Moving to all Electric

[PhaseThree]

I present exhibit-A, The house what I built.....

I have spent the last 5-years building this place. It is very heavily insulated, with a lot of attention paid to thermal bridging and air leakage. To heat it I use the entire ground floor slab as a storage heater. This slab is raised to 21ish degrees using deeply buried UFH pipes. It takes several days to reach temperature but also takes several days to loose any appreciable amount of temperature (25 tonnes of concrete stores a lot of energy). There is no heating installed or required on the first floor. I had planned to use a heat pump to keep the temperature topped up, I even went as far as buying one. It's sat in the garage in its original wrapping. I am not convinced it's worth the cost of installation.

I currently heat the house using a 3kW Willis (Immersion) heater connected to the underfloor heating pipes. This is run with E7 electricity so is only on for 7 hours per day. In these dark cold days of January I am using around 12kWh per day for heating (around £1 per day).
The house is always warm and at the temperature we like with no draughts, cold spots or other nasties. I have wired the house for electric radiators as top-up, this is unused. The total cost of the heating system was no more than £500.

The hot water uses a phase-change system from SunAmp, also heated overnight from E7 electricity. This system holds energy for days and doesn't leak heat into the house like a traditional tank does.

So what does such a house cost ? It is 250m2+ and was built to a high standard for less than £1000/m2 with most of the work done by contractors. This compares very well to the cost of "bog standard" estate housing in most of the UK.

The cost of energy efficient construction isn't much higher (if at all) than "standard" build techniques if done from the ground up. Unfortunately the building industry is very conservative and fights like crazy to avoid any change. There needs to be a step change in the insulation quality of new housing in the UK with legislation to force this change.

[tjh290633]

A wastefully oversized gas heating system can pump enormous amounts of wasteful heat out through inadequately insulated houses in about 15-minutes. So too could a wastefully oversized heat pump. Both would be inefficient but effective.

Back in 1963 we bought a 4-bedroom house which we retrofitted with a gas fired hot air heating system. This could very rapidly bring the air temperature up to a comfortable level, and was rated at just 22,500 Btu/hr.

TJH

[dspp]

I present exhibit-A, The house what I built.....

I have spent the last 5-years building this place. It is very heavily insulated, with a lot of attention paid to thermal bridging and air leakage. To heat it I use the entire ground floor slab as a storage heater. This slab is raised to 21ish degrees using deeply buried UFH pipes. It takes several days to reach temperature but also takes several days to loose any appreciable amount of temperature (25 tonnes of concrete stores a lot of energy). There is no heating installed or required on the first floor. I had planned to use a heat pump to keep the temperature topped up, I even went as far as buying one. It's sat in the garage in its original wrapping. I am not convinced it's worth the cost of installation.

I currently heat the house using a 3kW Willis (Immersion) heater connected to the underfloor heating pipes. This is run with E7 electricity so is only on for 7 hours per day. In these dark cold days of January I am using around 12kWh per day for heating (around £1 per day).
The house is always warm and at the temperature we like with no draughts, cold spots or other nasties. I have wired the house for electric radiators as top-up, this is unused. The total cost of the heating system was no more than £500.

The hot water uses a phase-change system from SunAmp, also heated overnight from E7 electricity. This system holds energy for days and doesn't leak heat into the house like a traditional tank does.

So what does such a house cost ? It is 250m2+ and was built to a high standard for less than £1000/m2 with most of the work done by contractors. This compares very well to the cost of "bog standard" estate housing in most of the UK.

The cost of energy efficient construction isn't much higher (if at all) than "standard" build techniques if done from the ground up. Unfortunately the building industry is very conservative and fights like crazy to avoid any change. There needs to be a step change in the insulation quality of new housing in the UK with legislation to force this change.

Perfect

And this is exactly what we should have been doing for all housing stock in the UK for the last 20-years. And all retrofits should be working towards this.

Instead we remind ourselves daily why and where Luddites entered this language.

regards, dspp

[dspp]

I present exhibit-A, The house what I built.....

I currently heat the house using a 3kW Willis (Immersion) heater connected to the underfloor heating pipes. This is run with E7 electricity so is only on for 7 hours per day. In these dark cold days of January I am using around 12kWh per day for heating (around £1 per day).
The house is always warm and at the temperature we like with no draughts, cold spots or other nasties. I have wired the house for electric radiators as top-up, this is unused. The total cost of the heating system was no more than £500.

The hot water uses a phase-change system from SunAmp, also heated overnight from E7 electricity. This system holds energy for days and doesn't leak heat into the house like a traditional tank does.

So what does such a house cost ? It is 250m2+ and was built to a high standard for less than £1000/m2 with most of the work done by contractors. .

