Renewable Heating Hub Heat Pump Forums

Search with Wattson
Forums
Sustainable Sidetra...
Government Schemes,...
UK warm homes plan ...
 
Notifications
Clear all

Joining the Renewable Heating Hub forums is completely free and only takes a minute. By registering you’ll be able to ask questions, join discussions, follow topics you’re interested in, bookmark useful threads and receive notifications when someone replies. Non-registered members also do not have access to our AI features. When choosing your username, please note that it cannot be changed later, so we recommend avoiding brand or product names. Before registering, please take a moment to read the Forum Rules & Terms of Use so we can keep the community helpful, respectful and informative for everyone. Thanks for joining!

UK warm homes plan - how can it be delivered?

 
Page 2 / 2
Government Schemes, Regulations, Training, Planning & Organisations
15 Posts
7 Users
4 Reactions
117 Views
RSS
 Temperature_Gradient
(@temperature_gradient)
Trusted Member Member
Joined: 9 months ago
Posts: 45
21/05/2026 7:48 pm  

@batpred 

If it needs a battery to ensure a good outcome with a heat-pump, then the hurdle gets even higher as now the home-owner needs to find the £10k+ for the heat-pump, and currently the best part of £4k+ for a fully installed battery and the space for all of this.

It's going to need a re-think, I suspect after much unnecessary delay and time wasted, that the UK will end up where other countries with heavy use of gas heating like the Netherlands and Italy are - a more pragmatic approach, of full heat-pumps for new builds and homes where they're suitable, and hybrid heat-pump systems as retrofits to existing properties - take out the old boiler, install a new hybrid boiler with an outdoor unit, leave the plumbing largely the same. Or like some of the Dutch systems, plumb a heat-pump into the central heating loop and retain the existing boiler for cold weather and instantaneous hot water. 



   
ReplyQuote
Batpred
 Batpred
(@batpred)
Prominent Member Member
Joined: 1 year ago
Posts: 893
Topic starter 21/05/2026 8:24 pm  

@temperature_gradient 

Yes, but while a battery needs no maintenance and little space, the hybrid system with all that comes with keeping the old gas boiler (yearly maintenance and space) does not seem to be a large scale solution to me. 
I think our concept of subsiding to get rid of the fossil fuel is better, even if unlikely to be affordable at scale. Still think that making people pay for the emissions will be the best way to get more of us to feel ownership for the emissions we can control. 


8kW Solis S6-EH1P8K-L-PLUS hybrid inverter; G99: 8kw export; 16kWh Seplos Fogstar battery; Ohme Home Pro EV charger; 100Amp head, HA lab on mini PC


   
ReplyQuote
 Temperature_Gradient
(@temperature_gradient)
Trusted Member Member
Joined: 9 months ago
Posts: 45
21/05/2026 8:48 pm  

@batpred 

Look at what makes heat pump installations difficult - you need a new, typically quite large/larger cylinder, significant replumbing of the hot water system, radiators need replacing, you may need an electricity supply upgrade. You may need your central heating pipework upgrading - there's millions of home with micro-bore, the smaller sized copper and smaller plastic pipes, that will be locked out of heat pumps unless they rip their homes apart to re-plumb. Most of that cost and hassle is eliminated with a hybrid, yes it's not zero carbon and there's still the boiler, but it's a sizeable cut typically 70% in gas use compared to sticking with a gas boiler.

With the average heat pump install costing around £13,000, if a hybrid system can shave £4000 off by avoiding the cylinder, hot water replumbing, new primary pipework, new radiators, that would pay for decades of boiler servicing.

It's classic case of making the perfect the enemy of the good, by demanding nothing less than full, zero carbon heat pumps with all of the cost and disruption, its slowing the transition away from fossil fuels and cutting carbon emissions.

We need to get heat pumps established as a normal, routine way of heating your home and the best way to do that is to take away the risk of moving to something new by having a bridging technology, to get people to start moving across on mass.



   
ReplyQuote
Page 2 / 2
Forum Jump:
  Previous Topic

Currently viewing this topic 2 users ( Temperature_Gradient, Batpred ) .

Share:

Join Us!

Latest Posts

Click to access the login or register cheese
Protected By
Shield Security PRO