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That depends on how much the prospective customers know about the number of heat-pump installations which fail or are sub-optimal.
I'll suggest that the slow-down in the number of installations is heavily due to us all now knowing a neighbour, family member or work colleague who's heat-pump journey has been an expensive nightmare. And yet they've been sent a letter from the LPA stating that it complies with Building Regs.
The £500 is at a level where it's cheaper than the costs of battling to get a poor installation put right.
If you have been put off you have been put off, and the issue wont arise. The inspection applies only to people who have has a heat pump installed and after it you still have to battle!
Eeek! If your LPA doesn't have Building Control staff that can check and implement these regulations, then it needs drawing to the attention of Elected Members.
Noted! You can choose your supplier of building regs so it maybe that some do, some dont!
As an example, the LPA needs to consider whether it should continue running ECO4 (or its later successor) if the work cannot be checked as compliant with Building Regs.
I agree, although in practice its difficult for them not to.
I'm not yet convinced that any extra money needs to be found in order to ensure people are actually doing what they're paid for!
Im not at all convinced that more money will help, whether or not its 'needed'! But at the same time I remain conscious that the construction industry is beset with recurring quality problems so the inescapable fact is that people don't always do what they are paid for whether its heat pumps, insulation or cladding for tall buildings.
It may be that we just have to accept that this is how the construction industry is (which is certainly my personal experience over several decades). Because I accept that this is how the construction industry is, I make a point of getting educated about any construction work I am involved in. Even that doesnt fully protect me, I was scammed by a roofer just three years ago.
However it wasn't me that raised the idea of a survey, it was @jeff, who made the valid point that some people dont want to get educated. Perhaps there is no solution for them!
This post was modified 4 weeks ago 2 times by JamesPa
4kW peak of solar PV since 2011; EV and a 1930s house which has been partially renovated to improve its efficiency. 7kW Vaillant heat pump.
For most vulnerable and poor people you need to be talking to their landlord, who increasingly is a large mostly US venture capital fund who a) doesn't care and b) considers that their primary duty is to make money and it's for government to force standards by legislation and for them to then game those standards to comply as cheaply as possible.
The move to require a minimum EPC and to tie that EPC to a new EPC scheme and to carbon emissions is broken in various ways but it's IMHO the only thing that will fix private landlords. More relevantly though it means for many people the discussion about "what to do about poor people" is actually "what to do about rich landlords", and regulation, enforcement and a large stick as you are discussing is IMHO totally relevant to that .
Social housing is a bit more amenable to action and a lot of social housing folks are trying to balance costs and low energy bills in newbuilds they control (newbuilds by companies in order to fulfill planning requirements are a lost cause). Councils obviously do have significant control of their own stock (but no money to fix it).
ECO4 is unfixable though, the fundamental economic design of the scheme is broken.
"Let's remember that LPA is issuing these Letters of Compliance anyway."
so do an FoI for the relevant qualifications of the person who issued the LoC, how many they issue a day and via GDPR for the records they used to reach that specific decision. That's about the first thing I imagine you'd be doing as discovery if it were a court case.
For most vulnerable and poor people you need to be talking to their landlord, who increasingly is a large mostly US venture capital fund who a) doesn't care and b) considers that their primary duty is to make money and it's for government to force standards by legislation and for them to then game those standards to comply as cheaply as possible.
The move to require a minimum EPC and to tie that EPC to a new EPC scheme and to carbon emissions is broken in various ways but it's IMHO the only thing that will fix private landlords. More relevantly though it means for many people the discussion about "what to do about poor people" is actually "what to do about rich landlords", and regulation, enforcement and a large stick as you are discussing is IMHO totally relevant to that .
Hmm. Very cynical, but I tend to agree!
4kW peak of solar PV since 2011; EV and a 1930s house which has been partially renovated to improve its efficiency. 7kW Vaillant heat pump.
"Let's remember that LPA is issuing these Letters of Compliance anyway."
so do an FoI for the relevant qualifications of the person who issued the LoC, how many they issue a day and via GDPR for the records they used to reach that specific decision. That's about the first thing I imagine you'd be doing as discovery if it were a court case.
That could be interesting to find out: how many dwellings are covered by LoC letters per council officer per day.
8kW Solis S6-EH1P8K-L-PLUS hybrid inverter; G99: 8kw export; 16kWh Seplos Fogstar battery; Ohme Home Pro EV charger; 100Amp head, HA lab on mini PC
That could be interesting to find out: how many dwellings are covered by LoC letters per council officer per day.
If its something that can be self-certified, which most of what we are talking about can, then none.
