No gas boilers in new homes after 2025.

[monkfish1]

Here is how it will pan out in the real world:

Most houses will get built with ASHP as there isn't any other sensible cost effective option for the average new build with almost no garden.

ASHP system will be specced on the basis of the houses "designed thermal efficency and air tightness".

All good so far............

House gets built. The big boys, and quite a lot of the smaller ones cant build a house to the required thermal and air tightness specs to save their lives. After all, no ones checking what goes on.

Home owner moves in.

Doesnt understand what that noisy heat recovery and ventilation system is that will also be in these new houses. Turns it of, opens window, because thats what people have always done.

Winter arrives, house is crap thermally, because it not even close to the design, ASHP doesnt work well at -5, definitely doesnt work well when house leaks heat. Owners wife is freezing, so owner goes to screwfix to buy electric heaters to plug in to help.

Electricity demand jumps up just as electricity demand is already at peak!

Owner says his heating is st.

Screwfix make a mint selling electric heaters.

House builders dont care because the house is sold.

Lets come back in winter 2025 and see how close i am to reality. Maybe i can get a gold star

[brman]

monkfish1 said:

Here is how it will pan out in the real world:

Most houses will get built with ASHP as there isn't any other sensible cost effective option for the average new build with almost no garden.

ASHP system will be specced on the basis of the houses "designed thermal efficency and air tightness".

All good so far............

House gets built. The big boys, and quite a lot of the smaller ones cant build a house to the required thermal and air tightness specs to save their lives. After all, no ones checking what goes on.

Home owner moves in.

Doesnt understand what that noisy heat recovery and ventilation system is that will also be in these new houses. Turns it of, opens window, because thats what people have always done.

Winter arrives, house is crap thermally, because it not even close to the design, ASHP doesnt work well at -5, definitely doesnt work well when house leaks heat. Owners wife is freezing, so owner goes to screwfix to buy electric heaters to plug in to help.

Electricity demand jumps up just as electricity demand is already at peak!

Owner says his heating is st.

Screwfix make a mint selling electric heaters.

House builders dont care because the house is sold.

Lets come back in winter 2025 and see how close i am to reality. Maybe i can get a gold star

sadly, I would not bet against that.....

[ooo000ooo]

Nickgnome said:

What.

Do you know how an induction hob works?

Hob uses induction to heat the pot which in turn heats the contents. Could induction be used to heat the water in a heating/ hot water system instead of gas in a boiler?

[FiF]

ooo000ooo said:

Nickgnome said:

What.

Do you know how an induction hob works?

Hob uses induction to heat the pot which in turn heats the contents. Could induction be used to heat the water in a heating/ hot water system instead of gas in a boiler?

Well yes it could.

Current situation is that electric boilers are limited in output, up to 15kw, which is around the output of the smaller gas boilers. They are also limited in how much domestic hot water they can produce. I think there might be one combi 18kw is the biggest, imagine the hot water output from that vs the large output gas combis need for decent flow.

On the other hand they are very easy to control and modulate the output, down to 2kw is not unusual, whereas, for example, a 15kw gas boiler often goes down to 5kw at minimum.

If house insulation and construction improves such that these lower outputs are sufficient then maybe they will have a greater place. At the moment with the differential between gas and electricity prices per kWh then it's a difficult sell I imagine.

On the other hand they get round the issue with ASHP systems of lack of flexibility, ie having to run them even when the house is empty. Also no moving parts, got to be a good move there.

[ATG]

s2art said:

Lord Marylebone said:

Producing electricity centrally in vast quantities and then using it to heat individual homes is far more efficient from a fuel/emissions point of view than having millions of gas boilers heating individual homes.

.

Sorry but this is nonsense. A huge chunk of our centralised generation is gas (some coal still). Problem is that the most efficient CCGT can operate at approx 60% thermodynamic efficiency but a lot of the gas turbines are not CCGT because they have to ramp up and down quickly (renewables are erratic) non CCTG are probably operating in the 40-50% efficiency range. Now allow for transmission losses. Something like 40-45% efficiency from generator to home. A home condensing boiler can operate at approx 90%, so basically you would use and burn approx twice as much gas doing it your way barring the contribution of nukes and renewables (which can be contributing very little at times).

