Thermal imaging is a great way to understand how heat is being lost from a building. In this webinar I show you what to look out for when doing thermal imaging, and how to use a camera and software. Plus general hints and tips on energy saving and also ventilation. This webinar was held as part of Community Energy Fortnight 2022. I am grateful to Civic Square and Dark Matter Labs for their support in putting on this webinar.
Click on the video link below to watch the recording.
I offer thermal imaging services as part of a whole-building approach to saving energy in your home or business. Householders please click here for more information, businesses please click here.
Unity FM radio were kind enough to invite me on to their Connecting Communities broadcast with Mehmooda Qureshi and Dr Peter Rooke.
This broadcast will be of interest to people who are looking for expert help with energy saving in their home or business, for two reasons:
In this broadcast, I talk about how I go about an energy saving plan for a building – in this case it was a faith building, but I have a similarly strategic approach to any home, business, or community building
A recent client of mine, Hitesh Kukadia, the President of Shree Ram Mandir, is also on the broadcast, in which he talks about his experience of working with me.
Please click on the widget below to listen.
(In case you’re interested, the title of this blog is a tribute to The Selecter, who were part of the soundtrack to my youth)
Consumers want to buy off businesses that are ethical and sustainable. If you are a small business in Greater Birmingham and Solihull, then you could qualify for subsidised help with decarbonising your business. Help is also available for your business to take advantage of clean growth opportunities.
This means you could get help from me at around 20% of what you would normally pay. Everyone loves a bargain! You will need to get quotes from three potential consultants in total.
You must be an SME to qualify, with 11-249 employees, three years’ trading history, based in a non-domestic building, in the following local authority areas: Birmingham, Solihull, East Staffordshire, Cannock Chase, Lichfield, Tamworth, Redditch, Bromsgrove, Wyre Forest. You must be incorporated (this includes companies limited by guarantee). The programme funds 80% of the consultancy costs; you will need to contribute the other 20%.
Tell me what makes your business great, and let’s work together to make it greener and more profitable.
Some of the things I can help you with include:
Making your building more energy efficient
Sustainable transport
Renewable energy
Water saving
Decarbonisation action plans
Staff training and organisational change to decarbonise your business
Coaching
Developing low carbon products and services for the clean growth sector
Monitoring your achievements
Bid writing
Telling your customers about the work you are doing to make your business greener.
Contact me now to see how I could help you through the Clean Growth programme. Tell me what makes your business great, and let’s work to make it greener and more profitable!
If you don’t qualify for the Clean Growth programme then I can still help you with my value for money energy saving advice packages.
TESTIMONIALS
Nathalie Rush
Phil is truly an expert in his field. I can understand why most people around the West Midlands choose to go to Phil for energy-saving consultancy. Phil has a thorough understanding of energy conservation and sustainable living. Would highly recommend. Nathalie Rush, MD, Six Star Insulation.
Claire Spencer
His knowledge of community-led sustainability is second to none, and his perspective on local and national issues is invaluable to us. He adds value, and is everything a good consultant should be, and I would recommend him to anyone in our field Claire Spencer, Sustainable Moseley.
Rosemary Coyne
It has been hugely inspiring to work with Phil. While others talk, Phil gets on and does it. Rosemary Coyne, Coordinator, Sustainable Housing Action Partnership
Ray Walker
In working with Phil I have been impressed by his level of knowledge and enthusiasm. He has a vast array of contacts and has brought us into contact with other stakeholder in the energy business that would have been much more difficult to achieve without him. I am also struck by his commitment to supporting communities and the most vulnerable client groups.
Ray Walker, Disability Resource Centre
Cllr Karen McCarthy
Phil Beardmore has a long association with Localise West Midlands and is a valued associate on environmental, housing and fuel poverty projects.
He works with us both as an individual practitioner and leading multi-disciplinary teams on larger projects, delivering high quality results on time and on budget.
