[willvarfar]

In the nordics we love heat-pumps! Something like 70% of houses are heated by heat-pumps, and 90% of apartment buildings are heated by district heating and that is often generated by huge heatpumps.

Apparently 95% of new heating installations in Swedish houses are heat-pumps these days: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC1...

Heatpumps have been heating nordic homes for decades. Even in the countryside where many houses have small woodland attached, people I know have moved to heatpumps for convenience and because its affordable.

PS: shoutout to to the JRC, found their reports when doing a super quick dig for stats. Those reports were super easy to read :D

[hexbin010]

From the PDF at your link:

"Heat pumps are more efficient than gas boilers and become competitive when the electricity price is lower than around three times the gas or oil price"

Sweden seems to have quite high domestic gas rates (highest in EU I think?), around £0.18/kWh, with electricity at £0.23/kWh so I can definitely understand the adoption of heat pumps with gas being so high.

In the UK we have lower heat pump adoption, which could largely be explained by gas being ~£0.06/kWh (and electricity is ~£0.27/kWh). There is also the barrier that many houses are draughty and would require significant expensive upgrades

[renhanxue]

Heating with gas is absolutely not a thing in Sweden, I don't think even a single percentage point of homes use that. Firewood is way more common (it's relatively commonplace in the countryside still). Gas is used for stoves in some older buildings in a few specific cities but is almost extinct in that application too. Heating with gas hasn't really been a thing historically either - at first it was mostly wood, then coal and wood, and then district heating and fuel oil completely took over from the 1950's. For a while in the 1970's resistive electric heaters were popular because electricity was cheap with the then-new nuclear plants, while the oil crisis made oil expensive. That didn't last very long.

[DrScientist]

Electricity prices are certainly a factor, and retro-fitting can be very expensive to nigh on impossible.

The real scandal in the UK is how the updates to building regulations to bring in higher energy efficiency have been delayed and delayed - presumably due to lobbying by UK house-builders.

Given the big push to build large numbers of new houses it seems madness not to have the higher standards in place.

[jcsager]

Planning rules conflict with building regs in the UK. Planning means that most new houses are little boxes made of little more than ticky-tacky. So adding insulation to the walls makes them even smaller inside.

[pjc50]

Unclear what this means - both of these sets of rules apply, so the planning system couldn't force people to not comply with building regs? The new approach appears to be prefab foil coated insulation board in the walls, under brick or breezeblock skin, given what I can see being built nearby.

[zzbn00]

This is exactly the thing. In UK electricity price is set by the cost of generating it from natural gas. After losses, etc, you get about 1/3 of power in electricity compared to heat in the gas. And the heat pump has an efficiency factor of about 3. So you get back to unity.

While electricity is priced off gas, current heat pumps do not have a strong economic case.

[zeristor]

That is as long as gas forms the final price at the determination of each 30 min electricity price setting around.

The prices plummet from time to time, even going negative, but not enough for the prices to be lowered.

Seemingly it’ll take a few more years for more energy to reach the south, but by then data centres may be using more.

[jgalt212]

> Something like 70% of houses are heated by heat-pumps

To me, living in US Northeast, this is astounding. I've read heat pumps lose efficacy below 25F. My family would never forgive me if I made our house cold. But then I see 70% of the Nordics's house are "warm enough", or dealing colder than room temperature houses.

I've asked half-dozen contractors and HVAC people in my area, and none of them have recommended a heat pump. But, I'm just as suspicious of their motives as I am of the science and environmental populizers on YouTube.

[tzs]

That's old heat pumps. Mitsubishi introduced their "Hyper-Heating Inverter" heat pumps designed to work well in cold weather in 2007, with Fujitsu and Daikin adopting similar technology by 2012, and others following within a few years.

These remain 200% efficient down to -4℉ and 150% efficient down to -22℉. Their capacity starts dropping at 23℉ going down to 76% capacity at -13℉.

There's only a few towns in the continental US that cold enough for long enough that it can't be heated well by one of these. You just need an installer that will size it properly for the climate in your area.

[Scoundreller]

Don’t let the 15 degree+ differences in latitudes fool you, a lot of the Nordic population lives near the sea, so low altitude and plenty of sea current temperature moderation.

January temps in Oslo aren’t much different than Boston. Absolute record low temps are similar too.

Coldest temp ever in Oslo is -30C in the 1800s.

Coldest in Boston was -28C in 1934.

Still doesn’t explain the poor adoption in USA but helps explain why they still work so far up north. The nordics can be relatively balmy to Wisconsin or upstate New York.

