U.K. Heat and Buildings Strategy, £450m available to homeowners

[MrCurry]

So U.K. govt has unveiled its “Heat and Buildings Strategy“ which allocates £450m of budget to providing homeowners with a £5,000 subsidy when they choose an energy efficient heat pump boiler instead of a gas boiler, in the hope that by 2035 no gas boilers are being installed.

A heat pump uses a compressor to capture heat from the source and deliver it into the house where it can circulate around the existing radiator system. This is like a fridge using a compressor to take heat from inside the fridge and delivering it outside and it’s way more efficient than if you just used electricity to directly warm up heating water like an immersion heater does.

Will it work? Is £5k enough and will the heat pump manufacturers just set their prices so they’re exactly £5k higher than a gas boiler when they might otherwise have been more competitive? Most of all, with electric prices rocketing sky high, will the running costs of an electric heat pump system measure up against traditionally fairly cheap gas? Yes, gas is also pricey at the moment, but air source heat pumps are only efficient when ambient temps outdoors are 5C+. Get some minus temps in winter and your electric usage with a new air source heat pump can go thru the roof.

One thing‘s for certain - British Gas will be rebranding themselves sometime soon and moving into the heat pump installing business!

 

[souljacker]

These things cost 15k so 5k discount still leaves it out of reach of normal people. A gas boiler is about 3k iirc which is still a major outlay for the average household. They are also massive and require a hot water cylinder.

Basically, if you are rich and live in a big house, they are great. If you live in a flat on a low salary, they are impractical.

 

[MrCurry]

These things cost 15k so 5k discount still leaves it out of reach of normal people. A gas boiler is about 3k iirc which is still a major outlay for the average household. They are also massive and require a hot water cylinder.

Basically, if you are rich and live in a big house, they are great. If you live in a flat on a low salary, they are impractical.

And yet the govt strategy unveiled yesterday makes it clear they are seen as the way of the future for the U.K.

How sure are you of those numbers? £15k sounds ridiculous for an air source heat pump system for a normal sized house. A ground source heat pump that needs a 160m deep borehole in the garden, maybe. Mind you, it’s only the boiler cost which comes into the comparison, not the whole system installation cost (since a heat pump shouldn’t cost more to install than a gas boiler AFAIK).

Also, this is a strategy to set the direction to get to zero gas boilers by 2035, so how things look right now will change a lot. For sure they will not be only for “rich people in a big house“ for long.

 

[WouldBe]

The house needs to be very well insulated as well so that's extra expense on top.

On the plus side if you're handy with tools you could install it yourself as it doesn't use gas.

 

[MrCurry]

The house needs to be very well insulated as well so that's extra expense on top.

On the plus side if you're handy with tools you could install it yourself as it doesn't use gas.

I’m sure house insulation improvements will be a further part of the strategy, but not sure it’s true to say the house “needs to be very well insulated“ for a heat pump to work.

Heatpump systems will come in various sizes so if the BTU output of the heatpump matches that of the gas boiler which would have been installed then house insulation isn’t relevant. If you are improving insulation at the same time as installing a heat pump then you’d be able to have a lower output boiler I suppose.

 

[BristolEcho]

How does this work with private landlords? All the plans sound potentially good until you realise that it requires landlords who often don't want to to replace relatively cheap things let alone whole boiler systems for more expensive options. I've not seen anything that addressed this when I read it yesterday. Same issues with insulate Britain.

 

[souljacker]

And yet the govt strategy unveiled yesterday makes it clear they are seen as the way of the future for the U.K.

How sure are you of those numbers? £15k sounds ridiculous for an air source heat pump system for a normal sized house. A ground source heat pump that needs a 160m deep borehole in the garden, maybe. Mind you, it’s only the boiler cost which comes into the comparison, not the whole system installation cost (since a heat pump shouldn’t cost more to install than a gas boiler AFAIK).

Also, this is a strategy to set the direction to get to zero gas boilers by 2035, so how things look right now will change a lot. For sure they will not be only for “rich people in a big house“ for long.

15k was the price quoted on the segment on PM on Radio 4 last night.

