Owners of listed homes face bills of more than £50,000 to install a heat pump. The Government has promoted this new heating technology and offers grants for their installation.
But the grants will make little difference to historic properties, which face much higher bills because of the costs of installing insulation to make a heat pump work efficiently. On an unlisted property the pump and installation cost £12,000 to £15,000. Strict conservation rules mean planning permission is required before an air source heat pump can be installed in a listed property, adding to the costs.
Central Bath is all Grade II* listed. The Georgians are – largely – divided up into flats. You can’t put anything on the outside of the building. Grade II*, d’ye see? Sky dishes even, nope!
It’s also all 4 inch ashlar construction, double glazing not allowed, no cavity and so on.
So heat pumps are just right out, aren’t they?
But it’ll save the planet, won’t it.
That’ll be me well and truly scupperec. My newish gas boiler is excellent and Johnson will have to wrest it out of my cold dead hand.
A couple of my neighbours have had planning permission to have double glazing installed, but it is a major technical and engineering challengs and thanks to the stupidity of the local conservation officer will look really ugly.
Where’s the juice going to come from to run all these new-fangled electrical devices? And even if they can generate the stuff, the infrastructure isn’t in place to distribute it… And shows no signs of being planned, let alone constructed. “Minor” problems, of which our classically-educated, scientifically-illiterate “betters” are completely unaware (or don’t give a toss because it doesn’t matter if “the little people” have to sit in the cold and dark).
“…Johnson will have to wrest it out of my cold dead hand.”
Well, sorry old fruit, but if that’s what it takes he will, while expressing the greatest regret, of course. He’s deluded enough to think that the planet can’t save itself and he’s the man for the job. Expect the supply of cold dead hands to rise.
@Ottokrinh
“Johnson will have to wrest it out of my cold dead hand”
Easily done. Once he stops the National Grid pumping gas into the network you will soon be cold and dead with hypothermia.
“So heat pumps are just right out, aren’t they?” We lived in a flat in Georgian Edinburgh. The heating bills weren’t high because the downstairs neighbours provided us with underfloor heating and the neighbours to the sides provided free insulation. If we’d not been in a top flat we’d have had neighbourly insulation above us too.
It would be a Crime Against Humanity to wreck the New Town because of a stupid here-today-and-gone-tomorrow government policy. So the tartan fascists will probably do it.
Yeah, I’m fvcked by this. Central Edinburgh sandstone wall tenement flats, conservation area, no possibility of alterations to anything. They’re utter thieving cvnts, all funded by my fvcking tax.
BTW Tim, tried to donate to you but the payment was not accepted (bank debit card not able to be used for a “live payment” or some such).
@Otto Just curious, but given that modern glazing and window frames can be made to look like anything, even medieval if needed, just what. the. hell. stone-age are the brits stuck in if they can’t even do simple early 20thC buildings and make it look as if Nothing Happened?!!
Or the 19thC variety… It’s all straight-up framework. Nothing special. Stock solutions at the factory..
£1,200 for a gas boiler (last March) or £12,000 for heat pump. Two words, one of them off.
What you describe just sounds like a miserable place to live.
If it weren’t difficult to build new home I can’t imagine anyone choosing to live in one of these if there were an option.
My pre condenser boiler is looking to become an heirloom. I haven’t run the numbers but I suspect that with enough insulation for a heat pump you will need air circulation with heat recovery to keep up air quality and avoid mold. At which point normal electric heating will suffice without the space and inefficiencies of an air based heat pump. Given air circulation with heat recovery can work in both heat retention and heat prevention I am mystified why it’s not more talked about.
Sky Dish – aren’t they permitted if not visible from road? Plenty here on listed concealed behind chimneys, in roof valleys etc
If this green lunacy continues I foresee many listed buildings catching fire
I need to get that donations thing sorted, thanks for reminding me……
Hello Grikath,
I agree wholeheartedly
But the problem usually is with the council and its conservation officers.
My building is mid Victorian, in the 1980s it was “unsympathetically” restored. This means that if I wish to replace my windows ( which is actually not easy and beyond the ken of most modern glaziers ) I have to replicate what is already there. But what is there is crap and I don’t want more of the same ( albeit improved upon) but I am a bit stuck because that is what they have approved for my neighbours. It is a vicious circle.
I have hit upon an idea how to do this, but it ain’t gonna be cheap and I have to weigh the cost against what value it will add to the property and the fact that my curtains seem to do the job anyway.
As to the boiler issue, I am now investing in heavy overcoats, fingerless gloves, and kebab sticks so that I can cook sausages over the candles.
Absolutely the most expensive way to heat a property is electricity (unless you do the ‘Old Gits’ and burn wads of cash). Someone, somewhere, in government, has a mate on the board of a company making heat pumps…….a bit like Sam Cam, whose Dad was making £1000 a day due to the bird choppers on his estate.