@pjm60 & @wonny m

Thanks for the heads up guys.
I’m just renovating a flat I own, bought underfloor electric to install as there is no gas to the building. Was looking into getting gas C/H instead as it would be way cheaper for future tenants.
I’ve already just installed 4kw solar on the roof so might stick with the electric after all. I think there’s a way to get a temporary pass on the EPC if the costs of sorting it are too high.

I am laughing at the naivety of that article – ‘homes could be heated by heat pumps’ – you mean the things that struggle to beat 1:1 efficiency in the cold, that use (currently) carbon heavy electricity at 4x the cost of gas? Aye, great solution.

Air source perhaps, ground source, not so.

And not so much of a Joke about lack of tidal…its not actually that easy to extract and only comes by twice a day

Luckily it happens at different times in different places.

As said, we need to build houses and insulate them properly. We also need to insulate existing stock to a decent standard by folk who know what they are doing. A properly insulated house doesn’t need loads of heating.

I was actually researching gshp today after reading the op article. The space required seems huge. 15kw one. One article I read was 3 loops, each at 200 m! So 100m out and back. So it’s digging up an entire field!

A 2016 parliamentary report ruled out electrifying domestic heating as peak winter electricity demand would be four times current peak demand.This isn’t including any increased demand from electric cars. The required enormous increase in electricity generation capacity would sit idle for the warmer months of the year.

As solar is useless in winter and wind unreliable, while no new nulear could be built in the timescales talked, about the new generation would need to be gas. Is burning gas at power stations then sending electricity along an expensively upgraded national grid any more efficient than central heating boilers in houses?

http://www.ccsassociation.org/news-and-events/reports-and-publications/parliamentary-advisory-group-on-ccs-report/

Discussed at

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/

Consumers need to be educated too. A limit on controls would be good.

I have had to set up heating for customers who want the heating set at 25 from 6AM until 10PM. In every room across 3 floors despite there being only one person in the house most of the time. This was a nice house where the owner could probably afford to burn £20 notes to stay warm.

Recently been working in a 2 bed rented flat that whilst not quite at the opposite end of the property spectrum is close to it. The heating is set to 24 throughout the day despite the homeowner being at work till 6PM.

These are not one off occurrences, I encounter it weekly at least. Turn your heating down by 1 degree is roughly a 10% fuel saving. Turn it off if you are not in.

Those loops can exist in multiple dimensions you know. Most are laid in spirals so your 100m requires a greatly reduced area. In extreme cases where this isn’t possible you can send them down the way, this is more expensive and supposedly costs the same as a new gas connection to an off-grid property.

A 2016 parliamentary report ruled out electrifying domestic heating as peak winter electricity demand would be four times current peak demand.

As above, insulate properties better and educate people on how to control their heating properly!

Basically, a proposal to not-connect any new builds to the gas mains form 2025

My house was built in 1750, the house across the way was built some time in the 13th century. Of the 19 addresses I’ve lived at the newest was built in 1971. About half of those addresses didn’t have mains gas. Its going to be a long time until “houses built since 2025 that might ordinarily have been connected to mains gas but now won’t be” accounts for any significant proportion of the housing stock.

Bear, Squirrelking, do you work in this area? (I do).

New housing was meant to be zero carbon by about now (remember the ‘Green Tories’). It was the major house builders who blocked this as they hate change and cost.

when really instead of doing more we all need to walk, cycle and move closer to work.

Which is fine, if you’re prepared to take a job shelf-stacking in Aldi at night, or B&Q…
For nearly fifteen years I could walk or cycle to work, and did. Now I have to drive fifteen miles each way, because there were no jobs that I either had any kind of experience or qualifications to do, or inclination – see Aldi, B&Q, Sainsbury’s, etc.
The town I live in has pretty low unemployment; when my last job ended, there were few, if any jobs to be had, I even applied for a job in WHSmith, but my total lack of retail experience told against me. I’ve done thirty-odd years in print, design and pre-press, but there’s virtually no work of that nature to be had any more, at least nowhere within roughly thirty-odd miles, and I have zero web experience, and even less interest in doing it. There’s also zero chance of me selling the house I’ve lived in for forty-odd years just to move closer to my job, not at nearly 65!

As above, insulate properties better and educate people on how to control their heating properly!

