electric boilers are cheaper than heatpumps to run

[Mr Punter]

28 minutes ago, billt said:

survivorship bias

 

A few years ago I converted a Victorian building (150 years old?) back into 2 cottages.  It was a heap of rubbish, built from whatever come to hand.  The only reason it survived was that it was shielded by surrounding taller buildings.

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, saveasteading said:

Most 'nice' Victorian houses are terraced, built for the rising middle class of merchants and tradespeople, to proven designs, using quality materials

Were they built for sale or rental by a large, local employer?

[Iceverge]

2 hours ago, billt said:

What a lot of sweeping generalisations you seem to make.

 

I rather think that the Victorians did what every generation does build a mix of housing, good mediocre and terrible. If you were wealthy you could afford to get a good house designed and built for you. If you were poor you had to put up with whatever jerry built tat was available - just like today. (Jerry built - earliest usage believed to be 1832.)

 

(Qv survivorship bias.)

 

Sweeping generalisations are what I'm all about 😁.

 

Had to Google "qv"..... And survivorship bias. 

 

So what you're saying is that all the crap Victorian houses have been pulled down? 

 

 

[Roger440]

3 minutes ago, Iceverge said:

 

Sweeping generalisations are what I'm all about 😁.

 

Had to Google "qv"..... And survivorship bias. 

 

So what you're saying is that all the crap Victorian houses have been pulled down? 

 

 

 

By any measure of logic, any victorian house (or older) still standing cant be that bad. Might be a thermal disaster, but not a bad house.

 

[Roger440]

6 hours ago, dpmiller said:

so how would you propose pushing improvements to the housing stock?

 

I dont. Because there is no affordable practical answer.

 

Theres circa 26 million houses in the UK.

 

Id guess that at least 20 million are hopless from an efficency point of view. We have already concluded that updating the exsisting stock will have limited benefit even if it could be done well. Which it wont be. And it would take decades. And thats before we consider all the "new" problems with damp, mould etc that will be created. Or the cost. Lets say £40 - 50k a house.

 

Its mind boggling numbers. Cant happen. Wont happen.

 

So that leaves us with iceverge's idea, buldoze and build new. Even less likely to happen.

 

The problems we have are ones we create by trying to artifically increase the pace of change, change that would happen over time anyway.

 

 

[SteamyTea]

8 hours ago, Roger440 said:

And thats before we consider all the "new" problems with damp, mould etc that will be created.

I have had 2 Victorian houses, both had damp issues and neither had been thermally renovated.

[scottishjohn]

On 30/12/2023 at 18:14, Iceverge said:

Direct electric. Stored in a water tank.

 

Reminds me of something. 

only way that would work is if you lived in a country with lots of sun in the winter --then solar thermal could charge up your humungus insulated water tank all summer and winter 

 

like the alps where alot  of the time  there is bright sunlight even when its cold  outside 

Iwas very keen at one stage to do this --but the costs for the and insulation  made it non viable 

Idid see a chalet in the alps that had such a tank --as it was off grid  and not very big --so it worked 

but UK heat pump is the way  due to weeks of no sunshine inwinter when you need the heat 

[scottishjohn]

On 31/12/2023 at 01:22, Iceverge said:

Maybe you can see why I think most old houses reach a point they need to be rebuilt. 

the right solution for them is a total gutting build a modern house inside the shell 

 

as I am doing with my granite house 

700mm granite --then 150mm t/f inside on new concrete floors  and underfloor  it

 would it have been cheaper to flatten all --maybe?

but would it have the look --no 

and if your going to stone clad it --then why not use the walls already there ?

[Iceverge]

25 minutes ago, scottishjohn said:

the right solution for them is a total gutting build a modern house inside the shell 

 

as I am doing with my granite house 

700mm granite --then 150mm t/f inside on new concrete floors  and underfloor  it

 would it have been cheaper to flatten all --maybe?

but would it have the look --no 

and if your going to stone clad it --then why not use the walls already there ?

 

Assuming you can get people to do the work and pay them then it's fine. 

 

However it's still a bespoke building. Every part of the TF cut to length on site, bricks laid one by one. Craftsman galore. 

