← Everything Electric Podcast
Everything Electric Podcast
The Heat Geek: Happier With A Heat Pump and Why Hydrogen is Dead!
00:59:37
In this episode of the Fully Charged Show Podcast, Robert Llewellyn is joined by Adam Chapman, the Heat Geek himself, to dive into the future of heating our homes. Starting as a blog, Heat Geek has grown into a transformative training platform for...
Loading summary
Transcript173 lines
- [00:03]
Robert Llewellyn
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Fully Charged show podcast. Today we are talking about how we keep ourselves warm in winter without burning anything. That is the critically important topic that we are all looking at and it's something I've been through in my own house. A lot of people I know are doing the same things with a lot of discussions in particularly in the uk, but also around the world about heat pumps and how air source heat pumps and how efficient they are and how difficult they are to use. And no one, they don't work in my house, they won't work. I thought it was worth asking someone who actually knows what they're talking about. And so I'm talking today to Adam Chapman, who founded a amazing organization called Heat Geek. And please do check out the links. I will put the links to Heat Geek in the show notes for this episode because it's really worth watching some of the work they're doing. They're training people to be good heat pump and home heating installers and they're developing, working with the technology. They kind of know how this stuff works and it does work and it's a really important topic. Plus, Adam is just an absolute joy. He's such an enthusiast, he's such an amazing man. He's doing such incredible work. Real, real proper privilege to talk to him. We definitely get him back on the show as well. He's just a really extraordinary man. So we go through all the aspects of how you heat your home, about insulation, about heat pumps, about burning gas and gas boilers, about hydrogen heating, all those things discussed in joyous and complex depth, but at a level that anyone can understand, which is what is the real joy of this. So it's been such a thrill to do this very quick plug for live shows. One coming up in Sydney, then in London, then I can't remember after that. I'll do that another time. Those are the two that are coming up soon where things like incredibly well informed people who really understand things like heat pumps and home insulation and you know, how you can heat your home without burning stuff, they're there on site and you can talk to them. Really, really important aspect of what we do, as well as all the test drives of electric cars and bikes, et cetera, et cetera. So that's it. I don't want to go on too much because this is such a brilliant episode. I really hope you enjoy it. Please do tell your friends and family to have a listen and check out the Fully Charged show podcast and the fully charged show and of course, anything on the Everything Electric channel. But for now, please welcome Adam Chapman and Heat Geek onto the fully charged show podcast. Love the Everything Electric show. Then join us live in Sydney in March or London in April, or in Vancouver, Farnborough and Melbourne in September, October and November 2025. Adam, thank you, this is really good. Thank you so much for joining us today because it's a really appropriate day to be talking about domestic heating because we live quite high up and it's really windy, but it's not very cold. But still it's nice to have some heat in your house. And I mean at the moment, you know, we're recording this in sort of mid winter uk, which is never pleasant and so it's critically important and I've done some experiments in heating. I no longer have any gas and I. All my heating is electric and it's, it's challenging. It's not bad, but it's challenging. So I'm really intrigued to hear about this, but can you tell me, just do a little bit of background, people who don't know about Heat Geek and what you're doing, particularly in relation to, in getting engineers and people who fit heating. Heating engineers need a bit of a wake up call, possibly.
- [04:09]
Adam Chapman
You said what we do essentially at the beginning, that what you're doing right now is challenging and it shouldn't be. And the reason it's challenging is because heating engineers are kind of stuck in a rut. They've done this one thing for a very long time. And our thing as Heat Geek is to teach them the fundamental physics and engineering they need to use any heat source to heat a home. So that's like a one off. But before we go into that, I just want to say thank you so much for having me on because I'm a massive, massive fan. And also thank you because of what you've done for the renewables revolution. Heat Geek wouldn't be here doing what it's doing right now without contributions such as what you guys have done. You've really moved the electrication industry along so far, so we're really coattailing on companies like yourself. So thank you very much. It's absolutely pleasant. Pleasure to be here. So my name's Adam Chapman. I originally founded Heat Geek as a blog because. So I'm a heating engineer by trade.
- [05:09]
Robert Llewellyn
Your background?
- [05:11]
Adam Chapman
Yeah, I did an apprenticeship. I started apprenticeship at 18 and I set my first company up at 21. I always knew I was going to be self employed in doing that. I wanted to be the best company. So I want to have the best information, the best set tools. And I looked around and there was nothing of available. Anything that was written was written by academics, for academics and specifically to academic. You could tell these that the people that wrote it didn't really have hands on experience. It was a big disconnect between these two sides. And so that infuriation showed me that there was a big gap that needed filling. Because heating isn't just a yes, does it work? No, doesn't it work? Which is how the industry has historically seen it because they couldn't access boiler efficiency. It's a gradient. You have hyper efficient heating or less efficient heating, I say heating and it fits in all kind of renewables. Now it's all been connected by the electrification of homes. And so I grew a deep, deep passion for studying the fundamental physics of how we move heat around the home. And that was aided by online peer to peer conversations with friends until 3:00 in the morning, arguing about what temperature one room would get up to versus another, much to my Mrs. Dismay and hitting my phone out of my hand in bed. But I got the bug, and I still got the bug. I'm diagnosed autism, so it's probably my special subject. That was a late diagnosis and. But you know, I love this subject. I love the community of people that surround it and the challenge, the sense of satisfaction of, you know, tackling that challenge in the best possible way just is. It gives me a great sense of purpose and I really feel like where I should be. So what we've done is we built a blog and then a YouTube channel to try and help move this thing along. And I didn't have any sort of aims to make money or anything like that, but I thought it probably will fund itself at some point. It's so important to do. And we were moving these conversations along with heating engineers to, to get them to kind of grow their collective knowledge base and to help each other, which is a key part of this whole thing. But it wasn't quite enough. So we developed training, literally an online course for heating engineers to do. And specifically for heat pumps. This training was about heating in general, but it's all theory. You don't need to go into a classroom to know how to connect pipe. They've been doing that for 100 years. They just need to know a little bit of theory about heating. It doesn't even need to be about heat pumps. You can get the best heating engineer and he will install the best heat pump. The best heat pump engineer will not install the best heat pump system because it's the radiators and pipe work that's connected to etc. So, yeah, so it's more about the fundamental physics. It doesn't matter what heat source is. So anyway, we built the training and that just went down an absolute storm. It's been our rocket ship that's built this great community. We've trained nearly two and a half thousand engineers up and down the country now on that platform and off the back of that, we've had a flurry of homeowners coming to us, asking us, right, we're getting a heat pump. We want the best engineer. We know you guys have the best engineers. Where do we get them? So we developed a map where they can find these engineers. And so this kind of thing just grew from this place. And now essentially we still offer those services, but we offer heat pump insulations that we guarantee the efficiency of and we actually guarantee the efficiency. The minimum guaranteed efficiency is what MCS would. We're using the MCS tables, project the efficiency to be. So we match and exceed that. And across the last 200 installations we've done, our average scop is now. Or efficiency is now 440% across average hot water and heating. So these things pay back now, hands down.
