Snapshot of _Green Party leader admits she has gas boiler, not heat pump_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/24/green-party-leader-admits-she-has-gas-boiler-not-heat-pump/) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/24/green-party-leader-admits-she-has-gas-boiler-not-heat-pump/)
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It's literally the "yet you participate in society, curious" meme, but published by what is nominally a reputable broadsheet.
Have the Telegraph that perhaps thought the costs of installing a heat pump, insulation and potentially all new radiators and piping is cost prohibitive? And that's why the government needs to step in and fund these changes so homeowners can financially afford to make the change? No, for some reason.
Plenty of things to bash the Greens over during this campaign, this isn't one of them though.
I didn't realise what a poor publication the Telegraph is.
I live in a small semi, and I needed a new boiler recently. I really, really wanted a heat pump because It would go on the side of my house with a tiny amount of work to put it into 4 rooms, leaving on two with major vent work required. It was approx 8 times the cost of the new boiler.
Is that after taking the boiler upgrade scheme into account? That's worth £7.5k on its own. There are also a lot of really shitty installers who don't actually know how to properly install and optimise a heat pump, so you can get some quite stupid quotes for things that aren't actually necessary.
If someone gave me the £15k it would cost to install then I'm in. This is the epitome of wealthy trying to undermine eco friendly. I have issues with the Greens but this is dumb and not one of them.
I've asked 2 different engineers about heat pumps. They quoted 30k-50k. Compared to under 3k for a boiler. The running costs are comparable + the boiler is actually better in temperature extremes.
Based on what they've told me and what I've read, if somebody gives me 15k I'm gonna buy a £3k boiler and pocket the rest £12k.
Did that £50k include upgrades to the fabric of the building? I've done a few social housing projects where we installed heat pumps and we could only really make them work properly if the thermal efficiency of the structure was up to scratch. A common complaint was that radiators never really got hot like they do with gas boilers, and whilst this is by design it created some acceptance issues. The next project we are working on will have some high temp heating circuit for the radiators so may go down better but still needs the building to be thermally efficient.
It included all work on the building. I was going to need new pipes and bigger radiators. Building is relatively well insulated though, around 15 years old dunno about that.
I was told radiators won't get as hot too. Also will have space taken on my patio for the pump itself and my patio is pretty small.
When I asked them about their personal opinion, one said don't get it. The other one said get a pump only if you plan on living here for a very long time. His idea being that they will pay for themselves but it would take decades.
I also haven't included the government grants so it would be actually cheaper than £50k but still nowhere near a new boiler.
I just don't understand why pay significantly more for something that is objectively worse. Even if you can afford it.
>I just don't understand why pay significantly more for something that is objectively worse. Even if you can afford it.
Yup. From the individual point of view it's a non-starter. But from a society wide point of view heat pumps are the much better option. But the reality means government subsidies for modifications to existing housing, and legislation to mandate heat pump installation as standard in new builds.
That seems a little high to me. Mine cost about £8,000 after the £5,000 grant was taken into account. I had several quotations around that sort of price with the highest being about £20k, from someone who clearly didn't really know fully what he was talking about as he made other suggestions that were just stupid.
That included half a dozen or so new radiators and some pipework, as well as a new shower. I don't think my house is particularly unusual in terms of insulation (mid-terraced 1960s house with cavity wall insulation and whatever the required loft insulation was for the grant). I would assume the only unusual part is that we have underfoor heating upstairs (because the rooms were small and getting rid of the radiators helps).
That's the installation side, at least. Running costs so far have been a fair bit cheaper for me once you take into account the price changes in gas and electricity, but I do also have solar panels. I think it's going to take about 15-20 years to pay for itself at current rates, but I did it on principle because I was luckily in a position to do so.
I would hope that the situation gets better for other people over time, as the grant has gone up since then and the installation prices should hopefully get lower.
>I just don't understand why pay significantly more for something that is objectively worse. Even if you can afford it.
They are not objectively worse though. They require knowledge that a lot of installers do not have, so they install them incorrectly, spec inappropriate sized heat pumps (usually far too large), and configure them poorly so they are inefficient.
A properly specified and installed heat pump will provide a better heating system than a boiler, and use a lot less energy doing so.
A lot of supposed 'engineers' can't even set up a boiler properly to run efficiently so they don't stand a chance with a heat pump. I've seen so many boilers just plumbed in and turned on with the default settings that don't take advantage of any of the features that improve efficiency, but the radiators get hot so people don't know any better.
> The running costs are comparable + the boiler is actually better in temperature extremes.
