Government drafting legislation to end oil and gas boilers?

Harry Palmr

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/new-domestic-boilers-could-be-banned-under-new-climate-change-plan-1.3896162

It also suggests banning the installation of gas and oil boilers in new homes within three and six years respectively, and potentially beginning a process to phase out the use of fossil fuel heating systems in all homes within six years among many other measures.

I put a question mark in not because it's still speculation but if the above is correct and is passed then the era of the carbon based central heating systems would be coming to an end within the next decade.

My first thought was what will replace existing systems that need renewal, as I had understood retrofitting heat pumps was much more expensive than a like-for-like replacement/upgrade, my second was that such a policy shift would defacto signal the decline in the domestic gas market over about 30 years so there's not much point in looking for new gas deposits in Irish waters.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057968538

Alkers

Fair enough for banning them for new builds but the timelines for people with existing setups seems a bit harsh given the disruption that may be involved in putting in a new system

Anteayer

The lifespan of existing boilers isn't enormous, so I'm guessing it's achievable.

What's worrying me though is despite the fact I put huge amounts of money into upgrading a 1970s house it still scored C2.

So far it's got triple glazing, solar panels, insulation upgrades, heating control upgrades and I can't really afford to do any further upgrades, particularly as they don't seem to be ticking the boxes of the BER survey.

It was extremely disheartening after doing all the work to still get such a poor rating.

We asked about adding more insulation, exterior stuff and were told by the BER guy it would cost a fortune and have little impact on the overall score because of the way the house built.

Our energy bills were more than halved by the upgrades and I just feel the BER doesn't reflect that at all. So it's a major disincentive to carry out more work.

Pkiernan

Anteayer wrote: »

The lifespan of existing boilers isn't enormous, so I'm guessing it's achievable.

What's worrying me though is despite the fact I put huge amounts of money into upgrading a 1970s house it still scored C2.

So far it's got triple glazing, solar panels, insulation upgrades, heating control upgrades and I can't really afford to do any further upgrades, particularly as they don't seem to be ticking the boxes of the BER survey.

It was extremely disheartening after doing all the work to still get such a poor rating.

We asked about adding more insulation, exterior stuff and were told by the BER guy it would cost a fortune and have little impact on the overall score because of the way the house built.

Our energy bills were more than halved by the upgrades and I just feel the BER doesn't reflect that at all. So it's a major disincentive to carry out more work.

On existing homes, the BER is just a guessing game.

If your bills are reduced, and more importantly you feel comfortable in your home, then youve done very well.

Anteayer

What's annoying me though is when I've enquired about other upgrades that you're literally told not to bother because the BER won't be impacted enough. That's a HUGE disincentive.

I think BER needs to be seriously improved if it's going to work properly. Otherwise you'll just put people off upgrading.

I mean the surveyor didn't even seem to care what the thermal insulation values or any of the upgrades were. Didn't bother paying much attention to the details of the heating system upgrades.

Does the age of construction just automatically cause it to fall into certian categories?

Seemed as clear as mud to me and very non scientific.

Harry Palmr

Anteayer you achieved your primary aim and the bills prove that, if resale is your worry then I'd not worry nearly every home over a certain age is "damned" with a high C, D or low E as far as I can tell

https://www.independent.ie/life/home-garden/homes/the-berfaced-lies-our-inaccurate-energy-ratings-30257397.html

Anteayer

The main difference is for about a grand a year I'm now keeping a 2500sq ft house at 20°C in all rooms all day and providing more hot water than I can use.

It has a big, low angle totally south facing roof - huge solar resource and there's loads of glass.

The issue I'm facing at the moment is I need to get rid of heat in the summer. I'm adding big openable roof windows and retractable awnings. It will probably totally hose the BER but I've no choice as the insulation is so effective that for a large segment of the year I'm actually uncomfortable warm.

Like we can end up to 30C in the house when it's 15C outside due to solar gain through the windows.

The other huge energy saving item was the dryer. Miele heat pump replacing a vented dryer. It's running a load of towels spun at 1600rpm for less than 1kWh. The old vented one was a total energy hog.

mickdw

Anteayer wrote: »

What's annoying me though is when I've enquired about other upgrades that you're literally told not to bother because the BER won't be impacted enough. That's a HUGE disincentive.

I think BER needs to be seriously improved if it's going to work properly. Otherwise you'll just put people off upgrading.

I mean the surveyor didn't even seem to care what the thermal insulation values or any of the upgrades were. Didn't bother paying much attention to the details of the heating system upgrades.

Does the age of construction just automatically cause it to fall into certian categories?

Seemed as clear as mud to me and very non scientific.