- [09:10]
Robert Llewellyn
Can I just go back to quickly to mcs, because I'm always wary, three letter acronyms.
- [09:16]
Adam Chapman
Yeah, sorry, MCS are the governing body who, I'm going to say the word police, the renewables industry and sort of give the guidelines in which we should all operate in. And so, yeah, there's a rule you follow to give projections. So we're all sort of singing of the same hymn of how efficient the system is going to be because, you know, these things can be very expensive heat pumps specifically. And to know that you're going to get a payback is important. And a projection on its own is fine, but unless it's backed by anything, it's kind of meaningless. And so we're kind of leading the way there. We're the only people who guarantee an efficiency. Or we go there and, you know, we'll fix the system, adjust it, whatever we need to do. We haven't needed to do anything yet, though, and we've sold hundreds of installations now, so it's going well because that.
- [10:03]
Robert Llewellyn
Is, I mean, it is clearly a critically important thing. So I've had this one experience with a family we know and I'm not going to name them. They're not poor, let's put it like that. They live in a very nice house, about 20 miles from where we live. And they put in, they're quite, they want to, they've got electric cars, they want to do all those things. But what I'll tell you very briefly, when I first got a Nissan Leaf, it was such a huge investment and such a massive decision for me and such a, like, can I really do this? It made me anxious and worried. And then this neighbor saw, saw the car, went, oh. And the next day I saw him, he'd bought one for cash, full price at a dealership. Just went, well, I'll try one of those. You know, like, like the same decision I would have. Yeah, he's the same decision I would have in buying a sandwich.
- [10:46]
Adam Chapman
Yeah.
- [10:46]
Robert Llewellyn
As opposed to, you know, like, it was nothing. But anyway, that, that aside, they put in, they put in air source heat pumps in their garden. Well, they had three. I can remember seeing them at the bottom of their garden. Huge garden.
- [10:58]
Adam Chapman
Yeah.
- [10:58]
Robert Llewellyn
And it was an absolute nightmare disaster. And they had a cold winter and they were burning logs to keep warm. And then they had some other engineers and I, I had nothing to do with any of this. It's that I heard about this later on. Yeah. And whatever those secondary engineers did, which was get very angry about the first installation and how it was done. Yeah. Now I've been in the house, it's amazingly warm and their heating bills have fallen through the floor and this is a big house, old, you know, beautiful old house, but now with good insulation and etc. So really remarkable difference between people putting them in who don't really know what they're doing and then people who really do. And it's really critical.
- [11:37]
Adam Chapman
Clearly, with this, that is the only difference. You know, when people talk about do heat pumps work or don't work, that isn't a question. You could heat a shed on the moon if you wanted to with a heat pump. It's just, it will just look a bit different or be a bit bigger or, you know, whatever. It's how it's installed.
- [11:56]
Robert Llewellyn
It's.
- [11:57]
Adam Chapman
Can your installer make a heat pump work in this situation? And that's the only thing we guarantee. You know, we don't try and make a judgment of whether heat pumps work. When we go and buy a fridge or a freezer, we know they work.
- [12:11]
Robert Llewellyn
Yes.
- [12:11]
Adam Chapman
And they are a fridge and a freezer. It's literally the same technology every test. Actually, Tesla are the biggest heat pump manufacturer in the world because they use heat pumps for the heating in the car.
- [12:21]
Robert Llewellyn
Right.
- [12:21]
Adam Chapman
So we don't question those they work. It's just, and this is where we've kind of, the industry was kind of left behind and mothballed and I think there was like, there's an element of, oh, you ended up being a plumber. You know, there was just a bit of a, I remember being told at school, I didn't do well at school at all. As I mentioned earlier, autism, adhd, dyslexia, just not very, not the brightest button in that sort of respect. And I remember the conversation, oh, perhaps you should just become a plumber. And I remember thinking along the same lines. I don't want to flush out toilets.
- [12:56]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [12:57]
Adam Chapman
And you know, all of this stuff only leads down one way. And that's why this whole thing's been very empowering for me and the engineers I speak to. Actually there is a sense of pride that we can gather from, from the. And actually this is probably possibly the most important job that needs doing right now. Electric cars are on the way because if we, if we, if we electrify homes and decarbonize homes and the only way you can do that, switching off the gas, the businesses, the lifestyles, everything else will follow. The home is where the heart is. Decarbonize the home, you know, and the car was the gateway drug, as we all say, into that. The home is the next challenge. And, and so these engineers have a great responsibility and a great, you know, potential to do something massive here. And they're also the most important part of that conversation. When someone's boiler goes down and breaks, the first thing they do is ring John the plumber and whatever he says they're going to. Oh no, John told me they don't work. That means they don't work because they trust John. So our job is to get to John, teach him, enlighten him. The course is called the Enlightenment or the Awakening. And you know, and that's how we spread this message that this is the way forward.
- [14:09]
Robert Llewellyn
I mean, it's fascinating because you're absolutely right and I, it's so great to hear that because it's actual first hand experience. We had a gas boiler years ago, it broke down and he was actually Paul. Yeah, our John was called Paul.
- [14:23]
Adam Chapman
Yeah.
- [14:23]
Robert Llewellyn
And we got him to come and fix it and get a new boiler and all that and there was no question of anything else. And that was what you did and you fixed that and you had, then you put the central heating back on and it worked good.
- [14:33]
Adam Chapman
It's the way in. And we have amazing other firms out there. Era Octopus, big fan of Octopus, big fan of Era as well. But the 80, 80 to 90, 90 of the industry are self employed engineers. And so what we offer there is the, the opportunity for them to rally together, access the same buying pools, have the same buying power and then to be able to offer those things as well. Because we want this to be a just transition, right? This isn't about making big companies, it's about making people happy and it's about people. And so we represent that other side and we back their installs. Right, so you're still, we're still connecting you with the guy that you bump into down the shops, down Azada or wherever, but we have the capital. If he's, you know, God forbid, becomes ill or something happens, we can send another equally trained heat geek in to fix the insulation, get the insulation done. So I know this is an advertisement but you know, this is what we're, you know, it's what we do.
- [15:28]
Robert Llewellyn
But I mean it is critically important. I mean that, I mean I think that, I hope that it sort of feels slightly that it's changing that the, the, if you like, the social hierarchical position of a plumber I think has gone up very rightly because people are going, I, I need, you know, you need a doctor. You know, doctors should be up high, teachers should be at high, plumbers should be up there, should be in that.
- [15:54]
Adam Chapman
You know, AI, right, so you've got AI pushing down from this end and you know, this is going to be the job we're all left with soon, the only job. So it's the job to be in at the moment. The reality, these things do take a little bit longer to put in. I mean we're doing a lot of innovation there, which I can go into. But so we, we, the, the heating industry was already in a deficit, a supply, demand deficit. There wasn't enough heating engineers, that's why they could typically charge a bit more. This isn't helping with that. So we need more people in the industry really. This is a great opportunity for the existing businesses to grow local businesses and, and for people to get, you know, move into a new trade that might perhaps feel a bit more, a bit more purposeful potentially.
