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I don’t get the point? They point out two issues: picking an installer and adding insulation to the home. How are these hard or disruptive? We switched to a he

I don’t get the point? They point out two issues: picking an installer and adding insulation to the home. How are these hard or disruptive? We switched to a heat pump last year and couldn’t be happier. It was quite expensive but Federal subsidies are now available with the Inflation Reduction Act in effect. The real issue here is that the HVAC industry is quite conservative and still commonly recommends against heat pumps. This is the real political difficulty to overcome and the IRA’s buckets of money will do it. Europe needs the same.

brightball 3y ago
There’s a company in Australia making a coating that increases efficiency of heat pumps by 40-50%. Going to be interesting to see the impact. https://graphenemg.com/thermal-xr/ https://graphenemg.com/thermal-xr/
- solardev 3y ago
  Is that really the bottleneck, though? They are already dramatically more efficient than combustive or resistive heat. But they are usually not drop-in replacements, and it's harder to retrofit older single family homes with them, vs a smaller apartment where you can just drop in a mini split and take out the old furnace.
- Ekaros 3y ago
  Isn't that basically increasing the surface area? It makes sense at scale, but couldn't you reach same effect with 50% bigger area anyway? And I would expect that the surface area is already optimised to be close enough to what is needed. So for residential I wonder if there is any real gains there.
Angostura 3y ago
How expensive? I live in a old terraced house in the UK (no cavity wall, wooden floors open to cellar below). Adapting the house to be suitable for heatpumps is going to require cladding the whole of the house, redoing the floors, replacing the external front door and replacing all the radiators. It's going to cost tens of thousands of pounds.
- rini17 3y ago
  To me (Eastern Europe) this sounds like a standard stuff done by default when a building is renovated, due to energy savings. Done since long time ago, before heat pumps. Insulation also increases indoor comfort in the continental winters (prevents cold draft) and recently summers too. Seems both of these are coming to the UK, get used to it. For whom it's expensive either DIY or live in apartment instead.
  - michaelt 3y ago
    A lot of the UK's housing stock is comprised of victorian buildings from before the advent of electricity. They have high ceilings, large windows, large gardens, traditional red brick walls and beautiful period features like carved exterior stonework. They are also extremely badly insulated and costly to heat, having solid brick walls, large windows and high ceilings. We've already picked the low-hanging fruit like loft insulation and double glazed windows. What's left to do is things like exterior cladding. I looked at getting external insulation applied to a victorian terraced house, and was quoted £30,000 - more than the UK's median salary. The average annual energy bill is £1,923 so even if that insulation was so effective it dropped the energy bill to zero, it'd still be a pretty bad investment.
    - theshrike79 3y ago
      As someone who lives in the Nordics, I always go "heh" when people say they have "double-glazed windows" like it's something modern. Even my grandma's summer cabin has double glazed windows and it's not liveable during winters in the least. =) Over here triple-glazing is the minimum and has been for decades, I don't see why it wouldn't be useful everywhere else too. They keep the heat out during summers and the heat in during winter.