To put that in perspective my Victorian house uses about 85 kWh/day in Jan/Feb for 140m2 of floorspace. We have quite a way to go in the UK to do it right.

regards, dspp

[AF62]

So what does such a house cost ? It is 250m2+ and was built to a high standard for less than £1000/m2 with most of the work done by contractors. This compares very well to the cost of "bog standard" estate housing in most of the UK.

£1,000/m2 sounds incredibly cheap.

[Mike4]

So what does such a house cost ? It is 250m2+ and was built to a high standard for less than £1000/m2 with most of the work done by contractors. This compares very well to the cost of "bog standard" estate housing in most of the UK.

£1,000/m2 sounds incredibly cheap.

Given the heating system cost only £500 I'm imagining Ph3 is not counting his own time for the work. £500 would comfortably pay for a day's work by one plumber, but not two days.

[PhaseThree]

So what does such a house cost ? It is 250m2+ and was built to a high standard for less than £1000/m2 with most of the work done by contractors. This compares very well to the cost of "bog standard" estate housing in most of the UK.

£1,000/m2 sounds incredibly cheap.

To be clear that is the cost of the house, it doesn't include the cost of the land. And it doesn't include the cost of my time which was not huge but did include the laying of the UFH pipes and the ventilation system.

[Johnspenceuk]

So what does such a house cost ? It is 250m2+ and was built to a high standard for less than £1000/m2 with most of the work done by contractors. This compares very well to the cost of "bog standard" estate housing in most of the UK.

£1,000/m2 sounds incredibly cheap.

£1000per m2 is a standard new build cost throughout the UK exc. London. has been around that for about 5 years. Remember new build is zero rated for VAT.

John

[88V8]

Much of our housing stock is solid walled, no cavity.

Hard to insulate. Exterior cladding is expensive and architecturally invasive, interior wallboard is expensive and destroys Period detail as well as shrinking the room. Our previous Period house was solid wall and there is no way I would have considered wall insulation although we did have dg and quite a lot of loft insulation.

Cavity wall insulation often leads to damp problems.

Upgrading our housing stock is not easy.

Our listed C17 cottage with its mix of solid walls and wattle & daub, minimal dg and not much loft insulation as I don't want to cover the joists, costs us c£1,600 to heat for 1,000 sq ft using 1970s storage rads and two woodburners.
Otoh the heating has required no capital outlay beyond fitting the woodburners, and no disruptive building work to fit wet ch.
And I'm not complaining about the cost as I chose to live in it.

Do agree though that there is no excuse for building poorly insulated housing now. I wonder if it requires more skill to build a better house. Perhaps if the derided EPC were revamped to predict the heating cost, it would have more effect on buyers.

As it is, it's just the usual squash them in and make them cheap.

V8

[dealtn]

As it is, it's just the usual squash them in and make them cheap.

Which, to be fair to householders, is what a large proportion of house buyers want, or can afford.

[dspp]

Much of our housing stock is solid walled, no cavity.

Hard to insulate. Exterior cladding is expensive and architecturally invasive, interior wallboard is expensive and destroys Period detail as well as shrinking the room. Our previous Period house was solid wall and there is no way I would have considered wall insulation although we did have dg and quite a lot of loft insulation.

Cavity wall insulation often leads to damp problems.

Upgrading our housing stock is not easy.

Our listed C17 cottage with its mix of solid walls and wattle & daub, minimal dg and not much loft insulation as I don't want to cover the joists, costs us c£1,600 to heat for 1,000 sq ft using 1970s storage rads and two woodburners.
Otoh the heating has required no capital outlay beyond fitting the woodburners, and no disruptive building work to fit wet ch.
And I'm not complaining about the cost as I chose to live in it.

Do agree though that there is no excuse for building poorly insulated housing now. I wonder if it requires more skill to build a better house. Perhaps if the derided EPC were revamped to predict the heating cost, it would have more effect on buyers.

As it is, it's just the usual squash them in and make them cheap.

V8

Unfortunately it is not just as simple as "I'm happy to pay" as there are consequences for others,

"'Invisible killer': fossil fuels caused 8.7m deaths globally in 2018, research finds
Pollution from power plants, vehicles and other sources accounted for one in five of all deaths that year, more detailed analysis reveals"

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... s-research

regards, dspp

[Nimrod103]

As it is, it's just the usual squash them in and make them cheap.

Which, to be fair to householders, is what a large proportion of house buyers want, or can afford.

Even when squashed in, many new houses are detached or semis. They may have the most up to date insulation, but even so this type of house with so many outside walls, is intrinsically energy guzzling. Energy guzzling that is if people insist on heating all rooms to high temperatures. When I were a lad, in winter we wore thick jumpers indoors, and took a hot water bottle to bed with us. Nowadays, insulation allows people to heat their homes so that they can wander around in the depths of winter in a T shirt.