Oh, absolutely! My early shift requires me to have an alarm for 5am, so I’ve got the heating set for 4.30am, it goes off at around 8am, and doesn’t come on again until around 5pm, when I get home on an early shift; late shift is 10.00 – 19.00, my g/f does 3pm – 7pm usually, so it’s warmest when we’re both home. My late step-dad would have the heating on all day, he’d be sat next to the radiator with several layers of clothing on, and I’d be wandering in and out wearing shorts and a tee shirt. In May. #rolls eyes

Al – no, (not that I know which specific sector you’re referring to but I know I’m not in it, I’m in the low carbon industry 😉 ) but I have done studies relating to energy and sustainability to the degree I understand the tech and issues. Real world though I’d have to defer to you.

Cynic – not sure which area you are referring too but I work as a plumber and just to annoy a few on here a Heating engineer!
Have done a little bit of work for an m&e consultant, a fair bit of inspection and reporting of faults in new build houses.
Very interested and frustrated by our ability to build such poor quality new homes. We can build them requiring no heating or minimal heating. We need to move away from bricks too. A lot of new build is timber frame with the bricks just for aesthetics. Waste of space that could be used for insulation and probably not the cellotex type either.
I work a fair bit with a passivhaus certified surveyor who is very good on this sort of stuff.
But as you can guess I’m frustrated by the head in the sand approach of most people who seem to want to hear their homes to unreasonable levels that are outside of the design parameters. I’m sure with the invention of smart thermostats they could tax people who turn it on to more than 21!

@colp

Yes, there’s exceptions to the MEES – without looking it up I think it’s 10 year payback (i.e. it has to be proven that the measures required to bring the property up to an E would not be cost neutral after 10 years). That said most properties can scrape an E with electric heating.

but I have done studies relating to energy and sustainability to the degree I understand the tech and issues. Real world though I’d have to defer to you.

While it’s true that new homes should be built to better thermal standards, improving the existing stock is extremely difficult and expensive, and is by far the bigger issue. In Bristol, for example, around 40% of the existing stock is solid wall. Solutions will need to be much smarter than disconnecting gas, and if we do that, what happens to the emerging supplies of biomethane coming into the network? ASHP is problematic and GSHP will always be niche. Heat networks are a good fit for urban areas and are technology agnostic.
There have been some promising trials of hybrid systems that use ASHP for baseload and gas boilers for peak.

District heating, as you say, is a good way to go. Plenty of towns and cities are built on flooded mines that are perfect for heat extraction, Southampton being the poster boy and a scheme long mooted for Glasgow.

It’s not too difficult to upgrade insulation on existing stock either if you are prepared to do it externally, plenty of houses have been done up here, most likely under carbon tax revenue. But all the insulation in the world makes no difference if the house leaks like a sieve, the standard of fitting on our windows is frankly piss poor, the back door has a draught at the edge and when we had our cavity wall insulation done they drilled a 100mm dia hole straight outside so the back boiler had “adequate ventilation” since the existing hole seemingly wasn’t good enough. Too many cowboys in this game.

You see you’ve just described why I prefer gas, I found induction to be the one that was slow to heat up, had hotspots and less control.

That doesn’t sound right to me, are you certain it was induction and not Halogen?
For starters, induction can’t really have hotspots, by it’s design (unless perhaps the bottom of your pan was warped convex or concave). Also, Induction is instant. I can only otherwise think there was something not right with either your hob or pans (or very early gen.). The only thing induction isn’t the best at is wok cooking (you can buy induction woks but gas still has it) and it obviously can’t do flame roasting/searing peppers type stuff .

Yep just finished cooking a nice breakfast on induction, the space it saves over other hobs in great too. Spot on with the instant and control part of it. I’m also sat in a house that has never seen or had a sniff of gas – which is the norm for a lot of properties around here. In the past it would have been heated by fire this time of year – spent a lot of time when I was younger fetching splitting and moving logs.

Now the 3 houses on the farm and some of the out buildings are all heated from the hot water circuit heated by the wood chip boiler, properly installed and regulated, yes it’s still burning something but it’s way more controlled and much more efficient than individual set ups. More rural communities could be going this way now they can give up on the chance of seeing a gas main.

District heating, as you say, is a good way to go. Plenty of towns and cities are built on flooded mines that are perfect for heat extraction, Southampton being the poster boy and a scheme long mooted for Glasgow.

Yes, I do this stuff for a living…

District heating, as you say, is a good way to go.

Yes I think it’s fantastic, the vast majority of properties are heated by it here in Denmark, mostly waste heat from electricity generation at the moment, makes so much sense instead of wasting it out of cooling towers. It’s funny to think of all these flats and houses each with their own expensive gas boilers back in the UK now.

Will they insist Insulin Pumps are designed to be safe to use near induction jobs then?

Is there a serious risk to your insulin pump in your kitchen?

