@richardlowes.bsky.social do you know anything about the possible changes to the BUS grant to include air-to-air? Is it likely to come soon or are they going to wait on the heating trials they are doing now? Cheers
Good to finally hear engineering policy being discussed in all but name on BBC radio 4 this morning
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
'destroyed many solar panels & some of the transformers...Replacing transformers & swapping out destroyed panels allowed the farms, 400 MW worth, to be back up in seven days...attack on a thermal generating station, which experienced a similar amount of damage, took three to four months to rebuild'
I think I heard Nick Robinson on BBC Radio 4 Today programme accidentally refer to AI as “alternative intelligence”. I think we should use that instead of “artificial”.
100% what i think we need to do with all material production- reverse the carbon arrow ⬇️ not ⬆️
(and its engineers not scientists doing this…)
going to keep posting about this piece because I really think that everyone online should read it: www.wheresyoured.at/never-forgiv...
I thought that with The Tick
I’m a bit the same with reading too - if ChatgPt summarises research I’ll miss those subtle signals in the turns of phrase and asides that v often provoke new lines of thought.
I think @andershove.bsky.social might know…
Yeah i know i made the same case last week or so. I just think that the first real step that is directly HP relevant is rad upgrades.
Either way all for making eg green additional borrowing more widely available for longer 0% terms on wider changes supporting lower energy use
But it cant be meaningfully 2 steps. It can be a tiny ridge (eg. New rads) then a big ol’ step (outdoor & indoor units). Anything else makes no sense. And even that doesnt make total sense for a lot of homes
Nice thread - the question is: how?
It’s not just a matter of stripping back all the governance & saying “go on then!”
I’ve got some ideas… will post next week…
Agree with @gemmamilne.bsky.social also it appears you’re still (rightly) “shouting at engineers”. Keen to help in that chorus. Otherwise i now find it difficult *not* to see tech enterprises like AI or DAC or AVs as anything but a political enterprise that concentrates power in engineering culture
Did anyone else know it was £100 for a covid jab…?
Cant get my head around that…
100% especially if the switch involves:
- Gaining internal useful space
- Cheaper heating/hot water
- Redecorating
- Zero up front outlay (capital investment in part built into energy tariff)
Something like that. I think I’d be inclined to set up a ministore manufacturing site (govt majority owned public corp) to mass supply these. Probably cd also do something with electric- coupled showers & taps here too to balance space/power/DHW demands…
I def think that a better BUS-use is free rad upgrades & i’d also add a more centralised record of heat loss calcs. Poss subsidised so you pay say £50 and its valid for 1-2 years or something…
Yes I’ve seen the ministore & its def an innovation that will unlock a few more homes but one challenge is its not part of any major manufacturers delivery or installation programme… & its not clear what the incentive
Is for anyone to make it so… as such it is *more* expensive than current options
…of heat pump installs in UK. Nothing really to do directly with the spark gap. Of course it will help a bit to reduce it much like the RHI helped. But as we see with 0 effect of boosting the BUS by 50% the issues are more complex than cost and regs.
…gained. I think there must be many in my position given our terrace is the second most common house type after semis) and the speed of fitting new boilers means the demand for HPs is likely going to remain suppressed. Only savvy old non-combi boiler hhs are going to pursue this hence the slow rise…
…maybe £40 less per month with savings concentrated on shoulder months (heating on, high COPs). So overall I will have taken on a lot of extra finance, brought in a lot of work into the house with a new uncertain system (aira guarantee helps but demands space with indoor units), lost space and not…
…the banks green additional borrowing which allows me to spread this cost (& new double glazed sashes) over 16 yrs with first 5 years 0%. V favourable finance. At best, using the cosy tariff with Octopus (12p off peak waves thru day, 24p most of rest of time) heating costs probably a bit less…
…costs could be reduced a bit by selling (?) our newish boiler (fitted 2 years ago before we moved in) so could bring the net cost to say £5500. But this still doesnt necessarily solve our cold kitchen which needs remodelling & prob underfloor heating… so that aside, this could be funded with…
…their boiler-sized compact indoor unit… which would go where the boiler is. Ok except one bonus of a new system is that it could free up space in our 100m2 house… our boiler is boxed up in the box room making it a box room rather than the bedroom it should be… so ok… no real gains, some losses…
…visually. Indoor: we’d need space for the cylinder & indoor unit. They recommended 250l for 4 of us, but our spare loft space is too short to fit anything more than a 200l. Which is ok if we also fit a flow limiting showerhead & use the cosy tariff to top up if needed. Then we’d need space for…
So we got a quote from Octopus (online), Ovo (online) - both £7500 post BUS. aira came & quoted £7000 inc £1700 replacing all rads (only half prob need it). So a good deal probably. But we’d need to have the outdoor unit in the side return (blocks side return space) or wall mounted (not great
Try running the numbers using a heat pump electric tariff like OVO Plus which is 15p/kWh, it's possible to deliver heat at 3p/kWh which is less than half the price of gas, take a look at the system oin HPM heatpumpmonitor.org?mode=costs&t...
Hot take: getting an air-to-water heat pump when you have a ~7 year old or younger combi boiler in a 120m2 (or smaller) UK property is both an act of self-harm & an act of communal healing.
I could thread this but I’m pretty tired rn
About 1.3m if we dont inslate the rafters - a 200l probably fits. Figure we can probably live ok with it if:
7l/min flow limiter on shower
Maybe higher storage temp to mix down to greater vol (do they do that normally w/ a mixer shower?)
Using cosy we can recharge during day if AM showers & PM baths
Thanks Glyn - That’s what I thought. I’ll see if I can persuade them not to install - it will presumably save costs & space, disruption. Next challenge is the hot water cylinder… we dont have vertical space for a 250l so will see if they offer something shorter or horizontal…
