3 ms·

Disclaimer: I've never been to the UK outside of Heathrow, but my impression is that climate wise it would be ideal for heat pumps. Cold, but not like COLD COL

Disclaimer: I've never been to the UK outside of Heathrow, but my impression is that climate wise it would be ideal for heat pumps. Cold, but not like COLD COLD. OK Google says 0F for the record low in London, compared to -15F in NY City.

sgt101 2y ago
Climate wise: yes. Housing stock wise: not so much. Heat pumps seem really good for well insulated modern houses, much of the UK's housing stock is >100years old and pretty drafty.
- KiranRao0 2y ago
  Agreed that homes can be better insulated. However, poorly insulated homes still need heat. Heat pumps seem like a good step despite poor insulation.
- billyruffian 2y ago
  I hear this a lot. I've got quite a leaky 400+ year old Welsh farmhouse (long and thin, heat-sucking 4ft deep stone walls) and I'm one of those who installed last year with the grant. It's bloody brilliant. Way, way more comfortable than the oil-fired system it replaced. The smart meter looked a bit scary during the cold patch in January but even then, it's coming in cheaper than the oil did and without the scary price variability. I honestly love it. Getting the size of heat pump right for the property is probably the most critical thing.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    Oil-fired is now so expensive that it should be an easy sell to replace, not to mention the hassles of delivery.
    - tialaramex 2y ago
      Good point. A lot of the UK has piped gas, often built before natural gas was a thing (it would have been supplied with "town gas" which you can make with coal) and then retrofitted for methane last century, I remember as a kid seeing stuff marked as suitable for the "new" natural gas - the conversion had finished at about the time I was born. But in rural areas it makes no sense. Running a single phase electricity conductor overhead for everything is affordable unless you live somewhere crazy like up a mountain or on your own island, but piped gas, sewage, etc. is just too expensive to justify. This is another reason to favour heat pumps, the heat pump runs off the same electricity as your household appliances, your PC, and your lighting, if you fit solar panels or add a private wind turbine (if you're a hilltop farm latter can make a lot of sense) that's all electricity and it Just Works™.
  - sgt101 2y ago
    Super interesting - more info like this helps. I have a 17th Century cottage and the folks came and just said that there was no point at all... maybe they were clueless!
- RobinL 2y ago
  I've heard this several but don't really understand the rationale. Can't you just put in a bigger heat pump? Or top up an air to water with an air to air?
  - sgt101 2y ago
    I think that the issue is claimed to be that the pump will use lots of electricity trying to keep up with the heat escaping and therefore will not be economical.
    - RobinL 2y ago
      But the same is true of gas, and in the UK at least they cost about the same per kWh of output heat (electricity is more expensive, but this is balanced out by the higher efficiency of the heat pump)
      - sgt101 2y ago
        I think that this is a new(ish) thing though. When the UK was pulling gas out of the Irish Sea and the North Sea for domestic heating gas was much much cheaper than electricity. Then gas started being used at scale for electricity generation (the so called dash for gas). Then we moved to just in time import gas and things got very expensive. So - things have changed.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  Don't old UK full home renovations often take the house down to its studs? What would be limiting them from insulating well enough, or is just that full renovations are too expensive?
  - tialaramex 2y ago
    Most UK homes are built with brick or stone outer walls, and a big problem for heat insulation will be those walls. So that's a hell of a renovation, it's practically just tearing the house down and starting over, which is not a thing. If you tore the bricks off my home, you'd see a thick layer of insulation, but this place was built in the 21st century and the actual structural loads are internal - floors are cantilevered off the lift shaft in the core while the bricks on the outside are mostly decorative. However if you tried to tear the bricks off my mother's 100+ year old house you'll tear the building down, the loads travel through that brick. She spends more on utilities in a month than I spend in a year.
    - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      I've been watching some renovations in the UK, which I find really interesting, but I forgot that most homes are built out of brick and "tearing them down to the studs" really isn't possible. I guess the same is true with concrete (rather than brick) homes in Southern China (or why my mother-in law doesn't have heat in the winter and why it is so bloody cold to visit). They deal with that though by using things like Kotatsus, which I don't think westerners would find very appealing.
      - pjc50 2y ago
        The only viable solution for those is effectively building an inner insulated shell in each room, which does work but loses interior space. My grandmother lived most of her life in a poorly insulated brick terraced house with no central heating - every day she'd get up and light a coal fire in the grate. A lifestyle that belonged more to the 1890s than the 1990s.
        2y ago

sgt101 2y ago

Climate wise: yes. Housing stock wise: not so much. Heat pumps seem really good for well insulated modern houses, much of the UK's housing stock is >100years old and pretty drafty.

