You can’t have escaped the hype around Air Source and Ground Source Heat Pumps as our saviour towards a carbon neutral heating system for our homes, and I must admit that I agree that if commissioned properly, then they are an efficient alternative to a gas fuelled heating system. But in my opinion, they are not a genuine alternative if most of society can’t afford them.
One of our goals when moving to Steepfield House was to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels with a slow progression to becoming carbon neutral, but now that we have moved, that goal is becoming seemingly further out of reach.
Before I go off on one of my rants, lets put things into perspective.
The UK government has set itself ambitious targets to achieve net zero by 2050 and in its Net Zero Strategy: Build Back Greener, it has been clear in what it believes is the pathway on how the UK can decarbonise the way in we heat and power our buildings. The Government believes that it can make the transition to low carbon buildings affordable and achievable for all by:
- Aiming to phase out the installation of new and replacement natural gas boilers by 2035
- Making heat pumps as cheap to buy and run as a gas boiler by growing the heat pump market to support 600,000 installations per year by 2028
- Supporting households in making this transition with a new £450 million Boiler Upgrade Scheme providing £5,000 capital grants and a new market-based incentive for heating system manufacturers
- Committing to action on addressing distortions in fuel prices to ensure that low carbon technologies are no more expensive to run than fossil fuel boilers.
The Government also seeking to support raw reduction of household bills through:
- Upgrading fuel poor homes to EPC Band C by 2030 where reasonably practicable and providing additional funding to the Home Upgrade Grant and the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund
- Consulting on phasing in higher minimum performance standards to ensure all homes meet EPC Band C by 2035, where cost-effective, practical and affordable.
In principle, I do not agree with any of these ambitions but they are not workable for most of the UK. There are two aspects to this plan where I and many others in the UK will struggle:
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme gives grants of £5,000 to upgrade to an Air Source Heat Pump or £6,000 to upgrade to a Ground Source Heat Pump but you must have no outstanding actions with regards to insulation (Loft or Cavity Wall). Even with the £5,000 grant, installation can still cost another £6,000-£10,000 depending on what works need doing inside the property to accommodate the pump.
A recent quote for Steepfield House would mean that even after the £5,000 grant, I would still need to pay an extra £7,000 and redo the loft insulation (I was quoted £1,800 and that was including reusing the existing insulation) although I believe that as we have solid stone walls, the cavity wall insulation requirement would be exempt for us here. So the total cost for us so far would be another £8,800 on top of what the Boiler Upgrade Scheme would grant us. But that is only if we qualified. Yes, it turns out that as we are installing a Sunamp to take care of our hot water requirements, we are not eligible for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme as it doesn’t cover replacing a boiler with a heat pump unless the heat pump is doing both the central heating and hot water. That means that whilst we wouldn’t need to fork out £1,800 to redo the loft insulation to be eligible for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, we also wouldn’t get the £5,000 grant. That would bring the total cost of £12,000 to replace the gas guzzling boiler with a Heat Pump. Something that it totally unaffordable when you consider you can get a package with a new gas boiler installed for £4-5,000.
Of course, having solid stone walls is also a problem. It’s estimated that approximately 5.7 million solid-walled houses exist in the country which means that approximately 25% of the housing stock are unable to insulate their walls. Let me correct myself: unable to affordably insulate their walls. It turns out that I really notice the cold! Having moved to Steepfield House in November, we have arrived during winter and I find myself constantly shivering. It is possible to insulate walls internally or externally but it comes at a premium. It’s estimated that internal wall insulation would cost £8,500 and external wall insulation £12,000. Of course if you have bought a period stone cottage, you wouldn’t want to hide the beauty of the stone walls but with it being a period stone cottage you also don’t want to limit the available internal space any further. But these are the only available options. If I was on means tested benefits then I could get a grant to pay for this but I work – and work hard. There are times when I miss my energy efficient house on Kennet Island!
So what options remain for heating this house?
The challenge is finding a suitable alternative to heat Steepfield House that will cost the equivalent of installing a Gas Boiler. It turns out that it’s not easy – or dare I say it, not possible.
The first option I investigated was the Tepeo Zero Emission Boiler (ZEB). This amazing – but heavy – boiler is low emission solution that stores energy like the Sunamp. It also can use excess generation from the solar PV panels. Ironically, Tepeo are based where I am from but they weren’t too keen on the EPC for Steepfield House which states that the property uses 37766 kWh per year for space heating and 5351 kWh per year for water heating and rating us as an E with the potential of being a C. Now I recognise that the EPC survey of this property was carried out in 2017 and a number of changes have already been made:
- There is a lot more insulation (although not up to New regs) taking score of 43 to 45
- Solar panels are being installed which would take the score of 45 to 52
Some of the recommendations on the EPC are not really appropriate or affordable:
- Internal or external wall insulation is too expensive for this property although it would add an extra 17 points to the score. Ironically, out electrician informs us that the upstairs of the property does in fact have internal insulation – do EPC assessors give half scores?
- Floor Insulation would give us another 2 points to our score
- Solar Water heating would give us another 2 points although would this be actually necessary with solar PV panels and a Sunamp?
So what would Steepfield House score now? Well with what we can confirm, we can assume 52 which would still be an although maybe now we would get extra points for being half internally insulated! So maybe 8.5 points might take us to a D – although I am not sure it works that way! That said, when I compared the EPC of my last property in Reading, the Reading property was scoring higher on certain aspects even though the aspects were identical between properties!
I sort of went off at a tangent there but the nuts and bolts of it is that Tepeo says that their ZEB would be too expensive for this property.
At the time of writing the cost of a ZEB from Tepeo is £6,000 plus £1,500-£2000 for installation. Ironically this is around the same price as it would be for me to pay for a heat pump if I was receiving a Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant.
The option I am exploring is Infrared Heating Panels. These work by radiating heat like from a fire and heating the objects in the room rather than heating the air. They’re not cheap and the ones I have been looking at are from Herschel. They do feel quite nice to be heated by them but the challenge is having enough panels to adequately size the room. For example, in the ‘library’ their sizing tool tells me I need 3 x 800 watt panels but there is little room to install them. I do have one 800w fixed to the chimney breast (turns out I can’t work out offset measurements!) but there is really no where else to place another two of them. You can hang them from the ceiling but that would mean involving an electrician to wire into the house rather than just plugging them into a socket. Unlike the Tepeo, you can’t make use of excess generation to store it as heat although with the thermostats, you can heat room by room which could save money in the long run.
At the time of writing, the cost of installing the heat panels through out Steepfield house would cost £9,425 although you would need to use the services of an electrician if you were going to install them where are no plug sockets (such as from the ceiling)
So at the moment there are three options:
- Air Source Heat Pump £12,000 (Although if I wasn’t installing a Sunamp I would have been eligible for £5,000 grant making this £7,000)
- Tepeo ZEB £8,000
- Infrared Panel Heating £9,425
Or of course there’s, £4-5,000 for a gas boiler. Until the government take a less lighthearted approach to this, they’re unfortunately not an affordable alternative to a gas boiler – regardless of how keen society is to go green – because doing the right thing at the moment will cost an extra £4-5,000 which isn’t feasible during a cost of living exercise.
So I need to continue pondering on my options.
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