# Proposed ban on oil and gas boilers for new and existing houses.



## E30chick (1 Sep 2022)

Details of ban on gas and oil home-heating systems to be known within weeks
					

A ban on installing gas and oil boilers to heat new and existing homes is among the measures the Government is finalising as part of a package of energy-crisis responses to be unveiled in the coming weeks.




					m.independent.ie


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## micheller (1 Sep 2022)

Although I think sustainable heating is a wonderful thing, these were previously accessibly cheap alternatives. So unless you can afford to put in sustainable systems you cannot upgrade?
Perhaps changing to a grant up front system rather than pay upfront and claim back would help. I can't see this helping current issues in heat affordability.


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## gianni (3 Sep 2022)

I can see how this is workable in new builds. 

But existing properties will often need huge insulation upgrades (e.g. external insulation for a timber framed bungalow would be tens of thousands) for a heat pump to be a valid heating solution.


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## skrooge (3 Sep 2022)

It's hard to see this as being workable. while I agree with the sentiment the level of money and organisation required to get a house up to the standard of substantial. Right now if my boiler breaks I phone round and get the first replacement I can. I hope that this takes days. Compare that with the retrofitting needed for a heat pump. It would be political suicide to suggest to people they go months without heating in the depths of winter should their boiler fail. 

For people to move on mass it will require a lot more from the State (carrot and/or stick). Be that a clear commitment to turn the gas supply off on a certain date or proactive measures to upgrade regions.

This could be another Irish water and government ultimately backs down.


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## Micks'r (3 Sep 2022)

gianni said:


> I can see how this is workable in new builds.
> 
> But existing properties will often need huge insulation upgrades (*e.g. external insulation for a timber framed bungalow* would be tens of thousands) for a heat pump to be a valid heating solution.


I agree with your general sentiment but upgrading tf structures with ewi is not a runner (not to mention the fact that upgrading insulation in the absence of significant air tightness improvements and appropriate ventilation is just a waste in our climate)


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## David_Dublin (3 Sep 2022)

There's so many things wrong with the current grants and incentives for retrofitting....there's only 11 companies nationwide that support the one stop shop grant package, this up from 4 for a long time.
Going with these is the only way to avail of deep retrofit, which is needed to make older homes viable for heat pump. Any quotes I have got or heard related to OSS are ridiculously over priced. As in, it would be considerably cheaper to do a job without OSS.
There just isn't enough competition in the space in Ireland. Or expertise. Or supply. We're sitting on a big domestic project, OSS isn't viable so we'll end up going for some individual grants and a new gas boiler- it's just too expensive to do anything else. If people doing refurb jobs aren't utilising new greener tech because it'll be too expensive then we've a long way to go before anything could mandated.


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## joe sod (3 Sep 2022)

It's not going to happen, like Putin the power is flowing away from the greens, the wind hasn't been blowing for the last 2 months therefore we are drawing more power than ever from conventional power stations, the ones the greens are trying to close down. 
That's the real reason the electricity prices are rising more than ever even though it's summer. Renewables are just not reliable and fail at the moment we need them most .
 The whole green philosophy on energy is totally misguided and is just not going to work


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## Zenith63 (4 Sep 2022)

joe sod said:


> the wind hasn't been blowing for the last 2 months therefore we are drawing more power than ever from conventional power stations, the ones the greens are trying to close down.
> That's the real reason the electricity prices are rising more than ever even though it's summer.


Gas prices are up basically 1000% in the last 24 months and because electricity is bought using marginal pricing, the price of the last block bought (usually gas) is what all producers get paid. Under the current system the prices consumers pay has little to do with what is going on with renewables and is very tightly linked to the cost of gas even if we only use a small amount of it. The EU are meeting in the coming days to try to decouple the cost of electricity from that of gas, so that consumers can see the benefit of lower cost renewable generation.

TLDR: your statement is absolute nonsense.


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## Zenith63 (4 Sep 2022)

micheller said:


> Perhaps changing to a grant up front system rather than pay upfront and claim back would help.


