hifinutt
hifinutt
last time I asked that I didn't get very positive replies
New gas boilers banned 2025
- Thread starter hifinutt
- Start date
hifinutt
hifinutt
glad about that ...I have had 3 new ones fitted this year !!! All vaillant of course!!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
Bob McC
Living the life of Riley
You didn’t ask a question on your original post but to answer you cadence warned everyone that their lawns, drives etc might need digging up but they would make good any damage. Mine didn’t because my pipe work was ok having had the meter moved a few years ago.
Richard Lines
pfm Member
Good Morning All,
It will be interesting to see how the hydrogen market develops, particularly domestic. I still see the biggest problem as being a lack of clear direction or overall plan on a national basis (although in fairness this would apply to all energy sources). It can't be easy, at a national level, when assorted technologies are in their infancy and you need to 'best guess' which will deliver.
We are already 100% electric and there is no gas where we are. The house had an oil fired range when we moved in, then we installed an LPG boiler and now have a GSHP.
Regards
Richard
It will be interesting to see how the hydrogen market develops, particularly domestic. I still see the biggest problem as being a lack of clear direction or overall plan on a national basis (although in fairness this would apply to all energy sources). It can't be easy, at a national level, when assorted technologies are in their infancy and you need to 'best guess' which will deliver.
We are already 100% electric and there is no gas where we are. The house had an oil fired range when we moved in, then we installed an LPG boiler and now have a GSHP.
Regards
Richard
tonerei
pfm Member
Right on queue this morning in the Irish Times
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/env...per+home&utm_campaign=morning_briefing_digest
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/env...per+home&utm_campaign=morning_briefing_digest
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
I imagine the hydrogen market to be very small, but buoyant and rising, but with an occasional tendency to overheat and flare up.
gintonic
50 shades of grey pussy cats
like my arse
dan m
pfm Member
I do wonder about headlines like these. Are they motivated in part by a push for inaction? There’s no sub-title pointing out for a damn lot less per house big reductions in CO2 emissions could be achieved RIGHT NOW. The longer we wait, the bigger the hole being dug and the more likely we will have to resort things like geoengineering with who knows what unintended consequences.
It should also be pointed out that big spending in the national interest is done all the time. Google the cost of the Dreadnaught fleet. £41bn? I’d argue a better return in terms of security would be to become energy independent. The gas companies are pushing hydrogen because the have the infrastructure in place and won’t be out of business. But we’ll only be trading Russian gas for Saudi hydrogen.
It should also be pointed out that big spending in the national interest is done all the time. Google the cost of the Dreadnaught fleet. £41bn? I’d argue a better return in terms of security would be to become energy independent. The gas companies are pushing hydrogen because the have the infrastructure in place and won’t be out of business. But we’ll only be trading Russian gas for Saudi hydrogen.
I cannot understand it either. From the current issue of the passive house plus magazine, on page 18:
https://passivehouseplus.co.uk/issuu/uk-edition
I quote from the above link: For every dollar we spent on reducing heat loss from the house, with a better air barrier and more insulation, we saved at least $10 on the size of the solar collectors and equipment needed to achieve the same thing (Orr 2013).
Now of course things have changed in terms of costs but the principle remains the same, insulate first to a very high level (including eliminating thermal bridges) and it will save you more money in the medium term than buying an expensive heat provider (any heat pump etc without government financial support), that will in itself need replacing etc every 20 years or so.
clivem2
pfm Member
I don’t know about “inaction”. Some of us, probably many…have taken sensible steps already, actually way before the current situation. Certainly we’ve worked on insulation and draft proofing, much was done 15 to 25 years ago. We were going to move a couple of years ago so I have a recent EPC report. We are D and could move to C with either external or internal insulation to the exterior walls. Exterior insulation is out of the question as this is a conservation area (not listed) so external cladding is not permitted. Interior insulation would I estimate cost £50k to £100k, the pure insulation costs would be a few £k, it’s fixing the the internal features and decor where the costs lie. The EPC suggests costs of £4K to £14k but this is just for cost of the additional insulation.
The house is a semi, it has 4 floors, 6 bedrooms, 4,000sq ft, 15 rooms/hall/landings/bathrooms to redecorate following the installation of internal insulation, reinstate Edwardian cornice, picture rail and skirtings.
The EPC doesn’t give us much credit for the roof insulation we installed. There’s 6 inches of the usual “wool” on the rafters and an inch of Kingspan under the breathable felt. This resulted in a huge improvement for keeping heat in and general comfort too. Previously heat rose through the house and out the roof.
I don’t believe there’s much more we can do to make a significant difference without spending serious money, the costs I foresee are in line with the Irish article.
edit…one recent improvement has been to a number of sash windows, double glazing them isn’t practical so we installed plantation shutters, these are very effective but of course need to closed so their impact is only at night.
The house is a semi, it has 4 floors, 6 bedrooms, 4,000sq ft, 15 rooms/hall/landings/bathrooms to redecorate following the installation of internal insulation, reinstate Edwardian cornice, picture rail and skirtings.
The EPC doesn’t give us much credit for the roof insulation we installed. There’s 6 inches of the usual “wool” on the rafters and an inch of Kingspan under the breathable felt. This resulted in a huge improvement for keeping heat in and general comfort too. Previously heat rose through the house and out the roof.
