HEAT PUMPS IN SCOTSTOUN

We published the following short article in the2023 Spring Newsletter :-

HEAT PUMPS IN THE AVENUESWe understand that there is on offer a £5,000 grant towards the cost of replacing a domestic boiler if the replacement is a new style heat pump, instead of a gas or oil boiler. However, we have been informed also that a company recently carried out an inspection in the Avenues and concluded that the houses in the Avenues are not compatible with heat pums, whatever that means. We had an informal arrangement to receive an explanatory report from the company in question which we could have included in our website. The report has never appeared and, if anyone has any further information about this they are invited to bring this to our AGM at Heart of Scotstoun from 7.30 pm on Wednesday 28th June or else to send the informsation by email to info@scara.co.org .

Then we received the following email which corrects some of the content of our Newsletter article-:

Dear SCARA,One of our members highlighted the attached piece about heat pumps in your newsletter. We are the company that was in touch with SCARA and one of your residents earlier in the year. It seems there has been a breakdown in communications and I would like to correct a few things. Loco Home is a small startup non profit co-operative of households in Glasgow. We are working to make it easier for households to do their part in mitigating the climate crisis, while also making their homes more comfortable and less expensive to heat. We are not an installer and instead we provide independent expert advice.All types of homes are suitable for heat pumps as this independent and large scale study has made clear. However they are expensive and sometimes poor installer standards lead to poor performance. We had a very small amount of funding to explore our idea of taking a collective approach in a neighbourhood to create economies of scale and provide independent expert advice to protect households. We studied one house in the Conservation Area in depth and provided a detailed report to that household. That report set out the steps they should take to install a heat pump. However we were forced to remove Scotstoun from the scope of our study because of funding constraints. We instead focussed on two neighbourhoods in the Southside. We deprioritised Scotstoun because there is less in common between the different houses than the terraces we were working with in the Southside, reducing scope for economies of scale. The Conservation Area further complicated things. None of that should suggest that "houses in the Avenues are not compatible with heat pumps, whatever that means".In Scotland there are grants of £7500 plus 0% interest loans as well as grants of £7500 for insulation. These are available via Home Energy Scotland. Unfortunately we didn't hear about your newsletter until today, after your AGM. My colleague Tom is on holiday so perhaps you didn't get a response from him when you were drafting your newsletter. If there will be another opportunity to set the record straight we would welcome it gratefully. Further, we would like to hold an event in Scotstoun where residents can hear more about the work we carried out. Could you help by suggesting a venue that we could hire and helping to raise awareness of the event?

Thank you

Chris Carus

Loco Home

The happy conclusion appears to be that the houses in the Avenues may well be compatible with the fitting of heat pimps and that grants may be available and we might have a meeting with the experts to provide us with further information and guidance. Watch this space.