United Kingdom
General community for news/discussion in the UK.
Less serious posts should go in !casualuk@feddit.uk or !andfinally@feddit.uk
More serious politics should go in !uk_politics@feddit.uk.
Try not to spam the same link to multiple feddit.uk communities.
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.
Posts should be related to UK-centric news, and should be either a link to a reputable source, or a text post on this community.
Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.
If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread.
Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.
Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.
view the rest of the comments
It's weird that heat pumps are seen as so exotic and complicated when they're really just air conditioners plus reversing valves.
The capacity calculations and potential noise complaints are the big ones imho.
I can definitely see issues with installers not giving a toss about noise, and having to be chased later.
Calculating capacity isn't that complicated, you can look everything up to work it out (wmk losses, etc.), but it is a step up from the current "slap a new boiler in" mentality.
And I wouldn't be surprised if most heating techs don't consider requirement at all when changing a boiler, they'll just put in a big one, and run the rads at 70 if the client complains.
There is talk about ASHPs that can still maintain efficiency at higher temps, which may help a lot of households avoid changing the radiators too. But it's still early days.
You can leave the pipes there. They're not doing much. Radiators aren't much threat either, unless you trip into one.
Not really. Since the radiators operate at a substantially lower temperature, you may well have to replace them - you need larger, more efficient radiators than may be typical with gas-fired systems
Oh, using the same system, instead of switching to forced air.
... why does efficiency matter if the heat stays in the house? They're just always-warm instead of sometimes-hot, yeah?
We don't tend to use air/air heat pump systems in the UK, even for new builds, always air/water.
Because of lower water temperature output of heat pumps compared to the gas boilers they replace, usually you need to increase the size of radiators to be able to achieve a room temperature change in a reasonable time. What is being referred to as efficiently, is actually just a measure of performance of the radiator, not actual energy efficiency.