 

Here's how we built factories in 1900. 

 

Here's how we do it today

 

 

 

Here's houses in 1900

 

Here houses today. 

 

 

 

See my issue?

 

 

[SteamyTea]

 

57 minutes ago, scottishjohn said:

the right solution for them is a total gutting build a modern house inside the shell 

Can loose a lot of space though.

My house is 3.7m wide, 7.5m long.

Adding 0.15m to each wall of insulation would reduce the floor area from 27.75m² to 24.48m², 12% smaller.  And there was (expletive deleted) all to start with.

Then, where the stairs are, the width would go from 2.8m down to 2.5m.

 

External wall insulation is the only viable option, but as I am in a World Heritage area, not allowed to do it.

 

As the aim is to reduce carbon emission, changing our energy production is the only option.

My loss of ~3m³, if replaced with 150 W_p of PV, would generate about 0.15 MWh of energy each year as an off set.  That is about a sixth of my annual energy usage.

The PV does not have to be on my property, it can be tacked onto another system somewhere.

Thinking about it, for every linear metre of 0.15m thick insulation, that is 45W_p, or 45 kWh/year of generation potential.

Going to be cheaper to electrify and install PV.

So how much PV would you get instead of insulating houses.

Take a small house 6m by 8m, that has a foot print of 48m², the linear metres is 28m.  That would give us, at 0.15m insulation thickness area of 4.2m².  Or about 800 W_p, which would generate close to 0.8 MWh/ year.

Edited January 1 by SteamyTea

[billt]

15 hours ago, Iceverge said:

So what you're saying is that all the crap Victorian houses have been pulled down? 

 

 

Pretty much yes. The survivors will be reasonable good or have some other feature interesting enough for people to spend money or effort to preserve them.

 

I'm old enough to remember the redevelopment fever in the 60s and 70s when it was the done thing to demolish Victorian and Edwardian housing classified as slums. Another sweeping generalisation; many of the houses that were demolished were quite sound, if not well insulated and the replacements were often worse than the houses that were destroyed.

 

It was also the era of system building (factory made panels assembled on site). That didn't go well either, many of those buildings have been knocked down in their turn.

 

System building sounds good in theory, the trouble is that practice isn't ideal. Factory made buildings will have higher material costs than standard construction methods, relying on low site labour costs to make them economic. The trouble is that you need skilled and conscientious site workers to ensure that the kit parts are assembled correctly, something that seems to be in short supply in the UK.

 

Its an appealling idea at first glance, but, like most things, it's not a panacea..

[saveasteading]

17 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Were they built for sale or rental by a large, local employer

The ones I have been involved with were groups of 4 in a terrace. Built by a builder / developer for sale. They then repeated the process further along the road as the town expanded.

The construction principle was standard, with only the brick and decoration varying.

I can look in a very old construction book and see all the same. I wonder if the builders even needed any drawings.

[SteamyTea]

11 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

Built by a builder / developer for sale. They then repeated the process further along the road as the town expanded.

Quite progressive.

But then Scotland had a big problem with landowners, usually English ones.

 

This is post Victorian.

 

 

[Canski]

4 hours ago, Iceverge said:

 

Assuming you can get people to do the work and pay them then it's fine. 

 

However it's still a bespoke building. Every part of the TF cut to length on site, bricks laid one by one. Craftsman galore. 

 

Here's how we built factories in 1900. 

 

Here's how we do it today

 

 

 

Here's houses in 1900

 

Here houses today. 

 

 

 

See my issue?

 

 

Banana tree wall plate

[scottishjohn]

5 hours ago, Iceverge said:

Assuming you can get people to do the work and pay them then it's fine. 

