Can't build HS2 Can't install heat pumps Can't build segregated cycle lanes Can't cycle 5 miles across Edinburgh Can't run a bath Can't run a tap
66 years between flight and the moon.
My wife says that one of the problems with Ireland is the emigrant culture. Any time life gets hard those who are most able and most frustrated leave the country. So the country is left with people who will put up with crap, don't recognise it's crap, or can't do any better. (Not sure what that says about us moving to the place, but we'll leave that for another time).
What's Britain's excuse?
A sort of simultaneous superiority inferiority complex?
So we’ve done CASTLES, how about BATTLEFIELDS - memorable, haunting, cleverly explained, simply epochal - what are the world’s top ten battlefields?
Top of my head:
Thiepval Ridge and the Somme
Berlin in toto: all the war damage everywhere which you can still see, from 1945
Franklin, Tennessee: hugely evocative, blood stained floorboards your can see where the surgeon did his urgent amputations
Aaaaand as I type that, the air raid sirens go off
Berlin sprung to mind immediately. But also the Normandy beaches.
Surely it has to be turning points? In which case, the battle of Kursk/ Prokhorovka ? Battle of Hastings (wherever that site is). Trafalgar or Borodino? Lake Poyang? Battle of Saratoga?
Er, you have to have been to them - so you can personally and authoritatively say: wow
Syracuse is interesting. Hadn’t thought of naval/classical battles
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
Wrong.
Heat pumps work in houses built to modern insulation standards.
Underfloor heating helps, and is the default for ground floors in modern construction. Or remodelling.
Underfloor heating is just a really long hose zigzagging about under your floor.
Didn't this story begin with the point that heatpumps don't work well in Scotland where the ait temperature can be below -15 degrees.
I remember a story last week that Sweden has 200,000 heat pumps a year being installed and wondered what made Sweden different to Scotland. Turns out Sweden aren't installing Air source heatpumps they are drilling deep holes and installing Ground Source heat pumps instead.
Ground source Heatpumps cost a lot more money..
And yep - you need a well insulated house before a heat pump starts to make sense...
There are air source heat pumps on the market which are specced to work down to -30℃. I linked to a Samsung one yesterday.
Insulation is in some ways a red herring - the real question is can your heating system put out as much heat as is lost to the outside. You can spec a heat pump that will match the output & fluid working temperature of a gas boiler in an existing system, but it’ll cost more. Better insulation and larger rads / underfloor heating reduce the heat flow needs, meaning you can spec a smaller heat pump running at a lower working temp which brings down costs.
Again, heat pumps do what they say on the tin. If you (or your installer) fails to read the tin, that’s not the fault of the heat pump.
I fucking hate single taps. How do you know how much cold water you are putting in to a bath if it's all coming out of the same tap.
Eh ? You're trying to get a bath to the right temperature for you or a little one, surely more difficult to judge with two taps as you can't stick your hand under it and go "that's about right" (After initially running straight hot because the warm water is 'coming through'). Easier with a single faucettap
Eh yourself. You can't tell by sticking your hand under the water when it's just started running. You need to know just how much cold and just how much hot (which I do - for myself) and then do that and adjust it as appropriate. You can't do that if there is just one tap because you don't know how much you have adjusted it (sometimes the taps shut off altogether).
What are you talking about? With a single tap you just adjust it left/right to find the temperature you want. Super easy.
But what if you turn the tap down because you want only a small amount of cold water in your bath and then, as is so often the case, the water stops altogether because you have turned it down too much and you end up with a bath that is too hot.
What then?
At least the one I have you set the amount of water by moving it up/down, and the temperature by left/right. So you can have lots of hot or cold water, or lots of water at the right temperature. Similarly, a little hot or cold water or a little water at the right temperature.
I don’t think I’ve ever run a bath at the wrong temperature. You simply put your hand under the stream, adjust it to the temperature you want, then let it run. I literally can’t imagine ever being in the scenario you describe.
Then there comes that dreadful moment when the water's running cold In the bath, in the bath! When the soap is lost forever and one's feeling tired and old In the bath, in the bath! It's time to pull the plug out, time to mop the bathroom floor. The towel is in the cupboard, and the cupboard is next door! It's started running hot! Let's have another hour or more In the bath, in the bath!
From In the Bath, Flanders and Swann.
The latest fad for the rich(er) is to have a special tap for drinking water in the kitchen (descaling, filtration), and a special boiling water tap. Sometimes these are combined (different modes on the same tap), but often separate
Can't build HS2 Can't install heat pumps Can't build segregated cycle lanes Can't cycle 5 miles across Edinburgh Can't run a bath Can't run a tap
66 years between flight and the moon.
My wife says that one of the problems with Ireland is the emigrant culture. Any time life gets hard those who are most able and most frustrated leave the country. So the country is left with people who will put up with crap, don't recognise it's crap, or can't do any better. (Not sure what that says about us moving to the place, but we'll leave that for another time).
What's Britain's excuse?
A sort of simultaneous superiority inferiority complex?
A feature we share with our French siblings. (And, unfortunately, the Russians).
I fucking hate single taps. How do you know how much cold water you are putting in to a bath if it's all coming out of the same tap.
Eh ? You're trying to get a bath to the right temperature for you or a little one, surely more difficult to judge with two taps as you can't stick your hand under it and go "that's about right" (After initially running straight hot because the warm water is 'coming through'). Easier with a single faucettap
Eh yourself. You can't tell by sticking your hand under the water when it's just started running. You need to know just how much cold and just how much hot (which I do - for myself) and then do that and adjust it as appropriate. You can't do that if there is just one tap because you don't know how much you have adjusted it (sometimes the taps shut off altogether).
What are you talking about? With a single tap you just adjust it left/right to find the temperature you want. Super easy.
But what if you turn the tap down because you want only a small amount of cold water in your bath and then, as is so often the case, the water stops altogether because you have turned it down too much and you end up with a bath that is too hot.
What then?
Just have a little cry.
Tell me about it. The tears flow. Unlike the cold water.
Perhaps you have seen ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion? Or C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate?
So we’ve done CASTLES, how about BATTLEFIELDS - memorable, haunting, cleverly explained, simply epochal - what are the world’s top ten battlefields?
Top of my head:
Thiepval Ridge and the Somme
Berlin in toto: all the war damage everywhere which you can still see, from 1945
Franklin, Tennessee: hugely evocative, blood stained floorboards your can see where the surgeon did his urgent amputations
Aaaaand as I type that, the air raid sirens go off
Berlin sprung to mind immediately. But also the Normandy beaches.
I’ve never done the Normandy beaches. I should
I’m trying to think of a really evocative battlefield in the UK. I can’t. Tho I’ve never been to Batfle in Hastings
The most powerful war-site in Britain is, to my mind, the extant bomb damage in london from the blitz
If you look hard enough there’s lots of it
A picture of my home city after the bomb sites had been cleared… when my mother is a bit cranky, I remember that she lived through this when she was six… she recalls going to school in the morning and finding another empty desk in the classroom…
So we’ve done CASTLES, how about BATTLEFIELDS - memorable, haunting, cleverly explained, simply epochal - what are the world’s top ten battlefields?
Top of my head:
Thiepval Ridge and the Somme
Berlin in toto: all the war damage everywhere which you can still see, from 1945
Franklin, Tennessee: hugely evocative, blood stained floorboards your can see where the surgeon did his urgent amputations
Aaaaand as I type that, the air raid sirens go off
Somme. All day long. Looking out over that vast expanse of grassland (yes the odd poppy) and thinking: a million men died here.
Yes. This is why WW1 resonates and will resonate more and longer than WW11 in the UK.
Every village however small lost men in WW1, but not in WW11. In villages round here brief biogs of WW1 fallen are still read out in the open air on Remembrance Sunday. People still come. "He has no known grave" are the most haunting words I ever hear.
Apropos of nothing, we once lost a quiz because the question master read Apollo 11 as Apollo two. We tried to imagine what was unusual about Apollo 2 but couldn't think of anything. The 'correct' answer was the first manned moon landing.
Please, in the spirit of Anabob, WW2, not WW11 (world war eleven?)
Can't build HS2 Can't install heat pumps Can't build segregated cycle lanes Can't cycle 5 miles across Edinburgh Can't run a bath Can't run a tap
66 years between flight and the moon.
My wife says that one of the problems with Ireland is the emigrant culture. Any time life gets hard those who are most able and most frustrated leave the country. So the country is left with people who will put up with crap, don't recognise it's crap, or can't do any better. (Not sure what that says about us moving to the place, but we'll leave that for another time).
What's Britain's excuse?
A sort of simultaneous superiority inferiority complex?
A feature we share with our French siblings. (And, unfortunately, the Russians).
It's the way people have an instinctive opposition to something and then desperately scrabble around for a reason.
