Rethinking the mindset for mass retrofit - a provocative idea

[markocosic]

1 hour ago, TonyT said:

Maybe there should just be a qualification similar to working on gas boilers, fire etc and a card like gas safe or the Sjib/jib card electricians have, I recently sat the EV installation course, doesn’t make me an expert but covered the safety requirements to do a good design… and take away MCS registration 

 

Yes.

 

Installs must be safe. Regulate for that. As per any other trade.

 

MCS as a condition of permitted development is the ridiculous one.

 

It should be a simple objective technical requirement to obtain planning. As per any other trade.

 

Rather than making it conditional that a member of that particular union installs the unit in order for the nose rating on the certificate/noise calculation to be valid.

[markocosic]

17 hours ago, JamesPa said:

seems to imply that 'middle aged' (your words)  plumbers and electricians are incapable of dealing with heat pumps, quite offensive.  Basically you appear, prima facie, to be writing them off and Im not sure why.

 

I would say the same.

 

For the most part the type of person that went into that job back then is not the type of person it's worth training up on heating system design. They weren't numerate. They had the practical skills to do same old same old though.

 

Ditto the calibre of the kids that British Gas et al hire. Let's be clear. HR's aim here is stupid enough and unambitious enough to stay for life on a low wage; yet just trainable enough to do servicing and maintenance.

 

Go further back though (the folks about to retire) and you'll have a higher calibre of installer. Back then you did need to do some design work and understand sizing, range rating, etc.

 

Eastern europeans are a curve ball. Many of high calibre but prepared to work low wages historically. That's unwinding rapidly though. 

 

Commercial work is also a different league. We're taking once a domestic plumber always a domestic plumber for your middle aged army.

 

For doing next new designs that involve some math and multi-trade in the sense of elec/plumb/building fabric you want to hire/train a different mentality and a different mental capacity than the type of kid who decided to do domestic plumbing back then.

 

Does it make sense why some old.dogs are likely to be unteachable; or at least uneconomic to teach when there alternative is teaching a keen youngster from scratch; if.ypu think about who actually went into that job back then?

[JamesPa]

16 minutes ago, markocosic said:

 

Yes.

 

Installs must be safe. Regulate for that. As per any other trade.

 

MCS as a condition of permitted development is the ridiculous one.

 

It should be a simple objective technical requirement to obtain planning. As per any other trade.

 

Rather than making it conditional that a member of that particular union installs the unit in order for the nose rating on the certificate/noise calculation to be valid.

Fully agreed, and I cant see any possible legitimate argument against this position,  only one where the underlying motivation is to create an effective closed shop under the guise of consumer protection. 

 

Planning law is about the effect on the public built environment, nothing more and nothing less, internal design of hidden components play no part.

 

9 minutes ago, markocosic said:

For doing next new designs that involve some math and multi-trade in the sense of elec/plumb/building fabric you want to hire/train a different mentality and a different mental capacity than the type of kid who decided to do domestic plumbing back then.

 

Fully agreed that numeracy and multi-trade is needed (for the design at least), as well as problem solving and thinking on your feet out of the box.  To me the design of a retrofit is a fairly typical system engineering problem, not a simple plug-together solution, which is what we are currently being forced to accept. 

 

But surely its unfair to assume that no 'middle age plumbers/electricians' are capable or interested in this.  People do retrain, sometime successfully sometimes not.  Perhaps an aptitude test is needed?  Electricians in particular are quite used to calculations, particularly those that bridge the domestic/commercial 'divide' (which some at least do).  

[markocosic]

4 minutes ago, JamesPa said:

But surely its unfair to assume that no 'middle age plumbers/electricians' are capable or interested in this. 

 

There are always exceptions.

 

They're probably already in the space.

 

The are NOT however, en masse, as useful a set of people for this task as your initial gut instinct suggested.

 

Target the training at higher calibre, younger, folks to lead on this. Let the odd boiler basher who knows more than how to unblock a sink and bash a combi in the wall join them. Don't go out of your way to *change* people when you can just *train* people though. You then have two sets of installers available. People with a clue to design systems. Old boys and girls to clean the van and fit the pipes where they're told to.

 

Matey that fitted by business partners heat pump used to be a high end kitchen fitter for example. More of the fun thinking design part and less of the fussy karen housewife in heat pumps though and good money so... switch he went...with an old boy plumber as his lackey.

 

Leave British Gas keep their thickos in their blue vans waxing lyrical about the hydrogen future whilst sticking gas safety labels on old boilers for landlords and pensioners. They're out of the way there. They can sit there and rot until retirement or redundancy whichever comes first.

 

You want better people to do the new jobs in the new economy etc.

[SimonD]

49 minutes ago, markocosic said:

That's also happening

 

To an extent - OFTEC's recent push was a 70% discount funded by government through a small number of approved training providers with a time limit of 31st March. Very well subsrcibed but overall not enough. I think what's happening is a market test to see what price entices the punters in and the funding will settle around there.

