Are Regulations Slow to Change

I had a very interesting discussion this morning with a technical guy from a major company, I had a question about a product which he answered, but in the process he sent me a link to a video to show what needed to be done and in that video it showed something that caught my interest, and from following conversations with him made me realise that it was something that I personally was unaware of and had never given it much thought, but it showed me that current British Standards are again slow at changing to match new products.

It has become important that we reduce our use of water, manufacturers have risen to this with taps that restrict the flow rate and WC's with smaller flush volumes, we have reduced our flush volumes from, 12 to 9 litres, then down to less volumes with modern cisterns of 6 litres, but we are moving towards even lower flush volumes of 4.5 litres, I have fitted these 4.5 Litre flush pans, now these pans are designed to remove the solids from the pan with the 4.5 Litre flush, the problem comes with the drainage, currently regulations call for 110mm drainage for a WC pan, but with this bore of pipe and the lower volume of water used to flush the WC (4.5 Litres) the 110mm bore means there is insufficient water level within the bore to take the solids away over longer distances, even if the correct gradients are used, with these lower flush WC's we need to be using 90mm drainage pipes, these allow the bore to fill more with water on flushing the 4.5 Litre WC's and so carry away the solids, here is a great video from Geberit that shows the problem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iEx-xB2POs are the regulations going to be changed to take into account the use of 4.5 Litre flush WC's which will only increase over time, I was not aware of this issue and I can see future problems as more and more low flush WC's are fitted to existing drainage.

Now I like to think I keep up with regulations and changes within our industry, but I was totally unaware of the potential problem, am I alone on this, was anyone else aware, are the regulations been reviewed to update on this

Does MCS Hold Back Renewables?

Does MCS restrict the uptake of renewables?, in my opinion, yes it does.

Let me explain my reasons for thinking this, MCS is very expensive and bureaucratic to join, the whole thing was set up by civil servants who love to create paperwork for the sake of paperwork, it's what they do, but for sole traders and SME's the cost, bureaucracy and the minefield of endless paperwork and insurances, means the majority of sole traders and SME's stay away, as it is not financially viable to join for what will be a very small part of their business, if the UK Government are serious about the 2050 deadline for zero net carbon emissions, the scheme has to change, otherwise there will never be enough installers to install the required products to acheive this goal.

I was heavily involved with thermal solar back in around 2005 and as an installer I joined the Clear Skies Scheme, this was the then equivalent to MCS, as grants were available, the scheme was free to join and many installers joined the scheme, it covered Thermal Solar, PV, Heat Pumps and Biomass and under this scheme interest was raised in renewables, not just from the public but from installers, then things changed, the Government shifted its attention away from most other renewables and put priority and the highest grants onto PV, this then saw a decline in a then thriving thermal solar market, then we had the MCS, this further degraded the market as installers faced with the burden, both financially and paperwork decided to drop their involvement in renewables and I do not believe we have ever recovered, I think the point was hit on the head by a contributor on Social Media when he said, MCS was NEVER designed with the small business in mind, its for the large companies who have the staff who can handle the endless stream of paperwork required for MCS.

I was fortunate to be working for a thermal solar company that was international, I was trained in Germany and Switzerland and I went to places like, Hassi Massoud Algeria, Amman Jordan, Faro Portugal and Santiago Chile, in these countries I trained installers how to install thermal solar and worked on the systems myself, all in all I gained huge knowledge and experience in the thermal solar market, however I have not used this knowledge in may years, I did join MCS for one year, but found the whole process to much of a burden and too expensive for my business for the amount of renewable work I was getting, it was simply not worth it, so my knowledge has been wasted.

So even though the Government have announced the 2050 target of zero net Carbon emissions, there is simply not enough trained installers to achieve it and there wont be unless the scheme is changed, we need something more along the lines of Gas Safe, a sensible annual fee and no pointless burdensome paperwork, we need good quality training courses and we also need some clarity on how this target will be achieved, as currently there is no plan, heat pumps are mentioned, so is biomass but also Hydrogen, so how on earth are installers supposed to plan when we have no idea of the policy route this target will take us, we need sensible joined up thinking and a plan of action and MCS needs to change, otherwise like most Government schemes it will fail, I don't want it to fail as I see good business opportunities here, but unless things change, nothing will be achieved.

UK will eradicate its net contribution to climate change by 2050.

So Theresa May announced on the 12th June 2019 that the UK will eradicate its net contribution to climate change by 2050, for our industry this could be a very good thing and boost work and earning potential, however, its important that things are set up and done correctly from the start.

In the past any scheme Government have set up to improve efficiency have failed, do you remember the 2016 target for all new build homes to be carbon neutral, it got scraped, we then had the Green Deal, which failed, it is still around with private companies funding as far as I am aware, but as a Government scheme it has gone, so what is to say that the same will not happen to this scheme.

From what I have read so far, there is nothing stating what exactly will be implemented to acheive this target, or how it will be phased in, its all well and good jumping on a bandwagon waving the Climate Change flag, but a real practical possible plan needs to be set up, something that is realistic and can work, are the Government looking at using Hydrogen gas, how would that work, are they looking to switch to all electric heating, heat pumps, solar? what is the plan.

In my opinion the first place to start has to be insulation, if the heatloss of UK properties is reduced, then less heat input is required to keep the property comfortable and so that will equate to less emissions, the next phase has to be new build, all new build homes MUST be built with heat pumps etc, the design of new homes must be scrutinised more to ensure adequate design considerations are used, and space for the plant, we can just have a small airing cupboard (roof spaces could be designed to accomodate the plant so that the footprint of the building does not increase)

My biggest fear for this scheme is that it will just become a box ticking exercise for the Government, where we get poorly designed and installed systems, but they can tick the box to say a renewable has been installed and they believe they are fulfilling their obligations, this is what happened in the thermal solar market and we end up with rubbish systems that are not fit for purpose and are expensive for the homeowner to run, we need to ensure we do not just have salespeople selling systems that are not fit for purpose just so they can earn their commission, no disrespect intended, but some salespeople were selling photocopiers the week before and now claim to be an expert on renewables, I have had a few run ins with these types of people on social media, when advising people to improve their property thermal envelope and ensuring their heat emitters are suitable to run at low temperatures, I get these salespeople telling me I don't know what I am talking about and that their heat pumps can run at high temperatures and can be retro fitted onto an existing gas boiler system, my reply would be  "eh NO'. I am fully aware of the new gases R35 and R290 which can heat to 70 degrees, this is great for hot water production which is a relatively short cycle, but you would NOT design the heating system around this temperature, it would simply be uneconomical, we MUST ensure these tactics to sell heat pumps are not permitted, we have to ensure systems are properly designed and installed, otherwise the scheme will fail, we will not acheive the UK targets, the industry will suffer yet more damage.

Lets get this right from the start, Government must speak with and embrace the installer community if they really want this to succeed.