Going Green isn’t easy

[IanB1485]

Gas boilers may not be phased out , they are starting to introduce hydrogen into the gas line in certain locations and modern boilers can be programmed to burn hydrogen and it can be produced carbon neutral, thats my hope.

 

[Buckman]

This a claim you have made previously, and you have drawn improper conclusions about why your heating is inadequate and blamed the system as not being "efficient" when that is probably not the case.

There is a growing body of irrefutable evidence that Heat Pumps can work, and when set up correctly they are also very effective and do reduce operating costs.

If your heating system cannot effectively provide the heat you want there must be some reason why it's not providing you with what you expect:-

• The system designer may have misunderstood what you expected your system to do.
• The system designer may not have understood the environmental conditions of your location.
• The system designer may have got the calculations wrong.
• The system designer has not specified the correct components.
• Environmental conditions may have deteriorated since the system was specified
• If you set a budget cap for the project, it might have precluded the use of correctly sized system components.
• The contractor may have not followed the specific design correctly.
• The contractor may have not been able to obtain or fit the optimum components.
• The contractor may have incorrectly installed some parts of the system compromising the overall performance.
• Some parts of the systems may be defective. or have worn possibly through improper use.
• Perhaps you do not understand how to use the system for its best performance.

I am very surprised that you state there is "a growing body of irrefutable evidence that Heat Pumps can work" when clearly they do not even when they are set up to the correct parameters. A vented or condenser tumble dryer takes 90 minutes to properly dry clothes. A heat pump dryer takes double the amount of time so does it really use less electric?

If we had our heat pump set to 20C it would be running all day to keep the temperature at 20C and it would have to work harder on really cold days. On really cold days it resembles a block of ice and goes into defrost mode. When running in defrost modem the heating in the home shuts down same as when the hot water is being heated up. When the defrost has finished, the home is a lot cooler and again the machine has to work twice as hard to bring the temperature back up again.

How is that efficient as that applies to all heat pumps? In the meantime your electric bill is rocketing. We are looking at an electric bill that is going to be north of £300 for this month! Remember that we only have the temperature at 20C between 6-9am and 4-10pm. The rest of the time it is at 17C. In summer our electric bill averages at about £100 per month.

 

[Oscarmax]

Most reviews comparing heat pump dryers compared to vented or condenser types seem to indicate 15-30 minutes per load increase in cycle time to dry a load. I wouldn’t see that as going backwards given the saving in electricity and gentler treatment of the fabrics. Given that there is no electric element I would be quite prepared leave it running whilst we were out. Plus we don’t run the laundry tasks like a production line, with items in the washing machine, tumble dryer running preparing items for ironing.

You have just talked me around, plus we could use the heat pump dryer off peak.

 

[Oscarmax]

Gas boilers may not be phased out , they are starting to introduce hydrogen into the gas line in certain locations and modern boilers can be programmed to burn hydrogen and it can be produced carbon neutral, thats my hope.

Our must be one of them major works in our area.

 

[JTQ]

I am very surprised that you state there is "a growing body of irrefutable evidence that Heat Pumps can work" when clearly they do not even when they are set up to the correct parameters. A vented or condenser tumble dryer takes 90 minutes to properly dry clothes. A heat pump dryer takes double the amount of time so does it really use less electric?

If it uses less than half the power during the running period it uses less "energy" & that's what you are charged for on domestic tariffs. So that would be "less electricity".

If we had our heat pump set to 20C it would be running all day to keep the temperature at 20C and it would have to work harder on really cold days. On really cold days it resembles a block of ice and goes into defrost mode. When running in defrost modem the heating in the home shuts down same as when the hot water is being heated up. When the defrost has finished, the home is a lot cooler and again the machine has to work twice as hard to bring the temperature back up again.

This to an extent implies the unit is undersized for the application as it is forced to drop to a low evaporating temperature. There however has to be some drawback with air sourced heat pumps in environs that are simultaneously high humidity and near freezing, where to counter icing up unit size would grow significantly.

Secondly if the house temperature drops "a lot cooler" during the defrost period so quickly, then the house is poorly insulated, suggesting not a suitable candidate for heat pump technology. But, also one that would have required more gas than a more insulated home.

How is that efficient as that applies to all heat pumps? In the meantime your electric bill is rocketing. We are looking at an electric bill that is going to be north of £300 for this month! Remember that we only have the temperature at 20C between 6-9am and 4-10pm. The rest of the time it is at 17C. In summer our electric bill averages at about £100 per month.

Being "efficient" is not the same as being "effective".
The cost depends on how much we pay for energy we need to buy in.
If you were heating on gas, then presently we pay considerably less for daytime energy quantity than we do for electricity.
With a heat pump, it gathers a significant part of the energy needed to heat the home from outside, thus requiring buying less energy in, however its the more expensive per unit electrical.
With gas all the energy needed has to be purchased.

 

[otherclive]

There seem to be differences of opinion wrt the effectiveness of heat pumps. They are widely used in Scandinavia where they are replacing electric heating. In Germany 74% of new builds have heat pumps, although the take up in existing properties is around 4%. One significant reason being that the cost and disturbance to install an effective heat pump system in existing properties can be too high for owners to bear. If the heat pump system isn’t designed and installed correctly with regard to the characteristics of existing properties it will fail to work properly, or be very expensive to run. A majority of British properties are notoriously poorly insulated and that makes them ill suited to heat pumps. Ours is very well insulated (EPC at C) but the constraints on water supply to the house currently rule out either a heat pump, or an upgrade to an unvented gas boiler system. Our next door neighbour (85) went through this 2-3 years back and decided just to replace the boiler, whilst a younger family in the close who WFH are moving to a new build with heat pump, and they will have solar panels and batteries installed. They felt they had reached the end of the road as far as upgrading their home without disproportionate expense and dislocation, for no real gain in capital value.

Which European nations are winning the heat pump race?

Nordic countries are way ahead when it comes to installing energy efficient heat pump systems.

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