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| ▲ | cnewey 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I was recently in a situation where I had to replace my oil-fired heating system’s oil tank (it wasn’t double skinned and no longer safe). It was £2500 to replace the oil tank, or I could opt for £2250 to install a heat pump with the government grant. This included all plumbing, electrical work, installation, and 6 new radiators all over my house. Honestly to me it seemed like a no-brainer. It’s a tad more expensive to run, but it works really quite well and is a lot less invasive than a big smelly tank of kerosene. I gained another 90cm of width in my garden, it’s actually quieter than the oil boiler, and it doesn’t stink in the summer- win win. | | |
| ▲ | OptionOfT 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Did you add extra insulation to your house (or was it already more modern?). Otherwise the heatpump just can't catch up. And currently I have the opposite problem. The house is too well insulated for the heater (or the heater is too powerful). The heater only runs for a couple of minutes and huts off. | | |
| ▲ | cnewey 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Hah, no my house was built in the 1750s or something like that - single glazing on the front and with fairly minimal insulation, plus it has no cavity wall (a mixture of wattle and daub and brick). It is a mid-terrace though so I benefit from neighbours being either side. There have been a few cold snaps here where the weather has been down to -2 some days, but it’s been fine. I had a couple of minor installation issues (eg 3 way valve set incorrectly) but once those were fixed my house hasn’t dropped below 19C. |
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| ▲ | wkat4242 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yes, it's just a lot of money for a lot of people. Norway is really a different kind of rich compared to the rest of europe, they have tons of oil rights all over the world (and as such they still contribute a lot to global warming even though they have a lot of money for 'green' tech at home). PS yeah Spain is good for heating but not for AC though (which I don't have, sadly). But I do enjoy life here a lot more even though I would make much more money in Holland. | | |
| ▲ | OptionOfT 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | As someone who moved from Belgium to Phoenix, I agree. I prefer how dry heat over cold, windy & humid. |
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| ▲ | supersparrow 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | A boiler should actually be lasting more like 20 years. I recently replaced my 20 year old one purely because if anything went wrong, it’d become an expensive/long job to fix as parts were hard to find, otherwise it was still running perfectly at its manufacture specified efficiency. Running them for 20 years isn’t uncommon. I had a quote for a heat pump - £20k, plus the cost to replace 13 radiators, plus cost to replace pipework to support heat pump rads. Pretty sure the government ‘incentive’ was £3k at the time. Doesn’t come remotely close! | | |
| ▲ | pjc50 15 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I managed £15k minus £7k of Scottish government incentives, and I managed to avoid replacing all my radiators by .. getting a "hybrid" system which also includes a boiler for HW :/ Far from ideal solution, but it is mostly green, somewhat offset by the solar panels, and actually more comfortable than the old system because of the more even heating. Set to 20C and forget about it for the season. I'm hoping that it will last until the actual gas phaseout when a solution compatible with 8mm piping will exist. This is why they need to be mandated on new houses, because it's so much better than trying to retrofit it. | | |
| ▲ | hexbin010 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | £15k included the solar? | | |
| ▲ | pjc50 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sadly no, that was a £5k => 3.8kW installation ten years previously. That has long since paid for itself in feed in tariffs. |
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| ▲ | hexbin010 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Was your old boiler a non-combi? Modern condensing combis I think are designed to be more complex and not last as long. I'm not sure all the complexity and fancy modulation etc is really worth it myself. I'd rather have a boiler that lasts 20 years and that any half-competent gas engineer can fix with a spanner and some spare parts. £20k, jesus! | | |
| ▲ | zzbn00 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Condensing boilers became mandatory in UK just over 20 years ago | |
| ▲ | rsynnott 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Whatever about a combi, you probably don't want a non-condensing boiler these days, not with gas the price that it is. |
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| ▲ | mrmlz 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | UK houses are really interesting.. Single-glass windows, poor insulation etc. And plumbing on the OUTSIDE(!) :) Are the boilers typically connected to water-radiators?.. I assume so based on the word "boiler". There are heatpumps that are used to heat water so it would be a slot in replacement.. | | |
| ▲ | pjc50 15 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Not many people left with single glazing unless they've been trapped by historic building rules. "Outdoor plumbing" is not a thing. The pump is a drop in replacement unless you have 8mm "microbore" piping, at which point the lower temperature times restricted flow rate becomes a problem in terms of getting enough heat through. | | |
| ▲ | PaulDavisThe1st 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | My parents' house in Bath is not "trapped by historic building rules" but there is no way in hell they are ever going to replace 3-4 stories of single pane glass double hungs ... and that house still has the sewage stacks on the outside of the house, as do almost all homes in Bath and environs. | |
| ▲ | wkat4242 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Not sure about the UK. I've seen a lot of outdoor plumbing in Ireland. I lived in a place that had that. They were literally running on the outside. Our maintenance guy said they did that to make maintenance easier, but it also makes wear & tear a lot easier obiously (not to mention frost). And chipboard floors that would crack with heavy furniture. It was terrible quality. These houses were built in the mid 80s. And a dirty tank of water in the attic to act as a "in-house water tower" because only one tap may be connected directly to the mains. Really archaic. | |
| ▲ | rsynnott 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | By 'outdoor plumbing' they probably mean pipes running up the outside of buildings (not, like, outhouses). This is somewhat common for waste pipes. |
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| ▲ | asplake 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Brit here. Your first pragraph describes older housing stock, not anything built in decades. Not that the quality of our quality of our stock couldn't be improved, or that our (very real) energy standards for new builds couldn't be stricter, but things aren't quite as grim everywhere as the picture you paint. | |
| ▲ | supersparrow 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I’ve lived in the UK for 35 years and lived in various properties built in every decade from 70s-10s. Some much older and less loved ones did have single pane windows but have never seen plumbing on the outside. Maybe on much older houses? Certainly not on anything remotely new. A lot of new builds here have solar, heat pumps and insulation has been excellent for at least 20 years. | | |
| ▲ | pm215 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | You do relatively commonly see wastewater piping on the outside of a house in the UK, especially older stock (soil stack from the toilet, waste pipe from sink or bath running into it). This is fine in the UK climate where a normally empty pipe doesn't need insulation. I hear that it won't work in places that get extreme low winter temperatures, but the UK doesn't have winters that cold. You don't see them on new builds, I think, probably because the pipe going from inside to outside would reduce insulation effectiveness. | | |
| ▲ | Scoundreller 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yeah it makes sense for buildings where plumbing was retrofitted. Otherwise people try to retrofit narrow drain pipes in the walls which are prone to clogging or give you poor flushing performance. Or outside big enough pipes outside interior walls where you get to hear every flush/shower unless you build a box around that. Easier to just run it outside if you can configure your bathrooms that way. |
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