Joe Nelson on Retrofit, Social Impact and Opportunities for UK Surveyors

Speaker: 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 Surveyors 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. Today I’m pleased to be joined by Joe Nelson. Joe works in the Retrofit space and brings a perspective that connects industry standards, social value, and lived impact. Jo, welcome to the show. Before we dive into Retrofit, could you tell us a bit about your background and your story? So our listeners have some context for today’s conversation.

Speaker 1: 00:57
Absolutely. So I’m a chartered architectural technologist and a chartered building engineer. I’m working in that set in the retrofit space, primarily as a retrofit designer and as a retrofit coordinator for my SINS. This is across the Northwest and nationally.

Speaker: 01:14
Right, okay. So how long have you been doing that for? Is that been like your whole career or?

Speaker 1: 01:20
It’s been the last sort of maybe five years with government grants. However, I’ve been in the construction industry going on 10 years now. Before getting involved in sort of energy efficiency grant work, I was working primarily as an entrepreneur and with private industry in sort of regeneration and purchase to remodel type sort of systems.

Speaker: 01:43
Okay. So what I like to do is obviously you’ve got a lot of experience as we’ve had discussions before in the retrofit space. I’d be interested to hear your perspectives on retrofit, which is, you know, everywhere you hear, there’s a lot of talk about it, there’s a lot of discussion, there’s a lot of activity out there, and it’s a growing area and it’s got increasing challenges and opportunities. So I’d like to hear your perspectives on retrofit where we are now out there in the space.

Speaker 1: 02:14
Yeah, it’s quite an interesting time as a relatively new industry, or I should say a new part of the construction industry, because it’s almost being formalized currently in the sense that they’ve grown created excitement around the industry and grown the industry from a sort of grassroots sort of movement into a large scale, you know, of um national providers, multi-billion pound companies getting involved in retrofits, which is great. Um it does bring challenges having transitioned the industry from a small scale to large scale. Um there’s always gonna be a skills shortage and a need to pull people into the industry, which provides training opportunities, of course, and also employment opportunities, um, in and in the same way as I’m sure lots of people when they hear retrofit, um, the first thing they’re gonna think is um some of the things in the news, some of the some of the bad news rather than the good news. So there has been some of those, obviously, of course, as any industry becomes more formalised. Um we’ve seen Eco 4 and GBI’s uh schemes, particularly in the news recently, with um external wall insulation failures. And I’ve been involved in terms of I was asked to go and investigate and look into these failures, um, mainly in Birmingham, which was and this was uh sort of early this year. Um it was an interesting experience because it was both reassuring um and also alarming in the sense that reassuring that the uh individual or companies involved weren’t the traditional uh retrofit companies as you as you tend to see them. Um they were I almost described the industry as a mixture of uh missionaries and mercenaries, and these were the sort of mercenaries at work. So they had uh set up relatively um small companies quickly, uh jumped through as many jobs as they could, installed as much as they could, um, without proper designs and without essentially doing the work properly, leading to a significant numbers of defects and problems. They were being struck off by Trustmark, the oversight body. However, the phoenixing of the company through um multiple people getting the retrofit coordinator qualifications and then starting a new company as quickly as they’re being struck off has led to a delayed reaction in the industry’s ability to actually get hold of that, which is why you’ve seen 30,000 uh units that have supposedly failed. I would say on that, having done the inspections myself, that the rate of failure is high because the failure encompasses everything. So if there’s a single piece of paperwork missing, that’s a failure. Oh right. When you create a pack for PAS 2035, even on the previous 2019 standard, I’d still describe them as being maybe two to three times the size of a regular plan application. Um, in terms of the detail, you know, your ventilation strategy has to be down to the the the flow rates litres per second, you have to take care of every thermal bridge on top of normal construction details, you might have to provide um IPO6 uh calculations for those junctions to prove that they actually work on a on a sort of thermal performance level. So it is quite involved, so the numbers of failures is not something that necessarily in of itself is is an issue, um, because a lot of them will be small failures. However, I did also visit a lot of properties where the failures were just quite obvious failures, um, failures in in construction and workmanship. The sort of things were it clearly lacked a design, it clearly lacked a company that had the vested interests of the end user in mind, or indeed the the funding bodies, because you know you’re sort of thinking the the taxpayer is ultimately paying for these, and it’s it’s not good value for money.

Speaker: 06:01
Okay, that’s okay, so the taxpayer and and and the end user, what are the impacts that you’re seeing around the social impacts of retrofit at the moment?