- [16:36]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah, because one of the things I should, we should always acknowledge and I have to remind myself is that this goes across the world. So there's people watching this and listening to this who go, I don't need to be warmer. Yeah, my mates in Australia, they're warm enough but there is a connection. They're all very happy to use air conditioning Without a second thought. And that is the same technology. I'm assuming it's the same thing.
- [17:02]
Adam Chapman
It is exactly the same thing. In fact, we literally, you can reverse our heat pumps and use them for cooling. There is some technicality to that. So this is already being used. There's more heat pump technology being used to heat and cool the world by far than there is gas boiler technology. Right. For space heating or space cooling. So this is just a matter of in this country at least an infantile industry and just changing the public awareness. And it is happening. It's been a slow battle, but to be, you know, frank, it's been quite good to have people on the opposing end in the fore end because that's what makes the noise that advertises the thing, right? Yeah. And yes, there are disaster stories, but there's plenty of studies out there that are showing now that people are generally more happy with their heat pump than they are a gas boiler. But that gets amplified because of the, you know, the tribalistic nature of heat pumps and what it represents. You know.
- [17:57]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah. One of the couple of things that I've seen experience recently, but and this is completely unrelated to talking to you, I've just realized it. So last Saturday, very recently, I went to visit some old friends in a new house they've just finished doing and they've got underfloor heating. Well, I had a. We had a short rental when our kids were little, when we were doing up our house in a like a Airbnb sort of thing. And we were all crammed in there for a few weeks while we couldn't live in our house. And I had underfloor heating which I really didn't like. And I don't know now looking back because this is, I'm talking 25 years ago and it felt uncomfortable and weird and it didn't feel like the house was warm, but the floor was hot. This house we went to was amazing.
- [18:37]
Adam Chapman
Yes.
- [18:38]
Robert Llewellyn
It's totally different. So has it? Because what I want to know has it.
- [18:42]
Adam Chapman
I know exactly what you're talking about. What you're specifically talking about is on off heating versus low and slow type heating.
- [18:50]
Robert Llewellyn
Low and slow.
- [18:51]
Adam Chapman
It's the lowest weather compensated heating. If you have cooler temperatures on your either on these works of radiators and underfloor. Right. It's just a bit warmer than the room and it's more a radiant effect rather than convective effect and that so much more comfortable. You don't get dust in the air. You're not sort of going hot Cold, you're not having one cold room, one hot room, air moving around quicker, everything just the bricks soak up the heat and then they radiate it back into you gently. It's just a lot more comfortable. But that's what drives up the efficiency and that's how we've got to you know, nearly four and a half Scott so far and that's still climbing. 450% efficiency for our heat pumps which for any listeners which don't know that means for one kilowatt hour of electricity we put in we get four and a half kilowatt hours of energy out. And we do that because we're moving heat from the outside to the inside, not generating heat.
- [19:43]
Robert Llewellyn
It is just the most, it's the most mind boggling aspect of it. I mean I was aware of, I've only ever heard 4 kilowatt hours out of one. But you're, you're, you're, you're exceeding that.
- [19:54]
Adam Chapman
Yeah, we have ones over five, we have plenty over five. And the ones over five you do have to do more work for. So you will have to install ins possibly. I mean we actually don't offer that. We just have bigger emitters, bigger radiators generally. But I think one of like the main myths that I'd like to perhaps share this morning is that most current homes in their current condition don't really need much to any upgrades at all. In fact we don't do any insulation like I just said and most of the radiators out there are absolutely fine. Even a lot of the cylinders, a lot of the stuff we're installing for the higher end installed homes that want to pay for that higher Scott, if you want to match your gas boiler efficiency so you're not paying more but you've transitioned or even just slightly save a bit of money, you can replace very, very little or much less and achieve that and that makes it reachable for anyone. However, we've recently also included finance in what we offer and what that means is the monthly bill, the monthly cost of the system installation is paid for by the savings. So your installation might cost £50 a but you're saving £60amonth and that's why this thing is going to self fuel itself, you know, and it's not just us doing it but you know, there's era, Octopus etc, etc, like this is where things are going.
- [21:18]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah, but that, that's, there is a sort of, there is a correlation between early electric car knowledge and it feels like to me that there's a Lot of people. This is just friends and neighbors, nothing special. But they're going, oh, yeah, no, we should, we know, I know, we should get heat pumps, but you know, they're really expensive and they cost a lot and they don't work. We're worried we'd be cold, which is just the same as 10 years ago. I have an electric car. It is going to run out when it's dark and in the rain. I've got the kids in the back and it will just run out.
- [21:53]
Adam Chapman
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, people are scared of change, like fundamentally. Yeah. Which is understandable, you know, but let's, let's, let's be real. You're scared of change. Not electric cars or heat pumps.
- [22:03]
Robert Llewellyn
Yes.
- [22:05]
Adam Chapman
They're not going to eat you or hurt you. And it's just, it's a thing that's going to happen over time as people break through. But all we can do is try and shrink that time as much as possible and try and make that transition as quickly as possible. So, yeah, you're absolutely right. And that's where we kind of feel like we're perhaps leading the way. We guarantee the thing is going to work, we guarantee the efficiency, but we don't take away from the local tradesman's plate as per se. We're enhancing that relationship. That's what it's all about for us.
- [22:38]
Robert Llewellyn
But then the other one. So the thing I hadn't thought about because I have a mixergy water tank, so effectively an immersion heater. But I mean, I have to say I, I am in love with it. I actually open the cupboard and look at it sometimes because that has been supremely brilliant piece of technology we've had. It really does work beautifully.
- [22:55]
Adam Chapman
Yes.
- [22:55]
Robert Llewellyn
But then you're. But then I. They have just released a heat pump version.
- [23:00]
Adam Chapman
Yes.
- [23:01]
Robert Llewellyn
And I went, oh, I didn't know you could do that, you know.
- [23:03]
Adam Chapman
Yeah.
- [23:03]
Robert Llewellyn
So I don't, I don't know anything about it. I haven't, I've seen it at one of our shows. I'm going, oh, that's a mixing with a heat pump.
- [23:10]
Adam Chapman
Yes. That isn't really.
- [23:12]
Robert Llewellyn
When you've got an external air source heat pump that can also. This is me being thick. That can also heat your water as well.
- [23:18]
Adam Chapman
Yeah, exactly. So, so, so if, if you had air to air, for example, you can't typically heat the water with that. The outsource. The air source heat pump generates hot water that you send to your radiators exactly as you have right now, or your Current or perhaps a new cylinder. So this is why it's kind of an easy transition for everyone. It's what we're used to. Most of our homes, Ed Guardian and. And Victorian, we're used to radiators and it'll just slip into where. What we're used to. The only thing is having this box outside that people might have to get used to. And, you know, perhaps you might mention noise, but, you know, we've kind of all seen now. They're just not that noisy. They're not that noisy.
