Sunday 30 April 2023

HEAT PUMPS DEBATE - THE PROs AND CONs

Will the public accept the change from gas central heating to heat pumps? This is one of the vital changes which the government want to bring in to cut CO2 emissions in the home heating sector. The following article looks at the calculations of the capital and running costs. 

Are Heat Pumps Cheaper To Run? Don’t Believe Octopus! | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com)

5 comments:

  1. In our cottage we upgraded from electric based board heat to a heat pump for the entire house. The cottage comes up to temperature quicker than the baseboard and is cheaper to operate. By being electric, society can and will move to more and more clean energy in the future. What ever negative effects there are in using FF for our electricity will reduce over time. This also sets the market for the direction of using electricity for home heating in an economically sustainable way as well as an environmentally sustainable way.

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  2. The general consensus seems to be that heat pumps do not work unless the house is very well insulated as they cannot produce heat quickly enough, particularly in the coldest weather. I was speaking to someone the other day who had a heat pump and he said it was useful as an addition to his oil heating.

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    1. One of our community neighbors has a heat pump for her small home and loves it. Our cottage has a heat pump also and can be controlled from home. A few hours before we leave, we turn the heat up and walk into a warm home. For the electricity value, there is around a 3 or 4 times more energy provided for heating than what the electricity would do itself.



      https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/guides/heat-pump-buying-guide/

      Heat pumps are good for your wallet—and the world.

      They’re the cheapest and most efficient way to handle both heating and cooling for your home, no matter where you live. They’re also better for the environment. In fact, most experts agree they’re one of the best ways for homeowners to reduce their carbon footprint and reap the benefits of a greener future without sacrificing comfort. In other words, they’re a win-win.

      “We’ve come to see climate solutions like paper straws as being something worse than what we’re used to. But there are some places where everyone benefits, and I think heat pumps are a good example of that,” said Alexander Gard-Murray, PhD, a political economist at Brown University and co-author of 3H Hybrid Heat Homes: An Incentive Program to Electrify Space Heating and Reduce Energy Bills in American Homes. “They’re quieter. They offer more control. And at the same time, they’re going to reduce our energy demand and our greenhouse gas emissions. So it’s not just savings. It’s a quality-of-life improvement.”

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  3. You make it sound idyllic. I will ask other users and see what the majority think. One big problem is cost. They are still much more expensive to install, and need great deal of improvement to the insulation adding more cost. I think they will be hard to sell.

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  4. They are cheaper than putting in a brand new forced air system. I was watching some of the work that was being done installing our system. There are long tubes running the refrigerant to the indoor heads to either cool or heat. The two young men put it in, in two days.

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