The newer grants are done this way, the One Stop Shop ones for instance. The problem is huge numbers of builders left Ireland after the last recession and the ones that are here or coming back are flat out building houses to deal with the housing crisis, doing renovations as people splurge their Covid savings and now trying to do these retrofits. The retrofit work also requires skilling while the others may not. Short version being there aren’t nearly enough people working in the retrofit space (yet!!) so prices are high and availability is low. Time will solve this though.


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## noproblem (4 Sep 2022)

I can only think that people with heat pumps are going to see huge increases in their electric bills. So much for retrofitting and then no savings? I'm sure someone will say I'm talking rubbish


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## Early Riser (4 Sep 2022)

joe sod said:


> the wind hasn't been blowing for the last 2 months .........
> That's the real reason the electricity prices are rising more than ever even though it's summer.


 The base price for electricity is set by the gas price - that is the "real reason" the electricity prices are rising. If the "wind had been blowing" the price would have risen anyway - it would have just meant higher profits for the wind power generators. There are meetings at EU level currently about breaking, or weakening, the link between the gas price and electricity prices, so this may change.

 But hopefully the "wind will blow" over the winter anyway - for the sake of security of supply, more than for price.


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## skrooge (4 Sep 2022)

noproblem said:


> I can only think that people with heat pumps are going to see huge increases in their electric bills. So much for retrofitting and then no savings? I'm sure someone will say I'm talking rubbish


I presume running cost wise they will still be relatively better off than if they had a gas boiler. 

They will be even better off when electricity input prices are decoupled from gas prices.


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## joe sod (4 Sep 2022)

Zenith63 said:


> Gas prices are up basically 1000% in the last 24 months and because electricity is bought using marginal pricing, the price of the last block bought (usually gas) is what all producers get paid. Under the current system the prices consumers pay has little to do with what is going on with renewables and is very tightly linked to the cost of gas even if we only use a small amount of it. The EU are meeting in the coming days to try to decouple the cost of electricity from that of gas, so that consumers can see the benefit of lower cost renewable generation.
> 
> TLDR: your statement is absolute nonsense.


You basically reinforced my point that electricity prices are highly dependent on gas and fossil fuel prices and then you turn around and say my post was nonsense. Where has the energy being coming from for the last 2 months, it's not wind because the wind hasn't been blowing. No amount of financial jargon is going to disguise that fact. 
. Energy in must = Energy out at all times
Energy out is rising but energy from renewables has fallen off a cliff during the summer due to the extraordinary weather yes therefore energy from gas, oil and coal has risen drastically to fill the gap.Even the oldest renewable of them all hydroelectric is under pressure in Europe due to the drought and low river levels

No amount of financial jargon or fancy language can disguise that fact. The greens are now talking about trying to reduce demand at peak times fair enough but what about trying to manage demand to cope with a whole summer of no wind. Its not workable and is childrens nursery rhyme material


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## llgon (4 Sep 2022)

Reminds me of the thread from 2020 when joe sod correctly predicted the current energy crisis and Zenith was telling us we were entering an era of cheap energy, Eirgrid had everything under control and any talk otherwise was just an effort to keep power stations open.






						Eirgrid almost ran short of electricity last week
					

Very little media focus on this strangely but Eirgrid almost had a power outage last week due to insufficient power on the grid. There was a surge in power demand due to the very cold weather there was no wind power and Moneypoint and Whitegate powerstations were offline due to technical...



					www.askaboutmoney.com


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## Zenith63 (4 Sep 2022)

llgon said:


> Reminds me of the thread from 2020 when joe sod correctly predicted the current energy crisis and Zenith was telling us we were entering an era of cheap energy, Eirgrid had everything under control and any talk otherwise was just an effort to keep power stations open.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I actually think back on that thread a bit too to be honest. If the facts change I will change my opinion.  The oil/gas crisis as a result of the war in Ukraine is a separate issue to the tight electricity supply though, I think we’re still in about the same place on the latter - no blackouts or indications that we’re dangerously close to them?


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## peemac (4 Sep 2022)

Is this not just the Indo regurgitating old news 

I'm 99.999% certain this was announced about two years ago.
Certainly when my boiler service guy serviced my boiler last September be knew about it.

It's also happening in the UK.

