Energy House, EPC Reform, and the Future of Retrofit with Professor Richard Fitton

Speaker 2: 00:08
Hello and welcome. You’re listening to This Is Surveying, the podcast shining a light on the people, ideas, and stories shaping this incredible profession. I’m Nina Young, founder of Surveyor UK and the Surveying Room, the community bringing surveyors together, breaking down silos, and making surveying visible. So for now, let’s dive into our latest episode. Hello everybody and welcome to This Is Surveying. Today we have a very special guest who was actually recently at St. James’s Palace receiving a Queen Elizabeth Prize for Education from the King and Queen themselves. You may also have spotted him on Channel 4 alongside Guy Martin in House Without Bills. Professor Richard Fitton is a chartered building surveyor, fellow of the RICS, and professor of building physics at the University of Salford. He leads Energy House 2.0, a world-leading facility where you can literally build a house inside a climate controlled chamber and test exactly how it performs. His research is currently shaping a quarter of all new homes being built in the UK. And with the Warm Homes plan putting 15 billion into home upgrades, the questions he’s asking about whether our EPC data is actually reliable has never mattered more. So without further ado, welcome Richard.

Speaker: 01:37
Thanks for that very embarrassing introduction. I was gonna say, I thought that might embarrass you, but yeah, my kind of nails were digging into my own arms. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having us. It’s good to be able to kind of speak with yourself and obviously to your wider army of surveyors and property people. So yeah, thanks, thanks for having us.

Speaker 2: 01:57
No, it’s great. I thought I thought that made you a bit cringe, but honestly, Richard, you’ve got so many things going on. I had to sort of get it all in there quickly. You know, it’s uh you’ve had quite a it’s quite a busy time for you, and yeah, there is just so much things going on. And this is a huge topic, but I think what I would like to start with is to learn a bit more about you, the surveyor, how you got to be in surveying, and then got into the the building physics and the academia side.

Speaker: 02:24
Yeah, so I came out, I’d do the long-winded version, but I’ll try and make it a little bit quicker. So I went through technical college, I did my GMBQ, then I went to Sheffield Hallam, did my BSC in building surveying, then I spent time in practice, then I went through all kinds of different roles. I worked with the Ministry of Defense on the client side, looking at air bases and things like that. I worked in the asbestos department, I worked as an energy manager, I worked training people in energy, and ultimately then I I stepped into the RSCS probably in quite a slow way. So I I I went, didn’t go to the typical graduate route. I started as an associate at SOC RICS, was one of the first people into our SOC RICS, actually, and and I was quite happy with that, went through Resi Survey and valuation. Evaluation is not my thing, but resi survey pretty much is. Then I ended up a local authority running the energy management department. And a very dear colleague of mine, Les took me to this crazy place over at Salford University, which is where I’m sat now, which is called Energy House. So Energy House, for those who don’t know, was opened about 14 years ago, which is when I went to visit it. And it’s a Victorian solid wall terrace with uh very typical construction. The thing that makes it different is it’s in an environmental chamber. It’s going down to minus 12, minus 13, up to plus 30 with wind, rain, snow, and solar radiation all being put on the building to recreate weather patterns and climate change as well. So the idea of that is that you try every single different retrofit measure that you can under very controlled conditions. So, what was it like with boiler A? Then you keep the same weather, boiler B, heat pump A, heat pump B, and you can’t move it through. Anyway, so I came back from that visit with Les. I was looking on their website and it was a vacancy to come and help run that laboratory. So I emailed in, and the next day I was down there looking around and did the interview, and the day after I got off of the job. So it’s uh and Les said that was the last time he would ever take me on a site visit again. So but I I but we left, we parted on good terms. So I think that the the moral of that story is I I ended up here by an absolute accident. It was just a fluke visit that that piqued my interest because I was into energy, I was into building surveying, I was into retrofit, and I’d done all of these things for for years before. And then that was it. I wasn’t an academic, I came in as a what’s called a technical manager, I think. A technical consultant, I think. Then I went to technical manager, then I went to a lecturer. All of this was running the facility as well. While I was doing that, I did my MRIC. So I did MRICs by the academic route, which is really unusual.

Speaker 2: 05:18
It’s really yes, that is very unusual.

Speaker: 05:21
And if any of your viewers, listeners want some advice on the academic route, then drop me a line because it is a weird little thing to do. And even RS acknowledge, they don’t do that much. But it was it was good. I had I had years and years of experience anyway, but it was I wasn’t in practice, so I was kind of stuck. I was I was up against this, this like war of I wasn’t a practicing surveyor, so I had to go through academic and that anyway. I got I got that. And I think last year or the year before, I can’t remember which, I got the the the fellowship of the RSCS. So anyway, so academia, so I I kind of did my PhD part-time while I was working. Also, I had a baby, so I didn’t have a baby, but why miraculous that would have been a good piece of research. So I did that on the side and I ran myself into the ground doing all that, but that kind of put me on the next rung, if you like, of academia. Then I got my readership, which is like halfway between that and a prof. And then a few years ago I’ve got my prof. So I’m not, listen, I’m not kind of I’m not real academic. I I I kind of I always have one foot in industry, and I always have one foot in the industry.

Speaker 2: 06:34
Yeah, but I think that’s where positions you are so good for for the work that you do, is because you are in both. You get the practical and the real world experiences coupled with the academia.

