Owning your own home

TLDR: They want to sell you a new gas boiler:

To be fair, they make heat pumps and I'm sure they wouldn't mind selling a few.

Suspect it's more along the lines of

• the UK has cold weather
  
• the UK has poorly insulated houses
  
• you can't fix either of things, easily and cheaply and quickly, despite what those loons blocking the roads say
  
• airsource heatpumps don't work efficiently in very cold conditions, when you need them most
  
  

-> hybrid system

Will be great for the serving guys doing two jobs on one site....

And to further, I hadn't seen anything about using hydrogen as a main gas source, so found that interesting as a potential future. What are the potential downsides of hydrogen?

Expensive to produce.

Yes, guess that makes sense, wonder if there are economies of scale etc? are there significant environmental downsides?

storage is the main one iirc, the energy density isn't very high

At the moment most of it comes from burning natural gas rather than green hydrogen and I think I read that a mixture of 80/20 mix of Gas and hydrogen will work with current infrastructure any greater percentage of Hydrogen and you need to start changing pipes and appliances.

Hmmm, the extraction process doesn't sound overly scalable currently either.

Hydrogen gas is extracted from water by a technique known as electrolysis, which involves running a high electric current through water to separate hydrogen and oxygen atoms. The electrolysis process is pretty expensive since it involves high energy expenditure.

The energy used to generate electricity in the electrolysis process is harnessed from fossil fuels like oil, natural gas or coal. It can also be tapped from renewable energy sources like solar, wind and hydropower to ensure there are no greenhouse gas emissions.

Obtaining volumes of hydrogen by this method is still under research to establish a viable method of generating it domestically at a relatively low cost.

Another method of hydrogen gas extraction is steam-methane reforming or steam extraction, which entails the separation of hydrogen atoms in methane from carbon atoms. It is the current technique used to obtain hydrogen gas in vast quantities. The downside to steam-methane reforming is that it emits a lot of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide to the atmosphere, which are recipes for global warming.

Yes, was quite surprised by that. It wasn't clear if they could use the existing gas infrastructure or whether it would take mass changing of underground pipes to utilise.

I mean it is not applicable to me anyway, we don't have mains gas, and I assuming I won't be having a hydrogen tank in my garden any time soon.

Anyone used sheeps wool insulation, are the moth problems a thing of the past?
I've just put the ceiling carrier boards up for lime render in the smallest bedroom and there was no insulation(despite there being a 'congratulations on your insulation grant' sticker in attic.

The small part of the document I have had time to read deals with the changes in pipework and radiators that allow a system to work at 50 degrees instead of 70. It's this kind of detail I'm interested in.

Sure they have a huge vested interest in the market but I imagine they are years ahead of most of us regarding their understanding of the technology.

Statistics regarding building types and quality of insulation are included in the document.

Well I found it interesting!

I'm slightly annoyed that when we completely refurbed a few years ago that there wasn't enough in the budget to install a heat pump, but the fact we have decent pipes, a system boiler with tank, and wet UFH means that a conversion wouldn't be the worst case scenario in the future.

I insulated with sheep's wool and currently have a pretty bad moth problem.

Boo. Thermafleece or that ionic protect stuff? If you don't mind me asking.

Thermafleece Cosywool

Thanks, I've been looking at that ionic protect, but its too costly if it suffers the same!

Baxi have a test in the north east currently where ether are blending hydrogen into the gas up to 20 percent and you'll just need to setup the gas values different. Boilers are already fine for it, thats coming next for sure.

Aye big radiators and Ufh will be required, fine for new builds but I honestly cant see it happening on old ones not at the costs involved.

Trade Radiators.
https://www.traderadiators.com/

I'm looking years ahead and trying to prepare a bit. With a victorian flat it just doesn't make much sense at the moment. Like you I'm not sure it ever will.

Revenant I spoke to the estate agent selling my house in leytonstone, and he said he heard Wanstead Park avenue received bids around 970. That might all be hype or bullshit and 'm sorry if it doesn't work out for you guys.

Insane. Who is your agent?

I'll send you a pm later...

Looks like this might be the only option. Will you find me a four bed with side access?

Come to Somerset.