[renhanxue]

A lot of the Nordic heat pumps are ground source, that is to say you drill a hole a couple of hundred feet down into the bedrock where it's always a bit above freezing and you circulate your heat exchange fluid down there and back up again. Air-source heat pumps are mostly a thing in the southern parts where the climate is relatively mild.

[jabl]

Air-source heat pumps are also somewhat common in retrofits where the remaining expected lifetime of the building isn't big enough to be worth spending some 20-30k€ (?) that installing a ground source heat pump costs. A significant part of the cost being drilling the hole.

Similarly for small houses the cost of the hole drilling might not be worth the reduction in electricity consumption.

[Phenomenit]

You never go below 1 in efficiency. Worst case the water is heated directly with electricity.

[Scoundreller]

You shouldn’t but you could.

In theory peltier elements are more efficient heaters than resistive heating but if the temp delta are big enough, you lose more heat through conduction than you pump in.

A poorly optimized fireplace may vacuum more warm air out than it radiates in.

[OptionOfT]

Interesting that district heating is so popular there.

IIRC in the Netherlands people don't like it, because it because it means that there is a single company supplying my heat, with

    * minimum amounts of 'heat' purchased 
    * no incentives to maintain their infrastructure above the bare minimum
    * no competition

[fy20]

I live in a post-Soviet city with district heating, and I'm not really sure it's worth it. Our network is government run, and they don't do a bad job, but it is more expensive per kWh (8c) than if you were to heat with gas or an electric heat pump (both 6c).

The heat source of the network is gas or various oil fuels, so it makes sense that it's cheaper to do it yourself - gas infrastructure is very optimised, and there are very little network losses in comparison. I think it only makes sense if the network has a cheap energy source, for example by using waste energy from industrial processes or utility-scale geothermal.

[citrin_ru]

In USSR it was common to use waste heat from a thermal (gas/coal) power stations for district heating. Heat itself in such system is basically free - instead of sending hot water to cooling towers it first used to heat homes. But a pipeline network is not cheap in maintain (pipelines were usually not well maintained and leaks were common but with modern materials corrosion should be less of a problem).

[renhanxue]

Most district heating systems in the Nordics are publicly owned, in part or in full. There are also price controls for the privately owned ones.

[moooo99]

As a German, I find the popularity of heat pumps in the nordics especially amusing. In Germany heat pumps were an incredibly political topic and people were pushed by some media outlets to really hate heat pumps. One recurring topic was that heat pumps can‘t work at German temperatures.

[lnsru]

Nothing amusing. Germany is not really rich compared to nordics. And now let‘s do so math! Electricity: 0,3€/kWh and gas 0,1€/kWh. I need ~3x more gas to get same temperature in my room. And gas heating costs €10k while heat pump €40k without subsidies and probably raw €15k material cost if I install it by myself. So why should I pay more by €30k to install experimental thing for a decade when my low cost gas heating will last for 3 decades again. The monthly bill is the same.

[xeromal]

I installed mini splits (small heat pumps) in each of our rooms. Everyone gets their own temperature and they were only 800$ a piece. Did installation myself and it was pretty easy. Hardest thing was pulling a vacuum in the lines before releasing the freon (or whatever it's called) but all I did was watch a youtube video. They've been going strong for several years. I looked at the prices and they are still the same.

[bratwurst3000]

Did the same. air air is cheap and works like a charm. this 40k for heatpump is for the most luxury version every salesmen trys to sell

[xeromal]

Yeah if 40k is the go to amount of heat pumps, the entire country has lost the plot

[mk89]

BTW, in Germany you're not allowed to install it yourself. At least that's what I read some time ago. I guess nobody checks, of course, but in case things go bad and you need insurance, probably they can invalidate it due to the fact you did something illegal.

Not saying it makes sense, though.

[bratwurst3000]

i installed mine myself and probably illegaly. But its super easy and those people who install it do a shit job sometimes. I watched professionell people flushing those pipes with compressed air....

And the fine is nonexistent so everyone should do it themself.

[mk89]

I also don't think it's that hard, at least by looking at the YouTube videos.

Do you risk to lose house insurance in case of issues?

This is one of the reasons why sometimes I am even afraid of thinking about such DIY projects.

[stefanfisk]

What is the calculus behind 40k? I just checked some Swedish vendors and here they calculate 12k for hardware and installation of a fairly large heat pump.

https://www.polarpumpen.se/kunskapsbanken/varmepump-kunskaps...

[ZeroGravitas]

Octopus and a German University did a report on costs.

UK heat pumps are half the cost of German installs 14k Vs 28k euros.