Cllr Karen McCarthy, Localise West Midlands
MY VALUES
WHY I GET OUT OF BED IN THE MORNING
You need impartial expert advice on energy saving in your home or business. I don’t want you to lose opportunities to save energy because you missed out on my expertise.
MAKING A DIFFERENCE EVERY DAY
I am one of life’s doers. I like to work out what to do next, and then get on and do it.
If I see something that needs to change, I will say it needs changing, and I will change it if I can.
I deliver on my promises, on time and within budget.
COOPERATION OVER COMPETITION
I don’t “chase the money”.
I am not afraid to give bad news. If I think something isn’t going to work for you, I will tell you, and suggest alternatives. I want you to get it right.
I prefer cooperation over competition. I want everyone to win at life.
The Green Homes Grant (Local Area Delivery Scheme) – also known as LADS – is here. It provides grant funding for some measures, but how much you get and what for, varies from one local authority to another. In some local authorities it is means tested, in others it isn’t. Also because of supply chain issues, in some areas it is behind schedule. If you have energy saving measures through this scheme, then the scheme manager chooses the installer for you. Unlike the previous Green Homes Grant scheme, it is operated by the local authority and the charity Act On Energy, which I think is a good move.
If you’re not in the West Midlands, then Google “Local authority delivery scheme [your local authority name]
As part of the quality assurance scheme that includes LADS, you should receive independent advice from a Retrofit Coordinator, free of charge, if you qualify for LADS. Which means you don’t have to pay me for advice! If however, you would still like to pay me for independent and impartial advice on saving energy in your home – or even your business – then I would be happy to help. I help you to understand where to start, and how to plan for making your home or business environmentally friendly in the short, medium and long term.
Are you looking for a kitchen appliance? My post-Brexit advice is now to compare the amount of kiloWatt hours (kWh) of electricity the appliance is predicted to use in a year. Not the energy rating (A-G), as you might have done previously.
Why is this?
It’s to do with Brexit and the UK’s antiquated electricity distribution system.
The electricity that comes into your house is 240 volts. But none of the appliances in a modern house need 240 volts. They typically run at 220 volts.
So that is quite a bit of electricity going to waste.
Since we left the European Union, that waste is now reflected on the energy label of appliances. So something that used to be A-rated, might now only be E-rated, as I found recently when shopping for a new washing machine.
So it’s best to compare appliances by predicted kWh use in an average year. So fridge-freezer A might use 60 kWh, whereas fridge-freezer B might use 70 kWh. You can compare water use on washing machines and dishwashers too.
If you’re a householder then there’s not much you can do about the fact that your electricity supply is 240 volts. But there are still a myriad of ways you can save energy in the home.
Whereas if you’re a business, it might be worthwhile fitting a voltage optimiser. This is a transformer that reduces the voltage from 240 volts to 220.
If you’re a householder, business or public body than needs advice on reducing your greenhouse gas emissions, then check out my expert advice packages.
I used to wonder what the Romans ever did for us when they ruled Britain. Was it introducing the fig tree to Britain, at Reculver in Kent? Was it Latin place names? Or the first ever recorded Black residents of Britain, ushering in our fabulous multi-cultural society?
Then in 2018 along with my fiancee Claire, I fulfilled a long-standing ambition to visit Hadrian’s wall and I realised the answer … the Romans gave us under-floor heating.
Like many Roman buildings in Britain, here at Housesteads Roman Fort, you can see that they went as far as building a suspended floor so they could have under-floor heating. So they knew a thing or two about building physics, even if they hadn’t invented insulation yet. They may even have copied under-floor heating from Egypt or Mesopotamia.
Warm as toast, even if you’re wearing a toga
Have you ever been in a building where your head feels warm but your feet feel cold? A house, or an office, or maybe a place of worship?
This is because most of our buildings have been designed for engineering convenience, and not for the comfort of the occupants, or the environmental impact of energy and water use in the building.
Not every building is suitable for under-floor heating. It is not always practical to completely re-engineer an existing building like an Edwardian house or a 1960s office block or a former pub converted to a mosque. But we can, and should, break with the bad habits of the past that have made our homes and workplaces energy inefficient.