However much you dismantle their arguments, they'll find something else. Seems particularly the case for green stuff.
So we’ve done CASTLES, how about BATTLEFIELDS - memorable, haunting, cleverly explained, simply epochal - what are the world’s top ten battlefields?
Top of my head:
Thiepval Ridge and the Somme
Berlin in toto: all the war damage everywhere which you can still see, from 1945
Franklin, Tennessee: hugely evocative, blood stained floorboards your can see where the surgeon did his urgent amputations
Aaaaand as I type that, the air raid sirens go off
Somme. All day long. Looking out over that vast expanse of grassland (yes the odd poppy) and thinking: a million men died here.
Yes. This is why WW1 resonates and will resonate more and longer than WW11 in the UK.
Every village however small lost men in WW1, but not in WW11. In villages round here brief biogs of WW1 fallen are still read out in the open air on Remembrance Sunday. People still come. "He has no known grave" are the most haunting words I ever hear.
I stopped at a War Memorial in a local village recently and looked at the names. About the same number in each war, but the sad part was the same surnames repeated in both sections
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
Wrong.
Heat pumps work in houses built to modern insulation standards.
Underfloor heating helps, and is the default for ground floors in modern construction. Or remodelling.
Underfloor heating is just a really long hose zigzagging about under your floor.
Didn't this story begin with the point that heatpumps don't work well in Scotland where the ait temperature can be below -15 degrees.
I remember a story last week that Sweden has 200,000 heat pumps a year being installed and wondered what made Sweden different to Scotland. Turns out Sweden aren't installing Air source heatpumps they are drilling deep holes and installing Ground Source heat pumps instead.
Ground source Heatpumps cost a lot more money..
And yep - you need a well insulated house before a heat pump starts to make sense...
There are air source heat pumps on the market which are specced to work down to -30℃. I linked to a Samsung one yesterday.
Insulation is in some ways a red herring - the real question is can your heating system put out as much heat as is lost to the outside. You can spec a heat pump that will match the output & fluid working temperature of a gas boiler in an existing system, but it’ll cost more. Better insulation and larger rads / underfloor heating reduce the heat flow needs, meaning you can spec a smaller heat pump running at a lower working temp which brings down costs.
Again, heat pumps do what they say on the tin. If you (or your installer) fails to read the tin, that’s not the fault of the heat pump.
Perhaps Sunak does not really care? He has been PM long enough to ensure that he will benefit from all the perks and only needs to ensure that he does not look a total idiot a la Truss to ensure plenty of turns on the ex-leader speaking circuit.
In fact it would be better for him to lose the election, free himself of the loons and blame the loss on the unleadable uber-nutjobs. He could stand down with his reputation as intact as possible and let the circus commence...
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
I can earnestly assure you that my 88-yo father does no live in a “scandi-noir cum villa”.
He lives in a 1950s wooden bungalow. And he has a heat pump. And, shock, a mixer tap.
Get into the 21st century, FFS. I thought you worked in engineering. No wonder HS2 is fucked, if this is the level of ambition.
I didn't work on HS2, and look at posts from the other day on precisely the problems with that.
We comprehensively debated and fisked all the problems with heat pumps on here the other day.
They move heat from one place to another, they don't generate it, and are crap except for equilibrium warming to modest modal temperatures, and require very high quality insulation to do even they. Extremely cold snap or a hot bath? Forget it.
Some of the World War 1 battlefields in the Tyrol are absolutely haunting. “The white war” - as it was fought in the snow. More than a million men died IIRC
Often they fought while clinging to the sides of frozen mountains
So we’ve done CASTLES, how about BATTLEFIELDS - memorable, haunting, cleverly explained, simply epochal - what are the world’s top ten battlefields?
Top of my head:
Thiepval Ridge and the Somme
Berlin in toto: all the war damage everywhere which you can still see, from 1945
Franklin, Tennessee: hugely evocative, blood stained floorboards your can see where the surgeon did his urgent amputations
Aaaaand as I type that, the air raid sirens go off
Somme. All day long. Looking out over that vast expanse of grassland (yes the odd poppy) and thinking: a million men died here.
Yes. This is why WW1 resonates and will resonate more and longer than WW11 in the UK.
Every village however small lost men in WW1, but not in WW11. In villages round here brief biogs of WW1 fallen are still read out in the open air on Remembrance Sunday. People still come. "He has no known grave" are the most haunting words I ever hear.
I stopped at a War Memorial in a local village recently and looked at the names. About the same number in each war, but the sad part was the same surnames repeated in both sections
Generally we as a country lost about half as many dead in WW2 than WW1. In smaller villages in particular there would have been strong continuity of family names.
My maternal gran's lost around 5 brothers in WW2, from around 13 siblings. Big families back then too.
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
I can earnestly assure you that my 88-yo father does no live in a “scandi-noir cum villa”.
He lives in a 1950s wooden bungalow. And he has a heat pump. And, shock, a mixer tap.
Get into the 21st century, FFS. I thought you worked in engineering. No wonder HS2 is fucked, if this is the level of ambition.
I didn't work on HS2, and look at posts from the other day on precisely the problems with that.
We comprehensively debated and fisked all the problems with heat pumps on here the other day.
They move heat from one place to another, they don't generate it, and are crap except for equilibrium warming to modest modal temperatures, and require very high quality insulation to do even they. Extremely cold snap or a hot bath? Forget it.
I wasn’t here the other day, but if the great mixer debate is any signal, many PBers are simply uncomfortable with technology unless it was personally approved by Stafford Cripps.
I’m sure the Norwegians will be traumatised to hear that they can no longer take hot baths in a cold snap.
So we’ve done CASTLES, how about BATTLEFIELDS - memorable, haunting, cleverly explained, simply epochal - what are the world’s top ten battlefields?
Top of my head:
Thiepval Ridge and the Somme
Berlin in toto: all the war damage everywhere which you can still see, from 1945
Franklin, Tennessee: hugely evocative, blood stained floorboards your can see where the surgeon did his urgent amputations
Aaaaand as I type that, the air raid sirens go off
Berlin sprung to mind immediately. But also the Normandy beaches.
I’ve never done the Normandy beaches. I should
I’m trying to think of a really evocative battlefield in the UK. I can’t. Tho I’ve never been to Batfle in Hastings
The most powerful war-site in Britain is, to my mind, the extant bomb damage in london from the blitz
If you look hard enough there’s lots of it
A picture of my home city after the bomb sites had been cleared… when my mother is a bit cranky, I remember that she lived through this when she was six… she recalls going to school in the morning and finding another empty desk in the classroom…
Apropos this image & the other perennial PB debate (housing + planning) - I saw a paper recently that analysed the building that had been carried out on sites in London bombed by the Germans during WWII which concluded that the current GDP of London was 1% higher than it would otherwise have been thanks to the bombing campaign. The reason was that the bombing cleared out old buildings & enabled (eventually) their replacement with newer, more modern buildings that were better suited to London’s later economic needs.
Not sure the residents of London would have thanked us for telling them that at the time though!
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
Or just live in another country where they seem to have no such problem.
Reminds me of Americans agonising over the feasibility of high speed rail or contactless credit cards.
Americans have totally failed to build high speed rail.
I couldn't care less if it works in other countries like NZ or Norway.
I care if it works for us here and meets our expectations.
So we’ve done CASTLES, how about BATTLEFIELDS - memorable, haunting, cleverly explained, simply epochal - what are the world’s top ten battlefields?
Top of my head:
Thiepval Ridge and the Somme
Berlin in toto: all the war damage everywhere which you can still see, from 1945
Franklin, Tennessee: hugely evocative, blood stained floorboards your can see where the surgeon did his urgent amputations
Aaaaand as I type that, the air raid sirens go off
Somme. All day long. Looking out over that vast expanse of grassland (yes the odd poppy) and thinking: a million men died here.
Yes. This is why WW1 resonates and will resonate more and longer than WW11 in the UK.
Every village however small lost men in WW1, but not in WW11. In villages round here brief biogs of WW1 fallen are still read out in the open air on Remembrance Sunday. People still come. "He has no known grave" are the most haunting words I ever hear.
Apropos of nothing, we once lost a quiz because the question master read Apollo 11 as Apollo two. We tried to imagine what was unusual about Apollo 2 but couldn't think of anything. The 'correct' answer was the first manned moon landing.
Please, in the spirit of Anabob, WW2, not WW11 (world war eleven?)
WWII, cos Roman Numerals innit. Who needs zeroes or place value, when you have Roman Numerals that you can carve into stone.
The latest fad for the rich(er) is to have a special tap for drinking water in the kitchen (descaling, filtration), and a special boiling water tap. Sometimes these are combined (different modes on the same tap), but often separate
The idea of having a tap of scalding-hot water is absolutely bonkers. I understand why kitchen suppliers try to sell them, but I can't for the life of me see why anyone is so unaware as to buy one.
