Towards net zero

 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...