Speaker: 06:45
Yeah, I think the day that I stop looking at being lofts is the day that I become irrelevant, to be honest, because unless I’m looking around buildings and finding fault with them, whether it’s when I’m out for dinner with the missus or or taking the kids to a play centre, then I’m kind of boring them to death. Yeah. Here’s dad again. If I can’t find some kind of fire exit box or something like that, I’m kind of not happy. So I I think that that’s always where I’ve come from, and that’s always where I’ll be. But the academic thing is very much an extra string to the bowl, really. Yeah, so I I it was total, total fluke. Uh total fluke, yeah, yeah. But all that kind of put to one side. Well, when I got here, I decided this is where I wanted to stay, providing I could still do my industry stuff. So about six or seven years ago, Will, who’s my boss and I came up with an idea which is Energy House 2, because we have absolutely zero, zero imagination.

Speaker 2: 07:40
I was gonna ask what the two was about. Clearly, nothing.

Speaker: 07:44
Energy house was kind of a bit of a brand when we started, and and it kind of grew and grew. Energy house is still like it’s it’s that’s where I came from. It will always be my favourite. So, but I said seven years ago, people started kind of noticing what we’re doing and mentioning doing their own version of it. So we thought we’d best do something bigger. So Energy House 2 is is where I’m sat now. Energy House 2 is a is a massive building with two huge chambers, biggest in Europe in terms of building physics. And we’ve got enough space in in each chamber to put two detached houses in. So that gives you an idea of scale. And we go down to minus 23, up to plus 53, more wind, more rain, more snow, more sun. And yeah. That’s incredible. I mean, the investment in that must be huge, is it? About 16 million pounds back then, so it is probably much more than that now. But yeah, yeah, it was it was a challenge. No one had ever done it globally. Energy House 1 was unique, energy house two is is is globally unique in terms of what we do and the size of the chambers or what we do in there. So, yeah, it was it was sure. Engineering-wise, it was really difficult, but we we now have something that will control temperature within half a degree across these huge chambers and kind of is a world-leading facility and world-leading research.

Speaker 2: 09:06
And you must have so many demands then if you’ve got this world re you know, this this research you’ve got at your fingertips.

Speaker: 09:12
Yeah, so we have two new builds in in one chamber, so they’re from Bellway and Barrett’s working with Saint Coban. So that they’re like two future homes standard, which we might talk about a little bit later. And and the next nervous breakdown I’ve got planned is the chamber behind me. We’re going to build two retrofit homes. So in the 1930s and the 1980s, so they’re due out of the ground, hopefully in the next month. Yeah, and I will even have even greyer and less hair by next year, right?

Speaker 2: 09:43
Do you like have to project manage all of that or is do you have to Yeah?

Speaker: 09:47
So I’m tech I’m technical director of Energy House Labs. So the building stuff comes down to me, but I’m never happier than when I’ve got you know a pair of boots on and I’m putting sensors underneath the building in in the foundations and stuff. It’s where else could I do that?

Speaker 2: 10:00
Do you um so presumably people want to learn more about this? Is it just head over to Energy Energy House website?

Speaker: 10:06
Is it energyhouse2.com is a good starting point and that’ll link for all our labs. Um yeah, but uh maybe you could put a link onto the yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 10:15
We’ll include our links that we mentioned today.

Speaker: 10:18
And that’ll show you all our research. All our research is uh total open access.

Speaker 1: 10:22
Okay.

Speaker: 10:23
There’s nothing behind paywalls. We we pay quite a lot of money for that as a university to get everything out into the public domain. There’s no there’s no academic research hidden behind paywalls, absolutely zero. So, yeah, that’s we and we pride ourselves on that.

unknown: 10:37
Wow.

Speaker 2: 10:38
I want to check it out myself. Do you ever have you ever done um like a video or anything?

Speaker: 10:43
Like I go on YouTube. Uh we’ve got Energy House Labs on YouTube that there’s Doctor and all that time.

Speaker 2: 10:50
That as well. Yeah, I think there’d be a lot of links today. I can imagine the amount of topics we’ve got to cover. What I do want to briefly mention before we we dive into EPC reforms and maybe warm homes plan and other things, is this House Without Bills program with Guy Martin, what was that like? What was that experience like?

Speaker: 11:10
So we do a lot TV, we do a lot of work with BBC because that they’re on our doorstep at Media City, there’s down the road. So we do a lot of BBC Breakfast News and Morning Live and all this kind of stuff, which is good. And and I never mind doing that because unless you tell people what you’re doing as a researcher and you’re pretty much dead. I mean, what’s the point in doing something to sit on these shelves behind me? It’s boring. So we’ve got to try and translate what we do into simple energy savings uh measures and messaging for the um for the for the public. Um so so anyway, so Guy Martin came to look predominantly with us kind of heat pumps and what what they do and how they work. But it’s always the same. You uh out of an hour’s show, you get five minutes on the TV. But he was here for like a day, full day. So he was a really nice guy. He’s a he’s a he’s a good, it’s a good laugh. We we had actually quite a good laugh together. What you see is what you get. There’s no curtain, you know. It it’s just yeah, you can tell that with him. Yeah, it just asks questions, you give him the answers, and uh, and and he translates them in in the best way he can to the kind of public. So yeah, it’s great. It’s he was a he’s a he was a good laugh, actually.

Speaker 2: 12:21
Yeah, it strikes me as that when I’ve seen some of his other other work and uh his other programmes, and he does say it in layman’s terms, which I think this is what we want, isn’t it? We want the public to understand.