Speaker 1: 06:12
Yeah, so in terms of the cases that have gone awry, it’s been specifically communities that were generally targeted with first generation immigrants, unfortunately. We think this has been done because those those individuals are less likely to uh be able to access uh immediate help and and sort of access the auditors and know the sort of formal process to get involved with the likes of Trustmark to intervene early. Um, so we have seen that it’s generally within communities sort of almost predatory behaviour. So obviously that’s created a lot of distrust in those communities of governance and retrofit in general. And obviously the the buildings themselves are naturally over time going to have issues with things like material decay having been accelerated and you know mould being worsened rather than treated. Um, you know, those are the sort of the issues that will inevitably have health consequences for the residents involved. Um you know, you have relatively high density living, you have older properties, and some of the examples of things I saw were I wouldn’t say as go to as far as far as criminal, however, they were borderline in the sense that the conversations that were had with residents who made complaints were um at the very least non-professional, and the workmanship is definitely non-professional. And then you could also argue that because it’s grant funding and you’re drawing down that grant funding based on the job being done properly, there is an element of fraud. And that’s obviously alarming.

Speaker: 07:38
In your view, has that just got worse and worse and worse, or is it getting better?

Speaker 1: 07:43
It’s definitely getting better. So these are the outliers in of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of properties that have been retrofitted, these up to 30,000 properties that have been done incorrectly, again, of which you know, actual what we would describe as sort of large construction sort of type failures, though they’re going to be a small number, um, a fraction of a small percentage of the overall uh works done, and they’re specifically done by a small number of bad actors. Um, so the industry as a whole, if you took it as um numbers of installers who are performing their work diligently and respond to um requests for improvements, that’s all in hand. PAS 2035-2023, a new standard has been released this year, which has moved the designs into the hands of only chartered individuals.

Speaker: 08:31
It’s requiring um so that’s like chartered surveyors, presumably.

Speaker 1: 08:36
Chartered surveyors, um, chartered architectural technologists, um chartered members of CIOB. So it it really puts the onus on that sort of golden thread of responsibility um to make sure that someone’s going to be held accountable. And on that on that sort of thinking, they’ve also now got site visits as mandatory for the high-risk measures, probably or always should have been. Um, but at least now they can say, well, there’s no deniability in that. Because most retrofit companies do this in some capacity, have their own QS, or if they’re working with someone, there’ll be some sort of oversight. However, there was an ability to deny individual responsibility between the sort of bad actors, they could each blame the surveyor could be blamed, the coordinator could be blamed, the installation surveyor. And instead, by saying, Well, the retrofit coordinator goes to site and has the final sign-off, that means that you can sort of get draw down the responsibility.

Speaker: 09:28
Right. So there’s that accountability. Is it like so the retrofit coordinator now has the full start to finish and they then have to sign that off at the end?

Speaker 1: 09:37
Yes, I mean they might not be qualified to the design, um, and the assessor would go to the initial assessment, who’d be obviously a surveyor of some description, a retrofit assessor. Um but yes, they’re taking overall responsibility from the trust mark side of things, and the license can be revoked and they can be struck off. Um, obviously, chartered individuals doing their designs should be doing to the standards of the um their organization as well as you know industry regulations. So there’s everyone in the in the involved in the project has something to lose, um, which is you know a move in the right direction for that accountability because with that sort of that background of missionaries and mercenaries, you have a sort of um an effect that some people will go above and beyond and really be doing excellent work. And I can highlight examples and um I’d love to bring them in and go through them, um, GDPR allowing those examples. You have got obviously, you know, people will always turn up in any industry. People will turn up and they’ll want to get as much money out as possible.

Speaker: 10:32
Of course, we see this a lot, don’t we, across all sorts of elements, areas in the in the built environment.

Speaker 1: 10:37
Yeah, I mean every industry in the UK has the same issue. I think the the problem’s been the checks and balances haven’t been right. Um, and that’s something that, again, as a as a relatively small um part of the construction industry that’s growing, that formalisation of those checks and balances is something that’s evolving rapidly now. It can be probably accused of not being diligent enough, you know, beforehand. Um, I think it’s getting towards the right place now. For me.

Speaker: 11:02
Okay, so what what sorry to interrupt you there, Jeb, but what kind of things are coming into place in your view that are going to help raise standards across retrofit?

