Hacker News Reader

Agree

Especially as air conditioning are heat pumps.

Would have helped solve the large dependency on natural gas heating for free as a byproduct!

In the UK my understanding is there are large subsidies for installing heat pumps in new builds - but you lose the subsidy if you include the cooling part.

NB: a friend in construction explained this to me so I could be wrong but it would explain why even pretty fancy new apartments with heat pumps have no cooling.

Same in France. The trick is to wait for a control visit, and then turn on the cooling.

For new builds the only subsidy is zero VAT, which now applies equally to all heat pump types, so this should hopefully change soon.

Existing properties are eligible for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme which also now covers air to air (ie. reversible) systems.

There's still a bit of "what? no radiators?!" cultural resistance to overcome, but I'd expect this to fall away quickly as the climate continues to warm.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com