I don’t believe there’s much more we can do to make a significant difference without spending serious money, the costs I foresee are in line with the Irish article.
edit…one recent improvement has been to a number of sash windows, double glazing them isn’t practical so we installed plantation shutters, these are very effective but of course need to closed so their impact is only at night.
dan m
pfm Member
Inaction refers to the vocal minority (probably from ‘think tanks’) that argue doing anything about global warming is too costly, not needed and if the planet warms it’ll be OK anyway.* @clivem2 - No one is saying you haven’t made a conscientious effort to reduce your energy bills and carbon footprint. However, there’s some low hanging fruit that could be implemented at low cost. For example, 50% of UK homes have less than 6” of insulation in the loft/roof. We saw in another thread that someone had put down extra insulation in their loft for less than 300 quid. Subsidize the hell out that kind of common sense approach. And yes, it won’t work for everyone but even if you go from 50 to 75% of the housing it will have a positive effect in so many ways (local air quality being one). Again, headlines saying it will cost £50K to fit heat pumps instead of less than £10K on average to move from DEF to C, makes it all seem hopeless. And that’s what some people want since business as usual is lining their pockets.
*see Lawson’s latest article in The Spectator
*see Lawson’s latest article in The Spectator
Richard Lines
pfm Member
Good Afternoon All,
We should have a minimum of 300mm insulation in the roof now.
One very simple and immediate step to reduce emissions and peoples gas bills would be to ensure that God alone knows how many condensing boilers have been fitted that aren't operating in the condensing mode and such as combi boilers that cannot operate below say 7kW causing them stop short cycle all the time. My old LPG boiler used to have a lower limit of 7kW but in a modern house that would be way to high.
That's before we get to those new houses that get built where Solar PV panels get put on North facing roofs........ I've seen at least two photo's of this happening. It's on a par with several appallingly located Solar PV installations in my local area.
Have a listen to this - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podca...y-and-low-carbon/id1476545100?i=1000538778530
Regards
Richard
We should have a minimum of 300mm insulation in the roof now.
One very simple and immediate step to reduce emissions and peoples gas bills would be to ensure that God alone knows how many condensing boilers have been fitted that aren't operating in the condensing mode and such as combi boilers that cannot operate below say 7kW causing them stop short cycle all the time. My old LPG boiler used to have a lower limit of 7kW but in a modern house that would be way to high.
That's before we get to those new houses that get built where Solar PV panels get put on North facing roofs........ I've seen at least two photo's of this happening. It's on a par with several appallingly located Solar PV installations in my local area.
Have a listen to this - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podca...y-and-low-carbon/id1476545100?i=1000538778530
Regards
Richard
Enfield boy
pfm Member
^^^ Cometh the incentive cometh the crooks.
a.palfreyman
pfm Member
1.21 jigawatts?
Yes, they drive us quackers.
We have condenser boiler, now approaching 10 years old, but use this mostly for DHW. Only used for central heating when REALY cold outside so maybe once or twice a month or thereabouts. We keep the living room warm on winter evenings with a 5kW log burner and well dried logs. Oh, and wear extra clothing in winter.
Really need to do some research on cavity insulation. We have 2" cavities but these are not bridged at the bottom, i.e. earth in the bottom of the cavity so would cause rising damp.
Joe Hutch
Mate of the bloke
Anyone posts pics of my house I swear I’ll do time.
The house opposite has a very complex set of scaffolding and ladders in place, almost Piranesi-like. They’ve been working on it since March!
MJS
Technical Tinkerer
It was 1.21 GW on grid watch.
I asked my physics teacher what a Jigawatt was and he corrected me to 'gigga' watts. According the bastion of truth that is Wikipedia it can be said (though not written) both ways. I think Jiga sounds better in the film because it implies a very big number that no-one would have heard of.
What I find really worrying is the amount of power being used to mine bitcoins. It is currently in excess of many countries power demand. It performs no purpose except to make money and consume resources, both natural and tangible. https://ccaf.io/cbeci/index
a.palfreyman
pfm Member
MJS, yes it was a reference to the 'Back to the Future' film. Doc Brown calculated that the energy required by the DeLorean at "One point twenty-one jigawatts!" which always makes me smile.
I always use giga... but jiga does have a nice ring to it.
Yes, disturbing amounts of energy used globally and a lot of it is frivolous, or what ever word you prefer. Bitcoin is another get-rich-quick scheme....
To be honest I don't spend much time watching news / news related stuff cos it makes me depressed and fvckin' angry.
All me and Mrs P can do is be careful and not wasteful and leave it at that. It's up to the rest to do their bit, but no amount of legislation will stop certain types.... cos it's their right!
Edit: meant to say that I remember a few years ago now that the top 2% richest of the populace own about 50% of the total planetary worth and use a similar amount of energy so maybe we should concentrate on making them carbon neutral first. Don't ask me how though.
I always use giga... but jiga does have a nice ring to it.
Yes, disturbing amounts of energy used globally and a lot of it is frivolous, or what ever word you prefer. Bitcoin is another get-rich-quick scheme....
To be honest I don't spend much time watching news / news related stuff cos it makes me depressed and fvckin' angry.
All me and Mrs P can do is be careful and not wasteful and leave it at that. It's up to the rest to do their bit, but no amount of legislation will stop certain types.... cos it's their right!
Edit: meant to say that I remember a few years ago now that the top 2% richest of the populace own about 50% of the total planetary worth and use a similar amount of energy so maybe we should concentrate on making them carbon neutral first. Don't ask me how though.