Planning for Future Energy Savings
It is hard to argue against government legislation which will benefit the planet and the future generations that will live on it. We are being told that we will not be able to install gas boilers into new build properties after 2025, with heat pumps being the alternative favoured by government.
The UK government has recently pushed its proposed ban on the sale of fossil fuelled cars back from 2030 till 2035, a move which is seen by many as political rather than environmental with a general election potentially looming within the next eighteen months. Concerns are growing about the cost of installing a heat pump as opposed to a gas boiler, will we see a similar move with our heating systems?
The dates prescribed by governments are deadlines, “must be done before” dates, which means we are able to make changes before these deadlines. Many drivers are even now switching to electric vehicles (EVs) and abandoning toxic gas emitting petrol and diesel cars, but what can we do to make the transition from gas boilers to heat pumps an easier journey?
Retro fitting a heat pump in a property which was designed and built around a gas central heating system is not as easy as a simple swap of one piece of equipment for another. Many gas boilers are combi-boilers, they heat water on demand, doing away for the need to have a hot water storage tank. A heat pump on the other hand, does require a hot water storage tank and the re-engineering doesn’t stop there. A gas boiler heats water up to around 75°C, whereas a heat pump will normally deliver water at around 55°C, which means that to maintain your ambient room temperature you may require to increase the size of your radiators or add extra ones, giving the benefit of a larger heating area to offset the reduced temperature. Heating systems using heat pumps work more efficiently with underfloor heating, again by heating the entire floor of a room, you will maintain your room temperature by using a lower temperature over a larger area.
This all means that a conversion to a heat pump based system can require a total rethink of your heating and hot water system, not just a simple boiler out and heat pump in scenario and this is where the cost of converting can rise dramatically £3,000 to £4000 can replace a gas fired boiler like for like. Converting from a boiler to a heat pump may cost as much as four times that amount and even with the government grant, that cost can be prohibitive.
The move to replace gas fired boilers makes sense if we are to cut down on our use of fossil fuels, with heat pumps being the preferred alternative. Is there a need to wait for a government imposed ban before we make this transition, or is there a more proactive and ultimately cost effective way to increase the use of heat pumps?
The first quarter of 2023 saw almost 40,000 new build homes completed in the UK and although this figure has fallen by 8% compared with the same quarter the previous year, it is still a substantial number. It is unlikely that large numbers of these new builds will incorporate the low carbon heating technology of heat pumps with developers opting for a less expensive gas boiler solution while they still can.
The government’s ban on gas fired boilers comes into force in 2025, but that surely does not mean that we cannot pre-empt this move by fitting heat pumps and other energy saving solutions now? Local authority planners are required to give permission for developers or individuals to build new houses in their area and have the authority to make their permission conditional, which means they can grant permission providing the property has low carbon installations such as heat pumps and solar panels fitted as standard.
Much of the high cost of retrofitting a heat pump in an existing property is in the ancillary work and equipment required, not in the cost of the heat pump. Given that a gas boiler has a finite life, surely fitting one in a new build property now is simply storing up an unnecessary and expensive outlay for a later date, a fact that must make that property a much more attractive option to a prospective buyer in the longer term.
Similarly with solar panels. All new build homes have roofs and these can either be built using solar roof tiles rather than traditional roof tiles or by adding solar panels. As you would expect, there is an additional cost to this but as solar roof tiles become more widely used, the cost of manufacture will drop and they may eventually become the norm rather than an expensive option. Either way, the solar energy generated will have no ongoing cost and therefore the solar tiles or panels will more than pay for themselves. The lower energy bills these properties generate would also offset the rises in mortgage payments due to higher interest rates.
Local authority planners could begin to encourage new home developers to adopt heat pumps and solar tiles or panels by including them in their conditions of planning permission for new developments. From the developer’s perspective the additional build costs would mean a slight rise in price to the buyer but with the current price of a three or four bedroom home, how noticeable would the added cost be in percentage terms. Perhaps the government schemes already in place to help fund retrofit heat pumps could be redirected to buyers who choose to opt for low carbon new build homes.
If we are to meet our targets for greenhouse gas emissions, we need to think and act now to lower our carbon footprint. Solar tiles and panels will reduce the electricity we need to generate by building huge wind farms and heat pumps will provide us with virtually carbon free heating, while electric vehicles will cut down our use of fossil fuels. We have the solutions but we need to start to implement them now and forward thinking local planning can help achieve that.