What no one tells you about heat pumps till you try to get one
They all said I was mad, particularly my friend Tomasz, who advises me on all my home improvements. ‘A heat-pump, Sue — you of all people?’ when I ventured the idea to him
He had a point. I hate being told what to do by the over-reaching nanny state — which never misses an opportunity to bully us into going ‘green’.
But the email I had received from an energy company back in March contained a proposal that seemed too good to turn down: a £5,000 government-funded contribution towards a new ground-source heat pump to warm my home.
Britain is supposed to be fully ‘net zero‘ by 2050 — and getting rid of our gas-guzzling boilers is meant to be a vital step towards this ‘carbon’-neutral utopia.
So installing a heat pump, even one normally costing £11,700 — ‘just’ £6,700 with a discount — seemed like the obvious thing to do.
In case you’ve missed the memo, heat pumps use electricity to ‘capture’ heat from outside (from the air or ground), amplify it and then transfer it to your home. They’re far more energy-efficient than clunky old gas boilers, and the Government has pinned its hopes on them to meet its net-zero targets.
Rishi Sunak and the laboriously named Department for Energy Security and Net Zero hope to be installing 600,000 of them every year by 2028. (They’ve got a long way to go: in 2021, just 55,000 went live — and last year wasn’t much better.)
New gas boilers are meant to be consigned to history by 2035 — but in an indication of the controversy that swirls around green technology, only this week the housing secretary Michael Gove said ‘we need to review’ that deadline.
(Under extraordinary proposals by the SNP, Scots actually face being blocked from selling their homes unless they swap gas boilers for heat pumps.)
Overall, heat pumps seem to be the clear direction of travel — the only question is how long it will take us all to get there.
Thus I was suffused with a warm feeling of righteousness, the kind the green lobby must enjoy all the time, when I signed on the dotted line for a new taxpayer-subsidised heat pump back in March.
If you can’t beat them, join them, I thought.
I kept my plans quiet from my family, and most of all from Tomasz. I knew that he would say, as a sensible young man from Poland — which suffered hard times under Communism where ‘make do and mend’ was the mantra — that it was a terrible waste of money.
What was wrong with my old boiler, he would ask with a disapproving frown. Well, nothing, to be honest — and it’s not even old. It was installed in 2018 when I spent thousands on a complete rebuild of my Victorian terraced house on the borders of Chelsea in West London to turn it into the next-best thing to an eco-home.
When I replied to the energy company’s unsolicited email offering me a £5,000 rebate towards a new heat pump, I received a swift reply on first-name terms.
‘Hi Sue,’ it began. ‘Thanks for your interest in making the switch to low-carbon heating. I’m pleased to offer you a standard heat pump install for your property for £6,700 … to help you get it as soon as possible.’
Upon receipt of my £500 deposit, a survey team would inspect my home to see if it was suitable for a heat pump and — in a phrase that I should have spotted as a red flag — ‘what radiator changes will be necessary‘.
By this point, I was rather keen on the heat-pump idea. I didn’t notice that warning about radiators or the sentence that said: ‘If your home turns out not to be suitable … we’ll let you know why and refund your advance.’
The email was signed off the rather toe-curling phrase: ‘Love and Power’. Off went my £500. Within days, I received a call to say I would be pushed up the list for an inspection even though the company was ‘very busy’. A date for the visit was duly set.
In April, the team appeared: two nicely spoken men in dark-blue boiler suits, one of whom was carrying a laptop. I was confident that installing my new heat pump would be a breeze. After all, just five years earlier, a design company had spent six months taking my house back to its original brick walls, raising every ceiling.
Down went wood floors with new underfloor heating and in went double-glazing. The roof space and cavity walls were pumped full of new insulation, while a bedroom and bathroom were cleverly crafted in the loft.
But the two engineers didn’t look happy. After half an hour inspecting my property, they told me that the lookalike Victorian designer radiators in my boudoir (which also cost a mint) would have to be replaced by industrial-style metal boxes, each four times as big as the existing radiators. I began to have a sinking feeling.
It got worse when I was told the pump itself would be an ugly lump that would make a fairly loud noise. It would further take up a fifth of my little garden which, five years ago, had also been given a designer makeover.
‘It will ruin the place,’ I protested, as I looked at the area the men had chosen as the site of the pump opposite my olive tree and next to the outdoor dining table.
‘You could paint it,’ said one of the engineers slickly, as though he had met my kind of resistance before. ‘But you can’t box it in to hide it, or grow plants over it, or the pump will stop working.’
I wondered how I would dare ask Tomasz to paint it. For I knew I wouldn’t be wielding the brush.
Then, after spending hours looking at their laptop and scratching their heads, the engineers dropped another bombshell. I might need planning permission to have it installed.
I live in a conservation area. When I looked at my fiendishly fussy local council’s online ‘planning portal’, I saw it was littered with applications to install heat pumps in my neighourhood. Not all had been approved, and some were heading for appeal.
Even then, I was convinced it would still be fine. After all, if my house, with all its new mod cons and top-spec insulation, wasn’t suitable for a heat pump, what property would be?
