changes to legislation 2013

[Mrs Tara Plumbi]

The thread is going off on quite a tangent but must put my voice in.

From the point of view of running a business at aged 40+ my hubby and I only need to know what is going on for next 20-30 years.
Gas central heating with boilers will still be dominant for that time period.

My prediction
Electric heating will become bigger but still be minority for my working life time.
We need to focus on being heating (air con & ventilation) engineers, not just gas, it is a bigger picture.

Electric will power either heat pumps or UFH in most new homes and increasingly in refurbs - the future I think.
When I say heat pumps I think it will be air source to air or water that will be most popular as they are practical & cost effective to install in most properties - not gound source.
Air source heat pumps are good now much better than past but there is even better technology being developed - read up on USA websites for more about this technology.
And of course houses will be better insulated so less need for heating.


I don't know where that electric will come from but I do not think NUCLear is the only option I suspect there will be solar power PV panels on roofs for electric not for HW.

 

[fuzzy]

The thread is going off on quite a tangent but must put my voice in.

From the point of view of running a business at aged 40+ my hubby and I only need to know what is going on for next 20-30 years.
Gas central heating with boilers will still be dominant for that time period.

My prediction
Electric heating will become bigger but still be minority for my working life time.
We need to focus on being heating (air con & ventilation) engineers, not just gas, it is a bigger picture.

Electric will power either heat pumps or UFH in most new homes and increasingly in refurbs - the future I think.
When I say heat pumps I think it will be air source to air or water that will be most popular as they are practical & cost effective to install in most properties - not gound source.
Air source heat pumps are good now much better than past but there is even better technology being developed - read up on USA websites for more about this technology.
And of course houses will be better insulated so less need for heating.


I don't know where that electric will come from but I do not think NUCLear is the only option I suspect there will be solar power PV panels on roofs for electric not for HW.

Pv is very poor - the amount of elec we use pv dont even come close. there is a building in far east thats been built totally covered in pv and it still doesnt cover the energy use, so we cannot make a building a net provided of energy with pv

nuclear is the safest and cheapest afte capital cost form of energy, lots of bad press but imo the way to go

i dont believe gas is the dominant provider for 20-30 years

 

[Mrs Tara Plumbi]

Pv is very poor - the amount of elec we use pv dont even come close. there is a building in far east thats been built totally covered in pv and it still doesnt cover the energy use, so we cannot make a building a net provided of energy with pv

nuclear is the safest and cheapest afte capital cost form of energy, lots of bad press but imo the way to go

i dont believe gas is the dominant provider for 20-30 years

Trying to predict the future here! Is it possible that PV technology will improve AND the electric machines we use in our homes will also improve to be less electric greedy? So in some perfect world in the future PV could meet the needs of the house?

 

[fuzzy]

true, the pv technology has a long way to go and they will improve but for now they are helpful but dont offer any significant benefit. Solar thermal is alot better though, about 25% of all heating/hot water can be supplied via solar on an annual basis

 

[Kimou]

New stock:
2016 Zero carbon on all new builds(target)
2019 Zero carbon on all non-domestic premises (ambition)

Existing stock:
2030 Cost effective measures on all households (consultation proposal)
2050 Emissions from household(and business premises) reduced by at least 80% and as far approaching zero as possible (consultation proposal)

 

[markfxy]

Sounds great but the problem is they're not building much new stock and nobody can afford it on their existing stock

 

[Kimou]

Well as an industry standard it will be welcome. There's plenty of time to get ready. I was looking at the air source pumps today with an old teacher at the college. He was at some conference yesterday and the newer systems are easily installed. An easy option for clients when upgrading. I have a lot of faith in this that all's gonna be well. Solar panels and T-stores also easily done.

The whole system's in a state of flux right now. What's being said, rumoured is all changing and becoming more accessible. You need to stop gossiping and speculating and talk to someone who is influential and who is pro-plumbing.
My advice to anybody is to go to a 'good' training centre and have a good chat to the teachers. And I don't mean the fast track centres, somewhere that is involved with industry standards and has some clout. They are out there. I've been sworn to secrecy

 

[markfxy]

Yes there's plenty of time to get ready what with the RHI being put off from 2010 till 2011 then 2012 then maybe 2013? I"m pro plumbing but after spending fortunes on training for renewables with the promise of unlimited amounts of work i'm a bit peeved to see large amounts of money pumped into solar PV with its 14% efficiency and sod all to support the wet trades.

 

[unguided1]

I know that I hate the MCS and I am refusing to become MCS accredited but the experiance I am having working with heatpumps is that it is a fast growing industry and I woud hate for anyone to miss out on the amount of work that will be coming when the government finally pulls its finger out and finally introduces the RHI for domestic I agree that ground source on domestic is to costly and the focus will turn to air source.
But I feel that the MCS is actually damaging the take up for most heating companies, one is the physical cost of retrainning, two is this rediculous QMS, three is the fact that we have to join another layabout professional body, four is the fact that the RHI on domestic is constantly being delayed leaving uncertainty in the industry.

So in my opinion it is extremley important that the awarness of what is required to install renewables is made clear to the plumbing industry, now if the government had done this through one of the existing proffesional bodies the majority of the trade would now be aware of what is going on, Instead they have virtually tried to set up a completely new industry and it almost feels like they are trying to cut us heating engineers out of it. So if the government wants to reach its targets to avoid european fines in 2020 it needs to do something now to actually encourage us, instead of trying to alienate us by splintering our industry further