11 ms·

This is a thing I'm wondering. In Europe houses are old (i.e. not well insulated) and electricity is expensive. A heat pump to go through the winter would be in

This is a thing I'm wondering. In Europe houses are old (i.e. not well insulated) and electricity is expensive. A heat pump to go through the winter would be insanely expensive for most households. Is there any solution that could fix this issue?

tuatoru 4y ago
Insulation! Northern/Western Europe has a whole bunch of Ukrainian refugees. Why not solve two problems at once by putting them to work doing insulation retrofits?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
danans 4y ago
Insulation isn't that challenging. Houses eventually need to be upgraded and remodeled. That's usually a good time to insulate them better.
fy20 4y ago
In Northern Europe the way new houses are built today is a masonry structure and then that's wrapped with rigid foam insulation on the outside (also under the floor and roof, but wrapping the walls is the bulk of it). My city is in the process of retrofitting 50yo Soviet apartment blocks with the same technique, and it works well. The hard part is not technical or financial, it is convincing someone to change the look of their 250yo stone house.
- danans 4y ago
  > The hard part is not technical or financial, it is convincing someone to change the look of their 250yo stone house. If one is willing to give up a bit of interior space in order to keep the charming stone exterior, they can also insulate on the interior of the wall, probably with some kind of vapor barrier between the stone wall and the insulation to keep condensation on the cold stone wall away from the interior.
  - fy20 4y ago
    The tricky part is these houses are probably already small to begin with. In the village I grew up in, there were old houses with ceilings where I (1.80m) couldn't stand up straight.
    - danans 4y ago
      If the house is old enough that a 1.8m person can't stand up in it, unless it has tremendous cultural/historical value, it should probably be torn down and replaced with a newer building.
goodcanadian 4y ago
I am extremely sceptical of this claim. I have had a heat pump installed in November (UK), and my estimates from over the winter is that it cost me less to run than my (admittedly old and inefficient) gas boiler. As it was probably past time to replace the boiler, it would not have been a bad move even without government incentives. The incentives made it a no-brainer. My house is reasonably well insulated as the previous owner did do that upgrade, and that might be a necessary first step before switching to a heat pump. Even on gas, though, you will save a lot by upgrading the insulation.
- jl6 4y ago
  How do you handle ventilation? Do you need to trap warm air in the house by keeping doors and windows closed as much as possible to avoid defeating insulation?
  - goodcanadian 4y ago
    I am not sure I understand the question. Yes, I keep the doors and windows closed in the winter; it is cold outside. Do you normally leave them open? Ultimately, I am getting the same total heat from the heat pump as I was from the boiler (kind of by definition).
    - jl6 4y ago
      I often open windows even in winter to get fresh air circulating through the house. Not all day, but not just for a few minutes either. It gets stuffy otherwise. I am also motivated by these types of concerns: https://www.lung.org/clean-air/at-home/ventilation-buildings-breathe https://www.lung.org/clean-air/at-home/ventilation-buildings...
      - danans 4y ago
        You should consider adding an active ventilation system, which turns on periodically. This can be as simple as a bath fan on a timer with a make-up air opening elsewhere in the house. If you are concerned about the inherent heat loss that comes with ventilation, consider installing a heat (or energy) recovery ventilator, which uses a heat exchanger to recycle a large portion of the heat while also introducing fresh air into the house. If you are in the UK or the US Northeast you probably experience worse stuffiness because the dominant method of heating is hydronic which doesn't circulate or filter air.
RobinL 4y ago
At least in the UK, electricity prices are (very roughly) 4x that of gas, but heat pumps are about 4x as efficient, so the two roughly balance out and you end up with similar heating costs. At least this is how it's worked out in practice for my air-to-air installation.
- danans 4y ago
  If you improve the building envelope with air sealing and insulation (assuming that wasn't already done) you can get even lower operational costs. But the even bigger value is in the increased comfort.
kabes 4y ago
At least in Western europe there's big governmental pressure (by means of laws and incentives) to insulate old houses.

tuatoru 4y ago

Insulation! Northern/Western Europe has a whole bunch of Ukrainian refugees. Why not solve two problems at once by putting them to work doing insulation retrofits?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

danans 4y ago

Insulation isn't that challenging. Houses eventually need to be upgraded and remodeled. That's usually a good time to insulate them better.

fy20 4y ago

In Northern Europe the way new houses are built today is a masonry structure and then that's wrapped with rigid foam insulation on the outside (also under the floor and roof, but wrapping the walls is the bulk of it). My city is in the process of retrofitting 50yo Soviet apartment blocks with the same technique, and it works well. The hard part is not technical or financial, it is convincing someone to change the look of their 250yo stone house.

danans 4y ago
> The hard part is not technical or financial, it is convincing someone to change the look of their 250yo stone house. If one is willing to give up a bit of interior space in order to keep the charming stone exterior, they can also insulate on the interior of the wall, probably with some kind of vapor barrier between the stone wall and the insulation to keep condensation on the cold stone wall away from the interior.
- fy20 4y ago
  The tricky part is these houses are probably already small to begin with. In the village I grew up in, there were old houses with ceilings where I (1.80m) couldn't stand up straight.
  - danans 4y ago
    If the house is old enough that a 1.8m person can't stand up in it, unless it has tremendous cultural/historical value, it should probably be torn down and replaced with a newer building.

goodcanadian 4y ago

I am extremely sceptical of this claim. I have had a heat pump installed in November (UK), and my estimates from over the winter is that it cost me less to run than my (admittedly old and inefficient) gas boiler. As it was probably past time to replace the boiler, it would not have been a bad move even without government incentives. The incentives made it a no-brainer. My house is reasonably well insulated as the previous owner did do that upgrade, and that might be a necessary first step before switching to a heat pump. Even on gas, though, you will save a lot by upgrading the insulation.

jl6 4y ago
How do you handle ventilation? Do you need to trap warm air in the house by keeping doors and windows closed as much as possible to avoid defeating insulation?
- goodcanadian 4y ago
  I am not sure I understand the question. Yes, I keep the doors and windows closed in the winter; it is cold outside. Do you normally leave them open? Ultimately, I am getting the same total heat from the heat pump as I was from the boiler (kind of by definition).
  - jl6 4y ago
    I often open windows even in winter to get fresh air circulating through the house. Not all day, but not just for a few minutes either. It gets stuffy otherwise. I am also motivated by these types of concerns: https://www.lung.org/clean-air/at-home/ventilation-buildings-breathe https://www.lung.org/clean-air/at-home/ventilation-buildings...
    - danans 4y ago
      You should consider adding an active ventilation system, which turns on periodically. This can be as simple as a bath fan on a timer with a make-up air opening elsewhere in the house. If you are concerned about the inherent heat loss that comes with ventilation, consider installing a heat (or energy) recovery ventilator, which uses a heat exchanger to recycle a large portion of the heat while also introducing fresh air into the house. If you are in the UK or the US Northeast you probably experience worse stuffiness because the dominant method of heating is hydronic which doesn't circulate or filter air.

RobinL 4y ago

At least in the UK, electricity prices are (very roughly) 4x that of gas, but heat pumps are about 4x as efficient, so the two roughly balance out and you end up with similar heating costs. At least this is how it's worked out in practice for my air-to-air installation.

danans 4y ago
If you improve the building envelope with air sealing and insulation (assuming that wasn't already done) you can get even lower operational costs. But the even bigger value is in the increased comfort.

kabes 4y ago

At least in Western europe there's big governmental pressure (by means of laws and incentives) to insulate old houses.