Speaker 1: 11:10
Yeah, so there’s a number of changes in PAS 2035. Um I’m just thinking of it chronologically within the order of how they’d appear. So after the retrofit assessor’s been, you’ve got the installation surveyor would go and to sort of check if the measure can be installed properly. Those reports are now going to a third party for verification. So that’s one thing that’s coming that’s that’s new. The chartered individual preparing the design, that’s a new aspect for not just high-risk measures, but most of the jobs now require that. The retro coordinated site visits, as mentioned, those those who you know provide accountability. And essentially just the standards just become more wide-ranging to encompass lots of uh um aspects that weren’t being picked up in terms of the evidence collection, is now more thorough. The you know, time-stamped photos for every install, every every junction of every install where the fabrics meet. You don’t just need to do it well and say you’ve done it well. You know, in the UK we get to sign up our own works in gas and electrics currently. Um, however, in the retrofit industry, you almost throw your head in a way because everything now has to be signed off by a third party. So almost you can see like the future of a Britain’s construction industry in that way. Um, and so you can see that that’s in the pipeline. You’ve got BS 40104, which is the standard for um the new standard for retrofit surveying, um, still under consultation. Um, however, that will be the new golden standard that retrofit assessors will need to work to. And to going on about retrofit assessors, obviously, this is where it’s important to the members of uh Surveyors UK. This is an industry where a domestic energy assessor and retrofit assessment qualifications are relatively easy to come by, um, but they’re very difficult to master, and and thus you have this sort of industry where you get the title relatively early on.

Speaker: 12:53
So, how easy are they? You know, you talk about these qualifications, just in brief, like how long do they take?

Speaker 1: 12:58
Yes, so domestic energy assessor, you could do your classroom aspect in maybe a week or two, um, but then coursework last in a few months. Retrofit assessor is even shorter. Traditional level three buildings that you’d need to do, any historic buildings with your retrofit assessments, you know, it’s a couple of days in a course. So when we talk about the industry as a whole, what the standards are at and where we can improve, um, obviously it would be great to have surveyors from the the regular traditional industry now picking up retrofit work. Um and I’ve always advocated.

Speaker: 13:31
So is there any exclusion? So is there anything that makes sure that only you you mentioned earlier about chartered professionals only? Is does that mean, therefore, then we’re then going to have that improvement in the retrofit assessors because of that? Because then we’ve got people with that experience or knowledge of buildings, etc.

Speaker 1: 13:49
That applies to the designers, but not the assessors so far. Okay, right. So the assessors market is still something of a wild west in the sense that you could pick up the sort of you’re going trust mark and you could find a retrofit assessor in an area, and you don’t know whether that person has been qualified for, you know, they qualified yesterday, or whether they qualified 10 years ago and they are a well-experienced individual who knows exactly what they’re doing. And that’s something that needs improving. And I’m glad to say uh one of the obviously major organizations for surveying um bricks has now taken a real active or proactive interest in that and is now sort of called for expressions of interest into a new ASOC RICS potential pathway. Um retrofit residential stage.

Speaker: 14:33
So a new retrofit pathway, yeah, exactly. Okay, yeah, and that’ll be what what stage is that now? What what what stage are we at now with that?

Speaker 1: 14:40
Yes, that’s that’s really early doors. We’re sort of looking at the pilot scheme. There’s another version of the the RICS um pathway for uh chartered status, which will be for a sustainability advisor. Um, I’m looking into that pathway myself. That that pilot’s only going to be, I think, 30 people, so really small numbers and really early doors with that. However, when you look at where RICS have moved from in say the last year was October 2024 when RICS released the retrofit standard. So you look at that and then you see the movement. For a large organization like RICS, that’s that’s pretty rapid movement, and we sort of could expect a real pathway open to retrofit assessors within perhaps maybe a year or two. And that for me is really exciting because that’s going to open the door for retrofit assessors to become more formalized. It’ll allow people to have an oversight as to whether, if you look at the core competencies on the RIPS website as to what a retrofit assessor, residential retrofit assessor would need. It goes a lot further than obviously the DEARA training and takes that assessor into a sort of you know a golden standard of assessor, someone who you need to have at the level to be compliant with BS40104. So you can see these things aligning now. You’ll have potential a RICS retrofit assessor who is someone that you know you can rely on, and then you’ll have other assessors who potentially they’re building their sort of career towards that, and they’re they’re now gonna go and get sort of more um CPD and sort of you know building knowledge and and courses done. So it’s it’s aspirational for a lot of people, um, hopefully not just seen as another way to sort of slow the industry down or another hurdle to jump. Hopefully, it’ll be interpreted in that aspirational way. And when you become a member of RICS, obviously you’ll or associate of RICS, you will get access to courses and CPD to further the development. So that’s the other exciting part is they’ll have that ability to interact with other experts. Um, and likewise, obviously, with Surveyors uh UK, there’s there’s opportunities for people to mix with the traditional sort of surveyor out there for the retrofit market, which is sort of the ugly duckling and it’s been slightly on its own. You know, our our surveyors need to now mix as much as possible with the sort of um the the likes of the Surveyor UK members, the RICS members, um, and and and pick up on that.

