Fantastic video which illustrates that modern life doesnt have to be bombastic and confrontational all the time! Reasoned, respectful debate. Well done 👏🏻
This is a pointless debate at this point considering that war criminal Putin's war has made natural gas prices crazy high. So although heat pumps may have some downsides, they are more affordable right now.
That is what happens when both sides exist in reality, so they have a common ground to start on. This type of communication doesn't happen between the people that need to be having such conversations. It is all political.
Kudos to both for having a well reasoned conversation. If politics was like this, you may find consensus, strategy and solutions. Love both your channels.
Only thing he forgot on the charging front is the wheel came before the cart their is no point in investing in faster charging if you don’t have the battery it’s charging but they need the battery first, than they need the program for them than they make charging faster
@@kennethhanes5438 trouble is that no one is going to put serious money into thousands of chargers unless there is money to be made and after covid and the like to put billions into it is probably beyond the tax payer. for the time being. Added to this is the problem of generating enough power and the still far from settled question over the raw materials.
I think what could be a very interesting video is if you two colab and buy a run down house together, renovate it from the ground up showing us how you can make it the most efficient possible with heat pumps, insulation and everything and document the series! Would be a great watch. Especially now we need to aim for at least EPC C!
@andymacallum i live in a terraced house that fronts onto the main road , plz tell me where I'm supposed to put the heat pump so i don't have to put up with the noise it makes
@@davefarmery8180 Just make it sound like the locals being picked up, Wee-oww Wee-oww Wee-oww............. As for installation! look for the burned out car, it softens the tarmac. 🤣
I agree with Roger 100% about how education, or rather having educational material at hand on the internet largely goes over most of our heads, because we're not just talking about how powerful an engine we need in our car but something that is a lot less proven, as the discussion revealed. I am one of those who would be easy swayed by a salesman with a gift of the gab and a few persuasive figures to be totally coned into purchasing something that brings me nothing. So being the way I am I must say I'd be wise to side with a gentle dose of scepticism. thanks Roger.
And also the zealots for green tech are just SOOOO on their high-horses and take the high moral ground like Mr Backwards Baseball Cap who gloss over the costs and downsides, and insist they ghave the high moral ground.
@@nicksimmons7234 I haven't read the Mule since i retired and lo longer have to read the City pages. But I am not a brainless "Man-made climate change" NPC like Mr Backwards Baseball Cap and other idiot millennials!
@@crawford1083 I guess reading the Daily Mail the whole of your working life did enough damage then. Saying you don’t believe in man made climate change tells me all I need to know.
See, now THIS is a video that REALLY helps all parties involved! When everyone from BOTH sides can learn from each other and try to move forward together toward a common goal of making things better for humanity and all of the planet as well, that is where humanity moves forward in leaps and bounds and actually does the hard work of advancing technology and the understanding of the tech we already have as well as helping governments to see what should and perhaps shouldn't be done to help move things toward what is best for the world in general. This video was no small contribution by any means, BRAVO!!!!! I'm from the U.S. and now I'm interested in the Heat Geek course even if I don't become an installer. Thank you for this video, it was great!
Very on the fence Heat Geek is biased because it’s his business and Skillbuilder doesn’t use facts/figures only opinions. A simple example is his questioning of renewable energy reliability. Simply put, if you build 120% supply (for example) then a dip in energy production would not matter. Rather than answer this, Skillbuilder use an opinion!
Interesting debate, I'm glad you both managed to agree on so many points, especially that poor design +/or installation is likely to result in dissatisfied customers. Also that cost is a major factor, and that there are not enough well trained installers, which was pretty much everything you said in the original video.
I found this debate/discussion absolutely fascinating! Being a semi retired plumber, I’m actively looking at integrating new tech to our home in order to save money & reduce emissions etc. what I’m trying to avoid is committing to a particular technology (solar/heat pumps etc) for something else to be developed rendering everything else pretty much obsolete. At the moment, gas is my preferred choice of heat energy with solar feeding in during the daylight hours…. Off I head to heat geeks to see how this is concluded…..
Halfway through and just love to see 2 people sit down and have a discussion. Nothing beats it. Guess time of use tariffs is why smart meter are being fitted for free 😂 Nothing free is ever at no cost!
I am loving this discussion. Shooting ideas back and forth is really what we need. I'm hoping this starts a brainstorm of ideas, who knows when someone will get that light bulb moment idea. 😁
No one is totally invested in heat pumps so even if they were the worst things ever he would still argue for them. If he was selling lollipops with glass embedded into them and could get away with it he is always going to argue how good they are for the consumer.
This is diplomacy in action. Well done all of you ! We all have different opinions and fighting over them does not solve anything. Sitting down and having a respectful chat taking on board each and all issues is tremendous. Well done ! My counterclaim. Online learning is weak, there is no opportunity to ask a random question when something doesn't click. You lose that interaction with a professional so you only end up autonomous missguided people. As a perfect example, as I tried to write the word "autonomous" and spelt it wrong, I right clicked on that word for the correct spelling, at the top was "astomatous". "autonomous" was 2nd 🤦♂Good job I am observant and knew the word I was looking for. These online classes do not train people, they make them into people that think they know.
As long as your home is modern and the thermal efficiency supports lo temperature heating and they are properly sized and installed they work absolutely as intended. I work in cornwall however where most of the houses are stone walled things built 100plus years ago. The insulating costs as much as the heat pump!
Even recently built homes are not well insulated enough to make heat pumps a running-cost viable option. The government should make it law for all new houses to be built much closer to passiv haus standards.
@@paulhamlet804 as long as you have large enough emitters heat pumps can heat any home. Modern heat pumps can deliver high temperature heating if required. Passive houses don't require any heating.
Have you actually done a thermal calculation for a 100year old stone cottage? The emitters are absolutely ginormous! To the point they are filling a wall! And before someone says it. Underfloor heating is a massive expense! I'm sorry but heat pumps may be the future but they have a long way to go! That said looking at the progress electric cars have made I. A few years its possible I guess
@@approachableactive yes, here's an example of a ASHP installed in a 100+ year old solid stone house and getting high COP ua-cam.com/video/m2-_x0XZUSM/v-deo.html
Love both your channels. This was really interesting. I'm hoping you take Heat Geeks invitation up to follow one of their installations because we know you will tell it like it is. Frankly if you decide heat pumps are the right choice in some circumstances if installed right, ill probably get one!
Nice conversation; good to talk it out but Roger is an old fuddy duddy ( like me). Natural gas was a great idea in 2001 when T Boone Pickens was promoting it as a transition from coal. But now we’re in the electric age and need work together on all aspects: heating, cooling, transportation, industrial manufacturing, grid inter-connectivity, and storage (as Roger lauded to). These are all challenges that can be overcome if we work together and don’t just say ‘that doesn’t work very well now; it will never happen’. BTW in America heat pumps are a minor upgrade to central air conditioning and thanks to global warming we all need cooling and heating now. Thanks Exon
This video is phenomenal. What a great debate from both sides. Idealism vs realism and hope vs skepticism. You both make excellent points and you both covered really interesting topics. This video just gives me so much to ponder. Thank you for making it!
That Roger talks more sense than any body I have ever listened to. That mobile phone quip, and others, was brilliant. Shows what age and experience contributes, listen up to Roger, you young pups. Peace be unto you.
Roger is a very knowledgeable guy indeed. But you my friend seem like you have a lot of experience from Readers Digest! Us young pups know how to use and work modern technology!
Do you realise his mobile phone quip was absolute garbage?... Mobile phones, namely the numerous technologies in them, were very heavily incentivised by governments around the world for decades through grants, tax breaks etc. Have you ever paid over £1000 for a new phone? No, the mobile network providers have been doing deals with handset manufacturers for decades to keep the price of handsets at an affordable level, ergo, another form of subsidy.
The comparison to mobile phones is economically inappropriate. If you buy a phone, you as the buyer get all the benefits. If you replace a gas boiler with a heat pump then a lot of the benefits go to others in reduced respiratory diseases, climate impact, national security and so on. An economy and society that buys phones when the individual benefit is worth more than their price is making the right decision. One which does that with heat pumps is not, it's causing avoidable harm to people that isn't taken into account in that purchasing decision. That's why subsidising them makes sense (but it absolutely does need a long-term commitment from government, not a few years at a time).
@@alexhayward4817 I don't believe in MAN MADE climate change, I don't believe covid was any more than a flu. I DO mistrust all that gov.com tell me. Further more, those in charge (who ever that is) do nothing what the "locals" either want, or yearn for. Peace be unto you.
@@MikeyCompton that's not even factoring in all the subsidies for fossil fuels that makes gas boilers artificially cheep. Though the point could be made that just dropping subsidies for Fossil fuels would have a similar effect as subsidizing heat pumps. But good look to the politician that allows gas prices to increase to what it truly costs.
An excellent discussion. What you have highlighted is that where we are now, heat pumps are not a viable solution for older houses. However, heat pumps MAY become beneficial but it will take 5 to 10 years (possibly earlier). The big question is can we sustain an all electric future? We have relied on a diversified energy portfolio, to go to an all electric energy provision will require a massive change to infrastructure! An example: the cabling that provides power to my street is not sufficiently sized to provide all my power needs should I have an electric car and heat pump and all electric cooker. Add all my neighbours doing the same thing and what would happen?
The grid can and will be upgraded as necessary. But take a look at current natgas prices, it looks like you worried about the wrong energy source. Putin can't cut off North sea wind or your nuclear reactors.
Heat pumps were viable 40 years ago, same as nuclear power, issue is people don't understand the technology Heat pumps can absolutely work in older houses with air to air, the government is just scared of air to air for some reason
I love to see you talking to someone who you don't necessarily agree with. Hopefully you both benefitted from the experience. After all you are both reasonable people who ultimately want to help people improve their lives. 👍
@@SkillBuilder Most people like an echo chamber. It is good to see them coming into the discussion with an open mind...or at least willing to see the other side of the argument. Noise cancelling earplugs are quite effective I've been told 😉
had a chat with my heating engineer and he said my 1980s house would not make best effect of a heat pump!! He said we would need too much adaptions done to even try to make it work and then it wouldnt be cost effective!
I repair ac and heat pump systems commercial and domestic. I would total agree with your hearing engineer. Most homes built before 2000 would not be suitable.
Brilliant to see. So many of the Facebook groups are a slagging match and when people ask for help they are shit down. I think this is great that we can all get together and grow as an industry
A fascinating discussion that I could have watched all day. The boiler supplied with my newly built home over 10 years ago will need replacing at some point but there is a pilot scheme in my locality for hydrogen heating in 300 homes that will be rolled out more widely, if successful. Therefore, I may have the option of a hydrogen boiler rather than a heat-pump if the gas boiler keeps going until then.
fair play to the skillbuilder. saying that you had got it wrong with respect to looking at old heat pumps rather than the latest is a really impressive thing to do. Most people don't have the courage to admit that they have got anything wrong. well done
Surely the elephant in the room are those massive radiators in Urban Plumber's video. If they can produce a Heat Pump that is unobtrusive and doesn't need extra pipework, insulation and jumbo-sized rads, then they would have a much stronger argument. Heat Geeks say it's all bout the quality of installation, but a massive Heat Pump is still a massive Heat Pump, without the guarantee of enough heat exactly when you want it. I'm sure it will come, but the argument fails at the present time for the normal semi, and especially the flat, I would say.
Those installs could consider A2A units. For some reason wet systems are alway considered in the UK. Multisplits and cassettes would be great for lots of homes and as a bonus give AC coolingin summer.
As per the video the rads didn't need to be that big. It was for a lower flow temp and higher scop inba particularly difficult room.. However if that job used an r290 unit the rads could be much smaller for the same scop.
@@Etacovda63 because there was an massive shortage of them due to the end of the RHI. Fan coils are ok.. but rads are less noisy, kick up less allergens, dont use power, and suit vactorian houses better.. only small amounts of each and some people would opt for fan coils but this was the rout chosen for this specific customer
That gives me hope for the future. If both sides come to the debate with an open mind and walk away having leraned something. Both sides accept there is a problem that needs addressing and also there are huge opportunities for the building industry. The missing part of the equation seems to be a lack of a sensible government plan....instead we are 'wasting' billions £ on so called smart meters. No plan to insulate homes. Putting heat pumps into poorly insulated homes is almost pointless IMO.