Speaker: 12:30
Yeah, yeah, I know he’s he’s great. He was and and he was he’s genuinely he he has a heat pump, he’s got all the stuff, he practices what he preaches, and he’s had things go wrong in terms of heat pumps, he’s had things go right, and he understands that the foibles of them all and stuff as well. So, yeah, he’s he’s he’s great. Most people that the visitors in the in the press and media are pretty good, you know, they’re they’re pretty switched on to it.

Speaker 2: 12:54
It’s good that you’ve got that strong relationship.

Speaker: 12:56
But we’re we’re not valid otherwise. I mean, what’s the point in doing it?

Speaker 2: 12:59
If you don’t get the message out, then what’s the point? Yeah, I get it. I get it. There’s no point in being uh dusty on a shelf, is it? No papers. I think what I’d like to now move on to is your recent white paper, which was better data, better buildings.

Speaker: 13:16
Yeah. So that’s off the back. Yeah. That’s off the back of a piece of work that we did with National Trust.

Speaker 1: 13:22
Okay.

Speaker: 13:23
So what what I believe in, many people would disagree, but I’m not really too bothered, is that when we measure a building’s performance, we kind of understand a lot more about it, whether that’s defects, whether it’s energy performance, whether it’s air quality, whatever. But ultimately, we we do a lot of modelling in the UK with our EPCs. And and I won’t hear a bad word against EPCs, but I’m not gonna go down that road because I also sit on the scientific integrity group for EPCs. They’re misused frequently, they can’t predict the future, they won’t tell you what your energy bills are gonna be because if I go on holiday for two weeks, my energy bills have instantly changed. You know, if there’s bad weather, it instantly changes. So they they’re used for too many things, is probably the problem. And they’re gonna be changed, we’ll talk about that in a sec. But but ultimately, when we’ve got buildings that are quite sensitive to energy modelling, and that might be older buildings as as a for instance, so that uh an old, let’s say, National Trust kind of solid wall property, and these are the houses, not the grand houses, these domestic properties. Yeah. They might have walls 400 thick, 300 thick, and they’ll they’ll change along the the you know the elevation, things like this. That they’re quite sensitive to just using one value for a U value, for instance, you know, the thermal transmittance of that wall is very often not perfect for an older building. And the same with airtightness. So we found that when we measure airtightness and we measure U values, we were finding an approximate performance gap. So it’s a difference between the EPC and reality of about 11% in favour of the building being better than the EPC. So that was slipping us a band, basically, you know, might go from an F to an E or something.

Speaker 2: 15:09
Which has a lot of implications, doesn’t it?

Speaker: 15:11
Absolutely. For someone who wants to print that building out is huge implication. And for retrofit as well, we need to make sure we’re getting the retrofit specific for that building and right for let’s not put too much insulation on when we don’t need to, for instance, or let’s do things in a different way. So a long story cut short is we can put air tightness figures into EPCs. And when I talk about EPCs in this instance, I’m talking about RDSAP. This is our normal EPC we use for selling or renting a house. Yeah. But we can’t put U-values in. We can’t put measured U values in. So the technology’s changing for how we measure U values. We we’re working with a company that that’s dramatically reducing that cost and making it simpler. So we can measure U-values. And when we do it, we get more accurate EPCs. All we needed that white paper to do was for government to ultimately change the box in RDSAP, which we generate our EPCs with, to allow us to put that measured value in. But also putting a robust process around that. You can’t get some chancers who kind of come and measure it really badly and do this or game in the system. People game the system anyway, so it’s kind of irrelevant. But putting a robust process around that is like super, super important. So that’s what the white paper is all about. It’s kind of using measured values to improve how we see buildings. There might make some buildings worse, but it it’s reality. And that extends to non-domestic as well, which is super important. If you’ve got a big portal frame shared and you don’t know the U values and you’re guessing it, or by choosing the wrong thing on a model, it’s massive, the impact of it. Absolutely massive.

Speaker 2: 16:51
So does this mean that they’re gonna we’re gonna potentially change then? I say new values will be a requirement.

Speaker: 16:58
We’ve asked that it was changed. So the group of people that was on that, so we had BTS, who are a big testing service offer offer, provided.

Speaker 1: 17:06
Yeah.

Speaker: 17:06
Elmhurst, obviously, who accreditation scheme. We’d like to see it changed, but it has to be with a robust process, and I can’t really stress that enough. What we don’t want is for it to get worse, you know, just by people messing it, messing the situation up. So yeah, that’s what we’re asking for.

Speaker 2: 17:24
If that was the case of it coming in place, does that mean there’d need to be upskilling?

Speaker: 17:27
Yeah, and this would be an option. So it wouldn’t be everyone had to do it, it would be for some buildings, and we’re thinking heritage would be a good starting point, and non-traditionals, you know, the there’s you look at Wimping O fines, they’re radically different across where they were built and how they were made. It’s an option. We’d like to see it. And do you know what? Might only have 500 done a year, or you might have 50,000. We don’t know it, but ultimately someone will need to be trained and accredited to take those measurements in exactly the same way as air tightness testers are. And we see that as a suitable kind of comparison to what we’re looking for.

Speaker 2: 18:04
So basically, now we’ve actually got factual evidence that you’ve now presented, and it’s a case of let’s see what’s decided. Is that the case?

unknown: 18:11
Yeah.

Speaker: 18:11
We’ve we’ve put the evidence forward, and we look forward to hearing back from the government some ways forward. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:18
So much there’s so many different things that are happening, isn’t there?

unknown: 18:21
Yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:21
Across this entire space, retrofit and all of it. It’s not just one thing. It’s like there’s so many moving parts.