Theres multiple reasons given:

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/03/13/heat-pumps-in-germany...

Also, I believe Octopus have nearly halved the UK price since that report by optimising installs.

[willvarfar]

Yeah small air-air pumps - which are the most common for single houses - are easily under 2000EUR including installation; if you keep eyes out for special offers it'd be about 1500EUR in Swedish prices.

[lnsru]

State subsidies and insane overregulation. Think about replacing the cabinet for electricity meters (+4000€) for heat pump installation.

[bratwurst3000]

smart meters are paid by the grid operator and you have to pay maximum 50€ a year for a smartmeter. I honestly dont know where you get your numbers. a friend with a big house and 3 children switched to air water heatpump with floor heating etc and it was 18k€ and half of that paif by the state and the smart meter was mostly free( he pais 25€ a year for it).

and this is a hugeeee house. No solar but he is working on it.

could you link some proof of this smartmeters I have to pay? Or some calculations from firms it whatever that proof your point.

[lnsru]

Think about cabinet from 1972 for one electricity meter. Now you have one electricity meter for house electricity and second one with dynamic plan for heat pump and spare place prepared for third meter for wallbox. So the new cabinet costs you 3000€ including my work and it’s not seldom, that the house has no grounding rod. With couple small repairs/upgrades it’s 4000€ without VAT. And since everything must be documented I can’t work without invoice.

It has nothing to do with smart meters. Some electrical installations are heavily outdated by today’s norms. And norms are obviously written by greedy suppliers of the cabinets and parts for them. Worst thing is that I can’t make any money by selling this stuff. It’s already too expensive for the people. And it will not be cheaper with Paragraf §14a EnWG.

[pjc50]

Why is that required? Switch to three phase? Wasn't required for me in the UK.

[holowoodman]

No. Everything in Germany has been three-phase since forever.

But especially with old houses, with any "not insignificant change" to your electrical setup, you have to bring everything up to modern standards.

Also, and connected with that, metering is weird in Germany. If your consumption rises above a certain amount (I think 10MWh for a single-family home) you are required to get a "smart meter", meaning a digital meter which includes the possibility (just the possibility, not actually the real thing) of online reporting and minute-by-minute pricing. In the rest of the world, that would just be swapping the meter or slapping some Wifi-to-IR-interface on it, but not so in Germany. You need to install a new metering cabinet that provides space for at least one digital meter (but better provide more than one...), one remote control receiver (for old-style night/day tariff switches, obsoleted by smart meters but still required nonetheless) and a smart meter gateway. That new metering cabinet needs to conform to standards set by your local electricity supplier (which can be as small as a city), so there is no nation-wide standards, more like 50 of them. And the metering cabinet is huge, not someting like the 30x40cm thing you see on sidewalks in spain or something, no. More like 200x140cm in the smallest(!) version. So those are really expensive just because the market is tiny and the requirements are completely crazy: Even though most smart meter gateways are wireless nowadays (UMTS or GSM) and usually such a gateway won't be installed anyways (because just the possibility of installing one is required), you also need to provide for cabled internet uplink to the metering cabinet. That uplink is a Cat6 cable to the gateway, but it crosses through the electrical uplink part of the cabinet. So the insulation of that cable has to be certified for at least 10kV insulation voltage, at least 80A current on the shielding and more stuff like that. So e.g. just that one stupid half-meter Cat6 cable will set you back 50Eur. Installation isn't any less crazy. You definitely cannot do anything yourself. Even your licensed electrician can only do the menial preparations. When your licensed electrician is done with the prep, you request an appointment with the local supplier's meter installer, who, after a typical wait time of 2 months, will install and seal the meter in the presence of your licensed electrician (who is there to receive complaints about incorrect prep, followed by another 2 months wait time for another appointment...).

That's why it's 4kEur...

And if you want your power to be a few cents cheaper (28ct/kWh instead of the usual 35ct/kWh), you need an extra meter for your heat pump. Have solar? Another extra meter. Want to charge your electrical car? You guessed right. And you cannot bring your own. Each of those "smart" meters has to be rented from your local supplier at around 20 to 120Eur/year.

[worik]

> So why should I pay more by €30k to install experimental thing for a decade when my low cost gas heating will last for 3 decades again.

Because:

It is not experimental (it is no longer 1992)

Your gas comes from Russia, and they hate you - roughly speaking

Your prices are miles from reality

Face it, fossil fuels are deprecated. Your gas heating will be unusable with no gas to put in it

[pjc50]

The problem is the gas (a) emits CO2 and (b) comes from Russia.

