Me: To tell my children I did what I could to halt climate change.
Business: Helping households take action to decarbonise their homes & spend budget wisely.
You can save 6-8% on your gas bills by turning down the 'flow' temperature on your condensing combi boiler.
We help you understand if you have the right type of boiler & show you how to do it simply and safely yourself.
#howlowcanyouflow
#dialitdown
Why is solar PV not mandatory for new build homes?
When I do see some panels on a new development, it doesn't cover the roof. It is a suggestion of sustainability, a nod, the bare minimum.
Why aren't new homes all designed with south facing roofs?
Easy wins missed time & again
A hydrogen boiler needs x6 more electricity than a heat pump to create the same amount of heat for the home
A boiler using green hydrogen needs 100kWh renewable electricity to produce 46kWh of heat
A heat pump turns 100kWh electricity into 270kWh of heat
Why do we need to move to heat pumps?
Because its the only way back the ultra low heating bills we enjoyed 3-4 yrs ago
Gas will never get us there
Heat pumps cut how much energy we use to heat the home by 65-75% & electricity prices will fall as we shift to renewables/nuclear
Condensing gas boilers are low temperature systems.
If we had known that, been advised that, for the last 17 years, we could have upsized radiators at natural points of replacement.
1) We've had burnt less gas, and
2) We'd have a housing stock ready for heat pumps right now.
Electricity generated from wind/solar is 62% cheaper than gas fire power stations by 2025 and 77% cheaper by 2040, according to Gov's latest Electricity Generation Costs
The only way back to low electricity prices is more renewable electricity generation
Great graphic from
@nesta_uk
piece:
150GW of renewable electricity from 6 windfarms to create 70GW of domestic heat from green hydrogen
26GW of renewable electricity from 1 windfarm to create 70GW of heat from heat pumps
Also, green hydrogen, not ready
Record on decarbonising homes:
2012 insulation subsidies scrapped
2014 Green Deal failed
2014 Green Deal Home Improvement Fund run out after 6 wks
2015 Zero Carbon Homes scrapped
2020 GHG scrapped
2022 Less than 6,000 BUS vouchers issued
We need substantial & consistent support
This is so cool! Roof-mounted heat pumps being tested by Bellway Homes at
@energy_house2
@ehl_salford
We need more house builders leading on this stuff rather than lobbying to delay implementation
Thanks for sharing the article
@Eastreadingcom
@ngterry5
Sticking with the roof-heat-pump theme, I was tagged into this linked in post...
A chimney stack heat pump - coined it here first.
AKA Bosch on-roof heat pump, not a lot of information available... but you can ask Darren Burrage via the link:
Thanks
@BBCRadio4
#YouandYours
for flagging our guidance on how save ££ with a few adjustments to your condensing combi boiler
83% of condensing boilers are C-E-Rated in the home, not A-Rated. Equivalent to just 75-85% efficient
Our tips to clawing back some efficiency here🧵
9,888 heat pumps fitted since May 21 under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme against a target of 30,000 annually.
In 2020, France fitted 400,000 heat pumps v UK 37,000!
We need must more community level support & advocacy on this, as well as a workforce!
Wow, a data centre can produce enough surplus heat to run a public swimming pool about 60% of the time. What an excellent innovation & it's given for free. 7 more pools have signed up. Swimming pools are really struggling financially & this is a lifeline!
EXCELLENT article on how a heat pump works, complete with animation - take a look inside the box!
Heat pumps turn one unit of electricity into four units of heat energy, hence why they're 300-400% efficient. Gas boilers are just 75-85% efficient.
High temperature heat pumps are now pretty standard and improvements in refrigerant means they give decent efficiencies at higher temperatures. You don't need a really well insulated home or bigger radiators, but both improve efficiency & cut demand.