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
I can earnestly assure you that my 88-yo father does no live in a “scandi-noir cum villa”.
He lives in a 1950s wooden bungalow. And he has a heat pump. And, shock, a mixer tap.
Get into the 21st century, FFS. I thought you worked in engineering. No wonder HS2 is fucked, if this is the level of ambition.
I didn't work on HS2, and look at posts from the other day on precisely the problems with that.
We comprehensively debated and fisked all the problems with heat pumps on here the other day.
They move heat from one place to another, they don't generate it, and are crap except for equilibrium warming to modest modal temperatures, and require very high quality insulation to do even they. Extremely cold snap or a hot bath? Forget it.
Why do you keep repeating this rubbish?
Who cares where the heat comes from so long as it ends up in the home? Generated or moved, it’s the same heat.
& they work fine if specced correctly. Builders failing to spec heating installs is (sadly) not an unusual problem in the UK, but it is a solvable one.
So we’ve done CASTLES, how about BATTLEFIELDS - memorable, haunting, cleverly explained, simply epochal - what are the world’s top ten battlefields?
Top of my head:
Thiepval Ridge and the Somme
Berlin in toto: all the war damage everywhere which you can still see, from 1945
Franklin, Tennessee: hugely evocative, blood stained floorboards your can see where the surgeon did his urgent amputations
Aaaaand as I type that, the air raid sirens go off
Verdun.
The French didn't fuck about glossing over what happened.
Crikey 😶
Verdun is the classic example of how morale and determination can make a big difference in war. Von Falkenhayne (?) was the German general. He figured that the sentimental attachment of the French to the site was so high they would sacrifice so many men in its defense as to bleed them white and precipitate a surrender. He was right, and the French losses were hideous. But the German didn't realise how many Germans were dying in the attack, and was forced to call it off. Poetically if not literally, the French drowned the Germans in French blood.
So we’ve done CASTLES, how about BATTLEFIELDS - memorable, haunting, cleverly explained, simply epochal - what are the world’s top ten battlefields?
Top of my head:
Thiepval Ridge and the Somme
Berlin in toto: all the war damage everywhere which you can still see, from 1945
Franklin, Tennessee: hugely evocative, blood stained floorboards your can see where the surgeon did his urgent amputations
Aaaaand as I type that, the air raid sirens go off
Berlin sprung to mind immediately. But also the Normandy beaches.
I’ve never done the Normandy beaches. I should
I’m trying to think of a really evocative battlefield in the UK. I can’t. Tho I’ve never been to Batfle in Hastings
The most powerful war-site in Britain is, to my mind, the extant bomb damage in london from the blitz
If you look hard enough there’s lots of it
If you include bomb damage then Coventry Cathedral
ETA: Some of the old airfields are quite haunting, round these parts (N Yorks - there are a lot, some with bits of the old munitions stores etc/runways remaining)
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
I can earnestly assure you that my 88-yo father does no live in a “scandi-noir cum villa”.
He lives in a 1950s wooden bungalow. And he has a heat pump. And, shock, a mixer tap.
Get into the 21st century, FFS. I thought you worked in engineering. No wonder HS2 is fucked, if this is the level of ambition.
I didn't work on HS2, and look at posts from the other day on precisely the problems with that.
We comprehensively debated and fisked all the problems with heat pumps on here the other day.
They move heat from one place to another, they don't generate it, and are crap except for equilibrium warming to modest modal temperatures, and require very high quality insulation to do even they. Extremely cold snap or a hot bath? Forget it.
I wasn’t here the other day, but if the great mixer debate is any signal, many PBers are simply uncomfortable with technology unless it was personally approved by Stafford Cripps.
I’m sure the Norwegians will be traumatised to hear that they can no longer take hot baths in a cold snap.
I suspect Norwegian homes are better insulated. Many crap older buildings in the UK won't cope with having the lower temperature outputs of heat pumps without radical insulation and/or changes to the pipes and radiators.
Different countries have different issues. When I lived in Auckland for a year I noticed how a lot of the housing stock had little insulation. But then there was little need, with a lowest winter temp of 5 deg C.
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
Your rejection of scientific fact is woke nonsense.
It isn't scientific fact, I'm afraid. And I know more about science and engineering that you will in a hundred lifetimes, sunshine.
Those who use heat pumps confirmed the woeful output temperature and a very high level of insulation to get them to work properly, which then delivers a modest ambient temperature all-year round.
What is Woke is to advocate for them regardless because that's the achingly right-on thing to do, regardless of the impact it has on real people's lives or the cost.
So we’ve done CASTLES, how about BATTLEFIELDS - memorable, haunting, cleverly explained, simply epochal - what are the world’s top ten battlefields?
Top of my head:
Thiepval Ridge and the Somme
Berlin in toto: all the war damage everywhere which you can still see, from 1945
Franklin, Tennessee: hugely evocative, blood stained floorboards your can see where the surgeon did his urgent amputations
Aaaaand as I type that, the air raid sirens go off
Somme. All day long. Looking out over that vast expanse of grassland (yes the odd poppy) and thinking: a million men died here.
Yes. This is why WW1 resonates and will resonate more and longer than WW11 in the UK.
Every village however small lost men in WW1, but not in WW11. In villages round here brief biogs of WW1 fallen are still read out in the open air on Remembrance Sunday. People still come. "He has no known grave" are the most haunting words I ever hear.
Apropos of nothing, we once lost a quiz because the question master read Apollo 11 as Apollo two. We tried to imagine what was unusual about Apollo 2 but couldn't think of anything. The 'correct' answer was the first manned moon landing.
Please, in the spirit of Anabob, WW2, not WW11 (world war eleven?)
WWII, cos Roman Numerals innit. Who needs zeroes or place value, when you have Roman Numerals that you can carve into stone.
The latest fad for the rich(er) is to have a special tap for drinking water in the kitchen (descaling, filtration), and a special boiling water tap. Sometimes these are combined (different modes on the same tap), but often separate
The idea of having a tap of scalding-hot water is absolutely bonkers. I understand why kitchen suppliers try to sell them, but I can't for the life of me see why anyone is so unaware as to buy one.
The latest fad for the rich(er) is to have a special tap for drinking water in the kitchen (descaling, filtration), and a special boiling water tap. Sometimes these are combined (different modes on the same tap), but often separate
The idea of having a tap of scalding-hot water is absolutely bonkers. I understand why kitchen suppliers try to sell them, but I can't for the life of me see why anyone is so unaware as to buy one.
They’re sold as a replacement for your kettle.
Supposedly there’s a child lock on the things, but all that meant was that last time I was in a friends house that had one of the things I couldn’t work out how to get hot water out of it. I imagine you learn the knack pretty quickly if you actually get one though.
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
I can earnestly assure you that my 88-yo father does no live in a “scandi-noir cum villa”.
He lives in a 1950s wooden bungalow. And he has a heat pump. And, shock, a mixer tap.
Get into the 21st century, FFS. I thought you worked in engineering. No wonder HS2 is fucked, if this is the level of ambition.
I didn't work on HS2, and look at posts from the other day on precisely the problems with that.
We comprehensively debated and fisked all the problems with heat pumps on here the other day.
They move heat from one place to another, they don't generate it, and are crap except for equilibrium warming to modest modal temperatures, and require very high quality insulation to do even they. Extremely cold snap or a hot bath? Forget it.
Why do you keep repeating this rubbish?
Who cares where the heat comes from so long as it ends up in the home? Generated or moved, it’s the same heat.
& they work fine if specced correctly. Builders failing to spec heating installs is (sadly) not an unusual problem in the UK, but it is a solvable one.
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
I can earnestly assure you that my 88-yo father does no live in a “scandi-noir cum villa”.
He lives in a 1950s wooden bungalow. And he has a heat pump. And, shock, a mixer tap.
Get into the 21st century, FFS. I thought you worked in engineering. No wonder HS2 is fucked, if this is the level of ambition.
I didn't work on HS2, and look at posts from the other day on precisely the problems with that.
We comprehensively debated and fisked all the problems with heat pumps on here the other day.
They move heat from one place to another, they don't generate it, and are crap except for equilibrium warming to modest modal temperatures, and require very high quality insulation to do even they. Extremely cold snap or a hot bath? Forget it.
Why do you keep repeating this rubbish?
Who cares where the heat comes from so long as it ends up in the home? Generated or moved, it’s the same heat.
& they work fine if specced correctly. Builders failing to spec heating installs is (sadly) not an unusual problem in the UK, but it is a solvable one.
So we’ve done CASTLES, how about BATTLEFIELDS - memorable, haunting, cleverly explained, simply epochal - what are the world’s top ten battlefields?
Top of my head:
Thiepval Ridge and the Somme
Berlin in toto: all the war damage everywhere which you can still see, from 1945
Franklin, Tennessee: hugely evocative, blood stained floorboards your can see where the surgeon did his urgent amputations
Aaaaand as I type that, the air raid sirens go off
Verdun.
