[KirinChris]

I know ‘government announcement’ and ‘detail’ are rarely mentioned together but does anyone have more of an idea about the changes to the oil-boiler ban announced this week ?

Particularly the bit about giving permanent exemption from conversions to heat pumps for a number of houses.

We are in an old stone farmhouse and the only way to do it would be full internal insulation. Might as well build a new house, not that we’d be allowed to knock it down (or that we’d want to !) so I’m hoping we will be exempt but can only find a headline announcement.

[chrismahon]

Googling came up with an article by Telegraph Money entitled 'The oil boiler ban pushed back to 2035- here's how to get around it'. I can't read it without signing up to a trial.


Our oil boiler ban has been in force for several years now. No new boilers, so if your old one can't be repaired it's change to either a pellet burner or a heat pump. In our case a heat pump would be fine, even with stone walls and an uninsulated floor. The important thing is to use convectors not radiators so the system runs at a low temperature to get the maximum efficiency from the pump. Trying to use a heat pump in conjunction with radiators is going to fail, as many have discovered.

[Bywaters]

My house is 200+ years old and we had the front and side elevations internally insulated early this year

We used foil insulation . Actual construction was 25mm batten, then the foil then another 25mm batten and plaster board and skim.
It's much less draughty but we have yet to see what the winter gives
We also had our timber suspended floors (part of an upgrade from flagged floors many years ago) lifted and insulated
Wasn't cheap - but not as bad as we thought in terms of ££ and disruption

[SallyintNorth]

In our case a heat pump would be fine, even with stone walls and an uninsulated floor. The important thing is to use convectors not radiators so the system runs at a low temperature to get the maximum efficiency from the pump. Trying to use a heat pump in conjunction with radiators is going to fail, as many have discovered.

It's a matter of the right sort of radiators, and of insulation. 

We are successfully heating several homes using ground source heat pumps.  Several of them use underfloor heating but several use radiators and are toasty warm.  The radiators are much bigger and bulkier, because the water temperature is not as high so you need a bigger surface area, and they're the thick double-walled kind so that you get convection currents.

We have 2 flats and the communal ground floor of the farmhouse heated by an air source heat pump.  Top flat has underfloor, middle flat and ground floor use the same sort of radiators as described above.  All are toasty warm. 

[doganjo]

I think I saw that the grant towards air source heat pumps had gone up or was going up to £7500?

I had an estimate for solar panels and an ASHP a couple of weeks ago. I asked cost, grants, payback, space, house value

None of them increase the value of the house, but might increase saleability(not an issue with my house - there were 7 offers below mine  )

I'm too old to have reasonable pay back for the solar panels (cost about £16K, grant £7500, pay back about 6 years - I don't want to tempt providence at almost 80  )

The ASHP was a bit better at 4/5 year payback but cost was £10K and a grant of £5000 so a big chunk of money out of what is left of my savings

Another solution was a big sort of storage box(can't remember what it was called = power Ac or something like that), a bit like the old internal economy 7 storage radiators, which uses cheap electricity overnight and lets it out as needed during the day.  It was ugly, situated outside and needed a whole new set of tubes throughout the loft

I thought hard about it all, then decided I'll stick to my woodburner in the lounge/dining room/kitchen through room, and oil filled radiator in my bedroom (expensive to heat to temperature, but then cheap at maintenance level), extra jumpers, and velvet throws.

At least that way I'm not paying the huge Energy company salaries and dividends we've been told about, and Octopus give me a special rate for loyalty.  The only contention is the standing charge and Octopus are as angry about that as I am, so I know they are working to get it reduced