The most optimistic hope is that the government mandate will force enough demand that manufacturers can enjoy some economies of scale and actually try to compete on price. I don't think this will happen anytime soon.
I do miss my natural gas on-demand water heater from when I lived in the states though. Unlimited hot water was nice, and it took up almost zero space.
Is it something from nefit by any chance?
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/01/29/samsung-releases-new-...
> The South Korean giant [Samsung] said its new EHS All-in-One provides air heating and cooling, floor heating, and hot water from a single outdoor unit. It can supply hot water up to 65 C in below-zero weather.
> Dubbed EHS All-in-One, the system provides air heating and cooling, floor heating, and hot water from a single outdoor unit. It is initially released for the European market, with a Korean rollout expected within a year. “It delivers stable performance across diverse weather conditions. It can supply hot water up to 65 C even in below-zero weather and is designed to operate heating even in severe cold down to -25 C,” the company said in a statement. “The system also uses the R32 refrigerant, which has a substantially lower impact on global warming compared with the older R410A refrigerant.”
So if I want to quickly scald myself in a 400 litre pool at fifty degrees I can’t. But if I had a gas heater that would be possible!
Propane bill (no natural gas, town of 500) from Oct 24 to Feb 25 (installed the mini splits that month) was $1200, for just heating.
My mini-splits are on a dedicated sub panel with an Emporia Vue 3 energy monitor. $604 in electricity consumption, and that includes air conditioning over the summer months.
For what it’s worth, our winter weather averages 25-35F with the occasional few days dipping to tens, single digits, and the occasional -10 freak; but these units just BARELY have a HSPF4 rating to classify as “cold climate” models. Still going to pay for themselves in 6 years without any tax credits, and 4 or so since I still installed them when they were available.
So you want the government to pick winners and you want to do business with a monopoly? This is the opposite of what you would want.
If the product saves me money, and it's _actually_ better, I will buy it in a heartbeat. If you're involving the government it's because one of those things isn't true.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqyAWkXXt3A
https://www.neshw.com/residential/solar-heat-pump-water-heat...
I have one of these: https://cta.ch/en/private/products/ah-i-eco-innen
I got it in October so most of the time I've had it has been <10C. It's produced 806.3 kWh of heating for hot water and 6587.2 kWh for the floor heating. It consumed 302.7 kWh and 1801.4 kWh respectively, for a COP of 2.66 and 3.66.
Personally, I prefer an air-source heat pump hot water tank. It significantly dehumidifies my basement.
We have been buying heat pump PTAC for the hotels for last 20 years, and price difference is usually 5% between with and without heat pump.
Seems like all companies are colluding with each other for marking up prices.
As an aside, HP dryers are really elegant tech, and it's a shame they're not more common. They use the heat pump not just to heat the air in the dryer, but also to condense the moisture back out of it, so just the water can be drained away instead of needing to exhaust the air outside. So you need much less energy overall, and you don't need a dryer vent. The only downside is they're a bit slower, but ours has a resistive backup option for when you need clothes dry asap, so really it's just price.
I've stopped needing to sort my clothes out as a result, I used to hate putting synthetics in a regular dryer because they get worn out so fast that way.
If you have a poorly insulated house then the fix is to insulate it, which is what a lot of people are doing around here, with very hold houses. My house is less than 60 years old and very well insulated for the time, and it holds up even today - it's always warm, with the heat pump not even close to its max power.
I don't really understand what the aversion is to forced air climate control here other than "it's not as comfortable" which from what I've gleaned from other people is taken to mean noise/moving air/humidity. Coming from the southern US, I find all of those points to be a non-issue for me. I've slept with a fan on my entire life, so if I can shave off 50% of my heating costs for a few decibels of fan noise, sign me up!
Isn't that what we call a combi boiler in the UK (and Europe?) I've recently moved from having a big hot water cylinder to a combi. The space saving is nice, but there are downsides.