Millions of people all over Britain are going to need these pumps: rows of city terraces like mine, enormous country piles, windswept seaside bungalows and the rest of them. Many will have gaping windows, draughts under the front door, and no insulation in the walls and roof.
Will they be expected to update their homes first to make them eco-friendly? Will the lure of a government-funded £5,000 discount on a bog-standard heat pump be enough to lead them into a new green paradise?
Finally, after several sleepless nights, I confessed to Tomasz what I was doing. From the shaking of his head, and his raised eyebrows, I deduced that he strongly disapproved.
‘They seemed very knowledgeable,’ I said defensively of the energy company’s engineers, as I fretted how my bedroom would look with three industrial heating units beside my mother’s delicate Georgian chest of drawers.
Then, in May, I got a letter from the ‘Love and Power’ people. It was all over.
A refund of my deposit would be issued at some point in the future, delayed by ‘some sickness’ in the finance department.
‘Unfortunately, there were a few issues preventing us going ahead with your property,’ they wrote. ‘Firstly, your heat loss was above our limit. We measured the total heat loss to be 18.8kW, our upper limit is 10.8.’
They added (with little regard for grammar): ‘There was also concern with the potential heat pump location recycling its own air due to available space around it, as well as concerns on how we could deliver the heat pump to the designated install location (due to lack of access through my narrow front hallway out to the back garden).’
I had failed the heat-pump test on three counts. My bid to go green had lasted all of eight weeks. ‘I think you made a mistake,’ Tomasz said to me a few days ago, with a superior air. He was right as usual.
‘You did get your £500 back, I hope?’ he added. I answered yes — very quietly indeed.
See more here thisismoney.co.uk
Some bold emphasis added
Editor’s note: this rather suggests that when the government does ban gas boilers, people like Sue Reid will be left with houses with no form of heating at all.
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Tom
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Green energy is the epitome of stupidity as the result of fake global warming.
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Lorraine
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If only critical thinking were applied the “man made climate change” hoax would be revealed for the scam that it is. That’s one reason it’s no longer taught in schools. It’s dangerous to would be tyrants.
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Boris Badenov
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When the head of IPCC says that a 1.5c POSSIBLE raise in temperature is a joke, it’s time to realize that the wheels are falling off that electric bus.
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Howdy
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It isn’t subsidized by the govt, taxpayers foot the bill, without consent may I add.
All that outlay on insulation and it’s not enough. Another example of the money pit that is ‘green’.
There is an alternative that’s no less silly – Eat a packet of polo mints and breathe profusely, so the warm feeling in your mouth propagates the residence…
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Jerry Krause
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Hi readers of Sue’s article,
Sue trusts others to make to make practical decisions for her. She began: “They all said I was mad, particularly my friend Tomasz, who advises me on all my home improvements.” Then we read: “What was wrong with my old boiler, he would ask with a disapproving frown. Well, nothing, to be honest — and it’s not even old. It was installed in 2018 when I spent thousands on a complete rebuild of my Victorian terraced house on the borders of Chelsea in West London to turn it into the next-best thing to an eco-home.”
Before beginning her home improvement project it seems neither asked the fundamental question: What might be the most economical way to heat the house in about 2018?
And neither do the the three commenters.
Have a good day
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Howdy
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“And neither do the the three commenters.”
It wasn’t about choices made in 2018, it’s about current solutions and trying to be ‘green’ when it’s a fake.
You didn’t include yourself either, which you need to do since you didn’t answer it also. That makes 4.
“What was wrong with my old boiler – Well, nothing, to be honest ”
A common sense, logical choice at the time. Nobody needs to answer your question that does not exist and is in the article allready.
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Lorraine
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Hello Jerry. I not commenting on efficiency or Sue’s choice of a heat pump to heat her home.
In the southern US where I live they are used quite efficiently since we don’t have extreme or extended periods of cold. My comment was directed to Tom, with whom I an in agreement.
AGW is a hoax, there’s no such thing. Climate is dynamic, it changes naturally over time, warming and cooling since the origin of the planet. Human beings have nothing to do with it.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Lorraine,
You just wrote “Climate is dynamic”Hence climate does not exist. Only weather (temperature, wind, precipitation, solar radiation, volcanic activity, continental drift and other natural phenomena exist.
For the universe is a very dynamic place.
Have a good day
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Lorraine
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If you’re making a point about climate versus weather, it. appears to be only weather exists as an experienced phenomenon. Climate is the accumulated record of weather over time.
That would mean weather patterns would have to dramatically change in order to alter the historic climate of a geographical area.
At least that’s my interpretation. Therefore since human beings can’t change the weather, they can’t change the historical record of predictable weather patterns.
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Jerry Krause
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Yes Lorraine, my point is that since climate does not exist, it is senseless to discuss anything about it as if did exist I admit I sometimes forget and do as you have just done.
