You as a Brit spend $5,500
Eh, on average that may be true. But most people pay far less than that. The NHS's budget is £153bn, and the government raises £950bn in revenue. Of the 950bn, around 25% is from income tax.
So by that logic, the amount of my income tax that goes to the NHS is about 0.25*153/950 = 4.0%. Last year I paid £6644 in income tax, so that's about £265 to the NHS. I'm not counting National Insurance as those contributions are not for the NHS.
VAT is also 15% of government revenue, so if I wildly guess that I bought £10k worth of "stuff" last year then that's £2000 in VAT (@ 20% - it's not all necessarily 20% but to simplify), of which £300 went to the NHS.
So I'm still not even paying £600/year. There are some other small contributions that you could count, but it's not going to make much difference to the final figure. I'm far from rich but I'm more well-off than most people, so the majority of citizens are paying less than me.
What I'm saying is, for most citizens we actually pay relatively little and get huge value out of the NHS. The rich pay proportionally a lot more, which is how it should be.
It seems my installation is a fixed price regardless of the size of pump I get. At least, that's what the Octopus rep said on a call. So, is it worthwhile to try to get a larger pump installed if the price is the same?
Presumably a larger pump won't cost more to run if it's outputting the same power? Or will it? i.e. if I have e.g. a 8kw pump outputting 5kw vs a 10kw pump outputting 5kw, I assume that's the same running cost. Are they more efficient when running at a lower %age of their capacity? i.e. 5/10 rather than 5/8 is more efficient? (PC power supplies are like this, where they're most efficient when supplying around half-ish of their rated capaticty). But the larger pump will give me more capacity in winter, and a faster time to heat water if I need it heating quickly from cold.
I wouldn't consider oversizing it but since it's a fixed cost I might as well go for the biggest one they'll give me right? :D
can anyone share their experience of having the heat pump installed? Are they noticably cheaper than gas in practice? tbh I’m looking forward to removing my gas meter and getting rid of the 25p/day standing gas charge. I pay for more for that than the gas itself for most of the year, except the coldest winter months, so that’ll be quite a saving in itself.