Really delighted to appear on
@BBCNews
to talk about boiler efficency, energy crisis & the need to PERMANENTLY reduce bills through insulation & optmised heating systems. We're all incredibly anxious about this winter. Our free tools can help ease the pain
Boiler Upgrade Scheme given some life blood! Funding more than tripled from £450m to £1.545bn
That's 206,000 grants of £7.5k for households moving to a heat pump. Running until 2028
A clear signal that the future is heat pumps, not hydrogen boilers.
Pass it on!
It has landed!
Great British Insulation Scheme:
Grants for properties in council tax bands:
A-D (England)
A-E (Scot/Wales)
Home must be: EPC D-G
Covers:
Wall insulation
Flat & pitched roof insulation
Floor insulation
Check your eligibility here:
Marketing smoke & mirrors of hydrogen-ready and hydrogen-blend-ready is already misleading households & installers. Hydrogen is not coming for domestic heating. Talk of it does lock us into gas boilers for longer & delays economies of scale for heat pumps
Do you have a Worcester or Ideal combi boiler?
Is the pre-heat switched on?
Boilers use around 900kWh per year to pre-heat the hot water supply. Many boilers are set to ON
Turn it off to save 5-10% on your gas bills. Latest blogs added to our Mission👇
Households can save 6-8% on their gas bills with a lower flow temperature (
@HHIC
)
15 million combi boiler households can stay warm for less this winter
This how-to guide accompanies collaborative video
@Sero_group
@betateach
@AbigailDombey
@MLiebreich
8 of 10 MPs back mandatory solar for new build according to a YouGov poll. How is it not already mandatory to get 3-4kW of solar on every new build? Even better require that houses are designed with sufficient south facing roof to accommodate this array
Boiler oversizing is a near universal malpractice. It reduces efficiency by 6-9%, which is as bad as high flow temperatures & on/off controls. Typical heat loss for UK homes is 6-10kW. Its now mandatory for boiler installers to carry out a heat loss calculation. Ask for a copy!
Lots of confusion around the £2,500 price cap. This is the average household energy cost, NOT the most you will pay. It's the unit rate that is capped: 34p per kWh electric & 10.3p per kWh for gas. Your total bill can still be over £2.5k if you use more gas & electric. 1/4
Great coverage from
@SkyNews
, who have exposed misinformation campaigns to villify heat pumps & mislead consumers over hydrogen-readiness of boilers. 2024 is the year when these pernious, delaying tactics end, but it will take longer to reverse the effects
In 2020 I used 14,167kWh of gas.
I increased loft insulation, draught proofed, blocked an open fire place AND optimised my boiler and heating controls.
This has cut my gas use by 50% to 6,942kWh pa!
A new boiler would cost x4 more for little benefit
Permission granted for new oil field off coast of Shetland
This is oil, not gas, that will mostly be exported or sold at the market price
This is not a strategy that helps at all with the cost of living crisis.
Emissions = 200m tonnes of carbon dioxide
Heat-pump-myth bingo!
"people would struggle to heat their homes"
"You’ve got to have mega insulation"
"electrification feels like it’s for the privileged"
"struggle to see how you electrify a flat"
1/2
Heat pumps in flats are tricky. Works if you're ground floor with a garden, hard if you only have a balcony (but can be done). Most likely your block will join a heat network, with a large heat pump supplying the block or multiple blocks, like this one!
Excellent analysis of why we are so bad at heat pumps
We fit 1.9 per 1000 households compared to Finland (69) France (20) Ireland (10)
Why:
Industry lobbying
Scrapped zero carbon homes from 2016
Bigger levies on electricity tariffs
No one-stop-shop help
Housebuilders saved £15B not building to low carbon standards, when 2016 regs were pushed back 9 yrs. Now the consultation for the Future Homes Standard, which will ban fossil fuel boilers in new homes from 2025, is delayed. Due March, now end of the year.