[Retric]

40k for heat pumps is wildly overkill here if that’s what you where quoted someone is trying to scam you. More critically, those prices aren’t set in stone over the next 30 years.

Home PV for example is way less than 0,3€/kWh and rather dramatically changes these comparisons.

[vintermann]

If we only could get China to do for heat pumps what they did for solar panels...

[Scoundreller]

I’m filling my garage with cheap heat pumps and solar panels.

Going to sell for 10x when the water wars commence.

[pettertb]

Note that we don't have much gas infrastructure here in the nordics, since we (used to) have cheap electricity.

If you choose between heat pump and not-heat-pump electric heating, it is cheaper.

[bratwurst3000]

that doesnt even make sense. if gas is 3x of electricity it should be the same cost but for every watt of electricity you get 3 watt of heating. so by your math if I pay 1w gas but need 3w for 1w of electricity and heatpumps give 3w on every watt of electricity heatpumps are 300% more effective then gas. sooo your point is also heatpumps ftw ;)

[triceratops]

€40k for a heat pump is insane. Even just the parts for €15k is unbelievable. Do you have a source?

[jabl]

> Germany is not really rich compared to nordics.

(From another post I made in this thread)

Looking at IMF 2025 GDP per capita figures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... ):

Norway: $92k

Denmark: $77k

Sweden: $62k

Germany: $60k

UK: $57k

Finland: $56k

So yeah, Denmark and particularly Norway are a bit richer than the others, but the others are in the same ballpark.

[looofooo0]

Well Norway (Hydro), Sweden (hydro and nuclear) and Finland (Nuclear Wind Hydro) all have cheap electricity which seems to be the main driver for adoption.

[mrmlz]

Hrm. It might be cheaper than in Germany but its not cheap in Sweden except for the most nordic parts (hydro).

South Sweden - i think the prices are more on par with germany.

[looofooo0]

Well in the south you might need to factor the gas cost in (vs Germany) and also the network effects of heat pump being the main form of heating in sweden.

[willvarfar]

The south of Sweden is expensive because Sweden did away with the previous single energy market and split into zones with sales abroad. Often Swedish producers sell to Germany at the same time Swedish consumers are forced to buy from German producers. It was a big thing about 'free market' and iirc Denmark was upset that Danish manufacturing could not compete with the price of energy across the straights in Sweden. The solution was to make energy more expensive in Sweden.

[looofooo0]

I was solely talking about heat pump adoption due end user prices.

[1313ed01]

Sweden used to have very cheap electricity. That's why there are so many houses with electric radiators. Far more expensive now.

That is why so many houses here now have air-to-air heat pumps. That is by far the cheapest way to improve heating in an old house with only electric radiators and no existing water heat pipes.

[enaaem]

Imagine if things were the other way around. That we already had heat pumps and someone suggests we should pipe this toxic and explosive gas into our homes and burn it. That would be an insane idea.

[jack_tripper]

Sign of a rich and very developed country.

A lot of buildings in Austrian cities are still heated by burning oil or wood and the whole city smells like a bonfire.

Probably gonna have my lifespan shortened by at least a decade from all that fossil fuel pollution, but at least we banned that dirty nuclear from killing us.

[wkat4242]

Yes heat pumps are expensive and you need different radiators and more insulation than with traditional gas central heating. That's why it's an issue in Holland too. Not many people have the investment for all that. It's mainly worth it when you have solar panels but that requires another big investment.

I'm lucky to live in Spain where it's not that cold so I just have one little plug in radiator I use a few months a year lol.

[hexbin010]

Ditto UK.

Gas is relatively cheap, and a replacement boiler is £1,500 to £3,000 and will last ~10 years and there'll be no doubt about whether it can sufficiently heat the home or produce enough hot water etc .

Lucky you living in Spain though lol

[wkat4242]

Yes, it's just a lot of money for a lot of people.

Norway is really a different kind of rich compared to the rest of europe, they have tons of oil rights all over the world (and as such they still contribute a lot to global warming even though they have a lot of money for 'green' tech at home).

PS yeah Spain is good for heating but not for AC though (which I don't have, sadly). But I do enjoy life here a lot more even though I would make much more money in Holland.

[OptionOfT]

As someone who moved from Belgium to Phoenix, I agree. I prefer how dry heat over cold, windy & humid.

[cnewey]

I was recently in a situation where I had to replace my oil-fired heating system’s oil tank (it wasn’t double skinned and no longer safe).

It was £2500 to replace the oil tank, or I could opt for £2250 to install a heat pump with the government grant. This included all plumbing, electrical work, installation, and 6 new radiators all over my house.

