Heat Pumps Must Stop Being Bespoke. Here's One Answer.

Installers all know the routine. Even when the heat pump is specified with radiator sizing, calculations made, there's the cylinder issue.

With so many houses, that combi boiler meant the residents gained a cupboard. Do they want to sacrifice the space. Now?

What about running a primary pipe up to the loft? Fixing this location problem doesn't mean the heat pump is going to change how it works. In fact it highlights something that affects thousands of heat pump installations.

It's not the heat pump itself is a bespoke design, but the installation is.

Oliver Blunden reckons this is one of the industries biggest bottlenecks.

After building and losing a £7 million mechanical and electrical contracting business, returning to the tools gave him an uncomfortable realisation.

"Every installation was different. Most of the time wasn't fitting the heat pump. It was everything around it." - Oliver Blunden

This on the ground experience, led to an idea becoming a reality. Oliver created the Greener Pod.

He went against the 're-inventing the wheel' route, choosing to take what works, and package it differently.

The Greener Pod takes a deceptively simple idea and runs with it. Moving the cylinder, hydraulics and controls into a factory built external module that arrives to site, tested and ready for installation. Over and over again. A scalable solution.

Oliver was keen to highlight in our interview, he's not scaling the business yet. In fact, he's just waiting on the new cases he sourced from a UK cabinet maker (you see them on UK fuel forecourts and in shopping centres) but his original intention of starting with 25 installs might have to be revised.

Before he's even launched, he's pre-sold the first 25.

Why so much interest?

The Myth of The Unique House

Every installer we interview has waxed lyrical about the unique differences in UK building stock. I'm sure that's part of the attraction for this rather wonderful team of engineers, and most likely why a select few of them are adept at spending hours nerding out with each other about flow rates, using buffers, controls and 'cor blimey - will you look at the copper on that'.

However. It is also true to say there are archetypes. Many many rows of houses, which are broadly the same, not identical, but similar. Especially the teeming rows of Victorian terraces, 196's semis and acres of Thatcher era new builds. You could argue that around 80% of the engineering is repeatable.

That's not anything to take away from the skill of engineers, but some start points and end points, some decision are echoed from Barnsley to Brighton, Stirling to Stockbridge. Oliver thought this through, he had a simple objective -

"Faster installation, consistent layouts every time, less time on site, easier maintenance, easier servicing and easier commissioning."

Modular Construction Is NOT New

The automotive, aircraft plant room, bathroom industries - just for starters, all have age old examples of building off site. Car's arent built on your driveway.

In fact modular construction of pods, buildings and places is as old as the pyramids.

So why do we insist on in retrofit in assembling on site?

Graham Hendra, the erstwhile grandfather of heat pumps - in one of our previous interviews - compared the stark variations in install times across European countries.

So Oliver is in good company when he asked himself.

"There's got to be a better way to install heat pumps at scale."

Why The Greener Pod Won't Work Everywhere

Although the pods will be pre-tested, and made ready for immediate use;

"Every pod will be factory-built, tested and ready before it ever arrives on site."

Oliver was very clear he wasn't look to bag orders for every house in the UK, he's very open about the limitations of this modular system. There will many houses which don't have the outside space to accommodate this unit.

But. It does have an advantage, that it's brand agnostic. It works with most heat pumps, it can take almost any cylinder.

There are some house configurations that won't need his solution. Refreshingly, for a man who's pre-selling his product before it's on the market, he's got his feet firmly locked on the ground.

"This year isn't about volume. It's about proving the process."

Because no matter how many heat pump improvements OEMs and micro manufacturers make, heat pumps themselves don't need re-inventing. Quite frankly, they are magical in their efficiency. The process is the problem, It's installation that needs the buffing up. In fact, it needs industrialising.

Designed In - From The Start

This is where the Greener Pod is going to get it's fuel, the momentum behind it's initial growth. Local authorities, new builds and large installation companies have already tipped their hats to Oliver's product. He's been asked if it can be included in pre-built planning, project development and even retrofit software.

This interest will in itself build pipeline for Oliver, but it will also demand scrutiny of how this solution can keep scaling, where it saves time and money and if start-up interest can manifest itself into a proven long term participant in the decarbonisation project - the giant task of improving UK housing stock.

The Hidden Cost

Bespoke, unique, unrepeatable install processes have a terrible cost in our ambitions to fit out hundreds of thousands of homes. It's one that is spoken about but difficult to publicly acknowledge. Our installation processes currently demand highly skilled, dedicated engineers to go well.

This costs us something we don't have. Time. Tie lost to planning, constant tinkering on sites, and adjusted scopes of work.

Oliver knows this, and thought the tragic closure of his business forced him to lose his home, his company - nearly everything. The white hot heat of adversity has forged, from his frontline exposure to the challenges - an offer of hope.

FACT - Our workforce in this sector is chronically understaffed.

The Greener Pod might not be a silver bullet, but it may be another tool to reduce the demand on our stretched engineers and take us to a more streamlined, productised, crikey - just easier - energy transformation.