Roger440

But as Steamy says, you can achieve huge gains for much less than you are talking about. Sure, it migh be "inefficient" compared to the best possible, but an 70% improvement, for releatively not much money is better than no improvement. If we really wated to do something practical, do an air tightness test on every house. Mark up every hole you find, report to home owner. Seal up the holes with foam, tape, whatever. The energy saving as a nation would be huge! For, essentially, bugger all money. Your all or nothing approach wont achieve anything like the same result. If perfection is the only allowable result, the vast majority of houses will stay exactly as they are. It will only be a small handful of people that contemplate a major refurb. That wont move the dial at all. Its this sort of thinking thats got us to the welsh scheme. A fraction of 1% of houses get £45k lobbed at them. The rest remain as they are. By way of example, the house i bought last year, as ive said, is a thermal catastrophe. However it was even worse than that. I cant put a % fugure on it as i hadnt been here long enough, but the air leaks were staggering. Fixing three transformed it. Soil stck pipe goes through kitchen, up through bedroom and out of roof. Problem was, so seal where it enters the roof. So cold air circulating down, inside boxing in bedroom, under the floorboard of bedroom, and behind the kitchen cupboard as not boxed in at all. The insulated plasterboard in kitchen just stopped at the soil pipe, so that cold air was behind the insulastion as well as in the kitchen. When it was windy, it was like a hurricane in the kitchen. 1 can of squirty foam later. Fixed. Loft hatch. Amusingly, this was insulated, but the gap around it meant a lot of air movement. Was very noticable when on a ladder painting. Beading installed around hatch and expanding foam tape fitted. NO air leak. There a flat roof extension with a colf roof arrangement. Air circulates as you would expect. Sadly the dividing wall to the hall is open to the roof void. So again, outside air circulating behind plaster board. Gap filled with rockwool. Id suggest trhat this is fairly typical. Indeed, based on my observations when looking for a house, not actually that bad at all. Saw plenty worse. To do the above was a days work. The effect, and hence energy saving large.

You said this before. I asked who would pay for this? You didnt repy. I can insulate my house pretty well for something between £20&30k. (wont be compliant to current regs as thats impossible. Lets just call it £40k for the sake of it. Thats going to make a big difference to my energy costs. A replacement house is going to cost me a minimum of £200k on a like for like basis. You may well be the dictator, but where is that kind of money coming from? Not from me, thats for sure. It would be a select few (rich) that would take advantage of that planning change. Edited to add, im going to have to live somewhere while i have no house, That comes at a fair cost for the time it takes to build and complete a house. a year? Assuming of course you can find a house to move into. Hint, there not thousands of spare, ready to rent houses. Im not sure you have thought this through..................................

Quite. My point entirely.

Assuming thats an outcome, which it would seem is possible, do you really think we can stop it. By buggering around with heat pumps in the UK? Really? We are 1% of the problem. If thats whats going to happen, we wont stop that. We will need to build a wall or relocate stuff. Refer to my investment suggestion. Though it will make us poor also, so cant imagine that will happen either.

And the only way to cover taking that risk on attaching stuff to used heating systems is either, replace everything, or jack up the price to cover those risks and inevitable call backs. Im not sure i see any reason why anyone should take that risk and responsibiluty for no reward. Bankruptcy is the only assured outcome if you do. Back to Daves "expensive" systems.

Sorry, Incoming electrical supply. theres already a house plus a big workshop attached to it. Rather marginal. A unique issue to me ill admit. Theres no way it would support heat pumps on both workshop and house. Unless i come up with some wheeze to manage the load of the workshop equipment V heating. Probably best ignore that aspect for the purpuses of the thread. Maybe i should resurrect my barn heating thread.

