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Thomas Nagy and Paul Meenan discuss eco-friendly opportunities · The Electrical Show

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The Electrical Show with Thomas Najie sponsored by bosh Professional Powerful power tools for measuring
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tools and experts accessories. Welcome to the Electrical Show here on fixed Radio with
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Bosch Professional. I am Thomas Najie and with me in the studio once again
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is Paul meaning a great servant and oracle of knowledge in our industry. Paul,
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Welcome back to the show once again. And on today's shur I should
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probably say you can say thank you at that point I spoke over you there.
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I'm slightly stunned you called me oracle, But hello, the oracle of
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knowledge, bask in your knowledge. On today's show, we're going to be
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talking about being more eco focused as an electrical contractor and the opportunities within the
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marketplace fort Green Improvements. Now, this comes after a recent survey found FYI
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that electricians are apparently the most eco focused tradespeople, with nine and ten of
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us making changes to our business to be more environmentally friendly. And with that,
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half of the homeowners said that they would be looking to make their homes
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greener and more energy efficient, which is actually a massive amount. So we've
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got a lot to talk about and we're going to be asking what that means
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for us and the future of our trade. Fixed radio time to crack on.
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This is the Electrical Show. I'm Thomas Najie with Paul Meenan from the
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E five Group, and if you just tuned in, don't worry. We
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are just getting started. We're talking about becoming more eco friendly, both in
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how we operate and what we can essentially offer to our customers. So now
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to study here, I'm just going off a little bit of paper here.
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Study here from Rated People found that half of all homeowners they surveyed are looking
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to make their homes more energy efficient this year, which is understandable. Cash
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is short, so people are trying to make their pounds stretch further. So
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how can we capitalize from this is the question. I'm going to throw a
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spanner in the works. Let's go back ten years. By the way,
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there's two sides of this coin, so there's absolutely business savings and obviously install
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savings. But we are as an industry kind of just naturally gravitating that way.
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I always say to people, hands up, you know ten years ago,
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how many people went, Yeah, I'm going to take the plunge and
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go with LED bulbs because it will reduce my electricity bills and save me money,
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and everybody generally goes, yep, yeah, I've been doing it for
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years. Right fast forward to the recent energy crisis, every single saving we
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made is gone. So the business case for green technology has been absolutely sabotaged
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by the greed of the electricity costs that we are incurnating in this country in
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the last two to three years. So green absolutely every electrician is doing it
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on cruise control, but it's becoming a harder cell also. I mean the
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other thing, or like I do get the feeling that in the last couple
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of years, the quality when you go to just an everyday hardware store or
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something and you go and buy an LED light, there's a massive misconception with
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customers, like you go and fit LEDM. They seem to have this preconception
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that's going to last like ten years, and I might love, he're gonna
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last two years or you're on about because you actually look at some of the
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old halogen stuff or not even haligen thrice and stuff, but it lasted for
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years. It was just better built. And you go tell any hardware store
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obviously can't say the brand names, but I mean some of the more budget
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brands out there, they just don't last. And you just think that the
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whole production cost of doing that and then fitting it and then taking it out
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at the end, and it just gets thrown in the bin anyway, and
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you wonder how environmentally friendly is that. Actually, we're going off pissed here.
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Sorry. In the world where cost is king, people demand cheaper products,
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and if they demand a cheaper product, they're going to get a cheaper
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life cycle, which creates a more throwaway society. So in the endeavor to
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be green, we're actually consuming more materials from being less green. That's the
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truth of it, Isn't it really time that nobody really People will say,
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oh, that's wrong, that's wrong, that's terrible, but actually it's the
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raw truth of it, without doubt, Yeah doubt. I've seen it before
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on major industrial projects, and also in my own home, the cost of
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living crisis. I've got led and energy efficiency everywhere I can, a rated
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plus on every single thing in my house, but the cost of living has
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still driven up my energy bills to an biblically irresponsible level. And we wonder
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why people are struggling. What about the customer itself? So let's say,
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what can we upsell to the customer once we're in the door. What can
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we up so what can we do in contributors made their homes more energy efficient
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because most people now I've got led lighting, They've got all that sort of
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stuff. I think it starts with us. So one of the newer things
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that I think the industry is starting to talk about is looking at power quality.
