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UK government scraps plan to ban sale of gas boilers by 2035 | Green building
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2025
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Whilst I fully support diminishing gas as a heating source, it was never going to work.
Houses in Britain are too inefficient for heat pumps. We needed to have listened to Insulate Britain, and that's what Labour should be focusing on instead of forcing heat pumps.
This was something the Lib Dems focussed on during the 2010 coalition. Many older houses had loft insulation installed for free, greatly increasing efficiency. I wish more people voted Lib Dems.
That's not how this works. Even without decent insulation, a heat pump is still the most efficient way to warm a home. I have shit insulation in my house; the heat pump is my only source of warmth and it does a damn fine job.
Efficiency =/= load capacity
Which can be solved by installing a bigger heat pump. No boiler can compete with 300% efficency.
Which brings us back to efficiency, this time cost efficiency.
If the heat pump costs more than insulating would have, then obviously you’ve not so much solved the problem but rather made it bigger.
Yeah I had a heat pump engineer come and do a survey and heat loss calculation, and the conclusion is that I would require 2 pumps to produce enough heat. I’d be looking at around 20 grand upfront for that, after the government grant being applied.
For that money I could probably replace all windows with triple glaze and add insulation, and come out a lot more efficient than replacing the gas boiler.
In fairness, that would also likely get the house ready for a single pump, and when electricity prices cease to be kept artificially high it will probably be economical to make the switch.
Fair; can't argue with that
My understanding is that heat pumps are too slow for old Victorian houses for them to be more efficient than gas boilers (which are pretty fast comparatively). I'm glad your heat pump was viable though!
I'd rather have a ten year target and fail to hit it, than have no target.
There are much better 10 year targets to have. Too many 10 year targets dilutes them all and soon people don't pay attention and so you fail them all.
As such I agree - everything I know about the UK (I'm an American who has never been there so not much!) says their insulation levels are world leading pathetic. Fixing insulation would make a much larger difference than just about anything they could do as such I would (again as an outsider who doesn't know UKs problems) place insulation as what should be a top priority because of how much larger the impact it would have. A 60% boiler (something 50 years old) in a well insulated house would use similar energy to a heat pump in an uninsulated house (there are so many variables in that statement that you cannot actually find any comparison to verify it)
The issue we have is that we have a large supply of housing stock built 80-120 years ago that cannot be efficiently insulated without it costing an obscene amount of money. A lot of these older houses also have no wall cavity, meaning wall insulation can't be done (without adding thick panels to the inside of every room, making each room smaller).
It's a tough situation, so I don't envy the government. Much like our roads, we are massively impeded by the fact that we're an old country and we tend to not want to knock things down and build from scratch.
Where is this one coming from now?
You can insulate terraced housing perfectly well from the outside. Added benefit is increased aesthetics of such solution.
I live in a conservation area where external insulation will be a hard sell. There’s a lot of such areas around, some a lot more restrictive than where I am.
And many more areas which are less restrictive. Your point is?
My point is that not all houses can be insulated externally. In fact, many cannot even if it would be technically viable.
I thought it was pretty obvious but happy to clarify!
Well, nothing can be done for "all houses". Insulating vast majority of housing which can be insulated externally would be a good start.
Not knocking things down and rebuilding is often a problem. People get too caught up in things they can see would be lost (those old buildings which often were beautiful) but fail to see what they are missing: a well insulated building that meets/fits modern needs.
Of course it is expensive to rebuild from scratch so you wouldn't do it too often, but don't be afraid to do it either - it should be a great long term investment (paid off in lower HVAC bills, and layouts that are more modern)
Than you don't have a clue. Unrealistic targets are demotivating and counterproductive - why to try if you don't have a chance to hit it?
Targets should be realistically achievable with the best effort. This one never was.
10 years to say no new boilers can be installed is not unrealistic. All you need to have is a good supply of an alternative and a supply of maintenance parts for current boilers. You can set that up in 5 years.
Says who? At the moment replacing of the boiler is a couple of grand. Replacing it with a heat pump means replacing boiler, radiators and insulating home. It is completely unrealistic.
In 25 years of house owning I've never had to replace a boiler. Service...yes. Repair...yes. Never replace. I've even had boilers that are no longer made due to safety regs changing.
Nobody is telling people to rip out their boilers.
I had to. And I wouldn't be able to replace with the heat pump without thoroughly insulating the house and replacing all the radiators.