Honestly to me it seemed like a no-brainer. It’s a tad more expensive to run, but it works really quite well and is a lot less invasive than a big smelly tank of kerosene. I gained another 90cm of width in my garden, it’s actually quieter than the oil boiler, and it doesn’t stink in the summer- win win.

[OptionOfT]

Did you add extra insulation to your house (or was it already more modern?).

Otherwise the heatpump just can't catch up.

And currently I have the opposite problem. The house is too well insulated for the heater (or the heater is too powerful). The heater only runs for a couple of minutes and huts off.

[cnewey]

Hah, no my house was built in the 1750s or something like that - single glazing on the front and with fairly minimal insulation, plus it has no cavity wall (a mixture of wattle and daub and brick). It is a mid-terrace though so I benefit from neighbours being either side.

There have been a few cold snaps here where the weather has been down to -2 some days, but it’s been fine. I had a couple of minor installation issues (eg 3 way valve set incorrectly) but once those were fixed my house hasn’t dropped below 19C.

[supersparrow]

A boiler should actually be lasting more like 20 years. I recently replaced my 20 year old one purely because if anything went wrong, it’d become an expensive/long job to fix as parts were hard to find, otherwise it was still running perfectly at its manufacture specified efficiency. Running them for 20 years isn’t uncommon.

I had a quote for a heat pump - £20k, plus the cost to replace 13 radiators, plus cost to replace pipework to support heat pump rads.

Pretty sure the government ‘incentive’ was £3k at the time. Doesn’t come remotely close!

[pjc50]

I managed £15k minus £7k of Scottish government incentives, and I managed to avoid replacing all my radiators by .. getting a "hybrid" system which also includes a boiler for HW :/

Far from ideal solution, but it is mostly green, somewhat offset by the solar panels, and actually more comfortable than the old system because of the more even heating. Set to 20C and forget about it for the season. I'm hoping that it will last until the actual gas phaseout when a solution compatible with 8mm piping will exist.

This is why they need to be mandated on new houses, because it's so much better than trying to retrofit it.

[hexbin010]

£15k included the solar?

[hexbin010]

Was your old boiler a non-combi?

Modern condensing combis I think are designed to be more complex and not last as long. I'm not sure all the complexity and fancy modulation etc is really worth it myself. I'd rather have a boiler that lasts 20 years and that any half-competent gas engineer can fix with a spanner and some spare parts.

£20k, jesus!

[zzbn00]

Condensing boilers became mandatory in UK just over 20 years ago

[rsynnott]

Whatever about a combi, you probably don't want a non-condensing boiler these days, not with gas the price that it is.

[supersparrow]

Old and new both condensing and both non-combi.

[mrmlz]

UK houses are really interesting.. Single-glass windows, poor insulation etc. And plumbing on the OUTSIDE(!) :)

Are the boilers typically connected to water-radiators?.. I assume so based on the word "boiler".

There are heatpumps that are used to heat water so it would be a slot in replacement..

[pjc50]

Not many people left with single glazing unless they've been trapped by historic building rules. "Outdoor plumbing" is not a thing.

The pump is a drop in replacement unless you have 8mm "microbore" piping, at which point the lower temperature times restricted flow rate becomes a problem in terms of getting enough heat through.

[wkat4242]

Not sure about the UK. I've seen a lot of outdoor plumbing in Ireland. I lived in a place that had that. They were literally running on the outside. Our maintenance guy said they did that to make maintenance easier, but it also makes wear & tear a lot easier obiously (not to mention frost). And chipboard floors that would crack with heavy furniture. It was terrible quality. These houses were built in the mid 80s.

And a dirty tank of water in the attic to act as a "in-house water tower" because only one tap may be connected directly to the mains. Really archaic.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

My parents' house in Bath is not "trapped by historic building rules" but there is no way in hell they are ever going to replace 3-4 stories of single pane glass double hungs ...

and that house still has the sewage stacks on the outside of the house, as do almost all homes in Bath and environs.

[rsynnott]

By 'outdoor plumbing' they probably mean pipes running up the outside of buildings (not, like, outhouses). This is somewhat common for waste pipes.

[asplake]

Brit here. Your first pragraph describes older housing stock, not anything built in decades. Not that the quality of our quality of our stock couldn't be improved, or that our (very real) energy standards for new builds couldn't be stricter, but things aren't quite as grim everywhere as the picture you paint.

[supersparrow]

I’ve lived in the UK for 35 years and lived in various properties built in every decade from 70s-10s. Some much older and less loved ones did have single pane windows but have never seen plumbing on the outside. Maybe on much older houses? Certainly not on anything remotely new. A lot of new builds here have solar, heat pumps and insulation has been excellent for at least 20 years.

