Scots-could-be-banned-from-selling-homes-without-a-heat-pump

[Scotsgirl001]

Surely this will cant happen. How do they expect the average person to be able to afford to install a heat pump in their home. Honestly I despair!
Scots could be banned from selling homes without heat pumps (agcc.co.uk)

The telegraph article is behind a paywall, can anyone access and paste it?

I had a heat pump installed last February. It's absolutely brilliant. No maintenance issues, house was much warmer than our boiler, and it's cheaper. We came off gas to do it.

We have installed more insulation ( cavity wall and underfloor) but had that done after the pump installed. House was warm with the pump but before insulation but would have cost more to heat without insulation.

There are issues at the moment if you have a very old house with lots of drafts. But any heating is going to be expensive without insulation. New heat pumps are being developed that are even more efficient and will be suitable for older houses.

There is a load of bad press about heat pumps but a lot of it from people who are threatened by the new technology, including parts of the gas industry and boiler engineers/plumbers.

I do think a lot of what the greens do is impractical (stuff around landlords is bonkers for example) but to fair I think what Patrick Harvie said is that people will need to move to heat pump, district heating or other electric heating. That will have to happen if we want to cut carbon emissions.

There are also generous grants and interest free loans from Scottish Government for both heat pumps and insulation.

Can I ask how much you paid for your heat pump installation and how old your house is ? Also how much did you spend on insulation > And did you get a grant and/or interest free loan ?

There are apparently pilot projects in Glasgow tenements but the whole building needs to be refitted so it’s surely pretty costly.

Heard of someone putting it into their ground floor colony flat in Edinburgh successfully though.

There’s a tenement block at Niddrie Rd in Glasgow that is part of a research project to see what retrofitting and insulation
solutions are needed. Around 25% of Scotland’s housing is tenement flats. The project worked out it costs £88k per flat (they are one bedroom flats!) to retrofit them and that’s without adding solar panels or external cladding. Heat pumps could only be added to first and second floor flats, so four flats had heat pumps and the four at the top still had to have gas boilers!

I’m pro green energy solutions, but the astronomical costs, disruption and lack of skilled people to retrofit old Scottish housing are, IMO, absolutely prohibitive. In a previous life I worked on community energy projects (Bunhill in Islington) but that one doesn’t have very wide applicability as it relies on the Tube for heat.

The project concluded the works have to be done for the whole tenement at once and without anyone living there. You’d have to temporarily rehouse a whole close.

My husband researched it before our renovation. It was jettisoned.
Old house. Temperature difference too great.

We did have LPG for decades. That was hugely expensive and the firm kept changing their minds about tank safety.

Was this to me?

If yes it was about £15k. I got a £7.5 grant from scot gov and £2.5k interest free loan. I also just managed to get the old UK gov RHI grant (they deducted the value of the SG grant and is paid over 7 years). So upfront cost to me was £5k including upgrading about half the radiators (and 1 new additional radiator ) and all new pipework as it was microbore.

VAT has now been removed from heat pumps.

House is from 1979. Not super old but not new build either

The RHI is about £4k in total. So actual cost to me is around £3.5k

That’s wild!

I can't see heat pumps being used in most tenements until the pumps are a lot more efficient. My installers said they had done a couple in flats but they are tricky.

Tenements will probably join a heat network or have something like infrared heating panels.

Ha!

My one bed tenement flat cost £35k 4 years ago, I've spent about £10k on it - including putting in gas supply and replacing white meter electric heating - and it's currently worth maybe £50k. So yeah, spending £88k on a heat pump is not exactly an option!

Thanks @Jeevesnotwooster - yes that was to you. However am I correct that the RHI is no longer available ?
The cost to you is still the balance of 15k minus the grant so a total of £7.5k.

I believe that the RHI grant is no longer available and someone upthread had posted that ScotGov will only provide any grant if you are in receipt of benefits.

Even with a grant of 7.5k finding another 7.5k is still a significant ask for most people for something that is only truly effective if the insulation is good.

The sooner these absolute nutters are removed from anywhere near power the better.

No concept of reality.

@readsalotgirl63 you'd asked for my costs which I gave. My upfront cost was £5k as I took the interest free loan as well. Still a big number but costs are coming down a lot and a number of energy companies have committed to making the costs to the customer comparable to gas boilers (after the grant).

