Heat Pumps Likely To Cost £20k To Install
By Paul Homewood
Returning to heat pumps, the Telegraph referred to an analysis by the Energy & Utilities Alliance, a trade body. They also produced this analysis of upfront costs last November:
https://www.eua.org.uk/new-report-tracks-true-cost-of-green-energy-switch/
They came up with these installation costs for two typical homes:
Note that they include the £5000 government grant, so the real upfront cost is £20444 for the older semi, and £17837 for a modern detached. The difference assumes that the latter needs no further insulation.
I suspect that most houses will fall somewhere in the middle, needing some insulation, but not as much as the post war semi. In other words, around £20000.
We keep hearing government and renewable lobby claims that the cost of heat pumps is going to miraculously fall, but the tables above indicate that much of the cost relates to fitting new radiators and pipework, along with insulation. There is also the much higher installation costs to factor in for heat pumps, in comparison with gas boilers. It is generally accepted that heat pumps take much longer to install, leading both to high levels of disruption and higher labour costs.
When all this is taken into account, reducing heat pump manufacturing costs by even 50% will have little impact on the equation.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Current domestic air source heat pump technology were developed from systems designed to provide an economic heating and cooling for small to medium commercial offices where the major demand is for cooling.
These systems never worked economically for heating.
I was actually amazed when the government put this forward as a solution.
‘The Government put this through…’ – If only we could find a name to tack on to that statement (I put money on Deben and his mates) we’d have a good idea who is using this scare to line their pockets.
Talking of Deben: his grade one mansion is exempt from heat pumps etc. I wonder if I should get my Wimpey pile rated G1? 🤔
I have 2 heat pumps ,one upstairs and one downstairs. Its a 90s build so has good insulation but not double glazing . Its Air to air so no radiators and no hot water heating . That would be a separate self contained unit.
It does work economically for heating. The physics is plain and simple. The noise rises just after start-up but soon settles to a low hum. Cold mornings are a challenge as low temp means they can ice up outside, but it soon ‘defrosts itself’
Ive just replaced my fridge to one that uses the same technology for cooling. Noticeable drop in monthly kWhr used – but the buggers put up the price of power
I dont think converting gas to electric makes a lot of sense for many but that doesnt mean heat pumps arent both efficient and suitable
And what would be the cost for a stone-walled cottage in the rural hinterland with no gas or oil heating, with double glazing and in need of a new roof with associated insulation? Plenty of these around.
Sapper2: If there is no mains gas supply, a heat pump is already the best solution !
Perhaps this is why local developers’ planning applications continue to include gas beating!
I live in a 1930’s semi-detached house with a small loft conversion and decent sized garden. I had a look at this over lockdown as was astonished at the price for an ASHP. For a heatpump alone the cost was £16k, fitting was initially prices at £5-6k until the cost of changing all my radiators and plumbing was brought in. That added another £10k. I could have had my garden dug up for a GSHP provided it could loop back on itself a few times. That was more expensive. When comparing the efficiency and effectiveness, the company admitted that all my windows and doors would have to be replaced to make the ASHP as effective as possible but, due to the nature of my walls and the insulation fitted, the recommended option would have been additional insulation fitted to the exterior or interior of my wall. I didn’t get a cost for that either.
My combi-condensing boiler works at over 95% efficiency, gets my house warm fairly quickly and keeps it warm. As it’s a Worcester-Bosch and under 10 years old, it’s a pretyt good model, it has at least another 10 years life in it. A replacement would be £1500 for a top of the range model. You do the maths.
The government is already doubling down on the insanity of windmills and smart meters, heat pump policy is not going to die, whatever the facts.
Governments can die at the ballot box.
There’s only 2 realistic government parties and they both have the same policy and delusions.
Of course.
But it requires an opposition candidate that isn’t manifestly more stupid & venal than the candidate supporting HMG.
And it requires the sheeple to vote for that rarest of opposition candidates.
The only ones in the present parliament that might be worth considering are Graham Stringer and Sammy Wilson.
So good luck with that.
Not going to happen is it.
Whoever we elect we get wef/un policy.
If we elect someone not aligned, the hidden powers mobilise to get them ejected.
Get a new boiler and sit back and wait. Hydrogen distribution is years away and price will be very high. Heat pumps will never get anymore efficient (thermo-dynamics do not change) or cheaper, and budget for replacement every 10 years. May be a good time to install a wood burner if you can
Long ago we had a Baxi open fire. As well as burning logs and driftwood we would manufacture fake logs from old newspapers. They burnt reasonably well.