- [23:56]
Robert Llewellyn
No, I've stood near them. They're not that noisy.
- [23:58]
Adam Chapman
I mean, you can.
- [23:59]
Robert Llewellyn
If you want to listen to them, you can bend down and go. Yeah, I can hear that.
- [24:02]
Adam Chapman
Exactly. Yeah.
- [24:03]
Robert Llewellyn
But you're not. If it's. Yeah, it's not. You're not in your kitchen shouting above the noise.
- [24:08]
Adam Chapman
Exactly. The noisest is when it's sort of minus two outside and people. You know. What about if I hear it? Well, no one has their window open at minus two, so if you don't have your window, it's still not loud enough to really penetrate into the building. So it's just something we've got. And boilers make noise. No one. No one complained about. No one made a noise about that, did they?
- [24:29]
Robert Llewellyn
Absolutely.
- [24:29]
Adam Chapman
Yeah.
- [24:30]
Robert Llewellyn
But then. So there's. There's a thing about. Yes, because that's another thing I just remembered talking about when the mixergy was put in was about Legionella's disease and scalding, which I noticed it was on your website, because that's, you know, that's the thing, I think as a member of the general public who has a shower and uses hot water to wash up their dishes, you don't think about. Sometimes the water's.
- [24:52]
Adam Chapman
Yeah, well, I think people, generally speaking, heat their water too hot and are wasteful with it. You need to be aware of Legionella. So if you're not using it. So that's a balance that people, I think, I think, probably needs to be part of the public awareness that.
- [25:08]
Robert Llewellyn
Right.
- [25:09]
Adam Chapman
You can't. If you keep your tank cooler, you will save a lot of money, you'll have a lot more efficiency. But there is a risk there and, you know, every kind of situation is different. It's very short video, if anyone's kind of interested. But when people put in heat pumps, typically they're putting them in and turning the hot water to 60 degrees. That is killing heat pumps and completely unnecessary.
- [25:30]
Robert Llewellyn
Right.
- [25:30]
Adam Chapman
Another sort of tip as to how we got this at this efficiency. Higher and higher.
- [25:35]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah. The One clue I've got is that I adjusted the. I mean, you know, it's a different technology. I know, but the immersion heater, but the Mixergy thing, so that when I filled the sink with water to do the washing up, I could put my hand in it. It wasn't too hot, whereas before it was too hot, I had to add cold. Then you think, well, that is really stupid.
- [25:54]
Adam Chapman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, exactly. Why would you heat it up? To cool it back down. Exactly that. The Mixergy is a bit different because it uses immersion, but it's all the same kind of thing. So there is a few revolutions or innovations in the hot water space. A couple being from. We've developed the Heat Geek mini store. So for those that don't have room for a hot water tank, it's basically the same size as a gas boiler, maybe a tiny bit bigger. And it goes on the wall and it provides all the hot water you want so you can connect your heat pump to that. And it doesn't need an expansion valve, it doesn't need a pressure relief valve. All these sort of technical things that you typically have to put in. It's a very, the only kind of downside is it. There could be downside. I think it's an upside is that we've made it pink because we love the color pink. We're just trying to make some noise, you know. But the whole point is it's not patented. We just want, we want people to copy it and we just want, we want the tech. We're not trying to make money. We're trying to literally create the change, get the engine running, you know, or electric engine running.
- [26:53]
Robert Llewellyn
Right. And I mean the other one I would love to ask you about because I've had a rant about it in an inappropriate place when I was doing an awards ceremony in the building industry and I'd just driven past hundreds of new built homes, which I could tell because I actually stopped to have a look at one of the, one of the developments. There were gas nozzles coming out the wall. They all. They were. This is like two years ago. Brand new houses being built today with gas boilers, you know, and I just had it. Anyway, I mean that. Is that something you're seeing as finally a bit of a shift in? Are there new housing developments that are building them with heat pump?
- [27:28]
Adam Chapman
There are, but it's, it's so incumbent and slow and it's, it's, it's insane. I think people have built these businesses in these sort of turnkey type solutions. And that that's the problem. It's not even the wheel, they just don't care. And what's sad about it is actually if you're doing a new build or even a self build, it's actually sometimes and often cheaper to put in a heat pump than a gas boiler because for one you've got super duper insulation so you don't need big emitters. But two, you don't need to run an expensive gas line into the, you know, thing. And if you're buying heat pumps on in bulk, you're definitely getting, you know, similar prices in the boiler. So it's just bizarre that boilers are still being installed. But you know, our focus is on the retrofit market. Right. That's hopefully going to be a ripple for us. And I think it's starting to come through.
- [28:19]
Robert Llewellyn
But I mean it's the bigger market that's a whole.
- [28:22]
Adam Chapman
Yeah, well, 28 million homes to do. And our goal is to do, to be the leader. Yeah, I think we're going to do it too.
- [28:30]
Robert Llewellyn
26 million. Aim for that.
- [28:32]
Adam Chapman
Okay. Yeah.
- [28:33]
Robert Llewellyn
But the other one actually I learned at that same event when I had my rent was from a roof, a guy, a roofing specialist who'd actually won an award. And I spoke to him afterwards and he said, you do know solar panels are cheaper than tiles, don't you?
- [28:45]
Adam Chapman
And you go, yeah, oh yeah, I've heard that, yeah.
- [28:49]
Robert Llewellyn
So per square meter it's cheaper to put solar panels on a, this is on a roof of a new build.
- [28:55]
Adam Chapman
And that's not even factoring in the running costs and everything. It's, it's all, it's now just a war of politics and incumbency basically and in human nature. But the tide is swaying. So, you know, I'm just happy to.
- [29:11]
Robert Llewellyn
Be along for the ride right now. The other one that I'm would love your opinion on and I'm sort of nervous about this because I don't, I'm certainly don't, you know, this, what, this is what we put in as part of an experiment. Where is a Tepio boiler? So a heat storage boiler which is on at the moment. It's fantastic. It works really well. I've decided if we lived in our house is it's not that big, but it's slightly too big, I think for this particular Tepo, you know, to really.
- [29:39]
Adam Chapman
Yeah, yeah.
- [29:40]
Robert Llewellyn
You know, I have to boost it sometimes on really cold days. I boost it in the day, hopefully from a bit of sun. But when it's on now, it's so quick. It's so. I mean, I love it because it's not burning gas and it's replaced our old gas boiler.
- [29:55]
Adam Chapman
It's the important part.
- [29:56]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah, yeah.
- [29:57]
Adam Chapman
Well, wouldn't. Would. Can we put you in a heat pump as well?
- [30:01]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [30:01]
Adam Chapman
Or.
- [30:02]
Robert Llewellyn
I mean, that's the thing. I was just told that. That you could do a combination. So you could use a tapio and a heat pump.