 

Idid an old house ab it at a timeby simply building stud walls inside original-did nottouch old stuff --and you would probaly get away with 100mm that way ,as there would be osme insulation inwhat is there now 

but if you have damp problems then you need go back to brick anaway and sort it --guessing it has no damp course --so maybe dig a channel around outside  to stop soil touching wall at floor level 

if walls are fine then even 75mm foainsulation backed plaster board would make a big difference -dot +dab fixing if walls good ?

as for craftsmen -- if not destroying whole house at one go then you can learn as you go --remember its only the outside walls that need to super insulated+ceiling where it joins loft --your making a air tight box inside your drafty old one

 as for comparison of old build methods to new -- still along way to go even on new types

and as for a Tf kit to fit old house --that will never owrk -has to be built onsite  or it won,t fit for sure  and doing it that way no big cranes needed to lift big panels  only big lifting on my job was a telhandler to lift up roof trusses -damn sight cheaper than a crane at mega money per day 

Edited January 1 by scottishjohn

[Kelvin]

You don’t a crane to lift pre-made TF panels. It can be done with a telehandler. 

[Jenki]

On 30/12/2023 at 22:58, Roger440 said:

 

Sounds great. But my point is, its cheap to run because it was expensive to install. Your money, your choice. But its cheap for a reason. Because of all the extra tackle you have tacked on. Which usually doesnt get a mention. But is absolutely key to its performance.

 

Im unclear how you get a heat pump and cylinder installed for £3k though? Anything under 5 figures seems to be impossible. Id do it myself, but i still couldnt do it for that

 

I've just DIY'ed my install.

Heatpump cylinder from eBay (new)

£650.

Samsung Coastal 5kw heatpump £1690 ex vat

Samsung controller (eBay new) £250.

Pipework,valves,fittings, etc £400

G3 course £300.  So £3290

 I think @JohnMo got a good deal on his ASHP, I tried an alternative and it didn't work out, so ended up with time constraints and had to bite the bullet on the Samsung.

 

[saveasteading]

3 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

3 hours ago, saveasteading said:

Built by a builder / developer for sale. They then repeated the process further along the road as the town expanded.

Quite progressive.

But then Scotland had a big problem with landowners, usually English ones.

1. These were SE England.

2. N/a but....More likely technically Scottish landowners, long moved south, just coming back for births and shooting.

[ProDave]

38 minutes ago, Jenki said:

Heatpump cylinder from eBay (new)

£650.

Samsung Coastal 5kw heatpump £1690 ex vat

Samsung controller (eBay new) £250.

Pipework,valves,fittings, etc £400

G3 course £300.  So £3290

So delete the G3 course and add the £1500 to pay a plumber and electrician and that is still a sub £5K install, so should be entirely covered by the BUS grant.

 

If only.

[Crofter]

3 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Quite progressive.

But then Scotland had a big problem with landowners, usually English ones.

 

This is post Victorian.

 

 

That's a fascinating graph.

I wonder if BTL landlords threw a hissy fit when they saw all the council houses being built after the war.

[SteamyTea]

30 minutes ago, Crofter said:

wonder if BTL landlords threw a hissy fit when they saw all the council houses being built after the war

Probably at first, but then realised that renting small rooms to the Windrush generation was more profitable.

 

Beacontree estate at Dagenham was a development of 26,000 homes. 

Dudley Moire lived there.

Edited January 1 by SteamyTea

[scottishjohn]

6 hours ago, Kelvin said:

You don’t a crane to lift pre-made TF panels. It can be done with a telehandler. 

that depends on the situation of the site and iwould be interested how you telehandler panels over a 5m stone wall

Edited January 1 by scottishjohn

[Roger440]

16 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

I have had 2 Victorian houses, both had damp issues and neither had been thermally renovated.

 

I think you may have misunderstood my point.

[Roger440]

6 hours ago, Jenki said:

I've just DIY'ed my install.

Heatpump cylinder from eBay (new)

£650.

Samsung Coastal 5kw heatpump £1690 ex vat

Samsung controller (eBay new) £250.

Pipework,valves,fittings, etc £400

G3 course £300.  So £3290

 I think @JohnMo got a good deal on his ASHP, I tried an alternative and it didn't work out, so ended up with time constraints and had to bite the bullet on the Samsung.

 

 

Which only brings us back to ProDaves point. Why are they actually costing £15-20K ?

 

[JohnMo]

5 hours ago, ProDave said:

If only.

 - Most MCS installers weren't taking the pi** with pricing?