Heat pumps operate efficiently at ultra low temperatures in Finland & Canada, where they've been fitting them for decades. If heat pumps are less efficient in the UK, its because they are fitted poorly. A legacy of on/off boilers blights our progress
I thought the 'heat pumps won't work in older homes' assertion was debunked with the Electrification of Heat project, which concluded:
"There is no property type or architectural era that is unsuitable for a heat pump"
TQ for flagging
@chargergraphics
New build heating systems always challenge my generally optimistic disposition!
Customer this week:
2 yr old home
4.9kW demand on -2°C day
No solar
Perfect for small heat pump
Fitted:
35kW combi boiler
Min output: 7.1kW
Too big for home
Overheats & cuts out
So house never warm
Sir John Armitt says £7.5k boiler upgrade grant is not enough.
He argues for 100% funding for housing associations and councils and a grant + zero-cost financing for owner occupiers.
Biggest barrier remains cost of electricity compared to gas however.
Most homes need 6-8kW on a cold day. The average heat pump size is 10kW.
The cost of oversizing is:
Financial: £1,381 (NB this is at 0% VAT)
Physical: the outside unit is twice as big
Ongoing: the heat pump will cycle and cost more to run
👇
Conservatives have ignored 47 independent studies that rule out home hydrogen
Can they ignore
@NatInfraCom
“Gas boilers need to be phased out & replaced by heat pumps. There is no public policy case for hydrogen to be used to heat individual buildings”
You can choose your kitchen, bathroom, carpets. Some housebuilders offer solar panels, but none offer a choice of heating system. Gas boilers should have been banned in 2016, they will continue to be fitted until 2025. That's 1.7m extra gas boilers .
New build homes never cease to disappoint or infuriate me
Needed:
3 year old home
4kW peak demand
10 litres per minute flow rate
Got:
40kW combi boiler
7.2kW minimum output
15.8 litres per minute flow rate
Cycling on & off
Never condensing
BIG plumes
Was ready for a heat pump
Finally shelving hydrogen for home heating will not be a cause for mass redundancy, as suggested in this rather odd video. Two fifths of gas engineers will retire in the next decade. In their place will be installers that never worked with gas, having gone straight to heat pumps.
I'm in Redcar, where last week the government abandoned trials of hydrogen for home heating.
Scrapping these trials puts the future of the gas industry and tens of thousands of jobs at risk.
Politicians must be honest about the realities, and the exorbitant cost, of heat pumps.
The gas industry continues to present to consumers with some certainty that hydrogen boilers are coming, despite studies that show hydrogen will cost househilds 70-300% more in fuel bills and it produces nitrous oxides that cause respiratory illnesses.
New energy price guarantee
Electricity limited to 34p per kWh. Gas to 10.3p per kWh
Average household gas bill 12,000kWh = £1,200 pa
Average electricity bill 2,900kWh = £986 pa
Spend £400 subsidy on gas boiler efficiency to save c£180pa, 2-yr payback
A timely reminder that to electrify heat & cars, we urgently need grid capacity. 12-14 yr wait for infrastructure connections is too long, but can be cut to 7 yrs with better compensation for landowners. This is where we need to funnel funding, not home hydrogen feasibilities.
Twitter/X flagging misleading Telegraph claims that heat pumps are unsuitable for UK homes.
Why do we find an innocuous heat source so objectionable!? 🤔
'The cheapest energy is the energy you don't use', a familiar expression that sensibly formed the central tenet of the Energy Efficiency Taskforce, sadly disbanded yesterday. Can't even imagine why. Its task to reduce household bills is far from finished!
Just heard
@williehaughey
@BBCRadio4
say that electric boilers cost less to run than heat pumps & gas boilers
In this example:
Gas boiler: 10,000kWh x 7p kWh = £700pa
Equivalent running cost:
Electric boiler: 8,500kWh x 29p kWh = £2,465pa
Heat pump: 3,000kWh x 29p kWh = £870pa
Formal notice from Gov that from 23 Oct 23, grants for fitting air source heat pumps will increase from £5,000 to £7,500. Likewise ground source.
