tried to replace my gas boiler in 2020 (it failed), I reached out to 8 companies to get an estimate for a ground or air sourced heat pump. 5 didn’t pickup/return emails. 2 told me they don’t do residential.
The last qouted £21k plus installation costs, then told me if I had a gas boiler that would be cheaper to maintain/run.
I have just met someone to qoute for air conditioning, they told me you can use it for heating. The initial estimate is the same as a gas boiler.
It’s a basic air-source heat pump - just not designed to run radiators, or heat a water tank.
We use radiators because every house had a gas line for heating, boiling water and cooking. Radiators were more efficient than gas fires.
Most residential gas boilers are 20-35kwh, air source heat pumps (£4k-£5k) are linked to compression cylinders which provided 11kwh of heating and cost of £9k each, with the need for a water tank, etc… and then installation cost.
Putting air conditioning in still requires the heat pump with a unit (£500-£1k) for each room, plus installation costs.
If you take a 3 bed room house, you are looking at ~£15k for an air source heat pump vs £9k to put air conditioning into every room (it gets worse for air sourced heat pumps the bigger the property).
Once you move to air conditioning for each room you don’t need radiators. This means your hot water supply is dishwashers, washing machines, taps, baths and showers.
Dishwashers and washing machines boil their own water (for efficiency).
Taps and showers have electric solutions. The price difference between the two is so great you could buy a hot tub to replace your bath.
Air source heat pumps don’t make sense
They don’t make sense if you assume you are putting aircon in every room in the house, which is currently not something contemplated in any UK houses I know.
I am currently getting quotes for that, the point of my post was to point out the cost of an air source heat pump is greater than switching your entire house to air conditioning.
Try octopus energy, I got a fixed price quote for £2k less than any other installer.
I supplied the costings for everything and £2k doesn’t change the realities that air source heat pumps are currently a rip off.
Air conditioning is significantly cheaper
I’m not going back to a hot water tank. Heat pumps can suck it.
Electric just can’t meet the on-demand burst of a combi boiler.