[SteamyTea]

Interesting the idea that school failures ended up in the trades.

Education does not stop the day you leave school.

There is a difference between wanting to learn something news, and not wanting to.

There are also many reasons people fail at school, most of them are not educational: it is really a reflection of our poorly managed public education system and a legacy of our old class system.

 

There is also a big difference between educating and training.

If your 12 year old daughter is given sex education lessons at school, you probably thing that is a good thing 

How would you feel if she was given sex training instead?

Edited May 1, 2023 by SteamyTea

[SimonD]

24 minutes ago, markocosic said:

Target the training at higher calibre, younger, folks to lead on this.

 

Exactly and that does require a complete shift in training approach as to my mind most of the the training industry is targeted largely at the lowest common denominator. It's worrying when you come across trainees who don't know what 10% of 20 is but this is not their fault, it's down to their education.

 

52 minutes ago, markocosic said:

HR's aim here is stupid enough and unambitious enough to stay for life on a low wage; yet just trainable enough to do servicing and maintenance.

 

I think the whole industry is guilty here. It has aimed at taking away any indepedent thought by trying to dumb down all the systems - e.g. trying to make boilers and controls plug and play and not letting anybody touch them once they're on the wall or in the boiler.

 

This is now coming back to haunt them.

Edited May 1, 2023 by SimonD

[JamesPa]

29 minutes ago, markocosic said:

Target the training at higher calibre, younger, folks to lead on this. Let the odd boiler basher who knows more than how to unblock a sink and bash a combi in the wall join them. Don't go out of your way to *change* people when you can just *train* people though. You then have two sets of installers available. People with a clue to design systems. Old boys and girls to clean the van and fit the pipes where they're told to.

 

 

29 minutes ago, markocosic said:

Matey that fitted by business partners heat pump used to be a high end kitchen fitter for example. More of the fun thinking design part and less of the fussy karen housewife in heat pumps though and good money so... switch he went...with an old boy plumber as his lackey.

 

 

29 minutes ago, markocosic said:

You want better people to do the new jobs in the new economy etc.

 

All agreed, so long as nobody (kitchen fitters included) are excluded.  Aptitude is all that should matter, not history/age.   Targetting and exclusion are two different things.  

 

6 minutes ago, SimonD said:

I think the whole industry is guilty here. It has aimed at taking away any indepedent thought by trying to dumb down all the systems - e.g. trying to make boilers and controls plug and play and not letting anybody touch them once they're on the wall or in the boiler.

 

That's just big business and governments.  Top down direction, regulation and rules give the illusion of control whilst stifling innovation and customer service.  I used to work in a large organisation and hated it for that reason (there were some upsides though).  Governments the same, lets regulate/measure everything so we can control it, except you cant because there are people at the sharp end. 

 

A better plan is to free people to do a good job as they see it within the minimum of guidelines (almost never rules), enable them by training, and have some mechanism first to support then, if support fails, weed out those who cant/wont. 

 

1 hour ago, markocosic said:

Yes.

 

Installs must be safe. Regulate for that. As per any other trade.

 

MCS as a condition of permitted development is the ridiculous one.

 

It should be a simple objective technical requirement to obtain planning. As per any other trade.

 

Rather than making it conditional that a member of that particular union installs the unit in order for the nose rating on the certificate/noise calculation to be valid.

@SimonD , @Roger440do you at least agree (as I and many others appear to) with @markocosicon the above quote, if you do then there is actually a remarkable level of consensus, if you don't then there are probably two distinct factions.

  

 

 

[ToughButterCup]

Education and Training policy has always been and will always be set by people who have no interest in either.

[SteamyTea]

1 minute ago, ToughButterCup said:

Education and Training policy has always been and will always be set by people who have no interest in either.

Not sure I agree with that.

Set by people with a different agenda maybe.

[MikeSharp01]

19 minutes ago, SimonD said:

Exactly and that does require a complete shift in training approach as to my mind most of the the training industry is targeted largely at the lowest common denominator

Not sure this will do it. We need a better technical education system, properly invested in AND to change mindset about what is and what is not an acceptable profession for "middle Englands" (all other UK territories also) children. 

[ToughButterCup]

6 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Not sure I agree with that.

Set by people with a different agenda maybe.

Okay, name one education minister who made any real difference to apprenticeships.

 

[MikeSharp01]

Someone needs to draw up multiple cause and influence diagrams for this systems problem based on the discussions above. This whole discussion is, in the end, a soft systems problem. 

[ToughButterCup]

10 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Not sure this will do it. We need a better technical education system, properly invested in AND to change mindset ....

Exactly right. In Germany, the training system whether technical or theoretical is based on the notion of" Parity of Esteem" between the sectors. Students can move from one sector to the other at the end of each academic year providing they pass that year's exams.

Edited May 1, 2023 by ToughButterCup

[JamesPa]

9 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Someone needs to draw up multiple cause and influence diagrams for this systems problem based on the discussions above. This whole discussion is, in the end, a soft systems problem. 