But you're then running a heat pump which is something like 300% efficient so the 90% efficient gas boiler is competing with 70% efficiency if all the electricity was being generated by gas ... but it isn't as there's also nuclear and wind.

[ATG]

Point about thermally st UK housing stock is well made. Mates from Sweden who moved to London could not believe how much power they were having to use.

Regardless of whether your heating system is gas, oil, heat pumped, resistive, inductive, microwave or a Mr Fusion flip-top bin, it's bloody stupid to heat the sky rather than keep the heat inside your building.

[anonymous-user]

I have a 300m2 15 roomed house out in the Country. No mains gas, oil fired boiler when we moved in in 2010.

We installed a GSHP in 2011 and now we're all electric. The bores for the HP are in an area of about 30m X 1m, in a row up the middle of the front garden. 4 X 75m deep bores.

Since 2011 the HP not been serviced as such; a small electrical starter circuit did fail, I was sent another and fitted it myself. It's a British make and as has been said they're so simple, just like a big fridge. Ours has a 20kw output and a COP of 4 at best.

It heats 10 separate underfloor heating zones, all with separate stats so rooms can be heated as desired. A few radiators in upstairs rooms without UF, and hot water in 2 tanks, either end of the house. COP falls to about 3 when heating water but it only takes an hour almost for both tanks.

The UF is run from 8am to 5pm during winter and the water is heated during the night. The radiators are put on if needed, not that often.

We pay about £16/1700 a year for all of our electricity which does everything, we have nothing else. It even pumps our water from a bore and runs our biodisc digester 24/7.

We were lucky in some ways; the UF was already in and it's important with a HP. We got full grant on the RHI scheme and when our payments end we'll have had £17k + back of our £20k cost.

On the other hand, to comply with the RHI we had to add some insulation and renew all the doors and windows (which we were going to do anyway). The cavities were already filled.

There're a few things you need to learn. You need to experiment with your running programme and return flow temps to get it just right. You need to predict the temperatures to know when to turn it on at the beginning of winter because it takes a day or so to get everything warmed up.

You need to make sure you use low tog underlay and carpet; we have a few tiled rooms and several carpeted but before we fitted the HP we had the lounge done with a high Tog underlay and had to change it pretty quickly, the difference is noticeable.

Otherwise we're very pleased with it all. I wouldn't have another home without one and bearing in mind that ours is a late 90s barn conversion, it would be even better in a modern super insulated house designed with a GSHP in mind. You really don't need that much ground space and once the HP's in you can just put the garden on top of it, of course.

[monkfish1]

REALIST123 said:

There're a few things you need to learn. You need to experiment with your running programme and return flow temps to get it just right. You need to predict the temperatures to know when to turn it on at the beginning of winter because it takes a day or so to get everything warmed up.

You need to make sure you use low tog underlay and carpet; we have a few tiled rooms and several carpeted but before we fitted the HP we had the lounge done with a high Tog underlay and had to change it pretty quickly, the difference is noticeable.

And this is the issue. Clearly, you have put in a bit of effort to understand the system and tinkered until its right. Thats just not viable for the masses, who just buy a house and twiddle a thermostat. Its probably fair to say you are not "mr average" home owner!

[Nickgnome]

ATG said:

Point about thermally st UK housing stock is well made. Mates from Sweden who moved to London could not believe how much power they were having to use.

Regardless of whether your heating system is gas, oil, heat pumped, resistive, inductive, microwave or a Mr Fusion flip-top bin, it's bloody stupid to heat the sky rather than keep the heat inside your building.

Spot on.

Not just insulation though but air leakage too.

Sadly our current building regs do not deal with air permeability adequately.

