Malin Dixon3d ago
Christine Burns MBE 🏳️‍⚧️📚⧖
Rather than argue with the naysayers all over the internet who’ll claim that heat pumps don’t work, the boffins at Octopus have produced a live dashboard to chart the online data they get from all the thousands of systems they’ve installed. This is a fantastic resource. Looking at the numbers for the fleet as a whole I’m pleased to say that ‘Rosy’ (my Cosy) is bang on the norm as far as performance goes. https://octopus.energy/cosy-heat-pump-performance/?utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-92N1fVWdFAehre8wYictiCqGgrnpGeD9V5_EB3att0qPTctKB8kOeNTffe3KS1P7Gv41P9c_5XE4noQ-RqhVWDvpjwnA&_hsmi=131414226&utm_content=131414226&utm_source=hs_email
Mar 19 at 4:14pmWeb
Show threadEliza MB3d ago

@christineburns

Even BBC Radio4 is getting in on the act: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002sg1b

I missed this episode and only caught the end of today's which was about the cost of electricity.
Davis is very much a conventional economist which perhaps makes his interest in the subject more telling.

Evan Davis's Heat Pump Challenge - Heat pumps in the home - BBC Sounds

Evan Davis explores how heat pumps work and why government wants us to install them.

BBC
Show threadGrahame Gardner 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿3d ago
@christineburns Would love to see how they propose to install them for a top floor Glasgow tenement flat.
Show threadChristine Burns MBE 🏳️‍⚧️📚⧖3d ago
@scotdowser There are other options. Communal housing suggests a communal solution but the experts would be able to tell you what’s best. I wouldn’t use an air source heat pump to bake a cake but the unsuitability doesn’t prove anything.
Show threadEmelia/Emi3d ago

@christineburns @scotdowser My current dwelling here in the US has the outdoor units for each apartment perched on every available inch of roof space, although the heat here is very much still gas at the moment. (They installed the heat pumps without reversing valves for some strange reason, so they only work in "cooling" mode... Not that I really mind, given that my computers put out enough heat to keep the place "rather uncomfortably warm" without the thermostat's assistance, even in the dead of winter, when combined with my downstairs neighbors seemingly having the thermostat preferences of a lizard)

Though it is possible to have multi-head systems for larger flats or communal heating, so you could end up needing fewer outside units than you have apartments in the building.

Show threadLisPi3d ago

@christineburns @scotdowser Newer refrigerants (or sometimes just a better design with the same refrigerant) can actually do pretty well even for air-sourced heating.

Personally I would hope for a zoned setup for anything communal, rather than cheaper hacks that should never be used (one also sees similar hacks on water radiator heating in crappy buildings).

Some dual-conduit portable ACs can also do heating, among other options (those are the ones that don't create a negative pressure, anything that creates a negative pressure is a bad idea).

Show threadstephen3d ago

@scotdowser
I'm in Canada, don't know exactly what a Glasgow tenement flat is, but you can hang the slim condensers from the side of the building. I can see how this my be a policy or even political issue, but it is a solved technical problem.

@christineburns

Show threadGrahame Gardner 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿2d ago
@dmaonR @christineburns Yeah, that bold-on solution is never going to work on Glasgow's Victorian buildings, many of which are listed. I know the Council have been experimenting with roof-mounted ASHPs on a couple of buildings, but as many tenements have multiple owner/occupiers, retrofitting them all is probably an impossible, certainly monumentally expensive, task.
Show threadGuillotine Jones, Flâneur3d ago
@christineburns
News I can use!
Show threadToni Aittoniemi3d ago
@christineburns Heat pumps totally work. Almost everyone in Finland heats their houses with one nowadays. Perhaps backed up by other systems, and we have nordic versions that can start up in extreme colds, but really it's just cheaper than anything else.
Show threadjavensbukan3d ago

@gimulnautti @christineburns It's the same in NS (Canada). Almost every home has a heat pump now - mostly due to the fact that most homes used Furnace Oil which became brutally expensive, and expensive electricity making baseboards wasteful.

There is very little reason why someone wouldn't have a heat pump in NS now - unless they hate money or have some other cheaper form of heating.

The government gave them to people who couldn't afford to upgrade off of oil or electric baseboards - a huge win.

Show threadDaniel Wengelin3d ago

@christineburns

Who says it doesn't work. Here 🇸🇪 they are everywhere.

Show threadEF3d ago
@christineburns but that is a 22.8 year return. The selling point should be on the reduced emissions because heat pumps are expensive compared to concentional gas heating even with the grants . Yes I do have a heat pump and on new builds they make huge sense. On old leaky houses, leas so.