Indo must be very short of stories in silly season


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## odyssey06 (4 Sep 2022)

peemac said:


> Is this not just the Indo regurgitating old news
> 
> I'm 99.999% certain this was announced about two years ago.
> Certainly when my boiler service guy serviced my boiler last September be knew about it.
> ...


UK approach to existing homes seems much softer than what has been reported here









						Gas Boiler Ban: Will You Have to Swap Your Existing Boiler?
					

A gas boiler ban could impact new and existing homes - here's what you need to know




					www.homebuilding.co.uk


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## peemac (5 Sep 2022)

odyssey06 said:


> UK approach to existing homes seems much softer than what has been reported here
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The industry itself seems to be adopting it as only 20% of new homes currently being built have gas/oil boilers.

Ban comes into effect in Scotland in 2024 and England in 2025.

The real difference seems to be ban on replacements in current homes. A Heatpump costs about €10-€12k and there's a grant of up to €6500, so the net cost is similar to a replacement gas / oil boiler and the ongoing savings on top of that. (I'm planning an upgrade next year)

I for one just can't see the issue with this except its the media trying to cause "outrage" in silly season because there's nothign else to write about. Eamon Ryan seems to the the indo's current favourite whipping boy. Even the construction industry seems to be on side.


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## Zenith63 (5 Sep 2022)

peemac said:


> The industry itself seems to be adopting it as only 20% of new homes currently being built have gas/oil boilers.
> 
> Ban comes into effect in Scotland in 2024 and England in 2025.
> 
> ...


To be fair a blanket ban on replacements with no changes to the grant system would be madness - there are houses in dreadful condition where a heatpump would cost an absolute fortune to install and run without a much bigger project to improve the house, often these houses are lived in by people who could not afford that even if they wanted to do it.  However I'm also 1000% certain those responsible for these things in government are not sitting in ignorance of that fact - as you say there's a bit of headline grabbing going on and clearly it is working because some people clearly believe a straight-up ban with no other changes is about to be unleashed, sure if that were to happen even I'd go out to a march to support those objecting to it .

A ban on replacements with full supports for those who cannot afford it or need much bigger works would be a fantastic thing to get implemented though, 10 years from now our air quality would have improved massively.  I hope the government can make this happen.


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## odyssey06 (5 Sep 2022)

peemac said:


> The industry itself seems to be adopting it as only 20% of new homes currently being built have gas/oil boilers.
> 
> Ban comes into effect in Scotland in 2024 and England in 2025.
> 
> ...



For the heatpump to be efffective, the house needs to be up to a high modern standard of insulation, windows etc etc
The grants don't come close to covering those costs.

Replace a gas boiler in a D rated 1950s home with a heat pump and you won't be saving money, your bills will be far more expensive.


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## T McGibney (5 Sep 2022)

Zenith63 said:


> To be fair a blanket ban on replacements with no changes to the grant system would be madness - there are houses in dreadful condition where a heatpump would cost an absolute fortune to install and run without a much bigger project to improve the house,





Zenith63 said:


> A ban on replacements with full supports for those who cannot afford it or need much bigger works would be a fantastic thing to get implemented though, 10 years from now our air quality would have improved massively.  I hope the government can make this happen.


A waste of money for the householder would be an exponential waste of money for the taxpayer. Reminds me of the grotesque cash for ash scandal in NI.


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## Zenith63 (5 Sep 2022)

T McGibney said:


> A waste of money for the householder would be an exponential waste of money for the taxpayer


To be clear I’m not suggesting the government should force people to put heat pumps into houses that are not suitable and then fund their massive electricity bills. Rather they could provide greater funding to those who need it to upgrade homes to make them suitable for heat pumps, then install the heat pumps.

The alternative is to send the money not spent on that kind of endeavour to the EU in the form of fines for exceeding CO2 emission targets. And of course to continue living with poor air quality and continuing to exacerbate climate change with our heads in the sand.


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## T McGibney (5 Sep 2022)

Zenith63 said:


> To be clear I’m not suggesting the government should force people to put heat pumps into houses that are not suitable and then fund their massive electricity bills. Rather they could provide greater funding to those who need it to upgrade homes to make them suitable for heat pumps, then install the heat pumps.


Same difference as far as the public finances are concerned. Government should not be funding improvements to private homes in the midst of both an inflation and (likely) public expenditure crisis.