      - windexh8er 3y ago
        I recently had to replace the majority of windows in my home in the US. I was appalled at the options and gimmicks and downright shady sales tactics. I ended up having custom windows made to get what I wanted. Maybe it's a "grass is greener" thing, but I'm envious of how it seems people are just more honest in the Nordics.
ianburrell 3y ago
One way to combat conservative HVAC is require installing heat pumps instead of central ACs. My impression is that heat pumps, at least the warm-temp ones, are only little more expensive than ACs since they are similar designs. Requiring heat pumps means that the customer has the option to use it now or later. I got AC installed a few years ago and regret not getting a heat pump. I didn't think about it until it was too late.
- itsmartapuntocm 3y ago
  Split system heat pumps at least are almost exactly the same as a regular AC condenser, only difference being that there’s a reversing valve to reverse the flow of refrigerant.
- mmaurizi 3y ago
  I did this recently when replacing our failed central AC, it was an extra $500 over the AC. It’s tied into the existing natural gas furnace. The main issue is your basic 14 SEER heat pump needs larger capacity to be able to be the sole heating source than it does for just AC, so in my case in the northeast US the heat pump can’t economically be run in Winter, just spring/fall & probably can’t keep up with the coldest winter days at all. But it does provide flexibility if gas prices spike in the future, and saves a very small amount of money per year (< $100) If you’re the type to buy a high efficiency system going with a heat pump over central AC seems like it’s maybe more worth it from a return on investment standpoint
  - itsmartapuntocm 3y ago
    You don’t want to oversize the unit because then the cooling runtime will be too short to properly dehumidify. The solution usually is like in your case to include an auxiliary heat source such as electric or gas for those extreme cold days the heat pump can’t keep up.
    - Kirby64 3y ago
      Not really an issue to oversize anymore if the system uses inverter based compressors and multi speed fan systems. That said, those are unlikely to be used in the cheapest heat pump systems.
aatharuv 3y ago
In California, at least, they seems to be recommending it. (I'm currently in the market to replace my Central Air system and talking to vendors.)
ZunarJ5 3y ago
It's also an article from the Economist, so they are unlikely to be favourable to any kind of investments like this that don't have immediate obvious ROI.
- WeylandYutani 3y ago
  How much would 4 hurricanes reaching the East Coast cost and how many heat pumps could you install with that kind of money?
  - ZunarJ5 3y ago
    "Why don't you just sell your home and move?" These people dgaf. Don't delude yourself that they do.
TaylorAlexander 3y ago
Question for anyone that knows the answer. Where do we actually get these subsidies? My mom’s house has an old fuse panel and I’ve seen it said that she can get a subsidy to upgrade it to breakers. How would I actually get this for my mom?
- valleyer 3y ago
  https://www.energy.gov/policy/articles/making-our-homes-more-efficient-clean-energy-tax-credits-consumers https://www.energy.gov/policy/articles/making-our-homes-more...
dontlaugh 3y ago
There are many homes that can’t be insulated and have their radiators swapped for a reasonable cost. Also, what AC system doesn’t also heat efficiently? When I got our split system installed there wasn’t even an option to buy a non-reversible one.
perryizgr8 3y ago
> Federal subsidies > Inflation Reduction Act Does not compute.

