So this is a matter of universal concern. The humble gas boiler, arguably one of the most civilising and protective inventions of our age, could be on its way out.
Word on the streets is that heat pumps, designed to replace them, won’t do the job.
After growing up in a house without central heating, I’m not super-keen to return to those days - especially as we probably won’t be able to jostle for position in front of a gas fire.
Does a new internal ice age beckon in the Britain of the 2030s?
Innovation will drive the future changes. Whether that means more effective heat pumps etc, at lower costs of course, or domestic Hydrogen power, or something new not even on the blocks yet.
As gas boilers are banned for new builds from 2025, the heating and housebuilding industries have to start ramping up their alternative offerings pretty soon.
By 2025 we should have about 75% of Poland converted from Coal/wood to gas…
Writing in the Sun , Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “The Greenshirts of the Boiler Police are not going to kick in your door with their sandal-clad feet and seize, at carrot-point, your trusty old combi.”
There are quite a few alternatives to gas boilers at the moment, so the industry wont be too hamstrung when gas is phased out. Gas boiler replacement parts will still be available for a good few years until after 2025, for repairing and servicing existing stock. Ultimately though, replacing them will depend upon the house and the tech around at the time as to what systems to install.
New build housing will rely primarily on electric for electric combi’s, system heaters, panel heaters and water storage. There are lots of decent products and the technology is improving all the time. And there is an element of better control with electric heating too.
We’ve installed a few air source heating systems and they’ve been spot on. Sure they are expensive compared to a boiler replacement, but that should come down. New estate planning should see collective heating systems instead of individual plots having their own.
Currently the best thing everyone who want to improve the thermal efficiency of their house can do is to ramp up the insulation values where it escapes the most - roof space, doors and windows.
There is also an entire sector that relies on gas boilers. What the fuck happens to gas engineers?
Heat pump installers?
Lorry drivers?
Fruit and veg pickers
Current new builds I am working on all have heat pumps. Cost is built into selling price and they have all sold.
Anything is easy to do if you’re building it from scratch. I think the retro-fit is going to be the problem.
Aye, I was looking at the requirements for having a heat pump and think that would be very difficult to retrofit into my house.
We have a heat pump for our swimming pool, it only works when the air temp is above 15c and it also doesn’t heath the water to hot enough for heating/washing in. I guess heat pumps for houses are a different beast.
The Govt have said they want gas boilers not to be sold after 2035, but I can’t find any mention of them being banned
Retrofitting is probably going to kill off the idea at least in the short term.
Just thinking about my place, we’ve got some good insulation and some not so good. Replacing doors, windows and ripping out and replacing old insulation in the roof conversion is going to cost an absolute fortune on top of the heat pump.
I was thinking of getting a heat pump for our place when I saw the news about subsidies, but then when I saw the need for the 1m X 1m component on the exterior of the building (we are on the 1st floor of a converted building) I realised this is not going to be very practical for anyone living in flats.
Well I have to say we’re ahead of the game at Slowlane Mansions…just had a heat pump installed for the East Wing. Warm as toast.
Heat pumps are not the only alternative to gas boilers. You can easily replace your old gas boiler with an electric boiler which will look the same and take up the same space. It simply connects to the existing wet system pipework to run the heating to your radiators / UFH with the added advantage of no flue, no gas pipe and no annual service. If you rely on direct hot water you need to size it correctly depending upon how many bathrooms you have, but if you have water storage, then that’s not a problem. And most of them can be rigged up to PV panels. Just need the cost of those Tesla storeage batteries to come down…
Nails.
Very big nails and a hammer
That should sort it
And an escape plan for when it falls on my downstairs neighbour. 
Courtesy The Daily Mash.
A MAN who spent three years learning how to make his gas boiler turn on at the right time says the government can shove their heat pumps up their arses.**
Oliver O’Connor appreciates that the pumps are better for the environment, but after three years trying to stop his radiators coming on at 3am in August, he believes the environment needs to cut him a f**king break.
O’Connor said: “I’m fully behind a low-carbon net zero future, but it’s going to have to happen without me until 2031 because I’ve finally cracked this copper bastard.
“I moved into this flat in 2018 and this autumn is the first time I’ve made sense of the cryptic symbols on the thermostat and made it talk to the boiler. I feel like that bloke out of The Da Vinci Code.
“So if the government think I’m swapping this baby for some baffling heat pump they can get fked. I’ve spent too many winters Googling ‘how does my fking boiler work’ under two duvets to give it up now.
“They’d pay me five grand? Then maybe. The noises this thing’s making, it’s probably on the way out.”
I am that man.
Net zero has got fuck all chance whilst the Ayatollah has any input into the temperature of our house
