Vogons, Energy Performance Certificates & Heat pumps

Vogons

Back in the early 2010s I was voting UKIP to hopefully ward off the ever more oppressive EU and one, amongst many, of the reasons I did so was to hopefully avoid the cost and hassle of the housing Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), left over from the dreaded Home Information Pack (HIP) and remaining because it was an “EU requirement”.  We all know what happened following the successful Brexit vote, and we are still stuck with EPCs.  Back then I had thought EPCs were just another raft of useless bureaucracy, driven by the EU, and I didn’t realise they were part of a malicious initiative to control people’s lives in the name of “climate change”.  I also hadn’t fully realised how complicit the UK Government was in all of this.  They had, effectively, “gold plated” EPCs to become the costly and invasive HIP of their own volition.  Admittedly, Uniparty Blue having taken over from Uniparty Red, rowed back from forcing HIPs on us but EPCs remained.  Then came the revelations following a successful Brexit vote; there was no way the Uniparty was going to allow the result to implemented and their total disdain for the majority of the population became plain to see. 

They hate us for not blindly submitting to their demands, absurd or not, and their demands become ever more absurd as time passes.  The political class, I hesitate to use the word “elite” because they are anything but, remind me of the Vogon characters created by Douglas Adams.  Vogons are described as: “officiously bureaucratic, a line of work at which they perform so well that the entire galactic bureaucracy is run by them”.  I shall use the word Vogons throughout this piece following as I think it is apt, although possibly not as much so as the Anglo Saxon terms many others might choose to use!  You will, however, know what I mean by the term.

Energy Performance Certificates

EPCs – why are they so malicious?  They are because the Vogons have decreed that prescribed levels of EPC must apply in order to rent properties and I believe it is planned in the future that prescribed levels must apply in order to sell a house.  Bearing in mind that the majority of UK housing stock will not only struggle to meet the mandated EPC conditions, and that most owners will not be able to afford these changes anyway, that makes the requirement pretty damned malicious in my book.  The Vogons, who are currently “going for growth” by taxing the pips out of the economy scaring away investors and wrecking the jobs market, obviously want to stifle the rental and housing markets as well!

Some more detail then. Consider that of the 28.5 million houses in the UK some 83.2% is pre 1990, 75.3% is pre 1980 and c 10.5 million are pre-1944.  See the table below:

Why is the age of UK housing stock a problem if the Vogons want to mandate EPC requirements? Put simply; older housing stock is not suited to the insulation and other stipulations made.   Cavity walls, for example, and into which retrograde insulation can be reasonably cheaply fitted and without ruining the aesthetics, only became common post WW2.  This means that some 10.5 million dwellings are faced with a big problem here as the Vogons aren’t making any exceptions.  Can’t afford it or don’t want your house to look like an egg carton or with shrunken room sizes caused by internal cladding?  Tough, the Vogons are the law and you’d better respect that and not complain.  Can’t sell 30% of the UK housing stock because the owners can’t afford to upgrade their properties’ climate change credentials?  Not a Vogon consideration.  Let’s break down some of the EPC bullcrap then:

EPC ratings grid

The average EPC rating in the UK is D60 according to “energysmartworld” (see the table above).  According to Google AI “Without insulated walls, the best possible EPC rating you could achieve would likely be a "D" rating, as even with efficient measures like good glazing, a modern boiler, and loft insulation, the lack of wall insulation will significantly impact the overall energy efficiency of the property.” According to Checkatrade the average costs of external wall insulation average £7,000 for a mid-terrace house (c 8,000,000 houses are mid-terrace),  £9,000 for a semi-detached house (c 7,000,000 houses are semi-detached) and £17,500 for a detached house (c 5,000,000 houses).  Not cheap, assuming the change is possible.  Renting a dwelling your need to currently have an “E” rating but the Vogons are increasing this to “C” by 2030 (nrla.org). To add a little more onus the rating assessments are also being made more vigorous (you can read about that here if you have lots of time to spare: J ). 

Insulation may not be the only change mandated to reach the Vogon metrics.  Some recommendations for “upgrade”are surreal (install a windmill turbine to reach a “B” standard – a snip at an estimated £25,000).  The EPC rating for all UK properties can be checked here and you can see the recommendations mandated to achieve a “C” rating: 

My own house is rated at D59.  To achieve a “C” the report states that I need to: insulate the floors for £6,000, install solar water heating for another £6,000, install photovoltaic panels for £8,000; a total of £20,000 to keep the Vogons happy, enable me to rent my house after 2030 and, here comes the rub, sell it after a date yet to be announced (probably announced in the same way as WASPI women were notified assuming Vogon behaviour doesn’t change!).  More worryingly the new assessment criteria will require “proof of fitting” rather than “assumed fit”.  So, to even keep my current rating, I would have to prove my walls are insulated which is assumed on the current EPC (they aren’t so that’s another £xx,000 to spend - its an old building that’s been updated inside in the 1990s – there ain’t going to be any internal insulation and ripping all the internal walls apart could cost a mint L ). 