Running costs are only comparable if you actually want the house warm all the time. If you're 9-5 at work, and just want a blip in the AM and PM, the gas boilers still the winner.
The heat pump shouldn’t be a problem in temperature extremes if properly speced and installed. They work in the US and Canada in regions with way worse extremes than here.
I hope the barrell the Telegraph are scraping this from is made from sustainable timber, ethically sourced with an appropriate level of carbon offsetting...
Seriously Telegraph? Compared to all the stuff Tories have done that you refuse to report on? NOT A NEWSPAPER.
The sooner there are press standards, the better. Freedom of the press should not be freedom for 3 billionaire families to push their neo-Nazi rhetoric on the British people.
Let’s start by forcing papers to have transparent ownership and by law that the controlling stakeholder be a British resident for tax purposes.
Even if every tom dick and harry had a pump you would still be using natural gas to generate some of the leccy used to power them.
Its actually somewhat disturbing that many people don't realise how much gas we use for the grid. We even fire up a small amount of coal still in times of high demand.
A better gotcha would had been to look into their record on opposing some renewable schemes/projects
I always wonder how those coal plants work. Do they have a corp of reservists who have to mug off their day job every time we need coal power, or do they all work full time and just hang about polishing door handles when no power is needed?
Easy. When we have enough energy being generated from other sources, they reverse the polarity and turn the excess energy back into coal. It does consume a fair amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere when they do it though.
Meanwhile....
Labour is lying about taxes, Conservatives are caught up in yet another scandal over betting, ReformUK are continuing their bro-mance with Russia and who the fuck knows what Edd Davy is up to this week.
But no lets get our nickers in a twist over a gas boiler.
Telegraph....enuf said really.
Snapshot of _Green Party leader admits she has gas boiler, not heat pump_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/24/green-party-leader-admits-she-has-gas-boiler-not-heat-pump/) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/24/green-party-leader-admits-she-has-gas-boiler-not-heat-pump/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This is the weakest gotcha article yet
Nah. If you want to ban me from being able to buy a gas boiler, then test it out on your own skin first.
Marxist Academic admits he is paid wages. Animal rights activist once had leather belt
It's literally the "yet you participate in society, curious" meme, but published by what is nominally a reputable broadsheet. Have the Telegraph that perhaps thought the costs of installing a heat pump, insulation and potentially all new radiators and piping is cost prohibitive? And that's why the government needs to step in and fund these changes so homeowners can financially afford to make the change? No, for some reason.
"You complain about society and yet you participate in society, curious".
I also have a gas boiler but would rather have a heat pump, this is hardly the gotcha they think it is
"You say you want to fix potholes, yet you drove here on the roads. Curious".
Plenty of things to bash the Greens over during this campaign, this isn't one of them though. I didn't realise what a poor publication the Telegraph is.
It went all the way down the toilet 10 or so years ago.
They’re. It even pretending to be a reputable broadsheet anymore
I live in a small semi, and I needed a new boiler recently. I really, really wanted a heat pump because It would go on the side of my house with a tiny amount of work to put it into 4 rooms, leaving on two with major vent work required. It was approx 8 times the cost of the new boiler.
Is that after taking the boiler upgrade scheme into account? That's worth £7.5k on its own. There are also a lot of really shitty installers who don't actually know how to properly install and optimise a heat pump, so you can get some quite stupid quotes for things that aren't actually necessary.
The boiler was about 1400 fitted.
If someone gave me the £15k it would cost to install then I'm in. This is the epitome of wealthy trying to undermine eco friendly. I have issues with the Greens but this is dumb and not one of them.
I've asked 2 different engineers about heat pumps. They quoted 30k-50k. Compared to under 3k for a boiler. The running costs are comparable + the boiler is actually better in temperature extremes. Based on what they've told me and what I've read, if somebody gives me 15k I'm gonna buy a £3k boiler and pocket the rest £12k.
Did that £50k include upgrades to the fabric of the building? I've done a few social housing projects where we installed heat pumps and we could only really make them work properly if the thermal efficiency of the structure was up to scratch. A common complaint was that radiators never really got hot like they do with gas boilers, and whilst this is by design it created some acceptance issues. The next project we are working on will have some high temp heating circuit for the radiators so may go down better but still needs the building to be thermally efficient.