Speaker: 18:27
Yeah, there is a lot going on at the moment, yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:30
Uh I guess that would probably lead us on to the home warm homes plan, which is significant. What was your first reaction when it was announced?

Speaker: 18:39
So my first reaction may have been different than others, because I was on the Warm Homes steering group uh with the kids. So we had some some input. However, and and and I can say this, we never had the full version. These things that we advise, and then people go away and and and think about that and write the policy and the guidance. It was never like this is the final plan, you agree it. That’s not how government works.

Speaker 2: 19:05
No.

Speaker: 19:06
But we st I was still chuffed to be in the group, kind of feeding in. But yeah, let’s not think that they were seeking our permission. We advise and and they they acknowledge and transpose into into what they think is is is is is good for the for the government and for the country. So yeah, we we we had some ideas of of what was going to be presented, but we didn’t know for a fact, and we certainly didn’t have the full version. So I got it on the did I get it the day before? I think I might have got it the day before. And you know what? There’s two things. First, I’m glad to have it because it’s it’s been a long whole process. Uh, and and it’s always been well, the Warm Homes plan will have it, the Warm Homes plan will do it, and the Warm Homes plan will be the answers to all our questions. I don’t think it has answered all our questions. And it and it is a plan. It’s it’s not the regulations and the fine details. It’s and do you know what you do need that pattern before you do all that. So it’s like these are the goals now, and and the next thing will be how we’re gonna do it. And that that to me is the more interesting bit. I I’m a I’m a pedant, I’m a details man, I’m an annoying factor in meetings because I’ll ask, like, well, how are we gonna do that? And how are we gonna do this? And you’re practical, you’re hands-on, literally. Well, but yeah, but that’s not what policy people want to hear. They don’t want to know how are you gonna assess it? What version of SAP? You know, that it’s like Richard, like calm down a little bit. So, but that’s what I get told. But now there’s probably the next phase where they probably need to put the meat on the bone and uh and do that. So, what are my thoughts on it? I would have liked to have seen fabric mentioned in a more positive way.

Speaker 2: 20:49
This is what I was going to ask you about, actually, because this is where you’re coming from, isn’t it? Fabric first, because my understanding is initially warm hands, is it’s it’s about batteries solar literally throwing in an air horse, air horse. An air horse.

Speaker: 21:02
I I would see an air horse heat pump. Yeah, you should patent that. So, yeah, I think it’s not gone away, and the specific mention in still carrying on doing fabric. So let’s not say that it’s gone because it hasn’t. That’s unfair to the people who wrote the plan. It hasn’t gone. But but do I see other things taking a higher priority? Yes, that would be PV, air source heat pumps, batteries, batteries, and and tariffs and stuff as well, and smart metering, which is super important, something very close to my heart. So I I think that that that to me looked like it was going to take the priority. And I’m kind of okay with that.

Speaker 2: 21:43
Can you explain a bit more, like to people listening? What is the your your view? Because my understanding when I I looked into this is you very much fabric first, whereas there’s also is it fabric fifth model?

Speaker: 21:55
Is that correct? Well, I’ve got a very simple explanation to this. Yeah. If I put an air solve Heat pump into my home, which I intend doing. I’m just trying to save the money to do it. Uh, because I’m not a rich academic, there’s no such thing. When I put a renewable technology into my home or a new boiler, even, I don’t want it to heat Rochdale. I want it to heat my home. So I can take the all the renewable heat off the nice clean grid. I can take the heat off my solar, you know, the energy off my solar panels and my cheap stored battery tariff. But what’s the point in heating that home if it’s just going to heat the rest of the street? It’s absolute bonkers. Anyone wants to challenge me on it, they know where I am. And yeah, I think fabric should be the first thing you do, and then you stick the shiny stuff on after.

Speaker 2: 22:41
It makes sense.

Speaker: 22:42
It’s logical, isn’t it? I’ve I’ve had stand-up arguments of people who disagree. They’ve got a point, and and do you know what? I I’m not here to argue with people. It’s just up to them.

Speaker 2: 22:52
Sorry, Richard, is is the argument is that from a scientific point of view or a cost point of view or you know, a practical point of view as to why it’s a practical all of them.

Speaker: 23:02
So I’ve got an air source heat pump, okay, and and it’s going to be giving out heat in a very nice way, a very cost-effective way, a very efficient way. I have no problems with air source heat pump. But if I put them into a building that’s not protecting the heat that’s been given from that heat pump, then it’s wasted. And that that is like my point on the matter. So heat pumps work at a far lower temperature than boilers, so 45, 35 degrees, some of them, compared to a boiler that’s 74 degrees with piping hot radiators. Then we need to think about making that building more efficient so we don’t lose that heat as well, because it’s going to take a lot more time for that building to heat up. I mean, I’m not I’m not gonna spend ages talking about it. It’s that’s my philosophy. But I and also when you switch the heat pump off, you don’t want the building to cool down straight away.

Speaker 2: 23:57
And an insulation doing that.

Speaker: 24:00
And insulation, you put it in, put loft insulation, it’s gonna save you energy for 60 years without doing a single thing. It just sits and it does its stuff, and and thermal comfort is is clearly affected by insulating the building, keeping the walls warm, the ceilings warm, then you’ve not got these cold surfaces which which make for condensation risk. Let’s not even go there. And and for for mould. Again, let’s not even go there. I know that a cold wall, as you do, will attract condensation mould. I also know that a heat pump is not going to keep that wall warm. And that’s kind of as much as I want to say on that.

