Are Heat Pumps Worth Training For? w/ Mark Krull @logic4training

It is about delivering heat and hot water. Whether you have a gas boiler on the front of it delivering the energy, or whether you have a heat pump on the front of it delivering the energy, it's still about a heating and hot water system. That's what you as a consumer are buying. I'm not buying a boiler, I don't care about a boiler. I'm not buying a heat pump, I don't care about a heat pump. I want to be warm and I want to have me hot water, thanks.

Sorry, what was that comment, or where was it from?

I do believe it was David Cameron. That was some pressures on the government and why they said that. Obviously they're appealing to a certain group that they felt they needed to have a message to, and that was what came out. And that stopped the RHI, but it just stopped everything.

This is the Field Rocket Podcast. My name is Tullik Friis, and the co-host is Aaron Washer.

Hello.

And we're joined by Mark Kruhl from Logic4Training. Welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Could you tell us a little bit about what you do and what your company does?

Um, so I'm from Logic for Training. I'm one of the directors and co-owners of Logic for Training, and we're a training company involved in the building services industry wider now on gas, electrical, renewables, refrigeration, anything in that area. And we started back in 2002 delivering training and have been growing since then. So we now have 4 of our own training centers in Northolt, which is our head office, Luton, Basildon, and Sittingbourne. And they all have a core training they deliver, but some centers deliver something different and special that the others don't. But generally they deliver very similar across all 4 centers.

How long have you been with the company?

I joined, oh, in February 2003, so I'm, I'm 21 years, uh, in, in the business. And I joined, uh, the owners at the time, which was Kevin Budd and Gail Budd, I joined them and became then a director of, part owner of the business, 3 or 4 years later.

Before you were the director, your role was?

I was brought on to look after the sales side, help develop the businesses, and before that I did 10 years with Worcester Bosch on the sales side and technical sales within the London area. So that was where I met Kevin, who was a heating contractor at the time.

So it's quite a range of courses. Did you always have such a wide range, or where did you actually start with it?

No, so the business started out as Gas Logic. That was our name, and, and the clue was in the name. So we did gas, uh, and that was what we'd started doing. Uh, and Kevin identified that, that the quality of the, the companies and the training facilities out there did not match up with the money being charged. So Kevin wanted to do it differently, uh, and, and do it at a much higher quality, which is what we have tried to keep going through our years. So we started in gas in 2002. We had an opportunity to move into electrical in 2005 with the introduction of the building regulations, specifically around Part P, and that required heating engineers through CORGI to have electrical skills and competencies as well. So that started us down on that road. And then, well, I think back now, it was a— would have been about 2006 we started getting into the renewables. So at that point, we started to look at designing courses in and around solar thermal at the time, and then heat pumps, and then solar PV, which we first off did with Logic Certification, and we designed them with Logic Certification and ran those. And then we worked with the Sector Skills Council as it was to get those recognized and accredited. And then slowly they, they've morphed, they've gone up and down, and they've had the roller coaster ride that the whole industry within the renewables has had over the last 20 years, which, you know, it is not uncommon in that sector, which is one of the problems facing the Engineers of Future is, is this constant demand now. Are we there? Is this how it is, or are we gonna see another roller coaster ride? I think not. I think, think we are.

Do you think it's gonna be more stable from now on?

We've reached a tipping point now, and the industry, the resources behind it, the infrastructure behind it, is such that it will keep growing. And at the moment, you know, for, for something like the heat pumps are very much dependent upon government support within the grant. But that you can look to the PV industry and say, okay, well, that was the case for that back in 2010, 2011. But that isn't the case now. It is a standalone product that has its benefits and has its place and, and, um, is attractive in its own right. And the same with energy storage. And that will slowly happen. I would have thought with heat pumps, your prices should come down for kit and material. There will be new ways of tackling issues that will come forward, and manufacturers are going to continue to develop new products that will meet challenges that the industry faces now.

What can happen with the solar? Because they— there was quite a bit of government grants, and then all of a sudden overnight they kind of got chopped off.

The, the— yeah, so that would have been 2011. So there was the feed-in tariff, um, which ended in, in 2011, I think December 2011. I forget the date now. I should remember the date because I was busy with, uh, um, a contractor installing my PV system on the night before it had to be finished.

Did that mean that, uh, Were you able to get it?

Absolutely. I made sure I got that. I knew I was going to make sure I got that.

But stressful morning, perhaps.

It was interesting. My daughter was up there as well on the scaffolding as well. So she was kind of 10 at the time, but that was good. That came about that the government did not put the correct structure in to address cost changes within the industry that would happen. and then reflect that within the feed-in tariff. They didn't have that structure in place. They maybe did not anticipate that costs would drop so quickly, uh, and their feed-in tariff remained, uh, at an incredibly high rate, which was not at that time then reflective of what it cost to put in, um, which, which led to a, a massive boom and an influx of people coming in maybe that you wouldn't necessarily have wanted to come in. Um, So because they were in a, uh, an alley with a far— sorry, with regard to the regulation, they then had to just stop the scheme pretty much. And that's why it was such a sudden drop because the, the financial impact for the government and for the taxpayer was, was too big. Um, you know, you like to think that they have recognized what went before and learned the lessons. So, so the kind of scheme they have in now is more flexible. It's able to respond, uh, it can respond quickly, uh, nimbly. It can either go up, as we've seen it go up recently, or, you know, it can be pulled back down. Whereas on the PV, that was much more difficult. They were tied in.

How do you kind of see like the future of, um, you know the gas industry, because you, you do have kind of like the heat pumps and other bits that kind of— and the government are pushing these things.