You answerred your own question! Grants. The end. MCS, just a cartel. More free money. All of which shows, no one in control is interested in the environmental aspect. Just how much money they can extract from the public purse and anyone else that wants to play the game. I dont know how you work out there no price penalty on a new installation though? Whilst my house is pre-existing, the workshop isnt. Still cheaper with oil, primarily as the capital cost is lower. Although in my case, the incoming supply is an additional factor. £17k + VAT to sort out. Which makes oil a no brainer. ASHP is more expensive to start with before you add £17k!! Just nuts. Bulk of which is non contestable work.

If i take little old me, i need to spend a hefty 5 figure sum. That i dont otherwise need to spend. I will need a car too. Another hefty 5 figure sum. The governments own, very loose estimates are £100 to 200K additional expenditure per household between now and 2050 to get to net zero. I dont have that kind of money to spare. Maybe others do. Good for them. I wasnt that smart. Maybe those smarter people can pay for my new heating, insulation and car? No? I thought not. Im not sure how your "moving capital" helps me or the average man on the clapham omnibus avoid that hit. And its direct affect on my life and living standards. Im all ears how i can do all those things without being worse off?

We could get on with it. But for no purpose as most countries wont. The planet is populated with humans. How humans behave is pretty well understood. The outcome is inevitable. Ive no idea how you get people to be voluntarily significantly poorer be some future far off unclear, uncertain benefit. But no, i dont believe we can stop it now. If we even ever could.

We cant deal with both. Most of the world will just carry on. We will just spend a huge amount of money to have no measurable effect. Focus on the consequences that are inevitable to some degree.

Didnt know they exsisted either. Sadly though, fumes inside an almost air tight room probably not good for my health. Shame, as theres a 1200 litre red disel tank the other side of the wall!

Hmmmm. Hadnt thought of that. Interesting.

No. We should be investing on dealing with the consequences of the inevitable. The idea that we can stop what will happen is for the birds. Eventually reality will set in, but again, it will likely be too late.

In my reply to your earlier post on this, it wont make an iota of difference what we do. My finances are limited. Ill wait for someone else to pay for me. Yes, of course, it will come from taxation, but as everyone else is on the bandwagon, im not paying tax for others to have a new system fitted and then pay again myself. If others feel the need/can afford, crack on. For me it would be north of £20k even doing a lot myself. Can buy about 25000 litres of oil for that. Circa 9kWh per litres. And no hard work. Currenmtly using about 1600 litres a year for heating and hot water in the house.

Agreed. The IR heater is no use in this scenario. No ToU tarrif here! So not an option sadly. Plus, ideally i want to be able to dial up extra heat remotely. Even though i said id never do that. Thats more tech than i want really.

Id be very happy with one too. But the price, not so much. They seem to have clamped down on self install unless its R290. Ie, you have to provide evidence who is going to do it. Getting someone in, makes it unviable financially as it more than doubles the cost. If i could do it myself as some here have done in the past i probably would. As someone on here who's name escapes me, had some difficulty getting his R290 system re-gassed as the certified engineers all ran away. But it is the only self install option.77If i could get an R32 system to install myself, i probably would.

Having done this at my last place, ive priced up doing it here. Even with me doing the bulk of the work, id be looking at best part of £5K to dig out, insulate anmd reinstate concrete. £5k buys you an awful lot of energy loss. If you have space, fit an overlay system, if not, just cut grooves in exsisting for the UFH. These guys will rent you the tool: https://www.boels.com/en-gb/hire/underfloor-heating-chaser-230-v/p/35221

I need a "stable" temp and humidity as all my stuff thats susceptible to corrosion will be in there. I aim to sit it at 12c except when im in it. So something like that isnt really suitable. Ive got a 3kw infrared heater i could use sitting in a box, but isnt really the right answser. i guess exc Insulation is OK. 100 mmPIR on walls. But 2 windows, one single glazed. Ceiling has an air gap (sealed) and 50mm PIR with office above. And a pair of double office doors into the main unheated part of workshop. It not to bad in there thermally except the doors and one window. Bit limited on doors as i need to retain the flat floor so i can wheel stuff in and out.

