Latest Moan From You and Me 2025

According to the Internet, @ViewAhead , the expected life span of a gas boiler is identical to that of a heat pump: 10-15 years, up to 20 if you're lucky and they are well maintained. And your electric boiler is only a third the efficiency of an air source heat pump, so you have to add that fact into your costings.

All heating systems will operate better if the house is well insulated - blocking leaks and increasing insulation where you can, in an old house, makes financial sense. And a heat pump in a new build makes perfect sense, since it will already be insulated to a high standard. Modern heat pumps aren't huge, and can be mounted on an outside wall if for example they are installed in a flat. Regarding noise: our pump is situated under the bedroom window, which we keep open at night most of the year. Rain may wake me, but the heat pump doesn't. We have a second heat pump (which uses exhaust air extraction, plus hot water when available from a solar thermal panel installed by our predecessors on the roof) for our hot water. It's in the airing cupboard. It isn't silent, but it's not noisy.

Our LG heat pump manufacturer recommends servicing every 2 years. There's no burner so nothing to get clogged up. Servicing isn't expensive, though it's true it's more of a specialist service than that provided by a gas or oil boiler engineer.

You're right about the expense of adaptations, though if you're able to access government grants, as we were, the costs can be reduced a lot. If you're having work done on the property anyway, again as we were, it makes sense to do it all at once. And the benefit of changing a draughty single-skin bungalow into a comfortable home, cool in summer due to the external insulation as well as warm in winter, is great.

I did say that our climate isn't excessively cold in winter, but it's not dissimilar to temperatures in much of the UK.

 

Some time ago we cleared our loft of the accumulated detritus we all have and replaced it with a additional layer of insulation. The old stuff had been squashed a little but fluffed up ok and with the extra layer we really feel the difference. In all it cost about £75-100 I think but we sold some of the old things we brought down, so it was essentially free.

 

I'm struggling with something being 300% efficient
Surely it can't be more than 100% efficient and even that is probably impossible.

 

It is in comparison to normal boilers, so 3 times as efficient.

 

The problem was there from the day they moved in, it was checked and claimed to be working 'as designed', so the system was simply not getting the water hot enough for their needs.

 

Sounds very much like salesman talk.

So I would expect it to cost a third of the price to run for the same heat output.

 

Across the country, thousands of households have had their homes effectively ruined by accessing gov grants to install insulation, which has created damp and condensation problems. Lots of ideas look good on paper, but ...

Some early adopters of heat pumps are finding the claims about lifespan are rather optimistic, with 7-9 yrs being about the duration. And, of course, there are no gov grants for buying your replacement.

Electric boilers have no issues and no downsides. The technology is fit for purpose as it stands. The expertise to fit them is plentiful. It is utter madness that the only obstacle is the cost of electricity per unit.

 

Meanwhile ... 1,000 people have entered the UK via inflatables in a week. Even if the much heralded "one in, one out" system were working perfectly (... and, realistically, what are the chances of that day ever dawning ), that means our population has grown by a thousand, all of whom will be costing tax-payers money for some time to come.

Seriously, this is now beyond farcical.

 

Don’t worry. They are all gainfully employed selling vapes.

 

Hi

soooooo annoyed I watched Traitors on BBC1 for several weeks and I had recorded the final episode .. to watch this morning . I was watching the sky news at 11.30pm and they quickly said spoiler alert and with that said who had won ..

Annoyed Spruce

 

Or growing cannabis in appalling conditions as seen on a report this morning. Albanian crime cartel this time.

Most things look worse than they are because of all the media coverage, especially unverified scare mongering stories on social media. Farage and co are experts at this unfortunately and would have you believe that Britain is broken. Bits are, certainly, but not all of it.

Fraser Nelson, columnist for The Times, says Nigel Farage has had an effective summer campaign, promoting the idea that Britain is broken, that we live in what he calls “Lawless Britain” and is quick to link migration to crime. It’s a powerful message but does the data support this?

The number of immigrants in Britain has certainly doubled over 20 years but over this time, surveys show the amount of crime has actually halved.

These figures, from the long-running Crime Survey of England & Wales, are impossible to reconcile with the idea of a migrant-driven crimewave.

Meanwhile Farage pulls in an MP's full salary and expenses for Clacton tho he is rarely seen there and has a very porr attendance record at parliament. He also works as a tax adviser - helping people avoid taxes and has income from other jobs Nigel Farage paid £189,000 last year by gold company to work part-time

 

A heat pump doesn't generate heat like any sort of boiler. It uses a small amount of electricity to extract heat, already generated by the sun, from the air, and delivers that heat to the house. It uses, for example, 1kW of electricity to deliver 3kW of heat to the home, giving it a 300% "coefficient of performance", usually termed "efficiency".

 

The efficiency of the heat pump does vary though. They are not as efficient in colder weather or when trying to heat high warmth appliances. They are efficient at moving heat, use less energy compared to a boiler but they do habe a sweet spot for efficiency.


One of the problems with them (and it's still a problem with boilers) is spare parts. I've heard of quite a few early adopters that can't get replacement parts for their heat pump and now they are stuck with either the cost of a new heat pump, plus possibly an entirely new system, or going back to a boiler. One such guy was quoted 30 because his old system was different to the more modern ones.

I was a bit brief in my reply. It is salesman talk but they are using existing heat and simply pushing it around, so you can get 3 times the warmth generated from one unit in a comparison. The problem is they are running on different supplies so even though it's effectively 3 times the efficiency the difference in electricity and gas skew the savings.

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But the problem lies in the fact most people want to know the cost of running it and installing it.
I was told some years ago now that it wasn't worth me installing solar panels as the cost of putting them up would be more than I am likely to save due to my low electricity use.

Its all about cost, efficiency is only really there for the scientists amongst us/

We all want to save money and finding the right balance is not easy.

 

Crime statistics are just that, statistics, bear no resemblance to reality.
You can shop lift up to a couple of hundred quid and its not a crime anymore.

Half of the smaller crimes are never reported these days as people just accept that is how things are now.

And most of the shoplifting is gangs of foreigners, most of the mobile phone thefts are.
I could go on but I'm sure someone would shout racist.

Farage is doing nothing different to about 50% of MPs.