They are. So I would point to a few statistics. I think there's— and these are just general statistics— somewhere in the region of 44,000, 45,000 gas appliances within the UK. They're not all going anywhere. There are still, um, that's —this point on a rolling 12-month average, about 1.5 million boilers being installed every year. So that isn't going to change overnight. So we will have a gradual transition. It might be slower, it might be quicker. I'm sure it will have ups and downs, but it will be a transition that is happening. So it is not going to go anywhere, the gas market, for the foreseeable future. And I am sure it will see me out and into my grave.

Do you find that obviously being the trainer, you sort of have to be ahead of the curve? Is it the statistics you look at? Is it like, how do you know where to be in your future courses?

Um, so I'm fortunate because I straddle two camps. I've got Logic for Training, uh, also I'm an active director and owner of LCL Awards as well. So that gives me some ability to interact with stakeholders, government, and I was a director of the Solar Trade Association, which sort of helped on there. You understand what's coming. And also sit on the HPA as well as a member, which— and interact with government stakeholders where possible to try and see what is coming. With other bodies as well, some part of the HHRC, which kind of more on the gas side. But again, that you understand what's happening with the consultations and you do see and you do look further forward rather than just what has been implemented. You are looking to see, well, what is going to be implemented. So that allows us to look forward a little bit more.

Has there ever been something like, oh, I'm sure this is going to be something in the future, and then it's not quite planned out like that?

Maybe like solar was an example. I, I was sure that heat pumps were going to take off, uh, some years ago, um, because everything was in place for them, that the manufacturers were all starting to develop facilities, they were doing a lot of R&D in The installer base, CAD installers are out there starting to get retrained. And then we had that one comment, as far as I can link it back to, to do with getting rid of all of the green crap. And that just didn't kill it dead, but all that growth had happened, all the steps forward that had been taken.

Sorry, what was that comment, or where was it from?

Who believe it was David Cameron. And that was some pressures on the government and why they said that. Obviously they're appealing to a certain group that they felt they needed to have a message to. And that was what came out. And that stopped the RHI, but it just stopped everything. And it made everybody skeptical. It made the manufacturers skeptical because they put a lot of investment into it. It made a lot of installers skeptical because they'd gone out and done the training and were starting to do the businesses. Maybe they'd got MCS registered. And it made the public skeptical as well.

And then since then, they've kind of retracted that.

And then we've got— we've gone to try and get back up to there and then push on again. But we shouldn't have been in that space. We should have been years and years forward. So do you see the momentum building again, or is it— Massively. I, you know, and it's so quick as well with the infrastructure. So are the sales following through quite as quickly? Maybe not at the moment, but they will do, and everybody is learning. So there is infrastructure there, there are the manufacturers there, there is the merchant structure around there now, the installers there. There are many thousands of installers have undergone training and more are coming through. And the consumer is aware now. The consumer knows about heat pumps. What they know, maybe it is open to question. Some will know good things, some will know bad things, and you If you make the mistake of looking on social media, you will see lots of both ends of that spectrum. But there is a level of awareness and knowledge out there that was not there before. So I don't see it as a— it will stop now. It will transition. The speed of that transition, I don't know. So I see the targets that they say, and I look at those and go, I don't see how you're going to do that at this particular time. But, you know, things are moving so fast at the moment, and I wouldn't like to say, but I—

would you be happy— could I put you under some pressure for a prediction? Maybe, maybe in 5 years, 600,000 heat pumps a year?

I don't think they will get to 600,000 heat pumps in that time. Where they will get to, I, I don't know. If they got to half that, if they got to 300,000 heat pumps in that time, that is still a massive step forward in the industry. It's building that whole capacity in industry and it will continue to go forward there. So I know we have a target which is governments have to set a year. Okay. Well, it's not what year you get, it's do you get to there? You might get there a little bit earlier in some parts, you might get there a little bit after on some points. Doesn't have to be by a set cutoff, but that's just what governments have to have a date in mind, and that's what we want maybe as humans to do. I don't think we have to do that, but we have to keep on that trajectory and keep moving forward, which is what I, I think we are doing now.

Yeah, and so kind of stepping back from the, like, the actual government's go— the goals, like, how would you actually see the industry in, say, say, 5 years' time? You know, just like a level awareness, you know, would it be a really normal thing? Or— I think it would be a normal thing.

I think, um, so you're always going to have people— there's going to be gas boilers out there in 5 years' time, so those will fail. Those either will need to be repaired or replaced. I think it would become the norm then for, I hope, every installer to give the householder, here are your options. I can either do this I can do this. Here are your options. Here is whatever funding is around that. It's a choice for you to make. This is what I would need to do to— for this option. This is what I need to do in your property for this option. And the householder would take those away and make an informed decision. That's, that's what you want.

Um, because at the moment it's pretty much like if your boiler breaks down, it's just looking at what kind of— it's a panic purchase. Yeah.

You know, not— okay, some of us within industry do value what's in our house and on our wall and what it does, you know, giving you heat and hot water. But, but for lots of consumers, it's just a given. I come home and the house is warm and the hot water is there, and I don't think about it. Why do I want to think about my boiler? There is nothing to think about. And so when it does fail, you know, it's a shock and surprise, even though there might well have been signs there that actually it was starting to showed the signs that something needed doing. You know, so we don't have a— some people do, but we don't have enough of a process in place where everybody gets their boiler serviced every year and you assess where it's at. Is it a problem? What do you need to start thinking about? So that needs to happen. And there are lots of other products coming on. So there is heat as a service which is going to come through.

What is that? Heat as a service? Service.