Even if its not self certified, then none in many cases, because Building control is outsourced by many Councils and you can anyway choose which building control you go to.
Please see attached my most recent Building regs certificate.
b) Surveyor comes round and decides there is something wrong. Installer disagrees. What next?
c) Surveyor comes round, decides that there is nothing wrong (or what is wrong is outside the scope of what surveyor checked), but later on householder thinks that there is. Installer disagrees and, knowing that the customer had a survey, cites the survey. What next?
If I had to pay £500 for a survey, I would need to be convinced it would be binding. The possibility of "pass, as not in scope" is particularly troubling..
8kW Solis S6-EH1P8K-L-PLUS hybrid inverter; G99: 8kw export; 16kWh Seplos Fogstar battery; Ohme Home Pro EV charger; 100Amp head, HA lab on mini PC
I remember when we had our loft converted, we had self certifying by the electrician, windows and other certificates and eventually the BC inspector considered that and issued a final certificate for the conversion, that I think they need to send to the LPA. We never had anything from the LPA, AFAIK
8kW Solis S6-EH1P8K-L-PLUS hybrid inverter; G99: 8kw export; 16kWh Seplos Fogstar battery; Ohme Home Pro EV charger; 100Amp head, HA lab on mini PC
OK so Im interested in exploring the post installation 'quality' survey a bit further, because it may have relevance to the work I am doing with the Hertfordshire Retrofit Strategy Steering Team. Since quality is one of the key targets, something involving offering a survey (possibly homeowner to pay, possibly funded in some cases) may just be on the cards
Trouble with that approach is once the system is installed, finding all the defects can be much more difficult because some are hidden away and fixing them can be massively more difficult and costly once all of the kit and components have been fitted into the house.
It needs the Quality Control approach of introducing hold-points, into the design and installation, so any quality issues can be identified and fixed before any damage is done and costs incurred. I'm not a heating system designer, but from what I've picked up looking at heat pump installations, the following appear quite key:
1. A sense-check of the heat loss calculations and model.
2. Check of the emitter/radiator schedule, pipework sizing for existing and new pipes, calculated flows and general hydraulic design, for the chosen heat-pump and operating temperature.
3. Basic check of hot water tank sizing.
4. Spec for the installation - types of pipes and fittings, condensate drainage arrangements, electrical supply etc. Location of key equipment.
5. Quality inspection during installation to check on completion of powerflushing, installation workmanship, evidence of post-installation flushing.
6. Checksheets / evidence of proper commissioning.
If an installation had all of those in place, with someone independent checking those items as they went along, resolving any issues before proceeding, I'm wondering how the installation could fail at the end of it.
It needs the Quality Control approach of introducing hold-points, into the design and installation, so any quality issues can be identified and fixed before any damage is done and costs incurred.
Thus further extending timescales from initial enquiry to completion and making ashp installations even less competitive (if that were possible) with simply replacing a boiler like for like.
In principle I agree with the proposal, in practice not.
If an installation had all of those in place, with someone independent checking those items as they went along, resolving any issues before proceeding, I'm wondering how the installation could fail at the end of it.
It couldn't, but it would hardly ever start because of the imposed cost and time overhead.
If some people wish to opt for this process (and if installers are willing to quote for an interrupted job) I have absolutely no problem, just as I have no problem if people want to buy expensive kit for their house when something cheaper would be just as good. Where I would have a problem is if this were imposed on good installers and/or people that are interested enough in a job to learn enough about it to have a reasonable probability of sorting the scammers from the honest guys.
This post was modified 4 weeks ago 9 times by JamesPa
4kW peak of solar PV since 2011; EV and a 1930s house which has been partially renovated to improve its efficiency. 7kW Vaillant heat pump.
Thus further extending timescales from initial enquiry to completion and making ashp installations even less competitive (if that were possible) with simply replacing a boiler like for like.
No it would not extend timescales significantly because there are already a number of stages in the process for getting a heat pump with time gaps between them where these activities would fit in. The installers come and measure up, then go away and design the system, then present a quote to the home owner, then the homeowner reviews and may get further quotes etc. There's time gaps between all of these, into which some design and quality checks can occur without delaying the overall process.
It couldn't, but it would hardly ever start because of the imposed cost and time overhead.
Why do you think a basic check of the design is going to take a huge amount of time and be very expensive?
It's not duplicating the design, it's simply doing a sense check that everything is reasonable, the kind of thing that can be put into a spreadsheet model, or a app, bit of data entry and option selection, it does the basic checks and analysis to flag up any obvious issues and you get an rough assessment of the design. Shouldn't take more than a few tens of minutes.