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Because years ago we had a supply cable into a house and we had
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lots of resistive loads, big resistive bulbs, and it worked fine. Now
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we've got all these electronics. I did a load assessment on my house and
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I've got a one hundred amps supply and at maximum over a four week moniting
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period, I pulled twelve amps. As mad isn't at twelve amps. And
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I've got an electric cooker, an electric shower. But the maxim I ever
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pulled was twelve amps. So we are using absolute minimal amounts of energy compared
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we you know, we wire a radial socket out at sixteen twenty am radial,
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are we actually using most of that? No? So the way we
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think about even designing circuits and loading and efficiencies needs to change. But one
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of the quick wins I think is electricians in their endeavors to level up and
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learn more. If we offered as a service load assessments or power quality assessments,
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we could visually teach our customers here is how you make real savings with
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the work that I could do for you. That, for me, is
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one of the first steps. Well about to say, let's go to the
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next link. But actually, if you imagine if every electrician when they were
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rewiring a house just fitted a radial to the bedroom upstairs and a radial to
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the living room, can you imagine how much copper that would say, rather
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than fitting a ring bizarre, we actually think how much if every single home.
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Yeah, and the demand for copper is going up and lists about the
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prices ain't going down. But there's a lot of people actieve I've got photo
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appen ringing up in the bedroom. Why there's no need? Well there was
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years ago, but now years ago absolutely isn't. We use virtually nothing.
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The biggest load in my house is actually in my living room. What's that
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TV, TV, Apple TV Okay Wi Fi Internet hub. My fridge uses
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less than that. As bizarre saying next, let's talk about the ways electricians
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can benefit from being more environmentally friendly. The Electrical Show on Fixed Radio.
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I'm Thomas Najie on The Electrical Show with Paul Meaning, and we're talking about
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being more eco focused as an electrician. We were just talking about what we
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can offer clients, how how we can be more environmentally friendly, what we
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can offer people to be more environmentally friendly, more eco conscious. And actually
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one thing I just forgot to mention actually just fit better quality gear because it
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helps fit. You know, so many people just fit this junk edi ed
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stuff and literally like nine twelve months later it comes out and it's just no
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environmental there's just nothing that is completely uncost effective. So that's probably the biggest
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tip I can think of. But yeah, cheap by twice. Literally.
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A recent survey found that electricians are the most eco focused trades people here in
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the UK. I suppose the big question is why do you think we've come
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out on top, because I'm not sure because the biggest eco impact on the
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planet is energy consumption. In every single way part of life, energy consumption
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and the digital progression and technology and everything that we do in society relies on
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energy. There's the thing electricians is the most, in my opinion, the
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most stable job you can ever have. I'd agree, will never ever be
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out of work if you're good and you're constantly upskilling the technology, the changes
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the drives politically technology. You never stopped learning, so you're never going to
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be out of work. Well, just see what you think of these because
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this survey from Rated People said that half of all trades people survey they said
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that they would take on more local jobs to cut down on travel time makes
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sense. Four and ten will start giving quotes remotely to reduce time spell on
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the road makes good sense. Sixteen percent said they would use secondhand parts where
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possible, thirteen percent said they would aim to be more green by using electric
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valance questionable, and ninety nine point nine nine five of them surveyed said that
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Paul's freshly shaven cheeks look like George Clooney's bottom. I'm entitled to agree.
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I think he looks like me, very fresh and young. You look today.