On existing houses, the assessor will likely assume the worst if a detail is not verifiable or signed off by supervising engineer so for example it is no telling assessor you have installed x floor insulation or y cavity insulation if it's not verifiable.
I believe the assessors are audited to within an inch of it not being worth the hassle so they won't be taking any chances. It therefore makes the system very critical on older builds which will suffer anyway due to construction type to start with.
The other side of this is that ber is a paper exercise so there should be no mystery as to what improvement you will get before you do the works. So get an initial ber and then get assessor/professional to spec what needs to be done to reach a C or a B rating. Doing work randomly is not the way to go about improving your Ber.

ted1

A boiler should last 30 years. Retrofitting a semi d built in the 80s to take a heat pump is a costly and unnecessary expense.

Most will probably just replace before the deadline and it’ll be good fir 30 years.

Or the grey market will be huge and someone will die because of a poorly installed boiler fitted illegal.

stefanovich

ted1 wrote: »

A boiler should last 30 years. Retrofitting a semi d built in the 80s to take a heat pump is a costly and unnecessary expense.

Most will probably just replace before the deadline and it’ll be good fir 30 years.

Or the grey market will be huge and someone will die because of a poorly installed boiler fitted illegal.

I'm still annoyed they banned the fecking good coal!

the_pen_turner

what are they proposing to change them to.
how will those sytems work in our older less well insulated and airtight houses

Nukem

Harry Palmr wrote: »

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/new-domestic-boilers-could-be-banned-under-new-climate-change-plan-1.3896162

They cant even ban smokey coal, peat/coal burning power stations...etc....? What hope does this really have?

ednwireland

what are you supposed to change an oil or gas boiler to ? wood pellet - do me a favour most people dont have the space to build dry storage for them.
retrofit heat exchangers dont think thats doable on most houses (even though most peple i know that hav them it ends up as expensive electric heating and thir total bills are the same as mine.

ive looked at solar water heating and for 2 people the returns not there.

Photovoltaic panels might ease the cost of alternative heating souces but you would need to be able to sell back to the grid realistically or have massive battery storage to make it workable

im just not seeing viable alternatives for the mass market, replaced my boiler in january only alternative was oil

Rigor Mortis

Banning gas as an option, particularly when renewable gas and biolpg are coming available is nonsense. We should be focussing on getting rid of coal and oil. Heat pumps are great for new homes but not older builds.

cruizer101

I thought that on new builds these days you more or less couldn't install gas/oil boilers anyway due to other requirements like BER which meant it wasn't feasible to use them.

Requiring upgrades on existing ones seems like madness, I'm all for moving towards more sustainable energy sources but realistically some old houses couldn't comfortably use heat pumps without massive refit (new windows, drylining insulation, air tightness, etc.) that would cost thousands.

Ubbquittious

ednwireland wrote: »

what are you supposed to change an oil or gas boiler to ? wood pellet - do me a favour most people dont have the space to build dry storage for them.
retrofit heat exchangers dont think thats doable on most houses (even though most peple i know that hav them it ends up as expensive electric heating and thir total bills are the same as mine.

ive looked at solar water heating and for 2 people the returns not there.

Photovoltaic panels might ease the cost of alternative heating souces but you would need to be able to sell back to the grid realistically or have massive battery storage to make it workable

im just not seeing viable alternatives for the mass market, replaced my boiler in january only alternative was oil

They want everyone to buy an ashoop.


This is fierce suspicious and reminds me of the 2008 diesel thing. You can bet that electricity prices will rise massively once everyone has the ASHP put in. Panda, Energia, SSE all looking forward to milking the Irish consumer of more cash as people become more and more dependent on electricity.



What the government really want is for people to stop burning the fossil fuels or using energy at all but still pay a few grand a year for heating their house. They are constantly wanting to keep the moneyspinner going but with no resources being consumed

Macha

Occam's razor. Maybe, just maybe, the gov would like to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels in the face of a climate crisis.

New build houses have low enough energy demand that heat pumps work fine.

Dependency on electricity? Have you taken a look at our gas dependency lately? We can actually generate electricity in this country. I also have not seen a credible decarbonisation strategy that doesn't include significant electrification of the heating and transport sectors (always combined with massive efficiency).

Graces7

Macha wrote: »

Occam's razor. Maybe, just maybe, the gov would like to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels in the face of a climate crisis.

New build houses have low enough energy demand that heat pumps work fine.

Dependency on electricity? Have you taken a look at our gas dependency lately? We can actually generate electricity in this country. I also have not seen a credible decarbonisation strategy that doesn't include significant electrification of the heating and transport sectors (always combined with massive efficiency).

and they need to bring down the price of electricity also as an incentive