So you buy power, and they provide all the infrastructure for you. So heat as a service, there are people out there, so they will provide you heat as a service. So they will come along, they will do upgrades needed for your house, they will install a heat pump and everything around that, and then they will charge you on an ongoing basis, on a monthly basis, over maybe a 10-year period, 15-year period. So you're not having to do an upfront, and you can actually plan it then. So you can say, well, actually this year, I know my boiler is on its last legs, I've got a plan to get it done, and I don't have to find the money now, this is what I'm going to do. And it does become something that is billed, that you pay for on a monthly subscription.

Okay, so there's no upfront cost, you can just kind of, you know exactly how much it's going to be, and then any repairs I'm guessing you just call.

So it's, you, there are lots of, I'm sure, clauses in around that, and I'm not familiar with them all. But I don't think you then own it. It's the company owns it, but they're providing their commitment. And what you're buying from them is for them to provide you heat and hot water. Yeah, that's their obligation, provide you heat and hot water.

If it goes away from that, that's their priority.

Yep. So that is what they're to do. And so that is a way of doing it. Quite what happens with grants and their, you know, their big finance players coming in to this market and looking at all different ways to to provide the service. So I think it is happening. These people are here now, which is what makes me think that this isn't going away now. It's not going to drop again. There are too many big players in there with a vested interest and coming here with solutions. So it's going to happen. The timeframe is just, I think, up for discussion. And will it be a one solution to the problem or will there be multiple solutions to the problem? And that isn't Clear.

What about customers for, say, older properties? You know, what kind of options do they have?

We do hear from, like, some of our customers, I can't do heat pumps, the property's too old, and, and stuff like that.

So there are going to be issues with properties. They are primarily going to be in around the insulation and energy efficiency levels of the property, but that does not mean a heat pump cannot be installed. You would have to, as an installer, go in and do a proper heat loss calculation for the property, look at what's in there and determine. Now, if you want to be as efficient and get the heat pump sized as low as possible, then you may want to do some energy efficiency measures to retain as much heat in. But that doesn't mean the heat pump can't work in there. Probably the easiest way to see whether— would a heat pump work in there is, preferably you want a cold day, it's a little bit colder out now, and you tell your customer, okay, for 24 hours Turn it down to 50 degrees, open up all your TVs, TRVs, and all the radiator valves, and just leave it at 50 degrees on 24 hours. At the end of 24 hours, is the property warm? Are you warm?

Okay, that's a good way just to, just to have a quick practical test because—

and a member of the HBR did kind of suggest that we should have some national kind of, um, when you know a cold spell's coming, you have a 50-degree day and you get as many people to do that for 24 hours. Turn it down, see. Is your property heat pump ready? It's, it's a bit of a, um, a dumb test, but it will tell you, okay, if I turn it down to 50 degrees and I'm still 20 degrees and I'm still warm, then actually if I put a heat pump on there, well, that should be able to do the same thing. Now, do I want to increase the energy efficiency of my home? Do I want to start with a, a fabric-first approach and make sure that actually I'm losing as less energy and less heat outside of my home as is possible. Yes, you would.

Why wouldn't you? Well, you say it's kind of a dumb test, but I don't think so. It's a simple test. It's a simple test because I think the dumb test, well, I'm not sure. I don't know how well the calculations are, but if you're going to wait until it's installed to find out the information that you could find out from now. And that involves the consumer as well.

And actually the consumer then would see, well, actually, Oh, okay, yes it did. So actually, I may have had some insulation done on my house, I may have had the windows changed, I've done other things, draft-proofing, actually had some radiators changed, and probably they were made a bit bigger than they needed to be. Naturally. Oh, okay, I don't need to have certain radiators, everything there. Maybe there'll be some rooms actually I Okay, that is an area of house that, that didn't work. So we need to specifically look at that area in your house because that didn't get up to the temperature. But then, then at least they know, and you're involving the consumer. It would be great if everybody kind of did that, and then they went on to a database and they said, okay, this is what I found. And then you suddenly start getting a, uh, database of— to use the phrase— heat pump ready house. And no one's had to do anything.

I guess it's nice because, you know, the only time they sort of try and think about, is it time for me to like move up to the heat pump, they'd have to get like an expert in something like that. So they're only getting that expert's opinion from it. So at least this way, it's— this is my, my own test.

And it starts a conversation. Yeah. And it's not— so doing that, they're probably going to go 'Oh, let me find out a little bit more about it and let me, let me learn.' And again, if you start raising the knowledge level of the whole population, it makes the job easier.

I think it would give the homeowners a lot more certainty as well, because the concern is that the house is not going to be warm enough. Yes, yes. Are there any other risks apart from not— houses not being warm enough?

So you're getting the design wrong. You do have to be a lot more certain on your design for the installation of a heat pump. So you want to do all that first of all. You want to ensure that that is done properly and that the heat pump is sized properly, because you neither want to undersize it and neither do you want to oversize it.

But why wouldn't you want to do an oversize? What's the, what's the drawback of that?

Because they've got to fix that, but it will cost you more money with an oversized one. Purely a cost thing. There is a cost as well, but if a house doesn't need that, then the heat pump will not be running efficiently. If actually it needed to be 2-3 kilowatts down to match it, because you're trying to really match the heat requirements and hot water requirements of the house as accurately as you can to the heat pump sizing. So you don't want them out of line, you want to get them coming together, and you need to take time there. Probably the biggest challenge probably for Hitenstein at the moment is hot water. Because, and I have to hold my hand up to this because I was with Worcester Bosch since 1993 selling combi boilers and part of that market, and combi boilers took off in the UK. And there are many, many millions of combination boilers which do a fantastic job, are flexible and easy and everything that they were supposed to do, they do. But it also meant that lots of hot water cylinders were taken out, and that, you know, is—

they need to go back in again. They need to go back in.

The hot water cylinders that you would want to put in now are likely to be larger, are pretty likely to be larger than the airing cupboard that was there originally, even if that airing cupboard even exists. So you're gonna have to try and find ways to accommodate those, whether it's building an airing cupboard again, lofts, garages, other areas. And that's a challenge.

