Latest / The Electrical Show / Thomas Nagy and Paul Meenan talk about the home of the future

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Thomas Nagy and Paul Meenan talk about the home of the future · The Electrical Show

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The Electrical Show with Thomas Najie. Welcome to the Electrical Show with Bosh Professional
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here on Fixed Radio on Thomas Najie and with me in the studio once again
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is the fabulous George Clooney. Paul Meanan, you are actually for anybody who's
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wondering. He was actually texted a picture, aren't you of George Glan Similarities
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were quite shocking out Jung. I see if we can get Fixed Radio to
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put that up on their feed. This afternoon, we're gonna be talking about
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the future of the domestic home. We're going to be talking about what it's
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going to look like and ultimately the part the electricians can play in building and
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maintaining these homes and with any luck, makes some money out of it as
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well from the domestic markets. So the Electrical Show on Fixed Radio. You're
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listening to the Electrical Show. I am Thomas Najie with Paul mean in here
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and we're taking a look at the future of the humble domestic home from our
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from our electrician perspective. Now, Paul start us off defining features inside and
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outside the home. What is the homeowner going to be looking at in a
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nutshell? I think the most homeowners now, I think all they're looking at
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is just energy efficiency because of the cost of living. So I agree that's
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going to be loft insulation, wall insulation, if you've got the money,
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floor insulation. I do floor insulation every house I've lived in now, I've
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took all the boards up when I rewired, and I've gone the extra bit
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to insulate the floor, and it's made a hell of a difference. But
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it's just going to be insulation. And you know, rewiring for a lot
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of people won't be on their agenda. It's going to be what can our
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plug in that uses electricity less of lentricy money the most money. I heard
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a thing that there's a type of insulation. I don't know whether it's cavity
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wall insulation. I think maybe it was loft in between rafters. It was
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like, it's a foam insulation that's pumped in. Oh the spray on stuff
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and there's something and it's horrifically bad, and insurance companies are actually turning around
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and saying, now, you can't have that, we can't assure you.
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So that came from North America, where they like to spray expandy foam everywhere.
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It's kind of like expanding expanding. They spray this insulation and what happens
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is it doesn't allow the rafters of the roof to breathe, so you won't
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know if you've got any wood rot or anything like that. And yeah,
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it's not good for the house. And of course insurance companies a minute they
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clock on the scanner can't ensure you maybe one to look out for, because
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I heard that from a customer the other week who was complaining about that.
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But how about tech in the home? The future tech, because it's not
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going to take long before a lot more tech starts becoming standard in many households.
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I think I think it depends on what your budget is. I mean,
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I'm gonna be honest. If you go for the chief dangerous that the
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being qor Wicks dimmer switcher you can get, or a City Electricals or a
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difference and basic dimmers with some smart features would do most homeowners. I know
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lots of people who when you talked about home electrics, they just want to
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light and a socket. But then you go to the other end of the
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spectrum, you look at the art smart home which you've got, You've got
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coms racks underneath staircases. You've got data and coax to four K streaming TVs
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around these luxurious mansions and houses. It's such a broad spectrum now as to
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what you can get in the home. But again, what budget depth of
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wallet? Really, Well, it is the depth of your wallet. You
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know, if you have a palette truck with your wallet on it, fine,
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you have smart homes. I know. I know a guy who would
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sit at work, open up his phone and be able to tell him what
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room his wife was in because of the CO two emissions if she was breathing.
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And I'm like, dude, this is just seriously, I'm not impressed
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your totals. You're sad. This is just so spend thrifty, wasteful,
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it's not even funny. But if you if that floats your boat, great,
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But I think for the general working class common punter, no, it's
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just about saving cash, saving cash at the end of the day. If
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you, let's be honest about most tradesmen or do they want big TV DVD
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player blue rayer. Well, i gotta feel I'm just going through a sort
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of crib sheets here, and I've got a feeling that is actually a question
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I wanted to ask later on because a lot of this tech, how long
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is it that the longevity of this tech. I don't think it's got a
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very long life at all. I mean I remember the days way I went
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through the DVD player, the laser disc player in just a matter of a
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few years. Yeah, and now I don't need any of those players.
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I'd need a tiny little four by four inch box at square that streams four
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K to everything. And you're like, yeah, okay, because I remember
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the days and it wasn't mean, it wasn't even all that long ago where
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you had your t fifty eight fluorescent tubes and stuff, and then they created
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a fluorescent gu ten. It was the long neck. It was like a
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seventy three mill super long neck. But they created a downlight just for it,
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and I went out and fitted a load of them because they were good
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values, and like literally must have been eighteen months later. You can't get
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the lamps more them, and you can get the LED equivalent of them,
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but they just got a horrifically short lights. They're just so it's like tech
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has increased so at such a speed you can't really and also the quality of
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home lighting. Some people say the homelights improved. I would argue the opposite.
