Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
The problem isn’t the heat pump, it’s the assumptions behind the design of almost every house built in this country and still standing, with the exception of only the very newest.
The assumption is that Britain will always have access to an abundant supply of cheap fuel and it goes all the way back to the Industrial Revolution which was fired by coal, and then the 20th century dash for natural gas. The solution has always been to add heat to the house faster than it can lose it. We have always been able to do that because burning coal or gas has been cheap.
Heat pumps are widely used in Scandinavian countries even in older houses because they have been willing to insulate their houses adequately at the build stage. It is harder to make an economic case for them here because retrofitting the necessary insulation and, ideally, underfloor heating that is most effective at lower temperatures, is very expensive.
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Apart from those in the colder, northern end, how much of Scandinavian houses of the
past, were well insulated? They have plenty of trees to burn.
In the past, the whole house was rarely heated. People gathered in 1 or 2 rooms.