Speaker: 16:58
Yeah, because that’s kind of the thing with the the surveying room, which is part of the Surveyors UK platform that we’re rolling out, is to facilitate the community side where we can bring in all these areas, such as retrofit, because it’s not just going to be open to surveyors, so retrofit professionals. So then you can actually share these debates and these discussions, and it facilitates that in a in a private space, and it’s a way that then can also help connect up the profession, like you say, with uh which could make me laugh, the ugly duckling. Retrofit. I’m sure you’re not an ugly duckling, Joe. I don’t think you are. We might have this one. So that sounds like it sounds like there’s opportunities then for surveyors.

Speaker 1: 17:42
Oh, there’s a massive opportunities, first and foremost. If if you can recognise that there’s um potentially 200,000 people required in retrofit as an industry, and there’s a massive need to upskill the individuals involved because generally your average retrofit professional is probably someone who’s come into the construction industry from somewhere else, um, doesn’t have a background in it, there’s a massive need to upskill. And if you’re a knowledgeable professional within the construction industry, there’s there’s essentially you know, potentially maybe 100,000 clients there who could who could be potential learners for you. So if you’re thinking potentially thinking about diversifying your your own income stream into learning, research, oversight, site visits, there’s endless possibilities there.

Speaker: 18:27
So what kind of you know, because I’m thinking about residential surveyors, for example. And you know, one of the things with residential is that there is that reliance on the market, the property market, and it can come in peaks and troughs, and they’re there quiet times, and you know, it’s always a good thing, I think, with any business to diversify and not put all your eggs in one basket. See, I’ve brought that back to the ugly ducklings. I’m I’m just thinking, kind of what kind of clients? So I’m I’m presuming sort of you know my limited knowledge, but I’m presuming this is not just this is not about homeowners necessarily. Who would they be working with? The residential surveyors.

Speaker 1: 19:07
Yeah, it’s it’s a real mix. So you’d probably be working for the installer in the first instance, unless you were asked specifically by you know the homeowner to be involved, potentially in a sort of mitigation circumstance or something that could be open in that regards, but it would generally be the trust mark registered installers who’d be looking for the capacity to do the surveys, and the actual sort of clients for the majority of the industry at the moment, it’s the social housing providers. Uh, the decarbonisation fund with those is is running at the moment in wave three. Um so there’s at least a few million social housing properties that need to be moved to EPCC before 2030. So that’s a lot of retrofit assessments, a lot of surveying. Um, in my experience, when I’ve looked at social housing, generally the most cost-effective way is to use an archetype approach because the properties are so similar. Generally, you’ll have properties that are on one housing estate all built in the same age, and then the housing association has done um works to the properties in sort of waves, so windows and doors replaced at the same time, boilers upgraded another time, roof was redone at you know at set dates for the whole area. So you have relatively similar properties where you can expect relatively similar issues. So when, as a designer or as a coordinator, we identify there’s there’s a particularly commonality in these archetypes on the on our project. A Rick surveyor, from in my mind, will be the best person to send for that first one, that first one through the door to make sure you capture every bit of information, every potential snag, repair, thermal bridge, these sorts of things were you want your best person on it essentially.

Speaker: 20:39
Because they really have to understand the construction, building pathology, all those areas, especially things like thermal bridging. Absolutely. And that it’s not just one thing, that it’s it’s like a whole ecosystem, isn’t it? Like a house. And all you know, you change one thing and has a knock-on effect to everything else.

Speaker 1: 20:57
Absolutely, and and that’s why we have to have those first ones through the door nailed down perfectly, and then cost effectively, you could then have retrofit assessors with the notes, obviously, from that archetype, then look at in a bespoke way, look at all the other properties on the on the estate or in the in the area that are similar, and that would give you that sort of insight as to what to expect on a on a more accurate cost basis as well for your quantity surveyor, and then gives your client more oversight. But in terms of your clients, you do also have landlords, um, you have private individuals who can access funding if they qualify for a again. Going back to Eco4 and the home upgrade grant hug. And now it’s on this iteration is going to be the Warmer Homes grant, which is an improved version of your local um your LAD funding, which is locally authority delivered retrofits. So essentially, your council is essentially you know providing the steering on those projects, and they’re working with set trusted installers who are based in region, so you have that real you know, accountability, and you’re a long term partner, not a sort of a short term in and out type client relationship.

Speaker: 22:00
Okay, so one of the things I I always hear a lot about is net zero. I mean, what are your thoughts on that? You know, the challenges, the real the the realism of it.

