Not Zero?

Well, Rishi has finally done it. He’s finally pulled the trigger, flushed the chain, sprung the trapdoor on Net Zero.

And now we’re all going to die. Allegedly.

Or has he? What exactly has he changed that has got Greta Grumbleweed spluttering out her seaweed smoothie?

Well for a start he has dumped the 2026 deadline on oil boiler obsolescence; a move that impacts only 3% of UK households as the majority of properties are on mains gas (Source: HM GOV Commons Library). That’s around 1 million oil boilers, mainly in rural areas and often in older, leaky houses such as farmhouses and cottages, that would struggle to upgrade to the levels of insulation that make an air source heat pump viable. Seems reasonable. Especially as the majority of the Shires are Tory strongholds.

He's also decided to push the demise of the internal combustion engine (ICE to those with oily hands) back to 2035, which has drawn a sharp rebuke from such unlikely bed fellows (not in the Biblical sense) as Lisa Fellows (Chair & MD of Ford UK) and Boris Johnson (Former Mayor, Former PM, Former MP, Former Queue).

Apparently, this has disrupted Fords Global Strategy. But is that really true?

Whilst the UK is one of the largest car markets in Europe (yes, Despite BREXIT, we are still in Europe), it’s a market of 1.7 million news cars to Europe’s 10million+ so would Ford skew their global strategy for one that’s less than 1/5th of the EU market and less than 2½ % of the global market? NO. In fact aligning the UK with the EU targeted phase out of 2035 for ICE cars is in fact making it easier to plan ahead.

Whilst Boris has had a remarkable political career, one can’t help feeling that it’s a bandwagon of convenience, like most things, he hasn’t really ‘bothered with the detail. Or the sums. Or the facts. Perhaps he might think with more clarity and reduce his own carbon footprint if he kept his pants on a bit more?

The fact is that the soaring cost of electricity, coupled with the planned introduction of Car Tax has taken the AutoGlym shine (other brands are available) off the EV paintwork. When over 75% of new EV registrations are Company Cars, you know the general public are voting with their feet and baulking at the cost of changing and charging.

So: what about the elephant just outside the room; the air source heat pump? The amazing piece of kit that turns 1kw of electrical energy into 3+ KW of heat energy? Again, the performance is impressive, but with electricity typically 4 x the price of network gas, it’s going to be hard to persuade Joe Public to ease his fingernail grip on his beloved BAXI combi (again; other Brands are available) if there aren’t significant savings compared to the dreaded gas bill.

For new housebuilders, the switch to ASHP is a cost they would not rather have, thank you very much, but with the Future Homes Standard seemingly escaping the bucket of cold water that was Rishi’s announcement, it looks like that from 2025 (and with Labour and Starmer the Embalmer measuring the curtains at No10) ASHP’s are going to be the only option.

Everyone seems to have got their knickers in a twist that the target for eliminating new installs of the beloved boiler is now only 80%; some listed and hard to heat properties will be exempted. 80% of all properties to be off gas by 2050 (the announcement assumes many people will be spending New Years Eve 2034 fitting a new Combi and they last 15 years)? That’s a tall order.

TOP TIP: If you want a dead cert, my prediction is that boiler manufacturers are going to have a bumper year in 2034 with loft spaces all over the UK groaning under the weight of hoarded boilers.

So, the landscape for boiler to ASHP hasn’t really changed, except the unexpected increase in the boiler scrappage scheme to £7,500. Trebles all round at Nibe? (other brands are available and a happy retirement to Phil Hurley!).

HOWEVER: The ELEPHANT very much inside the room is the infrastructure and cultural changes that are going to be required to facilitate the uptake in the UK’s 20,000,000 homes on mains gas.

These involved re-insulation to reduce the heat losses to an average of <50w/m2 if not already, larger pipes (10mm can often cause noise issues due to the faster flow rate required to deliver enough heat) and… (cue scary music) bigger radiators!

Energy providers such as British Gas, EDF and Octopus (not many other brands are available…) are looking to roll out ASHP to their customers and are subsiding the costs to gain market share and scale driven cost reductions. Even with £7,500 grant it’s still a Kilimanjaro to climb for many homeowners and social housing tenants.

At the end of every heat pump install is the emitter (usually a radiator). And with the correction factor (by correction; read reduction) in the region of 0.301, this means the radiator has to have 3x the surface area and water content to deliver as much heat at 45°C as it does at 70°C.

Now its usually true that many radiators are already oversized due to Bob the Builder sticking his finger in the air, checking the wind direction and then seeing what’s on offer at Screwfix (yes, yes, I know…) before deciding on the right size of radiator. But it’s not likely to be 3x oversized, is it?

SO inevitably, a bigger radiator will be required. And probably bigger pipework to it. Which is conveniently running to under a window 15 feet from the main feed in the hall and beneath 12m2 of Axminster (enough already) and underlay and entombed under 80 year old pitch pine floorboards or 10 year old chipboard. Never mind Aunt Bessie’s Old Sofa.

A.S.H.P: A Shit House to Plumb

SO: let’s go underfloor – who wants radiators anyway!??

Did someone mention Skirting Boards?