- [30:08]
Adam Chapman
You can do.
- [30:09]
Robert Llewellyn
I'm intrigued by him and I don't quite know how that would work, but, I mean, now we've put the temporary.
- [30:13]
Adam Chapman
Speaking to the right guy now.
- [30:16]
Robert Llewellyn
I shouldn't be using you for a consultancy during the podcast. That doesn't feel right.
- [30:22]
Adam Chapman
This is. I am genuinely passionate. This isn't a job for me. I just love the same as, you know, this is. Yeah, yeah. If I wasn't working in it, I'd still be chatting about it till 3 o'clock in the morning on Facebook or wherever else. Yeah. You know, and I think that's. This is what's gonna. That incumbency we were talking about. This is what's going to drive that forward. People getting passionate, excited about it and showing others the enthusiasm because it's infectious and this is what's pulling people in and making this movement.
- [30:47]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah, but it is that. I mean, I think it is that. The experience I had this weekend in this mate's house in London, which they have done, you know, they've done an amazing job doing it up. But the things I noticed. Oh, it doesn't have any radiators. And if you don't have radiators in a room, they kind of define what you can do in a room because you can't put stuff in front of them and they can't. And it's all underfloor. There's no radiators. Oh, the other one I wanted to ask you about is. Which I've never seen before, but we saw recently on a show we did about. Amazing. The kind of very low carbon Airbnb in Kent where they had heated skirting boards, which I've never seen. How come I've never knew about that? They were really good.
- [31:27]
Adam Chapman
Yeah. There's so many solutions out there now. No one has an excuse. No one has an excuse to not do something. And I think. I feel it's only just started. We're really on a technological. I don't know if heat pumps can get that much more efficient, but getting them up to those maximum seasonal efficiencies of 5, even higher than 5, is getting easier and easier if that makes sense because of all these other technologies and things that are available. Another part of that is the engineers all speaking to each other and helping each other out. Rather than having an engineer that pretends he knows what he's doing, doing then makes mistakes in your house and you don't know about it or you know, instead they're talking to each other and that's the most important thing because then you're getting the hive mindset, right? You know, the, the, the knowledge of the group, not the knowledge of the one, the one engineer. So that, that's what's really changed things in our industry, I think. And perhaps this whole, you know, thing.
- [32:20]
Robert Llewellyn
There'S another correlation in a sense between electric vehicles and, and this, I mean there's a lot of correlations, but one of them is that, that the, the technology of an internal combustion engine is kind of developed. I mean it's amazing how it's developed in the last hundred, but it's kind of reached a zenith of this is how efficient they are now. Oh my God, they're amazing comparison. What they were like even in my lifetime, you know, old four cylinder combustion engine were so bad when I was a kid and so inefficient. They got much better. But they've kind of reached a point where what else you're exploding stuff in a, in a cylinder and it's doing that. Whereas, whereas all the technology around electric cars is, you can't say, oh the battery is only, well, the battery in the car two years ago might be, but the battery that's coming in now is totally different.
- [33:05]
Adam Chapman
Yeah, we can't keep up with it.
- [33:07]
Robert Llewellyn
But it sounds like the similar exciting.
- [33:11]
Adam Chapman
Stuff is exactly the same. Totally. It's exactly the gas boilers cannot, you cannot get any more energy out of a gas than we're currently getting out of gas.
- [33:22]
Robert Llewellyn
So they're super efficient for what they are, effectively.
- [33:24]
Adam Chapman
Yeah, yeah. Well if you design the system right and if you don't have the system right, they can be. So you can make them less efficient same as you can, you know, rev a car too much or whatever. And what's really happening on the, the heating industry side is heat pumps are amazing. They can get these super high 500% efficiencies which mean you save tons every single year. And what's happening is the heating engineers are leveling up to get the, to hit these efficiencies much, much more easier. And so, you know, your average insulation may have two years ago is probably around 280 to 300% efficiency that's probably this year I reckon going to be up at like 350% efficienc a load better. A lot of that may be done now due to homeowners tinkering. It's the engineers and the early adopters that you know really push this thing forward. But you know the fact we're at four and a half. I think we're going to go further north from there to be honest. Right. That's where it's all going. And that remember 350 efficiency is parity to a gas boiler running cost wise. These things are just. It's a no brainer now plus house value plus you know these things have way less parts than a boiler had so many bits in it to make it that that extra bit efficiency. These heat pumps have four bits really to make. To make a heat pump boy doesn't have that has loads more bits. So yeah loads of parallels between the two industries. It was just time for a reset and to move back to where we should have been really. Yes. And you know, great opportunity.
- [34:54]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah. Yeah. I've got to. We got to mention Hudgen but I just want to. I just want to go back to though there was. There was something you said then. Damn. I hate it when I have a log jam. That's my. I don't think I. I don't think if I. Because my wife has often said I think you're on the spectrum darling. Just sit down and shut up. You know that's. But I think it's quite regular. I've got so many. I've got so many ideas going through this old worn out noggin. I sometimes get a block. Oh well, yes. There was something that I saw mentioned on your. It is an amazing website and we'll put links to it because it's really worth having a look at. Thank you. Micro ball pipes which I don't know anything about because I haven't got those because we got quite an old central heating system here and are they a problem for heat pumps then? Is that. Is there issues around that or not?
- [35:44]
Adam Chapman
No. So that's a common myth. These are the myths. They don't work in old homes. They don't work in on microbiome plumbing. They. They don't work on. They have to have a super, super high expensive cylinder, hot water cylinder and all these things are true if you use an engineer who doesn't understand the physics of how these things work. And so once you get to learn the how to get around you might have a Small efficiency penalty and I mean super small. These things work in all of those and save money against the gas box boiler. We're not talking about parity, we're. I say parity is the minimum. Having micropore just means you have to have. The technical term is hydraulic separation and so there's a way around that. Or you could repite, but you don't really need to repote anything you hear like that. Any excuses. We have a myraid of solutions for like these things have all been done. This is basic physics. We're getting heat into your property. It's very basic thing to do and it feels like it's super space age, but it's not. It's just a slightly different approach and it's way less space age than the. The gas boilers that we extracted 99.9999% of the energy out the gas with.
- [36:59]
Robert Llewellyn
You know, so.
- [37:01]
Adam Chapman
So no, they work in old homes, they work with microbore, they work with anything. You just have to find the right installer. Our website's a very good place to start. Love octopus, love era. We're still the best though.
- [37:12]
Robert Llewellyn
Good on you. No, the one. Because the thing that I am intrigued by which you said, which I really didn't expect and I'll go back to the house we recently saw because that's one of the things they did. It was a early 1900s house that they've got in London and they've. They've really done in. The guy's a. He's a engineer so he's gone crazy. So they. It's all new windows, new doors, a lot more insulation than it did have and all that stuff. He's done very well and he's done previous properties similar to this. But then you were sort of going, oh, don't worry, we don't worry about insulation. It's not really a problem. Where is it?
