RSSAmplifier

Earth Notes Basic Feed · Aug 16, 2026

PhD Research on UK Wet Heating Retrofit

Read inOriginalenesdefrptjaitzh
0
Sign in to vote or save

Damon Hart-Davis · earth.org.uk

Updated 2026-08-16 12:54 GMT.
By Damon Hart-Davis ORCID.

A continuing summary of Damon's research into optimising UK domestic wet heating system retrofit. #PhD #heating #research

Overview

A summary, with periodic updates, of my research and reading (and maybe some notes from time to time) and relevant publications for a PhD at the University of Surrey Centre for Environment and Sustainability (CES). Having spent a decade thinking about home heating I want to continue to fight climate change by ensuring domestic space-heating retrofits. In particular, making upgrades of existing wet-heating systems with radiators from gas to heat-pump work as well as possible!

Reading To Do

A portion of my reading list: [CIBSE2026TM71] (for CS1) [bhadra2026bedrooms] (for CS1) [chang2019gender] (for CS1) [vanderlans2013acclimation] (for CS1) [ngarambe2019sleep] (for CS1) [INHABIT] (for CS1, UF, UA) [millar2025consumption] (for CS1, UF, UA) [aparicio-terres2025entrainment] (for UA) [cook2008resonance] (for UA) [connelly2025mines] [jedon2025darkness] (for UA) [steven2025retrofitting] [guan2025mould] [baniassadi2024older] [sezen2022performance] [govUK2024clean] [norman2024echolocation] [ji2019calibration] [dongellini2019cycling] [oikonomou2022insitu] [govUK2023noise] [EU2024heatpump] [zhou2024horizontal] [heschong1979architecture] [cretu2022scale] [donkin2024health] [watson2021halfhourly] [bakker2024demand] [johnston1988transform] [ziemer2018psychoacoustical] [ISO2005std7730] [ASHRAE2023std55] [BSI2023PAS2035] [wade2016explain] [toleikyte2023deployment] [menegazzo2022technology] [neubert2022multifamily] [jones2021podcast] [gray2020podcast] [rime2022podcast] [xu2023integrated] [LCP2023installer] [ESC2022EoH] [BEIS2021EUFS] [britton2021exploring] [hemsley2018cleaning] [hhic2021heating] [hulme2013EUFS] [luo2022controlling] [piddington2020housing] [rosenow2023clean] [taylor2022renewable] [DCLG2015EHS] [EHSdataset] [ONShousing] [LAHSdataset] [bowers2022efficiency] [bouckaert2021net] [druckman2011missing] [BEIS2022building] [miller2020scaling] [wickham2014tidy] [bastian2022passive] [ONS2021census] [ONS2021heated] [johnston2020passive] [feist2020passive] [UKDS] [LGA2022decarbonise] [neumaier2023refrigerant] [cholewa2017thermostatic] [sorensen2023excess] [BEUC2022green] [santini2023clean] [altermatt2023replacing] [zong2024umwelt] [reinertsen2009principles]

IN PROGRESS

Reading Done

This includes anything that I skim or read fully such as a formal paper that is energy/climate/EOU related, and sometimes a bit wider, eg how-to-PhD, how to analyse data, government consultations, etc...

This list contains non-text resources, eg podcasts, Webinars, etc.

(JC is CES Journal club; CS1, UF, UA are PhD research strands.)

Timeline

: UK Homes Needing Wet Heating Retrofits: Status (2023)

Topics In Scope

  1. What is the current UK/England/Kingston housing stock archetype mix?
  2. What of the current stock is:
    • still expected to be in use in 2050 (eg not demolished or vacant)
    • hydronic heat with gas (or other fossil) boiler
    • non-hydronic heat with gas (or other fossil) source, eg forced air
    • needing retrofit to heat-pump, ie currently on fossil-fuel (central) heat
    • "hard to treat" (including listed buildings) and why?
  3. What fraction of stock that should be retrofitted actually must be in order to meet (eg) 2050 Net Zero targets?
  4. Should other wet heating systems not gas-fired (eg oil) be considered?

Topics Not In Scope

Relevant points and controversies not covered here, but that are also important:

  • What is the current UK/England/Kingston housing stock tenure mix?
  • What heating retrofit measures will be robust and persist savings in the hands of normal people (Effective Useful Lifetime), not just in engineering models and labs? [penasco2023assessing] Indeed is there any point at all if there is little evidence (in the UK or beyond) on the impact of policies for the installation of residential efficiency measures on heating use in buildings?
  • Should we enlarge all/most radiators before a heat-pump goes in?
  • Aim for reduction in flow temperatures before a heat-pump goes in?
  • Insulate (and ventilate) before retrofit to heat-pump?
  • Use of buffers, TRVs, and other specific control/system elements
  • Consider embedded/upfront carbon for heating systems, eg LCA (LifeCycle Analysis)?
  • Is there an issue with control systems (eg in the cloud) footprint eating into or eliminating carbon savings?
  • Retention/replacement of all/some/none of current heating controls
  • Is the UK climate unique for heat-pumps eg with lots of time close to 0°C and high relative humidity, and thus lots of defrost cycles? Is [cantorHeatpumps] estimate of 10% cost correct?
  • Can the UK build electrical infrastructure (generation, transmission, distribution, markets, ToU tariffs, etc) fast enough to support the heat-pumps needed, including down to Kingston level [lizana2023storage] [chen2025equity]?
  • Can the UK train up heating engineers fast enough?
  • Can the population be convinced/educated/taxed/subsidised appropriately, to use retrofit systems well and maybe frugally (sufficiency and efficiency)? [rosenow2022heatpump] [rosenow2023clean] [ryland2022economics] and there seems to be a need for additional behavioural changes to realize the full saving potential of the adoption of EE improvements [penasco2023assessing]
  • Will the UK government(s) provide the right environment to retrofit homes effectively with heat-pumps?
  • Should upgrades of electric resistance heating (~10% of homes, eg night storage) to heat-pumps be considered?
  • Legionnaires' disease risk change in DHW systems, eg gas condensing boiler plus DHW tank during transition to low-flow temperatures and heat-pump [HSE2014legionnaires2]
  • Co-benefits from heating-system upgrades and other Net Zero changes.
  • Given typical lifetimes of heat pumps, how many will sites upgraded from gas boilers will have the heat pumps replaced before 2050?
  • Biodiversity impacts of heat pumps

Tools and Meta

There are some (meta) tools that I am gathering, such as how to get the most from my PhD [bard2018most], a template for a good abstract [gilardi2021abstracts], and a notion of 'tidy' (normalised) data [wickham2014tidy]. Maybe also some things not to do [demenard2020wrong]. And some scientific style to aim for [fortier-dubois2022style]?

Also, I should learn how to do key word searches in the abstracting sites, such as Web of Science and Science Direct.

Also, a research plan would probably be a good idea — my colleague Uche :

  • Research design/plan
  • Research objectives
  • Methodology
  • Data gathering
  • Data analysis
  • Discussion
  • Conclusion

: Notes from Surrey Open Research Culture Event

Do not forget to study and cite valid views/studies contrary to mine...

Inform in Methods, persuade in Discussion...

Would preregistration help keep my work on the straight and narrow?

References

(Count: 457)

Read the original on earth.org.uk ↗

Comments

Nothing yet. Say the first thing.

    Sign in to join the conversation.