Totally appreciate what heat geeks are trying to do. Good on them. We had an ASHP installed on a previous property. We didn’t have high expectations but we were attracted by the RHI and we had a smelly oil boiler at the time. The pump was installed by an MCS approved installer and if I’m honest we weren’t really focusing much on the COP until well after the install. We achieved a COP of 2:1 at best and we were actually supplementing the pump with a hybrid masonry stove (we had a decent supply of free wood). We had a couple of issues early on which were resolved. At one point the installer had to come out and switch on the internal immersion to give us hot water. Once the issues were resolved the pump worked fine but the COP never got near 3:1. Still 1.5-2.0:1 is still a good COP for any device, it just didn’t live up to the claims. Luckily the RHI is gone and has been replaced with grants. The reason I say that is that if you move house, the RHI payment stays with the house and you are left with the loan to pay. I’m all for the govt subsidies - we need them, but they need to have more flexibility or you end up with a massive rush towards one technology where demand far outstrips supply and we end up in the mess we are in now. We originally wanted to install external insulation on that home but it wasn’t covered by the incentives at the time. To my mind that is insane. Our current home is on the gas main and we are not ruling out ASHP in future but I’ll take my time and see what else is on offer and continue to pay off the sizeable loan !
Great to hear from real life experience. Your findings are in line with mine. It will be interesting to know how that heat pump coped in the very cold weather. I was glad to have the ability to turn the heating up a bit on my gas boiler.
Just watched your heat pump vid for the second time, followed by one featuring heat geek and "urban plumbers" slagging you off and one with urban plumbers on another install where he has fitted two of the most ridiculous sized rads I have ever seen in a domestic setup. What I did notice in their vids is that they don't mention price and their systems are set up in a what appears to be complicated way and in ideal situations (space, cost no object, big money spent on insulation etc). In fairness they do point out these facts but without a hint of irony that they are in fact proving you right with regards to expense, exact ideal conditions etc and that unfortunately in the real world these conditions seldom exist. I also note that the promoters of these systems have skin in the game ie. they're making money out of it, so of course they skim over the negatives. Again as you pointed out in your vid re diesel car etc this could turn out just another one of these misguided fads. I have watched a few of your vids now and as best I can tell your channel is purely information and advice, so I believe you when you say you'd be the first to fit it and probably have a vid out about the install. So anyone new to this or doing your research, I'm in the building game myself (not particularly heating/plumbing per say, but I can't fault your logic) and I really don't think Roger will steer you wrong, you can tell he didn't start in this game yesterday or the day before that, his advice is clearly based on experience. Thanks Roger keep up the good work, much appreciated.
It's interesting that the HP guys are young fellas with a vested interest against Roger who has seen "the game" played out several times. The Geek guys aren't even experienced in real life situations across ANY situations. The Urban fella is at least experiencing the real world .. but with very little history of how thngs play out long term. Truth is that a BASKET of solutions is always required...not a one egg job.
@@stevel9914 Well put Steve, exactly my thoughts in a nut shell. I like Roger live in a "leaky" older house, here in Ireland the average install cost is 15k (advertised, so you know it's going to be more), to bring my house "up to standard" another 20 to 25k less grants I'm still looking at high 20's, early 30's plus interest. Even if I save 1 to 2k on heating (being super optimistic) as I'm in my early 60's I'll either be dead, in a nursing home or well past caring before any real savings come in. Even if all this works, for many this means we're going to all this trouble and expense for the folks who buy our houses when we're dead (Fcuk that). These lads are just trying to get in on the ground floor of a new money making racket, not too different to the "Oil/Gasmen" of old and fair play to them most of us would like to be millionaires etc. Just stop pissing down my back and tell me it's raining.
You're a man after my own heart Roger, you haven't led me a stray yet so I'm sticking with you. I haven't gotten to the end of this vid, don't think I'll bother tbh, rather use my time looking at your other content that's actually useful and thanks again for that.
You only believe people on topics who don't have skin in the game? You won't learn anything with that philosophy mate. You know the only people worth talking to about a top are the people with the most knowledgeable on it? You can only have that with people who have working, up-to-date and practical experience with the topic. I'm not going to ask a plumber about the James Webb Space telescope, I'm going to ask an engineer at NASA/ESA, even if he does have skin in the game.
Love this. Got respect for both of you. It was hilarious though to see heatgeek using a laptop and skill builder using pen and paper 😛 So my conclusion is, heat pumps can work, there should be more, but there is so much opportunity right now for those of us not in the trade to be conned right now, so to switch correctly (if I do) I needed to really do my homework and find a really really good installer. Right now, it wouldn't make sense for me to switch though unless my boiler conks out and I need to replace it.
Nice one Roger. Both videos had a lot of useful stuff. I still think the only solution to the carbon thing is for us all to use less energy. Nothing was said about the carbon footprint of all these old boilers being scrapped. That's going to use a bit of energy somewhere down the line. I'll sit in my solid brick walled house with single glazed sash windows and put another jumper on for now I think
A boiler uses more energy over time than a heat pump so I'd imagine even with the recycling of the boiler after removal the heat pump will still win in that comparison
The amount of energy used recyling boilers is small. The amount of emissions that energy generation generates is utterly trivial in comparison to the emissions from burning gas in that boiler for just 1 year, never mind the 15 or so of its lifetime.
@@Burtis89 Perhaps for just replacing the boiler that is the case, but doubt it is as clear cut as this when you consider, for many heat pump installs that - much of the existing pipework and radiators require oversizing (replacing), and new ones installed and fitted all of which carries a cost in terms of CO2, - recycling, transport, manufacture, installation and so forth. Then you must also consider the huge cost of such an endeavour, for what in some cases is a mediocre output (cooler hot water, slower heating - and potentially without the benefits of being able to switch too cooling which was mentioned earlier, and is likely to be come more important in heatwaves) - many issues likely exacerbated by less-proficient installers. Personally, for the cost, and disruption, it would be far more advantageous to significantly improve the homes insulation, and install solar panels to generate some of your own power (hot water too..). You are then in a better position to improve your heating solution whatever that may be whilst also reducing your reliance on the grid and non-renewable energy sources.
Wow! That was a surgical precision take down of heat pump sceptic opinions by Adam there. Thanks for making me laugh Roger with that suggestion of leaving net zero to the market because that’s how mobile phones took off 😂
Rodger’s idea “they didn’t need to subsidise mobile phones” is a complete misconception. 12 key technologies that make smartphones work: 1) tiny microprocessors, 2) memory chips, 3) solid state hard drives, 4) liquid crystal displays and 5) lithium-based batteries. That's the hardware. Then there are the networks and the software. So 6) Fast-Fourier-Transform algorithms 7) - one you might have heard of this one - the internet. 8) HTTP and HTML9) Cellular networks 10) GPS. 11) The touchscreen. 12) Siri, the voice-activated artificial intelligence agent. Every single one of these 12 key technologies was supported in significant ways by governments - often the American government. To say the free market (or Steve Jobs) is responsible for us all having smartphones is completely wrong - it was billions and billions of government money!
@@ecospider5 Heat pumps are ready. The price might come down but there’s no way around the labour cost of the low temperature upgrade to the system, not to mention the larger pipework and radiators. Subsidies needed for net zero by 2050. If he’s prepared to wait for the market I question whether he believes in net zero at all
Thoroughly enjoyed this, have been aware of both Roger and Adam for sometime and they are both right to a certain extent. I have been looking at this problem myself and reached the same conclusion. Unfortunately, since Thatcher, the UK has sold out its manufacturing base for a short term profit for the executives and shareholders. It would be extremely difficult to retool and manufacture in the UK, even if we did, we could never compete against China or other developing economies. The other problem is skilled surveyors, engineers, installers and service contractors, we don't have them so those who have the skills can charge a premium. I used to be in the business of creating sales training, marketing and alliance management programmes for the telecoms industry, I'd be very interested to see Heat Geeks solution, but it sounds like the sort of approach we need to take.
Good discussion. Rodger's main objection seems to be the government subsidies. I agree that the subsidies are a bad idea, but we do need to see a cost saving for consumers with heat pumps if we want to see mass adoption. The problem that needs to be addressed by the government is the relative cost of gas and electricity. We should start by moving the 20% green levy from electricity to gas. Heat pumps would then be cheaper to run, customers would want them so builders would fit them. Refurbs with heat pumps would make sense without subsides too. This isn't complicated.
It's not a subsidy, it's an investment. The govt is spending 37 billion this year subsidising everyone's gas and electric bills (i.e pretty much subsidising the fossil fuel sector). If they invested that money in retrofit instead we'd all be better off for decades. Spending money on improving houses is a really good long-term investment. The houses are worth more (so it's easy to get that money from the mortgage company), the govt money largely goes to local businesses (builders, plumbers, electricians). The health payback for the worst houses is huge too. It's already cost-effective to buy someone a retrofit if they are in crappy mouldy houses and keep going to the doc. Everyone gets much more comfortable houses and their energy bills drop by 50%, more for a deeper retrofit. It really is a much better thing to collectively spend our money on than keep giving most of it to Shell, Exxon, Putin and co.
sorry not convinced, and considering the sheer amount of low income households out there who could not afford the install and could not afford to run it and could not afford the up keep/ maintenance i just can't ever see these systems as a viable solution for the mass population , we need better
@@pbysome Obvious places like Iceland, Norway, Sweden but some interesting growth areas are Denmark, France and Italy. Germany and Poland already have sizable district heating installations - its a no-brainer for many projects especially if you base the heat pump for the district on renewable energy source. District heating grids are an extremely cheap way to cut carbon emissions. In the UK we have about 3000 homes served by the Pimlico DHU in London and 4600 in Nottingham on the EnviroEnergy system. Imagine the concept of heat loss, applied to an entire city. You can see why heat networks will have a large role to play - Denmark for instance has 95% of urban buildings served by aheat network using 98% renewable fuel and they are popular too, with far higher satisfaction and efficiency rates that any UK heat source.
Cost us $3500, to install in our 3 bedroom home. With solar at £1800 for 6kwts our bills are around £50-£100. Solar subsidies by our government. Not rocket science. Best install ever, plus increase the value of our property.
I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while, two channels I follow and two sets of professionals who know their stuff but have differing views on some points. Would be very interested to see the follow up of a collaborative install.
Excuse the pun, but you guys really seemed to warm up to each other about 40 mins in. It was great to see you both have a mature conversation, bring two sides, and find points where you're agreeing. More of this!
I am already subscribed to you Skill builder but this one video would earn you ten subscriptions from me because of your down to earth ideas. I do not think though, that a carbon tax is the answer as it won`t apply to all countries, creating a very uneven playing field. Your videos are informative, well made and unbiased. Great work! Chris, UK.
The carbon tax would be charged on imports that were made with coal fired power stations. It would help our cleaner manufacturers and it would incentivise China etc to clean up their act rather than chasing the dragon.
I'm with heat geek on this. I'm running a heatpump with solar. And with the Dutch electricity plans the solar-power from the summer can be used in the rest of the contract. So power from te summer can be used in de winter. I have a scop of 5. So what heatgeek said even if my electricity is from a gasplant, I still needs just a fifth of the electricity compared to a gasboiler. Without the losses in a gasboiler
Gas boilers are 90% plus efficient. How does that compare for a person pulling electricity of the grid. Think about it genius. Gas to electricity. Then transfer then consumption.
@@pacman7959 In this topic al lot of factors are used in this conversation. Electricity production from gas is 90% efficient. So using this electricity to power heatpumps who themselves are 400% efficient is a reduction in gas usage. That's what I ment . Btw, can your gasboiler work on solar power like a heatpump can? More independence from the grid.And in the Netherlands where I live, we have an incentive to dump solar power on the grid in the summer, so we don't have to fire up the gaspowered electricityplants. But the issue in this are not the facts. Because people nowadays choose what to believe. Usually based on an old way of thinking. Showed here by the skill builder. I think that this guy is a real professional in his field. But this is not his field. Like u will never get me of my visions on heatpumps , I will never get u on-board. Unless u see the proof in a way u can process it or by someone u believe in. One of the things in de video is that skill builder talks about the heatpump like there is just one option. There are multiple ways to connect a source to a heatpump. Instead of hating on tech, look at what the tech actually does. It might be for u or not. And the mentioning of what China is doing to exempt ourselves of taking action is just wrong. Just pulling oneliners out of his 🕳to kill the conversation.
