Opinion

Bimpe Archer: My new gas boiler is now the Betamax of home heating - but what next?

According to new research this week `huge' increase in the number of visits to doctors by children with asthma problems occurs after a week of raised air pollution
According to new research this week `huge' increase in the number of visits to doctors by children with asthma problems occurs after a week of raised air pollution According to new research this week `huge' increase in the number of visits to doctors by children with asthma problems occurs after a week of raised air pollution

THIS time last week I was probably on hold with our insurance company trying to sort out a new boiler after ours gave up the ghost.

I feel fairly confident making that prediction no matter what time you are reading this as I spent hours being passed round departments and speaking to people who had no idea what happened next - despite the fact this was EXACTLY what we had taken out insurance for.

Then came the fun of trying to find someone to fit a new one - it always happens at the weekend, doesn't it?

The (now defunct) boiler holds a sentimental attachment for me. In fairness, as a borderline hoarder most things hold a sentimental attachment for me, but I still remember the excitement of the day it was fitted very clearly.

I may not have the distinction of being the first person in my family to go to university, but I was the first to get a combi-boiler, and that my friend is not nothing.

I still find it nothing short of miraculous that hot water just comes out of the tap when you turn it on without having to activate the heater half an hour earlier.

Even without my borderline-hoarder mentality, it is hard to think of the new boiler as anything but the end of an era. It is likely to be the last gas boiler we buy.

This week the International Energy Agency (IEA) said that no new fossil fuel boilers can be sold from 2025 if the world is to achieve net-zero emissions by the middle of this century.

That's four years away.

I have basically just bought a Betamax player (ask your grannies).

The boiler bombshell is one of 400 `steps' on the road to net-zero proposed in a new IEA report.

Another is the end of new petrol and diesel cars around the world by 2035.

We presently are at the edge of the unknown, a place that is tricky for those of us who have hitherto drawn comfort from future-proofing our lives as much as possible.

We are emerging from decades of relative technological stability, with few extinction-level innovations rendering the appliances and machinery we rely on obsolete.

It has been a case of improvements and advancements rather than transformations - non-combi boilers still exist and heat homes and water perfectly adequately, landlines still work, unleaded petrol has replaced the leaded variety, but cars still look and handle the same way.

But if the IEA report is adopted, I have no idea what my next home and water heating system will look like - or cost.

It has been suggested that existing models, designed to switch to burn hydrogen, may be developed - hydrogen from renewables burns with no emissions.

But given climate advisers warn they would only be able to heat around 11 per cent of homes due to limited hydrogen supply that’s not massively reassuring.

The most popular alternative suggestion, heat pumps which extract warmth from the air, the ground or water, retail for between £6,000 and £18,000 - with subsidies.

They also need high levels of insulation which do not suit every dwelling.

That things need to change, and need to change fast is not in question. As Greta Thunberg has pointed out, the world is on fire.

To keep it safe, scientists say that global heating has to be limited to 1.5C by the end of this century, halving emissions by 2030 and eliminating them by 2050

It’s not just fluffy animals and fish that are already suffering - according to new research this week "huge" increase in the number of visits to doctors by children with asthma problems occurs after a week of raised air pollution.

`Dirty air' is already known to increase hospital treatment for severe asthma attacks and other respiratory problems.

Something needs to change. It would just be nice to know how and what that will be.