That’s what I do when I visit your home or business. At the moment it’s full of problems. Missing insulation. Fossil fuel heating systems. I help you to find solutions to all these problems. A whole-building approach, that doesn’t start with a fixation on a particular technology, whether it’s under-floor heating, solar energy, or heat pumps; but which helps you understand where to beginand what you might do in the future.
About me
I am the West Midlands’ leading expert in:
energy saving
renewable energy
procurement of energy saving products
water saving.
My customers include householders, landlords, public bodies, small businesses, charities and coops.
Phil is truly an expert in his field. I can understand why most people around the West Midlands choose to go to Phil for energy-saving consultancy. Phil has a thorough understanding of energy conservation and sustainable living. Would highly recommend. Nathalie Rush, MD, Six Star Insulation.
Claire Spencer
His knowledge of community-led sustainability is second to none, and his perspective on local and national issues is invaluable to us. He adds value, and is everything a good consultant should be, and I would recommend him to anyone in our field Claire Spencer, Sustainable Moseley.
Rosemary Coyne
It has been hugely inspiring to work with Phil. While others talk, Phil gets on and does it. Rosemary Coyne, Coordinator, Sustainable Housing Action Partnership
Ray Walker
In working with Phil I have been impressed by his level of knowledge and enthusiasm. He has a vast array of contacts and has brought us into contact with other stakeholder in the energy business that would have been much more difficult to achieve without him. I am also struck by his commitment to supporting communities and the most vulnerable client groups.
Ray Walker, Disability Resource Centre
Cllr Karen McCarthy
Phil Beardmore has a long association with Localise West Midlands and is a valued associate on environmental, housing and fuel poverty projects.
He works with us both as an individual practitioner and leading multi-disciplinary teams on larger projects, delivering high quality results on time and on budget.
Cllr Karen McCarthy, Localise West Midlands
Membership of the AECB – Association of Environmentally Conscious Buildings – enables me to keep my skills up to date
I won a Making Birmingham Greener Award for Outstanding Personal Achievement.
I was nominated twice by my peers as one of the top Green Leaders in the West Midlands
Does your home or small business have a combination boiler? With no hot water cylinder? You could save energy, money and greenhouse gas emissions by turning the boiler temperature to your radiators down to 55 degrees or below.
If you have a boiler with a hot water cylinder or heat store? You could still save – but it’s slightly more complicated with this type of boiler. So read on …
Making better use of existing heating controls is one thing almost every home or business can do to reduce their Greenhouse Gas emissions NOW … and it’s free.
The government has recently announced that on all new heating systems, the maximum boiler temperature should be set to 55 degrees. This is long overdue. But you don’t have to wait until you have a new heating system. You can be part of The Fab 55 right now.
If your boiler has been installed in the last 15 years, it is almost certainly a condensing boiler, whether it’s mains gas, heating oil, or LPG. It is designed to run at lower temperatures than older gas boilers. In fact it MUST be run at 55 degrees or lower in order to operate in condensing mode. If you run it at too high a temperature, then the water going back to the boiler from your radiators or under-floor heating will be too hot, and this excess heat will escape through the flue. This is not how condensing boilers were designed to work. Condensing boilers have a second heat exchanger, which is what makes them potentially more efficient than older boilers. But if the boiler temperature to the radiators is too high, then the boiler will run in non-condensing mode, wasting energy, money and greenhouse gases. Unfortunately I often see clients, both householders and businesses, where the boiler temperature to the radiators has been set to 60 or even 70 degrees.
Will it be cold if I turn the boiler temperature down?
You can get the same amount of heat to keep your home or business warm by running the heating for longer. A steady background heat during the heating season is more efficient than short bursts of on/off using the timer. You should also regularly monitor your room thermostats. You should not treat the thermostatic radiator valves like a motorbike throttle – it’s not good to turn them up and down too frequently. It’s best not to let temperatures fall below 16 degrees in a home at night, because that can be dangerous for people with cold related medical conditions.