Yes, but lets find out if there is general agreement, which for a while there appeared to be, or two factions, which it appears more recently may be the case.  Hence why I asked:

 

1 hour ago, markocosic said:

Installs must be safe. Regulate for that. As per any other trade.

 

MCS as a condition of permitted development is the ridiculous one.

 

It should be a simple objective technical requirement to obtain planning. As per any other trade.

 

Rather than making it conditional that a member of that particular union installs the unit in order for the nose rating on the certificate/noise calculation to be valid.

@SimonD , @Roger440do you at least agree (as I and many others appear to) with @markocosicon the above quote, if you do then there is actually a remarkable level of consensus, if you don't then there are probably two distinct factions.

[SteamyTea]

25 minutes ago, ToughButterCup said:

Okay, name one education minister who made any real difference to apprenticeships.

 

Not sure education minister is in charge of apprenticeships. That should be Dept of Industry and commerce.

 

As far as education minsters go, probably the first one.

 

William Cowper-Temple

 

 

[ToughButterCup]

Dead for how long?

[JamesPa]

Judging by this consultation the Government plan is further to embed MCS in relation to heat pumps.  It says 'MCS or equivalent' throughout but there is no equivalent, and, to the best of my knowledge, no equivalent currently being developed

 

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1146981/clean_heat_market_mechanism.pdf

 

A2A is also excluded from earning a credit for the manufacturers.  

[RichardL]

9 minutes ago, JamesPa said:

there is no equivalent

Defined by whom & who is the arbiter of equivalence - planners?

[JamesPa]

39 minutes ago, RichardL said:

Defined by whom & who is the arbiter of equivalence - planners?

Not planners for certain.  Its defined (sort of) on page 24 of the consultation, but its unclear, at least to me, whether this definition applies to all 21 times that MCS is invoked in the document, or only the one specifically dealt with on page 24.

 

"Requirements of an appropriate certification scheme (i.e. MCS or an equivalent):  Here is the text

 

Quote

 

For a certification scheme’s notifications to be considered equivalent and suitable to generate credits towards the CHMM, it would need to demonstrate, at minimum:

• That both the product installed and the installation itself comply with industry best practice, product standards and relevant building regulations;

• Appropriate certification procedures, including proportionate assessment and audit of installers and installations;

• Appropriate accreditation by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) (e.g. to ISO 17065);

• Robust protections to ensure that work which does not meet scheme standards is put right promptly, with clear guidance on the expected conduct of installers and an effective investigations and complaints process;

• An ability and willingness to collect and provide the data required by the CHMM

 

 

 

Edited May 1, 2023 by JamesPa

[MikeSharp01]

9 minutes ago, JamesPa said:

 

Quote

 

For a certification scheme’s notifications to be considered equivalent and suitable to generate credits towards the CHMM, it would need to demonstrate, at minimum:

• That both the product installed and the installation itself comply with industry best practice, product standards and relevant building regulations;

• Appropriate certification procedures, including proportionate assessment and audit of installers and installations;

• Appropriate accreditation by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) (e.g. to ISO 17065);

• Robust protections to ensure that work which does not meet scheme standards is put right promptly, with clear guidance on the expected conduct of installers and an effective investigations and complaints process;

• An ability and willingness to collect and provide the data required by the CHMM

 

 

Looks clear enough to me and it must apply everywhere because it points up what MCS must do and MCS does it. Have a look here: https://mcscertified.com/installers-manufacturers/becoming-certified/ It is very much a close shop there but any other body could set up to do the same thing and be able to certify.

 

[Dave Jones]

from age 13/14 trade routes should be offered as a replacement for everything but maths/english for those who are not uni material.

 

4 years of taught plumbing or electrics or building etc by the time they are 18 they just need real work experience.

 

Unfortunately the kind of people attracted to teaching are exactly the wrong type.

[SteamyTea]

1 minute ago, Dave Jones said:

Unfortunately the kind of people attracted to teaching are exactly the wrong type.

You are so wrong there.

Some of us worked in industry for 20 years after finishing an apprentice and then went into teaching.

There are many reasons to end up teaching, 'never wanting to leave school' and 'long holidays' never got mentioned.

[Dave Jones]

11 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

You are so wrong there.

Some of us worked in industry for 20 years after finishing an apprentice and then went into teaching.

There are many reasons to end up teaching, 'never wanting to leave school' and 'long holidays' never got mentioned.

 

may be the exception. never experienced any putting our 3 through school. Just young kids who went to collage, learned to teach then back to school with zero life experience.

[SteamyTea]

10 minutes ago, Dave Jones said:

may be the exception. never experienced any putting our 3 through school. Just young kids who went to collage, learned to teach then back to school with zero life experience.

It has changed a lot since the 1950s.

Almost as likely to get a squaddie teaching you now.

University life is also not like it used to be.  Most students have jobs as well.