Speaker 1: 22:10
Yeah, so obviously working in the sort of net zero space. It it is something which you know it’s it’s it should be important to all of us. And and especially if you’re thinking in long term, the challenges are gonna come to us in one way or the other. Um, not to get too political, but if you think of, let’s say, if immigration is an issue for you, but you hate net zero, well, net zero is gonna disproportionately affect communities in um developing nations. That’s gonna have a chain effect of more people seeking you know migration opportunities into developed nations that have the funds to deal with their own consequences of uh climate change. So it’s you know, it’s a it’s a it’s a connected, it’s an interconnected world. You are gonna see the effects of this one way or the other. So, yes, net zero, I’ve I have a mix of you and I’m a people focused person. I’m probably less sympathetic because I’m still a taxpayer to things like carbon capture. Uh I’m sure there’ll be people screaming at the uh at the at the screen right now, but you know, when you think 22 billion on an individual scheme for carbon capture, I think it was in in Yorkshire this year, that seems like quite a lot of money when you think the the sort of retrofit industry is maybe six billion annually. Um, and if you make a dispassionate return on investment argument, this is almost the argument I would make if I was sat down with a reform councillor or um or just an economist, and it’d be a case of well, it’s six billion a year, which is a large outlay, obviously. Um, but two billion comes back immediately in taxes and revenue. You are going to save the NHS um about five billion a year, we think, um, just from the effects of having warm homes with uh improved internal air quality, because one of the biggest things everyone forgets about retrofit is that the standard includes being compliant with AWAB’s law, which is the issue that was with the mould that took a fortunately took a young person’s life in Rochdale. Um, and that’s something that in every retrofit that’s done, those properties are upgraded or should be upgraded to the standard that would make it not impossible but very difficult to have black mould, you know, continue on in that property. So you are thinking when you think about the customers as well that we’re dealing with, it’s massively disproportionately older people, it’s disproportionately vulnerable people or people with health issues, and it’s disproportionately people with um living in sort of a compact environment, so uh overoccupied in their property. So if you think even if you’d put an architect was putting together a plan application or construction uh drawing, generally you’ll have a note about extractor fans, and that wouldn’t be anywhere near enough in a in a PAS uh pack. You’d have to work out based on people, square area, based on number of bedrooms, you’d have to work out exactly what the highest requirement is in terms of the litres per second flow rates based on what system you’re putting in, and then make sure that the actual system is adjusted and set in a live way for the way that which the property is being occupied at the time of the retrofit.

Speaker: 25:06
Yeah, so I think that’s the thing, isn’t it? A lot of people talk about net zero, and like you say, like quite you know objective, an objective sort of measure, but then there’s all the societal impacts. Absolutely. Like the the diverse groups, minority groups, the health, the elderly. And do you think that’s talked about enough?

Speaker 1: 25:25
I don’t think so, because and we touched on it earlier with the Eco4 stuff that you’ll have a disproportionate effect of. So I’m from the Northwest, when we talk about things like levelling up, we have a disproportionate amount of older properties. We have the oldest properties in Europe, but we have disproportionate in poorer, um, less developed regions, and therefore you’ve got the disproportionate cost effect both in terms of financial, higher bills, more repair costs, but also in terms of the health impacts that those have on people, we disproportionately see those in our left-behind regions. So if we’re talking about wanting a fairer society, a more high-trust society, a society that genuinely has everyone’s best interests at heart, looking after those communities and enabling them to thrive, it requires a certain amount of levelling up, and this does that, it does significant levels of leveling up because if you think of a let’s say one town, within that town, if you have a retrofit program running, you have unemployed people who’ll be brought into the program to do the works, you know, the physical works on site, so you’ve got upskilling the in and a pathway into the construction industry for life, you’ve got the supply chain of that industry working in the area, you know. I know it’s a small thing, but you know, sort of where you get your food from or your dinner, if you’ve got businesses now opening instead of everything’s closing on the high street, you have those knock-on effects on secondary smaller businesses within the area. Supply chains pop up in those areas, that the physical work gets done, the grant funding gets spent, the skills obviously are for life and can be applied to um new builds, or they’re going to be applied to just private industry in a different capacity. But you also have this ability for people to restore pride in their own community because there’s an opportunity there for people to sort of take charge where they’ve they’ve been somewhat as a globalisation has left these communities behind. This is an opportunity for them to sort of take it by the horns, start your own retrofit company, hire some of the people in your local area, deliver the retrofit programme, and you’ll be upgrading and improving the lives of the people and the properties within your area.