If you have a combination boiler, you can experiment with turning your boiler temperature to the radiators to below 55 degrees – to 45 degrees. Do it in stages, not all at once.
How do I know if I have a combination boiler?
These are the signs:
A combination boiler doesn’t have a hot water cylinder or heat store
Google the manual for your boiler make and model – it will tell you if it’s a combination boiler.
If your boiler does have a hot water cylinder or heat store, then it’s not a combination boiler. See below.
How do I know if I have a condensing boiler?
Insulated condensate pipe
All boilers can be condensing boilers. This includes combination boilers, and boilers with a hot water cylinder/heat store.
A condensing boiler will have a condensate pipe (see photo) that evacuates condensed flue gases down your drain. This will usually be an insulated diagonal pipe outside. If your washing machine is below your boiler then the installer might have done a very clever thing where the condensed flue gases run out of your washing machine outlet pipe, so there won’t be an additional condensing pipe outside your home.
Google the manual for your boiler make and model – it will tell you if it’s a condensing boiler.
If you don’t have a combination boiler …
Then you can still have the boiler temperature for the radiators at 55 degrees or lower, but it’s too complicated to explain in a blog as it varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. Google the manual for your boiler make and model.
If you have a hot water cylinder or heat store, then you must ensure that the stored hot water is not at risk of legionella bacteria. Normally this means making sure the temperature is raised to 60 degrees periodically to kill off the bacteria. Do not take risks with a hot water cylinder temperature – consult the boiler manual.
If your home is heated by a different type of heating system, e,g, electric radiators or storage heaters, then the same principle applies, that a steady background heat is preferable, although this might be harder to achieve with storage heaters.
Getting your building “heat pump ready”
If you are considering having a heat pump, then it is essential that you run the heat pump at lower temperatures of 55 degrees or lower. Practising running your existing boiler at lower temperatures is one of the most important thing you can do to make your home or business heat pump ready.
Let’s make you energy confident
If you sign up to one of my energy advice packages, I will help you get energy confident so you know you are doing the right things to reduce the environmental impact of your home, business or non-profit.
About me
I am the West Midlands’ leading expert in:
energy saving
renewable energy
procurement of energy saving products
water saving.
My customers include householders, landlords, public bodies, small businesses, charities and coops.
Phil is truly an expert in his field. I can understand why most people around the West Midlands choose to go to Phil for energy-saving consultancy. Phil has a thorough understanding of energy conservation and sustainable living. Would highly recommend. Nathalie Rush, MD, Six Star Insulation.
Claire Spencer
His knowledge of community-led sustainability is second to none, and his perspective on local and national issues is invaluable to us. He adds value, and is everything a good consultant should be, and I would recommend him to anyone in our field Claire Spencer, Sustainable Moseley.
Rosemary Coyne
It has been hugely inspiring to work with Phil. While others talk, Phil gets on and does it. Rosemary Coyne, Coordinator, Sustainable Housing Action Partnership
Ray Walker
In working with Phil I have been impressed by his level of knowledge and enthusiasm. He has a vast array of contacts and has brought us into contact with other stakeholder in the energy business that would have been much more difficult to achieve without him. I am also struck by his commitment to supporting communities and the most vulnerable client groups.
Ray Walker, Disability Resource Centre
Cllr Karen McCarthy
Phil Beardmore has a long association with Localise West Midlands and is a valued associate on environmental, housing and fuel poverty projects.
He works with us both as an individual practitioner and leading multi-disciplinary teams on larger projects, delivering high quality results on time and on budget.
Cllr Karen McCarthy, Localise West Midlands
Membership of the AECB – Association of Environmentally Conscious Buildings – enables me to keep my skills up to date
I won a Making Birmingham Greener Award for Outstanding Personal Achievement.
I was nominated twice by my peers as one of the top Green Leaders in the West Midlands
If your business rents an office or shop premises from a landlord, then don’t worry, there are still many things you can do to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions.
