8 ms·

In the nordics we love heat-pumps! Something like 70% of houses are heated by heat-pumps, and 90% of apartment buildings are heated by district heating and tha

• jack_tripper 10mo ago
  Sign of a rich and very developed country. A lot of buildings in Austrian cities are still heated by burning oil or wood and the whole city smells like a bonfire. Probably gonna have my lifespan shortened by at least a decade from all that fossil fuel pollution, but at least we banned that dirty nuclear from killing us.
  • wkat4242 10mo ago
    Yes heat pumps are expensive and you need different radiators and more insulation than with traditional gas central heating. That's why it's an issue in Holland too. Not many people have the investment for all that. It's mainly worth it when you have solar panels but that requires another big investment. I'm lucky to live in Spain where it's not that cold so I just have one little plug in radiator I use a few months a year lol.
    • wolvesechoes 10mo ago
      > more insulation Nothing to do with a heat source.
      • sokoloff 10mo ago
        Not directly with the heat source, but with the output flow temperature that the heat source can create. In that regard, an air-to-water heat pump is much lower temperature than a gas or oil boiler can efficiently produce. That can cause a need for larger radiators to compensate and sometimes for insulation if the radiators can’t be further increased in size. (Or if the heat loss at design temp is too high for available or sensible sized equipment.)
      • jaapz 10mo ago
        In the netherlands we were used to really cheap gas (groningen gas field). This meant that, instead of adding more insulation, it was cheaper to just install a bigger gas powered heater to heat our homes. This means that people now really need to improve insulation of their homes big time, before even being able to consider switching to a heat pump. My house has a 30kW gas heater. When I switched to a heat pump, first I had to replace the entire roof with PIR insulation. It was previously just uninsulated wood. Now I can easily heat my home with a 7kW heat pump (which most of the time doesn't even need to produce 7kW of heat). I was lucky, my house already had insulated walls and floors, and used floor heating (low temperature heating). Most homes here use high temperature radiators, which become way less efficient when used with low temperatures produced by heat pumps. So for many people here, it is cost prohibitive to switch to a heat pump, as they first need to improve isolation and replace their radiators for a heat pump to even work.
        • brandhout 10mo ago
          You can switch to a heatpump before insulating your house; you just need a bigger one. Which isn't really great thanks to our struggeling energy grid but its still cheaper than a gas heater.
          • jaapz 10mo ago
            It really isn't. A gas heater costs 1500-2500 euro with installation. Especially when just switching the previous one with a new one, it can be done really quickly and cheaply. Switching to a heat pump can be anywhere from 10-25k depending on the existing plumbing, size of heat pump etc.
    • hexbin010 10mo ago
      Ditto UK. Gas is relatively cheap, and a replacement boiler is £1,500 to £3,000 and will last ~10 years and there'll be no doubt about whether it can sufficiently heat the home or produce enough hot water etc . Lucky you living in Spain though lol
      • wkat4242 10mo ago
        Yes, it's just a lot of money for a lot of people. Norway is really a different kind of rich compared to the rest of europe, they have tons of oil rights all over the world (and as such they still contribute a lot to global warming even though they have a lot of money for 'green' tech at home). PS yeah Spain is good for heating but not for AC though (which I don't have, sadly). But I do enjoy life here a lot more even though I would make much more money in Holland.
        • OptionOfT 10mo ago
          As someone who moved from Belgium to Phoenix, I agree. I prefer how dry heat over cold, windy & humid.
      • mrmlz 10mo ago
        UK houses are really interesting.. Single-glass windows, poor insulation etc. And plumbing on the OUTSIDE(!) :) Are the boilers typically connected to water-radiators?.. I assume so based on the word "boiler". There are heatpumps that are used to heat water so it would be a slot in replacement..
        • asplake 10mo ago
          Brit here. Your first pragraph describes older housing stock, not anything built in decades. Not that the quality of our quality of our stock couldn't be improved, or that our (very real) energy standards for new builds couldn't be stricter, but things aren't quite as grim everywhere as the picture you paint.