Zenith63 said:


> The alternative is to send the money not spent on that kind of endeavour to the EU in the form of fines for exceeding CO2 emission targets. And of course to continue living with poor air quality and continuing to exacerbate climate change with our heads in the sand.


 Even the German Greens have bowed to the inevitable and are going back to coal.


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## Tickle (5 Sep 2022)

odyssey06 said:


> For the heatpump to be efffective, the house needs to be up to a high modern standard of insulation, windows etc etc
> The grants don't come close to covering those costs.
> 
> Replace a gas boiler in a D rated 1950s home with a heat pump and you won't be saving money, your bills will be far more expensive.


Can you even just drop-in a heat-pump for a oil or gas boiler - will they work with conventional radiator systems which require high water temperature to create a strong convection current to be effective? My impression is that a new heating system is required in addition to the insulation


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## odyssey06 (5 Sep 2022)

Tickle said:


> Can you even just drop-in a heat-pump for a oil or gas boiler - will they work with conventional radiator systems which require high water temperature to create a strong convection current to be effective? My impression is that a new heating system is required in addition to the insulation


Good question, I don't know. And it definitely won't work with a combi boiler setup.

And what would be the carbon footprint of all these replacements and new equipment and disposal of perfectly serviceable gas boilers.

The replacement technologies aren't mature enough, and there aren't remotely enough people skilled in them, in short to medium term, to tackle existing homes.
We're not exactly overflowing with tradesmen for the current technologies.

Ditto for talk of district heating as a replacement.

This is fantasy aspirational stuff and if put into practice before ready will either be the death knell for any party involved or for its victims, or both.


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## Bluefin (5 Sep 2022)

odyssey06 said:


> Good question, I don't know. And it definitely won't work with a combi boiler setup.
> 
> And what would be the carbon footprint of all these replacements and new equipment and disposal of perfectly serviceable gas boilers.
> 
> ...


As far as I know rads would need to be replaced.. 

The first steps in this programme of switching to heat pumps should be to upgrade all house's currently owned by the state... I'd imagine that would be a very large number and some of these tenants would be experiencing higher levels of fuel poverty compared to house's built in the last 10 years.. 

_This is all within the control of the government... _


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## odyssey06 (5 Sep 2022)

Bluefin said:


> As far as I know rads would need to be replaced..
> 
> The first steps in this programme of switching to heat pumps should be to upgrade all house's currently owned by the state... I'd imagine that would be a very large number and some of these tenants would be experiencing higher levels of fuel poverty compared to house's built in the last 10 years..
> 
> _This is all within the control of the government... _


That will be a very large undertaking. Looking at the housing stock owned by the state in Dublin 1...

If they can't upgrade their own stock, they should not be telling householders in similar housing to get rid of their boilers.


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## joe sod (5 Sep 2022)

Any system that requires people to rip out radiators and rip up floors to install is simply not workable . Labour is extremely scarce now and this is just too labour intensive and costly. 
The builders are all needed just to build new houses and to fix all the houses with pyrite problems another highly labour intensive job


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## Bluefin (5 Sep 2022)

That's why crazy statements from the greens on upgrading heating systems in existing homes drives most people insane.... We all know that the trades people are just not there and there was a report in the paper last week which stated that 43% of people couldn't cope with an unexpected bill of a 1000€..


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## ryaner (5 Sep 2022)

Heat pumps can work with your existing radiators. If the radiators are old enough, swapping them can make a difference, but that isn't a replacing the pipes job.

The biggest issue with the retro fits is that the air tightness stuff has only recently become good enough for any of these sort of systems. We got our house done ~6 years ago and still needed to cut holes in the walls because heat recovery vents wouldn't be acceptable for fresh air requirements at the time.


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## Monbretia (5 Sep 2022)

Don't you need to upgrade radiator size though to account for lower temps?   Ideally underfloor heating as who wants even bigger radiators but that is massive job in an established house, relaying tiles etc, you'd need to move out for that I'd imagine.


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## Zenith63 (5 Sep 2022)

Monbretia said:


> Don't you need to upgrade radiator size though to account for lower temps?   Ideally underfloor heating as who wants even bigger radiators but that is massive job in an established house, relaying tiles etc, you'd need to move out for that I'd imagine.