[troika]

monkfish1 said:

REALIST123 said:

There're a few things you need to learn. You need to experiment with your running programme and return flow temps to get it just right. You need to predict the temperatures to know when to turn it on at the beginning of winter because it takes a day or so to get everything warmed up.

You need to make sure you use low tog underlay and carpet; we have a few tiled rooms and several carpeted but before we fitted the HP we had the lounge done with a high Tog underlay and had to change it pretty quickly, the difference is noticeable.

And this is the issue. Clearly, you have put in a bit of effort to understand the system and tinkered until its right. Thats just not viable for the masses, who just buy a house and twiddle a thermostat. Its probably fair to say you are not "mr average" home owner!

Indeed. My sister has the bloody lot in her house. Solar thermal, solar PV, heat recovery systems, wet underfloor heating, wood burner with back boiler etc etc. She says it drives her crackers, her husband is constantly fiddling with it all. She always says if she was on her own, she’d rip the lot of it out and put in a combi boiler!

[anonymous-user]

monkfish1 said:

REALIST123 said:

There're a few things you need to learn. You need to experiment with your running programme and return flow temps to get it just right. You need to predict the temperatures to know when to turn it on at the beginning of winter because it takes a day or so to get everything warmed up.

You need to make sure you use low tog underlay and carpet; we have a few tiled rooms and several carpeted but before we fitted the HP we had the lounge done with a high Tog underlay and had to change it pretty quickly, the difference is noticeable.

And this is the issue. Clearly, you have put in a bit of effort to understand the system and tinkered until its right. Thats just not viable for the masses, who just buy a house and twiddle a thermostat. Its probably fair to say you are not "mr average" home owner!

A point, but I've got a fairly unusual house. As I said, 15 rooms (and a corridor or two), 10 separately controlled UF zones, 5 bedrooms, all with ensuite, mostly single storey but some two!

To be honest, if it were a normal home, like I had previously, 1/2 the size, 4 rooms downstairs 5 upstairs, with a well designed UF heating system a HP wild be ideal and easy to programme.

I also think, that for new developments it wouldn't be hard to include a piece of land to run a shared GSHP on (even throw the piping in a lake or something) and have a supply of hot water to feed to houses in the development as required.

I think the efficiency is hard to ignore.

BTW, its our HP, I can set the controls to show the temperatures of the flow, to and from the loop. It's quite enlightening to see the liquid go out at -3 or 4c and come back at +3 or 4c or more. Even in winter. All that energy just for running a couple of pumps and compressors.

One of our issues, as alluded to earlier, is that our big house builders, with the resources to do all this, just won't be interested in achieving the technical excellence and quality of the overall project. Some of the new stuff I've seen thrown up in recent years is just crap. Never mind the quality, feel the bonus.....

[anonymous-user]

I find these, no doubt highly efficient, air tight houses really unpleasant to be in, especially sleep in. They make me feel almost claustrophobic. I just want to open the window, even when it's freezing out and let some fresh air in.

[elster]

Jasandjules said:

BlackLabel said:

Gas boilers will be replaced by low-carbon heating systems in all new homes built after 2025 in an attempt to tackle the escalating climate crisis, Philip Hammond has said. In his spring statement, the chancellor said new properties would use alternative systems, such as heat pumps, to help the UK reduce its carbon emissions.

I wonder if Mr Hammond has recently been paid by some companies and/or will shortly be engaged by certain companies........

If so then so has every other european parliament, who most are a few years ahead of doing exactly the same.

[anonymous-user]

elster said:

Jasandjules said:

BlackLabel said:

Gas boilers will be replaced by low-carbon heating systems in all new homes built after 2025 in an attempt to tackle the escalating climate crisis, Philip Hammond has said. In his spring statement, the chancellor said new properties would use alternative systems, such as heat pumps, to help the UK reduce its carbon emissions.

I wonder if Mr Hammond has recently been paid by some companies and/or will shortly be engaged by certain companies........

If so then so has every other european parliament, who most are a few years ahead of doing exactly the same.

Quite possibly.