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We need to get that faces the one yearly shave. Yeah, So
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what from these tips is good business practice? Quoting remotely I think definitely is
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worthwhile. No, no, god, no, I wouldn't recommend. That's
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like doing. That's like the visually impaired leading the partially cited. That's like,
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please please rewind my home. Yeah, sure, three and a half
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grand. You walk in, you go, oh, this is a seven
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or eight ground Okay. I mean I'm talking about stuff that you would just
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you by the hour. So like if Betty Jones, yeah yeah, yeah,
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yeah, just quote the matter. So we just quote this by the
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hour if you want to take our services. A lot of sparking is traveling
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from home to the place of work. You can't just sit in your house
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and mystically go cables, reveal yourself and install. It's a very manual,
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intense job. Pricing, yes, but hey, there's a hell of a
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risk game in pricing remotely. I think we're a one trade unfortunate. You're
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not going to get off the roads. If people want their technology and they're
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rewiring and everything else fancy that they want, we're gonna have to get out
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there and stay out of here to make sure we're pricing it right, in
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stalling it right, testing it right, and then replacing it when they want
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us to. Well, it's obviously a beef with contractors because half of them
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said they'll take on local jobs just to cut down and travel time. I'm
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guessing was just going to the producer. Was there was there a geographical area
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that this rated people thing was surveyed or I think it's just across the UK.
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Yeah, okay, if it was London, I totally agree with that.
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Burquet. Across the UK they analyzed the million jobs or something like that.
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Yeah. The trouble is you go where the money is. You turn
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around electricians. Fair enough, don't worry about that. Don't go there.
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I'll turn down one hundred grand job. Why when it's outside my postcode?
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Yeah, all right, fair enough, all right. Sixteen percent they'd use
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said they'd use secondhand parts. I think we're all gil we had honesty.
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I may have, let's be but no electrician doesn't have a load of old
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sockets and life that let me think, Yeah, that'll do. I always
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say they're on a four o'clock. Yeah, I've taken a second hand socket,
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chipped off a bit of plaster with us downard knife and put it back
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on. We've all been there. Okay, we'd be lying if we didn't
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admit that. Thirteen percent, that was the interesting bit said they wanted more
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green by using electric vehicle. Actually, go back to our show from last
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week, thirteen percent not as far as I have thought. No, because
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if you are using EV, you need to have a meticulously loaded van because
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which is going to be heavy, which is going to reduce your range exactly
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reduced you. I don't I can't get this. We carry gear that's van
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vaults. The amount of stuff that you put putting a van down to make
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it unbreakable, unpenetrable. You've got all your gear in all the all shelved
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and racked out. The EV argument for tradesmen, it just doesn't stack up
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with a range that you get out of it. I can't go to Essex
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and back on the EV, which is the only reason that because we had
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we had electric van, little can do fantastic little van, but couldn't use
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it anywhere in Essex. Could go to Fenchurch Street, that was as far
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as we can go. I'd turn around and come back. So it's the
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argument. I don't know, we'll talk about that in another show. But
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we did actually look at I was at a trade show where we looked at
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an electric van. It was and it had like a ninety mile range.
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That's a problem married its own weight, and you're like, yeah right,
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mate, Now look at the cost of the unit killer what units? Yeah
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right, we're pricing ourselves out of efficiency. That's the problem. Coming up
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next, let's talk about what we should watch out for when adopting eco friendly
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practices. Fixed radio, you're listening to the Electrical Show. I'm Thomas Najie
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with Paul Menan, and we have been talking about eco friendly solutions for not
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only running your business, but also what essentially you can offer your customer because
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after a study you found that half of all homeowners say that they're looking at
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making their homes more energy efficient, which is actually it's a it's a massive
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number. So there is a market there to make money. So I guess
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the big question is, Paul, what should sparks look look into training wise?
