Posted by: @editor

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Ultimate Renewables will be able to improve the quality of installations by educating the installer base.

I know there are very experienced experts on this site, so I apologise in advance to that cohort reading this, but I feel the customers also need to be educated.

Are there plans to provide a playbook to help installers educate the customer and leave them with digestible documentation following the install?

I know it is  difficult to design an optimum system when it is a retrofit [and quite expensive], but I think it should be relatively easy to provide the customer with the basics of what they will get from their design, and hopefully my thinking is clear in the image below.  Obviously not using that chart, but taking that idea applying it to all the parameters collected during the assessment.

A customers level of frustration is typically a function of expectations.  An outcome that matches the expectations [because the outcome has been provided in a digestible way] should be the goal.  When things don't work, customers will google stuff, and then they will wonder why does my system have/not have component xyz, or perform like abc.

If the expectations are set out clearly along the lines of

• this is how your system will run through the year
• this is the expected cost per year [by month]
• this is where your design sits on the chart of what is possible
• this is why you are on this part of the chart [your budget, your house, your location] rather than the part of the chart your friend with the passiv house is.

Also, If an installer can see much more clearly what they are delivering (holistically, covering the whole year) that feedback loop may help improve installation, especially installers new to heat pumps.  If this data is then made available, anonymised, the owner and the installer can compare to similar properties in the same area.

From linkedin

Also this may be the website given the email address they are using. Not live yet. 

ultimaterenewables.com

Hopefully their website will include a list of installers they work with. 

Ultimate Renewables Supplies is one of the UK's leading design and supply specialists in Heat Pumps, MVHR, Solar Thermal, PV & Battery Storage, UFH & Low Temp Radiators to installers and merchants across the UK. With 68 years of combined experience and 32 years installing domestic/commercial heat pumps and solar systems across Europe, our customers are in safe hands with Ultimate Renewables Supplies. We are incredibly passionate about heat pumps and how the system should be designed & installed to achieve maximum efficiency and work harmoniously with the property's UFH and/or radiators. We DON'T use buffers, low-loss headers, Glycol, 3rd party on/off controls, and flow-restricting valves in our heat pump packages. We only design and supply a "direct/open" system, the way heat pumps should be installed! Visit our working showroom or book our "Ultimate Heat Pump training course" (Open March 2023) to see for yourself & upskill your business. We have independent test data detailing a "direct/open" heat pump system using weather compensation controls is 30%+ cheaper to run than the same heat pump system using a buffer/LLH with 3rd party on/off controls. In addition, we generally achieve a SCOP of 4.8+ from our direct/open heat pump systems. So, with our comprehensive range of products, unparalleled technical knowledge, customer support, heat pump training centre, working showroom, free design service, MCS sign-off & on-site commissioning service, with have your back from design to handover.

 

Posted by: @jeff

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We only design and supply a "direct/open" system, the way heat pumps should be installed!

Awesome, what can I say !!

I don't know if they have applied for any funding from BEIS for their training? Or anything else they are doing? 

For example Heat Geek got funding to reduce one of their courses from £2600 to £270 for a limited time and number of people. 

https://courses.heatgeek.com/

Some support out there if you ask i suspect? 

Perhaps someone here could get an invite to their working showroom when it opens and report back. 

@editor don't say that. My wife needs no excuse to go the outlet

Posted by: @editor

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Perhaps someone here could get an invite to their working showroom when it opens and report back. 

It's a bit far for us, but I understand that the first showroom will be in Bicester – if anyone's close-ish and wants to check it out I can contact Simon and Brendon and make the appropriate arrangements to make it happen. I think they're aiming to start training sessions in April. PM me if you're interested.

 

I'm just outside milton keynes so Bicester's easy peasy. Plus, I'm just working through designing my own heat pump install according to Brendon's methods!

@heacol, do you think it'll be possible for @iancalderbank to visit your new facilities when they open?

Posted by: @editor

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@heacol, do you think it'll be possible for @iancalderbank to visit your new facilities when they open?

Thanks, Mars, To answer the first question, yes, everyone is invited to come and kick the boxes in the training room to see what we do and how we do it. We will be representing 5 different brands of heat pumps, so anyone can come and try them and see which one they like before purchasing, they will all be connected to the training centre so can be seen and heard running. We are non brand specific, it is not our place to choose, but it is our place to educate and ensure that all equipment that leaves our hands, is installed to produce the best possible performance, running costs and comfort levels possible for the end user. Our installers will be given the option of any unit, it will be between the installer and the end user to make that choice.

Once training is completed (we will NOT be teaching, we will be training with full understanding), the installer will have continued support and backup from our engineering arm. They will also be listed on our website (front page, going live on Monday) so the general public can choose them with confidence, once they have kicked the boxes, if they choose.

@william1066 we will be, to the best of our ability, to supply the estimated running costs and performance levels for all installation (on a month by month basis), however, we do not have X-ray eyes and cannot see weather insulation levels, ventilation standards and existing plumbing has been installed in a competent manner. Often issues, on retrofit and new builds, rear their heads when the system is commissioned, and this is beyond any installers control. Unfortunately, as the saying goes," you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear". The biggest problem we have is with under floor heating, not being designed for low temperatures (which would benefit all technologies) and often results in unreasonable expectations. We will, however, be supporting installers to make the best purse possible with the resources available.

Our aim is to grow as quickly as possible, within our abilities to make it a national offer.

Our training is currently not certified, and I doubt if it will be for some time. All current courses are designed to teach the candidate to tick boxes, based around the BPEC model. As we use a completely different concept and method of training, we expect to have a lot of opposition to the certification process from the established teaching organizations. However, it has already received validation from sone of the major players in the industry and the manufacturers we have agreed terms with.