Could a modern woodburner use those too?
We too had a Baxi. It burnt coal beautifully and warmed much of the house.
” Could a modern wood burner use those too?” Yes very definitely they can and do. A neighbour of mine actually collects cardboard packaging locally from all those Amazon et alia deliveries people have. She shreds them through an old office based shredding machine bought on Ebay, mixes the cuttings up in some magic water laced with starch and then puts them in a compressing block maker. When dried these things burn for hours on end and she uses them to keep the fire “in” very cheaply for times when she is at work (or collecting fallen wood).
Her wood burner is also a small oven with hob and has a back boiler doing hot water and four radiators. She cooks almost exclusively on it through the heating months using a propane cooker as back up and for the remainder of the year. She claims to be one of the very few people whose energy bills go up in the summer.
I’ve a relatively new gas condensing boiler, a wood burning stove, dumb meters, and building up a good stock of logs that nature very conveniently supplied in the recent storms/winds. There’s no way I’m going to change all that for any of ASHP, GSHP or smart meter.
Heat pumps are very noisy – a problem in built-up areas. They are also high maintenance – the installation cost is not the end of it by any means.
All these projections seem to assume that Britain is near freezing for most of the year and we are all to live in a totally sealed up triple glazed dwelling. In reality the climate in England is mostly well above freezing and a good proportion of healthy people enjoy opening windows in even quite chilly weather and keep their heating running at the same time to provide an environment of warmish fresh air. We are NOT Sweden or chilly Canada.
There’s little point installing heat pumps if there is no electricity to power them. Word on the grapevine suggests that the Net Zero infused groupies from the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy are beginning to privately panic at the prospect of power outages commencing as early as October this year due to their ineptitude. Oh, and they don’t have a plan B. Tally ho!
Mack:
PLAN B: fast train to Liverpool and a ship to South America (old Goon show).
Hence the pleas to the owners of the remaining, active, coal fired power stations to keep them open.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61256615
“Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng wrote to EDF, Drax and Uniper this month to ask that they temporarily extend the operation of the coal plants, which are used for back-up generation.”
So Kwasi Kwarteng is under the deluded illusion that the coal fired stations’ reprieve will be ‘temporary’??!! Oh Dear!
These costs are for the heat pumps and ancillary equipment, plus fitting, but there’s also ruined decor, flooring, walls and kitchen / bathroom units to consider, too. Repair or replacement costs there will be in the thousands.
Government are clearly on a NZ mission without considering any practicalities. They’re completely insane.
There are many heat pump installations here in the US even in the northern states but they are almost all hot air systems (heat delivered by forced hot air rather than water). I never see hot air systems mentioned in the comments. Is there some reason it is not used more in the UK? Here in the US most folks also want air conditioning which comes along with a heat pump heating system for a modest additional cost.
I think you answered your own question. The UK is not a hot place, and almost nobody has air conditioning at home. Peak demand is always a winter evening.
From personal experience it seemed to be a VHS/Betamax thing too. Buying a house in 1980ish there were quite a few with ducted air heating but they had a reputation of being more expensive to run. Now they are pretty rare. Between no need for air-con and air heating being unfashionable water filled radiators won.
It really doesn’t matter, because according to the settled science, the UK will be so warm soon we don’t need heating at all.
So, £20k heat pump or electric boiler (£1.5-3k approx. including installation) using existing radiators?
https://www.boilerguide.co.uk/articles/best-electric-boilers
You might need a main fuse upgrade.
Heat pumps are an absurdly expensive and inefficient solution devised by incompetent politicians to solve a non-existant climate crisis devised by the same incompetent politicos. Trouble is, it is our fault for electing the selfsame incompetent twits — its called democracy !
Yes why spend “only” £20,000+ for a heat pump when you can buy this and do the job much, much better.
https://www.toolstation.com/vokera-compact-a-din-combi-boiler/p18111
How dare they only charge £473!
Can someone explain why you need to replace the existing radiators and pipes? I have a heat sink serving my radiators which is presently heated by gas, but it can also be heated with air source heat pump, solar or electric resistance heating. No talk of needing to replace the radiators or pipes as you swap the heat source. [Also, originally the tank was heated by a wood stove, before my wife complained about chopping all the wood!]
Heat pumps produce water at a much lower temperature than a gas boiler does, so you need larger bore piping to supply larger radiators.to produce the necessary heat.