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And they banned obviously halogen for a number of years. There was obviously
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health links with that banning. And then we went LED, and of course
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we didn't know how to size the LED, so you'd end up with like
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biblically bright kitchens that with these LED units that were just pumping out heat and
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then getting brittle and failing early, and it was a nightmare for it does
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make you question the longevity. We're going to get into that later on in
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the show Fixed Radio Time to Crack on. I'm Thomas Nagie with Paul Mean
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and my dad and we're looking at the future. I don't know. For
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some reason, he thinks that every scene to think he's my dad. He's
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not that that was your youtubeing videos alive, didn't wee. He's pull your
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dad and we're looking at We're looking at the future of the domestic home and
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what it looks like this afternoon. So if you've just tuned in, don't
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worry. We're just getting into the nitty gritty of it as it were.
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Now features were going to be seeing and I'm already seeing during the construction process
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of homes. So we've got rooftops with that's quite cool actually the tiles,
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but it's a solo it's solo built into the tiles. Yeah, Tesla did
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a solo roof, didn't they. But it hasn't quite worked its way out
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of the it's not a hugely commonplace yet. No. Yeah, I think
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it's more to do with the efficiency in the size of the panels of complexity.
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Who ensures it because in theory, when solo PV has the end of
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its life cycle, which is about fifteen years, you have to replace the
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whole roof and that's an awkward Yeah. Who wants to do that? Only
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the mega rich obviously, but some of the other things that we're going to
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be installing during construction process now on new builds, any sparks working on new
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builds, if you're asked a price a new build house, you need to
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get out there and make sure that somebody's putting in some sort of foundation,
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earth in or an electrode while they're pouring any any foundations or any minipiles or
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whatever they're doing, because we are going to end up having to provide our
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own earthing. I mean, it's recommended now in the riggs in in ten
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years time, no doubt it'll be mandatory or a shall should I say,
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Well, look, going back to what we were talking about longevity and the
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last link, we're just talking about the longevity of everything that's being fitted now,
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and it does beg the question. I get what you're saying, like
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panels, tiles were solo built into them and stuff. It is an awkward
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conversation. Then you know in fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year down the road,
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it's got to be replaced. And then who's going to stump up the
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cash. It's going to be the homeowner because the original house builder it's only
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warranted for ten years. And things like battery storage. Average lifespan of a
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battery now a good battery ten years should be about ten to fifteen years most
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most of the standards for ups is it's ten to fifteen years. If it's
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if the temperature is regulated and it's in a dry, safe environment, then
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you should get the optimal efficiencies. But who who thought when they were if
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they were going to put a solar roof on a complete solar roof, not
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one of the ones that go on top. You can end up having to
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have annual washes of your roof. We don't annually wash our roofs. But
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if you go those with solar tiles, you're going to have to have someone
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otherwise the efficiency by the time to get out of going down, and then
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after fifteen years you're probably gonna have connections burnout. You've then got the fire
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risk of Look how many strings and multiple connections you have to do in the
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loft for these. So for me, if I was doing solar, absolutely
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just be a grid that I can bolt on and off as minimal cabling as
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I can to remove any risks of fire and kind of keeping it the way
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it is now. Then if it ain't broke, just never fix it.
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But it does beg the question like this, even with LED things like that.
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I mean, we spoke about this, I think a couple of shows
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ago talking about just the garbage of like the quality of just not even just
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LED, a lot of electrical stuff, just absolutely the quality of some of
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it is just garbage. There isn't a quality police in the government though,
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is there. From products and materials. You've only got trading standards and they
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can't get near to anything. And the only time they get involved in if
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someone gets hurt. But it does make you wonder though, like people go
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out and they'll buy, you know, they'll go and buy a new home
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or especially if it's a smaller independent builder or something, and it's just done
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not on the cheap, but it's done with cheaper gray products. But there's
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no eco, there's no efficiency there because literally in two years time you can
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be replacing half of the LED stuff, all strip lighting and stuff. It's
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all going to start flickering, or you'll have the LEDs where they blot out
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and they go orangine and stuff. It's really bad that when we talk about
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new build now you I always recommend to people that you actually get an independent
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inspection done because you see them online on Instagram, the building inspectors. Yeah,
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I think what state are trades in where a guy can go and find
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such blatantly obvious stuff that anyone can see it. But yet home builders are
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allowing people to move in and all sorts. So and if you think the
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other trades get away with murder, imagine what's behind the walls and in the
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floors of all the electrics. It makes you wonder. But like for opportunities
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for electricians. There is a there's a bags of opportunities for putting in eco
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efficient lighting, heating and all of this sort of stuff. Because even electric
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heating, it's a gray area between plumbers and electricians. The amount of times
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we get us to do electric heating because some plumbers don't want to get involved
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in it and some sparks don't want it's like a gray it's like a gray
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interchange. I love plumbers. I love plumbers. They're wonderful, cuddly people.
