The government wants to ban the installation of new oil and gas heating systems to protect the climate. Initially, however, it triggered a boom in oil and gas heating of all things.
Heating engineers report an enormously high demand for heating systems with fossil fuels. Delivery times will already be tight before the law comes into force on January 1, 2024.
Tradespeople name the cost of climate-friendly heat pumps as the most important reason. Private homeowners and housing associations are overwhelmed and very insecure.
The ban on new oil and gas heating systems planned by the government this spring initially has the opposite effect. Demand for oil and gas heaters booming Heating engineers and their associations are reporting record-breaking orders for new heating systems with climate-damaging fossil fuels from several federal states. The delivery times increase to several months. Some craft businesses are already advising their customers against a new oil heating system because there is no guarantee that it can be delivered before the end of the year. Then the ban on certain new heaters should take effect.
This Friday, the Federal Council will deal with the new building energy law, the economy minister Robert Habeck (Greens) has submitted. It is scheduled to come into force on January 1, 2024.
“We have a run on oil and gas heating systems,” says Jürgen Engelhardt, Managing Director of the Association of Heating Engineers in Lower Saxony. “Mr. Habeck achieved exactly the opposite of what he wanted.”
In the south of Germany, master craftsman Gerhard Hardrath draws a similar picture: “Now we are currently overrunning the industry with the demand for oil-fired boilers,” says the head of the guild in the Bavarian district of Rosenheim. He puts the delivery times for an oil heater at around six months, depending on the manufacturer and type.
heat pumps have been scarce for a long time and are even harder to come by: “The delivery times are sometimes between nine and twelve months,” says a spokesman for the Central Association for Sanitary, Heating and Air Conditioning. “And even when heat pumps are delivered, there are often still missing components to install them properly.”
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At the moment, heating engineers often do not know what to advise their customers to do: “Our companies currently lack legal certainty in planning, advice and construction.”
The Federal Association of the Heating Industry reported record sales of 306,500 systems in the first quarter. Sales of climate-friendly heat pumps soared to 96,500 units, more than doubling year-on-year with an increase of 111 percent.
However, climate-damaging gas and oil heating systems were still sold much more frequently, at 188,500 systems, of which 168,000 were gas-fired and 20,500 oil-fired. Oil heaters have not been in demand in recent years, and now the sales figures have also doubled.
Heating engineers are now “also psychologists and pastors,” reports Engelhardt. Many customers are unsettled, mainly because of the costs. According to a rough rule of thumb, new heat pumps are about three times as expensive as a heating system with fossil fuels.
Heating: This is what heat pumps cost compared to gas heating
This concerns not only private homeowners, but also housing associations. Hans Maier, the director of the Association of Bavarian Housing Companies, puts the cost of a heat pump for a ten-family house at around 100,000 euros, compared with 30,000 for gas heating.
Apart from that, according to Maier’s estimate, half of all apartment buildings are unsuitable for heat pumps in their current condition. A heat pump can also be installed in an unrenovated house: “But then the electricity consumption goes through the roof,” says Engelhardt from Lower Saxony.
There is no general formula for which houses have to be modernized for the installation of heat pumps. “Each building is individual,” says Engelhardt. But he also estimates that around half of the residential buildings would have to be retrofitted for the installation of a heat pump, for example with better insulation or underfloor or wall heating.
This can drive up costs that many homeowners find difficult or impossible to afford. “Such measures are not affordable for the majority of people in Germany,” criticizes Hans-Peter Sproten, general manager of the association in North Rhine-Westphalia.
In rural areas, many people live in their own homes but are not wealthy. Anyone who has a new oil or gas heating system installed usually pays less than 20,000 euros. If the house has to be retrofitted for the installation of a heat pump, the costs quickly reach a high five-digit or even six-digit sum. The costs are the most important reason for the current fossil fuel heating boom.
Heat pumps: Many houses have to be renovated at great expense
Housing corporations, particularly community service cooperatives and municipal corporations, face the same challenge on a larger scale. Ultimately, tenants have to pay for climate protection in the form of rent increases.
“Elderly people, net income earners of 800, 1000, 1200 euros, they live with us,” says VdW director Maier, who with his association represents a good 500 mostly socially oriented housing companies throughout Bavaria. “There are people who just can’t make it.”
The law stipulates that the state subsidizes the conversion to heat pumps. However, homeowners have to finance the costs in advance. The subsidy will be paid in arrears. However, most homeowners have the necessary 50,000 to 100,000 euros available in their accounts. “If you read through the Building Energy Act, it is peppered with prohibitions and not with incentives,” says Rosenheim chief guild leader Hardrath: “We take a very critical view of everything.”
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