From the reading I've done on it, radiators have been oversized by plumbers for donkeys years, so in many heatpump installations when you run the calculations you find the current radiators are correctly sized.


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## Monbretia (5 Sep 2022)

Zenith63 said:


> From the reading I've done on it, radiators have been oversized by plumbers for donkeys years, so in many heatpump installations when you run the calculations you find the current radiators are correctly sized


Possibly!  But I'm on couple of building/renovation/heat pump pages and they always talk of upsizing radiators, I'm sure it's being recommended anyway as part of the whole deal so unless maybe you were going to go for a diy type fit rather than grant companies maybe it would be a requirement?


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## CuriousCork (5 Sep 2022)

I am so glad we installed that we have now installed 2 wood burning stoves, one in the kitchen and one in the living room.

We had only planned on getting one, but watching Putin's antics persuaded us to get two stoves. 

There will be no gas in 10 years.


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## noproblem (5 Sep 2022)

skrooge said:


> I presume running cost wise they will still be relatively better off than if they had a gas boiler.
> 
> They will be even better off when electricity input prices are decoupled from gas prices.


They work best when left on all the time, in highly insulated houses, with underfloor heating, which was ok when electricity prices were reasonable but that's not the case anymore and they'll see an immediate price increase of around a third. Some people didn't understand the rules, or just wouldn't listen to advise on the use of heat pumps,  installed them anyway. God help them now but that was their own fault. As for heating oil? We were well used to between €600/700 for a 1000 litres, that's now around €1400 so around double the price. Tough, but life could be an awful lot worse.


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## jpd (5 Sep 2022)

10 years, more like 10 months!


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## Monbretia (5 Sep 2022)

jpd said:


> 10 years, more like 10 months!


I have gas central heating and hob, how depressing! 

Better not buy that fancy Super Ser I was looking at so for the winter!


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## Nermal (5 Sep 2022)

Zenith63 said:


> To be clear I’m not suggesting the government should force people to put heat pumps into houses that are not suitable and then fund their massive electricity bills. Rather they could provide greater funding to those who need it to upgrade homes to make them suitable for heat pumps, then install the heat pumps.
> 
> The alternative is to send the money not spent on that kind of endeavour to the EU in the form of fines for exceeding CO2 emission targets. And of course to continue living with poor air quality and continuing to exacerbate climate change with our heads in the sand.


We're a net contributor. Paying those fines is optional, if we decide to elect a government with backbone.


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## gianni (5 Sep 2022)

Micks'r said:


> I agree with your general sentiment but upgrading tf structures with ewi is not a runner (not to mention the fact that upgrading insulation in the absence of significant air tightness improvements and appropriate ventilation is just a waste in our climate)


What are the options for a Timber Framed house to get to a standard suitable for a heat pump? (I'm not very knowledgeable on these matters)


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## newirishman (5 Sep 2022)

gianni said:


> What are the options for a Timber Framed house to get to a standard suitable for a heat pump? (I'm not very knowledgeable on these matters)


Flamethrower?

insulation and making it air tight is probably similar procedure as your concrete block house,


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## Micks'r (5 Sep 2022)

gianni said:


> What are the options for a Timber Framed house to get to a standard suitable for a heat pump? (I'm not very knowledgeable on these matters)


A tf house will always have a ventilated cavity outside the tf structure. The cavity is generally formed with an outer concrete block leaf. This cavity is there to keep the tf structure damp free and needs to stay ventilated to the outside. Applying ewi to this outer layer is ineffective because of the ventilated cavity.
Your issues are likely to be air tightness / ventilation related rather than insulation per se but you won't really know in the absence of a heat loss survey and especially the air tightness test part of it. All building fabric improvement measures (except windows) will need to be tackled from inside generally. Btw, your main heat loss mechanisms are not really different to concrete built houses except your options to address are somewhat more limited.


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## Horatio (6 Sep 2022)

odyssey06 said:


> If they can't upgrade their own stock, they should not be telling householders in similar housing to get rid of their boilers.



That's a really great point actually. Walk the walk, lead by example.


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## odyssey06 (6 Sep 2022)

Detailed article here, also covers a timber frame house... 

