Dillsue Posted January 21, 2023 Share Posted January 21, 2023 16 minutes ago, larry said: I'm pleased that our gas consumption has already decreased from approx 24000 kWh/year to about 10000 kWh/year. Of course I'm pleased for both the cost benefit and the environmental one. I know in the grand context of things such a saving is a drop in the ocean, but it's the drop that I have control over! Good on you. Its your drop that matters but most people dont realise that 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 21, 2023 Share Posted January 21, 2023 16 minutes ago, larry said: I don't have an ASHP. In fact I first started asking questions on forums when I was considering getting one. The advice I was given was completely sound. Don't, until you've done as much insulating as you can do. I don't really understand that, the impression given is that Heat Pumps CAN only work if the building is well insulated, and if it is not, then you must carry on with local combustion i.e. gas or oil. Everyone should be looking to improve the insulation and airtightness levels, regardless of their thoughts about the heating technology. As you say though. 19 minutes ago, larry said: I know in the grand context of things such a saving is a drop in the ocean, but it's the drop that I have control over Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radian Posted January 21, 2023 Author Share Posted January 21, 2023 7 minutes ago, SteamyTea said: I don't really understand that, the impression given is that Heat Pumps CAN only work if the building is well insulated, and if it is not, then you must carry on with local combustion i.e. gas or oil. Only understandable from a financial POV? At worse, provided the ASHP is sized to meet the losses, the COP should fall to no less than three on average throughout the year except possibly for HW usage in which case a COP 1 immersion heater might be taking over with higher running cost compared to combustion heating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 21, 2023 Share Posted January 21, 2023 2 minutes ago, Radian said: Only understandable from a financial POV Yes, but when you hear, constantly, that a heat pump only works in a well insulated house all context is lost. Most people would not have any idea if their house is well insulated or not, all they know is that it 'costs a lot to heat' and 'it is cold'. Then they generally don't know how much it costs or actually how cold it is. There are too many vague statements, that are presented as fact. Then ask someone to do a bit of work, like read the meter every day, and they get the huff. So energy must be too cheap if someone can't open a door and read a meter. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeSharp01 Posted January 21, 2023 Share Posted January 21, 2023 23 hours ago, Roger440 said: I see on here, people often saying electricity/energy is too cheap. This has been said here and seeing the statement out of context here sort of sums up the issue. As @SteamyTea points out it is, has been perhaps, so cheap that we have not focused on it in the bigger picture. There are several dimensions to the wider discourse here. Firstly, the planning system which itself has several dimensions. IIRC we had a discussion several years back about the need to revert to the much greener building standard that the current government (I get the difference between 'terms' but essentially the same government since Cameron) removed prior to 2016 - have I got that right? At any rate this would have meant several million homes, by now, would have been built using a lot less energy and perhaps the message would be plainer to the wider population. "Look at those people over there aren't they lucky to be living in one of these new homes with ultra low energy bills". In addition, planning is also stalling our ability to build on-shore wind farms and solar farms so we are not able to invest in RE at the rate we should. We are a mile from the Cleeve Hill / Project Fortress 880,000 panel solar farm and that has taken 6 years to get through planning and work started last month. (I wish I could buy solar panels at the price they will be paying!) Secondly there is the elephant in the room that nobody really talks about but @Roger440 hints at above. This is a simple, often missed fact, that RE systems still have a carbon footprint across their lifecycle. Even abundant free energy, as might (probably will be abundant but won't be free) be arranged from fusion reactors, is not going to be carbon free in the delivery of the power stations and wind turbines / solar panels have a carbon footprint as well. This implies that there is, as yet, no carbon footprint free form of energy generation so we should strive to use less of it wherever / whenever we can in my view. For instance even if they give the energy away from fusion, which they won't, I still would not wish to live in a swiss cheese house if it meant that there were 2 fusion power stations needed rather than one! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larry Posted January 21, 2023 Share Posted January 21, 2023 21 minutes ago, SteamyTea said: Yes, but when you hear, constantly, that a heat pump only works in a well insulated house all context is lost. Most people would not have any idea if their house is well insulated or not, all they know is that it 'costs a lot to heat' and 'it is cold'. Then they generally don't know how much it costs or actually how cold it is. There are too many vague statements, that are presented as fact. Then ask someone to do a bit of work, like read the meter every day, and they get the huff. So energy must be too cheap if someone can't open a door and read a meter. Agreed with all of this. And yes, sorry I don't want to perpetuate any unhelpful myths about heat pumps. The boiler makers are doing a good enough job of that without my help. (I guess I was oversimplifying my situation slightly. Old boiler needed to come out in any case so created a time pressure. ASHP install cost was much higher. Knew I'd make a big difference with insulation and wanted to avoid having an over specified ASHP). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 21, 2023 Share Posted January 21, 2023 44 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said: RE systems still have a carbon footprint across their lifecycle. Yes they do, and so do pets, with ownership at endemic levels in the UK. If the energy source for manufacture is as low emissions as it can possibly be, then the problem becomes smaller. It also has to be remembered that the planet, our one and only home, needs a certain amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. 