New gas boilers banned 2025

[Richard Lines]

And yet in my town all the gas supply pipes have been upgraded to be hydrogen ready...

Do you mind my asking when you say the whole of, I believe, Nantwich is hydrogen ready?? As fas as I'm aware only one length of pipe has been replaced? I suspect you might be still be some way away from the whole town being 'hydrogen ready' - delighted to be informed otherwise.

There was a link to a very useful site on the old Navitron forum from some well qualified engineer explaining why wholesale changeover of the countries supply network made no financial sense. Unfortunately that site is now down.

Regards

Richard

 

[Coda II]

Taking things to there most basic, is there anything (or much much is there) inherently wrong with the outside envelope (roof and external walls) of older buildings that can't be fixed to a large degree with the right modifications?
Setting aside the disruption aspect (though not saying it can be ignored), if an eg 18/1900s house is completely gutted how close can it get to what would be considered good standards today with the use of the right materials and building practices?

 

[matt j]

Taking things to there most basic, is there anything (or much much is there) inherently wrong with the outside envelope (roof and external walls) of older buildings that can't be fixed to a large degree with the right modifications?
Setting aside the disruption aspect (though not saying it can be ignored), if an eg 18/1900s house is completely gutted how close can it get to what would be considered good standards today with the use of the right materials and building practices?

They do something similar with commercial buildings, leave the old, nice looking façade up then gut the rest and build a new building behind/inside it. How deep are you pockets is the only question that needs answering I believe.

 

[PsB]

The concept is good and can be made to work in various ways.

For example, a cheaper approach could be to use solar energy to heat pumped water (pump powered by PV array) that then goes through a heat exchanger to heat a thermal store. So very similar to the heat pump approach. The downside is that when you most need the hot water, the solar input is at its lowest.

Air source and then ground source offer increasing upfront cost and capability solutions.

You would get a much better coefficient of performance (COP) by using the same solar energy to run a heat pump. For a given output from your solar panels, you would get about 3 times more heat.

 

[PsB]

Actually for fuel cells - the better bet is ammonia; easy to make cleanly, actually delivers greater energy density by liquid volume (12.7 MJ/L vs. liquid hydrogen, at 8.5 MJ/L ) - while far easier to handle.

That's the future that international cargo ship makers, and their clients, are looking at.


[eta: point of reference - petrol/gasoline is about 29MJ/L- but the conversion efficiency is woeful, obviously, doing well to approach 25-30% in cars. Big ships run various heavier/filthier grades of fuel / bunker oil, about the same energy density - but the largest 2-stroke-turbocharged marine diesels are the most efficient internal combustion engines yet - c. 55% + thermal efficiency. Bottom line is - ammonia in a fuel cell for an all-electric even very, very big ship could be very nearly equivalent in total fuel-flow demand/ storage requirement - except the fuel is one we can manufacture cleanly already )

The only problem is that ammonia is extremely toxic, somewhat flammable and highly corrosive. I'm not saying that hydrogen is any better, but NH3 requires very careful application of standards, inspections etc. and there are still fatal accidents every year, including in developed economies.

 

[IanW]

You would get a much better coefficient of performance (COP) by using the same solar energy to run a heat pump. For a given output from your solar panels, you would get about 3 times more heat.

Exactly, that is an approach that I have been wanting to try for the past 20 years, but have never been in a position to be able to install such a system. But hopefully soon I will be able to build a house and use such an approach.

 

[Rockmeister]

Well that is the conclusion I made 10yrs ago but if the maths gave me an air heat pump that can bring the water temp up to 30-35C my limited brain power understands that the gas boiler will work very efficiently to get it to the 60C needed for rads. Now if it can do that for most months in winter with the exception of the worst weather scenarios I see it worth thinking about. @IanW views on heat recovery I have considered already but I fall on your side of the fence. If they can't seal new builds designed to work that way there is no chance of doing it in a property nearly 200yrs old. Still if I felt heat recovery could reduce condensation and improve air quality in bedrooms at night I could be tempted at some point.

I would love to hear from somebody who actually implemented a boiler and heat pump system and what the results were like. I remember the heat pump guy selling me his system but I had access to a good systems analyst, maths friend who could crunch the numbers. I would have needed wall to ceiling rads everywhere to keep the house lukewarm.

It's that and it's the design intention of an older house. In my case, it was built to have air circulation. Old red Sandstone is naturally porous, so its a double wall with rubble inside to keep the damp from the inside/ It needs air in that cavity....moving air to keep this working properly. We've already done what we can in line with this, by insulating the loft to nearly 20cm depth (but not down in the eaves, where air must allowed to move) and so on and so forth. We are not now listed so we have 'plastic' double glazing but one other point anyway. I hate sealed air houses. They are always stuffy and over dry. Like living in an artificial environment which doesn't suit me at all. I have a pal with a brand new 'tested to be air tight' house. He loves to be hot but now, he lives with windows open all the time or suffers headaches. It's Scotland in November.

Stats are a start point. You then need to remember that quite a lot of us are normal humans with a need to be in a climate that suits us. Warm, dry, and cheap is as silly a simplification as getting rid of gas oil and coal.

 

[Bob McC]

Do you mind my asking when you say the whole of, I believe, Nantwich is hydrogen ready?? As fas as I'm aware only one length of pipe has been replaced? I suspect you might be still be some way away from the whole town being 'hydrogen ready' - delighted to be informed otherwise.

There was a link to a very useful site on the old Navitron forum from some well qualified engineer explaining why wholesale changeover of the countries supply network made no financial sense. Unfortunately that site is now down.

Regards

Richard

Is there a question I there somewhere?

 

[Thorn]

There was a whole page advert for Fischer electric boilers in today's paper. Has anyone any knowledge of them?