Speaker: 27:27
Yeah, I think that’s the thing, and that and that’s what I remember from our previous discussions, and I I enjoyed those because I remember you always you always bring it back to the people. You always bring it back to the impact on people and how aware you are of that and that social responsibility almost. And I think, like you’re saying, like we started on the the the have been, and like like in in some other things, such as I’m thinking of other scenarios where people take advantage of like the elderly. I guess one of them is like spray foam, for example. Yeah, you know, or or the the roof cleaning businesses, you know, that that everyone, as soon as there’s something out there, everyone’s quick to get, can be quick to take advantage, like the bad actors.

Speaker 1: 28:05
Of course.

Speaker: 28:06
But there’s people like yourselves that are really, really are about, you know, it’s an amazing profession and it’s a huge challenge, you know, globally and in the UK. And we need more people to be on board. And we need, you know, like from what you’re saying, more surveyors, those that have that experience and understanding of the way buildings work to come in to the profession and you know, make an improvement. And over time, as that comes in and see how the Assot Ricks pathway will pan out, but then there’s more quality professionals coming in to push out the bad actors.

Speaker 1: 28:46
Exactly. And I I’ll actually go further than that, sort of tell us sort of a little bit more about my background and how I ended up in the industry. I was initially was going to be a surveyor, a traditional sort of building surveyor, and I talked to a number of you know Emirates and and about how to get into the industry, and one of them suggested, well, you should become a domestic energy assessor because most you know surveyors are looking to hire some specialist at the moment. This was a few years ago before it was more widespread, looking to hire a specialist. And as someone wanting to learn more about the construction industry and building pathology, this will get you through lots of doors. Really, um, early on in your career, you’ll you’ll be earning while you’re learning. Um, so you can still go on and do your salva course or do your other you know university degree whilst you’re earning money, and it was a way to get into the industry, and therefore it’s sort of it occurs to me that young surveyors, because that for a retrofit assessment, you’re not going to get huge amounts of money, it’s generally between £150 to £250 retrofit assessment, depending on the complexities involved and regions. Um, so it’s not the same levels of obviously a surveyor generally charges. However, it is a place where definitely a younger surveyor, for instance, could get an enormous amount of practice, could get to see things and building pathologies and exposure to parts of the industry that they might never see again because a traditional surveyor is generally working for someone selling the home or someone, maybe a bank. You know, they’re working at possibly the sort of the middle income level. Whereas this is almost, if you think about how solicitors work pro bono for um certain certain cases per year, this is almost like the the pro bono surveying sort of work. You know, it’s it’s it’s going and helping vulnerable people and potentially downtrodden communities.

Speaker: 30:23
So they’re able to get some experience.

Speaker 1: 30:25
Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker: 30:26
And especially, I guess, within housing, as we know, the housing stock and the condition of the housing stock, you’ve got endless defects, you know, in these properties. A lot of them are neglected and haven’t been renovated for a long time. So you get exposure to quite a lot of defects as opposed to when you’re doing, you know, for example, maybe level two surveys on fairly new builds where there’s fewer defects. So, in a sense, it does provide more experience and exposure for younger surveyors or newer surveyors, you know, that are coming into it. Because we, you know, we see a lot of people, for example, with the Sava course, which leads to the ASOC RICS qualification in residential and valuing, is that there that some of them are are older and they come from trades and they come across. But it’s like those newbies into surveying and it gives that exposure. So that’s a really, I think that’s a really important point.

Speaker 1: 31:18
It also gives surveyors who perhaps have only done surveying but haven’t seen the construction industry on the actual the side in terms of um what’s actually then done, um, you get a more of a perspective on that because you’ll see pre and post the work as you do at an EPC generally at the end of uh of a body of works, you’ll then see what’s happened. You might even be asked to go back and check on things mid-install. So you really do get that exposure to how things are done on site, which is obviously interesting. And um I would say that the sort of heartbreaking cases you’ll get in retrofit as well.

Speaker: 31:48
Obviously, it’s not for the faint of heart, really, because there’s a significant human element to um a lot of these more downtrodden, particularly private owners who so this is about sorry, is this about like the communication side as well, which I think we’ve talked about before, in that it’s really important because it is people facing very much so in these environments, downtrodden, challenging environments, that yeah, communication skills.

