UK government hires ‘nudge unit’ to help dispel heat pump myths | Behaviour experts say misinformation shared in media and by other stakeholders is impeding uptake
UK government hires ‘nudge unit’ to help dispel heat pump myths | Behaviour experts say misinformation shared in media and by other stakeholders is impeding uptake
Behaviour experts say misinformation shared in media and by other stakeholders is impeding uptake
Almost like there is a coordinated campaign by gas & oil lobbyists across the globe. Curious.
(Greetings from Germany where the government had the goal of helping 500k heat pumps get installed in 2024. People installed 200k heat pumps, but 500k gas/oil furnaces. This follows a solid year 2022/2023 of concentrated disinformation campaigns about heat pumps.)
Caveat: In Europe, heat pumps usually provide either no or less effective cooling though, because our heatings usually use water as the medium rather than air like in the US. And heat pumps are usually connected with a buffer tank, in many cases that's a combination hot drinkable water + heating water tank.
Water as the medium means cooling is usually less effective. And if you fuck up that buffer tank, cooling doesn't work at all.
You're a bit confused about buffer tanks. They are thermal stores and just store primary heating circuit water.
The water from the buffer tank isn't the hot water from the tap. The water in the buffer tank will be used to indirectly heat mains water. Either through a plate heat exchanger or an unvented cylinder.
Where is this misinformation? I have never heard anyone say anything bad about heat pumps.
Mostly boomer Facebook groups
Ah. That would do it.
To be fair, heat pumps are noisy. I've lived in two houses with heat pumps now and my nextdoor neighbor has one. All of them are loud. They're still worth it.
Not really. Older ones are loud, small/underpowered ones are loud but new, larger, correctly sized, modulating heat pumps can be fairly quiet.
The first one I experienced was definitely small and underpowered and I hated it because it couldn't keep up with 80°F+ temperatures. And it was fucking loud.
The two more recent ones I have had experience with are only a few years old, appropriately sized, and much more capable. They're not quite as loud, but still noisy.
As someone who is somewhat sensitive to sound, I couldn't stand the first one. The current one that I have, I often don't notice that it's on until it turns off and I suddenly feel a rush of relief that it's quiet again.
So they do have at least one downside. At least my current one can keep up with whatever weather comes our way.