 

[tonerei]

It's that and it's the design intention of an older house. In my case, it was built to have air circulation. Old red Sandstone is naturally porous, so its a double wall with rubble inside to keep the damp from the inside/ It needs air in that cavity....moving air to keep this working properly. We've already done what we can in line with this, by insulating the loft to nearly 20cm depth (but not down in the eaves, where air must allowed to move) and so on and so forth. We are not now listed so we have 'plastic' double glazing but one other point anyway. I hate sealed air houses. They are always stuffy and over dry. Like living in an artificial environment which doesn't suit me at all. I have a pal with a brand new 'tested to be air tight' house. He loves to be hot but now, he lives with windows open all the time or suffers headaches. It's Scotland in November.

Stats are a start point. You then need to remember that quite a lot of us are normal humans with a need to be in a climate that suits us. Warm, dry, and cheap is as silly a simplification as getting rid of gas oil and coal.

We are not replica of your case but all the same type of issues. I just remembered my sister-in-law when they came back from the UK renovated an old stone farmhouse in Clare/Galway border and built on a big extension and they jumped on the heat pump bandwagon at the time. They use a stream running through their land. Grand during the summer but in really cold sections of the winter the system cannot cope. They have suffered with interstitial and surface condensation and also myriad leaks from their expensive zinc roof.

The Norwegians and Swedes from my limited knowledge build with huge amounts of insulation due to the cold nature of their climates. The housing stock here is just not built that way. I agree with regard to the dryness of sealed houses but there is probably a way of introducing water with a humidifier or just open the windows as we do

It is all interesting and regardless of the impending crisis in the climate I always had an interest in making realistic efforts to minimize heat loss. Back in the eighties when we bought our first home we had to leave the windows open all the time the place was like a furnace. This was because the gas company scheme was a commitment to use X amount of gas for a set price It was crazy to get 'value' you had to burn it up. A bit like the NI cash for ash scheme!

 

[tonerei]

You would get a much better coefficient of performance (COP) by using the same solar energy to run a heat pump. For a given output from your solar panels, you would get about 3 times more heat.

Can you explain that please? I think you are suggesting PV heat or is it solar panels used as the heat pump source is giving 3 times more output than ground or air?
In a climate like the UK or Ireland is it not much of a muchness with regard to the heat you get from the heat pump no matter the source in the height of winter? Just posing the question as I don't have the facts.

 

[SteveG]

Can you explain that please? I think you are suggesting PV heat or is it solar panels used as the heat pump source is giving 3 times more output than ground or air?
In a climate like the UK or Ireland is it not much of a muchness with regard to the heat you get from the heat pump no matter the source in the height of winter? Just posing the question as I don't have the facts.

I think he probably just means that with a heat pump them you'd be expecting to usually get 4KWh of heating effect for every 1KWh you put in - so any electricity generated by solar would be more effective if driving a heat pump than generating heating directly.

 

[gintonic]

There was a whole page advert for Fischer electric boilers in today's paper. Has anyone any knowledge of them?

i have been wondering about these - we have no outside wall for a modern gas boiler with a flue - we could choose to site a new boiler in the loft but that would mean inconvenient works.....

An electric boiler would be perfect as it doesnt need a flue or gas supply - it would enable us to ditch gas from this house entirely

 

[SteveG]

An electric boiler would be perfect as it doesnt need a flue or gas supply - it would enable us to ditch gas from this house entirely

Isn't electricity a lot more expensive per KWh though? I can see it making sense if being used to run a heat-pump (as that gets the costs per KWh into the same region as gas or oil) but expensive without that.

 

[gintonic]

Isn't electricity a lot more expensive per KWh though?

undoutedly, but for this small house it probably doesnt matter that much - it will be more expensive, but i dont mind that it is avoids the kind of a modern boiler would entail

 

[Mike Reed]

An electric boiler would be perfect as it doesnt need a flue or gas supply -

I think there's more to this than meets the eye, but a plumber has been in to inspect my previous wife's fully electric C/H. She was previously on gas in another county but noticed her new (old cottage) in rural Norfolk was not only eating electricity but not providing adequate heating either. She and others involved decided to have an expensive oil supply and boiler put in.

Oddly, the electric C/H system was only a few years old. It seemed that something (an element?) needed replacing, but to my mind, it's just a simple water heater with pump, so I can't understand the reason for the drastic action; seems like throwing money away.

 

[CHE]

We have an electric boiler in our holiday let running under-floor and hot water and it works extremely well - don't know the make however. The main advantages are size and compactness, so it's well hidden and out of site of inquisitive hands. It works well when occupancy is spasmodic or limited, we just set the heating on a 'frost' setting and it comes on when needs be when not occupied. Reliability has been excellent.

CHE

 

[Ellenor]

Seen an article today. Viessmann got a 100% hydrogen boiler being tested aswell as Worcester, Baxi and no doubt there will be others. The plan is to bring these boilers out running on natural gas, they will run on 20% mix of hydrogen with natural gas and when the time comes can be easily converted to run on 100% hydrogen when/if they bring it on line. Maybe people currently running on propane in bulk storage tanks will be the first to get changed over?
Don’t ditch those gas boilers just yet

 

[Richard Lines]

Is there a question I there somewhere?

Yes. Itv was suggested that the whole of the town was hydrogen ready. I believe the town was Nantwich and only a 270mtr length of pipe has been replaced, I was querying whether the rest of the pipework in the town was hydrogen ready?

Regards

Richard

 

[matt j]

Isn't electricity a lot more expensive per KWh though? I can see it making sense if being used to run a heat-pump (as that gets the costs per KWh into the same region as gas or oil) but expensive without that.

What sort of KW rating is an electric boiler? What with all the other electric gubbins, cars etc. can the house supply run an electric boiler on top or all that?