Even with subsidies it’s still over £10k For a “properly installed” system. It’s not hundreds it’s bloody thousands! Plus the fact that a lot of properties have pipe work buried away which would be a major consideration, ripping up floors & replacing them costs even more money . & take my home for example, it’s got a 20 year old conservatory in between the kitchen & the living room at the back of the house , which is zoned off by a double glazed door, the door is shut most of the time to keep the heat in the rest of the house. It gets opened if we need to access the kitchen , which is doable most of the winter. But if it’s minus 5°c & you’ve got a low temperature heat pump, I just can see it working for me. The other half likes the house like a Furness , & constantly cranks it up when I’m not looking. Good luck convincing mrs Jones that the radiators aren’t meant to be hot to the touch. We’ve literally been dancing around fires since the Stone Age, maybe it’s time to move on but I can’t see people actually understanding it really .
I'm with Skill Builder on this. The key issue is most UK housing is designed to have lots of air moving through it. We shouldn't even be taking about heatpymps until this insulation challenge is solved. 3 to 1 electric return or even 3.5-4 factor on heatpumps - well per per kWh gas similar factor less expensive. So your typical Victorian or 1900s house will need similar cost of insulation retrofit risking mould issues etc costing same amount as heat pump. 15k GBP ++ then the electricity bill ends up about the same as previous gas bill. Meanwhile solar is essentially infinite factor once investment is made.
Just had my boiler removed and heat pump fitted by @octopusenergy . The cost with grant was £6k. Installation took 5 days. My house is EPC rated B 85 and I proved that I could flow my old gas boiler at 40-45 degrees last winter. Heat hot water with Octopus GO and / or solar PV. Feels good to ditch the fossil fuel as far as I can.
The main issue is the installation cost of air source including the cost for having it designed compared to having a combi boiler installed most normal familys can not afford the heat pump or afford to run it along with running immersions to get hot water
By just insulating old housing stock up to the standards needed for a heat pump to work the energy saving will be massive without heat pumps being needed.
Some old housing stock with solid walls or brick-cavity-brick walls just can't be "improved" enough, think of Coronation St style homes, heat pumps won't help them!
I am 55 years old and have been an HVAC tech for over 30 of that. I am an expert on all types of HP technologies and even trained people on them. Everything from window units to 20 ton water and air cooled Commercial units up to integrated 50 ton indoor pool heaters that recycled the geat lost from the water to the space back into the Multi functional combination unit. It did have a high efficiency boiler for back up heating. I have installed and worked on thousands of Heat Pumps. The only ones that make any kind of sense are Geothermal or closed ground loop units. They work with a very stable constant ground temperature if designed and installed correctly. Anything else is peeing up a rope. All Heat pumps lose efficiency as the medium they extract heat out of drops in temperature. Then they shoot themselves in the foot if they have to enter a defrost sequence. They then require additional or back up heat source that loses heat to the HP as it tries to defrost. Heaven forbid if their is any air movement through the coil while it's trying to defrost. Then when it comes out of defrost it consumes higher wattage until it settles in. I have commissioned and tuned hundreds of thousands to maximize efficiency. The big elephant in the room is the fact that you are limited by the max design capacity on the cooling side of the equation. Not everyone can install a Geothermal heat pump system and they are the Cadillac or ultimate form of a Heat pump. Now what form of energy is powering it ? The most efficient Heat Pump application is in large buildings with multiple loads and uses. These all need to share a large closed loop in the building with water or fluid constantly circulating in it. One space is warm and calling for cooling. Their HP dumps it's load into the loop. That heat moves along and someone else needs heating. They extract that heat out and the Heat pump multiplies that heat 3 times and dumps it into the space and so on and so on. It needs to have a back up heating system to keep the loop temperature at a stable level to be effective. I have a heatpump in my home but when the outdoor temp drops below 32 degrees F I shut my HP off and switch to my Natural gas furnace because it is more cost effective at that point.
Interesting observation. Thankfully Norway and Sweden did not get the memo on how useless they are in cold weather, alternatively since we use celsius and not fahrenheit we can use them happily and effectively down to -20c (-4 f) . With about 50% of all private houses having one (or two) as their main heat source. The only qualifier I have to add is that we mostly uses air to air heatpumps. This is mainly because a good air to air heat pump (top of the line from well known brands) cost about 2000 to 3000 GBP installed, and air to water is a lot more expensive and complicated to install and the SCOP or perceived comfort in a house is the same. This is pumps certified down to -25 C outdoor temperature and a SCOP of 4,9-5,5 depending on the brand and model. Yes the COP drops at -25 C, but at 0 degree C 32 F the COP is still over 5,0. But none of the Nordic countries have gas infrastructure in place, so a price comparison is for us pointless. Our only argument is that we heat our houses with 1/5 to 1/6 of the energy required compared to other methods.
@@JoppeOSL I have designed systems, sized them, installed them and worked on them. Air to air systems are the cheapest and not as efficient as other systems. Building construction and insulation is paramount to maximizing the systems viability. Yes you can run an air to air HP down to - 13 below zero degrees Fahrenheit but you have lost a huge chunk of heat output or efficiency and you are going to need strip or resistance heat added into make up for the loss in capacity. Just for easy figures I am going to use 10 degrees of heat picked up outside. At a 1 to 3 ratio or 300% efficiency through thermodynamics and the heat of compression that 10 degrees is turned into 30 degrees output inside the home. That is at peak performance at around 40 degrees F. So a 36,000 BTU output HP is putting out 36,000 BTU output at 40 degrees. As the outside temp starts dropping the efficiency and capacity starts to fall also. Not to mention the frost build up until you drop below 30 degrees. There will come a point where you have to add straight resistance heat or lockout the HP and switch to fossil fuel or backup heat. In The US in Northern Climates without gas infrastructure people use Propane or fuel oil as backup or additional heat when they can't run strip heat. Both Natural Gas and propane are more efficient to run at colder temps and can give a higher capacity or BTU output at lower temps where HP can't do the job because they have run out of capacity. There are many parts of the US that go way below 0 in the winter. A HP just cannot do the job because their output is sized to the cooling load. Typical or average is 3 tons or 36,000 BTUs of cooling or heat and you lose that output as the outdoor air temp drops. The other option in those areas is Ground source or closed loop water source HP that are working with 55 degree ground temperature to start with. By the middle of winter that same ground temp is dropping but still is usable. I don't know why you are trying to argue facts and physics. I did not make these things up , they just are. Good for you if it works where you are at but if you only have a heat output of 36,000 btus and in the middle of winter you need 80,000 btus you are going to have to use additional resistance heat at a ratio of 1 to 1 and a HP ratio of maybe 1 to 1 or 2 to 1 depending on outside air temp. They can quote numbers and advertise all they want but physics are physics and the COP ratings are max output in lab conditions and perfect conditions. Reality is less forgiving. As soon as that sucker goes into defrost you can throw the COP number out the window because it is pointless at that time. High humidity and a temp between 35 and 45 will shoot those numbers in the foot not to mention the engagement of strip heat to help offset the cooling effect in the space from entering defrost.
@@desertdan100 I did not argue facts and physics. Me and all my family, and all my neighbors have "mini-splitt" heatpumps as our main heating in our private houses. Average house size is +/- 200 m2 we all have 1 "large" approx. 6-7 kw output air to air heat pump, or 2 smaller ones, depending on the room layout. Most of us live on the coast so we have for our country a mild climate 15-20 C in summer, 0-10 C spring and fall and 0- -10 C during winter on average. This year I have used my heat pump for cooling 0 days, last year 6 days. so we size our heat pumps for heating and not cooling. Yes we insulate our houses and the standards have changed over the years (1970-1980, average of 10 cm glass wool battens, 1980-1990, average of 15 cm glass wool battens and now most houses are built with 20-30cm of insulation). Last year (in October) my mother replaced her 19 year old heat pump with a Panasonic HZ25XKE. it was regarded as a to big one for her 197 m2 house by the technician, but she is at 78 years old not found of any form of draft and would like a heat pump she mainly can run in "silent mode"/low fan speed. Until now 80-90% of her heating needs have been met by this heat pump. The rest was covered by a fireplace and two 1000w resistance heaters. My uncle that lives in the interior of the country and have -20 to -30 C during winter have opted for a groundwater to water system. 10 times the price, and lower SCOP, but more suited for his climate sue to better efficiency Due to regulations propane tanks are unfeasible, and as stated we do not have a piped gas infrastructure. So our only options is fuel oil, wood or electric. None of the people I know or myself have had any problems with defrost cycles. And the price of firewood and fuel oil is higher than the average price of electricity per unit of energy, and if a heat pump can multiply that energy by 5 at 0 degree C we have a winner. And I know that COP and SCOP is under lab conditions, as any other standard measurement of performance. But I have lived happily and effectively with a heat pump as main heat source for 20+ years in a country with a colder climate than the UK, and so have millions of others. As a curiosity, in the beginning of heat pumps (for heating), most products came from US companies, now due to higher performance all the leading brands are European or Asian. Note that the products we use are optimized for heating the house, yes we can also cool, but at a lot lower efficiency. But as far as I know most gas based system used in UK, is rather terrible at cooling as well. And I do not argue that your experience is wrong, but what I am saying is that with other equipment and another use case the experience of heat pumps in Scandinavia is different. And I would argue based on your first post that the products and experience from residential heating in Scandinavia is better suited for UK houses than yours. I do not have the knowledge to state it as a fact, but i guess that the "heat pump" part is not the issue for heating UK homes, but either the execution or the products used. And especially with the ongoing energy crisis in Europe, almost anything to reduce the energy usage should be welcomed. PS) Natural gas has been traded at prices equal to a oil price of $450 a barrel wholesale lately, and many countries experience electric prices that matches that, including UK.
@@JoppeOSL We do agree on many points. Yes in The US we had a wide adoption of HP back in the Early 70's they were invented in The US. We also figured out a long time ago that they don't fit every situation or use. Fast forward to now and the powers that be want to outlaw many things and mandate others in a one size fit's all mentality. In the US we call it Green Washing. They promote propaganda and embellish false or half Truths to brainwash people. Then people that are actually in the field or involved with tackling all of these issues have to try and reprogram reality back into people. I will have someone with a 150 year old building with basically no insulation in the structure start dictating to me what they learned on the internet and what they know will do the job. I then have to go through all of the math and spend a large amount of time trying to explain all of the improvements that are going to need to be done to the building before there is even a chance of the system taking care of the load or needs. Many many buildings have a balance point of around 30 degrees above 0. That is at the point where the building is loosing heat to the environment at the same rate that the HP is putting it back in. 1 degree colder or a little more wind speed and the equipment starts losing ground and the building starts to drop internal temperature. It isn't the same for every situation. Add in someone that is elderly or has trouble with getting cold faster and you have issues. Now we have a movement trying to convince people that Heatpumps can save the world and that all other technologies and sources of energy need to be banned. Same thing with BEVs saving the planet at this point in time it is a bold faced lie. Not everything can be solved in one way and not all situations are the same. It will take time to evolve and until one problem is solved we can't jump to another or just ban something that fills a need now. We agree that Heat Pumps are great and can do a lot of things but they are not the magic bullet for everything or every purpose. I am glad that your needs can be filled in your situation. I have family in Sweden in Southern Sweden and the climate is milder where they are at but it does get cold inland and for many years they supplemented with wood but that has been restricted. I am in the Midwest In America and I travel an area in all 4 directions from me. A couple states South can get away with a HP heating them for all but 2 months where they need to use addl. resistance heat. Where I am at we cannot make it through 3 months out of the year without switching over to gas or propane heat with more than twice the output of our HP. North of me a couple states a HP just cannot do the job. The temperature drops too far too long. Their HP only works for 1 to maybe 2 months going into Fall / Winter. I am glad that people like us can discuss this and realize that there are many variables to consider and not everything is the same for everyone. I worked on and dealt with the first HPs out there. They were horrible but they have come a long way and keep improving. The price keeps going up and up though. The only HP that can work anywhere is a ground source and they still require extra resistance heat to help out sometimes. Yes they are very expensive to install at first but they do pay back with the life of the first one. The second is much cheaper to install when the first one wears out.
Fantastic video . As an electrical contractor I learnt to provide a power supply for the heat pump and do the first fix and stop there . If an installer who is charging 25 to 35 thousand euros to carry out a heat pump installation can't commission and stand over his own job . There has got to be something wrong .
