Roger440

As i understand it, for england and wales, they only to need to inspect the first of any specific design. So if 4 designs on the development, 4 houses get inspected. Rest are self certify. I understand that loop hole is, or is about to be closed. They will now have to submit photos of each house. No scope for fiddling that at all !!!!

Never going to happen is it. At best, all you can hope for is that insulation is there. No one is going to check that its all sealed up and air cant get behind it. No BCO is ever going to do that. The builders know that, and the above is the result. And good luck with finding a builder that even grasps that basic concept. Only today a video popped up on facebook, of a builder doing a short tutorial video on wall construction, cavity with PIR boards. Made a point about saying you need to tape the joints, whilst clearly showing significant gaps between the boards just taped over! The system of building regs is broken and utterly pointless.

A easy and noble position to take. Until they propose to put an actual pylon in your own garden. Ask me how i know..................................

I have no doubt it "could" be cheaper, but we both know it wont be. Especially being linked to oil price. I may have missed it but i see no concrete proposal to change that. Nor will there be i suspect. Lots of money to be made under the current arrangement.

I think this last round of posts just proves how much vested interest there is in the status quo. Good like trying to break that. Now, i must get back to pondering my heating challenges. Current favourite looks like a pair of oil boilers. The clock is ticking.

Id love to see what they consist of. Being at gradute level wasnt really what i meant, nor did myself. There was bugger all chance of me achieving A level maths, barely managed O level. So by that, id have been excluded and consigned to the scrapheap from day 1. Fortunately for me, the country had not reached that level of daft at the time i was in school.

Its one of mine too! The good news is, out in the real world, the penny is starting to drop. Plenty of youngsters doing degrees coming out of university, saddled with debt and unable to find a worthwhile job. While there school mates are a few years ahead, earning good money and have no debt because they chose to lean a skill. In a lot of cases those with debt and later into the jobs market will never recover that gap. Thats not going unnoticed for them However, nothing changed that i can see in the mantra, "degree is good" everything else is bad message from government and education types. Thats before we consider the diminished vale of a degree as a consequence of the past 20 years or so. It was so obvious what has happened would happen. But it seems those making the rules seem to be totally incapable of imagning he effects of the changes they make. I dont know why, because its not hard. Which brings us back on track, because Jamespa doesnt seem to be able to grasp the motivation element that inevitably going to be required for the various paties involved with his proposals. As a wise person said to me a long time ago, people will respond to the motivations they recieve, motivate people to do the wrong thing, and they will do just that. Low profit/ high risk jobs will not motivate the kind of people you need. Ie, competent people with real long term businesses with reputations. Protest to the contrary are just deluding oneself.

The message is, if you are going to do practical work you are a failure. It was when i was at school in the 80's, and its much worse now once Blair got the whole "you must have a degree" bandwagon rolling. The single best thing i ever did was ignore everyone and get a proper apprenticship. Sadly, even now, if you are just coming out of school, where are those proper apprenticeships that give a good engineering grounding. I dont know of any outside the MOD. Just watered down training schemes to get you earning money for the employer double quick. Usually focused on a very narrow range of tasks. Which of course increases the chances of staying tied to the employer. Even if this mindset changed tommorow, it will be 10 years plus before we see the benefit. The message today still is, if you go into a trade, you have failed. And the industry training schemes seem to focus on those that have failed acedemically. Thats why we are where we are, and why the fabled 1.4 million heatpumps wont happen.

I never disagreed. I think the problem is you dont read what i wrote, but what you think i wrote.

Again, you have taken what i said out of contect. Im not arguing we shouldnt install heat pumps because the grid cant keep up. Did i? My position is simple. 1.4 million installs wont happen. You made a statement that it will expand to meet demand, as though this were an inevitable outcome. I think there is significant chance the grid output wont match demand, primarily because the country is run by morons. I believe that enough to have bought a gen set. The two positions are in no way related. I repeat, again, i have no vested interest. I sell car parts. Please stop replying as though i do.

Cant do multiquote so: So you know how hard it is to get a good builders or electrician the?. Because standard are so high there too! Not going to argue the point. You are just wrong. You say you can distinguish between the good and bad trades. Please do put us in the picture how you do that. I think theres a fair few on this forum, never mind the public at large who would love to hear about it? Im not sure why you think im involved in any way or pretecting myself? I dont do plumbing, or heating or anything else on houses. What i do have though, is a lot of expreince to working on relatively complex stuff for retail customers. So when i see some of your ideas, my natural instinct is to think about the consequences. Because the consequencers are what your workforce need to factor is. And do. The bit you are really not getting, is that your "cheap" boiler competative installations put significant risks on to the installer. Where is the motvation for the installer to take on these low cost high risk jobs? Throught this thread, you have not answered this. And unless you do, you wont have your manpower to do the 1.4 million installs. As i said, i dont believe you grasp this element.