EPCs = a crock of Vogon scatology.

Heat Pumps

Now to the meat of it. I hope I have established above that the Vogons have got it in for you big time if you own a house.  There are many more pernicious developments to come and one of them is in pushing you to install a heat pump to replace any heating you may already have installed.

What is a heat pump?

Possibly the easiest way to explain this is to describe the air conditioning system you might find in a car as a heat pump works in a very similar way, but in reverse. 

A refrigerant which alters its state between liquid and vapour (it is interesting to note that heat pumps continued to use “R-134a” which was phased out of the European automotive sector for new vehicles in the 2010’s and replaced by “R-1234yf “, a more “climate friendly gas”, Vogons obviously don’t talk to each other because “R-134a” and the similar “R-410a” were used in new heat pumps until very recently and only replaced due to being unsuitable for later equipment). 

The principle of operation is that the refrigerant is forced around the system by a compressor (driven by an electric motor in a heat pump and consuming a lot of electricity) which compresses vaporised refrigerant into a high-pressure liquid which flows through an expansion valve into an evaporator.   External heat surrounding the evaporator causes the liquid to vaporise creating a cooling effect around the unit (in a car the evaporator will be located inside the cabin – in a heat pump system it will be external to the house to collect heat).  Low pressure vaporised refrigerant is then pushed into a condenser (in a car this component will typically be behind the front bumper/fender – in a heat pump system it will be exchanging heat to either a liquid or air based circulation system) where the heat picked up earlier is released turning the refrigerant into a vapour once more and the cycle continues.

The heat pump does exactly what its name suggests, it pumps heat from one area to another. Electricity is used to drive the compressor, and fans to blow air over the evaporator (hence the noise the units can make – especially when the fan blades pick up dust and dirt putting them slightly out of balance) and also for immersion heaters to warm water in the building’s circulatory system when the heat pump isn’t importing enough heat (heat pump efficiency tails off at low temperatures – the Vogons would like to quote an efficiency of 4:1 for them yet this applies at external temperatures of 15 degrees c, at a more typical winter temperature of 5 degrees c the ratio is 3:1 and dropping to around 2:1 at negative temperatures).  As you can imagine heat pumps can use a lot of electricity.

It should be noted that there are 3 types of heat pump: air, ground and water sourced.  I do not intend to include the latter two types here as they are less prevalent, more expensive and need large ground areas, nor new build/existing heat pumps.

The diagram above details all the various components

Do they provide heat effectively, are they reliable, are they noisy?

Heat pumps provide a low level of heat compared to more conventional heating systems and because of this the dwelling will require a high level of insulation, possibly increased radiator sizes and piping and it could be advisable to have an alternative heat source for “back up”.  The efficiency of a heat pump is measured in “COP values” (Coefficient of Performance). COP values vary relative to a number of factors and most noticeably external air temperature.  These values are factors of how much electricity has to be put into the system compared to how much heat is output.  For example, a COP of 3:1 means that 3 kWh is output for every 1 kWh of electricity consumed.  The Vogons like to quote a COP value of 4:1 whereas this only applies at outside air temperatures of 15 degrees c.  Where I live during the past week outside air temperature, at the times I have my oil boiler running, has averaged 3 degrees at which temperature a heat pump COP drops to 3:1.  I suspect the reason the Vogons like to quote a factor of 4:1 is that this is the relationship between electricity and gas prices in the UK (6.24p/kWh for gas v 24.5p/kWh for electricity) and less than 4:1 means it can never be argued a heat pump is cheaper to run!

 Another consideration is that a heat pump may not work effectively in an average home unless the insulation and EPC rating is considerably upgraded and at great cost.   See the section above about EPC ratings.  If your house is rated at  less than a “C” a heat pump probably won’t work effectively anyway. As I stated above to upgrade my own house to a “C” would probably cost me £20,000 before spending out on a heat pump.

Are they reliable? I can’t find a way to quantify this and have to rely on anecdotes.  According to this chap a 2020 new build heat pump has failed and he is faced with a £7,000 bill to replace it and he can’t access a gas supply to replace it with a cheaper boiler as the EPC rating of A on his house means he is not allowed to access the local gas main.  OK, so one swallow doesn’t make a summer, but my oil boiler came with a 10-year guarantee and only cost me £6,000 including a lot of installation work.  A guarantee that doesn’t even stretch to 5 years isn’t very good.  Neither is being excluded from a cheaper energy supply very good: 

Are they noisy? There used to be a rule that heat pump fans couldn’t be placed within one metre of a neighbour’s boundary without planning permission, due to noise considerations.  The Vogons removed this rule in November 2024.  Although regulations restrict heat pump fans to 42 decibels, measured one metre away, dust and dirt building up putting a fan out of balance can easily increase this level and quite soon after installation I would think.  Forty-two decibels is the same level as a large refrigerator running constantly or light rainfall.  The WHO branch of the Vogon network have the following advice about noise: “For optimal sleep, the level inside your house at night should not exceed 30 dB. For the prevention of adverse health effects, you should not be exposed to outside noise pollution of more than 40 dB.”  In view of all this I would conclude that, yes, heat pumps are noisy.

