Surely no-one with an even slight amount of intelligence could have thought that EVs would be able to avoid (eventually 'full') road tax for evermore, or that they would be able to make vast 'savings' for evermore by not having to pay any equivalent of the vast amount of duty on petrol/diesel, can they?
Ed Miliband's heat pump plans could see home heating rationed.
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I sympathise with you, but that's not all that good for the planet, so it's probably just as well that eveyone else doesn't do the same!
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As to good for the planet, having a car 5 times heavier than required, is surely wrong. OK not saying everyone should have one of these
but Morris Minor weighing roughly 765 kg Citroën Ami 483 kg (including the battery), Renault Kangoo E-Tech (electric) 1,870 kg, and petrol 1,245 kg it does not take much to work out which is best for the environment when we look at particular emissions due to tyre/road/brake pad wear, which will get washed into the sea.
As to sweat shop labour extracting minerals, and the energy used to extract the minerals, and transport them around the world, OK if you drive a Citroën Ami, then yes you are doing your bit, but still not better to the Morris Minor driver who has kept the old car running so used per mile, very little of the planets resources, even if not good to the gallon, as it uses so little of the planets resources to maintain it.
The same applies to central heating, an oil boiler 25 years old owes the planet nothing, compaired to a gas boiler, with maybe a 7 year life, as to the life of a heat pump, only time will tell.
But if it aint broke, why fix it? In the main poorly installed central heating is why it costs, not anything wrong with the boiler.
As to sweat shop labour extracting minerals, and the energy used to extract the minerals, and transport them around the world, OK if you drive a Citroën Ami, then yes you are doing your bit, but still not better to the Morris Minor driver who has kept the old car running so used per mile, very little of the planets resources, even if not good to the gallon, as it uses so little of the planets resources to maintain it.
The same applies to central heating, an oil boiler 25 years old owes the planet nothing, compaired to a gas boiler, with maybe a 7 year life, as to the life of a heat pump, only time will tell.
But if it aint broke, why fix it? In the main poorly installed central heating is why it costs, not anything wrong with the boiler.
my gas (well LPG) boiler is approaching its 40th birthday, which makes it (a little!) more than half my age
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My gas boiler also lasted well, the main reason for a change, was that the DHW boiler had failed, and two boilers one for central heating and one for DHW have not been used for a long time, today the two are combined into one boiler.
So the two boilers were replaced with one, at the time I was not living in the house, my son was, so I just paid the bill, he swapped the boiler.
But the house around 1978 build, was designed to use a single gas fire, it had no central heating when bought. So I fitted central heating, and admit I made errors. The idea was that heat for the central gas fire with an open plan design to find its way upstairs, and with central heating upstairs overheated, use of TRVs got around the problem with upstairs rooms. No need for TRVs downstairs, but the radiator output downstairs was not high enough, so added an extra radiator between the first two, so living room and dinning room had three radiators one being fan assisted, and when the kitchen was extended, also fitted a radiator into the kitchen, but the result was the central heating was far from perfect, but it worked.
And my parents house, and this house, also had faults in the system, but worked near enough. All three, if starting again, I would make changes.
But in general we have two options, all rooms kept to a set temperature 24/7, or rooms heated as and when required, I use the latter, I see no point in heating rooms not in use.
So for me, the key thing about any room is the recovery time, once I decide I want to use a room, how long will it take to re-heat it?
To be able to allow remote turning off of the heating, one would need to be heating all rooms 24/7, so in a two up two down it may work, but it would not work in this house, so another nail in the coffin for heat pumps.
So the two boilers were replaced with one, at the time I was not living in the house, my son was, so I just paid the bill, he swapped the boiler.
But the house around 1978 build, was designed to use a single gas fire, it had no central heating when bought. So I fitted central heating, and admit I made errors. The idea was that heat for the central gas fire with an open plan design to find its way upstairs, and with central heating upstairs overheated, use of TRVs got around the problem with upstairs rooms. No need for TRVs downstairs, but the radiator output downstairs was not high enough, so added an extra radiator between the first two, so living room and dinning room had three radiators one being fan assisted, and when the kitchen was extended, also fitted a radiator into the kitchen, but the result was the central heating was far from perfect, but it worked.
And my parents house, and this house, also had faults in the system, but worked near enough. All three, if starting again, I would make changes.
But in general we have two options, all rooms kept to a set temperature 24/7, or rooms heated as and when required, I use the latter, I see no point in heating rooms not in use.
So for me, the key thing about any room is the recovery time, once I decide I want to use a room, how long will it take to re-heat it?
To be able to allow remote turning off of the heating, one would need to be heating all rooms 24/7, so in a two up two down it may work, but it would not work in this house, so another nail in the coffin for heat pumps.
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No comment.
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In the main, DHW is cheaper from electric sources, unless the boiler is already running, the cost to heat a whole boiler up to get enough water to wash one's hands, is silly.
So this house, main room, around 4 kW of radiators, rooms which we always want some heat, toilets, hall, landing, maybe another 3 kW and that's before the TRV's start to throttle back the radiators, at night even less just for bedrooms, bathroom and landing. So my 20 kW boiler is way oversized.
OK my boiler will not modulate anyway, but in the main, this house could be heated with a 6 kW boiler, when I return from being away, so all rooms need heating, we should hear the boiler running for a few hours before it starts the mark/space ratio, but it starts after just an hour to cycle off/on, so either radiators too small, the pipe work is too small, or the boiler is too big.
I know when we have had a breakdown, I can keep living room warm with a 750 watt oil filled radiator, so it is very clear, the whole central heating is oversized.
So if I had a central heating sized correctly for the house, how much less oil would it burn? We see an oil or gas boiler of 20 to 35 kW being replaced with a 7 kW heat pump, and told how much more efficient the heat pump is, but we have not replaced like for like, so in real terms not a clue how well a heat pump would work if grossly oversized like the boiler it replaced.
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Hands, yes.
But a shower?
IME, a gas boiler starts putting out hot water quite quickly - it's flushing out the metres of ambient water in the pipes that takes the time.
unless it's an extremely well-insulated house, I suspect that there might be a degree of 'wishful thinking' in there (unless, I suppose, you are a far more patient person than I am
) - try heating a whole house from 'cold' with three fan heaters 
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