For most homes this will form a 50% contribution, reducing typical installation costs to £2,500 - £7,500.
🏘️1/6
Boiler flow temperatures relate to outside temperatures & should be varied through the winter months
The lower you go, the more money you will save
Guide for most homes:
Oct/Nov: 50°C
Dec: 55°C
Jan/Feb: 60°C
March 55°C
Apr: 50°C
How to video here
Increasing the heat pump grant from £5k to £7.5k has massively increased applications for the funding
This one small dial turn has stimulated interest & made fitting a heat pump more accessible to more households
Demand is there, it just needs unlocking
Employees quitting Shell & other employers over their environmental policies
Early rumblings that dinosaur companies will struggle to attract an increasingly value-led workforce
Don't underestimate how much we want 'what we do' to matter for the future
If you have double glazing & loft insulation you can reduce the operating temperature of your *combi* boiler to save upto 8% on your gas bills. Your boiler is likely to be set at 80°C, drop it to 60°C. All in the turn of a dial. Modern homes can go lower.
0% VAT on batteries fitted independently of a solar PV array from 1st Feb.
Great news for those who already have panels.
If you have an EV (or plan on getting an EV) or hot water cylinder, you could divert surplus electricity there first.
Awareness is rising thanks to
@DeborahMeaden
.
15 million homes with a combi boiler can benefit from this.
6-8% saving on your gas as standard, up to 16% reported by some households!
Can you Whatsapp
@MartinSLewis
to do the same Deborah :)
Onshore wind viable about 7m/s or 13.6 knots, some at 5.5m/s or 10.7 knots. I would vote for a local onshore wind farm. I think they're beautiful. Even if I didn't, better that than India burning and the Maldives sinking.
Thrilled to announce our merger with tech start-up
@warmurhome
We’ve spent 3 yrs pioneering personalised heating advice & building a network of top-tier installers
This merger is a huge step towards scaling our services & making the transition easier & fairer for all
🧵
We don't have hydrogen ready boilers, we have hydrogen-mix ready boilers. Big boiler installation companies are deliberately fudgy. I struggle to look at these sites, with their biased and misleading marketing content in the form of 'advice', but it desperately needs tackling.
Are we really rejecting onshore wind because it spoils the view for some people? A view that will one day be less green & pleasant land & more partched spoilt crops. For those that live near power stations & electricity pylons, this is very inconsistent.
Game-changing technology from new HotSat-1, which can read & display a level of heat loss detail from buildings not achieved before
Biggest heat loss buildings can be targeted & the quality of new insulation assessed! No hiding poor workmanship/cut corners
Despite a solar PV boom it is still surprisingly rare
Upfront cost is a factor
Could energy suppliers not part-pay for the installation & take the surplus electricity?
A contribution of £3.5k per house = £77 billion
We've spent that in energy subsidies
"A typical house gets seven times as much energy through the gas mains as through its electricity connections." Sir Robert's reasons for sticking with hydrogen
But heat pumps only need a 1/4 of the energy & can be partially offset with solar PV/batteries
Worcester, Baxi Vaillant & Ideal threatening to increase the cost of their boilers by £95-120 from 2024 in protest over selling more heat pumps. Suprised at Vaillant who lead the way on heat pumps. So buy Viessmann, ATAG, Intergas, Alpha boilers instead
It is because we found some solice in the concessions that permit onshore wind (with community backing) that solar farms are now for the axe? As pointed out by many others.. golf courses take up more land/benefit the few & sheep can graze around the panels
The opportunities for future proofing cannot continue to be missed.
Gas has a long tail, we can be upsizing radiators instead of fitting new gas boilers that don't save us any money and certainly do not payback in their lifetime.
