WTF is going on with the Plumbing & Heating industry, why is it seemingly allowed to be run by idiots, MCS, Green deal, PAS 2030, all just burdensome, bureaucracy, that has no benefit to the actual installation, these organisations in my opinion are just quango’s, they keep coming up with more and more stupid ideas to warrant their existence and milk the industry of more money, all the paperwork that is involved with these organisations distract the installers from SME’s and sole traders from doing what they should be doing, designing and installer good quality efficient heating & renewable systems and providing good customer service, but the burden of the paper trail required by these organisations wastes time and gives the installer less time doing what he does best, it is time that these organisations were trimmed, less paperwork for the sole trader and SME’s let us do our jobs properly we are not pen pushers.

I read an article in one of the trade magazines lately where the NHBC were concerned that new build houses, which are designed with efficiency in mind, are overheating in the summer, this in my opinion just shows that the so called experts lack any amount of common sense, insulation works both ways, it keeps the house warm in the winter and cool in the summer, but now with all this air tightness, there is no natural ventilation, I know it is hard to believe with our current weather, but the UK does have a winter and a summer, but the so called experts have focussed so much on the winter efficiency that they have designed homes that are incapable of cooling naturally in the summer, in my opinion houses are not designed very well, in the UK it is not about designing a home for quality of life, where the orientation of the property is considered, for maximum benefit for efficiency, with the ability for warmth in the winter and cool in the summer, they are designed to fit the maximum amount of homes within the space available for maximum profit, the article is concerning that all these new homes are like ovens in the summer, or was this always the plan, play the efficiency game, with talk about keeping warm in the winter while using less energy, to then allow the utility companies to re-coupe the cost of less energy used in the winter by having people using more electricity in the summer using fans, air conditioning units etc. to cool their homes.

Another issue where the so called experts have failed is installer training, some things were always right and did not need changing or altering, the old styled 4 – 5 years apprenticeship WORKED, it produced skilled knowledgeable installers who had the skills to install quality systems, but in the name of progress we now have the fast track training, this is not to improve the skills of the installer, it is purely to maximise the profits of the training facilities, when I did my apprenticeship in the 80’s I went to college for four years, you could only get into college if you worked for an employer, the guys I worked with all had done long apprenticeships, the mix of college for theory and some practical learning with working on site with experienced installers learning from them is what made me, as far as I have been told a good quality installer, after my apprenticeship I worked for few companies learning new skills for a further 10 years  before I believed I had enough experience to let myself loose on the public, nowadays it’s pay your money, short course, get the certificates, new van and away they go, very wrong in my opinion, when I first started trading on my own, when I went to a boiler breakdown, it usually was a part failure, as you checked through the system, you never really had any concerns about the quality of the installation, now, when you attend a break down, the first thing that hits you is the poor workmanship of the installation and the boiler fault is usually due to installer error, not just wear and tear of the boiler, I do not see the current system as progress, I see it as a step backwards.

All the points above are caused by the idiots who have been allowed to run our industry, we need to claim our industry back, but it seems to me the trade bodies that we belong to either do not want to rock the boat, or they are toothless, as they seem to do nothing to support their members.