The French didn't fuck about glossing over what happened.
Crikey 😶
Verdun is the classic example of how morale and determination can make a big difference in war. Von Falkenhayne (?) was the German general. He figured that the sentimental attachment of the French to the site was so high they would sacrifice so many men in its defense as to bleed them white and precipitate a surrender. He was right, and the French losses were hideous. But the German didn't realise how many Germans were dying in the attack, and was forced to call it off. Poetically if not literally, the French drowned the Germans in French blood.
Is this interpretation the whole story? I though I had read that Falkenhayne produced this version of his plan after the battle?
The latest fad for the rich(er) is to have a special tap for drinking water in the kitchen (descaling, filtration), and a special boiling water tap. Sometimes these are combined (different modes on the same tap), but often separate
The idea of having a tap of scalding-hot water is absolutely bonkers. I understand why kitchen suppliers try to sell them, but I can't for the life of me see why anyone is so unaware as to buy one.
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
I can earnestly assure you that my 88-yo father does no live in a “scandi-noir cum villa”.
He lives in a 1950s wooden bungalow. And he has a heat pump. And, shock, a mixer tap.
Get into the 21st century, FFS. I thought you worked in engineering. No wonder HS2 is fucked, if this is the level of ambition.
I didn't work on HS2, and look at posts from the other day on precisely the problems with that.
We comprehensively debated and fisked all the problems with heat pumps on here the other day.
They move heat from one place to another, they don't generate it, and are crap except for equilibrium warming to modest modal temperatures, and require very high quality insulation to do even they. Extremely cold snap or a hot bath? Forget it.
Do you trust your freezer to keep your food frozen at -18C in the middle of summer?
Heat pumps are used in around 50% of NZ homes (climate, not so different from the UK’s), and more so in the colder regions.
So that's a full 325 people in NZ who benefit from heat pumps. Yay.
Typical head-in-the-sand arrogance.
Using simple arrows and highlighting please let me know where the heat pumps go here:
What percentage of Britons live in 1960s brutalist towers?
Brutalist towers should be easy: single central heating and cooling system for the whole building as is the case with office blocks. Community heating, ideally with its own solar generation covering at least some of the electricity requirements.
That can be either ground source heat pump or air source or CHP hot water. Equipment on the ground / basement or roof.
The European countries where heat pumps have taken off include several with far more apartment living than the UK.
I did assume something like this.
I really can’t understand why there is so much resistance to heat pumps, when they are mainstream in growing parts of the world.
It’s like the British insistence on bad dentistry, or having a separate hot and cold tap.
It is the cost and the unsuitable nature of many of our homes, especially older ones
Furthermore it is the same as so much of the green agenda, it is being rushed rather than have a longer transition period
The UK represent just 1% of carbon emissions, and any sensible discussions on this would realise that you cannot change people's cars, their home heating systems, and many other aspect their life in just a few years
What’s 1% of carbon emissions got to do with anything. NZ represents a tiny fraction of that, and it’s mass movement to heat pumps has almost nothing to do with the “green agenda”.
Anyway, on your indexed pension you can afford it more than most, so cough up.
Why do you personalise your comments, and by the way you have no knowledge whatsoever of my pension or circumstances
It has been explained to you, not only in the Guardian article I posted, but by others and yet you want to ignore the perfectly reasonable engagement with you and hurl insults which is a sure sign you have no arguments left
But the 1 percent argument is a pretty thin one.
The UK is less than 1 percent of the world population, so on average we are creating more than our share of pollution
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
I can earnestly assure you that my 88-yo father does no live in a “scandi-noir cum villa”.
He lives in a 1950s wooden bungalow. And he has a heat pump. And, shock, a mixer tap.
Get into the 21st century, FFS. I thought you worked in engineering. No wonder HS2 is fucked, if this is the level of ambition.
I didn't work on HS2, and look at posts from the other day on precisely the problems with that.
We comprehensively debated and fisked all the problems with heat pumps on here the other day.
They move heat from one place to another, they don't generate it, and are crap except for equilibrium warming to modest modal temperatures, and require very high quality insulation to do even they. Extremely cold snap or a hot bath? Forget it.
So the problem is that Conservatives don't like to talk about redistribution?
So we’ve done CASTLES, how about BATTLEFIELDS - memorable, haunting, cleverly explained, simply epochal - what are the world’s top ten battlefields?
Top of my head:
Thiepval Ridge and the Somme
Berlin in toto: all the war damage everywhere which you can still see, from 1945
Franklin, Tennessee: hugely evocative, blood stained floorboards your can see where the surgeon did his urgent amputations
Aaaaand as I type that, the air raid sirens go off
Somme. All day long. Looking out over that vast expanse of grassland (yes the odd poppy) and thinking: a million men died here.
Yes. This is why WW1 resonates and will resonate more and longer than WW11 in the UK.
Every village however small lost men in WW1, but not in WW11. In villages round here brief biogs of WW1 fallen are still read out in the open air on Remembrance Sunday. People still come. "He has no known grave" are the most haunting words I ever hear.
Apropos of nothing, we once lost a quiz because the question master read Apollo 11 as Apollo two. We tried to imagine what was unusual about Apollo 2 but couldn't think of anything. The 'correct' answer was the first manned moon landing.
Please, in the spirit of Anabob, WW2, not WW11 (world war eleven?)
WWII, cos Roman Numerals innit. Who needs zeroes or place value, when you have Roman Numerals that you can carve into stone.
WWII yes, WW11 as posted above, not so much...
Point taken. Mea absolutely maxima culpa. Still haunting words though.
The latest fad for the rich(er) is to have a special tap for drinking water in the kitchen (descaling, filtration), and a special boiling water tap. Sometimes these are combined (different modes on the same tap), but often separate
The idea of having a tap of scalding-hot water is absolutely bonkers. I understand why kitchen suppliers try to sell them, but I can't for the life of me see why anyone is so unaware as to buy one.
Boil exactly as much water as you need, rapidly.
That is what a kettle is for. They even come with markings up the side - 1 cup, 2 cups, 3 cups, etc...
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
I can earnestly assure you that my 88-yo father does no live in a “scandi-noir cum villa”.
He lives in a 1950s wooden bungalow. And he has a heat pump. And, shock, a mixer tap.
Get into the 21st century, FFS. I thought you worked in engineering. No wonder HS2 is fucked, if this is the level of ambition.
I didn't work on HS2, and look at posts from the other day on precisely the problems with that.
We comprehensively debated and fisked all the problems with heat pumps on here the other day.
They move heat from one place to another, they don't generate it, and are crap except for equilibrium warming to modest modal temperatures, and require very high quality insulation to do even they. Extremely cold snap or a hot bath? Forget it.
I wasn’t here the other day, but if the great mixer debate is any signal, many PBers are simply uncomfortable with technology unless it was personally approved by Stafford Cripps.
I’m sure the Norwegians will be traumatised to hear that they can no longer take hot baths in a cold snap.
I suspect Norwegian homes are better insulated. Many crap older buildings in the UK won't cope with having the lower temperature outputs of heat pumps without radical insulation and/or changes to the pipes and radiators.
Different countries have different issues. When I lived in Auckland for a year I noticed how a lot of the housing stock had little insulation. But then there was little need, with a lowest winter temp of 5 deg C.
As I posted above, the heat pumps are even more highly deployed where it’s colder, ie the South Island.
So we’ve done CASTLES, how about BATTLEFIELDS - memorable, haunting, cleverly explained, simply epochal - what are the world’s top ten battlefields?
Top of my head:
Thiepval Ridge and the Somme
Berlin in toto: all the war damage everywhere which you can still see, from 1945
Franklin, Tennessee: hugely evocative, blood stained floorboards your can see where the surgeon did his urgent amputations
Aaaaand as I type that, the air raid sirens go off
Verdun.
The French didn't fuck about glossing over what happened.
Crikey 😶
Verdun is the classic example of how morale and determination can make a big difference in war. Von Falkenhayne (?) was the German general. He figured that the sentimental attachment of the French to the site was so high they would sacrifice so many men in its defense as to bleed them white and precipitate a surrender. He was right, and the French losses were hideous. But the German didn't realise how many Germans were dying in the attack, and was forced to call it off. Poetically if not literally, the French drowned the Germans in French blood.
Ditto Stalingrad
I’ve been told the statue of Mother Russia there can move grown men to sobbing tears
Given polling showing opposition to ULEZ in outer London and support for new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea, especially amongst 2019 Conservative voters, Sunak does seem to have found a clear dividing line with Labour. As Uxbridge showed it could pay off in key Tory held seats
I’m trying to think of a really evocative battlefield in the UK. I can’t. Tho I’ve never been to Batfle in Hastings
The most powerful war-site in Britain is, to my mind, the extant bomb damage in london from the blitz
If you look hard enough there’s lots of it
Battle is no great shakes, TBH, although the Abbey is worth a look if you're in the area. However, you won't find anything evocative of the battle itself - in fact, historians are unsure about exactly where it was, except that most of them agree that it wasn't at Battle.