Excellent blog
@WhichUK
on the shortfall between advertised boiler efficiency (92-94%) & that achieved in the home (75-85%). Also advocating not buying a new boiler to save money
90% of homes have an A-rated boiler, a new boiler won't cut your gas bills
Heat pumps from
@OctopusEnergy
for £2.5-£3.5k, upto £7k with radiator changes, & cylinder I guess. Fantastic innovation! Mixed feelings over a 'price war' with
@BritishGas
. Competition & economies of scale yes, race to bottom, no. Or just good media story?
Under the new price caps of 34p kWh for electricity & 10.3p kWh for gas, it is cheaper to run a heat pump than a gas boiler, even at 3.0SPF
Fit a heat pump or use your £400 subsidy to make your gas boiler run more efficiently. We're impartial & can help:
We need 50,000-100,000 heat pump installers to retrofit homes.
38% of women surveyed said they wished they'd learned a manual job and would if they had their time again.
There has never been a better time to be part of a rapidly changing sector.
Average household heating emissions pa: 2,745kg (EST)
Turn a dial, press a button on your *COMBI* boiler to reduce the flow temp to 60°C & save around 6-8% on your gas bill, or 192kg of CO2
Approx. 14m condensing combi boilers
2.7 million tons CO2 saved
Heat pump grants were only going to subsidise installs for 90k households, but apparently it's on track to deliver just half by 2025
What we lack is Gov commitment & a huge consumer info piece. In other EU countries this has been done at community level
Is this a typo
@BritishGas
?
Save up to £1,151 pa by fitting a new boiler
Over 90% of homes already have an A-rated boiler, most are C-E in the home
You fit Hive controls, which do not automatically adjust the flow temperature on any boiler. How can any be A-rated?
Savings= £0
Applications for the government’s Boiler Upgrade Scheme tripled in the week after the heat pump grant was increased to £7,500.
In other news, the number of MCS-certified heat pump installers has reached 4,000, with 1,700 certified in 2023 alone
Wind turbines on motorway lamp posts that can generate as much electricity as 21 sqm of solar panels. What a wonderful invention! Utilising what we have to better effect is the easiest to adopt, cheapest to impliment and affords the best relative gains.
A householder on
#youandyours
@BBCRadio4
was advised that he needed two large heat pumps to replace his 30kW boiler + 3 phase supply
Boiler outputs are not representative of a home's heat requirement. He likely needed one 12-14kW heat pump
25 mins in 👇
So fascinated by these developments. Couple of start ups building refriderant-free heat pump cores using soundwaves to geneate heat. Can reach 80°C temps & apparently no on/off cycle, which I assume means efficiency is less dependent on long/low patterns?
We have a free PDF flyer with step by step instructions for turning down the flow temperature on your condensing combi boiler. Request via our website . Put it through your neighbours' doors, help an elderly relative
#howlowcanyouflow
#spreadtheword
The average UK home needs just 6-8kW of heat on a sub zero day. Yet we routinely fit 30kW boilers that cost us more to fit:
Vaillant ecoTEC plus 12kW - £1,075 v 30kW - £1,557
Worcester Greenstar i 12kW - £986 v 30kW - £1,332
Extra cost of £482/£336
Tax breaks for heat pump owners would flip the running cost from the same as a gas boiler today to around £130 cheaper
Electricity prices are one of the biggest barriers to take up
It would also help direct electric households, 25% of which are fuel poor
Hydrogen "will not play a major role in home heating"
Welcome clarity from energy minister
@MartinCallanan
, who added "there is no way it can be practically achieved"
With more certainty on electrification comes demand, economies of scale & lower costs
20% of homes won't run on an individual heat pump, but they will run on communal heat pumps.
Whether its taking heat from deep bore holes or from a body of water, heat networks will play a role in dense urban areas and off-grid villages.
This brilliant summary brings us right up to date on: heat pump capabilities, planning blockers, consumer confidence, absence of unequivocal policy direction & low installer take up. Good to have this in one place. It's very clear what needs to happen.
