Towards net zero

 Common heat pump myths. Having replaced my gas boiler with an air source heat pump in a 250 year old semi-detached cottage that drastically reduced my carbon footprint, energy consumption and energy bills, I would like to address many myths that I was faced with along this journey. 1. Heat pumps won't work in older buildings without extensive, expensive insulation. Insulation is certainly very important but in my 250 year old cottage I did basic draught proofing, the windows were already double glazed, and I topped up the loft insulation. This was very cheap. I was not confident about the expensive insulation for the outer walls by either exterior or interior methods. 2. Heat pumps won't work in the cold weather. Heat pumps are used extensively in Norway, Sweden and now I have the experience of having a heat pump in Scotland with having no problem over the last three winters.  3. Heat pumps are noisy. I have to stand within about 3 metres of my heat pump to hear it. Since it ...

 Heat pumps, weather compensation and temperature modulation. By Pat Hackett. The purpose of this post is to give understanding of how the controls of a heat pump can be used so that individual consumers can choose the most appropriate way to use these controls in different situations. It is early February 2024 as I write this post as I am sitting in my 250 year old semi-detached cottage. This is in Scotland with a heat pump that has been installed, replacing a gas boiler, about two and a half years ago. It is worth saying that my home is now more comfortable and costs much less to keep warm than if I had stayed with the gas boiler. I didn't install expensive wall insulation but did do basic DIY loft insulation and draught proofing. So I have practical experience that dispels the common myths about heat pumps not working in old properties or cold weather. However I do read about people having genuine problems on how to use their heat pumps as this is a relatively new way of heating...

  By Pat Hackett. One of my goals is to make suggestions on how individuals can reduce energy consumption so that  collectively we need less power stations in the future to meet demand making the task of replacing them with renewables less of a challenge. Furthermore to do this without a loss in individual wellbeing. I recently set out to see if we could continue to reduce our energy consumption for home heating on the realisation that this is one of the most effective way individuals can reduce our impact on the climate without waiting for Energy companies or the government to take adequate action on climate change. Many of the low cost, high impact ways that could be replicated throughout the country are of course well known. However I also found ways involving zero cost! that had huge impact for those who have heat pumps installed. I could not find any previously written descriptions of these ways. The engineers who designed the hardware and software must clearly have full ...

We had achieved the best of many worlds:-Heating our home with a simple control system that required less consumption of energy and had no compromise  on comfort or wellbeing but rather an even improved level of both. After being very satisfied with the installation I set out to find further ways to reduce the radiator flow temperature as one important way to improve the overall efficiency of the heat pump, while still achieving the desired room temperature. I found that this could be achieved to a much better degree than I had thought using standard radiators and taking full advantage of a weather compensated system control. This resulted in having radiators working at low temperatures that were more comparable to that of underfloor heating with high efficiency, stable temperatures and even freeing up floor space in our living room! (Link to follow)  So overall we reduced our energy consumption because 2/3 to 3/4 of our heat is created by the system thus reducing our carbon f...

 I think, where practical, all new builds that require heating should have heat pumps installed. Existing buildings requiring retrofit installation can be more challenging. If our personal existing heating used direct electrical heating, electrical storage heaters or some inefficient coal or oil heating it would have been a very easy decision to go ahead and get an air source heat pump installed, so long as we had the necessary space and financial capabilities for the initial capital costs. We do have the space and the upfront costs were helped by the financial incentives from the government but we had a fairly efficient 10 year old gas boiler. The decision therefore required a bit more justification but nevertheless a very worthwhile thing to do and proved to be so. The five points below were my main reasons to replace my gas boiler in the first place but there were some unexpected additional advantages that materialised. I will deal with the first two that were motivations based ...

Not everyone will have an appropriate place to install an air source heat pump. Also having to install a large domestic hot water tank may reduce the number of people even more. The normal answer to this question of whether or not a dhw tank is necessary is “Yes you will” and if you are replacing say a gas combi-boiler with a ground source heat pump or air source heat pump (ashp) as many people are now starting to do then you will  not likely  have a hot water tank already and you will now need space to accommodate this. However I will put the case for an instantaneous water heater that will be suitable for some people and I believe will become a growing number of people. With a new attitude to domestic hot water (dhw) they can reduce their carbon foot considerably and very easily by adopting this alternative to the hot water tank. First I will describe why normally people are advised to get a hot water tank when they are considering replacing their existing heating system wit...