- [37:48]
Adam Chapman
Where is.
- [37:49]
Robert Llewellyn
You know, the general opinion opinion is oh, my old Victorian house is.
- [37:53]
Adam Chapman
Yeah, that's a good point. I should add a caveat to. All right, insulation is important. Like as in it's important in general, but it's nothing to do. Like the heat pump will still have efficiency without it to do both is best, obviously, but it shouldn't be used as an excuse to be a barrier. The typical things we would say are so we can make it work with no loft insulation and high efficiency, but loft insulation so cheap, put in some loft insulation. However, if you're talking about external or internal wall insulation. Yeah, that's, you know, we're talking 20, 30 grand, 40 grand. Heat pumps, you know, gonna cost you seven, 10, you know, between seven and 15 grand, say a grant as little as 500 pounds, which is way cheaper. So do that first. Get decarbonized, get saving money and your fuel bill savings will help you start saving, you know, for. So there's like a. They, they, they said, well, the fabric first, fabric fifth argument isn't there? And I think the reality is every home has a kind of hierarchy. You would probably do loft insulation first, then it would be, Then it would be probably a heat pump next because that gets you electrified. Then it would be tariff, then it would be battery, you know, and then it would be wall insulation. And it kind of, you know, each property insulation might be in a different peg. So. Right. It's very. The common phrase we say on our channel is there's no panace. And people like to make these rules of, oh, you should always fabric first or that's just never the case. Everyone's different. You're in a home a certain amount of time, you know, your lifestyle is different to another person's. Too many variables. And this is where the engineers are, the people that need to have to be trained in that so they can help guide consumers to that. The correct answer.
- [39:37]
Robert Llewellyn
I mean, interestingly, it's as much which is the same. So weird. The correlations between EVs and home heating is that it's a lot of it is psychological because that's what I've been saying for years about there's no technological problem with electric cars. There's psychological ones which are justifiable problem. You know, I'm not saying, I'm not dismissing it. People have anxieties and they're worried and they don't understand and you know, and why should they? Normal, sensible. Apparently I've been told normal sensible people can't talk about kilowatt hours and gigawatt hours for hours.
- [40:07]
Adam Chapman
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [40:09]
Robert Llewellyn
They're not interested. They've got other things. They talk about art and poetry.
- [40:13]
Adam Chapman
It is an art.
- [40:15]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah, it is an art. But I mean, those things are, are, you know that. Yeah. It's just there's a psychological element. Who knew that there would be a psychological element to fitting heating?
- [40:30]
Adam Chapman
You know, there really is. I think it's now on a piece of, you know, you say it costs less to. If you. The lifetime cost is less. And it's still not getting snapped up just because of that. And I think, you know, people are busy in their lives or whatever. They just Can't. They have to feel like they probably have to understand it, to trust it. And so we're just getting over that trust and once we reach a point of critical mass, it's just going to be done. I just. We're just trying to shorten that as much as possible. We don't. We can't wait 50 years. You know, that's what it's about.
- [40:58]
Robert Llewellyn
But then one of the other excuses, which is the same in cars as well, is, you know, it's much less now, but for the first 10 years of fully Charged the show, there would be at least every car review we ever did. Any mention of anything to do with the battery. Electric cars, there would be. This is all well and good, but as we all know, hydrogen is the future future. And then you go, and now I'm hearing that with, well, I'm not going to replace my gas boiler because I believe it's hydrogen ready. And you go, good on you, mate.
- [41:29]
Adam Chapman
I never had that argument, as in, I was never on that side of that argument, but I have a bloody good answer to it because I actually happen to run the UK's number one hydrogen fuel cell insulation company for quite a few years. So a hydrogen fuel cell boiler is what we were installing, and that essentially generated hydrogen on site from natural gas and converted that into electricity for the home and heat for the home.
- [41:53]
Robert Llewellyn
Wait a minute, go back one step. So it had a gas input and that's where you got the hydrogen from. So you weren't splitting water using electricity, you were actually extracting hydrogen.
- [42:05]
Adam Chapman
We were using steam reformation, the gas, to separate the four hydrogen molecules from the carbon molecule and run that through a fuel cell to generate positive charge, positive negative charge, generate electric and generate around 7,000 kilowatt hours a year. And it would sort of similar amounts of heat energy for the home. And they were great, great little units. And that's before. Before I moved into heat pumps because I was a heating engineer and, you know, maybe a fancy heating engineer eventually, and then these hydrogen things. But then I started looking at heat pumps and the new range that were coming out, they reached higher temperatures. That's why heat pumps work on any old home now. They reach higher temperatures, they. They're more efficient at higher tem. And I looked at what I was offering, I was like, I can't in good faith stand and look a homeowner in the eye who I care about, genuinely care about my customers and say, this is the best option for you, because I'm looking at heat pumps now. And I think they're, they're it. So I ditched that company, which was, you know, a multi million pound company essentially. And I didn't ditch the company, I just changed it to heat pumps and because it was the right thing to. So anyone that comes to me and says, oh, you would say that because you sell heat pumps. Yeah, I sell heat pumps now. I didn't sell heat pumps before, I just saw the lights and it's about time you do too, you know, So I kind of enjoy it when people bring up that argument. Quite a good answer. And yeah. You know, the reality is all of that research being done, there's people way more clever than me out there. This has all been studied, it's all been worked out now. We just got to tread and walk the line now, not distract it with conversations and things that are never going to happen. Because, I mean, as we've got a couple of videos on hydrogen, hydrogen would be the most expensive single thing you could possibly ever do to your house. Even if the boiler was free. Free. You would, it would cost you thousands and thousands and thousand pounds a month to run. Because no one's making hydrogen, you know, to make it on that scale, which is just, it's a brilliant.
- [44:08]
Robert Llewellyn
I mean, I really recommend, yeah, I really recommend people watch the, your video on hydrogen heating because it's just, you know, because you don't do it. Like sometimes I get a little bit, I, you know, I get criticism for being a little bit snippy and ranty. I just go, it's rubbish. You go completely the other way around. You go, this is really good tech. This is fascinating. Here we go. This is how it works. But that comparison for the, for a nation, for like a country, how much, how many terawatt hours they need a year to heat their house?
- [44:36]
Adam Chapman
Yes.
- [44:37]
Robert Llewellyn
The difference between hydrogen, even natural gas and then heat pumps, you go, for pity's sake. It's, it's pretty obvious.
- [44:44]
Adam Chapman
Yeah. Just using natural gas is better than using hydrogen. Right. If you actually, where you, you know, it literally just doesn't work out. When I start writing down my script for, specifically for that one, it very much starts out an angry run and I rant and I have to go through over and strip out all the swear words. Then you end up with some actually useful bits of information.
- [45:07]
Robert Llewellyn
But then the one I get was, you know, you'll get criticism if you get to it. The amount of times I get, oh, go on, Robert, do another one of your mad rants. We love them. The hours I've Spent trying not to do that.
