Quote:
Originally Posted by nomadking
With a heat pump system, the radiators operate at a much lower temp. The tank of water used is lukewarm at best.
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Heat pumps operate better at lower output temperatures. The best balance between temperature and practical radiator size is 50*c. This, as it happens, is the same temperature the latest regulations require gas boilers to be operable at. 50*c is also definitely not lukewarm and is easily hot enough to burn your hands. 50*c is more or less what you’d want coming out of the hot tap in your kitchen.
So if you’re getting a new gas boiler and it’s running at 50*c you’re going to have to match the radiators in the house to the new, lower operating temperature. And that’s the same operating temperature as a heat pump.
All this ‘yeah but no but heat pumps don’t work’ is nonsense anyway. Heat pump usage in Europe is highest in some of the coldest places, including Norway where 60% of homes have one. Heat pumps absolutely do work, they do however require an attitude that heat energy should be conserved, rather than carelessly leaked out of the walls.
The British problem is that we burned coal in our homes for two centuries, and that coal was so cheap we never really had to think about keeping the heat in.