This video clearly demonstrates Rogers lack of understanding of up to date heat pump (and hydrogen) technologies, and Adam's real understanding of the challenges and issues and clear thinking.
The current heating (night storage heaters) for my 3 bedroom bungalow costs around £2340 per year. Even at this exorbitant price it would take 10 - 15 years before I broke even on a heat pump. In the meantime I'd have to put up with the hassle of the installation and the ongoing inconvenience and noise from the unit. My 50 year old storage heaters create no CO2 emissions and my electricity supply is (supposedly) carbon neutral. Rather than encourage me to switch to a heat pump with all the CO2 that process would produce it would seem to make more sense to reduce the price of the electricity I use for heating so that I stay with my currently carbon neutral arrangement.
50 YO storage heaters !? ‘No co2’ 😅 - bet you still have to watch the weather the night before to control the heat - in the UK it can be 10 degrees on Monday and 21 by Wednesday ….#boomer
It's not really carbon neutral. Despite the green tariff (which is helpful), you are using the same electrons as everyone else, and depending where you are in the UK that averages out to something like 150gCo2/kWh (I'm assuming you are taking most of that electricity overnight so it's lower CO2 than during the day). £2340 might be 12,000kWh/yr (could be a lot less or a bit more depending on tariff - that's assuming 20p/kWh which is optimistic these days). So that's 1.7 tonnes/yr. You should be able to divide that by 3 by switching to a heat pump. We all get 1 tonne each for _everything_ (food, transport, holidays, heating, stuff) to get to carbon neutrality. If there are two people in your house you've used most of your allowance just on heating. Yes switching is inconvenient, but we're all going to have to do it, preferably after fixing our badly insulated/airtighted houses. If you retrofit your house well enough then the heating system doesn't really matter much as you only need it ~10 days/yr.
HaHa - those rads were huge agree :) - but they were only that big in 1 room for a specific reason. It was a music room that was the coldest one in the house and it was specifically requested that it needs to be 21C with -3 and with flow of 40C which takes some doing. Her son studies music and spends countless hours practicing in that room. The look of the rads and pipework was discussed. Sadly glued lino on the floor so not much we could do. Pipes were 15mm to both.
You know you've made it when you've got the Heat Geeks and Skill Builder talking about you in their debate. Keep up the good work and look forward to your next vid too.
Id do it if it was five grand but 14k i dont have that lying around! I though t the urban plumber install was very good but could tell straight away it was an expensive purchase . i dont even have the cupboard space. maybe insulate Britain are correct and we should fund keeping the heat in? if the government are serious about the climate and i think they should be, this is where the taxes go as well as nhs and roads and schools, so we need to close some loopholes etc @@SkillBuilder
@@Muggles87 yes, but the cost of putting in pump is mega monies. we have solar and batteries installed. so wont cost us much in the winter months. (providing its a sunny days)
@@grahams6690 just stick with a gas boiler mate, there's nothing wrong with a decent boiler as long as it's installed correctly and has weather compensation 👍🏽
I have a reasonable technical grasp on air con systems, refrigeration systems so heat possible are not to dissimilar. What I would like to know is why are air source pumps being pushed when they have a rather poor winter time efficiency compared to ground source pumps. Also when a heat pump is rated at 10kW Is this the power consumption or the heat output, if it is the heat output what would the power consumption be at what out side temperature. Keep up the good work
The bloke is going to make his fortune by training thousands of installers. He has only one interest and that is heat pumps. Anybody going against it and telling people what is wrong with them is going to seriously be a detriment to his income if the tide turns and people say no. You need two people who have no investment in it to debate the issue.
@@Vile_Entity_3545 he installs gas boilers and even hydrogen stuff too! Do what you want, I think he'll be fine. Your idea about getting people with no skin in the game to debate is silly, you're not gonna get Lisa and Micky off the street to talk about heating systems, they won't know anything about them. It's pointless.
Good that you mentioned district heating. Don't urban north Americans and Eastern Europeans think we're bonkers for having a separate little boiler in every flat and terraced house.
They would be a little more efficient but not a huge amount more. Better insulation and larger radiators would mean you could run your radiators at 35-40°C rather than 60+°C (along with simply needing less heat). That would mean your condensing boiler would go from 80-85% efficiency to 88-93%. Meanwhile that radiator flow change would take a heat pump from less than 150% efficiency to upwards of 350% efficiency.
From experience, as a Thermal Designer Engineer, HP's perform better on bench tests than in actual environment. Theres limiting factors on exchangers, compressors, refrigerants etc. Its tricky getting these to align when using atmospheric air as an energy source. Heat Geek is pushing an agenda that he is passionate about but doesn't make it correct.HPs at the moment are not consistent as conventional boiler heating.
EXACTLY!! And nobody talks about comfort, which is the whole point of heat, you'd think. Anyone who already has a boiler and doesn't understand how lucky they are, are not too bright or very duped.
this is a spectrum. Heat pump nay sayers will often fixate on the most negative cases. It would be interesting to know how many properties may take a 'simple' heat pump install. Eg insulation is ok, pipework needs little or no replacement (only at boiler end maybe), radiators ok. I bet thats a decent number of houses and could help get installs up at a relatively affordable price and help prices of equipment and installs come down which can help the more difficult cases. Combine with when your boiler is naturally reaching end of life so you're already expecting a few grand to replace, and the cost to change can reduce significantly. And look at air to air as a complementary technology option and include that in the grant schemes (which it isn't currently). As subsidy is reduced on gas and prices go up, heat pumps with 300-400% efficiency will be cost neutral pretty qiuckly compared to gas for running costs.
Great discussion i think it just highlights how little we/governemt really understand about how to heat, its a real learning exercise and now the days of cheap gas are over we all need to engage. Quality and respected trades are what is needed.
Heat Geek is a persausive salesman whose best interests are Heat Pumps. As Roger said if Heat pumps worked and saved money they would need no subsidy. If costs of oil and gas converge with electric I accept the argument will change in HP favour. As that means at least tripling the costs of the former then god help the old and poor, they will freeze.
This would be a good answer if all the costs were considered, but unfortunately gas boilers have big externalities - costs we don't pay up front but collectively have to pay afterwards, in environmental damage, health and so on. So working on the pure economics as seen by someone deciding what to get installed in their home, waiting for cost parity really means arbitrarily waiting for the new tech to become so cheap it undercuts boilers even when the boiler costs were really always higher overall. That's the reasoning behind subsidising heat pumps to kick-start the industry.
The UK is currently on around 40% renewables per year with massive amounts of wind and solar being installed currently, we also buy energy from Norway's hydro system so can use it as a battery as well. We have and will install more energy storage, batteries being one with hydrogen and Tidal coming in the future. The grid will also even use people's home batteries to balance the grid. We will need some energy storage but most of our excess energy will be sold to our partners in Europe with current and new cables connecting us in the future, we will be a net energy exporter.
Great debate with good head shots & body blows from both sides. I dont get the baseball cap either - maybe its an age thing but it is his trade mark. Training to understand flow is not rocket science and only needs schoolboy maths. What ever side you are on Heat Geek (amongst others) is trying to upskill the industry to better tackle efficient heating.
The main criteria about heat is not efficiency, but comfort. And that's where NOTHING beats hot water radiant heat - in BOTH efficiency AND comfort. Throw away the heat pumps, replace them with boilers powered + gas. EVENTUALLY it will happen anyway. This is just a fad, like forced air heat, which is TERRIBLE.
We need more of this !!!!!! Honestly I think this is one of the best “building industry “ videos I have seen ! We have to be aware of the Facts .. this all sounds to me like the climate issue that the government are putting out there being exploited by cleaver people who know how to enterprise..! This totally challenges the narrative! . Talking about it and being honest should bring the best possibilities..! But those who are invested will always side with exactly that ! Look at what happened with diesel.! Technology is always progressing but I ask you this … Will we stop using fossil fuels while we have reserves and money is to be made ? NO … it’s the same thing here ….
It's funny to see the working class pen and paper vs the middle class Apple computer across the table. But this video really shows Roger in a good light. He shows himself to be far more articulate and knowledgeable than he comes across in the videos where he casts himself as the custodian of the absolute truth and this video does him credit. Adam and Roger should do more videos together. The questioning presence of the other person improves the quality of the information being presented.
I’ve got a lot of time for both you guys and your you tube channels.. I have cottage on Oil and have opted to fit two Air~Air heat pumps to do the heavy lifting and have the Oil boiler in reserve for those Really cold days, then wait until heat pumps become mainstream….
Fantastic video which illustrates that modern life doesnt have to be bombastic and confrontational all the time! Reasoned, respectful debate. Well done 👏🏻
This is a pointless debate at this point considering that war criminal Putin's war has made natural gas prices crazy high. So although heat pumps may have some downsides, they are more affordable right now.
That is what happens when both sides exist in reality, so they have a common ground to start on. This type of communication doesn't happen between the people that need to be having such conversations. It is all political.
Kudos to both for having a well reasoned conversation. If politics was like this, you may find consensus, strategy and solutions. Love both your channels.
Only thing he forgot on the charging front is the wheel came before the cart their is no point in investing in faster charging if you don’t have the battery it’s charging but they need the battery first, than they need the program for them than they make charging faster
@@kennethhanes5438 trouble is that no one is going to put serious money into thousands of chargers unless there is money to be made and after covid and the like to put billions into it is probably beyond the tax payer. for the time being. Added to this is the problem of generating enough power and the still far from settled question over the raw materials.
I think what could be a very interesting video is if you two colab and buy a run down house together, renovate it from the ground up showing us how you can make it the most efficient possible with heat pumps, insulation and everything and document the series! Would be a great watch. Especially now we need to aim for at least EPC C!
that's a great idea
More than anything buy two cheap terraces and do both identically... Also very representative of old housing stock
@andymacallum i live in a terraced house that fronts onto the main road , plz tell me where I'm supposed to put the heat pump so i don't have to put up with the noise it makes
@@davefarmery8180 Just make it sound like the locals being picked up, Wee-oww Wee-oww Wee-oww............. As for installation! look for the burned out car, it softens the tarmac. 🤣
@@davefarmery8180 In a sound cupboard? Modern highend pumps are not noisy, Viessmann or NIBE. Problems arise if they are not fitted properly.
I'm pleased this wasn't a gladiatorial point scoring debate! Well done to you both!
I agree with Roger 100% about how education, or rather having educational material at hand on the internet largely goes over most of our heads, because we're not just talking about how powerful an engine we need in our car but something that is a lot less proven, as the discussion revealed. I am one of those who would be easy swayed by a salesman with a gift of the gab and a few persuasive figures to be totally coned into purchasing something that brings me nothing. So being the way I am I must say I'd be wise to side with a gentle dose of scepticism. thanks Roger.
And also the zealots for green tech are just SOOOO on their high-horses and take the high moral ground like Mr Backwards Baseball Cap who gloss over the costs and downsides, and insist they ghave the high moral ground.
What it tells me is use a heat geek certified supplier, and let the market adjust based on us clearly valuing quality and training.
@@crawford1083 I guess if you get your facts from the Daily Mail like Roger.
@@nicksimmons7234 I haven't read the Mule since i retired and lo longer have to read the City pages. But I am not a brainless "Man-made climate change" NPC like Mr Backwards Baseball Cap and other idiot millennials!
@@crawford1083 I guess reading the Daily Mail the whole of your working life did enough damage then. Saying you don’t believe in man made climate change tells me all I need to know.
See, now THIS is a video that REALLY helps all parties involved! When everyone from BOTH sides can learn from each other and try to move forward together toward a common goal of making things better for humanity and all of the planet as well, that is where humanity moves forward in leaps and bounds and actually does the hard work of advancing technology and the understanding of the tech we already have as well as helping governments to see what should and perhaps shouldn't be done to help move things toward what is best for the world in general. This video was no small contribution by any means, BRAVO!!!!! I'm from the U.S. and now I'm interested in the Heat Geek course even if I don't become an installer. Thank you for this video, it was great!
This was a great idea to have a debate - it shows that people can disagree in an adult way and how we can alter each other's minds. Well done Roger.
Roger got his facts from the Daily Mail, says it all.