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And he's a lovely Mandycam. I love Andycam, lovely people. I
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couldn't possibly offer any comment that would be in the negative of plumbers and their
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abilities and the extent and limitation of what they do with wires and things.
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I think plumbers and electricians are going to get a lot closer in the years
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to come with electric heating. Yeah, and you can We love you.
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Yeah that hero. Okay, let's talk more about training and other aspects of
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the Home of the Future. Next, here's the Strokes Hard to explain the
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Electrical Show on fixed Radio. This is the Electrical Show with Bosh Professional and
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Thomas Najie with Paul Meaning here and we're looking at the future of the domestic
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home and what we think it may possibly look like now, Paul, cosmetic
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features in a home, because that's saying that's going to be. You know,
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when you buy a new home, you get a little like we can
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when you buy a k you get an options list of extra bits and pizzas
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that you want. What do we think cosmetic or sort of ascetic features are
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going to become widely requested? Is it weird to say that? I get
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really excited when you get the shelf around the sockets so you can put your
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phone in. It's child you have that you're living ill. Yes, to
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this day excites me everywhere though well no, it's because only certain manufacturers do
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them. But for me it's the little things. But nowadays cosmetic I mean,
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everybody likes their home. You go and live out in Essex and go
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to someone the houses I've been to, everybody likes the undercovered lighting, the
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led strips, the discrete stuff put into the staircases. I think discrete lighting
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is something that really aids homes, not just their energy consumption, but the
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safety of it as well. Because we're in this world now where I mean,
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I didn't know what this was six months ago, but in my job
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we have to now consider like disabled or person's reduced mobility. But also this
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this new term I've learned called neurodiverse, and that's for people where they may
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have something like Turetts or autism or ADHD or dyslexia or epilepsy, and you're
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designing more sympathetic furniture, homes, buildings to allow them to feel more included.
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That's the way the world's going, folks. And there's there's some quite
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good stuff that trades the doing already out there, we just probably don't link
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it to it actually being of a benefit. So maybe mister producer, we
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can get someone into chat about that in the future. But for me,
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yeah, esthetic stuff as trouble as I can't say out loud, I'm okay,
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this is fi creato, this is an open this is open I'm not
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I don't like all the tarti stuff that people put in their houses are like
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fitting functional to want to show you maybe I'm of that age, but yeah,
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yeah, low level lighting is about as exciting as I want to get.
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You can get lights around dimmers, you can get all sorts of voice
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command now programmed I just don't. I couldn't bring myself to spend the money.
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That sounds really tight, doesn't it. I couldn't bring myself to spend
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the money. People love the complexity of it, but then again, we're
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really rich apparently, So yea, that's next week's show talking about the irony
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of that. Attrition is always rich Apparently we disagree, but yeah, strongly.
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How about training? Training wise? What a spark is going to be
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looking at training wise to get the most out of everything we've talked about.
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I think I've said this in previous shows, battery storage, training storage TV
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you're not going to avoid and solar, But for me, battery storage is
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number one, EV's number two and solar and more importantly as well, we've
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got a corregendum coming out to the REGG soon, so every three years.
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I know it's not mandated, but I don't know if you've noticed in the
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training industry now. So I've just recently got my battery storage certificate. It
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lasts five years. So qualifications now are kind of falling in line with the
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gas safe stuff. Every five years you've got to go and requalify, retrain,
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and I can see that happening in ten, fifteen years. Anyone walks
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in this industry every five years, you're going to have to retrain, which
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makes sense too complex, it really is. We're not just electricians do wise
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anymore. You've got to be a software engineer, hardware engineer. You've got
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to be sympathetic, architect, carpenter, plumber, you've got to know everything.
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All right, Well, look we're almost out of time, so let's
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wrap this up after some more music, fix radio. That is it for
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today's electrical show. People. We have looked at the future of the home
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and the domestic end of the market in our trade now a bit of a
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curveball here. The aspects of the home that we think paul are going to
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become obsolete in the coming years. What do we think it's going to become
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obsolete? Talking about everything that's going to be going in, but what about
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what's going out of fashion? I think people need to be aware of what
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obsolescence is, and that is basically a life cycle that stuff are designed for.