How sensitive do you have to be? Like, if you're a couple, you're in a house, then suddenly you have a baby and your, your heating requirement, hot water requirements goes up. Is it that it has to be like exact, or is it, is it, there's a bit of—

you, you should generally be sizing according— now I think they would recommend you size according to the house. So n plus 1, depending on bedrooms, bits and pieces, you're Try to size for your hot water requirements as that, as a maximum. Don't just size for— if there's a couple in there but it's in a 4-bed house, don't just size for 2 people. Well, what could the capacity be? And you'll be looking to size for there. The consumer also gets to make that choice and might say, no, I don't want— I just want it to size for me. Okay, but you have your other developments coming along in the types of refrigerant used within the heat pump that allow heat pumps to deliver a higher temperature of hot water, which makes delivery of hot water easier. You will have hybrid heat pumps coming through, and obviously they're more flexible.

Is that with gas and electric? Gas and electric.

Okay. Probably, you know, so each of the manufacturers of gas boilers does produce one. I think they're just waiting for confirmation from government of whether they're going to be included within the legislation, grants, or whatever else. And then they're there. But they are, again, you're about that transition and then it's a journey. It would be great if everybody could go from step 1 to step 10, but that's not generally the case. Some people can. So do you have to, again, bring people along the way? In my mind, yes. And if there is something that can bring them halfway and then next time they go all the way, then that to me is still a win.

Yeah, but I think it would— well, if you would give that reassurance that, you know, if it wasn't warm enough, you know, you could use the gas. Yes, Richard, I think it's probably the same as— I think you were speaking sort of earlier that we were talking about hybrid cars.

Yeah, and they give people security. I've got an electric car, got an idea from a mate to 1 to 10. But lots of people worry about things to do with range stress, isn't it? But once you do it, then you know it doesn't really exist, and you kind of adapt yourself, and you learn to cope on what you need to do, and it becomes less— you don't stress or worry about it. But if you were going from nothing to something, then actually, if there's something in between that, actually allows you to experience it, to get to know it, to understand what it does, its limitations, how good it is, any restrictions. And then the next time you make decision, probably then go full. Then I think, okay, well, that's a good transition. And that's a transition that everybody should get to choose. We shouldn't be telling people, no, you can't, you have to go to 10. Yeah, no, you, you, you make a journey that's right for you. We're still consumers. You have the choice, and the consumer should have the choice, shouldn't be told. That's, that's no policy ever works out well if you try and tell people.

Yeah, because I think there is a danger of that, and it might have been sort of heat pumps with sort of what David Cameron said is, um, there was a stigma to them at the start, and it's taken a lot of trust to build back in. So when the hybrid come out with, you know, part petrol, and then I think it's slowly building that trust again. I mean, I, I see hybrid cars as really good, and I, you know, with the range improvements on electric cars now, because that was always sort of the question is, oh, it is—

don't like the cold still.

Electric cars do not like the cold. There's a battery, they don't—

batteries don't like it.

So I do think it's just building that trust up again. I'm gonna guess that's basically what the heat pump doing now, showing people.

Gas boilers are still, you know, I'm with the gas boiler manufacturer for a long time, fantastic things to do exactly what it says. You put it on the wall, it gives you heat and hot water, you don't have to worry about it, it was really flexible, accommodates whatever's going on in your house, uh, brilliant. They're not suddenly the, the, the outlaws and the criminals, they're not suddenly in the wanted section. No, they did what we wanted to do, and when we wanted them to increase efficiency You had the Sebrog ratings come along and they all increased, condensing, and they have increased in efficiency again and again and again. So I don't think they can be made out to be the bad men. Is there again a journey? And you want to bring the manufacturers with you, so you want to give them a supportive structure around there to encourage them to invest in R&D, invest in their infrastructure in this country, in the production plants, and grow that. What you don't want to do is close those factories down. So why would you want to do that? For UK PLC, why, why would I want to close down all the UK gas boiler manufacturing and give it all to heat pump manufacturers that are often based abroad?

Don't. You want— you want that transition.

You want that transition. And you want those manufacturers to be able to, to build something that is specific for the UK. Because we all have strange anomalies. We look to, to Europe for inspiration, but they've always done things differently.

And are we quite different from you? I never really thought about the boilers in Europe versus here.

Um, from my experience on boilers was we were very much different. Um, the, the requirements we had, because space constrained has always been a problem in the UK. So in lots of countries you'll have, we're going to call it an airing room, a building services room, whatever you want to call it, a little plant room. So everything was in there, loads of space, everything could be big, laid out nicely. When you get to the UK, no, I want it in a matchbox really, and I don't want to see that matchbox, I don't want to hear that matchbox, and it's got to go in the kitchen. Okay, so that's always had challenges for the UK and size of properties and age of properties as well. And Europe has done other things, whether it's to do with heat distribution networks, you know, they've always been very good at that. So we are different and we want UK solutions to the UK problem, which we will get if we put in the right regulatory framework to encourage that. Yeah, and I think there's a danger of putting in the wrong regulatory framework that discourages that, which I don't think is a good idea. Just—

sorry, you go first. We've mentioned heat pumps quite a few times. And the bit that I've always been a little bit confused about is the difference between air versus ground, or just what the differences are.