Comparative running costs of a heat pump

I will look at the costs of purchase and installation in the last section below and these can be considerable.  But what about running costs?  I thought I would do my own comparison here based on the costs of running my oil boiler and assuming “all things are equal”.  Assumptions in other words not proven and accepted facts but I’d bet these details aren’t far off.

My oil boiler runs at a 17 kWh output. I run it for 5.5 hours a day and it runs pretty much constantly, brings the house up to temperature and this then tails off a little until the timer cuts in next.  In the winter my boiler uses 200 litres of kerosene a month at, the last price I paid to put a year’s supply in my storage tank, £0.57/litre.  My calculation for an oil boiler then becomes: 17kWh x 5.5 hours x 30 days is 2,805 kWh, then 200 litres x £0.57 is £114 divided by 2,805 is £0.041/kWh. 

For a gas boiler it’s very straightforward at £0.0624/kWh.

For a heat pump, using a COP value of 3:1, the calculation becomes 2,805/3 is 935 x £0.245 electricity cost is £229.08 total cost divided by 2,805 kWh is £0.082/kWh.

I’ll put all that into a table:

*Heating oil prices have varied between £0.20/litre (Covid) to £1.80 (Ukraine) and are currently £0.64 whereas I average £0.50 in the price I pay and I paid £0.57 last time I filled the tank so I have used this value in my comparison. 

Will I be forced to buy a heat pump?

Originally the Vogons were going to ban oil boiler replacements in 2026, then pushed this out to 2035 but now say they will not be banned.   For gas boilers sales were to have been banned in 2035 but are now to be restricted to 20% of sales by 2035. However, the Clean Heat Market Mechanism will fine boiler manufacturers who don’t sell enough heat pumps.  Originally fines were to be set at £3,000 per boiler sold over the set quota.  This has now been reduced to a fine of £500.  Sales mix is mandated at 4% heat pump mix in 2024 and increasing to 6% in 2025. Future sales mixes are yet to be decided on by the Vogons.  The boiler industry seems to be taking the view that they will roll the cost of fines into new boiler sales costs so, even assuming no heat pumps are sold in 2025, this would only add a maximum of £30/unit so shouldn’t be a worry at this stage.

According to this blog: 55,000 heat pumps were sold in the UK in 2022 and the Vogons want to increase this ten fold by 2028.

According to this link: 1.82 million boilers were sold in the UK in 2022.  This means heat pump sales were running at a 3% mix then.  So the 2025 mandated mix is not too onerous in terms of the costs of fines for this target not being met, and I suspect it won’t be met.

 The Vogons have effectively killed the UK car industry by applying high levels of fines to petrol and diesel cars because nobody much wanted to buy their vaunted battery electric cars of their own volition.  They seem to be backing off killing the boiler industry, possibly to stave off the probably inevitable riots were they to do so.  The winds of change might also blow across the Atlantic in the next couple of years and ameliorate the Vogon’s “Net Zero” nonsense.  My view is there is no need to panic about not being able to buy a replacement boiler if your current one should pack up.  Not unless the Vogons should pick up pace on their repression of us all and you just need to keep a weather eye out for this, albeit I think it is unlikely.

 Should I consider buying a heat pump/do they have any advantages?

 If you aren’t going to be forced to buy one why would you otherwise consider buying something that is noisy, more expensive to run than your current system and that might have attendant problems? 

 Especially as a heat pump will also be more expensive to install than a replacement boiler. “Air source heat pumps cost anywhere between £2,400 - £14,050”.  Average replacement gas boiler cost is £3,000: My own oil boiler cost £6,000 to replace. 

The cost of installing a heat pump itself, especially if you can get a grant towards the cost, may not be prohibitive. But the cost of insulating your home to enable it to work may make it so, £20,000 extra in my case probably.  You might also need upgraded radiators and pipework, to work with lower water temperatures.

I can’t see any advantage to having a heat pump fitted.  It’s a bit like years ago when the Vogons tried to push Compact Fluorescent Tube (CFL) light bulbs.  These were expensive, unreliable, took ages to warm up and looked hideous.  It was no wonder you couldn’t even give the things away. Then along came a better technology in the form of LED bulbs and they sold themselves.  Heat Pumps are to heating what CFLs are to lighting, until a better technology comes along wait to change the way you heat your house until then I suggest.

Conclusion

Don’t drink the Vogon Kool Aid!

Thanks for reading J