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
I can earnestly assure you that my 88-yo father does no live in a “scandi-noir cum villa”.
He lives in a 1950s wooden bungalow. And he has a heat pump. And, shock, a mixer tap.
Get into the 21st century, FFS. I thought you worked in engineering. No wonder HS2 is fucked, if this is the level of ambition.
I didn't work on HS2, and look at posts from the other day on precisely the problems with that.
We comprehensively debated and fisked all the problems with heat pumps on here the other day.
They move heat from one place to another, they don't generate it, and are crap except for equilibrium warming to modest modal temperatures, and require very high quality insulation to do even they. Extremely cold snap or a hot bath? Forget it.
Do you trust your freezer to keep your food frozen at -18C in the middle of summer?
Casino employs a man who brings ice from the Alps to Basingstoke.
Does Hiroshima count? I was (the equivalent of) interrailing through Japan and we arrived, on August 6th, at Hiroshima. The famous dome is still there and anyone who has been to the gallery of pictures painted by children - here is a picture of mummy with her skin hanging off - will remember it very well.
That evening there was a lantern procession on the river and as we were walking around (and especially in the museums, where they reproduce headlines from western papers essentially saying "Gotcha") it was all a bit weird.
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
I can earnestly assure you that my 88-yo father does no live in a “scandi-noir cum villa”.
He lives in a 1950s wooden bungalow. And he has a heat pump. And, shock, a mixer tap.
Get into the 21st century, FFS. I thought you worked in engineering. No wonder HS2 is fucked, if this is the level of ambition.
I didn't work on HS2, and look at posts from the other day on precisely the problems with that.
We comprehensively debated and fisked all the problems with heat pumps on here the other day.
They move heat from one place to another, they don't generate it, and are crap except for equilibrium warming to modest modal temperatures, and require very high quality insulation to do even they. Extremely cold snap or a hot bath? Forget it.
Why do you keep repeating this rubbish?
Who cares where the heat comes from so long as it ends up in the home? Generated or moved, it’s the same heat.
& they work fine if specced correctly. Builders failing to spec heating installs is (sadly) not an unusual problem in the UK, but it is a solvable one.
Scientific fact is rubbish? Interesting that's the depth of your intellect.
Heat pumps move heat from outside the home to inside the home. Because they move it and don't generate it the heat is naturally limiting. In other words, there's a limit to how much kJ of energy it can pump, given the ambient air temperature, and the lower the outside temperature the lower that will be. Further, it will tend to "leach" out again unless the heat insulation is very good. That's air to air. If you do air to water then you might get some heat into the radiators but not a lot and converting it into hot water - for a decent bath - is also going to be very disappointing unless you immersion heat it with electricity on top.
These are all facts. Seemingly, beyond your comprehension.
So we’ve done CASTLES, how about BATTLEFIELDS - memorable, haunting, cleverly explained, simply epochal - what are the world’s top ten battlefields?
Top of my head:
Thiepval Ridge and the Somme
Berlin in toto: all the war damage everywhere which you can still see, from 1945
Franklin, Tennessee: hugely evocative, blood stained floorboards your can see where the surgeon did his urgent amputations
Aaaaand as I type that, the air raid sirens go off
Verdun.
The French didn't fuck about glossing over what happened.
Crikey 😶
In one of those quirky ripples of history (like an imprisoned Gavrilo Princip dying in Terezin which became the Theresienstadt ghetto in WWII), the designer of the ossuary also designed the Maginot Line.
So we’ve done CASTLES, how about BATTLEFIELDS - memorable, haunting, cleverly explained, simply epochal - what are the world’s top ten battlefields?
Top of my head:
Thiepval Ridge and the Somme
Berlin in toto: all the war damage everywhere which you can still see, from 1945
Franklin, Tennessee: hugely evocative, blood stained floorboards your can see where the surgeon did his urgent amputations
Aaaaand as I type that, the air raid sirens go off
Berlin sprung to mind immediately. But also the Normandy beaches.
I’ve never done the Normandy beaches. I should
I’m trying to think of a really evocative battlefield in the UK. I can’t. Tho I’ve never been to Batfle in Hastings
The most powerful war-site in Britain is, to my mind, the extant bomb damage in london from the blitz
If you look hard enough there’s lots of it
A picture of my home city after the bomb sites had been cleared… when my mother is a bit cranky, I remember that she lived through this when she was six… she recalls going to school in the morning and finding another empty desk in the classroom…
What city is that, please?
To my mind Plymouth & Devonport (including especially the dockyard), and Portsmouth, show the bomb damage a lot more than London where it is spread out. Or they used to. Perhaps more recent urban building has changed that. Exeter too (as Leon remarked as well the other day).
But it can still surprise. Mum's cousin lived in an Orpington cul de sac. I had been there many timwes and it was only when clearing up after her demise that I suddenly realised the implications of the pattern of original roofs ... new flat roofs ... and a different house in the street. And somehwerre in SE London or Kent there is at least one neat round pond left by a V-2, and a wood where scraps of a V-1 still lie.
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
I can earnestly assure you that my 88-yo father does no live in a “scandi-noir cum villa”.
He lives in a 1950s wooden bungalow. And he has a heat pump. And, shock, a mixer tap.
Get into the 21st century, FFS. I thought you worked in engineering. No wonder HS2 is fucked, if this is the level of ambition.
I didn't work on HS2, and look at posts from the other day on precisely the problems with that.
We comprehensively debated and fisked all the problems with heat pumps on here the other day.
They move heat from one place to another, they don't generate it, and are crap except for equilibrium warming to modest modal temperatures, and require very high quality insulation to do even they. Extremely cold snap or a hot bath? Forget it.
I wasn’t here the other day, but if the great mixer debate is any signal, many PBers are simply uncomfortable with technology unless it was personally approved by Stafford Cripps.
I’m sure the Norwegians will be traumatised to hear that they can no longer take hot baths in a cold snap.
I suspect Norwegian homes are better insulated. Many crap older buildings in the UK won't cope with having the lower temperature outputs of heat pumps without radical insulation and/or changes to the pipes and radiators.
Different countries have different issues. When I lived in Auckland for a year I noticed how a lot of the housing stock had little insulation. But then there was little need, with a lowest winter temp of 5 deg C.
As I posted above, the heat pumps are even more highly deployed where it’s colder, ie the South Island.
Because that's where their greater efficiency will produce the greatest cost saving.
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
I can earnestly assure you that my 88-yo father does no live in a “scandi-noir cum villa”.
He lives in a 1950s wooden bungalow. And he has a heat pump. And, shock, a mixer tap.
Get into the 21st century, FFS. I thought you worked in engineering. No wonder HS2 is fucked, if this is the level of ambition.
I didn't work on HS2, and look at posts from the other day on precisely the problems with that.
We comprehensively debated and fisked all the problems with heat pumps on here the other day.
They move heat from one place to another, they don't generate it, and are crap except for equilibrium warming to modest modal temperatures, and require very high quality insulation to do even they. Extremely cold snap or a hot bath? Forget it.
Why do you keep repeating this rubbish?
Who cares where the heat comes from so long as it ends up in the home? Generated or moved, it’s the same heat.
& they work fine if specced correctly. Builders failing to spec heating installs is (sadly) not an unusual problem in the UK, but it is a solvable one.
Heat Pumps Are Woke.
They sort of are in the sense they are being pushed because of "The Vibe", and the tribe people sense as being behind them, rather than the facts dispassionate and agnostic of who's advocating for them.
The latest fad for the rich(er) is to have a special tap for drinking water in the kitchen (descaling, filtration), and a special boiling water tap. Sometimes these are combined (different modes on the same tap), but often separate
The idea of having a tap of scalding-hot water is absolutely bonkers. I understand why kitchen suppliers try to sell them, but I can't for the life of me see why anyone is so unaware as to buy one.
Given polling showing opposition to ULEZ in outer London and support for new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea, especially amongst 2019 Conservative voters, Sunak does seem to have found a clear dividing line with Labour. As Uxbridge showed it could pay off in key Tory held seats
I could see Sunak running a Labour Green Tax Bombshell campaign. Cynical as hell but I am not surprised by anything the Tories do anymore.
So we’ve done CASTLES, how about BATTLEFIELDS - memorable, haunting, cleverly explained, simply epochal - what are the world’s top ten battlefields?
The subject of this morning's phone in is, what's the best THING?
Be honest. Are you enjoying the heat pump/ULEZ debates?
It’s marginally more interesting than your reading through of an atlas.
