Will Landlords be able to apply for heat pump grants in April 2022?

I really have no confidence in heat pumps. Expensive, noisy and inefficient. They need significant modification of existing systems and space to fit. I was interested in gas boilers that can be easily converted for hydrogen fuel. What happened to that idea? I am sure the big boiler manufacturers were planning to make these.

“Providing grants to assist householders and landlords to install heat pumps is a welcome step..."

IT REALLY ISN'T!

Why can't the NRLA take a stronger stance on this?

We have until 2035 before gas boilers must be phased out, and technology will be much more advanced long before then; hydrogen looks very promising. Heat pumps are a ridiculous option due to their purchase and installation costs, inefficiency (you will struggle to power two showers at once... very handy for HMOs, apartments, and family homes!), need big new radiators, need underfloor heating, can't support small bore pipework, insufficient properly trained consultants and installers... Only the wealthy 90,000 who can afford to waste their money on climate virtue signalling will install them, so why should the taxpayer subsidise their stupidity?

Come on NRLA, grow a pair, and say what landlords really think!

I can't see much information on the detail of this at the moment. But the website Money Saving Expert has a piece on this here:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2021/10/government-to-offer-p5-000-grant-per-household-to-help-them-repl/

This says that the grant will be £5,000 for an air source heat pump and £6,000 for a ground source heat pump. It also says that the cost of installing a heat pump is on average £10,000-£12,000.

I don't have any information on the running costs of a heat pump. The air-source heat pumps also need power to compress the air to harvest the heat.

I can't see any information on the running costs: Does anyone know if the running costs for a tenant would be likely to be higher or lower than for a newly installed condensing gas boiler?

Heat pump grants are useless without solving the problem of the huge costs, lack of trained workforce and lack of quality control of insulating homes in the private rented sector. This topic has been covered in threads on 118 before, but needs repeating - DO NOT FIT HEATPUMPS WITHOUT INSULATING a house first. Leeds City Council estimates the cost of insulating and fitting a heat pump will cost circa 42K per house. They have been unable to share any plans for training a local workforce, nor how quality control will be achieved, expect landlords to pay for it outright and to have it all in place by 2030. But they support the expansion of Leeds Bradford Airport despite declaring a climate emergency!

Reply to the comment left by Rob Crawford at 20/10/2021 - 12:10
Like you I'm interested in hydrogen. Presumably if you had a gas condensing boiler and replaced it the utility company might not be under an obligation to maintain your gas connection. Unless you were permitted your grant to replace the boiler if you were still keeping other gas appliances in the property; a hob for example, or gas fire.

I watched a programme earlier this year about someone in scandinavia who was generating power from photovoltaics and storing the hydrogen. I don't know what the regulations would be like for storing bottled hydrogen but presumably if you had a gas connection and photovoltaics on every south-facing wall and roof any excess hydrogen you generated could be sent back to the grid even if you couldn't store it in much the same way that people with PV panels have sent power back to the grid via the feed-in tariff.

Reply to the comment left by Rob Crawford at 20/10/2021 - 12:10
Heat pumps are not a viable replacement boiler solution!
The water doesn't get hot enough for use in radiators and will only work sensibly with under floor heating, so unless you want to dig up your floors, insulate and install UF heating then forget them as a boiler replacement option.
Another useless government incentive !

Well if this goes the same way as the Green homes grant scheme it will be another total farce. A complete and total disaster. We obtained a quote from one of the very few people the government said were skilled enough to complete the job. They made the qualifications and standards so high only a few people were prepared to undertake the qualification required. We applied for exterior insulation in February and then it started. We have a total business experience between us totalling nearly 70 years so understand how to do things properly. Everything we sent in was returned, refused, claimed they could not see attachments that were on the bottom of the email they sent saying they couldn't see them. Etc, Etc, Etc ad infinitum.
Copy of a passport is not proof of identity etc. etc,
We would send something and wait weeks to be told they wanted something different. The efficiency of the whole procedure was such that I am convinced it was a deliberate manipulation to avoid issuing the voucher to wear us down to the point we gave up. I say this because no business or Government agency would accept the level of incompetence and inefficiency that we experienced. Multiple phone calls were made and the same documents were sent in 10 times in some cases to be told they were not there. Thirteen times, yes thirteen we were told everything was in order and approved and was waiting for final certification. Yes 13 times. Finally we persevered as a matter of principle and were told in September your grant has been approved but you must complete the job by the end of November. Obviously the work we had pencilled in for May was impossible to complete due to our installer having given up on us and filled his order book beyond November.
I just cannot believe this was not a deliberate effort to prevent us obtaining the grant. It was absolutely beyond comprehension.

My daughter had an air source heat pump system fitted, old gas boiler packed up, just over a year ago and it works really well in her typical 3 bed house. It was a lot of work and disruption and the installer set it up all wrong originally which made it useless but an excellent engineer sorted it out, not at daughters expense, and really pleased with it. The original installer was a good neat plumber but lacked heat source experience. In reality does not save much money on bills as hot water has to be boosted with immersion heater and having three young children uses a lot of hot water, probably efficient for a couple only. You can't hear any noise inside the house and not excessive outside, just a big fan in a box. Heating works very well. Would I bother, probably not, to much disruption and cost.

Reply to the comment left by Dennis Leverett at 21/10/2021 - 11:41
Did they have to put larger sized radiators in as part of the job - to account for the lower water temperature in the system ?

Reply to the comment left by Dennis Leverett at 21/10/2021 - 11:41
How much in total did this all cost your Daughter?