Both these guys are real assets to the industry
Very on the fence
Heat Geek is biased because it’s his business and Skillbuilder doesn’t use facts/figures only opinions. A simple example is his questioning of renewable energy reliability. Simply put, if you build 120% supply (for example) then a dip in energy production would not matter. Rather than answer this, Skillbuilder use an opinion!
Interesting debate, I'm glad you both managed to agree on so many points, especially that poor design +/or installation is likely to result in dissatisfied customers. Also that cost is a major factor, and that there are not enough well trained installers, which was pretty much everything you said in the original video.
Heat Geek chap came across as a very genuine, polite and knowledgeable guy. Roger also very likeable and down to earth. Enjoyed this.
I found this debate/discussion absolutely fascinating! Being a semi retired plumber, I’m actively looking at integrating new tech to our home in order to save money & reduce emissions etc. what I’m trying to avoid is committing to a particular technology (solar/heat pumps etc) for something else to be developed rendering everything else pretty much obsolete. At the moment, gas is my preferred choice of heat energy with solar feeding in during the daylight hours…. Off I head to heat geeks to see how this is concluded…..
Halfway through and just love to see 2 people sit down and have a discussion.
Nothing beats it.
Guess time of use tariffs is why smart meter are being fitted for free 😂
Nothing free is ever at no cost!
Whether or not you have a 'smart' meter fitted, you will be still paying for it. It is being added to your bill regardless.
I've been led to believe that these smart metres fitted for free cost each household £400
@@ivansmith2572 probably correct. It will be worse when all the fuel vat goes on the leccy bill for charging your car all of a sudden
I am loving this discussion. Shooting ideas back and forth is really what we need. I'm hoping this starts a brainstorm of ideas, who knows when someone will get that light bulb moment idea. 😁
No one is totally invested in heat pumps so even if they were the worst things ever he would still argue for them. If he was selling lollipops with glass embedded into them and could get away with it he is always going to argue how good they are for the consumer.
@@Vile_Entity_3545 incoherent comment. I think I know what you're trying to say, but he has explained clearly why that is not the case.
Great to have this discussion. We must learn to listen to others then make our own decisions
This is diplomacy in action. Well done all of you ! We all have different opinions and fighting over them does not solve anything. Sitting down and having a respectful chat taking on board each and all issues is tremendous. Well done !
My counterclaim. Online learning is weak, there is no opportunity to ask a random question when something doesn't click. You lose that interaction with a professional so you only end up autonomous missguided people. As a perfect example, as I tried to write the word "autonomous" and spelt it wrong, I right clicked on that word for the correct spelling, at the top was "astomatous". "autonomous" was 2nd 🤦♂Good job I am observant and knew the word I was looking for. These online classes do not train people, they make them into people that think they know.
As long as your home is modern and the thermal efficiency supports lo temperature heating and they are properly sized and installed they work absolutely as intended.
I work in cornwall however where most of the houses are stone walled things built 100plus years ago. The insulating costs as much as the heat pump!
Heat pumps can heat solid stone houses, here's an example of a heatpump working very well in such a property: ua-cam.com/video/m2-_x0XZUSM/v-deo.html
Even recently built homes are not well insulated enough to make heat pumps a running-cost viable option. The government should make it law for all new houses to be built much closer to passiv haus standards.
@@paulhamlet804 as long as you have large enough emitters heat pumps can heat any home. Modern heat pumps can deliver high temperature heating if required. Passive houses don't require any heating.
Have you actually done a thermal calculation for a 100year old stone cottage? The emitters are absolutely ginormous! To the point they are filling a wall!
And before someone says it. Underfloor heating is a massive expense! I'm sorry but heat pumps may be the future but they have a long way to go!
That said looking at the progress electric cars have made I. A few years its possible I guess
@@approachableactive yes, here's an example of a ASHP installed in a 100+ year old solid stone house and getting high COP ua-cam.com/video/m2-_x0XZUSM/v-deo.html
Mr Geek you are not biased as I remember our conversation a few years ago and you were very honest and said an install could cost me £16k .
Love both your channels. This was really interesting. I'm hoping you take Heat Geeks invitation up to follow one of their installations because we know you will tell it like it is. Frankly if you decide heat pumps are the right choice in some circumstances if installed right, ill probably get one!
Nice conversation; good to talk it out but Roger is an old fuddy duddy ( like me). Natural gas was a great idea in 2001 when T Boone Pickens was promoting it as a transition from coal. But now we’re in the electric age and need work together on all aspects: heating, cooling, transportation, industrial manufacturing, grid inter-connectivity, and storage (as Roger lauded to). These are all challenges that can be overcome if we work together and don’t just say ‘that doesn’t work very well now; it will never happen’.
BTW in America heat pumps are a minor upgrade to central air conditioning and thanks to global warming we all need cooling and heating now.
Thanks Exon
This video is phenomenal. What a great debate from both sides. Idealism vs realism and hope vs skepticism. You both make excellent points and you both covered really interesting topics. This video just gives me so much to ponder. Thank you for making it!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Heat Geek is on the ropes
With this one
@@paulrayworth2279 Head with posing hat verses reality head with no need for "cool" hat lol.
That Roger talks more sense than any body I have ever listened to. That mobile phone quip, and others, was brilliant. Shows what age and experience contributes, listen up to Roger, you young pups. Peace be unto you.
Roger is a very knowledgeable guy indeed. But you my friend seem like you have a lot of experience from Readers Digest! Us young pups know how to use and work modern technology!
Do you realise his mobile phone quip was absolute garbage?... Mobile phones, namely the numerous technologies in them, were very heavily incentivised by governments around the world for decades through grants, tax breaks etc. Have you ever paid over £1000 for a new phone? No, the mobile network providers have been doing deals with handset manufacturers for decades to keep the price of handsets at an affordable level, ergo, another form of subsidy.
The comparison to mobile phones is economically inappropriate. If you buy a phone, you as the buyer get all the benefits. If you replace a gas boiler with a heat pump then a lot of the benefits go to others in reduced respiratory diseases, climate impact, national security and so on.
An economy and society that buys phones when the individual benefit is worth more than their price is making the right decision. One which does that with heat pumps is not, it's causing avoidable harm to people that isn't taken into account in that purchasing decision.
That's why subsidising them makes sense (but it absolutely does need a long-term commitment from government, not a few years at a time).
@@alexhayward4817 I don't believe in MAN MADE climate change, I don't believe covid was any more than a flu. I DO mistrust all that gov.com tell me. Further more, those in charge (who ever that is) do nothing what the "locals" either want, or yearn for. Peace be unto you.
@@MikeyCompton that's not even factoring in all the subsidies for fossil fuels that makes gas boilers artificially cheep. Though the point could be made that just dropping subsidies for Fossil fuels would have a similar effect as subsidizing heat pumps. But good look to the politician that allows gas prices to increase to what it truly costs.
Finally ! Only 5 minutes in a Roger makes a lot of sense for a change ;)
I always make sense it just isn't your sense.
@@SkillBuilder just teasing - great video Roger! Really enjoyed it.
I think Im going to watch all of the heat geeks videos. This guy knows what he is doing and try to do the right thing.
An excellent discussion. What you have highlighted is that where we are now, heat pumps are not a viable solution for older houses. However, heat pumps MAY become beneficial but it will take 5 to 10 years (possibly earlier). The big question is can we sustain an all electric future? We have relied on a diversified energy portfolio, to go to an all electric energy provision will require a massive change to infrastructure! An example: the cabling that provides power to my street is not sufficiently sized to provide all my power needs should I have an electric car and heat pump and all electric cooker. Add all my neighbours doing the same thing and what would happen?
Remember "The Grid" is nothing more than thousands of miles of old cables, each with hundreds of joints in them!
The grid can and will be upgraded as necessary.
But take a look at current natgas prices, it looks like you worried about the wrong energy source. Putin can't cut off North sea wind or your nuclear reactors.
Heat pumps were viable 40 years ago, same as nuclear power, issue is people don't understand the technology
Heat pumps can absolutely work in older houses with air to air, the government is just scared of air to air for some reason
I love to see you talking to someone who you don't necessarily agree with. Hopefully you both benefitted from the experience. After all you are both reasonable people who ultimately want to help people improve their lives. 👍
I spend most of my life talking to people I don't agree with, my wife ,of 40 years, being one of them.
@@SkillBuilder Most people like an echo chamber. It is good to see them coming into the discussion with an open mind...or at least willing to see the other side of the argument.
Noise cancelling earplugs are quite effective I've been told 😉
had a chat with my heating engineer and he said my 1980s house would not make best effect of a heat pump!! He said we would need too much adaptions done to even try to make it work and then it wouldnt be cost effective!
At least he's honest
I repair ac and heat pump systems commercial and domestic. I would total agree with your hearing engineer. Most homes built before 2000 would not be suitable.
Brilliant to see. So many of the Facebook groups are a slagging match and when people ask for help they are shit down. I think this is great that we can all get together and grow as an industry
Great video and debate. Good points made on both sides...
Had a HP fitted over the Summer, looking forward to seeing how it performs this Winter.
How are you finding the hp recently? It’s certainly turned chilly!
With politics in October 2022, this video is a pleasure to watch! Thanks both of you. Mark
A fascinating discussion that I could have watched all day. The boiler supplied with my newly built home over 10 years ago will need replacing at some point but there is a pilot scheme in my locality for hydrogen heating in 300 homes that will be rolled out more widely, if successful. Therefore, I may have the option of a hydrogen boiler rather than a heat-pump if the gas boiler keeps going until then.
Viessmann 200-W is the most efficient H2 ready gas boiler sold on the market
30 mins in. hear one person quoting actual facts and figures. another with whataboutery. Heat Geek is clearly winning the arguement here.
fair play to the skillbuilder. saying that you had got it wrong with respect to looking at old heat pumps rather than the latest is a really impressive thing to do. Most people don't have the courage to admit that they have got anything wrong. well done
Very balanced video, the truth is always somewhere in the middle
I give this to Roger. I could say more. But Roger your arguments are pragmatic and realistic.
Surely the elephant in the room are those massive radiators in Urban Plumber's video. If they can produce a Heat Pump that is unobtrusive and doesn't need extra pipework, insulation and jumbo-sized rads, then they would have a much stronger argument. Heat Geeks say it's all bout the quality of installation, but a massive Heat Pump is still a massive Heat Pump, without the guarantee of enough heat exactly when you want it. I'm sure it will come, but the argument fails at the present time for the normal semi, and especially the flat, I would say.
Those installs could consider A2A units. For some reason wet systems are alway considered in the UK.
Multisplits and cassettes would be great for lots of homes and as a bonus give AC coolingin summer.
All our assured installations are guaranteed scops
As per the video the rads didn't need to be that big. It was for a lower flow temp and higher scop inba particularly difficult room.. However if that job used an r290 unit the rads could be much smaller for the same scop.
@@Etacovda63 because there was an massive shortage of them due to the end of the RHI.
Fan coils are ok.. but rads are less noisy, kick up less allergens, dont use power, and suit vactorian houses better.. only small amounts of each and some people would opt for fan coils but this was the rout chosen for this specific customer
UFH is the best way to avoid big radiators. And it's very comfy.
Roger your heat pump stuff is brilliant. The mainstream media is not bringing up these issues
Really enjoyed this, and I think you agree on more than you disagree on. Love to see a big collab on a build.
That gives me hope for the future. If both sides come to the debate with an open mind and walk away having leraned something.
Both sides accept there is a problem that needs addressing and also there are huge opportunities for the building industry. The missing part of the equation seems to be a lack of a sensible government plan....instead we are 'wasting' billions £ on so called smart meters. No plan to insulate homes. Putting heat pumps into poorly insulated homes is almost pointless IMO.
Totally appreciate what heat geeks are trying to do. Good on them.
We had an ASHP installed on a previous property. We didn’t have high expectations but we were attracted by the RHI and we had a smelly oil boiler at the time. The pump was installed by an MCS approved installer and if I’m honest we weren’t really focusing much on the COP until well after the install. We achieved a COP of 2:1 at best and we were actually supplementing the pump with a hybrid masonry stove (we had a decent supply of free wood).
We had a couple of issues early on which were resolved. At one point the installer had to come out and switch on the internal immersion to give us hot water. Once the issues were resolved the pump worked fine but the COP never got near 3:1. Still 1.5-2.0:1 is still a good COP for any device, it just didn’t live up to the claims.
