The updated draft law for the new heating law apparently means that many homeowners are still quickly opting for gas heating. Both the Federal Association of the Heating Industry and the Central Association of Skilled Trades for Heating and Air Conditioning reported great uncertainty among customers. This is now confirmed by the SHK Lower Saxony trade association: At the moment, more heating systems that are operated with fossil fuels are being installed again. The fear of a gas shortage is no longer as pronounced among customers as it was last winter, the association from Laatzen said. That’s why customers are increasingly opting for devices that burn gas: gas condensing boilers and combi boilers. There is still a high backlog of orders. The association, to which around 50 guilds belong, did not give exact figures. Some customers also had functioning gas condensing boilers exchanged in order to forestall a defect, the association said. There is uncertainty among customers as to whether such a defective device can be replaced at a later date.
The association is thus referring to the Building Energy Act (GEG), or Heating Act for short, which has been the subject of debate for months. The GEG is to be decided at the beginning of September. Among other things, it stipulates that in future only heating systems that can be operated with at least 65 percent renewable energies may be installed in the future. From 2024 onwards, the rule will only apply to new development areas. According to the federal government, there should be no immediate replacement obligation for existing heating systems.
Heat pumps want fewer customers right now
In Lower Saxony, plumbers are currently installing many heat pumps, the association reports. Heat pumps can be used to heat in a much more climate-friendly way. However, these are rather older orders that can only now be processed because the delivery times for the devices are long. “New orders for the installation of heat pumps are slightly declining,” says the association.
In Bremen, the heating engineers are currently receiving significantly fewer orders, even if there are still many inquiries, the Bremen SHK Guild announced. According to the assessment, customers were waiting for the decision of the GEG. “We assume that this is the calm before the storm,” said the foreman of the guild, Steffen Röhrs. As soon as the law has been passed and there is clarity about the funding, the guild expects many new orders.
According to the guild, the waiting times for heat pumps for existing buildings are still high in Germany. You have to be patient for eight to twelve months at the moment. Heat pumps for new buildings, on the other hand, can be delivered within a few days. Röhrs assumes that next year the manufacturers will generally be able to deliver the devices more quickly. Then a bottleneck during assembly is possible. After all, the installation of a heat pump takes about three days longer than that of a gas heating system. In Bremen, as in Lower Saxony, it is currently noticeable that customers are increasingly opting for gas heating, Röhrs said when asked. This particularly affected the rental sector. In the case of single-family houses, on the other hand, this inflow was not observed to be above average.