"Best walled garden"
Nice one
1. Glendurgan, Cornwall 2. The garden of the Villa Medici, Rome 3. Chateau de Villandry, the Loire Valley 4. The zen garden of the Temple of the Silver Pavilion, Kyoto, Japan 5. Gethsemane, Jerusalem
The latest fad for the rich(er) is to have a special tap for drinking water in the kitchen (descaling, filtration), and a special boiling water tap. Sometimes these are combined (different modes on the same tap), but often separate
The idea of having a tap of scalding-hot water is absolutely bonkers. I understand why kitchen suppliers try to sell them, but I can't for the life of me see why anyone is so unaware as to buy one.
The latest fad for the rich(er) is to have a special tap for drinking water in the kitchen (descaling, filtration), and a special boiling water tap. Sometimes these are combined (different modes on the same tap), but often separate
The idea of having a tap of scalding-hot water is absolutely bonkers. I understand why kitchen suppliers try to sell them, but I can't for the life of me see why anyone is so unaware as to buy one.
We have them at work, makes a good bit of sense there - otherwise you're into constantly messing with kettles or one of those on-the-wall boilers, which is the same thing really. Wouldn't have one at home with the kids though, too accessible.
Anyway, when I'm making a hot drink at home it's a chance to take a few minutes, see the kids, chat with my wife etc and/or do some other little jobs. Time taken to boil a kettle is not wasted.
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
I can earnestly assure you that my 88-yo father does no live in a “scandi-noir cum villa”.
He lives in a 1950s wooden bungalow. And he has a heat pump. And, shock, a mixer tap.
Get into the 21st century, FFS. I thought you worked in engineering. No wonder HS2 is fucked, if this is the level of ambition.
I didn't work on HS2, and look at posts from the other day on precisely the problems with that.
We comprehensively debated and fisked all the problems with heat pumps on here the other day.
They move heat from one place to another, they don't generate it, and are crap except for equilibrium warming to modest modal temperatures, and require very high quality insulation to do even they. Extremely cold snap or a hot bath? Forget it.
Do you trust your freezer to keep your food frozen at -18C in the middle of summer?
A freezer is taking the heat out of a very small and highly self-contained system, not opening the window and trying to shag the night to heat a whole house in the middle of Winter.
So we’ve done CASTLES, how about BATTLEFIELDS - memorable, haunting, cleverly explained, simply epochal - what are the world’s top ten battlefields?
Top of my head:
Thiepval Ridge and the Somme
Berlin in toto: all the war damage everywhere which you can still see, from 1945
Franklin, Tennessee: hugely evocative, blood stained floorboards your can see where the surgeon did his urgent amputations
Aaaaand as I type that, the air raid sirens go off
Berlin sprung to mind immediately. But also the Normandy beaches.
Surely it has to be turning points? In which case, the battle of Kursk/ Prokhorovka ? Battle of Hastings (wherever that site is). Trafalgar or Borodino? Lake Poyang? Battle of Saratoga?
Gibbon on the battle of Poitiers, 733. Overegged and overquoted but fun:
Had the Muslims won at Poitiers, the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet.
So we’ve done CASTLES, how about BATTLEFIELDS - memorable, haunting, cleverly explained, simply epochal - what are the world’s top ten battlefields?
Top of my head:
Thiepval Ridge and the Somme
Berlin in toto: all the war damage everywhere which you can still see, from 1945
Franklin, Tennessee: hugely evocative, blood stained floorboards your can see where the surgeon did his urgent amputations
Aaaaand as I type that, the air raid sirens go off
Verdun.
The French didn't fuck about glossing over what happened.
Crikey 😶
Verdun is the classic example of how morale and determination can make a big difference in war. Von Falkenhayne (?) was the German general. He figured that the sentimental attachment of the French to the site was so high they would sacrifice so many men in its defense as to bleed them white and precipitate a surrender. He was right, and the French losses were hideous. But the German didn't realise how many Germans were dying in the attack, and was forced to call it off. Poetically if not literally, the French drowned the Germans in French blood.
Is this interpretation the whole story? I though I had read that Falkenhayne produced this version of his plan after the battle?
May well be. I've only read those chapters that cover it, albeit from different books. It's a very useful anecdote - too good to check (see also beer and diapers) - but it may very well be the product of one sides worldview (see also the "clean Wehrmacht" view pre-90s).
The latest fad for the rich(er) is to have a special tap for drinking water in the kitchen (descaling, filtration), and a special boiling water tap. Sometimes these are combined (different modes on the same tap), but often separate
The idea of having a tap of scalding-hot water is absolutely bonkers. I understand why kitchen suppliers try to sell them, but I can't for the life of me see why anyone is so unaware as to buy one.
Boil exactly as much water as you need, rapidly.
That is what a kettle is for. They even come with markings up the side - 1 cup, 2 cups, 3 cups, etc...
Once you are used them, boiling taps are quicker and easier. No filling kettle etc. just press the button until you have the amount of boiling water you need.
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
I can earnestly assure you that my 88-yo father does no live in a “scandi-noir cum villa”.
He lives in a 1950s wooden bungalow. And he has a heat pump. And, shock, a mixer tap.
Get into the 21st century, FFS. I thought you worked in engineering. No wonder HS2 is fucked, if this is the level of ambition.
I didn't work on HS2, and look at posts from the other day on precisely the problems with that.
We comprehensively debated and fisked all the problems with heat pumps on here the other day.
They move heat from one place to another, they don't generate it, and are crap except for equilibrium warming to modest modal temperatures, and require very high quality insulation to do even they. Extremely cold snap or a hot bath? Forget it.
I wasn’t here the other day, but if the great mixer debate is any signal, many PBers are simply uncomfortable with technology unless it was personally approved by Stafford Cripps.
I’m sure the Norwegians will be traumatised to hear that they can no longer take hot baths in a cold snap.
Show me the evidence Norwegians are enjoying nice-hot baths in the depths of Winter using just heat pumps please.
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
I can earnestly assure you that my 88-yo father does no live in a “scandi-noir cum villa”.
He lives in a 1950s wooden bungalow. And he has a heat pump. And, shock, a mixer tap.
Get into the 21st century, FFS. I thought you worked in engineering. No wonder HS2 is fucked, if this is the level of ambition.
I didn't work on HS2, and look at posts from the other day on precisely the problems with that.
We comprehensively debated and fisked all the problems with heat pumps on here the other day.
They move heat from one place to another, they don't generate it, and are crap except for equilibrium warming to modest modal temperatures, and require very high quality insulation to do even they. Extremely cold snap or a hot bath? Forget it.
Why do you keep repeating this rubbish?
Who cares where the heat comes from so long as it ends up in the home? Generated or moved, it’s the same heat.
& they work fine if specced correctly. Builders failing to spec heating installs is (sadly) not an unusual problem in the UK, but it is a solvable one.
Scientific fact is rubbish? Interesting that's the depth of your intellect.
Heat pumps move heat from outside the home to inside the home. Because they move it and don't generate it the heat is naturally limiting. In other words, there's a limit to how much kJ of energy it can pump, given the ambient air temperature, and the lower the outside temperature the lower that will be. Further, it will tend to "leach" out again unless the heat insulation is very good. That's air to air. If you do air to water then you might get some heat into the radiators but not a lot and converting it into hot water - for a decent bath - is also going to be very disappointing unless you immersion heat it with electricity on top.
These are all facts. Seemingly, beyond your comprehension.
Do you not trust fridges, freezers and air conditioning units then to do their job either then? if not why not?
It is. What idiot does a categorical bar chart and only labels half the bars?
ETA: Hang on, what happened there - it's changed now! ETA2: This is what I saw:
ETA3: One of those odd graphs where the per 100k people is not the right choice as prevalence is now high enough to express it in %. Maybe started some time ago when it was <1000/100k?
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
I can earnestly assure you that my 88-yo father does no live in a “scandi-noir cum villa”.
He lives in a 1950s wooden bungalow. And he has a heat pump. And, shock, a mixer tap.
Get into the 21st century, FFS. I thought you worked in engineering. No wonder HS2 is fucked, if this is the level of ambition.
I didn't work on HS2, and look at posts from the other day on precisely the problems with that.
We comprehensively debated and fisked all the problems with heat pumps on here the other day.
They move heat from one place to another, they don't generate it, and are crap except for equilibrium warming to modest modal temperatures, and require very high quality insulation to do even they. Extremely cold snap or a hot bath? Forget it.
I wasn’t here the other day, but if the great mixer debate is any signal, many PBers are simply uncomfortable with technology unless it was personally approved by Stafford Cripps.
I’m sure the Norwegians will be traumatised to hear that they can no longer take hot baths in a cold snap.
Show me the evidence Norwegians are enjoying nice-hot baths in the depths of Winter using just heat pumps please.