Thank you for the kind words above.

@heacol I wholeheartedly approve of what you are doing. Looking forward to being able to visit.

Will it be possible for the type of person  found in many areas of these forums (a self-designer, a self-installer or  a self-optimiser) to take your training or engage your services? Perhaps not with the intention of providing commercial install services to others (I wouldn't want to for sure!) but with the intention of doing the best possible job of designing, choosing and installing ones own system and maybe being able to "help" a friend or two (my use case). Or guiding their improvements to an existing system  where its already been installed in the suboptimal ways that you've posted much about.

@iancalderbank I do not see why not, part of the reason of having the engineering arm is to help people with existing systems that are not working well. They will be conducting predominantly repairs and modifications to systems as well as installer support, sign-offs and servicing.

The 3 partners in the business are all heat pump fanatics and feel that every good experience for an end user will lead to more units being installed (hopefully supplied by us). We all do a lot for the industry behind the scenes and want to see this box shifting approach ended.

And of course, hopefully we can make a living along the way. 😀 

Sounds interesting @heacol!

And I'm really tickled by @William1066's idea that it is not only installers that need to be educated, but also heat pump owners. As a species, we have a certain understanding of heat in our lizard brain. Heat is a warm fire. Comes on quickly. Produces palpable heat. Burns or glows in front of our eyes. If you want more heat, throw more fuel on. If you want less, let the fire die down. In transitioning people away from combustion as the heat source, we are fighting habits of producing heat that have been with us for thousands of years. So we're not just changing technology, but are having to change people's culture and their way of living. The 'human factors' side of engineering.

But I get the impression that both installers and manufacturers don't actually WANT to engage with the human factors.

For instance, most manufacturers and installers don't want heat pump owners to go anywhere near settings. They hide them in menus and want to control them remotely. Because owners will just interfere and mess up all the installer's settings.

That's totally understandable. Many owners are a bit dense and uninterested. They just want the heat pump to work... they don't want to understand how it works. So the reaction is to take control away from the owner as much as possible.

Here's a genuine question for people on this forum. Do you think we should aim for:

Future A in which owners understand their heating systems and take responsibility for how they use their heat pumps

or

Future B in which the installer and manufacturer take all the responsibility off the owner. The owner just says 'too hot/too cold' or 'too expensive' and the installer and manufacturer tries to get the heat pump to perform a certain way. 

The pros and cons of Future A is that, at the end of the day, people can really control their heat pumps for themselves and the installers and manufacturers don't have to baby them. But then you need education for heat pump owners.

The pros and cons of Future B is that you don't have stupid heat pump owners messing things up because the professionals take everything out of their hands. But, on the other hand, the service isn't personalised very much. And you just end up with lots of grumpy customers who never quite get what they want, and constantly ring the installer on a Friday night saying 'come out to look at my heat pump right now, I set the thermostat at 21, but it's actually 20.'

@heacol thats great, better to spend time helping make sure system is done well in first place, than go in and fix  a bad one. And you will be supplying as well so that makes sense now. so you'll be able to advise (Based on criteria, constraints etc) pros and cons of brand A vs B vs C vs D vs E?  just let me know when you're open for business or a sneak-preview!

A thought (towards @benguela point as well) 

vendor-independent, consistent, low cost , remote performance monitoring as part of the package?

• geek types like me look at their own data and tweak settings ("Future A")
• non-geek types, some external party looks at their data (for a monthly fee)  and is able to respond (whether remotely or locally) to performance issues ("Future B")

Posted by: @benguela

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Sounds interesting @heacol!

And I'm really tickled by @William1066's idea that it is not only installers that need to be educated, but also heat pump owners. As a species, we have a certain understanding of heat in our lizard brain. Heat is a warm fire. Comes on quickly. Produces palpable heat. Burns or glows in front of our eyes. If you want more heat, throw more fuel on. If you want less, let the fire die down. In transitioning people away from combustion as the heat source, we are fighting habits of producing heat that have been with us for thousands of years. So we're not just changing technology, but are having to change people's culture and their way of living. The 'human factors' side of engineering.

But I get the impression that both installers and manufacturers don't actually WANT to engage with the human factors.

For instance, most manufacturers and installers don't want heat pump owners to go anywhere near settings. They hide them in menus and want to control them remotely. Because owners will just interfere and mess up all the installer's settings.

That's totally understandable. Many owners are a bit dense and uninterested. They just want the heat pump to work... they don't want to understand how it works. So the reaction is to take control away from the owner as much as possible.

Here's a genuine question for people on this forum. Do you think we should aim for:

Future A in which owners understand their heating systems and take responsibility for how they use their heat pumps

or

Future B in which the installer and manufacturer take all the responsibility off the owner. The owner just says 'too hot/too cold' or 'too expensive' and the installer and manufacturer tries to get the heat pump to perform a certain way. 

The pros and cons of Future A is that, at the end of the day, people can really control their heat pumps for themselves and the installers and manufacturers don't have to baby them. But then you need education for heat pump owners.

The pros and cons of Future B is that you don't have stupid heat pump owners messing things up because the professionals take everything out of their hands. But, on the other hand, the service isn't personalised very much. And you just end up with lots of grumpy customers who never quite get what they want, and constantly ring the installer on a Friday night saying 'come out to look at my heat pump right now, I set the thermostat at 21, but it's actually 20.'

If ASHPs are to be mass-market it has to be a version of B. but with some expectation management included.   

Hardly anyone tinkers with their car any more, mainly because they don't have to because cars are so good now.  And to most people, central heating systems are even less interesting than cars.