Forcing British households to adopt “luxury” heat pumps risks triggering a backlash akin to a rebellion by Germans over the country’s boiler ban, the UK’s biggest gas network operator has warned.
getting a heat pump installed can involve more thanjust changing your boiler. a lot s going to come out. so in this cupboard, we have an old hot water cylinder. that s being removed completely. the boiler is being taken out, radiators completely replaced throughout the property. heat pumps heat water to a lower temperature than a gas boiler, so you may need bigger radiators, and they work better in well insulated homes, and that makes them expensive. these costs come on top of the typical £10,000 to buy and install a heat pump. there is a grant, £5,000 in england, wales and northern ireland, £7,500 in scotland. and there is another issue. electricity is much more expensive than gas, so even though heat pumps are more efficient, they cost about the same to run as a gas boiler. which may explain the slow take up. but the government says that should increase.