        • supersparrow 10mo ago
          I’ve lived in the UK for 35 years and lived in various properties built in every decade from 70s-10s. Some much older and less loved ones did have single pane windows but have never seen plumbing on the outside. Maybe on much older houses? Certainly not on anything remotely new. A lot of new builds here have solar, heat pumps and insulation has been excellent for at least 20 years.
    • euroderf 10mo ago
      > more insulation Why is this ? (Sorry if it's a stupid question.)
      • brandhout 10mo ago
        A misunderstanding. A lot of people (at least here in the Netherlands) believe that heat-pumps just actively refuse to heat a home when it's not up to spec, isolation wise. That of course isn't true, you'll just need a bigger heatpump.
    • brandhout 10mo ago
      It isn't more interesting with solar panels because they won't generate nearly enough electricity in the winter. You should see both as entirely separate energy saving investments, not dependent on one another. (I'm however very happy with "free" cooling in summer) You might need other radiators if your current radiators are very small. But you also might not in a recent house, or in a recently renovated house (e.g. the radiator are still sized on single-glazing-glass when having double glazing installed). You can also choose in-foor heating with the next renovation, a lot of homes already have in-floor heating and it's very comfortable. You can probably also boost existing radiators with small fans on the bottom or choose an electronic back-up module which boost the temperature a bit on the coldest days. Tldr: it really isn't that hard. The focus on hybrid systems in NL is purely thanks to a lobby from gas-boiler installers and manufacturers. Air/water heatpumps are a drop-in replacement in a lot of cases.
  • Ekaros 10mo ago
    Air-to-Air heat pumps can be quite affordable. Or even cheap if you find no name deals. There is install, but even that is not really that significant. This is at least in Nordics.
    • jack_tripper 10mo ago
      Probably not for entire apartment buildings since most of them run on oil or gas burning here. I only saw heat pumps on apartment buildings built after 2020 or the single family homes in the affluent areas.
      • Ekaros 10mo ago
        Yeah, here they are used for AC in apartments. Unless for some weird reason they are electric heating... And even then for some reason we do not like them visible so they need to be hidden on balconies and like.
        • wkat4242 10mo ago
          That's another problem in Holland too. The government mandates people moving to heat pumps for new houses (and existing ones in the longer term) because they don't want Russian gas dependencies and they want to close the national gas fields (they cause earthquakes). But then neighbours start complaining about the look of the outdoor units and causing hassle with court orders etc. Really if they want people to move they should make it easy and cheap, so invalidate cosmetic complaints automatically.
    • MisterTea 10mo ago
      > There is install, but even that is not really that significant. The install itself isn't that hard they come pre-charged with refrigerant. I have installed a few of the air-to air myself and had no issues. All you need is a vacuum pump and proper refrigerant manifold or adapters. Vacuum out the lines for at least an hour to draw out all the air and moisture, close valve and let sit for an hour, if the gauge shows no leak, open the heat pump zone valves and you're in business. A friend did it and had all the refrigerant leak out after a year but he realized the flared end that came from factory was malformed so he cut and re-flared the end, vacuumed out the system, left it overnight, saw no leak, and had an AC tech do the charge. Was solid after that. A from zero charge requires some knowledge of the systems capacity and a scale to weigh the charge so he hired someone to do it.
  • stephen_g 10mo ago
    Longer term this shouldn’t be the case though - a fridge is just a heat pump, and an air-to-air or air-to-water heat pumps aren’t that much more complicated, nor should they be any less reliable. It’s something that will become more of a commodity and eventually won’t be any more sign of wealth than owning a fridge. I mean, we can see it already in air-to-air systems - I’ve had mini-splits supplied and installed here in Australia for something like 20% of the cost I’ve heard quoted for equally sized units in the US, for example - just because basically every electrician has a license to install them here because they are so incredibly common (for cooling even more than heating, but they can basically all so both here). Air-to-water I expect will be the same in cold climates - in 15 years basically any plumber will be able to do it and they’ll be far cheaper than today.
