Over the past year, a lot of boiler installers and manufacturers were asked regularly by people with boilers close to the end of their operating lives what they should do and how they should replace their existing gas boilers.
There are a lot of alternative options, including electric boilers, heat pumps and potentially hydrogen boilers in the near future, but depending on where and how they were fitted, these options could be either expensive to install, impractical for the building without extensive retrofitting, or both.
As these alternatives were being developed, produced at scale and prices were lowering, the biggest question was whether someone with a boiler that desperately needed replacing could be replaced with an upgraded, efficient new gas boiler without falling foul of a proposed boiler ban in a few years.
After a lot of delays, the industry received an answer on 20th September 2023, as the gas boiler phase-out has been delayed until 2035, which means that someone replacing their boiler when the announcement was made will have at least 12 years of use before it requires replacing again.
This provides peace of mind for many homeowners who had been caught in the middle and faced the dilemma of whether they should take the risk of installing a new gas boiler only to potentially have to replace it in three years or invest in an expensive or unsuitable alternative.
Homeowners, landlords and building managers now have more time to explore their options and see what the best solution is when it is time to replace their boiler again, as well as focus on other ways to reduce their energy bills such as improving insulation..
In the meantime, here are the current options available to people planning on replacing their boiler in the next year.
A Like-For-Like Replacement
A new gas boiler is more efficient than an older one, and so a like-for-like replacement could have the potential to lower the amount of gas used and in turn, reduce energy bills.
It would also have lower installation costs, as only the boiler unit would need to be replaced assuming there were no other pressing issues.
With the new deadline date and the assurance that a boiler would only need to be replaced once it reaches the end of its life, a replacement boiler is likely to be the last one you buy if the timescales remain the same.
An Electric Boiler
Certain homes could potentially use an electric boiler, which would function the same as a gas boiler but would instead heat water through the network via electrically derived heat rather than natural gas.
This tends to be less efficient than a gas boiler and is not always suitable for larger homes, but for apartments and smaller homes, it can be a space-saving alternative, particularly if a gas supply is not already fitted.
Heat Pumps
Heat pumps are a very popular alternative because they are exceptionally efficient compared to electric boilers, can provide both heating and cooling and can last up to 20 years.
However, they can be a very expensive solution to install into an existing home, although as they are produced at an increasing scale, this price is likely to go down and it would qualify for the Government’s green energy grant.
Hydrogen Boilers
Right now, hydrogen boilers are not necessarily an option, although there are gas boilers that are designed to be “hydrogen-ready” that have been made and would need minimal adjustments to convert to hydrogen gas.