heat pumps anyone ?

Pretty damning when this is coming from an experienced installer. I fear he?s absolutely right about the ?car crash?.

Tim

It's a bit of a caricature, but there's plenty of truth there. OTOH plenty of people have heat pumps and are absolutely fine with them (plumbers don't get callbacks for those). Costs are a bit more marginal for people with gas boilers than with oil or electric heating, but that will change. You can also run HPs from your own solar, which helps somewhat in spring and autumn (and hot water in summer). I don't see a reason why rising demand wouldn't improve the technology to avoid some of the issues he mentions.

But he's not providing any alternatives for how to reduce carbon of heating, beyond 'gas is really clean these days' (not in CO2 terms it isn't, except compared to coal - and where does the gas come from since the North Sea is running out?). The world has to stop using carbon fuels. So if not heat pumps, what?

I know heated jackets is a joke, but it's actually a good idea that I've looked at before - I'm thinking in particular of people in their 80s+ who suffer the cold more than most, have joint issues exacerbated by cold, and are often fairly sedentary. A little powerbank gives a couple of hours runtime, which gives you a good warming boost - a bit like a lightweight hot water bottle you can wear. You still heat the house but maybe to a lower temperature than you might otherwise (say 18C not say 23C as some elderly folks might prefer). Before unleashing such things on the elderly population I'd want much better safety design than currently exists, though.

Theo

More than ?a bit? I think in terms of running cost and one shouldn?t really ignore the massive capital cost of an installation, even with a grant as a sweetener.

Judging by my sisters house, the system takes up a lot of space than many folk simply won?t have in a modern house that?s been designed around a gas system, especially a gas combi.

You can

I?m sure there will be some improvements I?d love to know the carbon cost of ditching a working gas system and swapping to a heat pump system.

Without grants, will it ever make sense?

Wood burning stoves. ;-)

I think we might see more radiant heating in the future. Heating a whole building to just keep the occupants warm is wasteful.

I only watched half of it. What I don't quite understand is how they do so well in Sweden given that their outside air temperatures presumably knock down the COP. Or do they use different working fluids?

Also just a shade disingenuous to say the COP is only 1 at lower temperatures. Surely (unless the HX is totally iced up of course) they will always manage a COP of a little over 1. (I guess they might lose a bit of heat outside from the fan motor and bearings).

Theo wrote on 23/07/2021 :

There is a limit on how efficient thay can become, so I would not expect they will become that much more efficient - besides, they have been around for many years.

on 23/07/2021, Tim+ supposed :

Nope..

Like so many other green technolgies.

It happens that newshound formulated :

I thought I heard that they use immersion heaters, to heat the CH & HW when HP's became less efficient?

So basically, they give 3 to 1, when the weather is warm, when you don't really need heating, the 3 to 1 then declines rapidly as the weather cools and when you need it most.

I'm sure they do add straight electric in the winter (it helps that Sweden is 40% nuclear). My point was that surely even at the worst, the COP is a little over 1. It would be nice to know if it is 1.01 or 1.1.

I gathered that, but a frozen HP is a frozen HP.

That cost puts it out of court for me and there's no way I'd give up my gas boiler for it even though I can see some advantages. Where electricity is cheap and houses well insulated then yes. Even then I wonder if ground source is better unless there is a large mass of water nearby.

BTW I have a free standing air conditioner that is seeing some use now and in principle I would use it as the temperature drops, to heat a room for an hour or two.

My main source of winter heat but it's surprising how much wood I get through, it's a modern one but I quite fancy an electrostatic particulate scrubber for it.

Well people do use electric blankets and I do like my Gerbing 12V gloves when it drops below 5C outside.

Surely, they have a defrost cycle, which results in a lot of steam emitting from the outside unit and people have made calls to fire brigade thinking there is a fire.

Andrew formulated on Friday :

Where heat is output, rather than input..

For a short while, yes. But south of manchester we rarely get Swedish winter weather.

Can't they tell the difference between smoke and steam?

Theo's statement is pure ArtStudent?.

Throw enough money at a bunch of MScs and they will rewrite the laws of nature.

Actually I wouldn't go THAT far but imagine London full of air sourced heat pumps - and how much they would lower the winter street temperatures!

Correct.

Greta Thinks it is all Carbon Dioxide