An interview with Neil Sawers, the new OFTEC Chairman and Grant UK’s Commercial Technical Manager

Hi Neil, welcome to your role as OFTEC Chairman and thank you for giving us the opportunity to talk to you. Tell us about your career and how you got into the heating industry?

I’ve been in the industry for 35 years and began my career as an electrician working in Ayrshire in Scotland. Around 1990 started working with someone who was a brilliant plumber and we taught each other. I focussed on oil, because no qualification was required, and to begin with taught myself – no internet back then.

Fast forward to 1993 and a contact at Boulter Boilers suggested I take what was a then the new OFTEC oil course, which is where I met Colin Sutherland, OFTEC’s founder. Eventually I realised I couldn’t crawl about on my hands and knees forever and a job came up at Bolters, dealing with technical queries, so I moved from West Lothian to Ipswich. I quickly found my feet. I always remember the technical director there telling me that I would soon know more than 80% of the callers, but it was the remaining 20% that I really needed to listen to, because it’s them that you learn from.

From there I progressed rapidly, first to head of technical, then customer services and, finally the whole technical side including R&D – that would have been 2002/3. I worked on developing a Boulter condensing boiler, but we never bought it to market because we were bought out by Buderus, and then by Bosch, and became part of the BBT group. They already owned Worcester and didn’t need two boiler manufacturers, so eventually the manufacturing operation at Ipswich closed.

I got a call from Paul (Wakefield) at Grant and joined as Grant’s technical manager. It was 2005 – 20 years ago. We only sold oil boilers and flues, and it was a halcyon time because the business model was so simple. But I was brought in for a purpose, Paul was already looking ahead and was aware that the market was changing, and we just grew it from there.

You have to realise that it was a long-haul project, and you don’t necessarily get it right straight away. For example, we launched our first heat pump in 2009, and we’ve reached our 5th generation now, and I don’t see that slowing down. We’re always looking five years ahead. We’ve been ready for the expected expansion of the in the heat pump market since 2015.

That brings us neatly on to our next question. Is the government doing a good job in leading the transition net zero and, if you were in charge, what would you do differently?

I’m sure many readers will be shouting scrap MCS – it’s not fit for purpose. The paperwork trail that’s required and the hoops installers must jump through, just doesn’t lend itself to the current sole trader dominated industry. Companies, including Grant among others, have created umbrella schemes, but the numbers of really competent installers just aren’t there yet, and it’s a difficult transition when you don’t have sufficient numbers of competent installers to do it.

I would get rid of the CHMM penalty on manufacturers – it’s just not fit for purpose. It fines the same companies whose support the government needs to deliver net zero. And speaking purely personally, while manufacturers benefit from policies like the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, I don’t think it’s the best use of public funds to base the heat pump market on public subsidy. Because if the subsidy stops, the market collapses.

We’ve seen this before with biomass. There was a lot of investment by manufacturers and pellet suppliers. But because the RHI was oversubscribed they pulled the funding, and the market collapsed overnight. If the current funding can’t keep pace with the growth of the market, you have a problem. Who will pay for it? And without more investment in training, and creating a proper market, here’s a risk of fuel poverty and these households will be at the mercy of the bodge-it and scarper companies.

I’d also tell the government that, to survive in business, manufacturers need to invest, and the government needs to give clear messages to the market about what’s needed. For example, look at smart energy appliances legislation, (SSES) that’s coming down the road. They’ve got a launch for phase 1 planned for 2027, and then a phase 2 in 2028 where the detail might not fit the work carried out for phase 1. What do we tell our R&D team to develop? Manufacturers need clarity before any investment is made. All manufacturers of gas/oil boilers and heat pumps, are constantly developing new products that will fit this future market. OFTEC, needs to support this pivotal work and represent our members in these markets.

How should OFTEC react to the decarbonisation challenge?

OFTEC has a lot to offer. It’s well respected for oil heating and we should be proud of that, but OFTEC needs to shed that oil-only perception and get the message out that it’s not just about oil. I realise that’s a difficult message for many of the existing registration base, but the problem is that oil technicians tend to look at the situation in isolation. You need a whole range of technologies to achieve the decarbonisation transition, and OFTEC can support that. The off-gas grid market is different, the properties are much older, usually larger and while harder to transition to a heat pump without a larger up-front investment, it’s not impossible. However, I don’t agree with the idea that we’ll lose 80% of our sales to heat pumps. The solution needs to be affordable and viable and not push households into fuel poverty, because the remedial and energy cost is too high. It’s something even the Heat Pump Association (HPA) are aware of, although they previously didn’t want to admit it publicly, because it would have diluted their message to government.

What we need is for everyone to be more realistic. I think it would be good for OFTEC and the HPA to explore where there are opportunities to work together. It would be great for both organisations to be able to go to government and say, yes, we know that heat pumps can do this, but for a whole range of practical or financial reasons, there are many places where a heat pump on its own can’t work. So, we’ve got two alternatives, which are hybrid systems and the use of bio-liquid heating fuels, both of which can solve most of the harder to heat problems.

By working more closely with the HPA and other industry representatives, it may be possible for OFTEC to avoid walking into brick walls with the government, which we often seem to do now. Why should HVO be prioritised for aviation and surface transport rather than for heat? Is it really more important that people go on holiday than heat their homes?

And from a registration perspective, if you just look at the liquid fuel sector, you’re restricting your possibility of growth. That’s why we need to be working more widely across the industry to reach people we don’t normally talk with – like gas engineers – and show that OFTEC has something to offer them too.

Obviously that risks losing support with existing registered technicians – but the message needs to be clear – If we do nothing except try to protect you, by 2040 we won’t have an off-gas industry. OFTEC needs to grow and change to meet the demands of the market, just like Grant has, and that means competing with the likes of NAPIT and NIC in other parts of the registration.

It’s not just about having the registration product; it’s about all the support that goes with it. You simply can’t expect an oil installer, who is used to doing things in a particular way, to pick all these changes up straight away, it’s not just S plan and Y plan anymore. You need installers who can go into a property and make the right choices over how they install a heat pump, because it might mean the difference of a COP of 2 if they get it wrong, or 5+ if they do it right. You need to immerse yourself in the technology – and it is a phenomenal technology – but you need to understand the limitations.

I use the analogy of the late 90s when oil combi boilers were introduced. I was training in Ipswich and talking about plate heat exchangers, flow switches and diaphragms, and installers were saying we’re not getting involved in that, we’re not plumbers. And my reply was if you only want to focus on the things you do now, you won’t have a business in 10 years’ time. You could already see the writing was on the wall and many consumers were welcoming the convenience of combi boilers and getting their airing cupboards back. We had to educate technicians about the changes – and a lot of that came from OFTEC. And we’re in that place again with another major transformation beginning.

What would you like to achieve during your time as chairman?

Having been involved in oil heating right from the very beginning of OFTEC, I don’t want to end my career in the next few years with everything we’ve worked for gone. Obviously, we have some proud achievements, we’ve kept people warm, kept people in jobs, formalised training and assessments but it’s about taking the leap forward to keep up with the next technology, and making sure we align as we need to ensure the industry has the resources that are required. I want to leave an OFTEC that’s fit for the future, and if we can achieve that, I’ll be happy.

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