In Scotland grants are now up to £7.5k or £9k. Anyone is eligible. No requirement to be in receipt of benefits. There are some other grants you can also get if you are in benefits, mainly for insulation.

Details here https://www.homeenergyscotland.org/funding/grants-loans/overview/

Octopus price estimate here https://octopus.energy/get-a-heat-pump/

It's for England but same would apply for Scotland I think .

Thanks for the links. I appreciate that your upfront cost was £5k but your total cost is £7.5k. An interest free loan is still a loan which has to be paid back

I also appreciate that there is govt support but you still had to fund 7.5k of the cost. This is a significant amount of money. Furthermore unless a home has double glazing and decent insulation a heat pump will not be effective. Not to mention the challenges of installation in flats/tenement properties which make up a sizeable chunk of housing stock in Scotland

Where is the money going to come from for all these additional grants that the SG will have to provide? And not everyone several thousands just sitting in an account, of course.

I don't disagree. But install costs are coming down. The RHI was available because it was still new industry in the UK and costs are higher in new industries. That actually reduces the total cost to me to £3.5 k not £7k. For that I got a house that is warmer and more comfortable. In my case also cheaper to run.

RHI is not available but both kit and equipment cost are now getting lower ( as the industry matures) and VAT has been removed on both kit and install costs so another saving.

Heat pumps have a 20 year life expectancy as well so over the long term it's actually cheaper. Also some are costs are one offs.

I do agree it was a big number but costs are going down not up. And as I said Octopus (and others) are committed to making install costs around the same as a boiler.

And a heat pump will be effective in a draft house with single windows. But it will be more expensive to run, as gas is.

Anyway, the UK has to move off gas to reduce carbon emissions. There are real issues with proposals for hydrogen (more expensive, untested, big adaptation needed, less efficient and so not reduce emissions as much). So at the moment choices are basically heat pump, district heating or other electric heating.

I haven't actually seen anything from Patrick Harvie saying it will be impossible to sell a house without a heat pump. Has anyone got a quote from him on that - not from Telegraph spin?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/96c158bc-2974-11ee-b33d-6d3f5a636b40?shareToken=1514dd55e82bfc965b5a55bfedce4a21
This is the link from the Times.

Thanks @readsalotgirl63 . It will be interesting to see how it works out. Looking at SG website it's currently saying EPC rating of C or above by 2033 where technically and legally feasible and cost effective. Wonder if that will change?

There are “plans to reform EPC standards so that they are more appropriate for driving the improvements needed to reach net zero.
This could include taking account of the type of heating system for the first time, raising the possibility of those with an old fossil fuel boiler receiving a lower rating than those who have installed a heat pump. That might require the boilers to be changed before a sale.”
from The Times

But I've not seen anything yet saying that a particular EPC rating will have to be met before a house can be sold? Other than media saying that "might" be the case.

Is there a Green/SNP proposal to ban selling owner occupier houses which don't have a particular EPC rating? I know there is for landlords, and that has already been watered down, but I think that's a different case.

Overhaul of the EPC system is definitely needed. It doesn't reflect current technologies at all.

I’ve just been on homenergyscotland.org to see about my renewable energy options.

First off there is no option for a house of the configuration we have, so I have to select the closest available meaning the calculations are going to be unreliable.

After following through the assessment it recommends I install an air source heat pump which will “save” me minus £77 per year, so that’s not a thrilling proposition.

It also suggests solar PV which would potentially lead to an actual saving. However I have already contacted a potential installer for solar PV who said that there wouldn’t be enough space on my roof for enough panels and I will struggle to find someone to install that few panels.

But that’s completely aside from that fact that I wouldn’t be able to afford any upfront costs.

@FloorWipes I don't know if they are still doing it but I had an 1-2-1 telephone assessment which was really good at looking at all the options.

I was also recommended solar panels but that would mean replacing the roof which would be a massive expense.

But it does involve an upfront cost and that is going to be hard for lots of people. It may be something to do when your boiler needs replacing.

It's worth speaking to more than one installer. I found some more helpful than others

Another crackpot idea by SNP and Greens in Scotland. Honestly they get what they vote for. Maybe this will make more Scottish people think before voting SNP/Green.