Heat pumps and spin

I've deleted a few out of date posts. I'll stick to energy policy, software and analysis tips from now on; my specialties. Let the specialists in other fields be as self-reflective of their own profession as I am of mine. We outsiders will always remain skeptical of everyone, all the time in our quest for the unspun truth.


One comment I noticed on a recent telegraph story on green energy. I won't link to it because it's full of vitriol, bad conclusions and misinformation. However there is one interesting comment for me from person called rastech below. Interesting because i am looking for a new boiler and I want to be green and save money too - don't we all!
:
"Just found another blatant 'alternative energy' scam - expensive heatpumps.

Landlord at the local is doing up a house. Been offered a 11.9kw heatpump at 'quite a saving' of £1,199.99. Plus fitting.

This was going to be his main heat source for the house!

Was told it would work to -15 deg C!

Wasn't told about the progressive loss of heat output as the temperature fell, to the point he'd be burning more energy to get less heat out, and when he 'really needed it' wasn't aware that he wouldn't be getting any heat out of it at all!

So he's binned that idea, I've found him a 12kw multifuel stove for £299 (the same one dads got), and a 12,000 btu air conditioning unit that gives him a 4.5kw heatpump (should be enough to keep the place warm enough to the point losses really start), as well as cooling in the Summer (the heatpump didn't), a dehumidifier function (the heatpump didn't), and an outstanding air filtration system (the heatpump didn't), for £299 also (plus fitting he can do himself), all for a consumption of 1.25kw.

I told him how to do a cheap air mixing system to build in, using cheap rainwater downpipes and cheap computer fans too. How many suckers are being sold a lemon with these heatpumps, like this poor bloke nearly ended up with? I bet it's more than a few. What is this Country now? Scammers 'R Us?"


He then adds:
"Why the licenced housing efficiency and certification inspector imposed on us by the retard politicians in GOVERNMENT, of course! eta: this house is more than half way up a ruddy mountain too, and it's bleedin parky there for 10 months of the year pretty much. Whoever recommended that heat pump 'solution' should be done for deliberate and life threatening cruelty as well as dereliction of duty!"


Last things first. The pusher of these air source heat pumps is/was Dr. David McKay, the Oxford don who was put in charge of UK energy policy and who has written the book "...without the hot air". I won't link to that either because it's not as useful as it pretends. His main thesis however is that gas shouldn't be burnt in the home, we should make electricity from it, then use that electricity to extract heat from the air. There are flaws in that argument which I shouldn't even need to point out. Suffice to say, he seems to be letting a beautiful theory over-ride the reality. But it comes down to costs. If you believe the numbers from the manufacturer then - as it turns out by my calculations - the actual cost of the fuel to the consumer is around the same, so it's really only the installation cost that makes the difference. I''ll admit that there are a few people who appeared on TV in France who seemed to say they made a big cost saving - except they had installed geothermal pumps and the capital outlay was quite enormous. Talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul..


Well I'm not sure that 1200k is really that expensive - seems relatively cheap to me - but I had these salesmen in my house too and i showed them the door. I'm sure the geothermal heat pumps are a great idea but they are pretty difficult to install on old properties with small gardens. Reckon on 20k at least. For these cheaper air pumps, well we need proper trials rather than sales brochure spin, and McKay does point out that newer designs are better than older. However like rastech I remain extremely dubious that they are of any use whatsoever in a normally cold Winter. Of course if you had believed the Met office then cold Winters were supposed to be a thing of the past. Ha, ha indeed...the perils of prediction based on hubris. Of course last Winter was a one-off....except for the 2007 one-off. 


I  was stupidly tacitly subsuming that "milder winter then usual" Met office prediction when I drove to Disneyland in Winter on a sunny day in a car totally unsuited for snow. On the return trip a blizzard surprised us and I spun at an uncleared service station exit into a lorry that was inconveniently parked there: Otherwise the spin would have ended with entropy rather than collision. Happily the family was alright and even Bert the car has now recovered; his partly-repaired big rear end bash notwithstanding. Ok i could have stayed at the service station - if only it wasn't in the middle of bleeding nowhere, the exits from the motorway were even more dangerous than staying on it, and my wife hadn't been urging me not to think so negatively about the possibility of crashing. In any event my tolerance for unbridled hubris is even thinner nowadays. I resolve to continue to try to totally ignore all advice that sets off my BS detector.

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