Re:Heat Pumps Work Miracles
by henrikschroder on Thursday February 28, 2019 @04:44PM
(#19275531)
There's a joke in Sweden:
"Hey, do you know why the English put their pipes on the outside of their houses?"
"No?"
"It's so they can reach them easier to thaw them when they freeze!"
And then everyone laughs.
...and then you learn that it's not a joke, and then you cry.
The UK's deeply dysfunctional planning/housing system contributes to that. Land is expensive, building your own home on purchased land quite rare due to bureaucracy of planning permission.
I live in a flat that was built mid 90's and it's a disaster from a heating and cooling point of view.
Ventiliation is shit, one side never gets the sun so the outer wall is cold which means condensation is a daily battle, I basically run a big heavy duty dehumidifier from mid-autumn to mid-spring (at least its not a net loss, it dumbs a fair amount of heat as a byproduct so I can run the heaters less).
It's rented though so not something I can fix until I buy a property in a few years.
We've only been hearing about how well Sweden and other Nordics do insulation, community heating, heat pumps etc for about 40 or 50 years. Various combined heat and power, insulation, passive houses etc would turn up on things like Tomorrow's World (60s-90s technology TV series) fairly often, like it was some sort of breakthrough new discovery. Well it was, to the UK, I guess.