That's easily fits in the existing timeline of a heat pump install and cost would be insignificant compared to the overall installation cost.
You can't ensure quality without paying attention to the details, and those details need to be correct before starting the job when they can be corrected. Going back at the end once it's all finished, trying to fix things once the system is installed is hugely costly and disruptive, it needs to be right first time.
Why do you think a basic check of the design is going to take a huge amount of time and be very expensive?
Its not the check itself, its the need to interrupt progress whilst waiting for the inspector (who is not going to be standing there waiting to do his inspection). This ends up disrupting the sequence and the householder has to pay for this. Its just like waiting for the building inspector on a major construction job, it can hold up the work and in some cases cost the customer a lot of money and it cannot always be planned because you dont know what you are going to encounter.
You mention things like 'Spec for the installation - types of pipes and fittings, condensate drainage arrangements, electrical supply etc. Location of key equipment.', do you really think that all this is written down in advance to a level of detail that can be independently checked and verified by someone who, after making the check, will be on the hook if its wrong? And even if they do check the spec, whats to say the guy on site follows the instructions - which is half the problem.
Also these issues rarely feature in the reasons for poor performance at least judging by what we see here - ie they are not the main problem. The main problems are gross oversizing, incorrect controls/operation, use of buffer tank.
The installers come and measure up, then go away and design the system, then present a quote to the home owner, then the homeowner reviews and may get further quotes etc. There's time gaps between all of these, into which some design and quality checks can occur without delaying the overall process.
Not really. The check needs to be done on the quote that the householder accepts, not all the quotes that they consider, otherwise the cost multiplies. So it can only be done at the end of the quoting process (or more realistically during the installation). Independently to check rad schedules etc means doing a new survey, otherwise the check is based on the same fiction as the design and all you are checking is the software used to turn the survey data into a schedule, a check which adds no value.
I'm not saying that this is definitely impossible, but the sequencing and practicality needs to be thought through in its full detail in the real world to show that its actually practical without either unreasonably increasing cost or time or both. My gut feel is that thinking it through will confirm that its not possible without disrupting the installation and costing an amount which is not negligible.
What I would support (and advise) is sense checks of heat loss as part of the design process (ie done by the designer, documented and provided to the customer). Unfortunately the industry is currently resistant to anything that disrupts the absolute security (for the installer) provided by the fiction of the heat loss survey.
This post was modified 3 weeks ago 4 times by JamesPa
4kW peak of solar PV since 2011; EV and a 1930s house which has been partially renovated to improve its efficiency. 7kW Vaillant heat pump.
Its not the check itself, its the need to interrupt progress whilst waiting for the inspector (who is not going to be standing there waiting to do his inspection).
The key part is checking the design, there's no reason why this has to be done on-site. The installer will be preparing a quote, the details can be included with the quote and the inspector can check them offline, while the homeowner is considering it. If the inspector needs further details of the home and existing installation, they can get these from the home owner. There's no delay.
You mention things like 'Spec for the installation - types of pipes and fittings, condensate drainage arrangements, electrical supply etc. Location of key equipment.', do you really think that all this is written down in advance to a level of detail that can be independently checked and verified by someone who, after making the check, will be on the hook if its wrong? And even if they do check the spec, whats to say the guy on site follows the instructions - which is half the problem.
Also these issues rarely feature in the reasons for poor performance at least judging by what we see here - ie they are not the main problem. The main problems are gross oversizing, incorrect controls/operation, use of buffer tank.
If the installer was typing this out like an essay in Word then yes it would take some time, but in practice its an Excel spreadsheet template, or an export from the design software, using some drop-down options.... Pipes and fittings: Copper - soldered, or Copper - push fit, or Plastic. Heat Pump location: North wall, East Wall, South Wall, remote rear garden, remote front garden. Condensate - soakway, or drain to downpipe, drain to waste water etc.
And those topics you mention, the concerns, they're captured - buffer vessel type and size, controls and location, the heat demand from design calcs, the proposed heat pump model and its rating.
If you say its too difficult to expect the installer to confirm all of this, to write it down somewhere, then what you're doing is leaving it entirely up to the installer to do what they want... but that means you can't complain if you don't like their decisions and the outcome.
Classic case is buffer tanks, some heat-pump manufacturers do recommend hydraulic separation and use of buffer tanks, and an installer fitting one would be perfectly reasonable in fitting one. But if you don't confirm that early, you can't then complain later once it's bolted on the wall and plumbed in.
