Heat Pumps

You have to admire the simplicity of older boilers, if not their peak efficiency.

Tim

Nearest neighbours have each had two combis fitted in that time, that pays for a lot of gas ...

This time last year, I had my 1979 'modern' gas boiler replaced. I reckon it had done pretty well.

I too had a modern 1980s gas boiler that lasted until about 4 years ago. The claims were that it was much more efficient than boilers with a cast iron heat exchanger. It was very easy to clean for a service. I had a couple of thermocouples fail but very easy to replace. The pump overrun also failed again and once I worked out how it was working easy to fix. The overrun was a simple bi-metal spring that operated a micro-switch. Over the years the little plastic tab on the micro switch had worn down a bit. Luckily Glowworm had included an adjustment screw, the downside was they had a used screw lock to make sure it didn't move :) This boiler had a constant pilot light with the thermocouple acting as a safety device to shut off the gas valve if the pilot went out.

If my old boiler was more efficient than one with a cast iron heat exchanger and my new condensing boiler is again much more efficient than my previous boiler still having a old cast iron boiler with a pilot light may have used extra gas equivalent to the price of newer boiler replacements.

Agreed. Our pilot light can only be regarded 'self-reigniting' if you apply the same 'self' as in DIY.

Ah, my cast iron boiler (here when we bought the house in 1977) ran on solid fuel!

This time of year, the boiler spends part of 1 hour providing hot water, during the other 23 hours the smartmeter tells me that the pilot light is using 157 watts which comes out at 26p/day (less than the standing charge) or £95/year.

Getting rid of the pilot light itself would be about a 25 year payback, OK there would be an efficiency increase too with a condensing boiler.

JOOI, is the waste of energy/resources of no concern? It in no way informs your choice of boiler?

The world is awash with energy, in the form of nuclear fuel and that uses small resources too.

I spend my energy (sic!) campaigning for a sane energy policy. Not making sure the kettle has exactly one mugful of water in it.

In the end cost of fuel reflects energy shortage. Ex of government interference.

I could probably save maybe £300 a year fuel on a new boiler costing £3000. That's almost worth doing - its not a bad ROI

But I couldn't give a toss about any EcoCrap™. I have no 'libral' friends to impress with how green I am.

The failure of EU energy policy is that it failed to make the 'wrong' decisions expensive. Instead of taxing carbon fuel (howls of anguish from German industry) they made Renewables obligatory (yelps of delight from German windmill manufacturers).

None of it was actually designed to reduce emissions. It was designed to placate a very stupid Green party in a PR electorate and keep German industry profitable.

In the end the free market is the best way to arrive at the correct technology, with as little government interference as possible.

If you remove subsidies for renewables, and deliberate over regulation from nuclear, you end up with nuclear being on a par with coal and gas, and renewables totally uneconomic. Beacause they use more resources than a nuclear reactor,.

If you apply careful taxation to the thing you decide is socially expensive in environmental terms as people believe (I dont) CO2 is, then you end up favouring nuclear power as the cheapest.

That is what a rational energy policy that wanted tor educe dependence on resources and minimise emissions should have led to.

And the reason it didn't is the EU.

And that's why I voted to leave. Of course May and subsequently Boris and now Starmer have signed up to the EU energy policyu anyway,

But I don't think Farage will. And against all the odds, I think he will be the next PM.

And we will finally get some sort of genuine Brexit.

So no. I don't give a f*ck about EcoCrap™ because the whole thing is a marketing fraud created by profiteering businesses with the ear of governments.

Re Eds GreenCrap™ is now on the back burner at best, if not in the trash bin, die to it all being completely unaffordable.

Maybe, finally, we will get the cheap nuclear power that is so easy to achieve once you get governments fingers out of the markets.

Slighty OT but why is nuclear is so expensive

A pilot light uses gas - a non-renewable form of energy. When it's gone, it's gone.

OK. But the OP is talking about the euivalent of operating a kettle for about

Not always. Especially if there's a poorly regulated monopoly.

Getting to my original point, at last.

Avoiding waste isn't 'ecocrap'. It's a state of mind (I was brought up in that sort of household), it's one of the ways to achieve an optimal use of finite resources, it's a philospophical position, and it's one of many ways to avoid climate catastrophe.

And we are where we are. Is wasting energy of interest to you? Would it inform your choice of (say) a boiler, all other things being equal?

So you say. I see some huge benefits that've arisen from EU and other regulation. You don't. OK.

Nuts.

So you say. Yet without any decent evidence.

Well, maybe you were naive. It's panning out pretty much as I expected (the nasty recent populist turn excepted), which is why I didn't vote for it.

In any event I don't see the UK's failure to invest in nuclear as EU contrived. It's to do with the fixation with privatisation (the main reason), domestic-national choice, cost 9in the widest sense), decent and proven alternatives, and a form of UK regulation and oversight that defies logic.

Given your past predictive form, I'm not holding my breath. Even if I knew what 'genuine Brexit' means.

Too cheap to meter, eh? Been there before . . .

Yes, I noticed that the other day ...

What an unusually rational politician. And he is right.

At some level the labour productivity of anyone involved in building a nuclear power stations is actually the worst industry in the world.

It takes months to get permission to change a single screw

Not really, gas is for sale, and I choose to buy an extra ~10 cu ft per day.

If gas was charged at electricity prices, I'd think more of it, but the pitchforks would be out on the streets if the average gas bill was £3,300/year ...

But the heat from the pilot light is not wasted. It does find its way into the heat exchanger and if it is still on C plan (as most Baxi Bermudas were) then that keeps circulating warmish water through the 28mm gravity feed to the tank, so you never end up with a stone cold tank (unless you use it all)

I think I'd struggle to claim much heat from the pilot makes it into the tank, the pipes are /barely/ warmer than ambient, the flue is quite a large open area, I'd think it mostly goes that way.

Yes, but it's an Ideal W, not a Baxi

Just as an outline:

Renewables are more cost-effective than nuclear energy in most markets today, especially for new projects.

Category: Winner LCOE: Renewables Capital Cost: Renewables Maintenance/Operation: Renewables Reliability: Nuclear Baseload Capability: Nuclear

Reliability and baseload are two reasons why nuclear is probably going to be a part of the overall provision - maybe 20% at current levels of consumption. It's more expensive than the alternatives, though.

You often mention the subsidies 'enjoyed' by renewables. Did you know that by output, the nuclear industry enjoys a far higher level of subsidy? Any idea why you never mention it?

You're just going to have to do a bit of reading. Or if you don't want to do that and maintain your view, just keep repeating yourself and hope that people believe you.

I'd have thought that most of the heat goes out the flue. But if it doesn't and the tank is close to the boiler with very low losses from the pipe, and you need the heated water, point taken.

Fair enough, quite a popular position from conversations I have.

Although I still think waste is wrong the problem is less with the relatively small level examples like pilot lights, and more the large scale consumers who have no real interest in conserving energy or cutting costs - the 'energy decadent' as they're called by academics, apparently.

What's interesting to me is understanding how we can make people care about waste, and take steps to avoid it. Not holding my breath :-)

They're going to going to have to do something about the move away from fossil fuels in general. If environmental or social reasons don't do it, it'll have to be economic. Best sharpen those pitchforks . . .