Google
 

Aardvark Daily

The world's longest-running online daily news and commentary publication, now in its 30th year. The opinion pieces presented here are not purported to be fact but reasonable effort is made to ensure accuracy.

Content copyright © 1995 - 2025 to Bruce Simpson (aka Aardvark), the logo was kindly created for Aardvark Daily by the folks at aardvark.co.uk



Please visit the sponsor!
Please visit the sponsor!

Heat pumps fail the UK

17 Jan 2025

The vast majority of Kiwi homes have heat pumps and benefit from them in both summer and winter (albeit perhaps not this summer).

It may sound like a breach of the laws of thermodynamics but apprently every KWH spent running a heatpump can shift several KWH worth of thermal energy between the inside of your house and the outside environment.

Over-unity?

Well not really but suffice to say that when the conditions are favourable, a heatpump is probably the most efficient method we have for active heating or cooling.

So what's gone wrong in the UK, where a growing number of people have been forced into swapping their older heating system for one of these new-fangled heat pump things?

To understand the problem you probably need to look at how the UK has traditionally heated its dwellings.

A lot of UK houses and buildings have been heated by a central boiler that (often using fossil fuels) warmed up a big cylinder of water that was then reticulated about the place through pipes and then used to heat individual rooms by way of radiators ("heat-exchangers" in modern parlance).

This system meant that most of the rooms were "toasty warm", even in the depths of winter. A good gas-fired boiler could create copious amounts of heat, such that even with the losses involved in reticulation, there was plenty of warming effect avaliable.

What's more, the efficacy of this system was unaltered by the external temperatures -- the boiler generating the same amount of heat regardless.

Heat pumps however, are a different story.

The UK has just gone through a particularly cold period, with overnight temperatures knocking on -20C in some areas.

This is where heat pumps can fall flat on their face, especially those which rely solely on exchanging heat through an air-based radiator on the outside.

It should be remembered that a heat pump is just that -- something that pumps heat from one place to another. If there's very little heat to pump (such as when it's 20 degrees below zero) then the efficiency falls off a cliff and you end up with minimal warming effect. Just when you need it most, the heat pump delivers the worst performance.

Here in Godzone we don't really notice this because we seldom see sub-zero temperatures and even when we do it tends to be during the part of the day that we're tucked up warm and snug in our beds. Heat pumps therefore, are a sensible and effective solution for us. Also, we're perhaps a little more satisfied with *any* heat, given that central heating has never been a thing here and our homes were, until recently, poorly insulated.

Even much colder places can effectively use heatpumps but they tend to be somewhat different in design. When the outside air temps are consistently below zero, the heat pumps used often don't rely on simple air-based radiators on the outside. They use pipes that are dug into the ground where the temperature is more constant and somewhat warmer. This gives them a greater source of heat to tap into.

The problem the UK seems to be facing is that their heat pumps almost exclusively have air-based heat exchangers on the outside (like NZ) but their climate is significantly colder than here.

The Brits are therefore finding that they've gone from virtually unlimited heat in the depths of winter, to a system which (at best) simply contributes a slight warming effect. Indoor temperatures for heat-pump users are, in some cases, far lower than they've been used to and that has created a major push-back by some heat pump users.

This has worsened once they've got their power bills because those poor old heat pumps are significantly compromised in effeciency at super-low temperatures and UK power prices have gone through the roof of late. These factors combine to produce a massive hike in heating costs for some.

Things are only going to get worse for the Brits though. The UK government has committed to switching as many as possible from boilers to heat pumps and to do this they have provided attractive subsidies for the purchase and installation of these pumps. At the same time they've mandated quotas for the manufacturers of heating equipment that requires a certain percentage of new installs to be heat pumps and not boilers -- or they face fines.

Is this another case of "bureaucrats know best" -- when they really don't?

Total reliance on electricity for heating is the goal but is that really best for the resilience of a nation? What happens if there's a huge CME during winter that takes out the power grid for an extended time? Will people freeze in their own homes I wonder?

With all the focus on reducing carbon emissions we may eventually find that the planet is fine -- but humans have effectively killed themselves off in the process of saving it.

Carpe Diem folks!

Please visit the sponsor!
Please visit the sponsor!

Here is a PERMANENT link to this column


Rank This Aardvark Page

 

Change Font

Sci-Tech headlines

 


Features:

The EZ Battery Reconditioning scam

Beware The Alternative Energy Scammers

The Great "Run Your Car On Water" Scam

 

Recent Columns

Superhero or snake-oil merchant?
Elon Musk made a post on X yesterday. He said...

NVIDIA gets it wrong, again
NVIDIA is the undisputed king of GPUs...

Disinformation, who decides?
Ever since the mainstream media found itself floundering in the new world of internet...

Privacy is no longer an option
Wow, the UK is a mess right now...

Spying, the smart way
news of the day seems to be the suggestion that the Five-Eyes spy network may be dismantled...

All is lost (political commentary)
Deviating from the normal sci/tech content today because...

Too rich to prosecute?
If you defraud people of money, you will likely be caught...

Que les guerres commerciales commencent
Allow me to translate the title of today's colum...

The danger of bureaucracies
Yesterday, lives were lost in the USA as the result of what I believe are bureaucratic bungles...

How did this happen?
Helium is an inert gas that is lighter than air. In fact it's the second-lightest element, coming in just behind hydrogen...