New boilers & insulation make little difference?

enator

Interesting article in the Guardian where the EST now admits that cost savings for insulation could be as low as £15 a year & a new boiler £70, making payback uncertain.

I can't post the link, but it's in today's Guardian in the Money section.




In a devastating blow for the government's controversial Green Deal programme, an analysis of the figures by a leading environmentalist suggests that the annual savings from loft insulation on 21,000 homes tracked by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) have been around £15.50 a year, compared with the "up to £180" figure promoted by government bodies.
The Energy Saving Trust, part funded by the government, has told consumers that a new boiler will save between £105 and £310 a year. Its figures are the gold standard in the energy industry, and have been widely used in adverts by companies such as British Gas to persuade householders to spend thousands of pounds replacing an old boiler. But the DECC figures suggest that the typical annual saving on bills has, in reality, been closer to just £70 a year.

Gloomendoom

Here is the link...

The energy efficiency 'savings' that are just hot air

Energy Saving Trust to downgrade claims for savings on new boilers and loft insulation

malc_b

If you work out the heat loss for a house this isn't really a surprise ( I accept of course that MP don't have maths skills). They always quote how much an improvement you get from a house with no insulation. So take a pitched roof with no insulation (U~2), and one with 250mm (U ~ 0.2), say that is £180 saving. But if the roof has 25mm of insulation then U ~ 1, so that has halved the saving straight away (£80) and how many houses have no roof insulation? If you have 75mm then U~0.5 and saving is £30.

My prediction for next surprise is that these things like hive don't save as much money as they say they will. Because you need a really poorly insulate house to see the savings, same as all others figures, they pick the worst case not the typical. If you have a well insulated house the temperature doesn't fall much when the heating is off. If the temperature inside the house doesn't change much, whether your heating is on or off, then the heat loss over a day doesn't change much either. And the CH cost per day is the cost to replace the heat lost per day, which is not the same as how long it is on for.

Robwiz

I was sceptical about the benefits of replacing a non-condensing boiler with a new one.

It's widely predicted that condensing boilers have a life expectancy of 10 years.

At £3k to supply and install, that's £300 per year depreciation which would have to save a lot of gas to be worthwhile.

Ectophile

£3K to supply and install a new boiler? Assuming that you already have a heating system to connect it to, I would expect it to be £2K tops if fitted by a local company.

reeac

My neighbours' new [oil] condensing boiler cost £3k 2-3 years ago and they're very cost conscious. I'm sticking to my 16 year old n/c boiler as long as it remains trouble-free.

Cardew

I posted this some years ago:

Also that there is very little to go wrong with the old type boiler, but plenty to go wrong with the modern condensing boilers that are stuffed full of electronics and it seems that 10 years is a reasonable life expectancy.

The
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors stated recently :

The
average cost of installing one of these modern boilers is £1,720, but saves on average just £95 off people's gas bills." See:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...erts-warn.html

For some reason the EST always seem to exaggerate savings in this field.

The average gas customer uses 16,500kWh pa.(that includes those cooking with gas) This at 4p/kWh will cost £660 pa. before discounts for dual fuel, payment by DD etc

So if the EST's estimate of average saving per household is £300 'Based on a saving of 25% gas usage'. the figures simply don't add up.

Even many 30+ year old boilers according to SEDBUK have an efficiency of 65%.

On another thread the EST estimate on savings for 'silver' paper lining behind radiators was proven to be a nonsense - the savings on any house with a cavity wall will be a few pence per year.

Robwiz

Ectophile wrote: »

£3K to supply and install a new boiler? Assuming that you already have a heating system to connect it to, I would expect it to be £2K tops if fitted by a local company.

If only. My actual quote from a highly recommended, local Gas safe registered installer was £3126. That's for a Worcester Bosch Greenstar 27 RI. System and gas are already there but he's added in a new Alpha pump, 3 new 2 port valves and system flush.

If you can recommend someone who'll do it for £2k please get in touch.

missprice

Interestingly I have just been looking at an EPC for a house I could be buying soon.

It made me laugh though.

Apparently if I installed a wind turbine approx cost 1.5 to 2.5k I could save the grand sum of........ £49 per year. Although it does not state what size turbine, so I had mental picture of giant huge turbine in back garden

And similar stuff for solar panels/solar hot water, thousands spent to save less than £100 a year. But the funniest was cavity wall insulation, at a cost of £1000, to £1500, and save a whole £19 per year. It would take far too long to recoup the cost to my mind.

malc_b

So you're not keen on a 50-75yr pay back
(ok for pendants that does ignore rising fuel costs vs potential interest earned)

Presumably this house is fairly modern then. Cavity wall insulation is usually cost effective on older houses with brick and breeze-block walls. Later houses with celcon walls have much lower U to start off with.

missprice

Am off later today to have a look at it, will see if I can find an age for it. But probs its a 80s. The EPC said that cavity wall insulation (unknown if installed) would save.
Same with loft, not even looked.

Personally I want a giant wind turbine, I reckon none of the neighbors will mind either the size or the noise