Luckily the RHI is gone and has been replaced with grants. The reason I say that is that if you move house, the RHI payment stays with the house and you are left with the loan to pay. I’m all for the govt subsidies - we need them, but they need to have more flexibility or you end up with a massive rush towards one technology where demand far outstrips supply and we end up in the mess we are in now. We originally wanted to install external insulation on that home but it wasn’t covered by the incentives at the time. To my mind that is insane.
Our current home is on the gas main and we are not ruling out ASHP in future but I’ll take my time and see what else is on offer and continue to pay off the sizeable loan !
Great to hear from real life experience. Your findings are in line with mine. It will be interesting to know how that heat pump coped in the very cold weather. I was glad to have the ability to turn the heating up a bit on my gas boiler.
Just watched your heat pump vid for the second time, followed by one featuring heat geek and "urban plumbers" slagging you off and one with urban plumbers on another install where he has fitted two of the most ridiculous sized rads I have ever seen in a domestic setup. What I did notice in their vids is that they don't mention price and their systems are set up in a what appears to be complicated way and in ideal situations (space, cost no object, big money spent on insulation etc). In fairness they do point out these facts but without a hint of irony that they are in fact proving you right with regards to expense, exact ideal conditions etc and that unfortunately in the real world these conditions seldom exist. I also note that the promoters of these systems have skin in the game ie. they're making money out of it, so of course they skim over the negatives. Again as you pointed out in your vid re diesel car etc this could turn out just another one of these misguided fads. I have watched a few of your vids now and as best I can tell your channel is purely information and advice, so I believe you when you say you'd be the first to fit it and probably have a vid out about the install. So anyone new to this or doing your research, I'm in the building game myself (not particularly heating/plumbing per say, but I can't fault your logic) and I really don't think Roger will steer you wrong, you can tell he didn't start in this game yesterday or the day before that, his advice is clearly based on experience. Thanks Roger keep up the good work, much appreciated.
It's interesting that the HP guys are young fellas with a vested interest against Roger who has seen "the game" played out several times. The Geek guys aren't even experienced in real life situations across ANY situations. The Urban fella is at least experiencing the real world .. but with very little history of how thngs play out long term. Truth is that a BASKET of solutions is always required...not a one egg job.
@@stevel9914 Well put Steve, exactly my thoughts in a nut shell. I like Roger live in a "leaky" older house, here in Ireland the average install cost is 15k (advertised, so you know it's going to be more), to bring my house "up to standard" another 20 to 25k less grants I'm still looking at high 20's, early 30's plus interest. Even if I save 1 to 2k on heating (being super optimistic) as I'm in my early 60's I'll either be dead, in a nursing home or well past caring before any real savings come in. Even if all this works, for many this means we're going to all this trouble and expense for the folks who buy our houses when we're dead (Fcuk that). These lads are just trying to get in on the ground floor of a new money making racket, not too different to the "Oil/Gasmen" of old and fair play to them most of us would like to be millionaires etc. Just stop pissing down my back and tell me it's raining.
You're a man after my own heart Roger, you haven't led me a stray yet so I'm sticking with you. I haven't gotten to the end of this vid, don't think I'll bother tbh, rather use my time looking at your other content that's actually useful and thanks again for that.
You only believe people on topics who don't have skin in the game? You won't learn anything with that philosophy mate.
You know the only people worth talking to about a top are the people with the most knowledgeable on it? You can only have that with people who have working, up-to-date and practical experience with the topic.
I'm not going to ask a plumber about the James Webb Space telescope, I'm going to ask an engineer at NASA/ESA, even if he does have skin in the game.
Also you can have an ASHP without massive rads.
Classic example of seeing the world how you want it to be as opposed to accepting the world as it really is
Absolutely love your mind Roger, you're spot on with your facts! You know how to think, not what to think!
Love this. Got respect for both of you. It was hilarious though to see heatgeek using a laptop and skill builder using pen and paper 😛 So my conclusion is, heat pumps can work, there should be more, but there is so much opportunity right now for those of us not in the trade to be conned right now, so to switch correctly (if I do) I needed to really do my homework and find a really really good installer. Right now, it wouldn't make sense for me to switch though unless my boiler conks out and I need to replace it.
Nice one Roger. Both videos had a lot of useful stuff. I still think the only solution to the carbon thing is for us all to use less energy. Nothing was said about the carbon footprint of all these old boilers being scrapped. That's going to use a bit of energy somewhere down the line. I'll sit in my solid brick walled house with single glazed sash windows and put another jumper on for now I think
A boiler uses more energy over time than a heat pump so I'd imagine even with the recycling of the boiler after removal the heat pump will still win in that comparison
The amount of energy used recyling boilers is small. The amount of emissions that energy generation generates is utterly trivial in comparison to the emissions from burning gas in that boiler for just 1 year, never mind the 15 or so of its lifetime.
Healthier
@@Burtis89 Perhaps for just replacing the boiler that is the case, but doubt it is as clear cut as this when you consider, for many heat pump installs that - much of the existing pipework and radiators require oversizing (replacing), and new ones installed and fitted all of which carries a cost in terms of CO2, - recycling, transport, manufacture, installation and so forth. Then you must also consider the huge cost of such an endeavour, for what in some cases is a mediocre output (cooler hot water, slower heating - and potentially without the benefits of being able to switch too cooling which was mentioned earlier, and is likely to be come more important in heatwaves) - many issues likely exacerbated by less-proficient installers. Personally, for the cost, and disruption, it would be far more advantageous to significantly improve the homes insulation, and install solar panels to generate some of your own power (hot water too..). You are then in a better position to improve your heating solution whatever that may be whilst also reducing your reliance on the grid and non-renewable energy sources.
@@jackocurly0074 you can go for cooling just need fan coil units to provide the cooling side. You can get fan assisted radiators too.
Brilliant informative vid from 2 passionate genuine individuals. Respect to both.
Much appreciated!
@@SkillBuilder Your facts Roger come from the Daily Mail.
Wow! That was a surgical precision take down of heat pump sceptic opinions by Adam there. Thanks for making me laugh Roger with that suggestion of leaving net zero to the market because that’s how mobile phones took off 😂
Rodger’s idea “they didn’t need to subsidise mobile phones” is a complete misconception.
12 key technologies that make smartphones work: 1) tiny microprocessors, 2) memory chips, 3) solid state hard drives, 4) liquid crystal displays and 5) lithium-based batteries. That's the hardware.
Then there are the networks and the software. So 6) Fast-Fourier-Transform algorithms 7) - one you might have heard of this one - the internet. 8) HTTP and HTML9) Cellular networks 10) GPS. 11) The touchscreen. 12) Siri, the voice-activated artificial intelligence agent.
Every single one of these 12 key technologies was supported in significant ways by governments - often the American government.
To say the free market (or Steve Jobs) is responsible for us all having smartphones is completely wrong - it was billions and billions of government money!
He did touch on liking subsidizing technologies until they became obvious in the market instead of subsidizing a product that is not ready yet.
@@ecospider5 Heat pumps are ready. The price might come down but there’s no way around the labour cost of the low temperature upgrade to the system, not to mention the larger pipework and radiators. Subsidies needed for net zero by 2050. If he’s prepared to wait for the market I question whether he believes in net zero at all
@@ecospider5 in what way are heat pumps not ready please? They've been successfully heating homes for over 40 years
Childish just like his followers. Having to point out what a person said at what minutes. It's silly.
Thoroughly enjoyed this, have been aware of both Roger and Adam for sometime and they are both right to a certain extent. I have been looking at this problem myself and reached the same conclusion. Unfortunately, since Thatcher, the UK has sold out its manufacturing base for a short term profit for the executives and shareholders. It would be extremely difficult to retool and manufacture in the UK, even if we did, we could never compete against China or other developing economies.
The other problem is skilled surveyors, engineers, installers and service contractors, we don't have them so those who have the skills can charge a premium. I used to be in the business of creating sales training, marketing and alliance management programmes for the telecoms industry, I'd be very interested to see Heat Geeks solution, but it sounds like the sort of approach we need to take.
Love the comment on leaking showers, my upstairs shower installed by a plumber leaks, the one I installed downstairs doesn't, I'm not a plumber 🙃
Good discussion. Rodger's main objection seems to be the government subsidies. I agree that the subsidies are a bad idea, but we do need to see a cost saving for consumers with heat pumps if we want to see mass adoption. The problem that needs to be addressed by the government is the relative cost of gas and electricity. We should start by moving the 20% green levy from electricity to gas. Heat pumps would then be cheaper to run, customers would want them so builders would fit them. Refurbs with heat pumps would make sense without subsides too. This isn't complicated.
It's not a subsidy, it's an investment. The govt is spending 37 billion this year subsidising everyone's gas and electric bills (i.e pretty much subsidising the fossil fuel sector). If they invested that money in retrofit instead we'd all be better off for decades. Spending money on improving houses is a really good long-term investment. The houses are worth more (so it's easy to get that money from the mortgage company), the govt money largely goes to local businesses (builders, plumbers, electricians). The health payback for the worst houses is huge too. It's already cost-effective to buy someone a retrofit if they are in crappy mouldy houses and keep going to the doc. Everyone gets much more comfortable houses and their energy bills drop by 50%, more for a deeper retrofit. It really is a much better thing to collectively spend our money on than keep giving most of it to Shell, Exxon, Putin and co.
sorry not convinced, and considering the sheer amount of low income households out there who could not afford the install and could not afford to run it and could not afford the up keep/ maintenance i just can't ever see these systems as a viable solution for the mass population , we need better
In many places district heating is more popular, usually served by a locally situated heatpump.
@@Swwils where?
@@pbysome Obvious places like Iceland, Norway, Sweden but some interesting growth areas are Denmark, France and Italy.
Germany and Poland already have sizable district heating installations - its a no-brainer for many projects especially if you base the heat pump for the district on renewable energy source.
District heating grids are an extremely cheap way to cut carbon emissions.
In the UK we have about 3000 homes served by the Pimlico DHU in London and 4600 in Nottingham on the EnviroEnergy system.
Imagine the concept of heat loss, applied to an entire city. You can see why heat networks will have a large role to play - Denmark for instance has 95% of urban buildings served by aheat network using 98% renewable fuel and they are popular too, with far higher satisfaction and efficiency rates that any UK heat source.
Cost us $3500, to install in our 3 bedroom home. With solar at £1800 for 6kwts our bills are around £50-£100.
Solar subsidies by our government. Not rocket science. Best install ever, plus increase the value of our property.
Well let’s not bother at all then.
The “this close (….) “ part was the final nail. Pun intended.
I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while, two channels I follow and two sets of professionals who know their stuff but have differing views on some points. Would be very interested to see the follow up of a collaborative install.
Excuse the pun, but you guys really seemed to warm up to each other about 40 mins in. It was great to see you both have a mature conversation, bring two sides, and find points where you're agreeing. More of this!
I am already subscribed to you Skill builder but this one video would earn you ten subscriptions from me because of your down to earth ideas. I do not think though, that a carbon tax is the answer as it won`t apply to all countries, creating a very uneven playing field. Your videos are informative, well made and unbiased. Great work! Chris, UK.
The carbon tax would be charged on imports that were made with coal fired power stations. It would help our cleaner manufacturers and it would incentivise China etc to clean up their act rather than chasing the dragon.
If you look to our EU neighbours, they have just agreed a border carbon tax last week. It's almost inevitable to sustain UK industry.
roger you nailed it he is defending his job
I'm with heat geek on this. I'm running a heatpump with solar. And with the Dutch electricity plans the solar-power from the summer can be used in the rest of the contract. So power from te summer can be used in de winter. I have a scop of 5. So what heatgeek said even if my electricity is from a gasplant, I still needs just a fifth of the electricity compared to a gasboiler. Without the losses in a gasboiler
Gas boilers are 90% plus efficient. How does that compare for a person pulling electricity of the grid. Think about it genius. Gas to electricity. Then transfer then consumption.
@@pacman7959 In this topic al lot of factors are used in this conversation. Electricity production from gas is 90% efficient. So using this electricity to power heatpumps who themselves are 400% efficient is a reduction in gas usage. That's what I ment . Btw, can your gasboiler work on solar power like a heatpump can? More independence from the grid.And in the Netherlands where I live, we have an incentive to dump solar power on the grid in the summer, so we don't have to fire up the gaspowered electricityplants. But the issue in this are not the facts. Because people nowadays choose what to believe. Usually based on an old way of thinking. Showed here by the skill builder. I think that this guy is a real professional in his field. But this is not his field. Like u will never get me of my visions on heatpumps , I will never get u on-board. Unless u see the proof in a way u can process it or by someone u believe in. One of the things in de video is that skill builder talks about the heatpump like there is just one option. There are multiple ways to connect a source to a heatpump. Instead of hating on tech, look at what the tech actually does. It might be for u or not.
