Energy crisis hell as most households CANNOT afford heat pumps despite UK subsidy (msn.com)
Z.
The thing that mystifies me is the cost of an air source heat pump (just the units, not the installation costs). They seem to be anything from £5K-£10K even for a modest power output. What do they have in them? A combi-boiler costs in the region of £1K and that has loads of plumbing, valves, sensors, control boards etc in it. A basic fridge is a few hundred quid. And a heat pump is basically just a scaled up fridge crossed with a combi-boiler.
If you look at heat pump kits, a significant cost must be the hot water tank. Not required with a combi, but essential with a heat pump unless you like a lukewarm shower.
If I understand the situation correctly, a gas boiler can heat a little water a lot, but an equivalent power heat pump heats a lot of water a little.
I expect heat pumps to become cheaper with mass production, but I suspect that they will remain more costly than a gas boiler. They are inherently rather expensive, physically larger so expensive to transport, contain a lot of copper which is expensive, and a lot of moving parts.
I expect that servicing and maintenance will become MORE expensive, probably requiring membership of a special and expensive scheme. Like gasafe but more expensive.
it probably does not need to be copper - stainless steel or even aluminum may well do - we are only exchanging heat between water and a refrigerant like propane that is pumped to be liquid or gas at different points in the cycle.
Copper is handy for hand-built small quantity systems as it can be hard soldered or brazed, and it does not corrode or embrittle easily, but it is not the only option.
The complexity of the heat pump part is not much higher than that of car air con, which pumps a few kW up hill against a temperature gradient of 20-30 degrees. In some ways car aricon gets a harder life as the pump speed is revs dependent, and there is often a need to cool down from a very hot start when a car has been parked in the sun, so the pressures go all over the place, a fixed domestic system has neither of those problems, though the MTBF should be longer. (though car air con does not use flammable gasses..)
Costs really mount when you want to pump heat out of the ground and start to sink boreholes etc.
Mike.
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