IN THE HOT SEAT Nigel
How did you get into the industry? I was doing a Mechanical HND part-time at college whilst working for a trace heating company. I finished that at 21 and chose to look for another job. There was a job advertised at Denco Air Conditioning. This would have been back in about 1988. I got the job; my first role was junior contracts engineer, out on site managing the engineers, putting in the pipework, laying out the systems and delivering projects to the clients. I never looked back and I’ve been in the HVAC industry ever since.
What is your biggest achievement to date? On the business side, I would say it has to be starting PACAIR and growing that from its infancy 14 years ago to where we are today.
What do you enjoy about working in the industry? The people element. There are some fantastic characters and some very strange ones! It’s the people that you work with and the clients and suppliers that you meet.
What do you think the industry can do better? We need to try to make it more exciting for a young lad or lady coming out of school. The HVAC industry consists of that little product that heats, cools, or brings in some fresh air, that nobody talks about.
They notice the aesthetics of the ceiling, the lighting layouts, or paint schemes. We’re like the forgotten trade. It has to be there, but no one talks about it. We need to liven it up a little and use some of those characters to bring in some new lifeblood.
What’s the best aspect of the industry generally? Its innovation, its constant improvement of products, its ability to take a problem or new legislation and modify or change. It’s constantly
34 January 2018 Director of Pacair.
Palmer
on the move. It’s never fixed. There’s never a way forward that’s correct every time. You’ve constantly got to look at the angles you’re trying to get to and change with it. People don’t like change, but if you don’t go with it you will be left behind.
What do you dislike about the industry? I believe service comes at a cost and people misunderstand what that means. If you want the best service and product, and the best people to work with you, you have to pay the right money and be prepared to partner with them for a long period of time. Trust is earned. It’s not something you can buy, so to have the trust and the relationship to move forward is really important. You’ll do a design, lay it all out and someone will say ‘but it’s £500 cheaper round the corner.’ Yes, but then when it goes wrong, don’t call me. You should be able to charge for good service. Not all, but a number of people in the industry seem to think that cheapest is best. Cheap has a place, but it’s not always the best solution.
What’s the worst aspect?
Companies go bust, placing all the people in the chain at risk, and then start up again tomorrow. A large amount of companies leave too little funds in their business to manage the business. It’s not a paid-when-paid industry, but it can become one at times.
What’s the biggest challenge ahead? CO2
change again, because that was really damaging, between R22 and R410A.
I believe, looking at the other manufacturers, they’re only going to do it on splits which is fine, but they’re all buying chiller manufacturers for a reason. They’re very nervous that they won’t get that VRF up and running. If they don’t, the way the industry has worked for years will have to change. We’re very much a VRF business but we’ll have to investigate chilled water through necessity – legislation is driving us.
What about companies entering the market? Everyone thinks the UK market has a level of companies that will buy on cheapest price – and it does. So the view of these companies is that they don’t have so much of a levy on what they bought in previously compared to what they’ve bought in now. They’re coming in fresh, so they’re getting a minimum amount of CO2
kit
and they believe that the big boys have run their course. I don’t believe it.
There’s been some complacency but the investment in products and the way in which Daikin and Mitsubishi go forward, in the UK at least, all others will follow. The reason they want to come here is that we’re the biggest heat recovery VRF market in Europe.
emissions. The R410A, high GWPs versus the refrigerants coming in. The fact that Daikin has an R32 manufacturing arm – they’re one of the couple of companies that do it and they’re looking to go down that line. Therefore other manufacturers aren’t. I hope we’re not going to have an R407c nightmare period, which is ‘oh let’s all jump’ but then realise it’s wrong and
Would contractors change to the new players? I think some of the loyal ones would if we changed. In the partnerships that we have, if we say that it will work and we’ll solve any problems for them, they will. The AMP strategy for Panasonic will work, because they’re trusted and they are a decent business and people will try it. The proof is going to be in, when it does go wrong, does it get solved? Are the spares available? Is the market analysis available? Am I getting the efficiency I thought I would get? I think they will try these brands, but the
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