New detached and semi det houses should be banned. Better to build compact terraces, or better still energy efficient blocks of apartments.

[AF62]

New detached and semi det houses should be banned. Better to build compact terraces, or better still energy efficient blocks of apartments.

No thanks; unless you have suddenly invented some magical way of eliminating noise from neighbours and all the other anti-social ways some people behave.

A detached house with a big fence is far preferable.

[dealtn]

As it is, it's just the usual squash them in and make them cheap.

Which, to be fair to householders, is what a large proportion of house buyers want, or can afford.

New detached and semi det houses should be banned. Better to build compact terraces, or better still energy efficient blocks of apartments.

Why would you want to ban the types of houses that many consumers want to buy, and housebuilders can readily supply?

[AF62]

Unfortunately it is not just as simple as "I'm happy to pay" as there are consequences for others,

"'Invisible killer': fossil fuels caused 8.7m deaths globally in 2018, research finds
Pollution from power plants, vehicles and other sources accounted for one in five of all deaths that year, more detailed analysis reveals"

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... s-research

regards, dspp

And as a counterpoint and more detail on what it actually means for individuals - https://wintoncentre.maths.cam.ac.uk/ne ... h-year-uk/ with an interesting comment about the UK and that "Fine particulates and nitrogen oxides have been falling steadily for decades, and are about a quarter of what they were in 1970."

[James]

Energy guzzling that is if people insist on heating all rooms to high temperatures. When I were a lad, in winter we wore thick jumpers indoors, and took a hot water bottle to bed with us. Nowadays, insulation allows people to heat their homes so that they can wander around in the depths of winter in a T shirt.

You 'ad an 'ouse? Sheer luxury! When we were young...

[Nimrod103]

Which, to be fair to householders, is what a large proportion of house buyers want, or can afford.

New detached and semi det houses should be banned. Better to build compact terraces, or better still energy efficient blocks of apartments.

Why would you want to ban the types of houses that many consumers want to buy, and housebuilders can readily supply?

The Govt is quite prepared to ban cheap heating of homes (by gas) and cheap personal transport (small petrol cars), yet people want to buy them.
So why not also ban detached houses as well?

[AF62]

New detached and semi det houses should be banned. Better to build compact terraces, or better still energy efficient blocks of apartments.

Why would you want to ban the types of houses that many consumers want to buy, and housebuilders can readily supply?

The Govt is quite prepared to ban cheap heating of homes (by gas) and cheap personal transport (small petrol cars), yet people want to buy them.
So why not also ban detached houses as well?

Because the party in government is the one of aspiration, and people aspire to own a detached house. Now if there was a different party in government... I will stop there as getting too political.

Anyway the gas heating issue will be kicked down the pitch before the ban deadline and the other isn't banning existing petrol cars but new petrol cars and with the rapidly increasing reduction in the cost of EVs the price difference is fast disappearing so the ban will become irrelevant.

[taken2often]

Another reply that just disappeared. It was about going back to basics. The original post, we have wandered off the subject. What are you going to do if gas and oil boilers are banned and you cannot replace them. The same with coal and log burning. To replace with a Air Sourced Heat Pump to run heat and hot water is always more expensive. It is a complicated Electronic, gas and pumping system and appears to have electric elements to maintain the heat when conditions are not right. One service provider quotes a starting annual service charge at £165 plus vat, just under £200 per year and may have to be done as part of the warranty. One supplier said the system is ideal for a well insulated house with concrete underfloor heating, when it is on all the time to main a set temp level

The alternative would be an electric boiler, but this is also a complicated unit no doubt with similar service costs and heat loss due to circulating water to feed the radiators.

All the comments have been very informative and I am now more convinced that my removal of gas and the changeover to electric is the right decision.
Hot water heater, 6 modern high tech oil filled radiators, Electric Shower, A rated Grill/Oven, HOB, A rated Fridge Freezer, Computers, Kettle, Toaster TV and other misc electrical equipment.

As a back up I have gas canister cooker and heater. Considering a battery and inverter to keep phones and computer running when we start to get the power cuts. So what will you do when the time comes. In Scotland it seems to be coming soon.

[Nimrod103]

Surely, aren't we approaching the point where people start waking up to the truth that if poorer people in the UK can't get cheap fuel and cheap personal transport, they will face a future of having to do without.
At that point, democratic politicians will worry a lot about getting re-elected.
All electric is a non starter in the UK even for the distant future. I wouldn't be making plans or spending money on the assumption that either gas or oil are on the way out.