I wonder if you were able to take— in essence, they're the same thing. So they all work on, you know, the same refrigeration cycle, which is, is all linked to the type of refrigerant you have in there. And a refrigerant— all refrigerants have generally have a really low boiling point, which we're going back to basics, and I'll try and explain it. I don't think it's magic, but I'll try and explain it. So refrigerant has a really low boiling point. So water is 100, and then once you go to 101, it becomes a gas. So refrigerants are the same thing, but their boiling points are very low. So when you're circulating that refrigerant around in an air source outside, it's drawing air in to there, going across an evaporator, and the heat is being absorbed by that refrigerant to this point where it reaches its boiling point, and turns into a gas. And at that point, uh, it takes roughly 4 times as much energy out to turn it into a gas. So that's then all stored in that gas that goes round. You then get to a compressor. You've now got a hot gas under low pressure, and you get to a compressor. And if you compress something, we all know it gets hot. So a compressor now is going to press that gas and put even more heat into it by compressing it. That then goes through into your your domestic kind of transfer system in the heat pump. And now that heat's going to be taken out and then transferred into the water that's going to circulate around your radiators and around your hot water. And then it goes through another control for expansion to allow that to now expand again and turn back to a liquid. And then it kind of goes around again and you have that expansion and contraction and that phase change that happens to the refrigerant. And it is the same process for a heat pump and an air source, but the air source is— as it's on that first point— is taking heat out from the air, passing into the gas, or passing into the refrigerant, which turns into a gas. A ground source then is doing the same thing, but it's got a brine circuit which is circulating around either a shallow set of loops which could be kind of any, you know, 1 to 2 meters deep. And it's working on the basis that, you know, the ground is always warmer than the air, or it's static, it's a stable temperature. It's not always warmer than the air. Sorry.

Is it more efficient? Is it, or does it work out better? Because I'm guessing the install cost is—

so you have the fluctuations. The best thing would be using a borehole because you go down 75, 100 meters and you get to what is an incredibly stable temperature, whether it's kind of 15, 17 degrees. So you— that is very stable. So even if you're bringing, um, in the same back, super efficient, you can take more energy out from the ground than is coming back into it anyway. But that's what you size the, the boreholes for, and you get someone in probably to do that. You make sure they're spaced apart so that doesn't happen.

Okay. So, so that covers the issue of you just drag all the heat out of it and the hole gets colder and colder.

Yes, it will. But if you size it properly, it won't overtake it out. And then the general, you know, the ambient temperature of the ground around it will be continually resupplying that heat into that area, allowing it to take out. You're trying to find that sweet spot of what you're taking out is also then coming back into it. You can also reverse it in the summer. Which all ground sources can do as well, especially if you've got underfloor heating, reverse it and take some heat out of your house and push it back down into the ground loops. And within reason, then you're charging the ground ready for you then to take it back out again in the summer. So they are incredibly efficient and the most efficient way to do it, but that has challenges of drilling boreholes. And if you're going to do sort of shallow ground loops, then you need sufficient ground to, to run that and do that. So that obviously does add to the cost, but they're also starting to use now those now in much larger projects. So for estates where actually you can drill boreholes down and you can have a central distribution system and out on a heat network and doing that.

So when you mean estates, you mean like new builds?

Oh, going back to existing. So, so maybe where, uh, there are existing where there's whether they be gas or biofuels or oil or anything else, replacing them with heat pump network, probably running on borehole loops. You can run them on air as well, but if you can run them on loops, it's even better. And then distributing that heat around the estate on a kind of a heat-on-demand basis that's then metered, monitored, and charged for the heat you use.

So would you get the refrigerant kind of going around the boreholes and then each property has—

so the refrigerant's not refrigerant in the unit itself. You've got a brine circuit, which is kind of a water salt, which goes around and then heat exchange, that's kind of heat exchange back into the refrigerant and then it goes around your refrigerant circuit.

That's a smart way to do it because it almost sounds a bit like the way we're updating the, mainframe of like Wi-Fi, you know, like going from like broadband to like optic fiber where you go, oh, your area doesn't really have optic fiber at the moment, but you're going to eventually get it. And, and I guess in a way the heat pump is like, oh, your estate can sort of now hold heat pumps. I know they could do it separately themselves, but to say like there's a reduced cost, I'd imagine, from saying, oh, you're going to get it from this sort of main frame, main focal point, and then you can draw it from there sort of thing.

Yes, so there are lots of estates, mainly a lot in social housing, that have got central plants that have a heat distribution network goes around. Some of them were decommissioned and they were switched over to individual boilers. I suspect some of them may go back to a distributed heat network again, but using a heat pump as a way to generate that energy to go around the estate. But there are constraints on doing that, and it's quite a costly exercise, so it isn't something you can just run in to do. But there are definitely— there are projects going on all over the country now on that. But one thing I would say, I know that it kind of comes back to that for the gas installers, is if you're taking out— I've been asked this before by someone else— if you're taking out a gas boiler to replace it with a heat pump, you still have to be Gas Safe registered. You cannot touch that boiler and take it out without being Gas Safe registered. So you still need a gas installer, uh, all those installations. It does not do away with a gas installer.

So you're not overnight, you're not going to be out of work.

And the best people to deliver the heat pump change we need are gas installers or oil boiler installers. People that have been in people's houses already, have got that relationship with consumer about supplying heat and hot water to them originally. They're likely to come to them because there's been a problem with the boiler. They might know that person, he's been looking after their boiler for, or he or she's been looking after boiler for a long time, or the company. And they are the best people to start that conversation and do and supply that option to the consumer. It is about delivering heat and hot water, whether you have a gas boiler on the front of it delivering the energy, or whether you have a heat pump on front of it that are in the energy. It's still about a heating and hot water system. That's what you as a consumer are buying. I'm not buying a boiler, I don't care about boiler. I'm not buying a heat pump, I don't care about heat pump. I want to be warm and I want to have me hot water things. That's what I want, that's what I'm buying. Yeah. How it gets there is, okay, well, you tell me what's the best way. Well, here are your options. I've sized the house and here's, here's the different things. Actually, yeah, we've done our test, we've done our 50-degree test, and actually We've done some calculations now to back that up. You probably wouldn't need to do much. So the heat pump grant you can get, it's going to cover most of it. Or here is, if you want to, to, to use, um, replace your, your gas boiler, here is your option to replace a gas boiler. Maybe we replace gas boiler and we put hot water cylinder back in at this point. So you're ready then, maybe in the future, okay, when you want to connect a heat pump, actually I've got the hot water cylinder back in my house again. And ready to go. You know, it's again, it's about steps and everybody would take a different size step.