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What should sparks be looking for training wise? It's interesting if you look
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at the magic three, the ev PV or battery storage. I've done all
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the qualifications now and for me, if if somebody said to me what should
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I get into what would make me better, I'd actually go for the battery
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storage because battery storage for me. I did my course about seven or eight
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months ago and it blew my brain in a way that so it's a bit
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of an untapped area still, isn't it. But the efficiencies in the home,
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and you imagine even if you don't have solo PV or an EV and
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you don't want to go down that road having a say no five point two
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killer, what battery sat in your house. The efficiency of the power consumption
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your home goes through the room, so your bills go down, the payback
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on them. It's actually quite an exciting thing. So yeah, battery Storage
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LCL will like the organization that do the training, and you've got obviously MCS
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as well accredited installers. So for me, if I'm recommending training, now
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it's go and get yourself battery storage accredited. Without a doubt, it's an
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exciting technology. Well, it does go on to my next question about how
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much of the focus should be on offering energy efficient solutions as a domestic contractor,
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because there's a definite amount of upskilling. Because if you stay as just
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a sort of a general my sort of warriors, if you just stay as
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a sort of a general everyday electrician, you'll just get lost in this plethora
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of other stuff. You've also got there's almost that you've got to upskill and
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you've got to find a niche that you want to get into. The trouble
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is, we are creating a new form of divide in the industry because you
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are right. The general day to day sparks you can wire ring, wire
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ring, radio change aboard do is bonding. They will always have work till
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the day day retire. But there is an ever growing knee demand and almost
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pressure now on society and commercial and industrial to go with green technology. So
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those who are retraining and relearning are well aheaded a curve, earning more as
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you learn more. But the sparks who just do the day to day stuff,
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you could find that there almost becomes another siloed race to the bottom with
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them with just underpricing underprice. They don't have the skills or qualifications and it's
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been perfect. Frank, if you haven't got the qualifications, you can't say
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you're competent in it part competence. You're listening to fixed radio The Builders Station,
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The Electrical Show with Thomas Nagie on fixed Radio The Builders Station, I
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am Thomas Nagie bringing another electrical show with Boss Professional to a close today where
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we have been talking about being more environmentally focused in how we operate and what
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we can offer the end consumer. Now are going back to this rated people
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survey. Demand for I thought it's a really interesting demand for an at home
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electric car charger is up, but it's staggering two thousand, four hundred and
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six percent. What is your thoughts, Paul, and how we can capitalize
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from that? That is a massive I mean, I'm guessing that's going to
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include new homes. Yeah, well, parts of the building ranks is forcing
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new homes. Every single new vehicles audis cookie cutter homes have all got a
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pod at the end of March, a forty four hundred and ninety six public
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EV charge points. That doesn't take into account the ever increasing domestic I know
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the government are doing more audits now on the commercial industrial side. It's going
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to grow. They are going to grow. I'm going to have one of
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my house at some point, I won't have an electric vehicle, but I'll
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have the facility to charge. Because I think EV isn't going to go away.
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It's not going anywhere, but I guarantee you in forty fifty years will
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be ditching EV for something else, something else, Yeah, for sure.
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I mean for sure that is about commercialization and control of EV minerals and technology
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in general. Really, what about the demographic that we should target. But
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this, in this sort of marketplace for green solutions, what sort of demograph
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you need to be careful because obviously those who have will You can offer them
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the world and they'll take it. Smart homes, battery EV, they'll be
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able to go off grid and they can afford it and great, and there's
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a lot of money to be made. Those who are suffering it's social housing
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and all the rest of it. It's a whole different world. Even if
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they own their own home, it's paid for, but they're not doing well
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financially. For me, I would look at the best value of sparking offer
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is going in making sure the electrical installation is safe and then maybe looking as
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part of that EICR the power quality, the consumptions, the loading, so
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they can give him some target. If you're going to spend money, target
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it in a way where in the long term they will save money. I'd
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say that makes good sense. Without going off pissed any final thoughts on what
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we have discussed. It's a very difficult cell with the cost of living crisis.
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Now, as I said at the start, you know Led was a
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great money saver. Now all that savings were not quite as attractive at the
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moment. These cases are blown out the water with the cost of living crisis,
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and that makes the move to sustainability even harder because of the greed of
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energy companies. I'll be interested to see long term how this pans out,
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because the cost I mean, costs any ever go one way, they don't
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really ever come back down again. No, I know that's scary. It
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does make you want to pound for pound whether I don't know things things like
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EVY, is actually that cost effect. I don't know. Energy prices keep
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going up. This country is going to have a far bigger problem than going
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to work every day. That's it. You can hear today's shut I don't
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know how else to end that, because you said, that's so perfect.
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That was a perfect way to sign that. It's a perfect way to sign
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it off. This show and all of the previous ones for that fact,
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are available as podcasts, and you can get those from wherever it is that
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you download your podcasts from online. Now make sure obviously that you subscribe and
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leave a review as well because it does make a difference pretty bit to please
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fix righty A