>Reasonable point, but I feel my case still stands: the population able to make these changes could do so, enabling existing infra (and housing stock) to "go further" before requiring expensive and disruptive overhaul.

I'm sorry but as an outsider to me this straight up just sounds like kicking the can down the road! Let's get it fixed, build more solar, get more power in the grid, deregulate personal solar so its an attractive incentive to get more people generating power, etc.. Rather than "you need to use less" mentality, especially while people literally die to the heatwaves the UK has been getting recently..

It's been pretty clear that globally the grid operators are all very much lazy and would rather increase prices and reap benefits short term than adding more capacity to the grid, even where i live (in Brazil) its very much clear that grid operators too would rather raise your bill and collude to add more taxes if you want to generate your own solar than to get more supply in the grid and make the bills cheaper (we have a minimum bill you have to pay even if you have full self-generated solar AND a thing called a "solar tax" because of course, the sun is the govt's property, gotta pay a tax for using it..).

Having 8mm pipework (microbore, which was fairly commonly used when central heating was being retrofitted) connected to standard sized radiators with a flow temp of 35 degrees is unlikely to actually heat a building.

That said, most properties in the UK don't have this problem. They _do_ likely need bigger radiators which comes with a cost, but a lot of these houses would benefit from just upgrading from their single panel rad with no fins.

Many old-style radiators only work with high water temperatures. Uninsulated pipework can "waste" a lot of water temperature before you even reach the radiator

I'm not sure any of that makes heatpumps technically impossible, but it makes them more expensive and less efficient

We're about to get a heatpump (in the UK) and our pipework is fine but we need to replace pretty much all the radiators, both the old ones, about 45 years old, and the newer ones, about 15 years old, in order to be able to heat the house to a sensible temperature.

What the other comment said, but more technically, the amount of heat transferred is proportional to delta-T. So older radiators have less surface area, relying on hotter water to transfer enough heat energy to make up for the heat loss of the building.

Meanwhile the efficiency (COP) of a heat pump drops the higher its temperature differential is. So trying to keep the water loop temperature the same is a non-starter. (The same problem can happen with high efficiency condensing natural gas boilers which have much lower flue temperatures)

(From an American perspective although I'll convert the units) - older radiator systems were designed for water temps of around 80C, room temp around 20C, so that is 60C (60 K/Kelvin, really) delta-T. Whereas if a heat pump wants to put out 50C water for half the delta-T (30K), you then need twice the amount of radiator surface area to transfer the same amount of heat. The system will work fine in the shoulder seasons when not much heat is required, but at the coldest nights design temperature it will not be able to keep up and your indoor air temperature will then drop despite the heat being on.

(Pipe sizing enters into it as well but isn't as straightforward to explain)

> Nobody is talking about banning the sale of gas boilers.

Several energy suppliers websites have pages dedicated to this very topic.

The current 2035 target originates in the ministerial Heat and building strategy policy paper (2020):

"Our ambition is to phase out the installation of natural gas boilers beyond 2035."

In the Annex:

Aiming to phase out the installation of new and replacement natural gas boilers from 2035, once costs of low-carbon alternatives have fallen, in line with the natural replacement cycle, including any hydrogen-ready boilers in areas not converting to hydrogen, to ensure that all heating systems used in 2050 are compatible with Net Zero.

Given the energy policy of the UK, which to many engineers makes absolutely no sense at all, it's impossible to predict what will actually come out of the policy sausage factory next.

Either we ban gas boilers sooner rather than later, or we mandate expensive syngas to run them, or we can't reach net zero emissions.

They can, but then their COP is like... 2. Which is not great. Coupled with high units costs, need to make math is it even worth it compared to just electric heating.

> new builds will have to be built with heat pumps from (if memory serves) 2035.

England: from 24 March 2027

Scotland: since 1 April 2024.

The legislation doesn't mandate heat pumps specifically, it mandates >=75% lower carbon emissions than homes built to the 2013 standards, which effectively requires heat pumps, solar panels, and significantly improved insulation. Build and running costs aren't measured, it's quite possible new homes will cost more to buy and run, and could be smaller to compensate.

You remember "2035" because in 2021 the government announced it "wanted" to ban gas boilers entirety by that date: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58959045

... but as far as I know, never enacted legislation to ban their sale or fitting in existing houses. And that aspirational policy has been announced as dropped multiple times, at least since last July, most recently today

What is the point in being wealthy if it is not to avoid tedious inconveniences?