Speaker 1: 32:14
Yeah, it definitely. I mean, you’ll you’ll encounter things in retrofit you wouldn’t generally expect to encounter as a surveyor. So potential immediate threats to life, you need to report um social situations that are that need to be reported to social services or the NHS. Um you need to take a more holistic human approach to you know, I’m looking at building, but I’m also I’m also a set of responsible eyes within you know within this property for a short period of time, and you’re sort of acting in a way, obviously, almost in a in a in a in a small safeguarding sort of way sometimes, um, because we can be dealing with incredibly vulnerable individuals, even in the private market, not just going to obviously GDPR, you know, can’t name names, however, thinking back to a particular example of one we did in Warrington last year, and an individual who was living in a situation that was obvious an obvious sort of way that wouldn’t be sustainable. So the front of the building was across wall construction, and the front of the building was essentially becoming detached from the main, um, so it needed rebuilding. However, internally, they obviously had mental health issues and there was a lot of hoarding going on. Um, there was you know newspapers from maybe 20 years ago when the person’s parents had passed away and then they’d been living on their own. Um, there was no heating system in the property at all working, there was no hot water in the property at all. The the issues with the individual, so the individuals back and forth to hospital and in involved with social services, um, but essentially because of that complex housing situation was really compounding that effect. And as a company, we managed to get you know get work with the local councils, work with multiple services, and we got the person um aspects of the house rebuilt that needed massive repairs, complete obviously deep environmental cleans, um, new heating system, new hot water system, even just things like your new carpets and then making the life manageable. Um, so it’s that again, that human impact of potential retrofit and and the potential good that can come out of it. It’s interesting that one of the things you said before about I’m just thinking about to the number of Rick surveyors and other surveyors that we need to enter the industry to lift standards. Um, obviously, you’ve got the sort of good heart law effect, which is that the industry sort of measures certain metrics, and because of those metrics, you’ve now got a lot of metrics to be filled out, which is sort of slowing down the better, more diligent installers. However, the sort of you know, those missionaries and your sort of mercenaries are just gonna provide a photo and hope they don’t get audited, or they’ll provide a photo from a different property, um, they’re not actually gonna respond to those requests for extra additional layers of security, they’re just gonna basically commit more fraud. And what that does is, as an industry, if you think you had you know five installs being done by a retrofit installer that’s a missionary and five being done by a mercenary, the more you layer the industry with safeguards rather than filtering that to the individual companies, um, what you’re doing is you’re making it more difficult for those good actors to do the same number of installs. So the number of installs done by the good actor will drop down to, I’d say, three. And then you have this effect where the disproportionate number of retrofits will be done by the bad actors because they will literally just throw any old bit of evidence in there and then only respond to when they’re audited, which trustmark do them the best they can. Uh I’ve not got the capacity to do that level of auditing. So it’s one of those where we’re yeah, it’s it’s um as an industry, we really sort of need to look into how we police things because obviously as surveyors don’t really get that in the sense that you don’t have as much oversight, but you are trusted as the individual, you’re you’re competent, and it’s the onus is on the upfront side of it. It’s make sure the person is both competent and ethical. I think in retrofit, we really need to copy that model, or just get you know people who’ve been through a model similar to that in, in the sense that they’re already, we know the background, we know that they’re committed to respond to things in an ethical way, and therefore that that alone would do wonders for the industry.

Speaker: 36:04
Okay. Just one sort of last thing that I’m interested in for people that are listening, surveyors, students, people that are interested in retrofit, is there any particular places that you would could suggest that they go to, um, and particular sites for information, anything that could be helpful?

Speaker 1: 36:24
Absolutely, of course. The PAS 2035 standard is obviously a publicly available standard, so they could go and download that and read through it. I’m not um recommending that as anything other than a if you’re struggling to get to sleep, maybe that would be that would be quite useful. Um the organised, there’s obviously the RICS retrofit standard, which is which is again a similar sort of standard that’s quite elongated. BS40104 is another standard, again, lengthy read there. Um, in terms of the best place to go, in my mind, to consume, you know, what is retrofit about, it would probably be the Rise masterclasses. Um, these are on YouTube, um, they’re delivered mainly by Turner and Townsend.

Speaker: 37:01
Um and they so is it a turn, would it is it Rise that’s the YouTube channel, or is it Turner and Townsend?

Speaker 1: 37:06
I think Rise is the YouTube channel.

Speaker: 37:07
I think Right, okay. Is that R-I-S E? Yes. Rise.

Speaker 1: 37:11
Yeah, if we if we Google it there, we can put a link in potentially. Those they deliver like one-hour segments on different aspects of the retrofit industry. So you could you know do it on a sort of a podcast almost type delivery way of just consuming that information and getting up to standard. In terms of any surveyors who are looking to move into industry, I’d say keep an eye out on the boot skill camp courses. Um, these are the government uh free courses that are available to essentially anyone, but especially the self-employed, and for zero cost, you can go on and and domestic education.

Speaker: 37:43
Are these regional based and come out?