- [45:18]
Adam Chapman
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [45:20]
Robert Llewellyn
You got to be. Yes. So hydrogen isn't. Isn't.
- [45:24]
Adam Chapman
Hydrogen heating is dead. And I think, you know, the lobby that have worked pushing that, they're getting quieter and quieter, and anyone that is pushing it is now just disgracing themselves because it's just like so beyond reality that, I mean, they need to, they're not gonna be able to stay in the industry, though, if they're in a relative industry.
- [45:42]
Robert Llewellyn
It's just. Well, yeah, I mean, it's so obvious now, it took me years to work this out that if you're, if you, if you sell liquid fuel and gas, if that's your business, extracting and selling that hydrogen is a way of maintaining that market. So you carry, you can carry it because it's that, that's where the centralization. Yeah, because I remember there's a wonderful man, Michael Lee, who does. Who. You know, Michael. And I remember saying in a conversation with him, you know, 95% of commercially available hydrogen today is coming from natural gas. He went, no, that's wrong, Robert. And I. Oh, God, he always knows everything. He's the guru. 98%.
- [46:22]
Adam Chapman
He's the guru. He's the man to follow for that subject, for sure. Yeah, it's. It's done. The more people that can educate themselves about that little thing and snip those conversations in the bud helps us all just move on a lot more quicker.
- [46:34]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah. You know, so then let's go back and go to the heating engine because I have to wind up soon. But the heating engineers. It just feels like there's. There is a huge, you know, it's discussed on the news. You know, there's a skill shortage. We need more people to do it. It's how you encounter, encourage, encourage people to consider. Yeah, we're talking young people here. I mean, just very briefly, one of the things that was a totally unthought out result of me doing scrap heap challenge for 10 years.
- [47:04]
Adam Chapman
Yeah.
- [47:04]
Robert Llewellyn
Was that it would encourage loads of people to go into engineering. I mean, that was never discussed before we did it. We had loads of talks about all these things, what we're going to do. And it was only after we'd done it for maybe four or five years that we had. Sometimes we would have a consultant on who ran an engineering college or was a professor of teaching people about certain aspects of engineering who'd come to us and say, for years I'd go around schools trying to encourage kids to go into engineering. And it was like a You know, labor of love. Now all I get is applications. I just sit in my office dealing with all the app hundreds and the amount of people I've met since then who said the reason I run the transmission engineering department at Jaguar Land Rover is because I watch Scrappy with my dad. So. But the, the. That was a kind of accidental thing. So how you then. How, how, how we could do something that encourages people.
- [47:57]
Adam Chapman
Yeah, a bit of thought. Absolutely. I mean, first of all, before we go there, we do have. We have a pool of 120,000 heating engineers doing the wrong thing. Right now. They're repairing boilers.
- [48:11]
Robert Llewellyn
That was my hopes right now. Oh, 120,000. Oh, doing the wrong thing.
- [48:14]
Adam Chapman
Doing the wrong thing. If we can kill. Convince these guys and girls to do the right thing and think about this other. And then they can have. When they're at the boiler repair stage, instead of saying, well, should I repair this, you know, thing that I've repaired 10 times before or should I put in a new boiler? They're starting to change the conversation. The net wave effect of that, you know, and them actually participating. We can solve 70% of the problem just by retraining the existing engineer. Eating engineering stock. The last 30. Yes, that's new. And we need to. I think there's. I have a lot of high hope for the younger generation. I think they actually look for purpose and this would more naturally, you know, excite them. Anyway. For me, it's the cantankerous current industry that we need to tag along first because they need someone to work for. You can train up these, you know, younger people. If they're not using those skills and applying them or have a boss, they're not going to be doing anything with it. So we need to first of all get the current industry moving. Moved over. It's moving, but we need to push harder and then we can, you know, help introduce new apprentices. And that's the way we're gonna change. We're gonna make. This is going to be the biggest transition since, you know, we moved from towns. Gas is going to be massive. It started. It is amazing to be part of.
- [49:27]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah. Now there are a couple, couple of other things I'd like to quickly talk about because it's some stuff I've seen recently is like this district heating. So another. Other mates of ours live in a big apartment block that has a massive gas boiler that heats all the apartments. So there's a sort of centralized heating system for multiple occupational dwellings. And I presume that that isn't something that your business does. I mean, do you put in.
- [49:55]
Adam Chapman
We don't do that in heat. Geek. But that is very much part of the solution. So if you have a communal heat pump or something generating heat. Heat when it comes to delivery of the individual apartments or street or, you know, depends on how it's kind of set up. Then we're using local engineers. Again, the best way to integrate into that heat source is to understand the physics. You know, we do, we do the training. So then we come back in for the local. I mean even for the actual main plant itself, those, those engineers to get the most out, that will need to do some training. We can have some of that training. It's not yet, but the, the lines are blurred there. But the one thing we provide is like a common language of understanding between all those participants so we don' End up with what I talked about at the beginning, which is an academic paper talking to someone who's never read a book. I never read a book until bloody 23. Too distracted, you know.
- [50:48]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [50:49]
Adam Chapman
And so, and that's why we kind of present in a colorful image heavy way, is to make this a lot more consumable. And, and so we're all talking on the same page. Hopefully give the same language for us to communicate in a common understanding. Not one where someone can feel superior. Superior by giving extra long words.
- [51:09]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [51:09]
Adam Chapman
Which makes them superior. If it's not useful. If no one understands what you're saying, you know, if you're only talking amongst that little group. We need everyone to be involved, you know, top to bottom.
- [51:17]
Robert Llewellyn
Absolutely. But that's, I mean, in a similar way to how we was talking earlier. I mean that the development of those technologies of different uses. So we've just seen old, what we would call capsule houses. So affordable housing in London, in central London Victoria built not, you know, very much of their era. They were built to have coal fires. Then they went to gas boilers. Yeah. And now they've gone to heat pumps. So that was just such an exciting. So that was ground source heating. So they drilled huge pits. But what was exciting, I said, oh, do you have to worry about, you know, all the stuff underground in London? But. And I was thinking tube trains, Underground trains. They went, no, no, It's World War II ordinance. So they're drilling down. Well, there was a bomb that went. Landed there in 1942. It didn't explode and it's still there and you're drilling down bad. So they really had to be careful with that. So there's like a lot of Holes. So they've refitted these old buildings completely. They gutted them and rebuilt them. But each one has an individual heat pump in it. Like.
- [52:22]
Adam Chapman
Yeah, yeah, that's got to be a solution. And there's so many options now. As we said earlier on, no one has an excuse, you know, that's a fantastic one. Shared ground loops. So, yeah, you can pick up energy just from the ground on a horizontal. You're talking about verticals. You've got. You've got horizontal ones. And then that just circulates brine or water. And then you just have a little heat pump that deposits cold and brings in hot, essentially. It's so simple. So much more simple than mining for gas out in the sea, putting it in a. Sharing it with neighbors, you know. Exactly. And then burning it and getting it. It just makes no sense at all when you actually think about the end.