 

[MickiQ]

When we had the extension built we replaced the boiler not least because the wall it was attached to had to be knocked down. The new one was a condensing boiler unlike the one it replaced. We had the house insulated at the same time and despite the fact that the system had to drive four more radiators it used 30% less gas than before. That boiler was itself replaced two years ago and our gas consumption again fell by something like 10-15%. Perhaps a better idea would be to spend this money on replacing older boilers and insulating houses and encourage if not compel the use of heat pumps in new builds (along with mandatory EV chargers). I understand that modern boilers can handle up to 5% hydrogen in the gas so I would think there needs to be intiatives to improve that.

 

[marty21]

We had a new gas boiler installed last winter , cost about £4k all in . I'm not shelling out again for a long time hopefully.

 

[Sprocket.]

No doubt British Gas will be telling all their Homecare customers that parts are no longer available for their current boiler and they may as well upgrade now for a reasonable fee.
Bastards.
I found this out from my local gas installation engineer when replacing my boiler last year.
He knew that no local engineers would touch my previous boiler as only British Gas were snatching all the customers up who had that model. Apparently when the boiler company upgraded to new models British Gas bought all the spares available in the country and scrapped them.
Bastards.

 

[cybershot]

I'm probably due a new boiler soon, current one is 17 years old! (moved house, slightly annoying as only forked out for a new one 3 years ago)

Would love to move away from gas but as a single person household even with the discount, I can't afford it. I'm not even sure double+ income houses can unless its also going to drastically reduce your bill, which I guess it won't? (without taking into account current energy price rises)

 

[moochedit]

Isn't it expensive on the leccy bill?

 

[moochedit]

Do they require annual services? Always a pain with my gas boiler as it is behind my washing machine which i have to remove for the gas engineer to get to it.

 

[hitmouse]

I reckon they should ask their mates in the DUP for some tips on how to incentivise people to switch to renewable sources of heating.

 

[skyscraper101]

Pure speculation but perhaps the strategy behind this is to get wealthier households to jump at the opportunity to get a free £5k to upgrade to a heat pump, which in turn will create the scale required to bring down the cost for lower income households in the long term.

 

[what]

Isn't it expensive on the leccy bill?

Likely to cost you 2 to 3 times as much to run as gas.

 

[nogojones]

Pure speculation but perhaps the strategy behind this is to get wealthier households to jump at the opportunity to get a free £5k to upgrade to a heat pump, which in turn will create the scale required to bring down the cost for lower income households in the long term.

Remember who's doing this and think, is this a rational concept that will improve peoples lives, or are they just bunging their mates £450 mill?

 

[Elpenor]

These things cost 15k so 5k discount still leaves it out of reach of normal people. A gas boiler is about 3k iirc which is still a major outlay for the average household. They are also massive and require a hot water cylinder.

Basically, if you are rich and live in a big house, they are great. If you live in a flat on a low salary, they are impractical.

See also various tax breaks for electric cars which attract a huge premium compared to ICE cars and don’t really have a second hand market.

 

[WouldBe]

Do they require annual services? Always a pain with my gas boiler as it is behind my washing machine which i have to remove for the gas engineer to get to it.

Heat pumps (air source) are mounted outside so easily accessible. The ones I looked at recently also had the control panel attached to the heat pump so if you needed to adjust the temp or heating times you had to go outside to do it.

 

[skyscraper101]

Remember who's doing this and think, is it this rational concept that will improve peoples lives, or are they just bunging their mates £450 mill?

Oh I know, I'm certain there wasn't some altruistic intention on the part of the Johnson government however, I could buy that the only way to achieve the kind of scale necessary to to get people converting en masse would be to kick it off by incentivizing the middle to higher income households first. Market forces an all.

 

[moochedit]

Heat pumps (air source) are mounted outside so easily accessible. The ones I looked at recently also had the control panel attached to the heat pump so if you needed to adjust the temp or heating times you had to go outside to do it.

My current gas boiler has a wireless remote control to set the thermostat temp. I would have thought simalar must exist for the electric ones?

 

[Leafster]

I’m sure house insulation improvements will be a further part of the strategy, but not sure it’s true to say the house “needs to be very well insulated“ for a heat pump to work.

Heatpump systems will come in various sizes so if the BTU output of the heatpump matches that of the gas boiler which would have been installed then house insulation isn’t relevant. If you are improving insulation at the same time as installing a heat pump then you’d be able to have a lower output boiler I suppose.

The focus should be on insulating the UK's homes first and then consider incentives to switch to cleaner heating methods after.