Speaker 2: 24:43
I don’t think it’s the right analogy, putting a plaster on a broken leg. I don’t know, that’s what came to mind. It’s probably a bit dramatic.

Speaker: 24:50
But heat pumps will save a lot of people money.

Speaker 2: 24:53
Yeah.

Speaker: 24:54
But if they’re not commissioned right, they will they will definitely not save money.

Speaker 2: 24:59
I think that’s what is a concern. Is everyone with this kind of thing, all this money’s now been invested, it will attract those bad actors or whatever you want to call it, want to make a quick book.

Speaker: 25:10
But also it might attract a lot of good new people into the industry, which so and I’m a positivist. You know, we we should try and like look on that side. Yeah, me too. Me too to keep it. If we don’t, then then we’re not even got a chance of of getting anywhere where we need to be as a country. Uh and and it, you know, and we want people to have homes that are cost effective to run. My other bit of news, and and it will go out probably today, is that that I’ve been brought onto the fuel poverty committee, which is like a ministerial appointment, that’s just to look at people and help people in fuel poverty and challenge the government to their targets on fuel poverty. That that kind of role sees me hopefully looking at how we bring people on that it’s cliche, the zero carbon journey without, you know, taking all the money out of their pockets. It’s the last thing anyone wants.

Speaker 2: 25:59
Gosh, there’s something else to keep you busy.

Speaker: 26:02
Puzzle. Yeah, it’s getting bored, you know. So take something else on.

Speaker 2: 26:05
It’s great though, because you’re influencing. And it’s going back to that the point where you talked about opportunities and things, I think what I would like to talk about is, you know, how surveyors fit in all of this. Where do you see this sort of going?

Speaker: 26:18
So I’m a surveyor. And that’s like important to me. I’m I’m proud of being a surveyor. I I do quite a lot, quite a lot of work with the RICS to hopefully help what they’re doing with retrofit and and like the future of surveying. And I think my views are this. I think for people who are currently surveyors, there’s some stuff for people wanting to be a surveyor, but are also interested in like my my, let’s call it like green stuff. Like everyone hates that, but retrofit and and and building performance and energy, like the the energy stuff. Yeah. Then we just brought in a new pilot pathway. I helped the RSS with this, all about retrofit. So you basically become a retrofit surveyor, which I think is actually a really good title because it’s straight to the point.

Speaker 1: 27:06
Yeah.

Speaker: 27:06
I kind of guided some some thinking on that, but but I I think that the idea is so Steve Lees, who used to be the RS, I think now is it countrywide.

Speaker 2: 27:17
Yeah, is it countrywide? Yeah.

Speaker: 27:18
He kind of was the architect of that. And me and Steve spent a lot of hours discussing this and how we can kind of get this new breed of surveyor into the RICS to help do some of this stuff that I’m talking about, but also just to get some some different kind of thoughts and minds into the RRCS around retrofit. So these will be people that have been doing retrofit for several years coming up through through the associate level for the time being. I think I’d see it as a massive failure if we didn’t get to Emrix and EFRICs, because why not? It’s just there has to be the route. There has to be that route. So yeah, there’s there’s different ways in, first and foremost, and that looks at retrofit, it looks at building performance, it looks at assessment of buildings, which is something I spent many years on, or developing standards for that. So yeah, it brings all that retrofit piece together. What can surveyors do that are already surveyors? They can do exactly the same as what I’m doing. They can be measuring U values, they can be measuring air times, they can the so the RRCS has the RRCS residential standard for residential retrofit standard. Yes. They always get it mixed up. RRS. So I I helped write that, and Larry was the author. Brilliant. We all like Larry, Larry Russell.

Speaker 1: 28:38
Yeah, yeah, knowing me.

Speaker: 28:44
We have this piece of guidance that says, surveyors, this this is the process that that you shall follow for a client when we do a retrofit of a home. That didn’t exist a couple of years ago, and no one else has got it. Outside of the world of publicly funded retrofit, e-col and past 2035, it doesn’t exist. So as surveyors, we’re now in a position of authority if if we choose to be that to do retrofit of people’s homes. The guidance is all there, the training is all there, the documents that surround it are all there. Are we taking all the good stuff and from existing things? We’ve not, you know, recreated any wheels, and and a surveyor can go and do that. So yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:26
The best place for it.

Speaker: 29:27
I mean, like understanding the building pathology. We buy a house, right? We all buy houses. Well, a lot of us buy houses. The people that we see when we buy a house is is a surveyor. That surveyor is in the perfect position to look around the building, see what might be relevant in terms of retrofit, what might be relevant in terms of don’t do this to that building, or what’s already been done that shouldn’t have been done. So if if either they work in a practice or or they also offer that service, then they’re the perfect people to do it. There’s only one good time to do retrofit of a building when it’s empty. When you’re going to change the carpet, you’re going to redecorate it. So why not use the surveyor kind of leverage, if you like, to do that? It’s the only good time to do retrofit when and also we’ve got green mortgages coming onto the scene now where they will lend you extra money at very good rates to do that specific thing. So if we got our act together, we could probably actually make quite a big dint on retrofitting properties.

Speaker 2: 30:29
This is what I was thinking. I think it I’ve said to a few uh well, quite a few surveys recently. This this is a huge opportunity for you because there’s so many things happening, you know, with the home and home buying selling reforms and and and the shifts, and people are worried future-wise, what’s going to be happening with residential surveys. This to me is, you know, diversify, put more strings to your bone.