- [53:06]
Robert Llewellyn
Of it bit that's magic and baffling if you're from outside the industry. Is that like the average temperature that they're getting out of the ground is not. It feels. It sounds like. I mean, if you had to jump in a swimming pool, that was that temperature.
- [53:20]
Adam Chapman
Yes. 12 degrees is sort of a normal temperature. Yeah.
- [53:23]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah. But then you can get this temperature. You can take so much out of that is. That's what's baffling. And.
- [53:31]
Adam Chapman
It'S how your fridge and freezer works. It's just compression. Squeeze something together.
- [53:35]
Robert Llewellyn
Squeeze it.
- [53:36]
Adam Chapman
Every time you put on deodorant in the morning when you decompress, your deodorant can.
- [53:40]
Robert Llewellyn
All right.
- [53:40]
Adam Chapman
Feel it. Gets cold. Exactly. Same thing. Decompression gets colder. If you recompressed, it would get hot again. We see it all in, you know, throughout our lives. We're just not aware that it's around us, if that makes sense.
- [53:49]
Robert Llewellyn
Actually, I'm blowing up a tire. A car tire.
- [53:52]
Adam Chapman
Yeah.
- [53:52]
Robert Llewellyn
Hold the nozzle. It's hot.
- [53:53]
Adam Chapman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly that.
- [53:55]
Robert Llewellyn
Oh, yeah. I'm so clever to think of that analogy.
- [53:59]
Adam Chapman
Yes, you are. Thank you.
- [54:03]
Robert Llewellyn
Well, it had one last thing and of course, now it's gone again. Damn. So, I mean. But. Oh, well. Okay, now let's just quickly go.
- [54:11]
Adam Chapman
Do you.
- [54:11]
Robert Llewellyn
I mean, if. If all. If Magically all those 120,000 heating engineers were suddenly heat pump geniuses.
- [54:18]
Adam Chapman
Yeah.
- [54:19]
Robert Llewellyn
Would they be enough for us to transition to a heat pump or. We still. We need more still. I suppose some of them are going to be retiring as well.
- [54:27]
Adam Chapman
Well, exactly, yeah. They are older, generally speaking. It's an aging industry, to be fair. So for that reason? No. And also just for those poor people, it's a lot of work lifting up a heavy boiler, let alone a heat pump and radiators. The poor needs. It needs to. I think we need to pad out the industry a bit. Heating engineers charge generally quite a lot of money. However, they work bloody hard because they don't really have. If you speak to anyone about their hours, they just don't stop and they're really breaking their back, literally. So I think they kind of deserve it. We really need to pad that out and just make things a bit more normal. I think. So, yes, it kind of would be enough, but I don't think that's the way we should go about it. I think we need to make this a very. And we need to give people opportunity as well. Like this is. I said at the beginning, this needs to be a transition. It's a big part of the transition that gives opportunity to lots of people. This should be a sharing thing, not a one person getting rich. This is about decentralization of energy and decentralization of money and economics and everything else. You know, this is a way to empower local businesses and people. People, you know.
- [55:35]
Robert Llewellyn
But, I mean, I think what you're. I don't. I don't want to be too flattering, but I think what's so important about you individually is that you have. You're such a good example of someone who. Who. And I'm similar, who didn't do well at school, who didn't kind of fit in with the educational system. And I was quite an academic kid who really. I did really well as a primary school kid and as. Like until I was about 14, I was a bright kid who would have gone to university and done all that stuff.
- [56:02]
Adam Chapman
Yeah.
- [56:03]
Robert Llewellyn
And I don't know what happened, whether I might have got an extra dose of testosterone. I went right off the rails. It all went horribly wrong.
- [56:11]
Adam Chapman
Yeah.
- [56:12]
Robert Llewellyn
So I finished my education very young and that's that frustration when I meet people whose kids or who. Or individuals who struggled at school but have found their way through a role model like you is so important to. For people to know. You didn't like. Oh, yeah. Well, when I was at university, I studied electrical engine. No, you. You've learned from the ground up as an apprentice, as, you know, as a.
- [56:36]
Adam Chapman
This is a thing that's really, really close to my heart. I. So this isn't a sob story, but, like, you're making me teary. I heard. So I diagnosed adhd, autism, you know, whatever other excuses there are Dyslexia, but they're superpowers. They make people super creative, super good at engineering. Specifically, Specifically dyslexia. That's very well linked to people moving into engineering. I mean, you're clearly neurodiverse as well. That's not an offense, by the way. That's a massive compliment. And knowing that I was kind of left behind at school and sort of, oh, he's just not going to do that. Well. Yeah. And later on going, actually, I'm quite good at something and this could have been picked up early. Yeah, yeah. I feel a little bit about. I'm kind of. I'm glad of everything's happening in a very good place. What makes me sad is all those children that don't get the break I've been lucky enough to get and have so much potential and have been kept down. Down in that. In that, you know, in that moral. That mental place where they're not good enough and they. They can't do something bigger. And actually they're the people who do do big things. They're the people who think outside of the box. And that. That dry. That. That is a bit. I, you know, I'm definitely going to be doing something in charity there. There's a dyslexic dyslexia UK charity, dyslexic thinking. Richard Rance is part of it. He's got dyslexia. Yeah. And. And so that's why I could keep on talking about just transition and all this sort of thing. It's to do with education. Thank you so much. That compliment, that was a. That was a. That was a compliment that hit me right in the heart, which is why I need to say that bit. So thank you.
- [58:15]
Robert Llewellyn
You definitely deserve it now. I mean, it's. But I mean, it's been a proper. Sometimes when I do record podcasts, you know, it is a struggle, I find doing them remotely like we're doing, and it's difficult to keep focus and there have been times when I've gone, I haven't got a bloody clue what to ask now. There wasn't a moment with you where I wasn't excited to learn more, to find out more. So it's been a real joy talking to you.
- [58:36]
Adam Chapman
Oh, thank you.
- [58:37]
Robert Llewellyn
Thank you so much and good luck with it all in the future and we'll definitely see. We'll be seeing you again, I'm sure.
- [58:43]
Adam Chapman
Can I see you on my channel?
- [58:46]
Robert Llewellyn
Oh, God, yeah.
- [58:47]
Adam Chapman
That be great. Totally reciprocated, you know, us people doing the good thing and the right thing. And in this industry, we should be, you know, we're the ones that going to move this thing forward and get the US over that hurdle of the incumbent, you know, and pull them over. So, yeah, thanks so much for having me on. Really, really enjoyed it.
- [59:09]
Robert Llewellyn
Real pleasure. Take care. Really hope you enjoyed that. I certainly did. What an absolute delight to to talk to Adam. What a wonderful man. That's all. I'm not going to say anything else. We'll be back next week with another amazing guest talking about other incredible topics and products. Until then, as always, if you have been, thank you for listening. SL watching.