So if the engineers kind of knew just like a little bit of information about, you know, what you may need in the future, that would also help with the recommendations.

I would recommend every, every installer learns about it, preferably gets trained. I know a training company, but engages with the manufacturers. Who are all doing training as well, very specific training, engages with a couple of their manufacturers because they've all got relationships with them, talk to their merchant, uh, and, and I think it is get out to the exhibitions, you know, whether— I know there's the Future Build On at the moment, there's Installer Exhibition coming on soon, there's the, the FEX exhibitions— go to those exhibitions and see all of the manufacturers, the kit and the equipment, and go there with a purpose in mind. I know there might be a free bar, but that can be your kind of goal towards the end.

But you know, it's a stepping stone to get to the bar.

Uh, have some questions in mind, have some manufacturers you want to see. Yeah, go on to those stands and see those people and ask all the questions you want to know. Look at the kit, go on to the next stand, compare, and, and start to know. You know, exhibitions are there. I still do exhibitions. They're there for, for people to come and learn and ask questions, and that's what you should do. It's a great place to do it. You can do it today. You can see so many different people. It isn't a waste of a day. It's a good day, and it's about, yeah, starting to build up that knowledge. There will be manufacturers there, there will be training companies there like ourselves able to do the training. So we, as Logic for Training, The training we do is more generic. It's more about the theories and the principles and teaching all the generic under science behind it and the installation and commissioning, but on a very generic manner. I would also recommend do that. You get a qualification that's recognized by the MCS, but then, okay, go to the manufacturers, which you might have a couple of manufacturers you've always dealt with. Okay, go to those, do their training.

And is that more hands-on?

Is it from a hands-on learning, very much specific about some, some specific pieces of kit? And what probably a training provider, maybe like ourselves, can't do is show you all the different options, permutations that you could have on a heat pump, especially when you come to the controls. And if you go to manufacture with kind of good underpinning knowledge, they can then deliver all that to you as well, and, and you understand all the different options on the commissioning. And how all the different controls work, because that's probably where they all differ, is in how they're controlled. The main components inside are all very similar because we'll have to have the same, but how you control them, how you link them up is different.

How difficult is it for, like, if I was a gas engineer, you know, how difficult is it to transition or how long is the course?

It isn't difficult to transition. I would say it is relatively easy to transition. The courses are probably going to be 3 to 4 days on a heat pump qualification, wherever you do that, whether you do it at a broker training provider like ourselves or you do it at a manufacturer, it's going to be 3, 4 days. The manufacturer's courses then tend to be roughly sometimes a day, sometimes 2 days, depending on what level and what you particularly want to know. And they break their courses down into very specific segments. So it is not difficult to— the principles are about, for heat pump, delivering flow and return. Well, that's what you already do through boiler. You have a flow and return, goes out, comes back, is heated, goes out, comes back.

And what about funding or the sort of costing cost side? Because I think the government does provide some funding.

They do. So there was a heat pump training grant that was there for £500 that was running from September to March this year. All of that, as far as I'm aware, was used up, but they have announced that there will be additional funding starting from April, and they're trying to then keep that going longer rather than in a kind of a stop-start. So they're trying to get it phased so everybody's got more time to do it. So that will start in April, and that again should be, as far as I'm aware, £500 to go towards the heat pump course. So that will be there. As for training, we'll be— we will be— sorry, we will be delivering that funding through our courses. How many spaces I get, I don't quite know yet, so there probably will be some limitation on spaces. And so I would, you know, when you see it come out, I would try and get booked on if I was an installer.

Do you need to kind of like book ahead, or are there waiting lists, or you just wait for it to come out and then you, you book?

When the funding comes out, your training provider of choice should kind of notify you. I'd hope there'll be publicity about it. I would get booked on. You don't necessarily have to get booked on and go next week. You might book on and say, well, I don't want to do my training until April or May or June. And, you know, training providers should have dates going forward, and you maybe select a date that's much further ahead than actually— that's easy because it started getting into the summer, my busy period maybe has started to tail down. I'm 'When I'll have the time to do that.' Or maybe you say, 'Actually, yeah, I can do it next week,' for whatever reason, then get on and do it. But you don't have to kind of book for 3 weeks' time. You can book for 3, 4, 5 months forward. Once kind of you've got the voucher and the date set, you've got the voucher and the date set. If you then don't turn up, that voucher is going to be given to someone else and you're going to have lost it. But, you know, you can still book ahead.

And what about some MCS, if people who haven't heard about it? Can you tell us like a brief thing about it? Brief thing? Yeah, something that might be useful for somebody who hasn't done it and then how it kind of relates to possibly the grants.