Speaker: 30:50
It it’s common sense to me. Uh, I think surveyors often fit into two camps. Um, and and it pains me to say, there’s people that like that don’t like the stuff that I do for some reason. And there’s people that absolutely love it. There’s people that that detest the EPC. I’ve seen people put, and this is in my presentation when I train surveyors, I’ve seen people put links in the home survey report to a Sunday Times article saying that EPCs are not fit for purpose. Link in the in that and say, look, don’t worry really about what the EPC says, because if you look at this article here, it says they’re not good anyway. So that’s what people are like.

Speaker 2: 31:31
Well, that’s helpful. What’s that gonna do?

Speaker: 31:33
I mean, everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but like I don’t think that brings anything to it. You you could say, look, the EPC is X, Y, and Z. We found this problem with the EPC. If you contact accreditation scheme X, they will probably help you put it right because it isn’t a solid wall, it’s a caveat wall. There might have been a cock-up made. We all make mistakes, including myself, and it can get fixed, and then it will be probably okay. But just like damming something in print on a home surface.

Speaker 2: 32:01
I think I think finger pointing and blame doesn’t help anyone, and the the people that miss out the most is the public at the end of the day, because they get it’s confusing. Who do you trust? Who do you trust? Oh, they’re rubbish. Independent damp surveyors, you don’t trust them, and damp surveying, you know, and not looking at surveyors, chat surveyors, and not looking at the house in in depth. There’s all these fingers all the time, and it’s like, but how is a homeowner, home buyer, supposed to be able to navigate all of that?

Speaker: 32:25
Well I agree. Not supporting each other. No, I think I think the other the other kind of string to the ball for that the surveyors I think could develop really quite easily is the healthy home aspect, measuring ventilation, making extract fans work, you know, looking at indoor air quality measurements, looking at relative humidity measurements when they’re there. I’m not saying this has to be part of the home survey standard, and let’s not kind of go down that road. I I think that if if a surveyor wanted to expand their their level of services, then I think that could be something that that’s an addition to and and a helpful thing to their clients.

Speaker 2: 33:03
Yeah, it could not be like an addition, something that they go as part of this while while while I’m there.

Speaker: 33:08
The states they call the states call it a house doctor. We should see it the same thing. We should be looking at like fixing stuff that’s wrong with a building to make it healthy. You know what? We don’t need to be a physicist for that. We need we need to do some understanding, some training. We need to read the stuff we’ve already got, and we need to look at measuring different things. And that was going to help our clients to live in healthier homes, as simple as that. And it’s not all about condensation and bold. Clearly, there’s a heck of a lot of that, but it is about making sure that the building’s got healthy atmosphere generally, and then air is coming in and moving around where it needs to go. And the amount of fans that failed, and not no one measures them. So you should have one of these. You should be measuring like I can’t, like this. Yes. With a with a hood on it, and and you should be measuring extract fans and stuff, not necessarily as part of the home survey report, because that you know, people would disagree with me on that. But we can we should be able to offer something that says like I can do this as well if you if you want it to be done, because the neon indicator on a on a on a on a fan doesn’t mean it’s working, it means it’s making a rattling noise, and that’s about it. So yeah, like mine does.

Speaker 2: 34:16
One of mine does non-suite.

Speaker: 34:18
But if it’s rattling, it’s not working. There you go.

Speaker 2: 34:21
Yeah, right. I need to get that sorted, Rich. I need to get it sorted. But no, I think it’s interesting because healthy homes, you know, when I think about all the talk about home surveys, level twos, level three, you know, all the all this kind of thing. Healthy is a word that isn’t used, actually. Damp is, you know, maybe efficiency, but the word health doesn’t seem to be, it’s not really something that I hear talked about. Or it’s like not something that I I would say a lot of surveyors would sort of convey what they’re doing if we’re looking at how healthy your potential future home is, you know.

Speaker: 34:58
Well, I think HHSRS gets into some of it. And and I’m quite a fan of HHSRS because it it it’s it’s it’s a big long list of things that that could be a risk. But by interpreting that, I think is is probably a bit more where we need to be. So you could see something like fans not working, you know, a fan could be working, but you know, there’s no undercuts on the doors, and no air’s gonna get into that bathroom. It just doesn’t work. Uh or or or something’s going wrong with the ventilation system in a in a in a communal block or something like that. Then to me, that’s as important as I’ll be careful what I say here. I was gonna say it’s a crack, but probably isn’t. But that it’s it’s important, is what I’m saying. And and and I don’t think we often give it enough um thought, but some surveyors really, really do. They do. It just seems that we’re we’re we’re a bit up and down in terms of the things that we that we do and don’t.

Speaker 2: 35:54
There’s a lack of consistency, I think.

Speaker: 35:55
Yeah, but you know what? That that means there’s an opportunity, and I’m not here to like say one survey is better than the other, because that’s probably not the case. The fact is, is that there’s there’s some opportunities to kind of do some really new, cool, and interesting stuff that that that others aren’t doing, architects aren’t doing because they’re not in the buildings at the same time as we are. You know, the electricians will will come and do the fans and fix them and they’ll make a perfect job of it, but ultimately that they won’t know it’s broke unless someone tells them it’s broke, you know.

Speaker 2: 36:24
So it’s that holistic view, isn’t it? That the surveyor has. To consider all elements at once.

Speaker: 36:29
The work ground, isn’t it?