[pm215]

You do relatively commonly see wastewater piping on the outside of a house in the UK, especially older stock (soil stack from the toilet, waste pipe from sink or bath running into it). This is fine in the UK climate where a normally empty pipe doesn't need insulation. I hear that it won't work in places that get extreme low winter temperatures, but the UK doesn't have winters that cold.

You don't see them on new builds, I think, probably because the pipe going from inside to outside would reduce insulation effectiveness.

[wolvesechoes]

> more insulation

Nothing to do with a heat source.

[jaapz]

In the netherlands we were used to really cheap gas (groningen gas field). This meant that, instead of adding more insulation, it was cheaper to just install a bigger gas powered heater to heat our homes.

This means that people now really need to improve insulation of their homes big time, before even being able to consider switching to a heat pump.

My house has a 30kW gas heater. When I switched to a heat pump, first I had to replace the entire roof with PIR insulation. It was previously just uninsulated wood. Now I can easily heat my home with a 7kW heat pump (which most of the time doesn't even need to produce 7kW of heat).

I was lucky, my house already had insulated walls and floors, and used floor heating (low temperature heating). Most homes here use high temperature radiators, which become way less efficient when used with low temperatures produced by heat pumps.

So for many people here, it is cost prohibitive to switch to a heat pump, as they first need to improve isolation and replace their radiators for a heat pump to even work.

[brandhout]

You can switch to a heatpump before insulating your house; you just need a bigger one. Which isn't really great thanks to our struggeling energy grid but its still cheaper than a gas heater.

[jaapz]

It really isn't. A gas heater costs 1500-2500 euro with installation. Especially when just switching the previous one with a new one, it can be done really quickly and cheaply.

Switching to a heat pump can be anywhere from 10-25k depending on the existing plumbing, size of heat pump etc.

[sokoloff]

Not directly with the heat source, but with the output flow temperature that the heat source can create.

In that regard, an air-to-water heat pump is much lower temperature than a gas or oil boiler can efficiently produce.

That can cause a need for larger radiators to compensate and sometimes for insulation if the radiators can’t be further increased in size. (Or if the heat loss at design temp is too high for available or sensible sized equipment.)

[brandhout]

It isn't more interesting with solar panels because they won't generate nearly enough electricity in the winter. You should see both as entirely separate energy saving investments, not dependent on one another. (I'm however very happy with "free" cooling in summer)

You might need other radiators if your current radiators are very small. But you also might not in a recent house, or in a recently renovated house (e.g. the radiator are still sized on single-glazing-glass when having double glazing installed).

You can also choose in-foor heating with the next renovation, a lot of homes already have in-floor heating and it's very comfortable. You can probably also boost existing radiators with small fans on the bottom or choose an electronic back-up module which boost the temperature a bit on the coldest days.

Tldr: it really isn't that hard. The focus on hybrid systems in NL is purely thanks to a lobby from gas-boiler installers and manufacturers. Air/water heatpumps are a drop-in replacement in a lot of cases.

[euroderf]

> more insulation

Why is this ? (Sorry if it's a stupid question.)

[brandhout]

A misunderstanding. A lot of people (at least here in the Netherlands) believe that heat-pumps just actively refuse to heat a home when it's not up to spec, isolation wise. That of course isn't true, you'll just need a bigger heatpump.

[Ekaros]

Air-to-Air heat pumps can be quite affordable. Or even cheap if you find no name deals. There is install, but even that is not really that significant. This is at least in Nordics.

[MisterTea]

> There is install, but even that is not really that significant.

The install itself isn't that hard they come pre-charged with refrigerant. I have installed a few of the air-to air myself and had no issues. All you need is a vacuum pump and proper refrigerant manifold or adapters. Vacuum out the lines for at least an hour to draw out all the air and moisture, close valve and let sit for an hour, if the gauge shows no leak, open the heat pump zone valves and you're in business.

A friend did it and had all the refrigerant leak out after a year but he realized the flared end that came from factory was malformed so he cut and re-flared the end, vacuumed out the system, left it overnight, saw no leak, and had an AC tech do the charge. Was solid after that. A from zero charge requires some knowledge of the systems capacity and a scale to weigh the charge so he hired someone to do it.

[sowbug]

There is now an even easier way than vacuuming. Instead of pulling the unwanted air and moisture from the lines, you can push it out with another gas, which itself can somehow coexist with the refrigerant. I haven't tried it because I already have the pump and gauges, but if I were installing my first mini split, I'd consider it.

