Germany is struggling to get people on-board with a green energy movement that involves banning high footprint domestic heating systems (e.g. gas boilers)-- thus forcing people to migrate to heat pumps. A low-income family who was interviewed said it would cost €45k to install a heat pump in their terraced home in Bremen.
That price tag sounds unreal. I am baffled. What’s going on here? I guess I would assume an old terraced German home would likely have wall radiators that circulate hot water. Is the problem that a heat pump can’t generate enough heat to bring water to ~60°C, which would then force them to add a forced-air ducting infrastructure? Any guesses?
(note the link goes to a BBC program that looks unrelated, but at the end of the show they switch to this issue in Germany. I’m not sure if that show is accessible… I see no download link but that could be a browser issue)
A big part of the cost is probably refitting the heating system. Radiators are designed for water temps that are not efficient for a heat pump.
The default for newly built heat pump systems is underfloor heating but that’s not something you’d install unless you’re ripping out all floors anyway.
The alternative would be large panel radiators or an air/air heat pump with air ducts.
The other one is that a lot of people presume a house needs state of the art insulation, which obviously costs a lot to retrofit.
However in nearly all cases the old radiators work just fine with a heat pump as does the insulation. Underfloor heating and more insulation would make it more efficient, but that is often not worth the money, unless you do plan to do it anyway. When you redo the floors you can then add underfloor heating. Same for insulation, once you redo the roof or have to do work on the walls.