And the mentioning of what China is doing to exempt ourselves of taking action is just wrong. Just pulling oneliners out of his 🕳to kill the conversation.
@@pacman7959 gas to electricity to cop of 5 to 1 heat pump is much more efficient and cheaper then gas through a 90% boiler...
Brilliant video, need to get these discussions out to the wider community. Needs to be match
I think I’m so convinced not to go heat pump, I think HVO fuel is a much better way.
Politicians take a good look and learn from this discussion , this is how you should talk and react in a debate .
Even with subsidies it’s still over £10k
For a “properly installed” system.
It’s not hundreds it’s bloody thousands!
Plus the fact that a lot of properties have pipe work buried away which would be a major consideration, ripping up floors & replacing them costs even more money .
& take my home for example, it’s got a 20 year old conservatory in between the kitchen & the living room at the back of the house , which is zoned off by a double glazed door, the door is shut most of the time to keep the heat in the rest of the house. It gets opened if we need to access the kitchen , which is doable most of the winter.
But if it’s minus 5°c & you’ve got a low temperature heat pump, I just can see it working for me.
The other half likes the house like a Furness , & constantly cranks it up when I’m not looking.
Good luck convincing mrs Jones that the radiators aren’t meant to be hot to the touch.
We’ve literally been dancing around fires since the Stone Age, maybe it’s time to move on but I can’t see people actually understanding it really .
Are the guy who work for Octopus 🐙 Energy Heat Geek trained.
I'm with Skill Builder on this. The key issue is most UK housing is designed to have lots of air moving through it. We shouldn't even be taking about heatpymps until this insulation challenge is solved. 3 to 1 electric return or even 3.5-4 factor on heatpumps - well per per kWh gas similar factor less expensive. So your typical Victorian or 1900s house will need similar cost of insulation retrofit risking mould issues etc costing same amount as heat pump. 15k GBP ++ then the electricity bill ends up about the same as previous gas bill. Meanwhile solar is essentially infinite factor once investment is made.
Just had my boiler removed and heat pump fitted by @octopusenergy . The cost with grant was £6k. Installation took 5 days. My house is EPC rated B 85 and I proved that I could flow my old gas boiler at 40-45 degrees last winter. Heat hot water with Octopus GO and / or solar PV. Feels good to ditch the fossil fuel as far as I can.
The main issue is the installation cost of air source including the cost for having it designed compared to having a combi boiler installed most normal familys can not afford the heat pump or afford to run it along with running immersions to get hot water
By just insulating old housing stock up to the standards needed for a heat pump to work the energy saving will be massive without heat pumps being needed.
Some old housing stock with solid walls or brick-cavity-brick walls just can't be "improved" enough, think of Coronation St style homes, heat pumps won't help them!
Most old houses, some even with cavety walls when insulated suffer with terrible damp. If you add a heat pump to this your damp problem is much worse.
Cellphones are hugely subsidized in the US in network build out, improvement, and maintenance.
The important thing is the conversation is happening 🤘😎🤘
correct - nice one Wayne ;)
@@UrbanPlumbers 👍🤓👍
This is a great discussion, cheers both of you.
I am 55 years old and have been an HVAC tech for over 30 of that. I am an expert on all types of HP technologies and even trained people on them. Everything from window units to 20 ton water and air cooled Commercial units up to integrated 50 ton indoor pool heaters that recycled the geat lost from the water to the space back into the Multi functional combination unit. It did have a high efficiency boiler for back up heating.
I have installed and worked on thousands of Heat Pumps. The only ones that make any kind of sense are Geothermal or closed ground loop units. They work with a very stable constant ground temperature if designed and installed correctly. Anything else is peeing up a rope. All Heat pumps lose efficiency as the medium they extract heat out of drops in temperature. Then they shoot themselves in the foot if they have to enter a defrost sequence. They then require additional or back up heat source that loses heat to the HP as it tries to defrost. Heaven forbid if their is any air movement through the coil while it's trying to defrost. Then when it comes out of defrost it consumes higher wattage until it settles in. I have commissioned and tuned hundreds of thousands to maximize efficiency. The big elephant in the room is the fact that you are limited by the max design capacity on the cooling side of the equation.
Not everyone can install a Geothermal heat pump system and they are the Cadillac or ultimate form of a Heat pump. Now what form of energy is powering it ?
The most efficient Heat Pump application is in large buildings with multiple loads and uses. These all need to share a large closed loop in the building with water or fluid constantly circulating in it. One space is warm and calling for cooling. Their HP dumps it's load into the loop. That heat moves along and someone else needs heating. They extract that heat out and the Heat pump multiplies that heat 3 times and dumps it into the space and so on and so on.
It needs to have a back up heating system to keep the loop temperature at a stable level to be effective.
I have a heatpump in my home but when the outdoor temp drops below 32 degrees F I shut my HP off and switch to my Natural gas furnace because it is more cost effective at that point.
Great comment, thank you
Interesting observation. Thankfully Norway and Sweden did not get the memo on how useless they are in cold weather, alternatively since we use celsius and not fahrenheit we can use them happily and effectively down to -20c (-4 f) . With about 50% of all private houses having one (or two) as their main heat source. The only qualifier I have to add is that we mostly uses air to air heatpumps. This is mainly because a good air to air heat pump (top of the line from well known brands) cost about 2000 to 3000 GBP installed, and air to water is a lot more expensive and complicated to install and the SCOP or perceived comfort in a house is the same. This is pumps certified down to -25 C outdoor temperature and a SCOP of 4,9-5,5 depending on the brand and model. Yes the COP drops at -25 C, but at 0 degree C 32 F the COP is still over 5,0. But none of the Nordic countries have gas infrastructure in place, so a price comparison is for us pointless. Our only argument is that we heat our houses with 1/5 to 1/6 of the energy required compared to other methods.
@@JoppeOSL I have designed systems, sized them, installed them and worked on them. Air to air systems are the cheapest and not as efficient as other systems. Building construction and insulation is paramount to maximizing the systems viability. Yes you can run an air to air HP down to - 13 below zero degrees Fahrenheit but you have lost a huge chunk of heat output or efficiency and you are going to need strip or resistance heat added into make up for the loss in capacity.
Just for easy figures I am going to use 10 degrees of heat picked up outside. At a 1 to 3 ratio or 300% efficiency through thermodynamics and the heat of compression that 10 degrees is turned into 30 degrees output inside the home. That is at peak performance at around 40 degrees F. So a 36,000 BTU output HP is putting out 36,000 BTU output at 40 degrees. As the outside temp starts dropping the efficiency and capacity starts to fall also. Not to mention the frost build up until you drop below 30 degrees. There will come a point where you have to add straight resistance heat or lockout the HP and switch to fossil fuel or backup heat. In The US in Northern Climates without gas infrastructure people use Propane or fuel oil as backup or additional heat when they can't run strip heat.
Both Natural Gas and propane are more efficient to run at colder temps and can give a higher capacity or BTU output at lower temps where HP can't do the job because they have run out of capacity.
There are many parts of the US that go way below 0 in the winter. A HP just cannot do the job because their output is sized to the cooling load. Typical or average is 3 tons or 36,000 BTUs of cooling or heat and you lose that output as the outdoor air temp drops.
The other option in those areas is Ground source or closed loop water source HP that are working with 55 degree ground temperature to start with. By the middle of winter that same ground temp is dropping but still is usable.
I don't know why you are trying to argue facts and physics. I did not make these things up , they just are.
Good for you if it works where you are at but if you only have a heat output of 36,000 btus and in the middle of winter you need 80,000 btus you are going to have to use additional resistance heat at a ratio of 1 to 1 and a HP ratio of maybe 1 to 1 or 2 to 1 depending on outside air temp.
They can quote numbers and advertise all they want but physics are physics and the COP ratings are max output in lab conditions and perfect conditions. Reality is less forgiving. As soon as that sucker goes into defrost you can throw the COP number out the window because it is pointless at that time. High humidity and a temp between 35 and 45 will shoot those numbers in the foot not to mention the engagement of strip heat to help offset the cooling effect in the space from entering defrost.
@@desertdan100 I did not argue facts and physics. Me and all my family, and all my neighbors have "mini-splitt" heatpumps as our main heating in our private houses. Average house size is +/- 200 m2 we all have 1 "large" approx. 6-7 kw output air to air heat pump, or 2 smaller ones, depending on the room layout. Most of us live on the coast so we have for our country a mild climate 15-20 C in summer, 0-10 C spring and fall and 0- -10 C during winter on average. This year I have used my heat pump for cooling 0 days, last year 6 days. so we size our heat pumps for heating and not cooling. Yes we insulate our houses and the standards have changed over the years (1970-1980, average of 10 cm glass wool battens, 1980-1990, average of 15 cm glass wool battens and now most houses are built with 20-30cm of insulation).
Last year (in October) my mother replaced her 19 year old heat pump with a Panasonic HZ25XKE. it was regarded as a to big one for her 197 m2 house by the technician, but she is at 78 years old not found of any form of draft and would like a heat pump she mainly can run in "silent mode"/low fan speed. Until now 80-90% of her heating needs have been met by this heat pump. The rest was covered by a fireplace and two 1000w resistance heaters.
My uncle that lives in the interior of the country and have -20 to -30 C during winter have opted for a groundwater to water system. 10 times the price, and lower SCOP, but more suited for his climate sue to better efficiency
Due to regulations propane tanks are unfeasible, and as stated we do not have a piped gas infrastructure. So our only options is fuel oil, wood or electric. None of the people I know or myself have had any problems with defrost cycles. And the price of firewood and fuel oil is higher than the average price of electricity per unit of energy, and if a heat pump can multiply that energy by 5 at 0 degree C we have a winner.
And I know that COP and SCOP is under lab conditions, as any other standard measurement of performance. But I have lived happily and effectively with a heat pump as main heat source for 20+ years in a country with a colder climate than the UK, and so have millions of others. As a curiosity, in the beginning of heat pumps (for heating), most products came from US companies, now due to higher performance all the leading brands are European or Asian.
Note that the products we use are optimized for heating the house, yes we can also cool, but at a lot lower efficiency. But as far as I know most gas based system used in UK, is rather terrible at cooling as well.
And I do not argue that your experience is wrong, but what I am saying is that with other equipment and another use case the experience of heat pumps in Scandinavia is different. And I would argue based on your first post that the products and experience from residential heating in Scandinavia is better suited for UK houses than yours. I do not have the knowledge to state it as a fact, but i guess that the "heat pump" part is not the issue for heating UK homes, but either the execution or the products used.
And especially with the ongoing energy crisis in Europe, almost anything to reduce the energy usage should be welcomed. PS) Natural gas has been traded at prices equal to a oil price of $450 a barrel wholesale lately, and many countries experience electric prices that matches that, including UK.
@@JoppeOSL We do agree on many points. Yes in The US we had a wide adoption of HP back in the Early 70's they were invented in The US. We also figured out a long time ago that they don't fit every situation or use.
Fast forward to now and the powers that be want to outlaw many things and mandate others in a one size fit's all mentality.
In the US we call it Green Washing. They promote propaganda and embellish false or half Truths to brainwash people.
Then people that are actually in the field or involved with tackling all of these issues have to try and reprogram reality back into people.
I will have someone with a 150 year old building with basically no insulation in the structure start dictating to me what they learned on the internet and what they know will do the job.
I then have to go through all of the math and spend a large amount of time trying to explain all of the improvements that are going to need to be done to the building before there is even a chance of the system taking care of the load or needs.
Many many buildings have a balance point of around 30 degrees above 0.
That is at the point where the building is loosing heat to the environment at the same rate that the HP is putting it back in.
1 degree colder or a little more wind speed and the equipment starts losing ground and the building starts to drop internal temperature. It isn't the same for every situation. Add in someone that is elderly or has trouble with getting cold faster and you have issues.
Now we have a movement trying to convince people that Heatpumps can save the world and that all other technologies and sources of energy need to be banned. Same thing with BEVs saving the planet at this point in time it is a bold faced lie.