As many as 25 million homes in the UK use gas as their heat source. This £5,000 grant for Heat Pumps will only be available to 90,000 homes in the three year plan. It's a drop in the ocean. Even in these 90,000 homes, insulation should be considered first so there's no need to over-spec the heat pumps required. We need to reduce all energy consumption. Not just switch it from gas to electricity.

If grants were made for proper insulation first then not only would those who currently have gas heating also benefit but those who do switch to Heat Pumps will be able to get smaller systems. When you also consider the life cycles of heating systems, how many people will actually need to switch in the three year period of the Heat Pump Grant.

The only problem is that insulation isn't "sexy" so wouldn't grab any headlines.

 

[MickiQ]

Oh I know, I'm certain there wasn't some altruistic intention on the part of the Johnson government however, I could buy that the only way to achieve the kind of scale necessary to to get people converting en masse would be to kick it off by incentivizing the middle to higher income households first. Market forces an all.

Not in itself a bad idea but middle to higher income households are more likely to replace boilers more frequently and thus have more recent kit that they're reluctant to replace. My own boiler cost me 3 or 4 grand a couple of years ago, now that we're fast approaching the empty nest phase of our lives I can see Mrs Q and I selling up and moving to a smaller house long before the boiler needs to be replaced again which is the only point at which I might consider this. £5K grant or not, I'm not going to spend £10K of my own money just to reduce my carbon footprint.

 

[quimcunx]

Heat pumps (air source) are mounted outside so easily accessible. The ones I looked at recently also had the control panel attached to the heat pump so if you needed to adjust the temp or heating times you had to go outside to do it.

I could see this being tricky on a 3rd floor flat.

 

[JimW]

One of my old flats in the city was heated by a communal groundsource pump and was dirt cheap (flat fee and my landlord included it in rent) even with the much colder winters. Would be fantastic to see more of that.

 

[platinumsage]

As many as 25 million homes in the UK use gas as their heat source. This £5,000 grant for Heat Pumps will only be available to 90,000 homes in the three year plan. It's a drop in the ocean.

I think the idea is that this will help ramp up installation of these things, bringing the price down. Availability of installers is already tight at the moment - if they offered massive subsidies immediately there just wouldn't be the capacity for the vast majority of people to take them up. So I guess if it's done this way the wealthier pay more to be early adopters, helping to train up more installers.

 

[WouldBe]

My current gas boiler has a wireless remote control to set the thermostat temp. I would have thought simalar must exist for the electric ones?

Not that I could see.

 

[JoeyBoy]

I live in a block of 8 flats (owned by 3 different landlords) would we have one of those things for the whole block or one each? If it's a communal one who is going to pay for the leccy to run it? Who gets to decide when it gets switched on?
I leave my gas key out as long for possible to save on the standing charge but if one of these things heats the whole block then I can forsee many arguments as to when it gets turned on, who should pay for that, whose freeloading on other tenants leccy bills. Who pays for the thing to be installed anyway. The cheap cunt who owns mine owns four of the others and you'd expect him to pay five-eights but I know damn well he won't want to pay more than a third even if the council sends someone to break his legs to get him to pay anything.

 

[Sprocket.]

Typical Tories, if they can’t wipe us out with Covid and related illnesses ramped up by effect on NHS, they’ll just freeze us out.

 

[Leafster]

I think the idea is that this will help ramp up installation of these things, bringing the price down. Availability of installers is already tight - if they offered massive subsidies immediately there just wouldn't be the capacity for the vast majority of people to take them up.

Yeah, I get that. But it's only being offered for a three year period. Currently, around 30,000 Heat Pumps are installed annually. I can't see that a grant which is only available for three years and effectively only subsidises the existing level of installations will have any major impact on encouraging a greater uptake.

The government's own 10 Point Plan (from last November) states "We will aim for 600,000 heat pump installations per year by 2028" so how are they going to meet the shortfall? I accept that a grant might encourage some further uptake above the existing level of installations but is it likely to double it? I can't see that. Even if it did, then we'd see just a tenth of the government's stated aim of 600,000 per year.

One of the problems the installers of green tech continually face is that successive governments' strategy has always been very short term. They offer grants for a short period and make changes in what is or isn't covered. It doesn't make it easy for installers to plan ahead in terms of hiring and training staff, investing in equipment or developing technology when the market for their products could be drastically reduced at the whim of some policy change.