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Bosch pulling out??
I heard from one of my suppliers that Bosch will be pulling their hydronics products out of the North American market by years end…
No Buderus indirects, no Greenstar boilers in North America.
Anyone else corroborate?
Seems like the air to air heat pump market is getting some Mfg to ditch.
Triangle tube was just the 1st?
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I hope not. I haven't heard this, but it would not surprise me if this were happening.
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Apparently the Bosch global strategy is to shift toward electrification and away from carbon fuels, which aligns them with the future of markets like the Northeast where states like Maine and Massachusetts are aggressively promoting heat pumps. And last year they bought Johnson Controls/York/Hitachi, making them a major player in ducted air heating/cooling systems.
So it seems their oil and natural gas systems are getting kicked to the curb. I'm bummed, as I wanted eventually to get a Buderus oil boiler.
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yes, my local vendor sent me the letter yesterday
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Can you post a copy of that letter?
Bob Boan
You can choose to do what you want, but you cannot choose the consequences.0 -
Yes, all combustion products
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Anyone else still in the market besides ECR and U.S. Boiler?
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Peerless and W-M?
Bob Boan
You can choose to do what you want, but you cannot choose the consequences.0 -
They're just going to shove it down our throats.
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what are they doing in germany? the already really expensive fossil fuels there have suddenly become much more expensive
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electrification is here to stay.
I’m relatively surprised the utilities are still maintaining gas lines in the streets. .
At some point we will all get a letter in the mail: “on such and such date we will be discontinuing natural gas services to your area, please make plans now to covert to alternate heating technologies”
like every social movement, it’s a slow process
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The Frog boils slowly in the water until it's too late to jump. Mad Dog
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There are no winners when it comes to pulling out.
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With my present boiler, I'll get a tank installed and put the oil burner back in.
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If everyone goes HP the electric grid that is already strained will probably explode or catch fire. When the politicians don't have power things will change.
Not to mention many people with 60-100 amp services will not be able to afford the change. They want electric for sure, but it may be moving that way but it going to be a long time.
You can't force people to install ductwork in existing homes that would cause a lot of destruction not to mention ripping out steam and HW systems.
To heat a house with a HP you need a lot of radiation to work with a HP low temp water or a lot of ductworks.
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I’m guessing someday the regulators will squeeze out the oil industry. And Propane.
Somebody make a memo, and check this comment out in 20 years from now.
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I might actually still be alive then……………..
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I think they want to kill off all fossil fuels. That's fine but electricity does not grow on trees. And it will take years and a huge investment to get the grid up to speed. So what are they going to generate all this power from?
Solar and wind and hydro are ok but that will only cover a small portion. that leaves gas, oil or coal which they don't want.
So unless they go back to nukes, I don't know where its coming from.
They just built a New High School in the town I grew up in and lived in for 60 years. Its all electric I just found out and it is a huge HS. The old school was only 65 years old had HW heat.
Around here the State doles out money, and they pay 50 or 60% or whatever it is and you always hear the same thing. it will cost more to remodel the old school than to build the new one and the state will not pay for a remodel.
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that probably is true until you calculate what it costs to debug the new building after the cheapest construction they can get away with is completed.
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The phrase "sharpen our focus post-acquisition" in the letter caught my eye.
I went to the Bosch website, and found this press release: "The company has successfully completed the largest acquisition in its history. The acquisition of the residential and light commercial heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) business from Johnson Controls and the acquisition of the Johnson Controls-Hitachi Air Conditioning joint venture were completed as scheduled on July 31."
It looks like this includes the York, Coleman and Hitachi brands.
I wonder if they're discontinuing the Bosch brand of boilers and replacing it with York.
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isn't york just a rebrand of a dunkirk or us boiler or something like that?
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Well this is frustrating. I’m already annoyed with the way the HVAC industry wants to push us Steam/Hot Water folks over to forced air at even the slightest basic service call. I feel like boiler tech/operation is not being taught at the training/education level either so they are ensuring the new generation of techs and plumbers won’t even know this stuff. But now you got this push to eliminate fossil fuels and it’s all being driven by electricity lobbyists convincing politicians “eww fossil fuels are all bad!”
I will always be pro natural gas and it’s so much cheaper than electricity. My heating bill would be triple what it is now because of what my electricity rates are, the size of my house and how cold it can get in my area for stretches of time (last winter we hit -20°). No way a heat pump would be able to keep up and the backup for all electric is right back to electric resistance heating. Sounds familiar right. Remember how that was the big sell to homeowners in the 60s/70s? “Electricity will be so cheap you can’t meter it.” Fast forward to today, yeah it’s metered and at helluva rates that vary from state to state along with the governments getting their cuts from taxes and fees.
Nothing will ever make me willingly get rid of hot water boiler heating unless being forced to by the elimination of natural gas by state/federal governments. Me and my Ideal No. 7 boiler is going to ride this out as long as possible. It’s why I taught myself how to maintain and care for it.Lifelong Michigander
-Willie
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There are currently over 2000 AI data centers being planed and built. Somehow electricity "becomes" available and wired to them? 1- 100 MW per site. Seems you need to follow the money.
Water and electricity both always flow towards $$
If that same amount of $$ and energy went towards upgrading power plants and infrastructure for the citizens.