Will they insist Insulin Pumps are designed to be safe to use near induction jobs then?

Or will somebody do testing rather than stringing together may could and might into an article. Severe lack of actual science in that one wasn’t there.

poly

Member

Will they insist Insulin Pumps are designed to be safe to use near induction jobs then?

Well of course. Wearable medicators should be safe to be used near damn nearly everything, let alone common everyday household items

Luckily it happens at different times in different places [the tide].

Yes but still only twice a day…and its still difficult to extract the energy….the company I work for have been developing tidal power generators for the last 10 years or so and invented alot of new technology in that area but, we’re giving up. Just can’t make it work. Too expensive, doesn’t yield enough power, logistically difficult, nobody’s actually interested…just unlikely to work, not any time soon anyway. It takes more than a good idea….it’s got to be possible, practical, economically viable.

Unless people are willing to regress to cave man times again we need 24/7 power. Renewables can only work as part of a wider power portfolio to plug the gaps.

Also we need to be realistic about how much of our lives and nations economy we’re going to sacrifice for this…we could shut down the UK tomorrow…and it would make absolutely sweet FA difference to global warming. Wouldn’t move the needle at all. The whole of the EU only contributes to 9% of global CO2 emissions, so our share is maybe 1 or 2%. Of course we need to make efforts and there are a lot of low hanging fruit…like making sure our homes are insulated, our boilers are the latest and greatest technology, we minimise our energy consumption as much as reasonably possible, buy newer more efficient cars and use them less. But draconian efforts and hair-braned politically motivated schemes will harm worsen our lives and our economy and ultimately make absolutely sod all difference.

We need to persuade China to clean up and drag nations out of poverty ASAP as poorer impoverished nations pollute more.

Unless people are willing to regress to cave man times again we need 24/7 power. Renewables can only work as part of a wider power portfolio to plug the gaps.

I’m not sure anyone suggested otherwise though. At the moment we are facing an energy crisis, our coal stations are all closing down if not gone, we have no new nuclear barring one plant that’s not due to start generating for years, the existing nuclear fleet is going to start shutting down within the next 5 years, our gas reserves are pretty much depleted and if we have a shortfall we import our power from the continent and may no longer be part of the common market very soon.

We need to persuade China to clean up and drag nations out of poverty ASAP as poorer impoverished nations pollute more.

Cue I’m not doing anything until China/India/USA/Aviation etc stops

This amused me.

But yes, we should make the effort, apart from anything else why the hell wouldn’t you want to lower your energy consumption and have a cleaner, healthier country for it, not to mention the economic argument?

I am seriously confused by drac’s opinion on induction hobs because they seem to work in exactly the opposite way to that which he complains about. Fantastic devices as far as I am concerned.

Insulating our house divided the heating needs by six. So I cut off the gas and use a wood burner – one burn every other day this week. If ever I can’t be bothered with cutting and chopping wood i’ll use a heat pump of some sort. I spent an evening in a well-insulated house with a ground source heat pump with a COP of 4.5 and under-floor heating – perfection, but a significant investment.

Induction hobs are great IME. LED lights everywhere. A down-sized oven. Solar hot water heater and PV.

I won’t be buying any gas from Vlad (or anyone else) ever again.

We need to persuade China to clean up and drag nations out of poverty ASAP as poorer impoverished nations pollute more.

Better keep that idea in the Western world, no need to intervene in others’ affairs. They Do Not need others to educate them.

The world population is nearly 7.7 billion now and growing …

The greenhouse effect is supposed to take out some of the world population, so if you are going to persuade the world to go clean who are going to feed them?

Whichever minister is proposing this idea is basically trying to sabotage the govt as it is a vote losing proposal.

It’s always been my understanding that if you’re serious about cooking, even domestically, you use a gas hob. It’s more controllable and part of that control is being able to lift the pan off the heat source to adjust where and how much heat is hitting the pan. You simply can’t do that with induction. As soon as the pan is lifted off, the heat is gone.

You also need to spend significantly more on a high-end induction hob to get any where close to what’s been described previously. I have an induction hob which cost me £300 4 years ago. Low heat/simmering it just turns on and off; you can hear it clicking. It’s not controllable.

There’s also an upper limit on how high you can go with the four ‘rings’. Each ring will go to 9, but you can’t go above 12 in total. So one ring on 9, will give a maximum of 3 on a second, or 1 on three, etc. Turn a second ring to >3 and the other rings reduce.

I acknowledge there will be induction hobs out there that don’t have these limitations, but my research suggests they cost considerably more than other induction hobs and require dedicated high-amp supplies and certainly cost more than a gas hob.