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I think people need to be wary when you're investing in solar that you
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need to ask what the life cycle of the panels is? Is it ten
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or fifteen years? Never mind the warranty because you need to be able to
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forecast that this is going to look disgusting, potentially catch fire or fall off
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of your house battery storage. We need to know the life cycle are that
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of all of understanding the life cycle of something is obsolescence. So if you've
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you've got loads of money, no problem whatsoever. But there's a safety aspect
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to all this technology. And the one thing that never became obsolete was a
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three pin plug or a socket outlet. Still a best switch, still one
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of the best designs on the globe. They've lasted for decades, So you
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do ask yourself. There is a bigger divide that's going to happen over the
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generation. So I'm all for the new tech if people want it, but
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there's gonna be a bigger divide of people who just can't afford it, who
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need fit and functional and safe, and then those people who have, and
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those people who have need to really understand about OB's lessons, but those who
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have probably won't care. It's a good way of looking and never thought about
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like that. Yeah, there's going to be a very real divide I thing
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between simple and it will be the hormone and the electricians. Maybe we'll be
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the richest trade after all. You know, you never know, all right,
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what about technologies that are a long way off? Because I remember there
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was a podcast you did talking about data, wasn't it. Oh yes,
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okay, it's not that. It's not that unrealistic when you think. Sorry,
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just to bring everybody up to speed, there was a theory. I
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got one. You explained that there was a theory that everything will be in
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overeating it. Yeah, Lee, me and me and a few friends of
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mine's on youtubes are really boring, but we talked about the future of the
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fuse board and it's now being discussed by manufacturers. So what we were saying
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was you're going to end up with the DC home. Some people call it
16:08
a DC home, but basically what you'll end up having with battery storage,
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solo EV and all this. You'll be able to take the DC in your
16:15
house, distribute it via power over efinite Act five or a CAT six And
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if you look at TV's now, in theory, you could run one CAT
16:22
six to a television power it and do all the data transmission over one cable.
16:26
Now you'll end up with potentially an AC and a DC board in a
16:32
house and realistically, can I see that being a possibility? Yeah, which
16:36
makes sense to guess you've got an electric car, you plug it in at
16:38
home and then that's DC already slow transformation as to take place. DC and
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batteries are not new. They were in the home. They were in homes
16:47
in the late eighteenth century, if you actually do your research, which I
16:49
do, is really sad, but battery storage was in homes in the late
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it was before the National grid that they had generators on homes. They had
16:56
battery storage at home. They were terrible, very INFFICI only for the super
17:00
rich. But we are kind of weirdly going back that way, which is
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why I can see most of this tech going into the the the haves and
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the have nots. Okay, any closing thoughts on the home of the future.
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Um, it's gonna have a lifespan of about five years. It's got
17:15
phenomenal potential as a trade to go and learn it and earn very good money
17:19
for you and your clients. Like most tradesmen, what's the worst place that
17:23
we work on our own homes? So my house is socket switches and it
17:29
probably never gets smart. It may get solar. I've got ev now,
17:33
because you know modern man, I don't have any v car, but you've
17:36
got the pod. They're ready for it. I've got the pod, They're
17:37
ready for it. But yeah, it's I yeah, and there's lots of
17:44
opportunity for work. But whether or not you do it at home for me
17:48
to anysh of you, we can't avoid this tech. We've got to learn
17:49
it otherwise in the next ten years, I think it's going to be it's
17:53
a massive journey for well, when you think of every trade, I think
17:59
electricians have got the most work cut out in the next ten years. If
18:02
you if you don't keep learning, you are you calling electrician or sparks.
18:07
We can discuss that in another one as well well. I think the overriding
18:10
theme here is you're going to fall behind if you don't keep up with this
18:12
stuff. It's going to really little bite electricians in the ark because there's so
18:17
much stuff happening and it's okay. So it makes you uncomfortable, makes me
18:19
uncomfortable. I hate learning all this. Some people think I'm some sort of
18:22
genius. I just have to learn it because I feel naked without knowing this
18:26
new technology and how to help other people learn it. But yeah, it's
18:30
coming and it's going to keep coming. That's it for today's show. Next
18:33
week we will ask what the perception is of us as electricians on site and
18:37
in constructions. Apparently we never clean up, which I mean there is actually
18:41
a vein of truth in that. To be fair. We will talk about
18:44
some of the common misconceptions and the cliches that get thrown to us and what
18:48
the true reality on site with electricians is really like. You can also download
18:53
the podcast don't forget and do subscribe by the way, it's very important to
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get all the new ones as they out. Have a great weekend. You're
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listening to Fix Radio at the Builder's Station, The Electrical Show with Thomas Nagie
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