And most importantly, however much or little you are able to do, you must tell your customers what you are doing. People like to buy from businesses that are ethical and sustainable.
Here are my top tips for improving the environmental performance of your business if you rent:
Turn off lights, computers and other machines when not in use. Put up stickers, particularly in parts of the building that are intermittently used – e.g. kitchens and bathrooms.
Make sure doors and windows are closed in cold weather. The Close the Door campaign shows how you can do this without losing trade.
Can you reduce the number of journeys made by car or van? Where journeys are unavoidable, are your staff aware of eco-driving techniques? Has home working and remote working had a positive or negative impact on your environmental performance?
How local is your supply chain? Can you buy local?
If there are heating and air conditioning controls that you have access to, have you reviewed how you use them? Better control of heating and air conditioning is one of the most effective ways to reduce your energy consumption.
Are there any empty fridges or freezers? Are they turned off? Where there are fridges that have stuff in them, are they kept full and frost-free?
Devise a simple monitoring strategy to show how you are getting on. Take photos. Tell your customers via your website, social media, in your window. They will feel good about buying from you if they know you are an environmentally business.
Can you think of any others? My workbook (pay as you feel) will help.
If you need expert help with taking environmental action then check out my energy advice packages for small businesses. Tell me what makes your business great and we’ll make it greener and more profitable. #EnergyConfident
The River Cole was one of my favourite places growing up in East Birmingham. We used to get on our bikes and ride along the River Cole around Stechford, Yardley and Small Heath, catching sticklebacks and invertebrates, whose names I tried to learn.
So it was natural for me to join the Wildlife Trust for Birmingham and the Black Country as an adult, and I was invited to become a Trustee in 2018. Being a Trustee is an opportunity to use my strategic planning skills and so it’s hard work sometimes, but ultimately rewarding when I see the work of the Trust in Birmingham and the Black Country to help nature’s recovery and to protect biodiversity in places such as Moseley Bog and the Cole Valley that are precious to me.
1-5 November 2021 is #TrusteesWeek so here’s to the work of the staff, volunteers and trustees of Wildlife Trusts across the country!
(River Cole image by the Wildlife Trust for Birmingham and the Black Country).
One of the weaknesses of the government’s Heat and Buildings Strategy is that the grants available for heat pumps are most likely to be taken up by better-off households, and that fuel poor households are at risk of missing out. Suddenly, fuel poverty is in the news, and the internet is full of self-proclaimed experts who claim that heat pumps are no good for the fuel poor.
Let us never forget that our reliance on gas for heating homes is one of the main reasons why fuel poverty is on the increase. Even the most efficient gas boilers are only 95% efficient, whereas heat pumps are at least 300% efficient. Gas boilers are frequently over-sized, and incorrectly designed to run at high temperatures, which means they operate at much less than 95% efficiency. Gas is part of the problem.
Fuel poverty is a complex social issue. It is caused by poor efficiency of buildings and appliances; lack of understanding of how to use appliances efficiently; low income; all compounded by the fact that the fuel poor are most likely to be on the worst tariffs and use the worst payment methods. People with cold and damp related medical conditions are at greater risk of fuel poverty.
There is no magic bullet to solve fuel poverty.
Effective fuel poverty interventions include some or all of the following:
Improving the thermal efficiency of a home;
More efficient heating appliances;
Income maximisation;
Supporting fuel poor households to find the cheapest payment methods and tariffs, which is difficult in a time of price volatility.
Successive governments have failed to implement strategies that achieve a holistic approach to solving fuel poverty. Heat pumps are right for some homes and not right for others. What fuel poor households need is a whole-house plan to make their homes more efficient, starting with improving the building fabric.
Proper design is key to the successful installation of a heat pump in any home. The UK is short on heating engineers who understand how to design and install heat pumps. This needs to be addressed urgently.
Read a report I wrote about a project in Birmingham to help vulnerable fuel poor households.
Here is a video of the successful use of heat pumps to help fuel poor households.
Featured image by Amy Purdie for Saltley Community Association.
