How do social relations shape the adoption of heat pumps in the UK?

[Lewis Hubbard]

I’m Lewis, a 3rd year Environmental Sciences student at the University of East Anglia. I’m conducting a short survey as part of my final year project which is looking at how the adoption of low carbon heating systems like heat pumps is impacted by different kinds of social relation. The survey is completely anonymous and will take just 5 minutes of your time. Respondents must be over 18 and currently living in the UK. Your input will be extremely valuable whether you’re familiar with the subject or not. To complete the survey please follow this link:

 

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=lYdfxj26UUOKBwhl5djwkJnQbzp5NitHoYPqpD7EGBlUQ1lJWENHTDhXNlpYTU5JVThIOUlOS0FBNy4u

 

Thank you for your time and support – it is much appreciated!

 

[Sparrowhawk]

Hi @Lewis Hubbard! Just checking - the survey says "heat pumps within East Anglia" - you're happy for people living outside EA to fill it in?

[Nick Laslett]

Completed. 

[PhilT]

Me too. Q4 to Q6 not entirely logical so for q4 I already have a heat pump but for q5 have guessed option 4 with reason: replacement of existing

[sharpener]

Completed. Would have been good if there had been an option for BuildHub or similar fora.

[Lewis Hubbard]

@Sparrowhawk yes please, I have changed it to UK now!

[ectoplasmosis]

Done

[miike]

I'm not sure how many conclusions you can make from this survey for social relations impacting the adoption of heat pumps as the questions are quite limited. 

 

For me it was 100% financial, and I was only interested after the £7.5k grant was introduced - the previous one at £5k wasn't worth it for me, and the £7.5k only really puts the ASHP on equal ground with a gas boiler. Without the grant, I think interest in heat pumps would drop to basically 0 until the price comes way down, regardless of how much friends/family recommend them. 

 

 

[G and J]

Survey done.  
 

I find the whole attitude to ASHPs fascinating as we talk to different peeps re our plans.  I know my new neighbours would much prefer us to keep gas.  Ho humm.

[ProDave]

6 minutes ago, G and J said:

I find the whole attitude to ASHPs fascinating as we talk to different peeps re our plans.  I know my new neighbours would much prefer us to keep gas.  Ho humm.

People often criticise ASHP's for being "noisiy"  I am visiting relatives and they have a gas boiler on the landing of all places right outside our bedroom door.  When that fires up in the morning it is like a jet plane on the landing getting ready for take off.  How on earth do people put up with something so noisy INSIDE their house, when instead they could have something so much quieter to produce their heat, and what little noise it makes is OUTSIDE their house.

[G and J]

Because they ‘know’ heat pumps are worse because aunty Enid’s friends neighbour’s son in law lived in a council house with a huge noisy heat pump dumped right outside their bedroom window which ran 24-7 but the house was still cold with luke warm rads and a electric bill they couldn’t pay.* 

(*A fictitious account based on real life early ASHP installations in social houses that I’ve seen first hand).  

[saveasteading]

8 hours ago, G and J said:

based on real life early ASHP installations in social houses that I’ve seen first hand

Me too. The housing associations took the grants without understanding the systems.

In my experience it was ground source where it should never have been, then replaced by noisy air source.

 

You notice one noisy one, but don't notice the quiet ones.

[sgt_woulds]

The quiet ones aren't quiet.  I don't want to sit on my garden bench and listen to a fridge running on the other side of my fence.  It's only a quiet whooshing, but it is noticeable at all times when it is running.  Or should I say, when it switches off you suddenly realise how noisy it was.  This kind of low-level background noise is proven to increase stress in both animals and wildlife.  

 

The majority of heat pumps (GS & AS) that I've come across over the years are not as quiet as my neighbours.  Also, as they age they get noisier and generally people won't repair things until they fail or are legally obliged to.

 

The world is noisy enough.  Make them quiet enough that I can't hear them when I'm sat on them and introduce a legal noise testing regime, then, and only then will they be acceptable.

 

 

[JamesPa]

Typical fear of change is at work here.  Same with electric cars.  People see all the possible downsides of something new and none of the upsides. 

 

Worse still almost nobody I encounter seems to recognise that changing to ASHP is one of the critical things we must more or less all do to mitigate climate change.  The ASHP/gas discussion is, in my experience, posed as one about todays running cost, not one about tomorrows societal cost and risk. 

 

To make things even worse, most people I speak to think that responsibility for mitigating climate change lies with the government not with individuals.  Yet its individuals, not government, that have a climate footprint.  Of course Government has a big part to play, but until we accept collectively that we are all responsible, not much will change or any change that does occur will be too slow.

 

In reality we need to do four major things to reduce our individual climate footprint:

 

1. Heat our houses using an ASHP

2. Buy only stuff we need, not vast amounts of stuff we are convinced by industry that we want

3. Stop using planes other than in very exceptional cases.  Use public transport predominantly and electric cars where that isnt practical

4. Stop eating meat and dairy (and produce that is flown in); or at worse cut consumption by 80-90%

 

Actually the first is the easiest as it doesn't require a lifestyle change.  2-4 all require lifestyle changes.  