brightball 3y ago

There’s a company in Australia making a coating that increases efficiency of heat pumps by 40-50%. Going to be interesting to see the impact. https://graphenemg.com/thermal-xr/ https://graphenemg.com/thermal-xr/

solardev 3y ago
Is that really the bottleneck, though? They are already dramatically more efficient than combustive or resistive heat. But they are usually not drop-in replacements, and it's harder to retrofit older single family homes with them, vs a smaller apartment where you can just drop in a mini split and take out the old furnace.
Ekaros 3y ago
Isn't that basically increasing the surface area? It makes sense at scale, but couldn't you reach same effect with 50% bigger area anyway? And I would expect that the surface area is already optimised to be close enough to what is needed. So for residential I wonder if there is any real gains there.

Angostura 3y ago

How expensive? I live in a old terraced house in the UK (no cavity wall, wooden floors open to cellar below). Adapting the house to be suitable for heatpumps is going to require cladding the whole of the house, redoing the floors, replacing the external front door and replacing all the radiators. It's going to cost tens of thousands of pounds.

rini17 3y ago
To me (Eastern Europe) this sounds like a standard stuff done by default when a building is renovated, due to energy savings. Done since long time ago, before heat pumps. Insulation also increases indoor comfort in the continental winters (prevents cold draft) and recently summers too. Seems both of these are coming to the UK, get used to it. For whom it's expensive either DIY or live in apartment instead.
- michaelt 3y ago
  A lot of the UK's housing stock is comprised of victorian buildings from before the advent of electricity. They have high ceilings, large windows, large gardens, traditional red brick walls and beautiful period features like carved exterior stonework. They are also extremely badly insulated and costly to heat, having solid brick walls, large windows and high ceilings. We've already picked the low-hanging fruit like loft insulation and double glazed windows. What's left to do is things like exterior cladding. I looked at getting external insulation applied to a victorian terraced house, and was quoted £30,000 - more than the UK's median salary. The average annual energy bill is £1,923 so even if that insulation was so effective it dropped the energy bill to zero, it'd still be a pretty bad investment.
  - theshrike79 3y ago
    As someone who lives in the Nordics, I always go "heh" when people say they have "double-glazed windows" like it's something modern. Even my grandma's summer cabin has double glazed windows and it's not liveable during winters in the least. =) Over here triple-glazing is the minimum and has been for decades, I don't see why it wouldn't be useful everywhere else too. They keep the heat out during summers and the heat in during winter.
    - windexh8er 3y ago
      I recently had to replace the majority of windows in my home in the US. I was appalled at the options and gimmicks and downright shady sales tactics. I ended up having custom windows made to get what I wanted. Maybe it's a "grass is greener" thing, but I'm envious of how it seems people are just more honest in the Nordics.

ianburrell 3y ago

One way to combat conservative HVAC is require installing heat pumps instead of central ACs. My impression is that heat pumps, at least the warm-temp ones, are only little more expensive than ACs since they are similar designs. Requiring heat pumps means that the customer has the option to use it now or later. I got AC installed a few years ago and regret not getting a heat pump. I didn't think about it until it was too late.

itsmartapuntocm 3y ago
Split system heat pumps at least are almost exactly the same as a regular AC condenser, only difference being that there’s a reversing valve to reverse the flow of refrigerant.
mmaurizi 3y ago
I did this recently when replacing our failed central AC, it was an extra $500 over the AC. It’s tied into the existing natural gas furnace. The main issue is your basic 14 SEER heat pump needs larger capacity to be able to be the sole heating source than it does for just AC, so in my case in the northeast US the heat pump can’t economically be run in Winter, just spring/fall & probably can’t keep up with the coldest winter days at all. But it does provide flexibility if gas prices spike in the future, and saves a very small amount of money per year (< $100) If you’re the type to buy a high efficiency system going with a heat pump over central AC seems like it’s maybe more worth it from a return on investment standpoint
- itsmartapuntocm 3y ago
  You don’t want to oversize the unit because then the cooling runtime will be too short to properly dehumidify. The solution usually is like in your case to include an auxiliary heat source such as electric or gas for those extreme cold days the heat pump can’t keep up.
  - Kirby64 3y ago
    Not really an issue to oversize anymore if the system uses inverter based compressors and multi speed fan systems. That said, those are unlikely to be used in the cheapest heat pump systems.

aatharuv 3y ago

In California, at least, they seems to be recommending it. (I'm currently in the market to replace my Central Air system and talking to vendors.)

ZunarJ5 3y ago

It's also an article from the Economist, so they are unlikely to be favourable to any kind of investments like this that don't have immediate obvious ROI.

WeylandYutani 3y ago
How much would 4 hurricanes reaching the East Coast cost and how many heat pumps could you install with that kind of money?
- ZunarJ5 3y ago
  "Why don't you just sell your home and move?" These people dgaf. Don't delude yourself that they do.

TaylorAlexander 3y ago

Question for anyone that knows the answer. Where do we actually get these subsidies? My mom’s house has an old fuse panel and I’ve seen it said that she can get a subsidy to upgrade it to breakers. How would I actually get this for my mom?

valleyer 3y ago
https://www.energy.gov/policy/articles/making-our-homes-more-efficient-clean-energy-tax-credits-consumers https://www.energy.gov/policy/articles/making-our-homes-more...

dontlaugh 3y ago

There are many homes that can’t be insulated and have their radiators swapped for a reasonable cost. Also, what AC system doesn’t also heat efficiently? When I got our split system installed there wasn’t even an option to buy a non-reversible one.

perryizgr8 3y ago

> Federal subsidies > Inflation Reduction Act Does not compute.