You reckon? I dont. We are now into predicting the future, but i think the chances of electricity keeping up with demand are slim. But what do i know. But ive got a nice diesel gen set for when it happens.

You are talking about products. Im talking about services done by people. Im not arguing for a closed shop. Where did i say i was? I was just pointing out that the idea that competetion will drive up standard is nonsense. Opening up to anyone to "have a go" (yes OK, thats not quite what you proposed, but you get the point?) simply wont drive up standards. No one good will be able to make money because they will be competing with the chancers, so will likely exit the business to do something else. There are so many services where this applies all around you, i wonder which world you live in? Im also not proposing a solution to do 1.4 million heatpumps a year. Because i already know its impossible. Primarily for one reason above all the others you mention, lack of man power. For some reason, you choose no to to see all the problems, especially when you have an actual heating system installer posting here, who, interestingly, said exactly what i did. You need to keep call backs to as close to zero as possible. Both I and SimonD have expained the issues here. I think the problem is you have zero experience at the pointy end of practical work for retail customers. And, i suspect little small business management. Im willing to bet good money that your 1,4 million installs wont happen. They only circumstances it could will be utterly shite installations that dont actually work installed by people with no clue. Because they are cheap and available.

This is fundamentally untrue. More competition nearly always drives standard DOWN. Becuase corners need to be cut to be competitive.

Id say your biggest challenge there is breaking the MCS stranglehold. There will be significant push back id predict. Its a gravy train and those on it will do everything to keep it going.

I think you entirely missed my point It wasnt about the design. It was about, effectively owning any problems with the existing system. Bit like when i ran the workshop. Had a 944 in. Oil change, set of pads etc. When he picked it up, the clock was no longer working. (they are notorius for that btw). Well that was our fault, no amount of reasoning would change that. Never came back. Doubtless bad mouthed us to anyone that would listen. The same will happen here. The customer has a problem, which in reality is unrelated to the work. However, heating now broken. Especially if short of money, the installer will get the blame, and be exptected to put it right, or be "outed" on social media. Thats just how it goes. Fitting a "full" system gives you complete control of the end result, and allows you to stand behind it 100%. Anything else is a massive grey area. All im doing is to say, look at it from the installers view point as well, even for the moment putting the profit element to one side. Just comes back to the motivations. Whose interest is it in to do budget partial installs?

I can tell you how much oil i use. 1600 lites a year. How are you going to work out the system design from that? Id venture to suggest you cant. Plus, rule number one. Never believe anything the customer tells you. Got that t shirt too!

Dave nails it here. Educating lots of people on a complex product just isnt going to fly. Like Dave, i did a proper appenticeship. These were long. Because it takes a long time to learn the necessary skills. Sadly this is very much out of favour these days, especially since Blair decided, and has been perpetuated, that everyone should have a degree, and if you dont, you are a failure at life. Of course, Dave is right again about a course and a ticket. Because someone can make a bunch of cash off that. It will, inevitably force out a significant number of older installers. Ref the WC, i was pondering this earlier in the week. Surely it cannot be beyond the wit of man to have it self learn. This isnt rocket science.

There is something else you have not factored in. If you simply strap a heat pump to an existing system, and assuming the other issues can be overcome, as an installer/supplier, you are taking on a potential significant risk, ie, the existing installation to which you are adding the HP. When it doesnt work, goes wrong etc, that will be the installers fault, regardless of the reality Because you were the last person to touch it, its now your problem. A lot of potential for reputational harm, which from installers view, is to save the customer money. Whilst not in plumbing or heating, been there, go that t shirt!

Yes, but we are talking about mass market installation. Whilst you might go through that excerise, nobody else will. The average man in the strett will ring an installer for a quote, and expect to get one. Not do oil consumption checks over a couple of months. Thats exactly the kind of thing that needs to be avoided and is the purpose of the thread.

Maybe historic oversizing actually works in favour of simplification????

Im on oil. So no meter. So no easy way to tell. I can tell you annualmconsumption, but thats not really useful But, not that many oil installs, so i guess only a minor issue.

As i said in my first post, your suggestions make good sense. However, i see no cause for optimisim regarding actual real world action. Sadly, i fear it will simply remain a discussion point here. Aside from it being an interesting discussion, are you proposing to actually do something about it?

A government led by the science. You mean like the last 3 years? Or was that "the science". Id prefer not to have any more of that, thanks.

Yes, i would give up. Based on whose job it is. Its simply not going to happen. Cant happen. Even if everyone involved wanted the same thing it cant happen. As not everyone involved wants the same thing it simply reduces the likelihood still further if thats even possible.