£5000 Heat Pump Grant

  • Landmark's Avatar
    Level 29
    2 Days ago I heard about the Governments announcement for plans to go carbon neutral by 2050 by enabling households to switch from gas to electric by 2035. One step towards this is by means of a £500 Heat Pump Grant from April 2022. For more information go to Heat pump grants worth £5,000 to replace gas boilers not enough, say critics - BBC News
    What do you think?
  • 38 Replies

  • Best Answer

    Arms's Avatar
    Level 6
    Best Answer
    I think getting the heat pump depends a lot on circumstances. I live in a 1930's mid terraced house, so solid walls without much insulation going on there.

    The boiler we had needed replacing, it was a back boiler so behind the fireplace with a hot water tank and cold water tank in the loft (my bedroom) which was very annoying whenever someone used water.

    The new combi boiler would have needed to be situated in the airing cupboard with venting going through into the bathroom and then outside. There was no where else to place the new boiler and we could only have a combi because of lack of space.

    Moving the location boiler, gas supplies etc without any radiator cost we were being quoted £6-7k. The Monobloc Heat Pump, Unvented tank etc came into about £11-12k. The £5k for us with the Green Homes grant made the ASHP the same price. We would still have a hot water tank (which was a plus for us and now it was unvented), a 12kw Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP) and all the fitting, pipes all hidden etc.

    We would pay more to run it as it wasn't gas but not a substansial amount more by their calculations.

    In addition we changed all the radiators in the house to size suggested and we have smart thermostats so when the just a room needs topping up with heat thats all that gets heated. Regardless of what type of boiler we were going to get we were changing those anyway, they were just larger so not really much more than what we would have done with the combi boiler.

    What I have found since the install is that they do their calculations etc and do the settings on the ASHP but in my case at least they set the radiator temperature too high, I have been able to steadily lower the max temperature from 55 to 42 celcuis which means the ASHP runs for longer but saves money.

    Also the heat pump runs 24x7 with just a couple of degrees lower at night. With the smart thermostats different rooms have different heating schedules which probably helps a tiny bit too.

    If you live in the same kind of house for me, weren't planning on changing the radiators and were going to replace a combi with another combi then finding the space for a tank and the additional "extra" radiator costs would make it much more expensice.
  • Beki's Avatar
    @Landmark I love this so much and truly appreciate that it is just a small step to get us to carbon neutral. That being said, at this present moment in time with electric prices so much higher than gas prices it would still cost a customer much more to heat their home with electric. If the gas prices were more in line with electric then I would expect the uptake would increase.
  • Landmark's Avatar
    Level 29
    Heat pumps are not the answer at all.

    https://youtu.be/GhAKMAcmJFg

    Neither is Gas Boilers because of the global climate change emergency.
    5 minutes into the above 'youtube' video given, Roger of 'Skill Builder', stated that heat pumps don't work with non insulated homes. I'm not denying that as true, however, insulating homes is not rocket science, and can be done with the correct will to do it (with the help of the coming COP26 climate change conference) For more info go to COP26-Explained.pdf (ukcop26.org)
    At 8 minutes into the same video, Roger mentioned it was not worth the extra cost, but then that was before the energy crisis, when the video was published on youtube, when gas prices had subsequently gone up in price, wholesale, by hundreds of per cent!
    He even admitted it worked in Scandinavia where the air is mainly sub zero in temperature in the Winter contradicting what he earlier stated that it only works well in a warm climate.
    I have been living for almost ten years in an all electric flat with a heat pump, and was warmer than where I live now with my current gas boiler (which I didn't choose since it was already fitted when I moved accommodation), in spite of having insulation and central heating.
    In addition, I found that, since changing to dual fuel, the extra cost of being a dual fuel customer, was in the gas standing charge, which mitigated against the increased cost of being all electric.
    Finally, any extra cost of going green electric is like burdening any green taxes used to offset our carbon footprint (e.g. the cost of planting trees or investing in green carbon neutral electricity), and the extra cost of switching to electric cars is worth it in the same way as you might buy organically produced fruit and veg to save the planet.
    Therefore, my point is that everyone has a moral responsibility to pay extra to save the planet
  • theunknowntech's Avatar
    Level 78
    I would also agree with the arguments that heat pumps are a good thing. Especially since I actually have insights into a heat pump trial that's going on right now.

    I can't share most of the discussions that go on, since a lot of it is in a private forum which I've agreed not to leak anything from. But I can say this. A fair few members who are testing this stuff out are quite enjoying it.

    Sometimes, the best way to get an accurate opinion is to actually try it out after all!
    Last edited by theunknowntech; 18-11-21 at 18:56. Reason: Link fix
    Just another guy passing by... The unknown tech way...
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  • Beki's Avatar
    @theunknowntech I can't see the post that you have linked to.

    I agree trialing these things is the best way forward and any green every system is one that I would look to implement in my own home. I have dreams of a smallholding, powering my house etc with my own generated energy... One day 😊💭
  • theunknowntech's Avatar
    Level 78
    The thread was split and sometimes the links break when that happens. I've updated it with the new location
  • Beki's Avatar
    @theunknowntech Thank you so much. I'm going to have a read this evening. 😊