_Rudely inserting a heat pump without improvements would likely launch us into the As (not recommended and quite rightly not grant-aided). There’s a curious, but valuable education here._









						Cold facts and uncomfortable truths about retrofitting our homes
					

With the soaring costs of energy, the Irish Examiner Property team asked Superhomes to assess two very different homes built a century apart to see how much it costs to improve their energy rating




					www.irishexaminer.com


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## E30chick (6 Sep 2022)

We bought our house last year, 20 year old house. We had to put in €40k for 3 new bathroom, some attic insulation & flooring, floors, skirting boards, painting furniture etc. The thoughts of having to rip up all our work is just making me feel sick.

Trying to keep the house running, pay back the credit union loans etc and then you have stuff like this puts the fear of god into me. We are very energy conscious, our bills are very reasonable, I know they are going to increase but I can't understand how something that needs to be left on permanently using energy and will cost a bomb to install is a better choice?

I don't know anybody who has a heat pump and has been happy with the running cost even with a new build. 

Are any people thinking of upgrading their gas boiler now to make sure they have the newest one available to them to last the longest possible time? 

We currently have an Ideal 24 Combi gas boiler which is 7 years old and we have been told by our plumber they are a great boiler to have so thinking should we upgrade to a newer one?

We do not have the means to access credit in the region of €50k plus for retrofitting, I drive a 05 and he drives a 161 car if anything our next big purchases will be modest petrol second hand cars we are eager to get decent savings for our pensions we are 41 / 42 with 3 dependants we do only have 25 years of income earning left please god.

Another point, if people have these large bills for retrofitting how on earth are you able to pass financial underwriting to be able to change mortgage providers?


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## Zenith63 (6 Sep 2022)

E30chick said:


> Are any people thinking of upgrading their gas boiler now to make sure they have the newest one available to them to last the longest possible time?


Even in their continuous bids to grab readers attention with unnecessary hysteria, the Indo article mentions that the absolute earliest date being discussed for a supposed ‘ban’ on replacement boilers is 2025.  But an outright ban with no support in 2025 ain’t gonna happen - it’s not what the government are actually suggesting and it’s not even what the Indo think they’re suggesting, it’s just a cheap headline aimed at selling papers.

I think you should take these kinds of articles with a massive pinch of salt, or ideally stop reading them, and just sit back and see how things develop.


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## Leo (14 Sep 2022)

Tickle said:


> Can you even just drop-in a heat-pump for a oil or gas boiler - will they work with conventional radiator systems which require high water temperature to create a strong convection current to be effective? My impression is that a new heating system is required in addition to the insulation


While most of the early heat pumps were designed for new builds and assumed underfloor heating with lower water temps, you can get heat pumps that are designed for conventional boiler replacement that operate at higher temperatures running with no need to change rads.


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## Leo (14 Sep 2022)

E30chick said:


> but I can't understand how something that needs to be left on permanently using energy and will cost a bomb to install is a better choice?


Figuring that out only requires primary school mathematics. It's like low energy bulbs. they consume far less electricity and so can be on longer and still use less power.


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## T McGibney (14 Sep 2022)

Leo said:


> Figuring that out only requires primary school mathematics. It's like low energy bulbs. they consume far less electricity and so can be on longer and still use less power.


If low energy bulbs cost tens of thousands of Euro and their installation necessitated major works on your home, nobody would touch them even if they were free to use thereafter.


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## Leo (14 Sep 2022)

T McGibney said:


> If low energy bulbs cost tens of thousands of Euro and their installation necessitated major works on your home, nobody would touch them even if they were free to use thereafter.


I was referring to running costs. No one disputes they cost more, just like energy efficient bulbs (particularly in the early days)


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## David_Dublin (14 Sep 2022)

Leo said:


> While most of the early heat pumps were designed for new builds and assumed underfloor heating with lower water temps, you can get heat pumps that are designed for conventional boiler replacement that operate at higher temperatures running with no need to change rads.


Presume the more heat they output the more they cost to run?
Does anyone know if the efficiency improvement in newer ones is significant enough that they output higher temps at same operating costs as the older models that needed UFH and alu rads?


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## Brendan Burgess (14 Sep 2022)

That's all folks.


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