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The Editor, PHAM News 1b Station Square Flitwick, Bedfordshire, MK45 1DP or email to: editor@phamnewsedit.co.uk This month’s £100 letter Share your views and you could win £100 for writing the star letter

What does the future hold for heating engineers?

Having been a heating and plumbing engineer for over 40 years, I would like someone to explain what is happening regarding renewables and gas, as the story seems to change every week.

I fi nd myself in the situation where I don’t know what to advise my clients regarding gas boiler replacements. I don’t want to give them the wrong advice and fi nd a couple of years down the line they are having to either have boilers ripped out to meet CO2 targets or they have become too expensive to run because the government has pushed up the price of gas to make heat pumps more attractive. I am fi tting boilers with a fi ve years plus warranty, but the way things are going they may never see it out!

Everything electric

I watch with interest as the media ramps up its demand for electric everything, wondering where all this extra electricity is going to come from. No one seems to have assessed how much electricity we are currently using and how much all these so-called green solutions are going to use. You may well get 4kW of power for every 1kW put into an air source heat pump. At present, my boiler gives me 32kW for heating and, with its ERP pump, uses around 63W an hour under full load. How much is needed by an ASHP to keep my property at the temperatures I need in the winter?

Economically, 32kW of gas currently costs me @£0.038 per kWhr around £1.18. Electricity is around £0.19 per kWhr, so I assume I would need 8kW to achieve 32kW, which would cost £1.52 an hour to run, and using over 100 times more electricity than at present. There is never any mention of the carbon footprint generated by the power stations to run these devices. One new power station isn’t going to cope when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.

Furthermore, many buildings have been designed with combi boilers being installed and they have no room for hot water cylinders and the associated controls needed for a heat pump. Many of the older buildings that did have cylinders had the cupboard in the centre of the building, so getting pipework to them from outside would be almost impossible without extensive building works. I am not against progress – something has to be done – but I don’t want to bear the fi nancial fallout of half a dozen failed initiatives such as we have already seen.

I deal with a several landlords who are an easy target for the government. Rented properties may soon have to meet defi ned criteria regarding EPC ratings and the only way to do so is to install a heat pump. Any landlord with a sizable property portfolio would be faced with a huge outlay, the cost of which would end up being passed down to the tenant!

Training and assessment

My other concern is gas training. Mine is soon due for renewal, but is it worth it? In a couple of years time there may well be no call for gas boilers or cookers. Or will I have to pay for additional training to deal with hydrogen if it is introduced? Whilst I am on the subject, why do boilers have to be 90% effi cient yet a gas fi re can lose 90% of its heat up a chimney. Where is the logic behind that?

Why are the powers that be making it so diffi cult for small owner-operator companies such as mine to fi t a heat pump without expensive MCS accreditation? I have heat pump without expensive MCS accreditation? I have vast plumbing experience, yet the likes of the Green Deal and other initiatives, make it impossible for me to off er them to my clients because they cannot claim any subsidies. This mistake has been made again and again. The amount of Green Deal boilers I have been called into look at which have been abysmally fi tted is unbelievable. Yet those of us that do a good job day after day, in order to maintain our reputation and retain our customers, don’t get a look in.

I completed a four year apprenticeship and obtained City and Guilds qualifi cations yet despite all my experience I am not regarded as suitable to fi t a heat pump, and my clients are unable to claim their incentives. I expect a similar arrangement to GSR will be set up for heat pumps, with yet more costs loaded onto us the installers.

The solution, I suggest, should be along the lines of: engineers with an NVQ3 qualifi cation or equivalent can fi t a heat pump. So long as they have the appropriate training from the manufacturers, the client can then claim whatever incentives are on off er at the time. A not-for-profi t register could be set up to reduce the cost to a few pounds, instead of £200 – perhaps the CIPHE could step in to run it, as you have to be qualifi ed to be a member.

There could be inspectors to spot check completed work and, provided the work complies, the installers carry on. This removes layers of red tape and if the fi tter hasn’t done the course or isn’t registered, the client doesn’t get the incentives. This would make sure that the client checks the installer out fi rst, otherwise they risk missing out on the fi nancial incentives.

Additionally there should be a ban on companies obtaining accreditation then sending anyone they can fi nd to do the job. All installers must have a minimum qualifi cation, not just something you can pick up sitting in a classroom for 40 hours. NVQ3 and a manufacturer’s course should, in my view, be the minimum requirement.

Room heating

When I started my apprenticeship back in the seventies, a heating system was a luxury not a standard item. People have become used to walking around their houses room to room in the middle of winter wearing a tee-shirt. Due to rising costs, we may well see a day when we keep one room warm and the rest of the property unheated. I often go into houses where every radiator is on in the house, but only a couple of rooms are in use and, yes, they have TRVs so could easily turn them down. It now seems to be the norm that every room in the house is heated, regardless of whether it is being used. Maybe it’s time we stopped thinking that way. One room minimum could be the new normal, as they say.

I worry that we are going down the same old road of the plumber paying to get accredited, only for the scheme to be pulled yet again. Unless a way is found to include the engineers with experience, a lot of us may well call it a day and you will have an even bigger skills shortage than you have now, and 800,000 heat pumps a year literally thrown in. That’s a lot of votes lost if there are any politicians reading this.

So to sum up. I am not against change, I just want a clear indication of what is expected in the future from heating engineers such as myself. I want to be able to give my customers a good service and for them to be able to trust my advice for the years to come. And I want to fi t an ASHP knowing that they have access to any government incentives. Am I asking too much? W. Wiltshire BSc Eng, MCIPHE Via email