Example: https://www.highseer.com/products/pioneer-kwik-e-vac

[oceanplexian]

It's so ridiculously easy to vacuum and charge a heat pump it's kind of unnecessary.

I think I spent $200 in parts on Amazon and have done 4 heat pumps now. It's a vacuum pump, a scale, and a digital manifold/guage. Punch the numbers for subcool/superheat into a calculator and use the temp probes on the lines where they connect to the condenser and you can even skip the scale.

[seec]

Isn't the problem having access to the gas in the end ? They are tightly regulated, and this is why installers can charge a lot of money, I believe. How did you manage to locate a source?

[MisterTea]

My only caution is this method does not let you check if the lines are leak tight.

[jack_tripper]

Probably not for entire apartment buildings since most of them run on oil or gas burning here. I only saw heat pumps on apartment buildings built after 2020 or the single family homes in the affluent areas.

[Ekaros]

Yeah, here they are used for AC in apartments. Unless for some weird reason they are electric heating... And even then for some reason we do not like them visible so they need to be hidden on balconies and like.

[wkat4242]

That's another problem in Holland too. The government mandates people moving to heat pumps for new houses (and existing ones in the longer term) because they don't want Russian gas dependencies and they want to close the national gas fields (they cause earthquakes).

But then neighbours start complaining about the look of the outdoor units and causing hassle with court orders etc. Really if they want people to move they should make it easy and cheap, so invalidate cosmetic complaints automatically.

[stephen_g]

Longer term this shouldn’t be the case though - a fridge is just a heat pump, and an air-to-air or air-to-water heat pumps aren’t that much more complicated, nor should they be any less reliable.

It’s something that will become more of a commodity and eventually won’t be any more sign of wealth than owning a fridge.

I mean, we can see it already in air-to-air systems - I’ve had mini-splits supplied and installed here in Australia for something like 20% of the cost I’ve heard quoted for equally sized units in the US, for example - just because basically every electrician has a license to install them here because they are so incredibly common (for cooling even more than heating, but they can basically all so both here). Air-to-water I expect will be the same in cold climates - in 15 years basically any plumber will be able to do it and they’ll be far cheaper than today.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

> air-to-water heat pumps

these are slightly odd, however: they either need an external air intake set up, or they require that the water (tank/heater) be located in a space that you don't mind being cooled down (often quite significantly) AND that isn't thermally connected to the space you're heating via other means.

still great technology, but deployment can be a little more challenging that space heating/cooling.

[jaapz]

Air-to-water heatpumps are the norm here in the Netherlands. We just put a unit outside, with either refrigerant lines or simply the heated water lines running from the outside unit to an inside unit.

Probably helps that we are in a pretty moderate climate here. And thanks to global warming it's been a while since it got really far below zero degrees celsius.

When the outside unit really can't keep up with demand, it may switch to a gas heater (hybrid) or an electrical heating element (all-electric)

[ssl-3]

They are weird in the way that their utility varies.

IIRC Dave Jones of EEVBlog fame has shown a air-to-water heat exchanger that he has at his home. It's outside. And the climate in Sydney is generally warm(ish), so it makes perfect sense there.

I can also see them being useful in parts of the American South where big garages being common and the weather gets hot: Take some of the heat from the garage and convert it into hot water for showering and cleaning. Win-win.

But they're not so hot, per se, in my part of Ohio, where unfinished basements are commonly used as utility spaces.

My own basement, for instance: As unfinished basements go, it's pretty good. It's not a bad place to hang out and work on stuff any time of year. But it's a big space, and it's cold down there in the winter because I don't want to pay to warm it up. Despite being cold, that's really the most-suitable place for a conventional water heater for this house -- and it's where the house was designed to have it, too.

But if I were to "upgrade" to a heat-exchanger water heater, then as a practical matter I'd be making my already-cold basement even colder.

If it ever got cold-enough down there to make supplemental heat desirable (or worse: necessary), then it'd be an absolute loss: Burn energy over here in one place in the basement to try to keep it warm, and use that energy down the way a bit to concentrate into a tank full of hot water, while the basement stays cold.

Even if it I had a nice modern mini-split down there to provide that supplemental heat: That would mean having air-to-water heat exchanger that is backed up by an air-to-air heat exchanger that is already at the edge of its efficiency curve because it's cold outside. The combination would be reprehensibly dumb: A complicated Rube Goldberg system that costs more to buy, more to maintain, and more to run than approximately anything else would. (I might even be better off just burning my dollars directly.)