KiranRao0 2y ago
Agreed that homes can be better insulated. However, poorly insulated homes still need heat. Heat pumps seem like a good step despite poor insulation.
billyruffian 2y ago
I hear this a lot. I've got quite a leaky 400+ year old Welsh farmhouse (long and thin, heat-sucking 4ft deep stone walls) and I'm one of those who installed last year with the grant. It's bloody brilliant. Way, way more comfortable than the oil-fired system it replaced. The smart meter looked a bit scary during the cold patch in January but even then, it's coming in cheaper than the oil did and without the scary price variability. I honestly love it. Getting the size of heat pump right for the property is probably the most critical thing.
- pjc50 2y ago
  Oil-fired is now so expensive that it should be an easy sell to replace, not to mention the hassles of delivery.
  - tialaramex 2y ago
    Good point. A lot of the UK has piped gas, often built before natural gas was a thing (it would have been supplied with "town gas" which you can make with coal) and then retrofitted for methane last century, I remember as a kid seeing stuff marked as suitable for the "new" natural gas - the conversion had finished at about the time I was born. But in rural areas it makes no sense. Running a single phase electricity conductor overhead for everything is affordable unless you live somewhere crazy like up a mountain or on your own island, but piped gas, sewage, etc. is just too expensive to justify. This is another reason to favour heat pumps, the heat pump runs off the same electricity as your household appliances, your PC, and your lighting, if you fit solar panels or add a private wind turbine (if you're a hilltop farm latter can make a lot of sense) that's all electricity and it Just Works™.
- sgt101 2y ago
  Super interesting - more info like this helps. I have a 17th Century cottage and the folks came and just said that there was no point at all... maybe they were clueless!
RobinL 2y ago
I've heard this several but don't really understand the rationale. Can't you just put in a bigger heat pump? Or top up an air to water with an air to air?
- sgt101 2y ago
  I think that the issue is claimed to be that the pump will use lots of electricity trying to keep up with the heat escaping and therefore will not be economical.
  - RobinL 2y ago
    But the same is true of gas, and in the UK at least they cost about the same per kWh of output heat (electricity is more expensive, but this is balanced out by the higher efficiency of the heat pump)
    - sgt101 2y ago
      I think that this is a new(ish) thing though. When the UK was pulling gas out of the Irish Sea and the North Sea for domestic heating gas was much much cheaper than electricity. Then gas started being used at scale for electricity generation (the so called dash for gas). Then we moved to just in time import gas and things got very expensive. So - things have changed.
seanmcdirmid 2y ago
Don't old UK full home renovations often take the house down to its studs? What would be limiting them from insulating well enough, or is just that full renovations are too expensive?
- tialaramex 2y ago
  Most UK homes are built with brick or stone outer walls, and a big problem for heat insulation will be those walls. So that's a hell of a renovation, it's practically just tearing the house down and starting over, which is not a thing. If you tore the bricks off my home, you'd see a thick layer of insulation, but this place was built in the 21st century and the actual structural loads are internal - floors are cantilevered off the lift shaft in the core while the bricks on the outside are mostly decorative. However if you tried to tear the bricks off my mother's 100+ year old house you'll tear the building down, the loads travel through that brick. She spends more on utilities in a month than I spend in a year.
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    I've been watching some renovations in the UK, which I find really interesting, but I forgot that most homes are built out of brick and "tearing them down to the studs" really isn't possible. I guess the same is true with concrete (rather than brick) homes in Southern China (or why my mother-in law doesn't have heat in the winter and why it is so bloody cold to visit). They deal with that though by using things like Kotatsus, which I don't think westerners would find very appealing.
    - pjc50 2y ago
      The only viable solution for those is effectively building an inner insulated shell in each room, which does work but loses interior space. My grandmother lived most of her life in a poorly insulated brick terraced house with no central heating - every day she'd get up and light a coal fire in the grate. A lifestyle that belonged more to the 1890s than the 1990s.
      - 2y ago