• Low-carbon heating to replace gas in new UK homes after 2025
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Gas boilers will be replaced by low-carbon heating systems in all new homes built after 2025 in an attempt to tackle the escalating climate crisis, Philip Hammond has said. In his spring statement, the chancellor said new properties would use alternative systems, such as heat pumps, to help the UK reduce its carbon emissions. However, Hammond appeared to row back on implementing the full recommendations from the government’s advisory committee on climate change last month, which called for new homes to have no gas for cooking or heating from 2025. The move away from gas heating in new homes was given a cautious welcome by environmental groups, although they said the chancellor had to be more ambitious, systemic and radical if the government was to get to grips with the climate emergency. ... The report from the committee on climate change said it would cost £4,800 to install low-carbon heating in a new home, but £26,300 in an existing house. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/13/hammond-says-gas-heating-will-be-replaced-by-low-carbon-systems
I don't know how effective heat-pumps will be if they're depending on them alone, at least in the UK. How cold does it get there, and how long? Because heat-pumps (unless you get a fancy inverter-driven model) are only really effective at temperatures down to 35-40F, lower than that and you're going to be running on whatever auxiliary heating system you have all the time, whether that's gas or resistive elements.
45-35f Or 7c - 2c average in winter.
Relatively mild winters it's generally in the low minuses (celcius), with occasionally lower temps. Worst I have ever seen is -12c.
They're more than effective enough for UK weather when combined with good insulation.
My house is heated with a exhaust air heat pump which is pretty nifty. Only issue is that the house needs to be designed from the ground up to incorporate it, needs to be sealed with a ventilation system installed with very good insulation of course.
Most efficient way to use heat pumps if building from the ground up would probably be underfloor heating. Can retrofit to existing homes by putting in larger radiators though.
For those curious, these type of houses are commonly based on the German Passivhaus standard which calls for super insulation, airtight construction and natural light to lower their resource costs (something like 75% less resource use across electricity/gas/water). They're picking up lots of steam across Europe, but as of now there's only a few in the UK. They're beautiful to live in (I've seen quite a few, as my father works on them) but construction cost is a lot higher, they have to be built to a much more rigorous standard which most builders here fail at so far.
I'm super glad people are finally developing and investing into this sort of thing. Even here where it gets to like -30 C° buildings are crazy inefficient, not to mention cold despite the heating
It's not about insulation, it's about heat content of the air. It's pulling heat from outside and putting it inside, as opposed to the cooling cycle where it does the opposite. As it does this, especially in moist environments (like the UK), you get ice buildup on the coils. The colder it is, and the more moisture, the sooner this happens, the sooner it happens, the sooner you have to defrost, which means kicking into a cooling cycle while your heatstrips/furnace cancels out the cooling from your heat-pump. Yeah, they *work* as low as 35F, but the efficiency is negligible at that point. The closer you get to freezing, the less efficient they get. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/132319/251dec24-7726-49db-b3ad-70eb31a3a201/heat-pump-balance-point-load-vs-capacity-graph.jpg
If you're building a new house then ground source heat pumps are also an option, which are much better in colder temperatures. I think the plan is for most of the UK you wouldn't have an auxiliary heating system, as the systems are capable of providing heat more efficiently than a resistance heater down to stupidly low temperatures like -20c.
 To achieve the Passivhaus Standard in the UK typically involves: accurate design modelling using the Passive House Planning Package  (PHPP) very high levels of insulation extremely high performance windows with insulated frames airtight building fabric 'thermal bridge free' construction a mechanical ventilation system with highly efficient heat recovery What is Passivhaus?
Oh nice, mine meets those standards I believe.
The UK is really lucky in terms of climate as we don't get anywhere near as cold as NYC generally, or as hot, despite being at a higher latitude.
I never even thought about gas boilers needing to go. Great stuff
And in return we only have to suffer through 360 days of rain a year. I'm trying to make my home as efficient as possible but it was built to some shit standards. New insulation being fitted on Wednesday, and getting rid of the gas oven and hob in the next month. Would be nice to cut the gas line all together, but seems unlikely to happen any time soon. Retrofitting heat pumps costs big money with little financial benefit over this A rated combi.
Whilst rain is annoying, it's actually a good thing overall. I much prefer to have rain all year round than have wet/dry seasons or deserts.
Perhaps it's because I'm as used to rain as I am to breathing, but I actually like rain. It would require a lot of rain to reach an obnoxious level, so at worst I'll have to uh oh take an umbrella outside, or a coat if it's too windy. Also, people in the UK learn to appreciate rain when we have summers where grass turns brown and the obnoxiously dry heat just makes you want to rip off your skin.
Germany is really ahead in getting this sorted out lately.
Do you get subsidies for making your home more energy efficient?
I can't remember working on a non domestic build in the past 2 or 3 years that I didn't have to design to BREEAM Excellent standards at least. https://www.breeam.com/NC2018/content/resources/output/10_pdf/a4_pdf/print/nc_ni_a4_print_mono/nir_nondom_2018.pdf Wasn't sure where the domestic market was at so this is good.
No, nothing really.
Well, the gov will sure as hell need to do that ASAP if they want to fulfill their low-carbon heating goal without having to massively overhaul their energy production apparatus. Because electricity demand will spike once gas is out of the picture.
You get a renewable heat incentive if you install alternative heating systems like heat pumps or efficient biofuel systems.
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