[anonymous-user]

fblm said:

I find these, no doubt highly efficient, air tight houses really unpleasant to be in, especially sleep in. They make me feel almost claustrophobic. I just want to open the window, even when it's freezing out and let some fresh air in.

The houses don't need to be particularly airtight. We sleep with a window open, only our room cools. Other rooms, with the doors closed, retain their heat pretty well.

[AJL308]

brman said:

AJL308 said:

Several years ago I heard about a boiler which used what was essentially a microwave oven to heat water rather than gas. It was massively more efficient than gas and would cost pennies per day to run and had next to no moving or wear parts so they were cheap to buy an install. They were going to be made in mongolia or somewhere unusual like that or something.

Unsurprisingly they disappeared from the market so the patents were most likely bought up by BP or something so that they'd never see the light of day.

It would be interesting to see if these resurface over the next few years and who actually starts making them.

Why would you use electricity to heat water to heat the house? Why not just use electric heaters? You cannot get any more efficient than an electric heater......
Plus an normal electric water heater is massively more efficient than a microwave oven so that bit does not make sense either.

I suspect the reason you have not heard of this idea since is because it doesn't make sense, not because of some grand conspiracy.

Found the original website on the Wayback Machine https://web.archive.org/web/20021017121925/http://... It was back around 2002 - didn't think it was that far back.

[mjb1]

I think the housebuilding target is around 250k new homes per year for the near future? Average gas boiler size is what, 30kw? I know that usage/demand spikes will be smoothed out with electric heating, and houses might get more thermally efficient, and ASHP are 300% efficient. But as a starting figure, those numbers give a demand of 2500MW of new electricity generation per year. Which is a lot. Doesn't it take years of planning to build new power stations? What's the current roadmap look like for 2025?

And add on to that the demand for charging electric vehicles every night. The numbers don't add up.

[Lemming Train]

monkfish1 said:

Here is how it will pan out in the real world:

Most houses will get built with ASHP as there isn't any other sensible cost effective option for the average new build with almost no garden.

ASHP system will be specced on the basis of the houses "designed thermal efficency and air tightness".

All good so far............

House gets built. The big boys, and quite a lot of the smaller ones cant build a house to the required thermal and air tightness specs to save their lives. After all, no ones checking what goes on.

Home owner moves in.

Doesnt understand what that noisy heat recovery and ventilation system is that will also be in these new houses. Turns it of, opens window, because thats what people have always done.

Winter arrives, house is crap thermally, because it not even close to the design, ASHP doesnt work well at -5, definitely doesnt work well when house leaks heat. Owners wife is freezing, so owner goes to screwfix to buy electric heaters to plug in to help.

Electricity demand jumps up just as electricity demand is already at peak!

Owner says his heating is st.

Screwfix make a mint selling electric heaters.

House builders dont care because the house is sold.

Owner gets sick of spending £3m per year in electric heating costs, buys gas boiler and some rads and installs GCH like every normal person.

Lets come back in winter 2025 and see how close i am to reality. Maybe i can get a gold star

EFA.


All this talk of ASHP and GSHP is just a passing fad. People can talk about thermal efficiency all they like but the truth of the matter is that they don't do st in the colder months and you'll be sit in your house shivvering your bks off at a Baltic 15C with 13 layers of clothes on. Any notion of cranking the temp up to a toasty 21C+ like every normal person will GCH would do in winter time is just pie in the sky.

[loskie]

B'stard Child said:

Does the local SNP MP not burn?

It's hard to burn ste, need to get a good fire going first.

[Evanivitch]

Lemming Train said:

All this talk of ASHP and GSHP is just a passing fad. People can talk about thermal efficiency all they like but the truth of the matter is that they don't do st in the colder months and you'll be sit in your house shivvering your bks off at a Baltic 15C with 13 layers of clothes on. Any notion of cranking the temp up to a toasty 21C+ like every normal person will GCH would do in winter time is just pie in the sky.

I just spent 2 weeks in Sweden with A2A ASHP just fine. It was -23C outside. I don't know how much energy it consumed but to say it didn't work isn't true at all.