    • jack_tripper 10mo ago
      >Longer term this shouldn’t be the case though Long term I'll be dead anyway. To me the the actions taken in the present is most important that what maybe might happen 30 years from now since that's why everything is fucked in Europe, because everyone coasts on hopium for the long term instead of fixing the present.
      • seec 10mo ago
        You got downvoted, but I share the sentiment. It seems we coasted on hope for better solutions that never really get there and are largely unaffordable for most people. A heat pump would make a lot more sense if electricity were cheap; alas, we went all in for renewables while ignoring nuclear for political reasons. The result is expensive electricity while still having a dependency on fossil fuel and even importing the renewable tech. That makes no sense in the short run, and I very much doubt it will make any sense eventually.
    • PaulDavisThe1st 10mo ago
      > air-to-water heat pumps these are slightly odd, however: they either need an external air intake set up, or they require that the water (tank/heater) be located in a space that you don't mind being cooled down (often quite significantly) AND that isn't thermally connected to the space you're heating via other means. still great technology, but deployment can be a little more challenging that space heating/cooling.
  • bratwurst3000 10mo ago
    air conditioning is also a heat pump. they cost way less then the air/water heatpumps and are easy and cheap to install. Since two years I heat with air conditioning and its super effective and cheap. edit// Hot water is generated by electric solar panels. 1200w are sufficent to have enough hot water for two persons
  • jabl 10mo ago
    > Sign of a rich and very developed country. You need to find another reason. Looking at IMF 2025 GDP per capita figures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... ): Norway: $92k Denmark: $77k Sweden: $62k Germany: $60k UK: $57k Finland: $56k So yeah, Denmark and particularly Norway are a bit richer than the others, but the others are in the same ballpark. If I had to bring up some particular reason, gas grids are more or less non-existent in the Nordics, and electricity is cheaper than in central Europe or UK.
  • dzhiurgis 10mo ago
    Get an ERV - it will most likely have air filter. Such a life improvement to a point I'm actually waiting for winter now (in summer you have a problem of mosquitoes, house doesn't cool quickly enough by itself and if you close shades for sleeping - you don't get adequate ventilation).
  • mos87 10mo ago
    LMAO good one.
• hexbin010 10mo ago
  From the PDF at your link: "Heat pumps are more efficient than gas boilers and become competitive when the electricity price is lower than around three times the gas or oil price" Sweden seems to have quite high domestic gas rates (highest in EU I think?), around £0.18/kWh, with electricity at £0.23/kWh so I can definitely understand the adoption of heat pumps with gas being so high. In the UK we have lower heat pump adoption, which could largely be explained by gas being ~£0.06/kWh (and electricity is ~£0.27/kWh). There is also the barrier that many houses are draughty and would require significant expensive upgrades
  • DrScientist 10mo ago
    Electricity prices are certainly a factor, and retro-fitting can be very expensive to nigh on impossible. The real scandal in the UK is how the updates to building regulations to bring in higher energy efficiency have been delayed and delayed - presumably due to lobbying by UK house-builders. Given the big push to build large numbers of new houses it seems madness not to have the higher standards in place.
    • jcsager 10mo ago
      Planning rules conflict with building regs in the UK. Planning means that most new houses are little boxes made of little more than ticky-tacky. So adding insulation to the walls makes them even smaller inside.
      • pjc50 10mo ago
        Unclear what this means - both of these sets of rules apply, so the planning system couldn't force people to not comply with building regs? The new approach appears to be prefab foil coated insulation board in the walls, under brick or breezeblock skin, given what I can see being built nearby.
  • zzbn00 10mo ago
    This is exactly the thing. In UK electricity price is set by the cost of generating it from natural gas. After losses, etc, you get about 1/3 of power in electricity compared to heat in the gas. And the heat pump has an efficiency factor of about 3. So you get back to unity. While electricity is priced off gas, current heat pumps do not have a strong economic case.