Ive spent 17 yearts running my own buisiness. The single biggest reason im not anymore, and we closed the workshop is because its wasnt possible to find, train and retain staff. Sure, some of them were technically capable, but unable to grasp the concept of employment. A few the reverse. Very few able to do both. We paid pretty well, resonable hours, didnt take the piss out of people, didnt expect unpaid work, didnt impose artifical restrictions, like degrees etc. Was still impossible. The reality is, the people we really needed, even if we could afford them, simply are not going to do dirty practical work. Why would they? They can earn plenty doing something easier and more comfortable. Same reason im no longer on the tools. Can i do it? Yes. But why would i, im capable of other things that are better rewarded. I could install heat pumps. Quite literally, nothing could persuade me to do that, in people houses, dealing with retail customers. I agree a lot of employers are unrealistic, and that doesnt help, but few younger people going through the system are going to do anything practical. If you do, you will be told, as indeed i was back in 86, that you are a failure. Thats a mindset we havent even started to tackle and would take a generation even if government could be persuaded. Feel free to theorise on the possible, but like i said, not going to happen.

Ill be dead long before oil/diesel ceases to be a thing. Im not investing on a timeline beyond 30 years. That for goivernments, not individuals.

Im on oil, so thats never going to happen, but lets assume it does. Having just been looking at A2A for my workshop*, its not going to £1500. But lets say, £2500. How is that going to combine with the heating thats there now? If they are 2 completely independt systems, which for the money we are talking about seemsd likely, how will i control it all? Im also not sure id want an air blowy thing in my living room either, but lets gloss over that too. And that my bedrooms will be cold. Yes, i would consider it. It is however, hypothetical, as electricity wont be allowed to be that cheap. Mainly because too much money is being made out of the current arrangements, and because, as already mentioned, the effect on the poorer amongst us of putting up gas prices. There is a significant chunck of the population who couldnt front up £1500 in one go. And of course that as electricity becomes a more scare commodity, prices will inevitably rise, not fall. As ive already mentioned, i think my best plan is to sit it out until someone else pays for it. Or get my income below £31k for a year. Then i can have loads of free stuff. £45k of free stuff. (31 + 45 comforatbly exceeds my income, especially take home) As targets continue to be missed, it can only be a matter of time. Probably get a free car at some point. Its not hard to see the direction of travel. People respond to the pressure and incentives before them. Its increasingly clear that why pay, if someone else will. For clarity, i think its madness and disagree at every level with that idea, but it is what it is. * Im struggling to justify even this v a direct panel heater on the wall as its only likely to have a 3 to 4 year life before i need to look at at something to heat other parts of the workshop as one entity. Probably oil! As its still by far the cheapest option even starting from scratch.

I presume you mean by vast costs, you mean the consequences of doing nothing? Even if we fitted every house in the country by next week, it will make not one iota of difference to anything. The consequences are coming regardless of fitting heat pumps or the other token gestures. This is in danger of drifting into a political arena, but i would be willing to bet a decent wedge of cash, it wont happen, even if we declare it must. There a significant pool of those people you refer to in buckingham. Trust me, none of those will be fitting any heat pumps. Ever.

You are correct that running water, even if loud doesnt irritate. Ive not really tried to understand why that is, but no amount of thinking traffic noise or a heat pump is calming will work. Because its not! ASHP's make noise. Thats unavoidable because of what they are. They are demonstrably not "quiet". They make some noise. However, some people are not bothered by it, some are. If i have to have one, it will be a long way from the house with shielding. It wont affect anyone else though, as there isnt anyone else.

Id suggest context is everything. In a town environment, probably not noticeable. In a very quiet rural environment, it will be noticable. At the last place i had a sewage treatment plant with a compressor. Which was buried, in a chamber with soundproofing. Used to drive me potty. Wife didnt understand what the issue was.

Lots an lots of good info on here. Should keep you occupied for many many hours.