Speaker 2: 36:31
Going going back to the asset rigs pathway, retrofit pilot. That’s what what stage are we at with that? What’s the it’s in?

Speaker: 36:40
So the the pilot is now full, I believe. I think yeah, I think I know someone that’s on that actually. I know a couple of people. I I’ve done a couple of sessions, I think I’ve got one coming up this week, possibly. Anyway, that this will have gone by then. So, but yeah, so I’ve been asked to kind of come and say, like, so what does it actually mean? What’s the practicalities of it all? And hopefully I can give something that’s useful to to to you know future members on that. But yeah, I I think it’s a it’s a really positive step. It’s a pilot, and you know what, it won’t be perfect.

Speaker 1: 37:11
No.

Speaker: 37:12
And it might not be perfect for a bit, yeah, but but I think it’s we we we need new routes into our profession, you know, RICS doing it, others will be doing it as well. And you know what? The more the merrier. I’m I’m not bothered that the fact that many other people were doing it. As long as we get good standards of of property professionals, I’m happy with that. It it’s when we get bad standards across the other bits that we kind of don’t want to see. If CAB do it, C I O B do it, I had do it, Reba do it, whatever. Glad that people are doing it. That that’s all I don’t think it just needs to sit in one camp, does it? No, it doesn’t, because we we we should all be like just getting better and better.

Speaker 2: 37:51
Is it so therefore? It’s not a done deal yet. It’s got to go through the pilot and then review.

Speaker: 37:57
Yeah, pilot.

Speaker 2: 37:59
It could be a while yet. What do you think? I don’t know. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: 38:05
I think with the warm homes plan as well, I think things that are happening, it’s kind of like there’s a board of stuff that like was stacked up waiting to happen. EPC reform, warm homes plan, the National Audit Office report on insulation kind of really gave everything a kick and said we needed to do something. A lot of kinds of stuff just happened. Uh, and then the floodgates, I think, will will be open now for the next year or two for things to start to happen as a consequence of that. So, yeah, it’s good times at the moment. I I think that like stuff might be happening.

Speaker 2: 38:35
Yeah, I agree. I think it is. It’s because we’re coming towards the end of the this show today. Is there anything else you’d like to share or talk about?

Speaker: 38:45
So I think kind of takeouts for surveyors, take homes for surveyors, I think let’s let’s say normal job in research survey evaluation. So this might not seem like it’s really relevant, some of the stuff we’ve talked about, but it but it will be soon. P PCs, we’re gonna see four metrics, not one. So we’re gonna see energy cost, fabric performance, system performance, and smart readiness. Okay, so we’re gonna have four metrics. Those four metrics can or will be used to deem whether a building is good enough to be let or rented as part of Mii’s minimum energy efficiency standards, which we’re aiming, we think it’s looking like is gonna be a C by 20 something. I don’t think what it was. I read it the other day. It will come soon. It will, you know, these things always come around quicker. So we’re gonna see different EPCs, they’re gonna look different, feel different, and different metrics. So when we’re doing our look round, and we we get stuck at the EPC, we’re gonna see that. We’re gonna see the home survey standard is changing. I helped with a very tiny bit of home survey standard, which was the stuff around energy. So, my I think my input was we need to probably take a little bit of a closer look at the EPC. We need to probably give a little bit more usable feedback, I think, for that on different levels of the survey. It wasn’t a massive overhaul, mark my bit. It was very much a case of we’re gonna see this changes. We might need to do that. And then we mentioned the I wrote some guidance for the RRCS about energy performance for the home survey standard. So, like this is the public-facing bit of the energy performance stuff that RSCS do. So go to that bit on the website and get some layman’s tips on that. So that I think might go in. I don’t know. I I don’t know what’s going in. So does that that’s gonna change? I think we’re gonna see a lot more work around renewables. We’re gonna see more PV, we’re gonna see more air source, we’re gonna see more batteries, probably gonna see more fabric, probably not as much as it was doing back then. And and I think that all of that aside, as part of our day-to-day work as surveyors, we will naturally be seeing more renewable installations. And we’re gonna have to rate them, condition them, see if they’re broke or not, and ultimately deal with some possibly bad fabric stuff that’s gone into buildings as well, where there’s a loft external wall insulation, internal wall insulation, draft stripping that’s not appropriate.

Speaker 1: 41:13
Yeah.

Speaker: 41:14
So the good news on that is myself and Professor John Edwards are writing a piece of guidance for the RICS, hopefully out in the autumn, which is a very straightforward guide, nothing complicated, I guarantee, about how to assess buildings that have had retrofit done. So looking at solar panels, looking at air source heat pumps, and these might have been in for five or ten years. That doesn’t mean that they’re installed right or wrong. It means that we just need to understand some of the things that have gone in that that might be slightly unusual to some surveyors. So we thought it was a good time to kind of write that guidance.

Speaker 2: 41:51
So yeah, it’s increased suddenly now, isn’t it? Warm homes comes in and then all these new things are gonna come into homes. Yeah. And it’s almost like the public demand and adoption of this will drive will drive the surveying because it’s like it’s gonna be needed, they’re gonna be asking questions, aren’t they? More and more.