Waiting for the hot water to come through is annoying and I'm often just wasting cold water waiting for it to come through hot. There is a "pre-heat" feature which would be nice, but then it would keep it warm 24 hours a day which is ridiculous. Maybe some better boilers can time the pre-heat. That would probably be close to perfect.
The other downside is it can only really supply one tap with hot water. So if someone is having a shower and someone else runs a hot tap it can be unpleasant. Requires some coordination between householders.
All in all I would definitely prefer a cylinder if I could afford the space it takes. Modern cylinders are incredibly efficient. I once turned the heating off for a week while away on holiday and when I came back the water from the cylinder was still tepid.
Yeah one of my colleagues has a preheat which can be triggered manually and via automation. They also have a preheat loop which cycles hot water through the entire piping as the boiler is on an edge, so it takes ages for hot water to reach the far bathroom.
At that price, resistive heating cost about as much as what I paid for gas at my old house.
I went with a heat pump to hedge the bet. (I was also pointed away from geothermal.)
If the insulation wasn't as good, or electricity more expensive, I would have used a different heat source. I was looking at pellet furnaces at the time, but never seriously got into the research before the solar proposal came in.
I have a heat pump btw., with COP 4.5 (below ground). Costs me EUR 2.5 - 3k per year to heat the house.
That really depends on the oil heater, no? You can't compare a heater from the 70s with a modern one. That's like saying I don't drive modern cars because cars in the 70s were unsafe and stank.
Electricity (standard): 33.34 p/kWh
Heating oil (gas oil): 10.54 p/kWh
Kerosene: 6.20 p/kWh
Mains gas: 7.68 p/kWh
https://www.nottenergy.com/advice-and-tools/project-energy-c...
I've got a 1930s semi-detached house (UK, north of England) - heated solely by a ASHP for both heating and hot water.
Our Seasonal Coefficient of Performance is currently 3.47 (347% efficient) - even if limit that to just last month (coldest month of the winter so far in the UK) our COP was 3.25 (325% efficiency).
Roughly speaking if you can achieve a COP over 3.2x in the UK it should be roughly on a par with gas, assuming you go 'gas free' (i.e. you can make the saving on the gas standing charge).
Personally we're running at ~£200 annual saving vs. my estimate of what costs would be for equivalent gas boiler - that's thanks in part to being able to do all our hot-water heating at night rates.
House wise - we don't have cavity wall insulation, have 15+ year old double-glazing and probably should have more insulation in the loft (it fills the rafters but I think these days that's considered not enough).
Also with changes to ECO (energy company obligations) and RO (renewables obligations) the differential between gas and electric will reduce further
Anyhoo - added my example to show that ASHP can work perfectly fine in old, poorly insulated homes in (moderately) cold climates.
ECO/RO link - https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2025/11/energy-bill-c...
I've been quoted prices to insulate my house that represent 50% of the original acquisition price of the house.
I would need to pay 0€ for both electricity and heating for the next 100 years for this to make sense at current prices.
For instance, masonry was a common building material and that is not easy to insulate. You need to add many inches of insulation on either the outside or the inside, both of which have complications.
Even in a basic stick framed house, you’re still talking about taking down all the exterior walls, likely involving removing plaster and replacing it with drywall. Plaster has a number of nice properties, so it’s sad to remove. And that’s not to mention the price of this work.
Finally, roofs need special consideration. Most roofs today need to be properly vented, which was not as much of a consideration when the houses naturally breathed. Venting today is often done with soffit vents. Yet on historic houses, soffits are typically one of the nicer details. It’s not trivial or cheap to install venting in such cases.
That's why they're so great for warm climates though. The water heater also cools your house, especially as that heat is then lost down the drain. Everybody in the south should be jumping on these.
From a quick skim around it appears ASHPs can continue to work at -20c even -30c IF they are units that were designed for cold climate operation, albeit they can't secure the same SCOP/efficiency as they can with warmer temps.
It also looks like homes in these colder areas will often install the ASHP + have some form of additional heating as a back-up (e.g. electric heating) to compensate for the limitations of the ASHP in the coldest weather.