Technology & Trends - Boilers

“Decarbonising home heating represents one of the biggest challenges to the government achieving net zero,” was a conclusion of the recent National Audit Office report ‘Decarbonising home heating’. The facts, the report states clearly in the opening are: 18% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2021 were from home heating and 55,000 heat pumps were sold in the UK in 2022. decarbonizing home heating Crucial to decarbonizing home heating is the government&rsquo...

College was never the only path to success. There are many other nontraditional avenues to success, and I had the privilege of blindly venturing down one myself. My path included a short stint in college, then trade school, an apprenticeship, a role building a training program, a managerial role running a branch, and ultimately a leadership role running a large region of companies. I started my career as a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning technician, and I didn’t think I’...

With each passing year, more and more individuals are becoming conscious of the importance of sustainability. As a result, there has been a boom in the electric vehicle (EVs) market. According to the International Energy Agency, the sales of EVs doubled in 2021 with nearly 10% of global car sales being electric. Two million electric vehicles were sold in the first quarter of 2022 alone. It was estimated that 13% of new cars sold in 2022 would be electric. Gas-Powered vehicle For those who cho...

A preventive maintenance program could save 12-18% over reactive maintenance, as the U.S. Department of Energy predicted in 2010. For many businesses, the savings could be higher, considering the risks of downtime and today’s economic conditions pushing up costs across the supply chain. It’s also possible for a program to miss the mark. By one measure, 50% of the costs of a preventive maintenance program are often wasted. The question is, how do you know if your maintenance program...

‘Energy storage holds the key to providing clean energy for heating and powering the home and reducing carbon emissions’ Carlton Cummins, CTO and Co-Founder of clean technology company Aceleron explain how this will work. As we transition away from natural gas and other fossil fuels, there is no question that we absolutely have to make better use of renewable energy. Using a battery energy storage system (BESS) combined with renewable technology such as solar means that it can be st...

Net-zero is high up on the agenda. And to achieve the UK’s carbon-neutral pledge by 2050 the country’s building stock must be decarbonized. Embodied carbon When we talk about decarbonizing buildings, there are two distinct categories of emissions that come into play. The first is embodied carbon. Here, the embodied carbon of a building includes emissions deriving from the construction materials, the building process, and the fixtures and fittings inside. It also covers emissions f...

Seasonal transitions are the perfect time to take inventory and inspect a building’s various systems. We’ve been reminded for years that when we set our clocks back, we should also replace the batteries in our smoke detectors. The same thought process can be applied in support of seasonal preventative maintenance for a building’s HVAC system. Now that the cooling season has passed for a large part of the country, it is time to ensure that HVAC systems have been shut down prope...

With the UK committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, drastic action is needed by the government. For new-build homes, there’s a gas boiler ban coming in less than five years’ time. And for older properties, it’s likely that gas prices will continue to rise, to encourage homeowners to switch to a more sustainable alternative. Renewable heating market With this in mind, the renewable heating market is growing rapidly, albeit from a very small base &ndash...

The energy transition is upon us and we are shifting today’s energy use to low and zero carbon sources. The way in which we heat and provide hot water to our homes and businesses will change, and we are developing technologies that will support this transition. A bold and pragmatic policy framework will encourage investment and drive change. BEIS Hydrogen Strategy We, therefore, welcome the publication of the Hydrogen Strategy from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Str...

In 2019, the UK became the first major economy in the world to pass laws to end its contribution to global warming by 2050 - a landmark moment on the road to net zero. To meet that target, owners and managers of commercial buildings are increasingly facing more standards, regulations, and legislation to promote carbon reduction. This may pose challenges when it comes to investing in building service technologies, but the net-zero goal also provides an opportunity to embrace new approaches to th...

In the coming decades, the government plans to phase out gas and oil boilers and replace them with renewable heating systems. To make this possible, to give us a shot of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, more people need to train as renewable heating installers. But when you were a teenager, if old people like Boris Johnson or George Eustice had told you that you ‘should’ choose a certain career, would you have listened? No, me neither. Yes, there will be plenty of enviro...

Over the past few years, hydrogen has been dubbed the savior of residential heating and a major part of the plan to achieve carbon neutrality, yet new research suggests hydrogen should be reserved for the likes of aircraft and industry. As part of the 2016 Paris Climate Change Accord, the economies agreed to keep global warming under 2°C. A key part of achieving that has been an agreement to become net zero on greenhouses gases by the year 2050. Renewable heating method With heating curre...

As part of the UK Government’s stated commitment to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, gas boilers, along with other fossil-fuel burning boilers, are to be banned in newbuild homes from 2025 under the Future Homes Standard. Although the ban has received a widespread welcome in principle, there has been criticism. Environmental groups have criticized the ban for not going far enough in tacking the escalating climate crisis, and the construction and home-building industries have criticized...

The impact of COVID-19 has hit all areas of industry in a variety of different ways; with mass redundancies, restructures and the need for diversification now dominating the headlines. It has also made a lot of people question their own careers and what is important to them; in fact, Google searches for the term ‘career change’ are up more than 500% on this time last year. With more than half of the heating and plumbing industry’s workforce due to retire in the next decade, an...

Pete Mills, Commercial Technical Operations Manager at Bosch Commercial & Industrial outlines how cities are using heat networks to achieve UK carbon emission targets. Heat networks, or district heating, are becoming an ever-greater part of our industry’s involvement in larger scale schemes. The ability to help the decarbonization of heat both now and in the future has made them an attractive solution to the new-build sector, as well as those undergoing deep renovation works. Net zer...

As the UK continues to battle through the coronavirus crisis, HVAC business owners and installers can be putting some of their enforced downtime to good use. This period of subdued trading is a rare opportunity to get into better shape for when economic activity picks up. One way of doing this is by sharpening the focus on markets which promise strong growth – and few markets are growing faster than that for heat pumps.   The potential here is huge. Some 28,000 heat pumps are current...