So MCS has been, oh, it started off at Clear Skies in 2005, 2004 I think. So it has always been the mechanism that the government of the day has chosen to get people recognized mainly for the purpose of accessing funding of some description. They've always wanted a scheme that enables— that they've got some control over and hopefully ensures that people coming in are of the right quality to access government funding, because accessing government funding, they're always worried that that is a risk. MCS is there to do that. Over the previous years, probably the common complaint is it's more about the quality management system than it is about doing the job and the quality of the job. Job, which has put a lot of installers off, especially smaller sole traders, because it's been very difficult for them to achieve everything that MCS has required from a quality management system, because it's primarily been written for bigger companies, not for sole traders. But it's taken them a long time to recognize that fact, but they've gone to— gone, or are undergoing changes, and they've done a lot of consultation and are restructuring the whole MCS scheme with a view to launching it again again in the new year, where it starts to move away from the reliance on a quality management system as being the sole measure of quality, to know what's more important is the job you do. Does— did you quote it right in the first place, the right thing? And have you installed it as per your quote and heating design, and is it delivering that? So is it now performing in the way you said? That's what counts. The quality management system then sits behind it is secondary. It's about is the installer delivering to the customer what they require to heat their home, and is it doing that? Has it been done to the right quality?

If you were an engineer, how much overhead would this kind of add to your job? So you install a heat pump It's up and running. Do you think— you might not be able to answer this, but is it like an extra hour of paperwork? Or if once you get your kind of systems down in place, if you're a sole trader or say a company with say 5 engineers or 10 engineers?

I think probably a company of 5 engineers, 10 engineers, it shouldn't create that much of a problem. There is a requirement to notify, um, the installation So that is there. If you've got— you've got— should notify the installation of a gas boiler, of a hot water cylinder, of an oil boiler. So that already exists. So I don't think that is that bad. There is a cost involved because there's a cost in notifying, which is higher than you, you would expect for notifying the installation of a gas boiler or a hot water cylinder. So that is high. You're going to have to allow that per job.

Do you know how much it is roughly? I'm kind of putting you on the spot slightly.

Yeah, you may want to edit this one after, but I think it's probably somewhere around £20. Okay, I think— I don't know the figure exactly.

So a lot of it's going to be same amount of paperwork just with a different title.

Yeah, you are going to have a registration fee annually for being part of the MCS scheme, and that is going to be several hundred pounds. And you are going to have a process of being audited by MCS and their appointed certification bodies in that. But that, I'm hoping, will start to be a lesser burden for the smaller installer. That's the whole point of this, is to try and simplify it, to encourage more sole traders, more installers to come into this that are able to do it. And they will be measured on the quality of their installations, and does the consumer get what the consumer has to pay for.

So the reason you'd want to sign up to this is so that the customers get the funding, is that correct? So if you didn't do this, you're just installing it, the customer wouldn't get any funding? No. Okay, so that's the primary driver.

That is the primary driver, yes.

Okay, fine. That's quite simple, yes. Yeah, you wouldn't be making that many sales if—

No, if you weren't able, they weren't able to access the £7,500 grant. Want, they're unlikely to buy from you.

Do you think the public know enough about the incentives or the actual benefits, um, and of, of what they could get at the moment?

Do you think they need to? Because if the, if the installer comes along and says, here are your options, you know, that the customers—

there's both, isn't there? So you would hope that they've got some knowledge, and maybe they ask the installer But I would, if it were me and I was back, because we did have an installation business as well, going out and doing the surveys and quotes, I would want to say, dear Mr. and Mrs. Householder, okay, boiler's broken down, here's your option on replacement gas boiler, but also here is the option on a replacement heat pump, and here are the advantages of both systems, disadvantage both systems, and here is the funding that is available for that. Choice is now yours. That's what, that's what I would want to do.

From the engineer's point of view, is it more profitable to install heat pumps, or is it, is it, is it roughly the same? Anecdotally, I have heard it's more profitable to install heat pumps, and I guess you would have to obviously do your own figures. You have to do your own things.

But yeah, so, so there are some good deals on heat pumps now as there are more manufacturers In the market, there are more schemes to help support the installer, probably directly from the manufacturers. I know that, you know, there was a scheme announced by Worcester Bosch to support their product as well, quite substantially, which would almost in some circumstances mean that the consumer is getting a free installation. But the costs are coming down to the installer, but I don't think necessarily the installation cost is coming down. From what I have seen of the figures, and they are published, Ofgem has to publish them because it gives an average price, there has been not much change on the average installed price of an air source heat pump. But to my knowledge, costs have probably come down on heat pumps, and people are a little bit more efficient in the way that they install heat pumps now as well, either in labor, division of labor, teams, and bits and pieces. So I think actually at the moment it is quite profitable to install a heat pump system, so long as you do the groundwork and you do that right from the first with the design and the quote, and then you do the installation right. If you get those things wrong, then it becomes quite expensive because suddenly you're going to have a consumer that has not got what it is they've paid for and will be looking to seek redress, and that starts getting expensive. So we have to put that effort in first of all. To make sure that what you're about to quote for and install is right.

Okay. But if you have the right training and stuff, that risk should be relatively low. Yeah.

So, so apart from doing heat pump training, I would also say you need to probably, not for everybody, go back and do some element of low temperature heating hot water design training. So you understand more about that and understand the limitations of what you need to provide and how you can provide a good, efficient low temperature heating hot water system, which we've not really had to do as gas installation business for some time because boilers have been so flexible. You can just turn them up and down as you want, and they've got it. But now, you know, you want to be designing a system to a— as low a temperature as you can get it. So that needs to be thought of. But manufacturers will also assist the installer in doing the designs as well.

Okay, so there's a lot of support there, a lot of support there to do it.

You don't have to be on your own.

So what are the benefits of learning this, the skill of heat pumps, now instead of in 2 or 3 years, would you say?

Because you can start the conversation and you can learn more in your own time, and you can learn quickly, okay, I'm going to start doing some quotations for heat pumps. I don't necessarily want I don't want the installs yet, but I want to get used to doing, to quoting, to designing, to having the conversations with the customer. Maybe as an installer, I'm actually going to look, well, do it in my own house. I'm going to do it, learn, and I want to learn in time to get myself as confident as I can be. So when I start doing it properly out in the field with my customers, I'm as knowledgeable as I can be.

