Trends in the industry

[Bernie2]

I suppose with the obvious green issues coming in to practical application.

We will soon be doing away with gas boilers. Unless of course an alternative to gas is found. We may of course also go back to a simpler green fuel and do away with the complications of the modern boiler.

Lets be frank, if we could control the energy release of the fuel in simple ways, we would probably not need half the electronic stuff in a modern boiler.

It may even help, if they banned pcb's and made manufacturers use simple wiring looms instead.

So like some women say, lets keep the complicated stuff out of the house and just have simple customer serviceable appliances instead.

 

[Plumbstar Tom]

So like some women say, lets keep the complicated stuff out of the house and just have simple customer serviceable appliances instead.

Id be out of a job practically if this was the case!

 

[Bernie2]

Hi! Tom,

Probably would mean plenty of jobs going in the boiler repair line, thing is they should not need so many repairs really.

But lets be frank, the future would seem to be some sort of electric boiler, it probably would have already been electric except for the unit price of it being so dear.

However an electric boiler is really only an immersion heater with a pump. If you put an immersion heater in a heat store, you've got a system.

The thing is with an electric heat store redesign you may not even need heat stores.

The advantages to the customer are simplicity, the danger from carbon mon oxide has gone, as well as green house gas problems from boiler waste gases.

What is holding it back now, is probably price and what to do with the power station waste. If we go nuclear its obvious what could happen. Perhaps gas and oil are only being used now to maintain what we already have.

I would advise new Plumbers to look a bit closer at electricity and combine it with domestic Plumbing.

 

[Plumbstar Tom]

I'd recommend the route of renewables to new plumbers to be honest

Whilst electric boilers do seem to be involved in the future they to add to green house gas with the source of the electric

 

[cr0ft]

An interesting topic. I think that the whilst estimates put global gas reserves at around 65 years, gas will become unaffordable in the UK well before this. At present I see electric boilers as becoming the more affordable option to heat homes, especially as systems on the market are currently compatible with solar hot water.

At present electric boilers are too expensive compared to their gas counterparts, too large (as has already been said, they better ones are immersion heaters in a heat store) and still more expensive to run than gas boilers. This makes them only suitable for non-gas areas at present.

Give it 5 years and I think the situation will have flipped on it's head and electric boilers will be the more economic choice for domestic properties.

I think there is a market for renewable products in new-build homes but I'm not so sure for existing properties. The costs of installing these in existing properties usually mean they don't really pay their cost back over their lifetime (I appreciate there are some exceptions). My local plumbing merchant says they sell maybe 4 solar hot water systems per year, not a lot really!

Just my two pence!