3 heat pumps per 10 Norwegians strongly suggsts that they are saving a lot of other energy even if they need a little leccy to top it up to have a bath hot enough to boil your particular bits to your satisfaction.
Given polling showing opposition to ULEZ in outer London and support for new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea, especially amongst 2019 Conservative voters, Sunak does seem to have found a clear dividing line with Labour. As Uxbridge showed it could pay off in key Tory held seats
I could see Sunak running a Labour Green Tax Bombshell campaign. Cynical as hell but I am not surprised by anything the Tories do anymore.
and yet I nore Sir Tony of Basra is running a couple of outrider green issues to help SKS reverse his position asap.
I’m trying to think of a really evocative battlefield in the UK. I can’t. Tho I’ve never been to Batfle in Hastings
The most powerful war-site in Britain is, to my mind, the extant bomb damage in london from the blitz
If you look hard enough there’s lots of it
Battle is no great shakes, TBH, although the Abbey is worth a look if you're in the area. However, you won't find anything evocative of the battle itself - in fact, historians are unsure about exactly where it was, except that most of them agree that it wasn't at Battle.
So we’ve done CASTLES, how about BATTLEFIELDS - memorable, haunting, cleverly explained, simply epochal - what are the world’s top ten battlefields?
Top of my head:
Thiepval Ridge and the Somme
Berlin in toto: all the war damage everywhere which you can still see, from 1945
Franklin, Tennessee: hugely evocative, blood stained floorboards your can see where the surgeon did his urgent amputations
Aaaaand as I type that, the air raid sirens go off
Berlin sprung to mind immediately. But also the Normandy beaches.
I’ve never done the Normandy beaches. I should
I’m trying to think of a really evocative battlefield in the UK. I can’t. Tho I’ve never been to Batfle in Hastings
The most powerful war-site in Britain is, to my mind, the extant bomb damage in london from the blitz
If you look hard enough there’s lots of it
A picture of my home city after the bomb sites had been cleared… when my mother is a bit cranky, I remember that she lived through this when she was six… she recalls going to school in the morning and finding another empty desk in the classroom…
What city is that, please?
To my mind Plymouth & Devonport (including especially the dockyard), and Portsmouth, show the bomb damage a lot more than London where it is spread out. Or they used to. Perhaps more recent urban building has changed that. Exeter too (as Leon remarked as well the other day).
But it can still surprise. Mum's cousin lived in an Orpington cul de sac. I had been there many timwes and it was only when clearing up after her demise that I suddenly realised the implications of the pattern of original roofs ... new flat roofs ... and a different house in the street. And somehwerre in SE London or Kent there is at least one neat round pond left by a V-2, and a wood where scraps of a V-1 still lie.
There is obvious war damage on the back of the British museum. On the BBC at Portland Place. On UCH and UCL. You just need to get an eye for it - the spray of pock marks from the shrapnel, the odd patched squares of wrongly coloured stone where someone has tried to fill it in
It’s quite evocative when you recognise it. Suddenly you can hear the bombs and the screams
The UK's market for heat pumps grew by about 40% in 2022, but from a very low base, with only 1.9 heat pumps installed for every 1,000 households last year, compared with 20 for every 1,000 households in France, and nearly 70 in Finland.
But, they’re living awful squalid lives, with their mixer taps and cold baths.
The latest fad for the rich(er) is to have a special tap for drinking water in the kitchen (descaling, filtration), and a special boiling water tap. Sometimes these are combined (different modes on the same tap), but often separate
The idea of having a tap of scalding-hot water is absolutely bonkers. I understand why kitchen suppliers try to sell them, but I can't for the life of me see why anyone is so unaware as to buy one.
Boil exactly as much water as you need, rapidly.
That is what a kettle is for. They even come with markings up the side - 1 cup, 2 cups, 3 cups, etc...
Once you are used them, boiling taps are quicker and easier. No filling kettle etc. just press the button until you have the amount of boiling water you need.
No. It;'s a fad surely. The answer: drinking water: living in most of Northern England/Scotland solves it usually. Boiling water: kettle. When broken buy a new one.
The latest fad for the rich(er) is to have a special tap for drinking water in the kitchen (descaling, filtration), and a special boiling water tap. Sometimes these are combined (different modes on the same tap), but often separate
The idea of having a tap of scalding-hot water is absolutely bonkers. I understand why kitchen suppliers try to sell them, but I can't for the life of me see why anyone is so unaware as to buy one.
Boil exactly as much water as you need, rapidly.
That is what a kettle is for. They even come with markings up the side - 1 cup, 2 cups, 3 cups, etc...
Once you are used them, boiling taps are quicker and easier. No filling kettle etc. just press the button until you have the amount of boiling water you need.
No. It;'s a fad surely. The answer: drinking water: living in most of Northern England/Scotland solves it usually. Boiling water: kettle. When broken buy a new one.
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
I can earnestly assure you that my 88-yo father does no live in a “scandi-noir cum villa”.
He lives in a 1950s wooden bungalow. And he has a heat pump. And, shock, a mixer tap.
Get into the 21st century, FFS. I thought you worked in engineering. No wonder HS2 is fucked, if this is the level of ambition.
I didn't work on HS2, and look at posts from the other day on precisely the problems with that.
We comprehensively debated and fisked all the problems with heat pumps on here the other day.
They move heat from one place to another, they don't generate it, and are crap except for equilibrium warming to modest modal temperatures, and require very high quality insulation to do even they. Extremely cold snap or a hot bath? Forget it.
Why do you keep repeating this rubbish?
Who cares where the heat comes from so long as it ends up in the home? Generated or moved, it’s the same heat.
& they work fine if specced correctly. Builders failing to spec heating installs is (sadly) not an unusual problem in the UK, but it is a solvable one.
Scientific fact is rubbish? Interesting that's the depth of your intellect.
Heat pumps move heat from outside the home to inside the home. Because they move it and don't generate it the heat is naturally limiting. In other words, there's a limit to how much kJ of energy it can pump, given the ambient air temperature, and the lower the outside temperature the lower that will be. Further, it will tend to "leach" out again unless the heat insulation is very good. That's air to air. If you do air to water then you might get some heat into the radiators but not a lot and converting it into hot water - for a decent bath - is also going to be very disappointing unless you immersion heat it with electricity on top.
These are all facts. Seemingly, beyond your comprehension.
Are you trolling deliberately? Because at this point this the only reasonable conclusion one can reach.
All heat leaches out of homes. It’s what happens to heat! It moves from a hot place to an adjacent cold place. It doesn’t matter what your heat source is: The only question is whether you can inject enough heat into the system to balance losses at your desired temperature (plus a bit extra so you can heat the pace up a bit more quickly from cold if necessary).
Heat pumps have their advantages & disadvantages but this knee jerk “they’ll never work in good old Blighty” attitude is just ridiculous reactionary nonsense. It’s like some kind of inverse wokeness - whatever the “woke” like must be bad, regardless of reality.
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
I can earnestly assure you that my 88-yo father does no live in a “scandi-noir cum villa”.
He lives in a 1950s wooden bungalow. And he has a heat pump. And, shock, a mixer tap.
Get into the 21st century, FFS. I thought you worked in engineering. No wonder HS2 is fucked, if this is the level of ambition.
I didn't work on HS2, and look at posts from the other day on precisely the problems with that.
We comprehensively debated and fisked all the problems with heat pumps on here the other day.
They move heat from one place to another, they don't generate it, and are crap except for equilibrium warming to modest modal temperatures, and require very high quality insulation to do even they. Extremely cold snap or a hot bath? Forget it.
I wasn’t here the other day, but if the great mixer debate is any signal, many PBers are simply uncomfortable with technology unless it was personally approved by Stafford Cripps.
I’m sure the Norwegians will be traumatised to hear that they can no longer take hot baths in a cold snap.
It is ok @Gardenwalker you don't have to lose faith in the pb crowd. We didn't conclude what Casino says we concluded at all. Only Casino did. And yes we spent ages on how heat pumps work well in cold climates together with maps of where they are used extensively including Norway and Sweden and that you can have a hot bath via a heat pump. Casino will only agree with that once he has had a hot bath at a neighbours house, which presumably hasn't happened yet.
I think Uxbridge was the catalyst that sparked a whole new narrative not only about the ULEZ scheme but the rush to green policies that many cannot afford and especially with the cost of living crisis
Evs are not affordable for millions, heat pumps are not only unaffordable but in many cases not practical, requiring properties to have a 'c' efficiency rating to be sold is also unaffordable for many, and our 2030 ban on ICE cars is silly when the EU is 2035
I have no idea whether Sunak will benefit from his obvious move to differentiate from Labour, but there are 35 million motorists in the UK who are an important group politicially and indeed the Sun is taking up their cause judging by today's front page
Another one with “heat pump denialism”.