Speaker 1: 37:45
Okay, yeah, but um DEA and RA is is quite a popular one. It’s it most regions have it. So if you were a surveyor thinking, I might might dip my toes into this and see what it’s about. The the courses generally I’d probably do a bit of research and then potentially look at those three courses to potentially get get moved over. But yeah, that’s that’s the sort of best recommendations. I’ll probably think of ten others and have to email them all to put in the in the that’s all right.

Speaker: 38:08
We can always put we’ll put them in the links. There’s plenty else as well. We’ll include some information in there. But yeah, is there anything else you want to add before we uh wrap up for today?

Speaker 1: 38:17
Yeah, I suppose I think we’ve covered most of the things that are on my my notes board behind us that I was sort of planned on going through.

Speaker: 38:24
Yeah.

Speaker 1: 38:24
Yeah, sort of the passion and impassion. I probably went on a bit of quite quite a large stringent about the the issues with retrofit, but I think they need addressing in here because it’s the first thing people are gonna say is like, how can you not be talking about that? Because it it’s it’s in the news, it’s before parliament. It has to be talked about. It’s unfortunate that that’s gonna be the hook in a way, it’s gonna be why has this gone wrong? How has it gone wrong? How’s it been fixed? Hopefully, there’s some insights there, and hopefully, I’ve not you know put anyone’s nose up on the way.

Speaker: 38:51
But I’m sure you haven’t, Jo. I’m sure you haven’t. No, it’s been it’s been great talking to you, and you’ve some really good insights, and especially around what I find really interesting is around the the societal impacts because you hear so many things about net zero, but there isn’t things that I see very often, which is around look, this is this is a human problem. This is affecting people’s lives day to day. And you know, that should be the number one priority at the end of the day, is make people live in homes that are habitable. And it’s just been great to meet you because you do have that attitude and that that sort of social responsibility awareness that I think sometimes is lacking in the professions. It’s always nice to hear.

Speaker 1: 39:36
Absolutely. I think um I think you’re of the same mind with um obviously you work at Lionhearts Foundation, so I think we’re we’re of one mind in that sense. So it’s been obviously great chatting with yourself. Um I what I’ve thought of one other thing that I would mention, um, which might have to be clipped and brought back in another place. But so one of the interesting things that when we talk about retrofit and you know why is it needed, why should we spend so much money? Is it something we need to save money on? Is how it ties into the housing crisis. Because at first glance, you might think that retrofit is actually taking budget away and capacity away from new builds. However, your main calls for more housing isn’t for private housing, it’s for social housing, and that’s going to be done by social housing providers. So, um, though they most of them have a construction company or you know, buy new builds and then rent them out socially themselves, there’s some mechanism for that. All those companies are now under pressure because of AWAB’s law, as well as for um making sure that their customers aren’t paying you know enormous sums on their energy bills, um, they’re under pressure to get their internal stock done, and they’re legally responsible for those now. Uh the individual in charge of the housing association, in theory, can be ultimately responsible for someone dying in one of their properties, which means that if you’re a housing association CEO and you’ve got your priority list, it’ll have to be your internal stock first and then new builds. So we really need to build 300,000 houses um a year for the next five years. We’re gonna have to unlock every social housing provider by first taking care of their internal property stock, making sure that they’re livable, not harming people, not costing people so much is actually pushing them into uh dangerous levels of debts and stress and health concerns, and then unleash them to help us solve the industry. And obviously, as a byproduct of doing the retrofit, we’ll then have 200,000 people more in the construction industry at a time when AI is taking a lot of white-collar jobs. So it’s actually a good time to and methodology to to upskill people into this construction of the built environment, and that’s the that’s the future potential capacity for the for the building of new homes. Um that’s an interesting thing.

Speaker: 41:45
That’s good, that’s an interesting point. Yeah, and thanks for thanks for adding that, that linkage to the housing crisis, which is a significant issue for the UK. Absolutely significant. So, if someone would like to get in touch with you, perhaps, is there any way that, you know, maybe you’re LinkedIn, or if you if somebody wants to ask you a question or get in touch with you, what’s the best way?

Speaker 1: 42:08
LinkedIn’s probably the best way at the moment. Um, I’ll I’ll not give out my email just yet in case it’s a small plug. Yeah, or I wouldn’t want to miss anything in case someone’s asking about something important. So um I’ll look at it.

Speaker: 42:20
We’ll include the LinkedIn profile in the notes and then yeah, if people need to ask you any more questions. But thank you very much for today, Joe. It’s been brilliant. Brilliant talking with you.

Speaker 1: 42:29
Thank you so much.

Speaker: 42:30
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