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)

  • the_third@feddit.de
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    11 months ago

    When I planned my house in 2018, my heat and water installer more or less shoved a heatpump on me, after he heard I wanted heated floors. I gave up on fighting him because I had a lot more on my plate at the time and told him “yeah, whatever, if you think that should be it…”. Cost me like, 10k€ more than the cheap gas heater I had planned, but then again, no gas tank, no chimney, it came to a point where I just didn’t give a fuck.

    Last Christmas that dude got a very expensive bottle of whiskey from me.