COULD I point out to Michael Maclennan (Long Letter, Aug 8) that homeowners are not being expected to foot zero-carbon bills! As he says himself, there are grants of up to £7500, and interest-free loans available repayable over ten years to cover the rest of the cost.
On page 12 of the same issue of The National Ellie Gomersall talks much good sense about heat pumps and addresses the wild uninformed nonsense put about by Mr Maclennan and others like the absurd notion of whole families huddled round a two-bar electric fire trying to get warm!
READ MORE: Ellie Gomersall: Backlash against Government plans for heat pumps is utterly bizarre
Michael Maclennan also says that if climate change is so much of an emergency the Scottish Government should pay all of the costs of converting houses to all electrical systems! Alas that is not something that could be afforded at present under the dead hand of Westminster but I believe with independence and full fiscal control it is something a climate-emergency-conscious country like Scotland could seriously consider.
Scotland is doing more than most countries to address the serious situations the planet is facing but it still isn’t enough considering others like the UK Government are doing very little and very late. So to recklessly advocate as Michael Maclennan does that we should all ignore the issue is simply outrageous!
Finally, it is becoming a much used trope to label the Greens and those of us with similar concerns as “extreme”. In a world where global warming is now rightly referred to as global boiling, no solution can be called extreme!
Drew MacLeod
Wick
YOUR columnist Ellie Gomersall sings the praises of her wonderful new heating system. Her system was paid for by an interest-free, taxpayer-backed loan of £5,500 and a generous taxpayer-funded grant of £7,500. A total cost of £13,000 to ensure her home will comply with the Energy Performance Certificate legislation soon to be introduced by Green minister Patrick Harvie.
Those of Scotland’s taxpayers who are struggling to pay their fuel bills may take a slightly dim view of these very generous financial payments.
READ MORE: Electricity prices must be decoupled from wholesale gas prices
The cost of Mr Harvie’s scheme is expected to be around £33 billion, and at a cost of £13,000 for Ms Gomersall’s home alone you can soon see how that figure is reached. The Scottish Government have committed only £42 million (£42,000,000) to the initiative for the financial year 2022-23 (this figure comes from a story on Inside Housing titled “Scottish Government unveils new energy efficiency support for homeowners”). The sums do not add up. The taxpayer funding can only cover a tiny fraction of Scotland’s homes. Where will the rest of the funding come from?
I am also interested to know what the lifespan of these heating systems is estimated to be. Would it not be rather ironic if, as I suspect, they will need to be replaced just as the ten year loan period comes to an end? Who will pay for the replacements?
Iain Wilson
Stirling
LIKE Ellie Gomersall, installing an air source heat pump (ASHP) was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. However, unlike her we installed one in 2007 with “only” a £4000 grant towards the cost from Home Energy Scotland. Fortunately we were converting a 1986 bungalow and were in the fortunate position of being able to install underfloor heating (but hadn’t moved into it yet).
The grants at that time did not include underfloor insulation so we had to pay £5600 plus VAT on the masses of four-inch underfloor insulation we installed throughout the bungalow!
The result is a totally draught-free house with abundant hot water at all times, so you can imagine the effect on our lives.
READ MORE: Cycle road race was the wrong target for climate activists
Incidentally, the bungalow had electric storage heaters which needed replacing and which used much more electricity than the ASHP, but due to the fact that the heat pump had to be on at all times (like a refrigerator) it cost more in electricity! (That was the basis of a letter to the government and something they should tackle as a priority, but never have). As ASHP are far more efficient in their use of electric power – giving 3-4 kw heat for every 1kw input, or as Ellie said, “an efficiency of 300-400% compared to 60-90% for a gas boiler” this should be a priority at this time of attempting to reach net zero.
However, Robert Anderson in Wednesday’s Website Comments appears to mistakenly believe that “heat pumps make a noise and are not suitable for every home”. I can assure him that we sleep directly above our ASHP and have never been kept awake or lost sleep in the 16 years since it was installed. However, I do agree that they “are not suitable for every home”.
Paul Gillon
Leven
THE Prime Minister has authorised Peterhead’s carbon capture scheme as a sop and attention-deflector to his issuing of hundreds of oil-drilling licences. He will dither and delay on the start of this in the full knowledge his party will be out of power next year and therefore it will never get the go ahead!
If only he and the likes of Dowden and Gove would stop bullshitting us and tell the truth. That truth is that England needs Scotland’s resources to pay the daily bills and it has been so for more than 50 years.
Steve Cunningham
Aberdeen
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