I thought that with The Tick

I’m a bit the same with reading too - if ChatgPt summarises research I’ll miss those subtle signals in the turns of phrase and asides that v often provoke new lines of thought.

I think @andershove.bsky.social might know…

Yeah i know i made the same case last week or so. I just think that the first real step that is directly HP relevant is rad upgrades.

Either way all for making eg green additional borrowing more widely available for longer 0% terms on wider changes supporting lower energy use

But it cant be meaningfully 2 steps. It can be a tiny ridge (eg. New rads) then a big ol’ step (outdoor & indoor units). Anything else makes no sense. And even that doesnt make total sense for a lot of homes

Nice thread - the question is: how?

It’s not just a matter of stripping back all the governance & saying “go on then!”

I’ve got some ideas… will post next week…

Agree with @gemmamilne.bsky.social also it appears you’re still (rightly) “shouting at engineers”. Keen to help in that chorus. Otherwise i now find it difficult *not* to see tech enterprises like AI or DAC or AVs as anything but a political enterprise that concentrates power in engineering culture

100% especially if the switch involves:
- Gaining internal useful space
- Cheaper heating/hot water
- Redecorating
- Zero up front outlay (capital investment in part built into energy tariff)

Something like that. I think I’d be inclined to set up a ministore manufacturing site (govt majority owned public corp) to mass supply these. Probably cd also do something with electric- coupled showers & taps here too to balance space/power/DHW demands…

I def think that a better BUS-use is free rad upgrades & i’d also add a more centralised record of heat loss calcs. Poss subsidised so you pay say £50 and its valid for 1-2 years or something…

Yes I’ve seen the ministore & its def an innovation that will unlock a few more homes but one challenge is its not part of any major manufacturers delivery or installation programme… & its not clear what the incentive
Is for anyone to make it so… as such it is *more* expensive than current options

…of heat pump installs in UK. Nothing really to do directly with the spark gap. Of course it will help a bit to reduce it much like the RHI helped. But as we see with 0 effect of boosting the BUS by 50% the issues are more complex than cost and regs.

…gained. I think there must be many in my position given our terrace is the second most common house type after semis) and the speed of fitting new boilers means the demand for HPs is likely going to remain suppressed. Only savvy old non-combi boiler hhs are going to pursue this hence the slow rise…

…maybe £40 less per month with savings concentrated on shoulder months (heating on, high COPs). So overall I will have taken on a lot of extra finance, brought in a lot of work into the house with a new uncertain system (aira guarantee helps but demands space with indoor units), lost space and not…

…the banks green additional borrowing which allows me to spread this cost (& new double glazed sashes) over 16 yrs with first 5 years 0%. V favourable finance. At best, using the cosy tariff with Octopus (12p off peak waves thru day, 24p most of rest of time) heating costs probably a bit less…

…costs could be reduced a bit by selling (?) our newish boiler (fitted 2 years ago before we moved in) so could bring the net cost to say £5500. But this still doesnt necessarily solve our cold kitchen which needs remodelling & prob underfloor heating… so that aside, this could be funded with…

…their boiler-sized compact indoor unit… which would go where the boiler is. Ok except one bonus of a new system is that it could free up space in our 100m2 house… our boiler is boxed up in the box room making it a box room rather than the bedroom it should be… so ok… no real gains, some losses…

…visually. Indoor: we’d need space for the cylinder & indoor unit. They recommended 250l for 4 of us, but our spare loft space is too short to fit anything more than a 200l. Which is ok if we also fit a flow limiting showerhead & use the cosy tariff to top up if needed. Then we’d need space for…