Speaker: 42:07
I’m pretty sure that probably beyond our beyond our days, Nina, going back when cavity walls started to be fitted, when loft insulation started to be fitted, and and it wasn’t perhaps going amazingly well, then surveyors had to kind of learn about that and and DPC injection and all the kind of well, let’s not go, let’s not, let’s not go down that route. May or may not even exist. But the the fact is that the we all go through these phases of kind of the building industry changes, so surveyors need to react, changes again, surveyors need to react, and this, this, and this. And we’re gonna see the same with future homes as well, which is you know, we’re gonna see no gas or renewables, all air source heat pump, probably. So, yeah, we’re gonna it’s big changes, but you know what? An air source heat pump, we can very easily assess it. There’s there’s some simple things that go right and wrong. They’ve got to be putting level, they’ve got to have external pipes insulated, they they’ve got to have sensible holes through the wall and things like that. So, same with PD, same with batteries, and and all the there’s there’s common things, common defects that that that go wrong with with renewable installations, but they’re generally pretty good.

Speaker 2: 43:21
So your guidance that’s coming out, um, I’m gonna say, are there other things that surveyors are gonna need, you know, like I’m just thinking of some form of training or you know, these new areas that they’ve no experience in or very minimal.

Speaker: 43:35
I’m sure there’ll be some CPD that that kind of crops up on all that. What I would add is free and just pushing out free. It will be aimed at surveyors but available for everyone to use. So that’s great. All the guidance that that has been put out recently has been free. I’m a big fan of giving stuff out for free that that people ultimately have paid for anyway, through their membership and and through stuff like that. And and if, you know what, if if an architect It up in there and they’re looking around the building and they can benefit from it, then good. I’m happy.

Speaker 2: 44:04
You don’t want any barriers to learning with these things. This is the point, it needs to be free because otherwise the surveyor might go, Well, I’m not paying for that, I already pay for this. And it’s like, no, they all need to be reading this.

Speaker: 44:15
The fewer barriers you can put in place, yeah, all electronic, it’ll all be like updated often and things like that. So it’s no brainer for me.

Speaker 2: 44:24
No, I think there’s a lot of pointers that people, uh, surveyors listening will be able to take away then from this rich.

Speaker: 44:30
Well, very comprehensive. Yeah, I I think that things are changing really quick. It’s probably all changing for the better. Surveyors are gonna see different things coming up in buildings, but you know what? We’re good at buildings and we’re good at learning new stuff, and we’re we’re good at pivoting when things need to be pivoted too. So yeah, I’m I’m kind of comfortable that it’s gonna be like a good fun few years, I think, for surveyors.

Speaker 2: 44:52
I think it is, but I think it’s it’s it’s needed to be honest. It’s like if the word invigorating is is quite the right word, but I think with everything across residential, this is this is huge. And it it impacts people’s homes and lives, and surveyors are like right in the middle of it.

Speaker: 45:11
I I think if you watch one of my hour and a half lectures on on uh assessing buildings, I wouldn’t have said invigorating was the right word, but it’s not the right word. Anything where where stuff’s happening that’s new is is is good for surveys, I think.

Speaker 1: 45:26
Yeah.

Speaker: 45:27
And do you know what? Everyone will find something different. Some may just carry on doing exactly what they’re doing, and great, happy with that. And others might want to do something a little bit different, or just have something that they do on a Friday afternoon for a couple of hours for a different client. And do you know what? That’s that’s cool as well.

Speaker 2: 45:45
That’s okay as well. I really do love your optimism, but I think it’s there can be a lot of scepticism in surveying, and it some of it kind of comes with the territory, I think, sometimes. And I really like the fact that people do have different opinions. And but the the the point is it comes it comes back to what this is all designed to do, which is to make homes healthy. And I think it all comes back to that, doesn’t it?

Speaker: 46:11
We we’re we’re the people that that that tell people who spend a lot of money on homes, either buying them or renovating them or retrofitting them or whatever, like the best way. So we should just be the best we can be. And yeah, I want to say I was an optimist, I’m a realist, you know, I I’m not a motivational speaker on it, you know, but like there’s some good stuff happening. So let’s you want to learn something new, go for it and try and offer some interesting services that might help pay some of the bills, feed the kids, all that kind of stuff as well. So yeah, yeah, and and help the client and to get the best that they can have for that building.

Speaker 2: 46:45
Excellent. Well, thank you, Richard. We have mentioned so many things that I will include in the links. Um, things like Energy House, your white paper on the EPC reform, I think, the retrofit pathway. I’ve I’ve written, there’s a list of things.

Speaker: 47:01
All right, yes, standard standard guidance on energy that you know we can we can append to our reports if we wish, just to send our clients to some really basic energy savings advice. I think that’s good.

Speaker 2: 47:14
So that’s on the that’s that’s published now, is it? Yeah. Okay. Well, I’ll follow up with you. But thank you very much for your time today, Rich. I really appreciated it. There’s there’s a lot of things we’ve we’ve kind of crossed a lot of topics, I think, today. Yeah. But yeah, I think it’s it’s nice. It it’s the fact that you you are academia and practical, hands-on surveying, and you continue to do that, and you merge the two, which is just so rare. And the fact that you did that academic pathway was I think that’s the first time I’ve met anyone that’s done that.

Speaker: 47:45
It’s it’s it’s a rare thing to do. I advocate strongly that the academics in this field kind of we’re we’re teaching the the future of I do a tiny bit of lecturing, but some of my colleagues lecture Bill and Surveying all day. And you know what, providing that you’re relevant and you’ve got to be relevant, although I shouldn’t be teaching it. You should be instantly dismissed if you’re not relevant, then it’s a it’s a good route to do. You know what? And I think it benefits the RRCS having academic members as well. But you can’t practice, you can’t practice, and the fees are cheaper. Thanks for having me. Cheers.

Speaker 2: 48:18
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