Induction hobs are easy to clean. That’s about it. I wish I’d gone gas.

Population is indeed at the centre of the problem. I don’t think passive genocide is the solution though. And don’t be so sure it’s a vote losing proposal, some profiling of new build buyers is needed. In this part of the world a lot of new builds show signs of the owners being above averagely ecologiacally aware.

Edit: I replied to Chewy *slaps self*

There’s also an upper limit on how high you can go with the four ‘rings’. Each ring will go to 9, but you can’t go above 12 in total. So one ring on 9, will give a maximum of 3 on a second, or 1 on three, etc. Turn a second ring to >3 and the other rings reduce.

I’m sure shitty gas hobs are available too if you look hard enough and pay little enough.

The point you’re missing is even a shitty gas hob will provide better control of the heat and allow a pan to be moved around, even lifted away from the heat source, but still get (lower) heat, i.e. a cook/chef can control where the heat goes and it’s magnitude. You can’t do that with induction.

And if people (I’m talking general population here) have to spend several hundred pounds on an electric hob to get anything approaching what they can get from a cheap gas one, they won’t.

People will save the planet as long as it doesn’t cost them more money.

Population is indeed at the centre of the problem. I don’t think passive genocide is the solution though. And don’t be so sure it’s a vote losing proposal, some profiling of new build buyers is needed. In this part of the world a lot of new builds show signs of the owners being above averagely ecologiacally aware.

Trying to greenwash the world is going to make it worst.

Call it whatever you will but the world population is nearing 7.7 billion and increasing. All of them need to eat and when they cannot find food they will take whatever is available. They will “develop” the virgin forest etc to “prosper” like other industrial nations. When they cut down the virgin forest due to increase in population they create another massive problem for the world.

If developed nations want to go green then go green themselves and No Need to persuade others. Bear in mind they all want to become a developed nation or to become “prosperous” and the only way for them to do so is to destroy their own land (virgin forest) to reach that. The irony …

I use quality pans with bases that heat quickly and evenly on the induction hob.

I’m amazed that Drac is so keen on gas given that he is well placed to know how many accidents happen in the kitchen and the proportion related to gas explosions and gas hobs.

Save your family and the planet as a bonus.

No Need to persuade others.

Oh dear

I’m amazed that Drac is so keen on gas given that he is well placed to know how many accidents happen in the kitchen and the proportion related to gas explosions and gas hobs.

I’m sure you have the figures to hand for those less familiar with the subject?

Whilst we’re at it, do you have the equivalent figures for electrical fires, shocks and burns?

Mikesmith – that article may not be definitive but certainly you can affect an insulin pump with an induction hob. Whether that is likely to happen during ordinary usage, probably difficult to determine given the range of different hob designs, location where people wear their pumps etc. Possible for both hob and pump manufacturers to tighten their compatibility.

I’m amazed that Drac is so keen on gas given that he is well placed to know how many accidents happen in the kitchen and the proportion related to gas explosions and gas hobs.

Edukator – or does Drac actually know that gas explosions are incredibly rare (and even rarer that gas hob is the cause) and if you are going to get harmed in your kitchen it’s very likely that gas is not the issue?

As ever it is a multifaceted issue and supposed magic bullets like just cutting new builds off from gas supplies and assuming “the market” will solve things certainly won’t work in isolation…

As many have already noted it’s overall consumption of energy that’s the most pressing issue through heating, plugging in/charging a growing number of devices and by direct combustion of hydrocarbons…

As for China, isn’t a large part of their industrial CO2 output simply the West’s “embodied carbon” i.e. That shiny new iPhone you’re charging every day (probably from leccy made using rotted dinosaurs) shows up in the stats as part of China’s contribution to climate change, but out of sight out of mind, it’s all china’s fault… And you’ll ‘need’ a new phone in six months (marketed by a US firm)…

I’m amazed that Drac is so keen on gas given that he is well placed to know how many accidents happen in the kitchen and the proportion related to gas explosions and gas hobs.

Just how many is that then?

No idea, Google it, first result for “causes kitchen accidents”:

https://www.4letproperty.com/top-major-causes-of-kitchen-related-accidents-and-how-you-can-avoid-them/

Yes but still only twice a day…and its still difficult to extract the energy….the company I work for have been developing tidal power generators for the last 10 years or so and invented alot of new technology in that area but, we’re giving up. Just can’t make it work.

I’d hope you would understand there’s a bit more to it than ‘only twice a day’ after developing tidal turbines for ten years