Soldato
And don't forget you would need new pipework for that
Heat Pumps: anyone have one/thought about it?
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Soldato
I know many are not well insulated. But the amount and percentage increase every single year. New homes are by default and people do retrofit and improve existing ones.
As of March 23, 41% are rated C or above which is the recommended level.
If you house isn't a C then your probably facing excessive bills even with gas.
The problem for many is that older rentals will almost certainly not be improved.
Some of our older completely unsuitable for significant improvement housing we should seriously consider flattening and building new.
Most houses from the 60s onwards should be pretty easy to get up to scratch.
Solar and heat pumps. Not really, heat pumps are needed when solar is at its least.
Soldato
Gas heating is much hotter than heat pump. It's why u can have got hot water water on demand. It takes longer to heat up a room with heat pump hench why it's advisable to fully insulate your property to maintain the desired temperature.
Insulation will of course help with gas CH as well but if you compare heat pump vs gas CH on a none insulated walls and ground floor under floor insulation, the CH Gas heating would perform better and cost less to run.
Now add in solar panels and you will start to see the true benefits and then insulation.
But again, solar panel is not a DIY job so someone needs to install that and insulation of external walls could be done from inside with advanced DIY but outside you need a pro.
And then there's the hot water cylinder for on demand hot water especially /ideally needed for a small family of 3 for example.
It all adds up and all needs to be considered.
Soldato
Mines rated at C but I don't have cavity walls or under floor insulation...
That is needed for making use of a heat pump.
Then there's the fact I need bigger radiators and last I checked (was late last year) to change all my radiator, I would need to spend over 3k on it lol and those rads where nothing spectacular really midrange. Looks nice and modern.
Soldato
Solar along with a battery will help the cost of the electricity being used by the heat pump.
Do it right. Insulate, get solar with battery storage and heat pump with cylinder and you can potentially live off grid
You don't need solar or battery, apart from.the fact heat pumps use electricity they have no symbiosis with solar... an heat pump tariff e.g octopus cosy is what you want. There are undoubtedly challenges ahead but you are spewing nonsense.
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I am in a new/ish build and I was told I would have to change pretty much all of my heating pipe work for a heat pump. Couple that with gas being so much cheaper I just don’t see me doing it anytime soon. I think hydrogen being either added to or used to replace natural gas would be a good intermediary step for the environment.
Soldato
Gas heating is not necessarily a lot hotter at all. You now get hot heat pumps, 60C or more.
The type heating is irrelevant in performing better or worse. Its a simple equation of heat in vs heat out. gas will typically allow very inefficent houses to be warm as they can put in a hell of a lot of heat.
Solar can be DIY, there are people on here who have done it. Its again.... house dependent!
As as 200sols says, solar is not going to make any difference when the demand for heat is high.
Its almost as if you have people who have solar on here telling you your position on solar is incorrect
Presumably microbore, mine is microbore but house is not new. Very shortsighted (of the developer) if you have a new build that been plumbed in with that..
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Soldato
Almost impossible to go off grid in the UK with solar.
And by almost impossible I mean its basically impossible. Unless you have a few spare acres to cover in panels.
You can do it if you can run a generator as well. Not really recommended though in an urban setting
Soldato
The Octopus one is interesting. I wait Hippos survey with interest because from what he was told the 10/12mm tubing is fine. Which is most houses with what people call microbore.
I have the same 10mm white "flexible" piping that many new homes have.
I believe the only true microbore was the copper stuff from 90s or so.
Not surprisingly the tech is advancing so the landscape is changing. If you can supply 60C water to rads its 60C water. This is mainly the key from what I can tell, the heat pumps are now cost effectively outputting hot temps. They always could do, but they were a lot more expensive historically.
I did when I went to an invented cylinder. It was not fun, but it’s there
My installers managed to get a 300L tank into the loft. 56kg. Then carry it 10m across a shoulder height loft. A very uncomfortable experience!
Yup, it’s microbore to all of the radiators. They also ran a single 16A feed to the garage so I had to dig a trench and run a new feed to install a car charger & battery in there.
Soldato
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- 27 Mar 2013
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Cost of cabling for a developer must have been peanuts (assuming initial install), that's some penny pinching
. What did you gp for as a 32A feed is good for a charger, but then you wouldn't be able to run anything else.
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Associate
The last one i did wouldn’t fit so we had to cut the ceiling out. That was a 250l.
I thought I was going to have to, but in the end it just about jiggled through. Then I cut a hole in the wall (loft conversion) afterwards for better access to make all the swearing absolutely meaningless
Soldato
I submitted a ASHP quote via the Octopus link and have been quoted £5244. I'm slightly agog how they are able to calculate that without any house visit or review of the current boiler setup and location. Interesting.
Big safety margin on the quote, or some small print that says subject to site visit.