New heating system

pyewoman

Is there a new heating system that doesn’t use gas as gas, they say, will be fazed out by 2025? The government will give a grant that off sets most of the cost for installation including new radiators. It’s heat air source renewable energy. 

Is this a scam or fact as I’ve had a man out to my home trying to convince me to sign up for this new initiative?
Any information will be welcome. 

[Deleted User]

Gas boilers will be around for many decades to come. Someone is trying to sell you a heat pump. This is not something that should be considered without a full appraisal of your present property by a person who understands and can calculate heat loss, and the need for much improved home insulation. To be efficient, a heat pump will need larger radiators as the system runs at a much lower operating temperature than a gas boiler. If you end up with a system that is ill suited for your home ( or if your home is ill suited for a heat pump) you can expect to pay very high electricity bills in the future. 

https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/advice/air-source-heat-pumps/

Reed_Richards

I have an Air Source Heat Pump which replaced an oil boiler.  I indeed had to also install new radiators and also a new hot water cylinder.  I get a government grant called the Renewable Heat Incentive which is paid every quarter for 7 years.  By the time it has finished it will have paid-off much but not all of my initial outlay.  This is not a new initiative, in fact it is due to be closed to new applicants after March next year.

At current prices the running cost of an ASHP will most probably be greater than that of a gas central heating system.  It is a greener option because overall you will use about a third of the energy but it will be electrical energy and electricity is an expensive energy source compared to gas.  Personally I would be very wary of anyone who tried to hard-sell an ASHP.  I have had one for six months and for me it has been fine and the running costs appear similar to those of my oil boiler.  But I had a very good installer who came back very promptly when I had teething trouble shortly after the installation.  Before the installation I also got quotes from companies who employ teams of fitters and I'm not confident you would get the good personal or after-sales service from that type of outfit.        

matelodave

I also have an Air Source Heat Pump but thats because I live where there isn't mains gas and so the alternatives are oil, LPG, storage heaters or bio-fuel (wood).

If I had mains gas then I'd stay with mains gas and if mains gas became available then I'd very likely swap my ASHP for a gas boiler. Not because I'm unhappy with my heatpump but because gas is a lot cheaper than leccy

TBH there really is no advantage in swapping a gas boiler for an ASHP, although you might recover some of the cost of the installation with the RHI, the running costs will still be around twice that of mains gas (assuming that the government dont try levelling up the cost of gas in the future)

Although the plans are to stop installing gas boilers in new builds from 2025 it does not mean that gas boilesr will disappear off the face of the earth and neithet does it mean that you should replace your boiler with a heat pump.

The best advice is to never ever let a cold caller give you a quote (or even let one inside your house) - only when you've done your own research and got several quotes from properly qualified MCS registered installers should you even consider changing your heating system and the best time to do that is when your existing boiler is beyond economical repair.

Reed_Richards

matelodave said:

TBH there really is no advantage in swapping a gas boiler for an ASHP...

This is the MoneySavingExpert forum and by "no advantage" @matelodave means no economic advantage.  Indeed economically you would be at a disadvantage as current running cost for gas heating are cheaper.  If the Government really does want to be carbon neutral by 2050 then sooner or later gas boilers will have to go, in the same way that electric and diesel cars will go.  It's hard to see how this will be achieved, beyond the 2025 ban in putting gas boilers in newbuild houses.   

Ectophile

There is a government grant for installing heat pumps.  But it won't anywhere near cover the cost of the install.  More like it will cover the difference between a new gas install and a new heat pump install.

Heat pumps are great if it's a bit chilly, and you need a little bit of warmth.  Whereas a gas boiler is up to 90% efficient, a heat pump can be as much as 400% efficient in mild weather (that's a "coefficient of performance" COP of 4, which means that for every 1 kWh of electricity you put in, you get 4 kWh of heat out).  But as the temperature outside drops, so does the efficiency.  It could be a COP of 2.5 or less in cold weather.

Given how much more expensive electricity is than gas, that means that heat pumps can be expensive to run in the winter.

Cardew

Stick with gas!!

It is a no contest in every respect.

As for 2025, a Government report stated:

:The proportion of dwellings with gas central heating has steadily increased from 73% in 1996 (14.8 million dwellings) to 85% (19.9 million) in 2014.

The latest figure I can find on Google states 23.7 million homes with gas heating.

The sheer logistics of replacing gas boilers, let alone the cost,  make it difficult to see this achieved before 2050.

Then there is the cost, which at present is around £15,000 per property(more if better insulation is required), will be a gross cost of £355,500,000,000(£355.5 Billion) that is around 3 times the annual NHS budget.

How much of that expenditure will have to be provided by the Government by way of subsidies? How many households can be expected to pay £15,000 and then have their heating costs triple or quadruple.

On a wider point if UK achieves carbon zero, how will we make China and India from opening a new coal fired power station every week! I read a report that stated that if the UK suddenly ceased to exist i.e. totally obliterated with no people/animals etc.the reduction this would make to the world's emissions, would last a year before the increased output from other nations would bring the world back to the same level.

Tallerdave

We'll be lucky if the smart meter rollout is complete by 2050!

Government has a habit of setting unachievable deadlines on things it doesn't understand, failing to meet them, moving the goalposts and then attempting to spin the unmitigated f*** up as somehow being positive. 

I'm waiting to hear where all the electricity for everyone's cars is meant to be coming from, never mind 24 million heating systems!!

Reed_Richards

Some people seem to get very het-up about paying a lot more money for a heat pump than for a gas boiler whilst not getting nearly so concerned about having to pay a similar extra sum to buy an electric car from 2030 onward.  That despite the fact that you replace your car much more frequently that you replace your boiler.   The average life expectancy of a gas boiler is 10-15 years so almost all gas boilers currently in use will be replaced before 2050.

What the Government might do, is introduce a "carbon tax" on CO2-generating fuels, rejigging the existing tax on petrol and diesel and slapping an extra tax onto gas  lpg and heating oil.  The country is so much in debt at the moment that the Government would be missing a trick not to do this.

macman

Gas is not being 'phased out'. New build gas boilers may cease in 2025, but there will still be millions of gas boilers required to replace old ones in the existing housing stock. 
What is more likely is that hydrogen will replace natural gas at some point between 2025 and 2050, which is a relatively simple conversion akin to what we did with switching town gas to North Sea gas in the 1970's. 
Heat pumps are not really a solution in existing houses, as the rads will all need replacing with larger ones due to the lower output from heat pumps.

Reed_Richards

macman said:

Heat pumps are not really a solution in existing houses, as the rads will all need replacing with larger ones due to the lower output from heat pumps.

I have done that (replaced all the rads in an existing house) and it's really not difficult; any plumber could do it.  We seem to have droughts every few years; do we have enough extra fresh water to make all the hydrogen that would be needed?