Gas heating from 1.1.2024 - What to do if the heating is defective?

Gas heating systems often don't last longer than 15 years either. Some are already out of order after 10 years. But exceptions to the rule are not excluded for heat pumps as for gas.

The restrictions starting in 2024 refer to the installation of a new heating system. What counts as a heating system?

The gas boiler, the chimney or flue, the radiators, the valves and safety groups, the hot water boiler or instantaneous water heater.

As long as you don’t replace everything, it is not a new heating system, but merely a repair or replacement of individual components.
If the gas boiler breaks down in five years, you just have a new one installed. If necessary, a used or demonstration device.

Of course, you can clarify all of this in advance with someone who knows about it. Usually, that is the responsible district chimney sweep master.

That would, of course, be nice. I will check it out; in the course of our own renovation, I am dealing a lot with the chimney sweep anyway, because he is also an energy consultant.

I wouldn't want a new gas boiler at all. I would try to have the old one repaired so that one can manage until another heating system is delivered. But how it will turn out exactly remains to be seen. It all depends on so many factors; you have to see it all then. However, I also hope that the plumber will find a straightforward solution if it comes to that.

So, I just reread the Ministry’s guidelines (Search: 65 percent renewable energies for the installation of new heating systems from 2024 Implementation concept). It is quite clear from this that:

- the regulation applies in the event of a gas boiler failure. For example, gas individual heaters are explicitly mentioned:

In gas individual heaters, the obligation to use 65 percent renewable energies generally applies when the first gas individual heater in the building fails after the regulations come into effect on January 1, 2024, and needs to be replaced.

- there are somewhat more relaxed regulations for hybrid heating systems, since here the heat pump only has to cover 30% of the building’s heating demand - which could financially be a somewhat tolerable model for our case:

Another option is the installation of a so-called hybrid heating system. This is a heating system where a maximum of 35 percent of the consumed heat is generated with fossil fuels. The remaining share of at least 65 percent must be provided by renewable energies (biomass, heat pump, solar thermal energy, green gases, or a heating rod or heating cartridge 5 operated with photovoltaic electricity from the roof of the building or from the neighborhood). Compliance with this requirement must generally be calculated in advance based on estimates. To simplify and facilitate the implementation of this requirement, in a hybrid heating system consisting of fossil gas or oil boilers combined with an electric heat pump, compliance with the 65-percent obligation is assumed provided that the power share of the heat pump is 30 percent or higher.

- there is a 3-year period within which a replacement must be made in the event of a failure. That means you can initially have a replacement device installed and then later supplement it with a heat pump:

In cases of heating system failures where the conversion to 65 percent renewable heat would only be possible in the short term through green gases or liquid biomass, the obligation to meet the 65-percent-RE requirement does not have to be fulfilled immediately upon heating installation, but only within three years after the heating replacement. During this transition period, the building owner may temporarily install and use a (possibly used) gas or oil heating system and then supplement or replace it within three years with a heating system that meets the requirements of the 65-percent-RE obligation.

- it is definitely possible to heat with biogas, but it is not necessarily recommended:

In gas heating systems operated with sustainable biomethane, green hydrogen, or other green gases, the permanent supply of at least 65 percent green gases must be contractually proven and verified via a secure certification system (mass balance system or certificate of origin system). Since medium- to long-term high demand for biomethane and other green gases is expected in other sectors, significant price increases for the supply of biomethane and other green gases are anticipated. Against this background, a tenant protection regulation is provided. According to this, landlords must cover costs exceeding the basic gas supply tariff in the event of using biomethane or green gases.

After 20 years, a new gas heating system would definitely be an option. Alone because the thing can fail at any minute and delivery times for a new heating system are several months (optimistically).

The argument with the gas heating, which also only lasts 15 years, is often made. But the gas heating costs less than half of a heat pump.

But I am also quite calm about the future. The de facto heat pump mandate will end in such a fiasco that this law will be equipped with extensive exceptions by 2026 at the latest.
Many homeowners >70 will not get a loan to renovate their house for the heat pump and also buy the heat pump itself.
And even those who get a loan: if the gas heating fails in December, you won’t get the heat pump tomorrow and the building renovation won’t be done in 2 weeks… at -10°C like in Dec 2022, that can become very unpleasant then.

I see it very similarly. I am curious to see how the 65% renewable energy target is going to be enforced if the waiting times for the goods do not improve, if the craftspeople cannot keep up, if heat pumps that are too large are installed, if the pipes cannot provide the required capacity, if old buildings operate with an annual performance factor of under 2, if the old buildings get freezing cold due to shutdowns in the heat pump tariff, and so on and so forth. I am a supporter of renewables, but the infrastructure and the "surroundings" have to be right! All typically German, just like the media scaremongering with empty gas storage and overheated gas markets. If the house is really fit for a heat pump, then use a heat pump. If not: Our new gas heating system consumes less at -10°C than the old one (from 2002) at +10°C Payback after about 7 years!