250ppm is considered a sensible level, 420ppm is not. Now some people think that a slow, gradual, warming of the planet is not a problem. It is, if you take the anthropogenic view, and I think we should, that if we are to survive as a species, then we need to have predicable weather, and weather is affected by the climate. The alternative to this is that we can quickly move people around the planet so that the most basic industry, agriculture, can take place in the most suitable places. Well good luck on that happening. The Ukraine is a vast agricultural region, the next region, because of climate change, may well be Russia. Do you want to deal with them for your food supplies, or change something now i.e. reduce the risk of variable weather, by investing in the major cause of climate change? It really is bonkers that we have a planning system that stops the country 'doing the right thing'. During the pandemic, AZ I think it was, build a factory outside Oxford to manufacture vaccines. They did this without planning permission, but hoped because of the national emergency it would be granted. As you say ( @MikeSharp01) if a solar farm takes 6 years planning, just think how much energy that could have produced. It is 360 Ha, 3.6 km2, or 0.00148% of England's land area. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeSharp01 Posted January 21, 2023 Share Posted January 21, 2023 Yesterday I fell into conversation with one of my plant science colleagues about the whole global warming / catastrophe thing and her most telling comment was that although see would not be happy to leave them the plants would be OK and would restore the balance without us - I suppose we might think about letting it come to that. I then speculated that then they can evolve back to us, or something similar, in a few billion years. At which point her concern would need to be how to preserve her research so they could find it after such a period. OK so here is a challenge - how to preserve something and so arrange it that it can be found in a couple of billion years - I know bake it into one of my mums rock cakes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 21, 2023 Share Posted January 21, 2023 6 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said: how to preserve something and so arrange it that it can be found in a couple of billion years Easy. Been done years ago. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/2007/06/sending-secret/amp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeSharp01 Posted January 21, 2023 Share Posted January 21, 2023 2 minutes ago, SteamyTea said: Easy. Been done years ago. Yes but the DNA has got survive and be finable, the whole planet will be so overgrown, loads of plant DNA, needle / haystack doesn't come close to the scale of the problem. Of course you could make trillions of copies and scatter it about everywhere but even then.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 21, 2023 Share Posted January 21, 2023 (edited) 9 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said: Of course you could make trillions of copies and scatter it about everywhere but even then. I think the plants will do that on their own. Thing is, do we really want to show how horrible we were. History is an odd thing. We have romantic notions about Henry 8th, mainly for breaking away from the Catholic Church, but he was a complete bastard that killed his wives. The thing about transitioning to RE, us that we will see the benefits right away. Edited January 21, 2023 by SteamyTea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger440 Posted January 21, 2023 Share Posted January 21, 2023 11 hours ago, larry said: Ouch? In the context I was talking about the general benefits to the world/society. I don't think it's too contentious that an ASHP will produce a unit of heat for less CO2 than a fossil burner. And I don't think it's wrong to consider that a benefit. But, no, that's not my situation. I don't have an ASHP. In fact I first started asking questions on forums when I was considering getting one. The advice I was given was completely sound. Don't, until you've done as much insulating as you can do. That was a few years ago and since then "operation insulation" has been in play. I work full time and my budget is not huge, so I'm doing most of the work and learning as I go, whilst living in the house, and life is busy, so the pace is slow, and there is loads to do... And lots of unexpected issues... but I'm pleased that our gas consumption has already decreased from approx 24000 kWh/year to about 10000 kWh/year. Of course I'm pleased for both the cost benefit and the environmental one. I know in the grand context of things such a saving is a drop in the ocean, but it's the drop that I have control over! Im going to ask the obvious question. Given that you are insulating, and have achieved a good result, why install the ASHP when you already have gas? I assumed that you were talking a new installation. Doing so will give you a significant capital cost AND higherf running costs given the price of eletricity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger440 Posted January 21, 2023 Share Posted January 21, 2023 10 hours ago, MikeSharp01 said: This has been said here and seeing the statement out of context here sort of sums up the issue. As @SteamyTea points out it is, has been perhaps, so cheap that we have not focused on it in the bigger picture. There are several dimensions to the wider discourse here. Firstly, the planning system which itself has several dimensions. IIRC we had a discussion several years back about the need to revert to the much greener building standard that the current government (I get the difference between 'terms' but essentially the same government since Cameron) removed prior to 2016 - have I got that right? At any rate this would have meant several million homes, by now, would have been built using a lot less energy and perhaps the message would be plainer to the wider population. "Look at those people over there aren't they lucky to be living in one of these new homes with ultra low energy bills". In addition, planning is also stalling our ability to build on-shore wind farms and solar farms so we are not able to invest in RE at the rate we should. We are a mile from the Cleeve Hill / Project Fortress 880,000 panel solar farm and that has taken 6 years to get through planning and work started last month. (I wish I could buy solar panels at the price they will be paying!) Secondly there is the elephant in the room