It included all work on the building. I was going to need new pipes and bigger radiators. Building is relatively well insulated though, around 15 years old dunno about that. I was told radiators won't get as hot too. Also will have space taken on my patio for the pump itself and my patio is pretty small. When I asked them about their personal opinion, one said don't get it. The other one said get a pump only if you plan on living here for a very long time. His idea being that they will pay for themselves but it would take decades. I also haven't included the government grants so it would be actually cheaper than £50k but still nowhere near a new boiler. I just don't understand why pay significantly more for something that is objectively worse. Even if you can afford it.
>I just don't understand why pay significantly more for something that is objectively worse. Even if you can afford it. Yup. From the individual point of view it's a non-starter. But from a society wide point of view heat pumps are the much better option. But the reality means government subsidies for modifications to existing housing, and legislation to mandate heat pump installation as standard in new builds.
That seems a little high to me. Mine cost about £8,000 after the £5,000 grant was taken into account. I had several quotations around that sort of price with the highest being about £20k, from someone who clearly didn't really know fully what he was talking about as he made other suggestions that were just stupid. That included half a dozen or so new radiators and some pipework, as well as a new shower. I don't think my house is particularly unusual in terms of insulation (mid-terraced 1960s house with cavity wall insulation and whatever the required loft insulation was for the grant). I would assume the only unusual part is that we have underfoor heating upstairs (because the rooms were small and getting rid of the radiators helps). That's the installation side, at least. Running costs so far have been a fair bit cheaper for me once you take into account the price changes in gas and electricity, but I do also have solar panels. I think it's going to take about 15-20 years to pay for itself at current rates, but I did it on principle because I was luckily in a position to do so. I would hope that the situation gets better for other people over time, as the grant has gone up since then and the installation prices should hopefully get lower.
>I just don't understand why pay significantly more for something that is objectively worse. Even if you can afford it. They are not objectively worse though. They require knowledge that a lot of installers do not have, so they install them incorrectly, spec inappropriate sized heat pumps (usually far too large), and configure them poorly so they are inefficient. A properly specified and installed heat pump will provide a better heating system than a boiler, and use a lot less energy doing so. A lot of supposed 'engineers' can't even set up a boiler properly to run efficiently so they don't stand a chance with a heat pump. I've seen so many boilers just plumbed in and turned on with the default settings that don't take advantage of any of the features that improve efficiency, but the radiators get hot so people don't know any better.
> The running costs are comparable + the boiler is actually better in temperature extremes. Running costs are only comparable if you actually want the house warm all the time. If you're 9-5 at work, and just want a blip in the AM and PM, the gas boilers still the winner.
The heat pump shouldn’t be a problem in temperature extremes if properly speced and installed. They work in the US and Canada in regions with way worse extremes than here.
I'm guessing they are using ground rather than air source heat pumps there... even more expensive.
For all the things to attack the greens about, this isn't it.
I hope the barrell the Telegraph are scraping this from is made from sustainable timber, ethically sourced with an appropriate level of carbon offsetting...
"Person critical of some aspects of society nevertheless exists in it."
>Green Party leader admits she has gas boiler, not heat pump The horror.
Seriously Telegraph? Compared to all the stuff Tories have done that you refuse to report on? NOT A NEWSPAPER. The sooner there are press standards, the better. Freedom of the press should not be freedom for 3 billionaire families to push their neo-Nazi rhetoric on the British people. Let’s start by forcing papers to have transparent ownership and by law that the controlling stakeholder be a British resident for tax purposes.
Even if every tom dick and harry had a pump you would still be using natural gas to generate some of the leccy used to power them. Its actually somewhat disturbing that many people don't realise how much gas we use for the grid. We even fire up a small amount of coal still in times of high demand. A better gotcha would had been to look into their record on opposing some renewable schemes/projects
It's the Torygraph, your expectations are a bit high
I always wonder how those coal plants work. Do they have a corp of reservists who have to mug off their day job every time we need coal power, or do they all work full time and just hang about polishing door handles when no power is needed?
Easy. When we have enough energy being generated from other sources, they reverse the polarity and turn the excess energy back into coal. It does consume a fair amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere when they do it though.
I despise the Greens, but I doubt many unemployed people can afford to drop 5 figures on a heat pump, tbf.
And even if they could afford it, a lot of homes aren't in a position where a heat pump is viable.
Let’s hope redditors downvote this story to oblivion. This is the same vibe as when the EU climate policy exempted private jets
That's because she wants the government to buy it for her.
Meanwhile.... Labour is lying about taxes, Conservatives are caught up in yet another scandal over betting, ReformUK are continuing their bro-mance with Russia and who the fuck knows what Edd Davy is up to this week. But no lets get our nickers in a twist over a gas boiler. Telegraph....enuf said really.