Not everything can be solved in one way and not all situations are the same. It will take time to evolve and until one problem is solved we can't jump to another or just ban something that fills a need now.
We agree that Heat Pumps are great and can do a lot of things but they are not the magic bullet for everything or every purpose.
I am glad that your needs can be filled in your situation.
I have family in Sweden in Southern Sweden and the climate is milder where they are at but it does get cold inland and for many years they supplemented with wood but that has been restricted.
I am in the Midwest In America and I travel an area in all 4 directions from me. A couple states South can get away with a HP heating them for all but 2 months where they need to use addl. resistance heat.
Where I am at we cannot make it through 3 months out of the year without switching over to gas or propane heat with more than twice the output of our HP.
North of me a couple states a HP just cannot do the job. The temperature drops too far too long. Their HP only works for 1 to maybe 2 months going into Fall / Winter.
I am glad that people like us can discuss this and realize that there are many variables to consider and not everything is the same for everyone.
I worked on and dealt with the first HPs out there. They were horrible but they have come a long way and keep improving.
The price keeps going up and up though.
The only HP that can work anywhere is a ground source and they still require extra resistance heat to help out sometimes.
Yes they are very expensive to install at first but they do pay back with the life of the first one. The second is much cheaper to install when the first one wears out.
Fantastic video .
As an electrical contractor I learnt to provide a power supply for the heat pump and do the first fix and stop there .
If an installer who is charging 25 to 35 thousand euros to carry out a heat pump installation can't commission and stand over his own job .
There has got to be something wrong .
Great open discussion, really enjoyed the video. Engineers finding solutions will always be better than government interference.
This video clearly demonstrates Rogers lack of understanding of up to date heat pump (and hydrogen) technologies, and Adam's real understanding of the challenges and issues and clear thinking.
The current heating (night storage heaters) for my 3 bedroom bungalow costs around £2340 per year. Even at this exorbitant price it would take 10 - 15 years before I broke even on a heat pump. In the meantime I'd have to put up with the hassle of the installation and the ongoing inconvenience and noise from the unit. My 50 year old storage heaters create no CO2 emissions and my electricity supply is (supposedly) carbon neutral. Rather than encourage me to switch to a heat pump with all the CO2 that process would produce it would seem to make more sense to reduce the price of the electricity I use for heating so that I stay with my currently carbon neutral arrangement.
50 YO storage heaters !? ‘No co2’ 😅 - bet you still have to watch the weather the night before to control the heat - in the UK it can be 10 degrees on Monday and 21 by Wednesday ….#boomer
Phil, you are spot on
You could look into air to air heat pumps, simpler installation.
It's not really carbon neutral. Despite the green tariff (which is helpful), you are using the same electrons as everyone else, and depending where you are in the UK that averages out to something like 150gCo2/kWh (I'm assuming you are taking most of that electricity overnight so it's lower CO2 than during the day). £2340 might be 12,000kWh/yr (could be a lot less or a bit more depending on tariff - that's assuming 20p/kWh which is optimistic these days).
So that's 1.7 tonnes/yr. You should be able to divide that by 3 by switching to a heat pump. We all get 1 tonne each for _everything_ (food, transport, holidays, heating, stuff) to get to carbon neutrality. If there are two people in your house you've used most of your allowance just on heating. Yes switching is inconvenient, but we're all going to have to do it, preferably after fixing our badly insulated/airtighted houses. If you retrofit your house well enough then the heating system doesn't really matter much as you only need it ~10 days/yr.
In reply to xxwookey I'd love to know what I would need to do to my house so that I only need heating 10 days per year.
Great to hear from all of you over a multitude of issues with good points to back them up.
HaHa - those rads were huge agree :) - but they were only that big in 1 room for a specific reason. It was a music room that was the coldest one in the house and it was specifically requested that it needs to be 21C with -3 and with flow of 40C which takes some doing. Her son studies music and spends countless hours practicing in that room. The look of the rads and pipework was discussed. Sadly glued lino on the floor so not much we could do. Pipes were 15mm to both.
You know you've made it when you've got the Heat Geeks and Skill Builder talking about you in their debate. Keep up the good work and look forward to your next vid too.
Old school vs new school. We’re with heat geek on this one
wow!!! I'm excited to watch this! almost as excited as I was about Top Gun
Carbon footprint on those jets. 🤪. Corrrrrrr
Not sure how I ended up watching this however I'm surely happy I did! Respect to both of you!
£14000 install in my house according to site 🤔 £294 annual savings approximately 40 years to pay off !
Yes and that ignores the maintenance and the fact that it won't last for 40 years even if you do
Id do it if it was five grand but 14k i dont have that lying around! I though t the urban plumber install was very good but could tell straight away it was an expensive purchase . i dont even have the cupboard space. maybe insulate Britain are correct and we should fund keeping the heat in? if the government are serious about the climate and i think they should be, this is where the taxes go as well as nhs and roads and schools, so we need to close some loopholes etc @@SkillBuilder
I believe there are heat pumps made in the UK by Mitsubishi Electric who have a factory in Livingston in Scotland
very interesting Roger, at 68 I wont be putting a heat-pump, if they stop gas. I will put in infrared panels heaters.
Work perfectly and efficient 👏🏻
Beware that we have taken out more than we have installed, they are incredibly expensive to run.
Why would you do that? IR panel heaters will cost about four times as much as heat pumps to run
@@Muggles87 yes, but the cost of putting in pump is mega monies. we have solar and batteries installed. so wont cost us much in the winter months. (providing its a sunny days)
@@grahams6690 just stick with a gas boiler mate, there's nothing wrong with a decent boiler as long as it's installed correctly and has weather compensation 👍🏽
I have to say, this is good content. And I do like both channels, I think we all need to hear both points of view. Well done.
Amazing video
I have a reasonable technical grasp on air con systems, refrigeration systems so heat possible are not to dissimilar. What I would like to know is why are air source pumps being pushed when they have a rather poor winter time efficiency compared to ground source pumps.
Also when a heat pump is rated at 10kW
Is this the power consumption or the heat output, if it is the heat output what would the power consumption be at what out side temperature.
Keep up the good work
Roger has convinced me never to trade my combi in for a heat pump, heat geeeks really didn’t convince me with their technology either
The bloke is going to make his fortune by training thousands of installers. He has only one interest and that is heat pumps. Anybody going against it and telling people what is wrong with them is going to seriously be a detriment to his income if the tide turns and people say no. You need two people who have no investment in it to debate the issue.
@@Vile_Entity_3545 he installs gas boilers and even hydrogen stuff too! Do what you want, I think he'll be fine.
Your idea about getting people with no skin in the game to debate is silly, you're not gonna get Lisa and Micky off the street to talk about heating systems, they won't know anything about them. It's pointless.
Good that you mentioned district heating. Don't urban north Americans and Eastern Europeans think we're bonkers for having a separate little boiler in every flat and terraced house.
So if the house insulation is improved to the standard for heat pumps, wouldn't gas boilers also be much more efficient?
They would be a little more efficient but not a huge amount more.
Better insulation and larger radiators would mean you could run your radiators at 35-40°C rather than 60+°C (along with simply needing less heat). That would mean your condensing boiler would go from 80-85% efficiency to 88-93%.
Meanwhile that radiator flow change would take a heat pump from less than 150% efficiency to upwards of 350% efficiency.
Really enjoyed the video, Both parts.
From experience, as a Thermal Designer Engineer, HP's perform better on bench tests than in actual environment. Theres limiting factors on exchangers, compressors, refrigerants etc. Its tricky getting these to align when using atmospheric air as an energy source. Heat Geek is pushing an agenda that he is passionate about but doesn't make it correct.HPs at the moment are not consistent as conventional boiler heating.
As a refrigeration engineer of 40 plus years I agree with you completely
And they do not even consider maintenance and repair going forward
EXACTLY!! And nobody talks about comfort, which is the whole point of heat, you'd think. Anyone who already has a boiler and doesn't understand how lucky they are, are not too bright or very duped.
What experience do you have with installations/sizing of heat pumps? What kind of houses/environments do you work in?
this is a spectrum. Heat pump nay sayers will often fixate on the most negative cases. It would be interesting to know how many properties may take a 'simple' heat pump install. Eg insulation is ok, pipework needs little or no replacement (only at boiler end maybe), radiators ok. I bet thats a decent number of houses and could help get installs up at a relatively affordable price and help prices of equipment and installs come down which can help the more difficult cases. Combine with when your boiler is naturally reaching end of life so you're already expecting a few grand to replace, and the cost to change can reduce significantly. And look at air to air as a complementary technology option and include that in the grant schemes (which it isn't currently). As subsidy is reduced on gas and prices go up, heat pumps with 300-400% efficiency will be cost neutral pretty qiuckly compared to gas for running costs.
Skill Builder, WINS!
Great discussion i think it just highlights how little we/governemt really understand about how to heat, its a real learning exercise and now the days of cheap gas are over we all need to engage. Quality and respected trades are what is needed.
Heat Geek is a persausive salesman whose best interests are Heat Pumps. As Roger said if Heat pumps worked and saved money they would need no subsidy.
If costs of oil and gas converge with electric I accept the argument will change in HP favour. As that means at least tripling the costs of the former then god help the old and poor, they will freeze.
This would be a good answer if all the costs were considered, but unfortunately gas boilers have big externalities - costs we don't pay up front but collectively have to pay afterwards, in environmental damage, health and so on.
So working on the pure economics as seen by someone deciding what to get installed in their home, waiting for cost parity really means arbitrarily waiting for the new tech to become so cheap it undercuts boilers even when the boiler costs were really always higher overall. That's the reasoning behind subsidising heat pumps to kick-start the industry.
The UK is currently on around 40% renewables per year with massive amounts of wind and solar being installed currently, we also buy energy from Norway's hydro system so can use it as a battery as well. We have and will install more energy storage, batteries being one with hydrogen and Tidal coming in the future. The grid will also even use people's home batteries to balance the grid. We will need some energy storage but most of our excess energy will be sold to our partners in Europe with current and new cables connecting us in the future, we will be a net energy exporter.
Been waiting for this , like nixon/frost
Nowhere near that good.
Skill Builder is spot on.
Great debate with good head shots & body blows from both sides. I dont get the baseball cap either - maybe its an age thing but it is his trade mark. Training to understand flow is not rocket science and only needs schoolboy maths. What ever side you are on Heat Geek (amongst others) is trying to upskill the industry to better tackle efficient heating.
The main criteria about heat is not efficiency, but comfort. And that's where NOTHING beats hot water radiant heat - in BOTH efficiency AND comfort. Throw away the heat pumps, replace them with boilers powered + gas. EVENTUALLY it will happen anyway. This is just a fad, like forced air heat, which is TERRIBLE.
Love this! 2 differing opinions debating via controlled, fact based arguments.
You and this guy are great content...you should do regular vids with him
We are going out on an installation soon
Thoroughly enjoyed it. Its healthy to have the two sides weighed against eachother.
@@SkillBuilder any news of the installation with Heat Geek yet?
We need more of this !!!!!! Honestly I think this is one of the best “building industry “ videos I have seen ! We have to be aware of the Facts .. this all sounds to me like the climate issue that the government are putting out there being exploited by cleaver people who know how to enterprise..! This totally challenges the narrative! . Talking about it and being honest should bring the best possibilities..! But those who are invested will always side with exactly that ! Look at what happened with diesel.! Technology is always progressing but I ask you this …
Will we stop using fossil fuels while we have reserves and money is to be made ? NO … it’s the same thing here ….
Skill builder nails it through life experience. Heat Geek is young and ideological.
It's funny to see the working class pen and paper vs the middle class Apple computer across the table. But this video really shows Roger in a good light. He shows himself to be far more articulate and knowledgeable than he comes across in the videos where he casts himself as the custodian of the absolute truth and this video does him credit.
Adam and Roger should do more videos together. The questioning presence of the other person improves the quality of the information being presented.
I’ve got a lot of time for both you guys and your you tube channels.. I have cottage on Oil and have opted to fit two Air~Air heat pumps to do the heavy lifting and have the Oil boiler in reserve for those Really cold days, then wait until heat pumps become mainstream….
If they give a grant of £5 k ...the price will go up and they will employ more salesmen on a juicy commission.
Roger, thankyou for speaking from the sensible, educated, experienced installer side