 

[sgt_woulds]

Also, the comment about the boiler on the landing - agreed it's a bad choice.  But at least it is their noise and they are keeping it to themselves.  

 

Fitting mechanical plant that creates noise that others can hear is just as antisocial as playing music on your phone in a public space.   

[sgt_woulds]

No fear of change.  ASHP is a great technology that needs to be refined to remove the annoyance to others.  I fully agree that it needs to be rolled out as quickly as possible - but not in it's current form.

 

Electric cars are great, noise is reduced to tyre friction and a low hum.  Then some people say they need to make more noise as people cannot hear them coming so the noise pollution is built back into them!

 

I'm glad you want to save the planet - I do too.  But I don't want to hear you do it...

[joe90]

57 minutes ago, JamesPa said:

Worse still almost nobody I encounter seems to recognise that changing to ASHP is one of the critical things we must more or less all do to mitigate climate change.  The ASHP/gas discussion is, in my experience, posed as one about todays running cost, not one about tomorrows societal cost and risk. 

However burning waste to create electricity is still happening and as dirty as burning coal. The national grid could not cope with changing from gas at the moment so yes change needs to happen but it will take time. (My neighbours oil boiler is more noisy than my ASHP)

[saveasteading]

1 hour ago, sgt_woulds said:

low-level background noise is proven to increase stress 

Strangely that doesn't apply to the sound of the sea, or waterfalls or wind in trees.

That's because, I propose, that it isn't created by someone else, and there is no point in being annoyed.

 

Listen to a distant motorway and it could be a waterfall. That helps when staying in a travelodge type place.

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, joe90 said:

However burning waste to create electricity is still happening and as dirty as burning coal

Ah, the latest horror story doing the rounds.

This one has been sitting on the shelf for awhile, the while was because we were still burning coal in the UK.

Funny that there was no mention of biomass to electrical energy mentioned.

I would think that has a greater CO_2e per MWh delivered than EfW. And as it is a larger industry, the accumulative emissions are probably higher.

Must have a read if the report sometimes.

34 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

Strangely that doesn't apply to the sound of the sea, or waterfalls or wind in trees.

I camped by a babbling brook once. Never doing that again. Kept we awake all night with worry. The worry was I could not here anything else

(expletive deleted)ing nature in tooth and claw.

 

1 hour ago, sgt_woulds said:

No fear of change.  ASHP is a great technology that needs to be refined to remove the annoyance to others.  I fully agree that it needs to be rolled out as quickly as possible - but not in it's current form

Had 150 years of refinements, not a lot is going to change.

 

It does seem ridiculous to me that I cannot have an ASHP outside the front of my house because I am in a world heritage site area, but my neighbour can park his modified car on the street, start it up at over 95 dB (15 to 20m away) at 3 AM. (expletive deleted)ing postmen.

Oddly enough, his side if the street is not in the World Heritage Area, so he can have an ASHP facing the street (his back yard faces it).

Edited October 16 by SteamyTea

[JamesPa]

2 hours ago, sgt_woulds said:

No fear of change.  ASHP is a great technology that needs to be refined to remove the annoyance to others.  I fully agree that it needs to be rolled out as quickly as possible - but not in it's current form.

 

 

Just like gas and oil boilers, or like cars, lawnmowers, planes, people, ASHPs make a noise and, just like those things, they always will because they have to move air.  In the vast majority of cases the noise is no more than (and frequently a lot less than, any of these things we are all very much used to and accept.

 

So maybe you don't fear change, but you have displayed a prejudice against novelty and suggested that the roll out should be blocked as a result - which amounts to the same.

Edited October 16 by JamesPa

[G and J]

44 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

 

 

 

 

Is that the forum equivalent of a blank look?

[Alan Ambrose]

We've noticed that noise from neighbours we like is a lot less annoying than from neighbours we don't much.

[G and J]

2 hours ago, sgt_woulds said:

Also, the comment about the boiler on the landing - agreed it's a bad choice.  But at least it is their noise and they are keeping it to themselves.  

 

Fitting mechanical plant that creates noise that others can hear is just as antisocial as playing music on your phone in a public space.   

Ah then that’s the answer.  My ASHP is going half way down the garden.  My man cave is at the bottom of the garden, and will have a nice big sound bar connected to my smart tv.  
 

So I solve the ASHP noise issue by getting to enjoy some serious beats to exercise too. Brilliant. 😉 

[G and J]

8 minutes ago, Alan Ambrose said:

We've noticed that noise from neighbours we like is a lot less annoying than from neighbours we don't much.

Oh dear.  So after a few months my new neighbours won’t like my noise one bit - once they’ve got to know me.  

[ToughButterCup]

2 hours ago, sgt_woulds said:

...  This kind of low-level background noise is proven to increase stress in both animals and wildlife.  ...

 

You mention low-level noise particularly. 

I'd love to find any documentary evidence for that - specifically for low-level noise. If you could point me to some evidence, that would be great. I'm interested because  there are some types of low level noise I love ( the seashore, a babbling brook, a waterfall, a large locomotive diesel engine on tick-over, our  tomcat snoring, any cat's purr ) .  But some - our digester humming quietly (air compressor), rain on a metal gutter grates .....