Silly comment just as is saying NZ is used in 50% homes in NZ ( actual figure is 40%) when properties in NZ are very different to the UK
This from the Guardian confirms the high cost and uncertainties chills the heat pump market
Can someone explain why electric boilers can't work instead of heat pumps? Much less disruptive in UK homes where space is very limited.
Electric boilers are only ~98% efficient but heat pumps are 200% - 400% efficient as they are using energy to transfer heat from the external environment into the house rather generating heat directly.
We comprehensively concluded on here yesterday that heat pumps are shit unless you have a Grand Designs Scandi-noir cum Roman villa home, which funnily enough most people don't.
I can earnestly assure you that my 88-yo father does no live in a “scandi-noir cum villa”.
He lives in a 1950s wooden bungalow. And he has a heat pump. And, shock, a mixer tap.
Get into the 21st century, FFS. I thought you worked in engineering. No wonder HS2 is fucked, if this is the level of ambition.
I didn't work on HS2, and look at posts from the other day on precisely the problems with that.
We comprehensively debated and fisked all the problems with heat pumps on here the other day.
They move heat from one place to another, they don't generate it, and are crap except for equilibrium warming to modest modal temperatures, and require very high quality insulation to do even they. Extremely cold snap or a hot bath? Forget it.
Why do you keep repeating this rubbish?
Who cares where the heat comes from so long as it ends up in the home? Generated or moved, it’s the same heat.
& they work fine if specced correctly. Builders failing to spec heating installs is (sadly) not an unusual problem in the UK, but it is a solvable one.
Scientific fact is rubbish? Interesting that's the depth of your intellect.
Heat pumps move heat from outside the home to inside the home. Because they move it and don't generate it the heat is naturally limiting. In other words, there's a limit to how much kJ of energy it can pump, given the ambient air temperature, and the lower the outside temperature the lower that will be. Further, it will tend to "leach" out again unless the heat insulation is very good. That's air to air. If you do air to water then you might get some heat into the radiators but not a lot and converting it into hot water - for a decent bath - is also going to be very disappointing unless you immersion heat it with electricity on top.
These are all facts. Seemingly, beyond your comprehension.
Are you trolling deliberately? Because at this point this the only reasonable conclusion one can reach.
All heat leaches out of homes. It’s what happens to heat! It moves from a hot place to an adjacent cold place. It doesn’t matter what your heat source is: The only question is whether you can inject enough heat into the system to balance losses at your desired temperature (plus a bit extra so you can heat the pace up a bit more quickly from cold if necessary).
Heat pumps have their advantages & disadvantages but this knee jerk “they’ll never work in good old Blighty” attitude is just ridiculous reactionary nonsense. It’s like some kind of inverse wokeness - whatever the “woke” like must be bad, regardless of reality.
Comments
Syracuse is interesting. Hadn’t thought of naval/classical battles
Has anyone been to Thermopylae?
Culloden is oddly banal
Whioch is why I believe Sweden is installing bore hole ground source pumps....
On castles, Fort George is fairly spectacular.
The French didn't fuck about glossing over what happened.
Please, in the spirit of Anabob, WW2, not WW11 (world war eleven?)
Gives you a sense of the intensity
It’s odd because Americans are usually quite bad at preserving stuff. Like entire downtowns
But battlefields 👍
However much you dismantle their arguments, they'll find something else. Seems particularly the case for green stuff.
Seriously, air source heat pumps have moved on in the last few years.
Perhaps Sunak does not really care? He has been PM long enough to ensure that he will benefit from all the perks and only needs to ensure that he does not look a total idiot a la Truss to ensure plenty of turns on the ex-leader speaking circuit.
In fact it would be better for him to lose the election, free himself of the loons and blame the loss on the unleadable uber-nutjobs. He could stand down with his reputation as intact as possible and let the circus commence...
We comprehensively debated and fisked all the problems with heat pumps on here the other day.
They move heat from one place to another, they don't generate it, and are crap except for equilibrium warming to modest modal temperatures, and require very high quality insulation to do even they. Extremely cold snap or a hot bath? Forget it.
Often they fought while clinging to the sides of frozen mountains
My maternal gran's lost around 5 brothers in WW2, from around 13 siblings. Big families back then too.
I’m sure the Norwegians will be traumatised to hear that they can no longer take hot baths in a cold snap.
Not sure the residents of London would have thanked us for telling them that at the time though!
I couldn't care less if it works in other countries like NZ or Norway.
I care if it works for us here and meets our expectations.
Who cares where the heat comes from so long as it ends up in the home? Generated or moved, it’s the same heat.
& they work fine if specced correctly. Builders failing to spec heating installs is (sadly) not an unusual problem in the UK, but it is a solvable one.
ETA: Some of the old airfields are quite haunting, round these parts (N Yorks - there are a lot, some with bits of the old munitions stores etc/runways remaining)
Different countries have different issues. When I lived in Auckland for a year I noticed how a lot of the housing stock had little insulation. But then there was little need, with a lowest winter temp of 5 deg C.
Those who use heat pumps confirmed the woeful output temperature and a very high level of insulation to get them to work properly, which then delivers a modest ambient temperature all-year round.
What is Woke is to advocate for them regardless because that's the achingly right-on thing to do, regardless of the impact it has on real people's lives or the cost.
Supposedly there’s a child lock on the things, but all that meant was that last time I was in a friends house that had one of the things I couldn’t work out how to get hot water out of it. I imagine you learn the knack pretty quickly if you actually get one though.
Also PB is really good on military history. Unsurprising given our demographic but still: we are very good at it
The UK is less than 1 percent of the world population, so on average we are creating more than our share of pollution So the problem is that Conservatives don't like to talk about redistribution?
I’ve been told the statue of Mother Russia there can move grown men to sobbing tears
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-66371569
That evening there was a lantern procession on the river and as we were walking around (and especially in the museums, where they reproduce headlines from western papers essentially saying "Gotcha") it was all a bit weird.
Heat pumps move heat from outside the home to inside the home. Because they move it and don't generate it the heat is naturally limiting. In other words, there's a limit to how much kJ of energy it can pump, given the ambient air temperature, and the lower the outside temperature the lower that will be. Further, it will tend to "leach" out again unless the heat insulation is very good. That's air to air. If you do air to water then you might get some heat into the radiators but not a lot and converting it into hot water - for a decent bath - is also going to be very disappointing unless you immersion heat it with electricity on top.
These are all facts. Seemingly, beyond your comprehension.
To my mind Plymouth & Devonport (including especially the dockyard), and Portsmouth, show the bomb damage a lot more than London where it is spread out. Or they used to. Perhaps more recent urban building has changed that. Exeter too (as Leon remarked as well the other day).
But it can still surprise. Mum's cousin lived in an Orpington cul de sac. I had been there many timwes and it was only when clearing up after her demise that I suddenly realised the implications of the pattern of original roofs ... new flat roofs ... and a different house in the street. And somehwerre in SE London or Kent there is at least one neat round pond left by a V-2, and a wood where scraps of a V-1 still lie.
1. Glendurgan, Cornwall
2. The garden of the Villa Medici, Rome
3. Chateau de Villandry, the Loire Valley
4. The zen garden of the Temple of the Silver Pavilion, Kyoto, Japan
5. Gethsemane, Jerusalem
Off the top of my head
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66370646
Anyway, when I'm making a hot drink at home it's a chance to take a few minutes, see the kids, chat with my wife etc and/or do some other little jobs. Time taken to boil a kettle is not wasted.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/133958081#/media?channel=RES_BUY&id=media1&ref=photoCollage
Up for £8M
And it takes a decent amount of energy to do it.
Had the Muslims won at Poitiers, the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet.
ETA: Hang on, what happened there - it's changed now!
ETA2: This is what I saw:
ETA3: One of those odd graphs where the per 100k people is not the right choice as prevalence is now high enough to express it in %. Maybe started some time ago when it was <1000/100k?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/07/27/spare-public-huge-burden-of-net-zero-says-tony-blair/
https://www.agcc.co.uk/news-article/blair-says-uks-net-zero-efforts-cannot-solve-global-warming-alone
added to Starmers filleting of Khan Labours green commitments are hardly solid
It’s quite evocative when you recognise it. Suddenly you can hear the bombs and the screams
But, they’re living awful squalid lives, with their mixer taps and cold baths.
Someone needs to send CR over to tell them that their heat pumps aren't working.
All heat leaches out of homes. It’s what happens to heat! It moves from a hot place to an adjacent cold place. It doesn’t matter what your heat source is: The only question is whether you can inject enough heat into the system to balance losses at your desired temperature (plus a bit extra so you can heat the pace up a bit more quickly from cold if necessary).
Heat pumps have their advantages & disadvantages but this knee jerk “they’ll never work in good old Blighty” attitude is just ridiculous reactionary nonsense. It’s like some kind of inverse wokeness - whatever the “woke” like must be bad, regardless of reality.
And they’d be down there fighting for weeks