Getting out to a wider audience. Channel 5 is airing a whole hour of cost-of-living advice later this month. My part covered boiler stuff, obvs, but also my slow cooker & National Trust membership. £6 a month family pass, loads of sites, flask of tea & a picnic & take the dog.
Gov caving to what the Energy Minster describes as price gouging by boiler manufacturers, who threatened to pass on fictional fines to consumers to avoid increasing heat pump production, blaming sluggish demand, caused by hydrogen misinformation campaigns?
Why oil boilers should be phased out from 2026:
>Heat pump prices to reduce 25-50% by 2025
>Cost oil boiler + new tank = heat pump cost
>High temp heat pumps already more efficient
>Insulating grants available for off-grid homes
>No risk of fuel theft!
Households get free hot water from computer servers, smart. Energy waste is huge and is often just discharged to the environment. Finding direct ways to utilise waste heat is so important.
HSE require 4x4 inch permanently open vents in Redcar hydrogen trial
Such huge draughts will increase heat loss & gas bills
NGN say they'll use detectors instead to sound an alarm, & what? Evacuate, open a window?
No-one would want this forced upon them
A North Yorkshire well that was drilled for fracking but never used is being tested for extracting geothermal energy with the potential to supply 300 homes
Another 680 wells could be converted in the UK & new wells are believed to be cost effective to add
Lots of current thinking on heat pumps in this
@Telegraph
article:
>>You may not need to upgrade insulation
>>Heat pumps can be cheap to run
>>Check if your home is 'heat pump ready' by turning down the flow temp on your boiler:
Just took part in
@bbc5live
discussion on heat pumps following Lords Committee review
I was joined by a local installer who is not yet fitting heat pumps. Installers have such an important advocacy role to sell heat pumps yet they are totally unconvinced
Heat pumps deemed "unaffordable" for villagers in old homes with oil boilers. Not mentioned:
>Grants are available for insulating older, off-grid homes
>Heat pumps run at higher temps & don't need big radiators
>Oil boiler + tank is expensive to replace
Most post-war 4-bed homes are suitable for a heat pump.
You will likely have insulated cavity brick walls & loft insulation, but both are low cost to add.
Lots of space for the outside unit, existing hot water cylinder that can be replaced.
We can help:
£150 billion on the untargeted energy support package (now to be reviewed by treasury) is £5,395 for every UK household. Money that should have been spent a decade ago insulating our homes. 2nd best strategy, spend it now. The average cost to upgrade from D-C EPC rating is £6,155
… the cost of the untargeted energy support package could hit £150bn, the government has spent a decade performing so badly on energy efficiency that it has united
@GreenpeaceUK
and
@CBItweets
in condemnation, it is unclear if there are plans for an energy saving campaign…
Hailed as a setback to net zero, Whitby hydrogen trial scrapped
"Scheme abandoned following opposition from residents who preferred gas boilers & heat pumps"
Misinformation that we can keep our combi boilers is delaying economies of scale for heat pumps
Hydrogen is too expensive & inefficient to heat homes & will only be used where electrification is not possible, according to the Commons Science & Technology Committee
Maybe green hydrogen will work in 20-30yrs, until then, fit renewable heating systems
Excellent news!
We will get a £25 million public info campaign with 8 changes that will save up to £420 per year, incl. turning down boilers & thermostats, switching off radiators in empty rooms (close the door on those rooms!) & taking showers not baths.
I asked the audience
@FullyChargedShw
'what size boiler do you have'
Answer: 15-36kW (not combis)
Avg. home needs 6-8kW. We know this for heat pumps because the avg. ASHP size is 10kW
But still too big! A legacy of oversizing affects efficiency & price
Energy prices are rising today to 10.3p per kWh gas & 34p per kWh electricity.
NB If you use more than 12,000kWh gas & 3,100kWh electricity you will pay more than £2,500 pa.
Our latest blog summaries the easy wins for reducing your heating bill. 🧵1/9