I like the word ‘normal because at some place at some time it is normal that the weather of one day can be quite different from previous while at another place and time the weather of next day can be the exact same of the previous.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Lorraine,
Climate is determined by the energy coming from the sun and the position of the Earth. Weather is how that energy is distributed on the planets. The climate in Arizona is different than the climate in Antarctica because the amount of incoming energy at those locations is different. Water is the primary means that energy is distributed. Even though the Sahara Desert and the Amazon Rainforest receive the same solar energy their weather is totally different.
Herb
(You were missing about 25% of your e-mail address which is why you suddenly had only 2 posts when you really have 2541 posts) SUNMOD
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VOWG
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Silly discussions about climate and weather can wear one out. Memo to all: You can’t have one without the other.
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Jerry Krause
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VOWG, you wrote: “Memo to all: You can’t have one without the other.”
I generally agree with you, but I cannot accept ‘average’ anything. What instrument do you use to measure ‘average’?
Relative to temperature, the only factor, relative to the idea known as global warming, one can calculate the ‘mean’ of the air temperature of the previous hour. However, one could only report the maximum and minimum temperature of that previous hour and these two measured temperatures would provide more information about the change of temperature during that hour than the mean temperature cannot do.
Have a good day
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Paul
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After spending some hours watching youtubes on old and modern gasifiers I think they are a reasonable solution. Modern Gasifiers are very efficient at converting wood chips, pellets, paper, cardboard, manure and more into quality heat with little CO2 in a properly running unit. They come in all sizes from huge industrial units supplying power for thousands of houses and businesses and heating whole neighbourhoods to small domestic units, running automatically for days on end. Interesting concept is that the carbon burnt up is replaced all the time in sustainable forestry. Netzero is achieved!
This video shows modern European industrial units and some home sized ones too.:
https://www.youtube.com/@gengaz-lagunov
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Paul
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After spending some hours watching youtubes on old and modern gasifiers I think they are a reasonable solution. Modern Gasifiers are very efficient at converting wood chips, pellets, paper, cardboard, manure and more into quality heat with little CO2 in a properly running unit. They come in all sizes from huge industrial units supplying power for thousands of houses and businesses and heating whole neighbourhoods to small domestic units, running automatically for days on end. Interesting concept is that the carbon burnt up is replaced all the time in sustainable forestry. Netzero is achieved!
This video shows modern European industrial units and some home sized ones too.:
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Jerry Krause
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My cousin, an just emailed this to me and I believe it might help readers understand VOWG and what I write.
99% of those born between 1930 and 1946 (worldwide) are now dead.
If you were born in this time span, you are one of the rare surviving one percenters of this special group.
Their ages range is between 77 and 93 years old, a 16-year age span.
INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE 1% ERS:
§ You are the smallest group of children born since the early 1900’s.
You are the last generation, climbing out of the depression, who can remember the winds of war and the impact of a world at war that rattled the structure of our daily lives for years.
You are the last to remember ration books for everything from gas to sugar to shoes to stoves.
You saved tin foil and poured fried meat fat into tin cans.
You can remember milk being delivered to your house early in the morning and placed in the “milk box” on the porch.
Discipline was enforced by parents and teachers.
You are the last generation who spent childhood without television; instead, you “imagined” what you heard on the radio.
With no TV, you spent your childhood “playing outside”.
There was no Little League.
There was no city playground for kids.
The lack of television in your early years meant that you had little real understanding of what the world was like.
We got “black-and-white” TV in the late 40s that had 3 stations and no remote.
Telephones were one to a house, often shared (party lines), and hung on the wall in the kitchen (no cares about privacy).
Computers were called calculators; they were hand-cranked.
Typewriters were driven by pounding fingers, throwing the carriage, and changing the ribbon.
‘INTERNET’ and ‘GOOGLE’ were words that did not exist.
Newspapers and magazines were written for adults and the news was broadcast on your radio in the evening (your dad would give you the comic pages when he read the news)
New highways would bring jobs and mobility. Most highways were 2 lanes (no interstates).
You went downtown to shop. You walked to school.
The radio network expanded from 3 stations to thousands.
Your parents were suddenly free from the confines of the depression and the war, and they threw themselves into working hard to make a living for their families.
You weren’t neglected, but you weren’t today’s all-consuming family focus.
They were glad you played by yourselves.
They were busy discovering the postwar world.
You entered a world of overflowing plenty and opportunity; a world where you were welcomed, enjoyed yourselves.
You felt secure in your future, although the depression and poverty were deeply remembered.
Polio was still a crippler. Everyone knew someone who had it.
You came of age in the ’50s and ’60s.
You are the last generation to experience an interlude when there were no threats to our homeland.
World War 2 was over, and the cold war, terrorism, global warming, and perpetual economic insecurity had yet to haunt life.
Only your generation can remember a time after WW2 when our world was secure and full of bright promise and plenty.
You grew up at the best possible time, a time when the world was getting better.
More than 99% of you are retired now, and you should feel privileged to have “lived in the best of times!”
If you have already reached the age of 77 years old, you have outlived 99% of all the other people in the world who were born in this special 16 year time span. You are a 1% ‘er”!
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Jerry Krause
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P.S. Einstein is said to have stated”. “The only source of knowledge is experience.”
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