> and if there was a way for my washing machine to have a 3h window overnight to run in to be done for 7:30 I'd do it in a heartbeat.

I think most of these appliances sold today have at least some sort of "delay start" function. We use that to do exactly what you describe. Not even for nght tariff, it's just convenient to time it like that.

You probably want your washing machine to finish when you'll be ready to take the clothes out, rather than leave them sitting damp in the machine.

There should be plenty of opportunity to load shift with other things though, a dishwasher as you mentioned, or a fridge or a storage heater or a charger for your electric car. All can be done with minimal inconvenience to the user.

> "Let's consume more" for the poor. It is a grotesque argument.

OP was making a fair point that not everybody has the same amount of time and energy (or money) to tolerate shifts in their routine, which in the context of a "personal vs collective responsibility" style argument is entirely reasonable.

By the same token, if only the _rich_ have the freedom to make such behavior changes for the sake of conservation it will only ever have a token impact, and in many cases the "correct" level to make an efficiency pitch at is the community: a decent light rail system will always outperform everyone driving their own vehicle to work/the store/downtown in terms of space and energy efficiency.

...but, to get people to buy into such "collectivist" systems, you often have to get them to contend with some perceived reduction in personal convenience: yes, a train doesn't need a parking lot and uses less gas per passenger-mile, but then you're beholden to the train schedule. It's exactly _that_ sentiment that I find frustrating in advocating for sustainable civic design.

To OP's point: whatever that "collectivist" option is necessarily has to contend that standards of accessibility and convenience are not constant across the population. That doesn't inherently mean "the poor should consume more," but that "hang dry your laundry" isn't an option for everyone in the current dominant socioeconomic structure.

You're pushing the burden back onto the consumer to find workarounds for a broken system.

Having to install battery capacity in your own house is a step backwards.

If water was unavailable for 4 hours a day, you would suggest putting in your own rainwater filtration system.

Is 20°C supposed to be austere? Is that a typo? I keep my American home at 67-68°F in the winter...

20 degrees is just fine. During winter I really don't want to sweat at home, nor do I want to only wear a T-shirt (like I would need at 22 or more).

Whenever I go shopping, it's insane how much they heat most places, while people are wearing heavy winter jackets.

You think HVAC and cars are an American prospective?

It turns out that small minor improvements compound long term, and there are relatively few examples of massive step-changes that were centrally planned. Here's a good book on the topic that you may enjoy: https://press.stripe.com/origins-of-efficiency

> not trading minor conveniences now for avoidable catastrophic consequences later.

Those minor conveniences are a drop in the bucket when it comes to total CO2 output.

> We're already building wind and solar at bananas rates [0]

no we arent. China added the entire capacity of the US grid in solar in the last 4 years and they are accelerating. That is bananas. We've barely increased total grid capacity in the last 20 years. It should be a national embarrassment. Energy abundance is possible, and one of the greatest ways to improve peoples lives. There are no energy poor countries that are rich.

Half the state of Nevada should be a solar farm at this point if anyone actually cared about climate change, and that would do 10x to imrpve peoples lives than telling them not to use the dryer.

again, the degrowth mindset relies on a fundamental paucity of imagination and will to actually solve the problem.

> Would it really have a strong negative impact on your life to run your dryer overnight

Absolutely. That thing is loud.

>Would it really have a strong negative impact on your life to run your dryer overnight

In a london flat we rented, the washer-dryer was in a cupboard in the bedroom. So yes. At least it had one.

There's a significant misanthropic sentiment on the left stemming from, among other things, the mid-century environmental movement. It creates for a maddening incoherency, but I guess that's typical of all politics at scale.

The misanthropy is infused in popular culture, and specifically in the way ecological sciences and history (for additional reasons) is taught in schools. I not infrequently have to discuss this with my kids when they recite something they've learned in school and I can hear the misanthropic cynicism in the framing and intonation.

That is definitely the impression one would get if one watched Fox News.

If one consumed nonfiction media one might get a different impression.

Y’all are equally incomprehensible to us. Drastically reduced immigration, ineffective policies for incentivizing pregnancy, and no cash incentives for having multiple children (the one intervention that has been found to have a real, albeit modest impact on TFR). Degrowth under those conditions is all but certain.