I'm guessing also there's probably a lot less competition. There would be a lot of this competition.

If I was installed, I'd probably be worried that if I said, 'Nah, you don't want a heat pump, Mr. and Mrs. House, I would have— ah, rubbish,' the next person that comes along will actually contradict that and give them evidence to show, 'No, it's not.' And then they will go, 'Ah, well, actually, I'm going to go with the boiler option anyway, just because, for whatever reason. But the first person that told me it was a load of old rubbish, I'm not going to go with it because the next person that came along gave me the options, told me all the information, let me choose, let me research. I've now made decision, and maybe I'll go with heat pump, and actually I may only stay with the gas boiler, but I'm going to choose that person because they— so a bit more information, they dealt with me as a customer better. So again, if I were out there doing surveys, that's what I would want to be. I wouldn't expect to get all the installations, but I would want to make sure I was having the conversation with them and they were engaging and they were asking me as many questions as possible, because I want to go away and learn the answers. I may not know them all straight away, but that's the point of getting the training, going to the manufacturers, going to the exhibitions, that I raise my knowledge level up to where I can converse confidently with a customer about it and give them confidence. So when I want to see I get the sale.

And I guess there's loads— there's a lot of support at the moment. You've got the sort of schemes, and like you said about the manufacturers saying like, oh, we can come out and do the designs for you. And I, you know, I guess there's— if say in 10 years it might be, well, you should be able to do your own designs now. Yes. Um, we were only supporting that to help you at that time. So that could be sort of—

you, you're saying there's more support now?

Yeah. So use that support now by doing these courses.

I think there will be huge changes just, just in software and things you can do online, whether it's training online. And but the software you can use to go into someone's house to then do heating design will change. I know that the government did some kind of catapult funding, if you want to put it, to encourage people to find solutions by technology to accelerate the installation of heat pumps. And there are lots of companies out there doing that at the moment that are coming up with really innovative solutions using your mobile phone to go in and do the whole survey of the house just by passing your phone around, do survey, measure it, heat loss it, give you positions, give you all of your materials, produce the quote for you, and all you're doing is going around with your, your phone and just taking around each room. So there are those things coming. There are, there are different packages out there now. I know there are more things coming along, whether it's in kind of 3, 6 months. So there is again, which makes me think that this, this is here now. It isn't going to go away again because there are all these other things that are being done at the moment that are going to start to filter through that will make the installer's life easier and make them more self-reliant, able to do it themselves. Maybe, you know, the first few you're going to use the manufacturer to design them because then you're going to look at those and go, okay, What would I have done? Okay, I would have done something different to what they've done. Why have they done that? Go back and ask them. And then you learn, okay, next one you're gonna do, this is what I would have done. Oh, they're nearly together now. And the next one, actually, I would have done exactly the same as they've recommended, or I might actually have done it slightly different, but I know why, and I'm ready to do that myself now.

Yeah, so just get better each time. You see different situations as well. And you'll learn.

It's always a good idea to try it in your own house. Can you put a heat pump in your house? Try it in your house. Go to the manufacturer, go, I want to put one in mine because I want to learn and I want to kind of test it myself and understand. I can take my time doing the install, get my processes right. Will you give me any support and help? I suspect actually they would find ways to give you support and help. And so would the merchant. I would leave you an extra good price on this, that, and the other, just because they recognize that's a good thing If an installer has one in his house or her house and they've installed it well and it's running efficiently, are they now going to go out and tell the customers, yeah, they work, got one in my house.

The level of certainty when you say, when they ask, when the customers ask, well, is my house going to be cold? And then, you know, he will provide. You've got one?

Yeah, I've got one. No different to the conversation if I was espousing EVs are the best thing ever. You said, what have you got? And I said, I've got V8 Range Rover, actually. Yeah. Everything I've just said to you in the last 15 minutes, you'll go, yeah, but I've said absolutely, I've had one since day dot and they're fantastic. And yeah, you'll go, okay, it sort of removes that sort of trust, customer confidence, you know.

Yeah, the confidence, because you're saying trust, you know. I'm— I've got it, so I'm not telling you because I want to sell you one. I'm telling you because I've got it, and I'm not trying to, you know, fool you into getting one sort of thing. And you've got that sort of— that everyday use of it, you know. I've got this, it works perfectly all the time, and if there's any problems with it, I know because I've got it, do you know what I mean?

Like, and when it comes to advising the customer on the handover, because the handover is really important, you can tell them really— okay, this is what you need to do, um, because it's coming to fall a little bit more that a move away for heat pumps from kind of every radiator controlled. Well, actually, that's not what a heat pump wants. A heat pump wants the whole circuit open. It wants to, to manage that. It doesn't want all the radiators shutting down because then you're changing— fundamentally changing the design parameters. So it just wants an open circuit, uh, depending on how you've designed it. So that's different, and that's different for the installers, and that's different for the consumers. You know, now they've been used to, I just turn on all my TRVs, just have one radiator going, okay, with a boiler. It says, yeah, right, fine. Heat pump won't want that. No, no, just leave me all the circuits. I just want to keep it at a nice level 20 degrees throughout your house. Excellent.

Well, thank you very much for coming on. Pleasure. It's been really informational, and I've really enjoyed it, and I hope, uh, I hope our engineers have of— it's pushed them in a way towards heat pumps. I enjoyed it too.

It's been quite challenging for me to try and pull some of these elements together and make it work. So I hope they've enjoyed it and I hope they get something of benefit from it. Excellent. Thank you very much.

Well, we've been your hosts, Taluk and Aaron, and we've been joined today by Mark Crowell from Logic for Training.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for your time. Thank you.