that nobody really talks about but @Roger440 hints at above. This is a simple, often missed fact, that RE systems still have a carbon footprint across their lifecycle. Even abundant free energy, as might (probably will be abundant but won't be free) be arranged from fusion reactors, is not going to be carbon free in the delivery of the power stations and wind turbines / solar panels have a carbon footprint as well. This implies that there is, as yet, no carbon footprint free form of energy generation so we should strive to use less of it wherever / whenever we can in my view. For instance even if they give the energy away from fusion, which they won't, I still would not wish to live in a swiss cheese house if it meant that there were 2 fusion power stations needed rather than one! Ok, free electricity is an unachievable utopia. But where we are now is bonkers. And yet, even on here, this month ive seen the statement its too cheap. I know 3 people who have closed or are closing the doors on their business because the energy costs have increased so much. And set to increase more in April when subsidy ceases. Taking to the guy who runs the nearby pub. They are 3 days a week max, and kitchen for 2 hours in the evening only. Simply cant afford more. No idea what he will do come April. Close up for good i suspect. Theres a lot worse to come as more buisness realise they cant cover the costs. And thats before the crazy rates rises. Prob best for another thread. So i would suggest my statement is not out of context. Its just a statement. Does anyone really think that at the current level any good can come from where we are heading? For those who say its too cheap, welcome to a situation where stuff cant be done anymore because energy costs are crippling. Meanwhile, seems everyone elses (other developed nations) costs are significantly less. As i said earlier, pegging electricity to gas prices is an artificial construct whgich the government allows to continue. And no one is challenging. Only Ripple energy look to be doing something, and thats way to complicated. I get that the demographic on here is probably in the top 10% of countries population, and so can probably afford to shrug their shoulders and pay up, but most of the country cant, at least not without a significant drop in living standards. Energy is NOT to cheap. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 21, 2023 Share Posted January 21, 2023 48 minutes ago, Roger440 said: Taking to the guy who runs the nearby pub. They are 3 days a week max So are we at the moment, not unusual in the catering/hospitality sector. Pubs are now really restaurants, the days of the regular drinker are over in most places. Thousands of pubs have closed down over the last 20 years, some numbers here: https://beerandpub.com/statistics/pub-numbers/ You have to distinguish between discretionary spending and essential spending. Hospitality depends on discretionary spending. It has also suffered from a lack of labour, much has been said about Brexit being to blame, I am not sure if that is right or not, not been the case down here, no idea what happens up country, still got the same Europeans working in the Aylesbury Costa last time I was in, shall check tomorrow if I have time. There is also this affect that many over 50 have chosen to work part time or give up work entirely. I am in the group and highly recommend it. I don't feel the need to work full time to buy new things. I have enough, and that is enough. There are some industries that have been effected by high energy prices, but that is not exclusive to the UK and what I agree is an odd pricing system we use for electricity pricing. The chemical industries are suffering globally, but their profitability won't. More on energy prices here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/articles/energypricesandtheireffectonhouseholds/2022-02-01 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger440 Posted January 21, 2023 Share Posted January 21, 2023 28 minutes ago, SteamyTea said: So are we at the moment, not unusual in the catering/hospitality sector. Pubs are now really restaurants, the days of the regular drinker are over in most places. Thousands of pubs have closed down over the last 20 years, some numbers here: https://beerandpub.com/statistics/pub-numbers/ You have to distinguish between discretionary spending and essential spending. Hospitality depends on discretionary spending. It has also suffered from a lack of labour, much has been said about Brexit being to blame, I am not sure if that is right or not, not been the case down here, no idea what happens up country, still got the same Europeans working in the Aylesbury Costa last time I was in, shall check tomorrow if I have time. There is also this affect that many over 50 have chosen to work part time or give up work entirely. I am in the group and highly recommend it. I don't feel the need to work full time to buy new things. I have enough, and that is enough. There are some industries that have been effected by high energy prices, but that is not exclusive to the UK and what I agree is an odd pricing system we use for electricity pricing. The chemical industries are suffering globally, but their profitability won't. More on energy prices here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/articles/energypricesandtheireffectonhouseholds/2022-02-01 Im only too well aware whats happening I run a business that largely dependant on discretionay spending. Spending is down because essentials are up. Most notably, energy. My point is, it doesnt need to be as bad as it is. It appears to be a policy decision to make people suffer. Yet no one talks about it. Pub guy was very specific about the electricity cost. Nothing much else has changred for him. Husband and wife team, no other staff. Good to hear you recommend retirement. I am working on bringing mine forward. You cant buy time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dillsue Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 16 hours ago, Roger440 said: My point is, it doesnt need to be as bad as it is. It appears to be a policy decision to make people suffer. Yet no one talks about it. I dont think its a policy decision intended to make people suffer, but more a policy decision for other reasons that some people are as a consequence suffering. As we've got a climate crisis to sort out, personally Im quite comfortable with the hike in energy prices to focus the 1st world on cutting consumption. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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