(The smarter move for my own home, in Ohio, would probably be a gas-fired tankless water heater, since they leak almost no heat while not being used.)

[stephen_g]

I have the same air to water heat pump HWS that Dave has - it's a split system so you can put the tank inside the basement and the heat pump outside. You just need to run two insulated water pipes between them and a temperature probe cable. There are of course systems where the heat pump is attached directly on top of the tank but lots are split. They should easily work at -10 °C so no issue having the heat pump outside.

[Scoundreller]

> I can also see them being useful in parts of the American South where big garages being common and the weather gets hot: Take some of the heat from the garage and convert it into hot water for showering and cleaning. Win-win.

Uhhh, better to put the unit inside the home where it provides a bit of a/c. Double win if you cool the compressor with incoming water.

Not in the south myself, but with trad water heaters, I find it dumb that I’m heating incoming 5-10C municipal water in summer time when I could have a tempering tank/loop letting the interior air warm it up (and getting a tad of “free” AC) to 20-25C first before paying to apply heat to it. Would improve “capacity” of the heater too.

Even in winter time, my home heating is more efficient than most water heaters (even if they’re both gas, water heaters are typically non-condensing, and actively pump out warmed interior air for combustion), so it makes sense all year round.

[ssl-3]

Sure. It's better to start with an excellent home design that most-effectively uses every iota of modern tech to optimize efficiency. And sure, even more efficiency can be eeked out if one is willing to layer on their own productive infrastructure hacks.

But not everybody has those opportunities. Not every home has an existing conditioned space within which to put a water heater. Not every person is equipped (mentally or physically) to engineer and use tempering loops and/or water-cooling compressor motors.

As a practical matter: In a warm-climate home that already has a water heater in the garage (which is very common in the American south, from my limited direct observation), replacing a traditional water heater with one that uses a heat pump can make a lot of sense.

This replacement is something that any person and a friend with minimal plumbing and electrical experience can accomplish on their own in one afternoon, without incurring the expense and inconvenience of relocating their water heater somewhere else. There will be no drywall dust, and no paint.

It's a natural fit.

---

And don't take any of this the wrong way. You've got some great ideas there.

But not all environments are the same. During the warmer months in my own city, I've measured incoming water at 76F/24C -- warmer than the house, and also warmer than the basement where the plumbing lives. A tempering loop may make sense for you in your environment, but it would be the opposite of useful in my environment: "Oh neat! A thing that makes my home harder to cool in the summer!" (Unusual? Perhaps. But it's my reality anyway. I've never run out of hot water in this city during the summer. Not even close. But things do change in the winter -- maybe I'll measure the input temperature again when I get home tonight.)

It's fun to think about niche concepts that don't have broad-scale adoption. And sometimes, it makes sense to set forth and make them a reality.

But it's always important to remember that there's often very real reasons for them to remain niche concepts that aren't broadly utilized.

[jack_tripper]

>Longer term this shouldn’t be the case though

Long term I'll be dead anyway. To me the the actions taken in the present is most important that what maybe might happen 30 years from now since that's why everything is fucked in Europe, because everyone coasts on hopium for the long term instead of fixing the present.

[seec]

You got downvoted, but I share the sentiment. It seems we coasted on hope for better solutions that never really get there and are largely unaffordable for most people.

A heat pump would make a lot more sense if electricity were cheap; alas, we went all in for renewables while ignoring nuclear for political reasons. The result is expensive electricity while still having a dependency on fossil fuel and even importing the renewable tech. That makes no sense in the short run, and I very much doubt it will make any sense eventually.

[dzhiurgis]

Get an ERV - it will most likely have air filter. Such a life improvement to a point I'm actually waiting for winter now (in summer you have a problem of mosquitoes, house doesn't cool quickly enough by itself and if you close shades for sleeping - you don't get adequate ventilation).

[bratwurst3000]

air conditioning is also a heat pump. they cost way less then the air/water heatpumps and are easy and cheap to install. Since two years I heat with air conditioning and its super effective and cheap.

edit// Hot water is generated by electric solar panels. 1200w are sufficent to have enough hot water for two persons

[jabl]

> Sign of a rich and very developed country.

You need to find another reason. Looking at IMF 2025 GDP per capita figures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... ):

Norway: $92k

Denmark: $77k

Sweden: $62k

Germany: $60k

UK: $57k

Finland: $56k

So yeah, Denmark and particularly Norway are a bit richer than the others, but the others are in the same ballpark.

If I had to bring up some particular reason, gas grids are more or less non-existent in the Nordics, and electricity is cheaper than in central Europe or UK.

[mos87]

LMAO good one.