Bob "hot rod" Rohr
trainer for Caleffi NA
Living the hydronic dream1 -
Anything is possible if the price is right. I think that price is what makes many nervous lol. Luckily Bosch is not the only boiler manufacturer, in my region they are known as the cheapo condensing brand that all the PE companies install so I am not shedding a tear.
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Whatever happened to Vie$$mann? That was the other big brand from "der Vaterland"…………
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Carrier owns Viessmann climate-products. I imagine they would dump conventional boilers if they are a $$ drain
I wonder how tariffs play into decisions? Viessmann stuff comes from Germany and France, and other Euro plants.
Bob "hot rod" Rohr
trainer for Caleffi NA
Living the hydronic dream0 -
we do a out 15 or 20 Viessmann’s a year- not sure about their cast iron though
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Boilers will be slowly diminishing. it will be a long time going. Upgrading the grid and powerplants will take years. My brother worked in Power Plants for the last 50 years. They just don't have the capacity now. A good hot day in the summer and they are flat out now. They don't want fossil fuels but where will the power come from? Nukes take time.
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Texas seems to be blending RE into the mix, and low rates
Bob "hot rod" Rohr
trainer for Caleffi NA
Living the hydronic dream
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Probably quite a bit.
I've seen Dunkirk boilers rebranded as Carriers.0 -
Buderus is long gone. Greenstar was Bosch—recently made gone. Carrier gobbled up Viessmann—once, the largest boiler mfg. in the world.
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@hot_rod That is what is needed. New technology blended into old. Not get rid of fossil fuels all at once as some groups are preaching.
Wind and solar can go down in a natural disaster.
If boilers and furnaces go away, we need more power plants and more wind and solar, maybe nukes and the grid needs upgrading as well to handle the additional load.
1920s-30s many homes were on a 30A 120 volt service, 40s-50s a 60 amp 240 volt service which was 4x the capacity of the 30 amp 120v service. Around 1960 the 100 amp service became the minimum. Starting in the 80s 200 amp services are common and now there are a lot of 400amp services. The grid needs upgrading.
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somehow other countries are electrifying
There are now more EV charging stations than gas stations in the UK, more heat pumps than boilers being sold across Europe.
Their electric infrastructure must be older than ours in the US?China has an EV charger for every 3 EVs on the road. Mini splits everywhere.
If they can upgrade the grid and power generation, certainly we can
EV sales have jumped 35% in the past two months with the oil price spikes
I doubt those folks will go back to gas or diesel, if or when prices drop?
Bob "hot rod" Rohr
trainer for Caleffi NA
Living the hydronic dream1 -
i thin most of europe's electric infrastructure got wiped clean in wwii and much of it is newer than in the us. that's not to say that in the us utilities haven't been collecting money from users of electricity and have a responsibility to invest some of that money in to maintaining the thing that makes them money, but I suspect that there is far less infrastructure that is 100 years old in europe.
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There's no putting it back in the horse, we're going to be mostly electric, but for that to work we need firm availability. There's simply no way renewables can do that, we need dependable, reliable, thermal plants. Nukes might be the best, but coal is still the cheapest, until enough restrictions are added to it that gas starts to look better.
I don't care where the electrons come from, as long as they're there when I need them.
And who wants to bet there won't be exceptions to electrification that can be bought?
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I watch a lot of U tube videos particularly 1 guy in Ca. Lots of RTUs in the desert going full bore and 110-120 outdoors. The line voltage on his meter with 208 3 phase is almost always dragged down to under 200 volts. If you have a 200 amp service on your house and the code says you need 4/0 aluminum or 2/0 copper yet the power company drop is #6 aluminum. Poco doesn't use any copper. they have their own rules and yeah its hanging in free air.
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Power company sizes to connected load, not service OCPD. Were those packages units added after the fact, or part of the original permit?
Although, 200 volts might be inside the envelope for a 120/208 volt three phase service, I really don't know what they promise.
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When I built(reno) ~2000, my aerial service was #6. The util was willing to give me 200a service, but the transformer and thus the mainline pole needed changing at my cost. I went with 125a service so as to just reuse the existing transformer. They agreed then tried to reneg ("anything over 100a") after I had installed my end . Fortunately I knew someone who got one of their own engineers involved and then allowed it.
All that to say, I cant do the electric heating required with a HP in my climate without an expensive upgrade.
30+ yrs in telecom outside plant.
Currently in building maintenance.0 -
@ratio All I am saying is IMHO the grid is maxed out more than people think. If you take out every fossil fuel boiler and furnace and install electric HPs & HP water heaters what would that do to the grid. Say the old boiler/furnace and water heater use only 8 amps @ 120 volt call it 1000 watts. Now put in a HP water heater and a H. Pump. probably 20 amps @240 or 4800 watts-1000 from the old system=3800 watts if you are not running resistance heat. Thats 15 amps/house. A city of 150,000 people could be 37,000 houses (4 people/house). x 15 amps=562,500 amps.
The PP my brother retired from they seldom ran as they were a small plant and ran oil or gas. But they had to be ready in case another plant went down. When the grid struggles in the north east they can't keep up. When the weather is extreme grid capacity suffers and they do not have enough generating capacity.
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