• moooo99 10mo ago
  As a German, I find the popularity of heat pumps in the nordics especially amusing. In Germany heat pumps were an incredibly political topic and people were pushed by some media outlets to really hate heat pumps. One recurring topic was that heat pumps can‘t work at German temperatures.
  • looofooo0 10mo ago
    Well Norway (Hydro), Sweden (hydro and nuclear) and Finland (Nuclear Wind Hydro) all have cheap electricity which seems to be the main driver for adoption.
    • mrmlz 10mo ago
      Hrm. It might be cheaper than in Germany but its not cheap in Sweden except for the most nordic parts (hydro). South Sweden - i think the prices are more on par with germany.
      • looofooo0 10mo ago
        Well in the south you might need to factor the gas cost in (vs Germany) and also the network effects of heat pump being the main form of heating in sweden.
        • willvarfar 10mo ago
          The south of Sweden is expensive because Sweden did away with the previous single energy market and split into zones with sales abroad. Often Swedish producers sell to Germany at the same time Swedish consumers are forced to buy from German producers. It was a big thing about 'free market' and iirc Denmark was upset that Danish manufacturing could not compete with the price of energy across the straights in Sweden. The solution was to make energy more expensive in Sweden.
          • looofooo0 10mo ago
            I was solely talking about heat pump adoption due end user prices.
• jgalt212 10mo ago
  > Something like 70% of houses are heated by heat-pumps To me, living in US Northeast, this is astounding. I've read heat pumps lose efficacy below 25F. My family would never forgive me if I made our house cold. But then I see 70% of the Nordics's house are "warm enough", or dealing colder than room temperature houses. I've asked half-dozen contractors and HVAC people in my area, and none of them have recommended a heat pump. But, I'm just as suspicious of their motives as I am of the science and environmental populizers on YouTube.
  • renhanxue 10mo ago
    A lot of the Nordic heat pumps are ground source, that is to say you drill a hole a couple of hundred feet down into the bedrock where it's always a bit above freezing and you circulate your heat exchange fluid down there and back up again. Air-source heat pumps are mostly a thing in the southern parts where the climate is relatively mild.
    • jabl 10mo ago
      Air-source heat pumps are also somewhat common in retrofits where the remaining expected lifetime of the building isn't big enough to be worth spending some 20-30k€ (?) that installing a ground source heat pump costs. A significant part of the cost being drilling the hole. Similarly for small houses the cost of the hole drilling might not be worth the reduction in electricity consumption.
  • Phenomenit 10mo ago
    You never go below 1 in efficiency. Worst case the water is heated directly with electricity.
    • Scoundreller 10mo ago
      You shouldn’t but you could. In theory peltier elements are more efficient heaters than resistive heating but if the temp delta are big enough, you lose more heat through conduction than you pump in. A poorly optimized fireplace may vacuum more warm air out than it radiates in.
• OptionOfT 10mo ago
  Interesting that district heating is so popular there. IIRC in the Netherlands people don't like it, because it because it means that there is a single company supplying my heat, with * minimum amounts of 'heat' purchased * no incentives to maintain their infrastructure above the bare minimum * no competition
  • fy20 10mo ago
    I live in a post-Soviet city with district heating, and I'm not really sure it's worth it. Our network is government run, and they don't do a bad job, but it is more expensive per kWh (8c) than if you were to heat with gas or an electric heat pump (both 6c). The heat source of the network is gas or various oil fuels, so it makes sense that it's cheaper to do it yourself - gas infrastructure is very optimised, and there are very little network losses in comparison. I think it only makes sense if the network has a cheap energy source, for example by using waste energy from industrial processes or utility-scale geothermal.
    • citrin_ru 10mo ago
      In USSR it was common to use waste heat from a thermal (gas/coal) power stations for district heating. Heat itself in such system is basically free - instead of sending hot water to cooling towers it first used to heat homes. But a pipeline network is not cheap in maintain (pipelines were usually not well maintained and leaks were common but with modern materials corrosion should be less of a problem).
  • renhanxue 10mo ago
    Most district heating systems in the Nordics are publicly owned, in part or in full. There are also price controls for the privately owned ones.