As a biomass sceptic, editor Paul Braithwaite felt it was his duty to talk to a biomass installation company to see whether his assumptions about biomass were right or wrong. He therefore arranged to visit Jo and Mick Atack, the management team who own and run Vertdegree, a biomass installation company in Chippenham, Wiltshire.

Mick Atack knew what he was up against from the start and, as the best form of defence is attack, he started by saying he had read my blogs so he knew I wasn't convinced about biomass.

He admitted that, to a lesser extent, he agreed with me. Biomass was not right for everyone. He had turned jobs down when he thought biomass was not right for the house or commercial building. However, he believed in many instances biomass was right. In fact, he was passionate about his company and biomass.

Mick started in the m&e business as an apprentice, working his way from job to job until he became regional service manager for a major m&e contractor which was when he decided to start his own business.

Mick and Jo Atack started out in 1995 as an air conditioning installation and m&e business, initially in the domestic sector but later, as the company grew, it took on larger commercial applications such as Gloucester Royal Hospital and projects for Holiday Inn Express as a specialist subcontractor. It became quickly evident to Jo and Mick they needed an electrical company to complement the air conditioning side of the business.

BEMS company added

They grew another company, Celect Electrical which as well as the usual wiring of projects, also concentrated on controls, in fact, anything to do with building energy management systems.

Mick is quite a visionary. He watched the market, realised the air conditioning sector was declining and began to research a move into another area.

He looked at the biomass market, even travelling around Austria and Germany to look at boiler manufacturers.

He spent about three years researching the market and checking the quality of boilers and other installers in the market.

'Mick needed to check out the build quality of boilers so that he had a product he had confidence in from the start,' says Jo.

He settled on the HDG range of wood-burning boilers, distributed by Euroheat in the UK.

'The quality of the boiler is the best. The build is superb and the back up from Euroheat is phenomenal. We feel comfortable installing them because we know the back up is there.'

Furthermore, the boiler is relatively simple.

'When a client is spending a considerable amount of capital, they need to know the boiler will last for the next 25 years.'

He is one of 50 installer/ partners across the country for Euroheat. His patch is the south and south west but he prefers to operate within about two hours drive of the Chippenham offices and the pre-fabrication plant. Mick did all the training Euroheat, which offers a wide selection wood biomass courses, had to offer.

He will install a boiler in a four-bedroomed house or plan and install a district heating scheme for a council. He is working on a scheme for 17 social houses in Wareham.
The Euroheat boilers will take woodchips, wood pellets and logs. But, because there is a significant difference in quality between chips and pellets and logs, Mick recommends only proven fuel suppliers and says logs must be seasoned for at least a year. In fact, a good, constant supply of the right quality fuel is 50 per cent of the job. No hedge clippings, please!

For the client it is different.

'It is not just a case of turning on the gas, servicing it once a year and forgetting about it - wood-burning boilers need care. It is a lifestyle change. The boiler needs to be checked once a week.'

Vertdegree offers its clients a maintenance package whereby it returns to service the boiler once a year and during the first year any callback fees are waived as 'customers need a lot of hand-holding until they get used to the equipment'.

Vertdegree is not just an installer. Jo and Mick offer much, much more:

• Consultation and project management
• Design and installation services
• Remote site monitoring and fuel management services
• Turnkey package from site survey, design, installation and aftercare services
• Bespoke, pre-manufactured packaged plant-room systems: plug-and-play to suit any application
• Full electrical and mechanical installation works.

Jo adds that Vertdegree, because it has its own electrical company, works on the whole project and trains the client to keep the boiler running. She maintains the infrastructure between the manufacturer, distributor, installer and the client is very tight. And Vertdegree does turn clients down if it feels the application is wrong.

Think again advice

'One client was willing to spend £200,000 to excavate her basement to put in a biomass boiler but she lived in the London suburbs and it just was not practical for her. I advised her to think again.'

He reckons that, generally, domestic installations should be in rural or semi-rural locations. District heating installations are different, he adds, but it is essentially down to supply of the fuel.

Mick has also gained a reputation as a trouble-shooter. He has been called in to put right biomass boiler projects which were specified by a consultant or an architect and have been installed to the specification and did not work as they should.

'Biomass boilers work slightly differently from gas condensing boilers,' he emphasises again. 'A lot of consultants do not fully understand them. They tend not to make allowances for accumulators, nor adequate fuel storage facilities and invariably the system doesn't work correctly or cannot be filled.'

Jo says she is already working out a charging scale for this consultancy. Until now the service has been free.

However, he was recently sent a spec by a consultant which was wrong. Mick redesigned the system and sent the redesign back to the consultant with his tender. The consultant sent out Mick's redesign to others to re-tender.

That he is gaining a reputation in the sector shows. He is a perfectionist. He is passionate about biomass. Mick laughed when I called him passionate but Jo nodded sagely. He is already researching his next sector so that he can grow Vertdegree. He has considered heat pumps and rejected them but feels CHP will have a strong impact in the future.

Jo says the company has already completed a photo-voltaic installation and is actively investigating solar thermal.

'We have an electrical company which we need to keep busy. Plus, solar thermal and PV are complementary to biomass.'

And with the Feed-in-Tariff, there is a decent payback period.

Jo acknowledges 'there is only one Mick and he is often too busy to step back to take a long hard look at the market.'

There are nine staff at the moment and the couple would like more but 'finding a heating engineer who is passionate about his trade' is a hard slog.

Mick has trained apprentices in the past who have shared his passion but most have left for a bigger firm and more money.

Nevertheless, Vertdegree is trying to recruit two more qualified heating engineers, ideally those who are 25-plus years old and want to make their future with the company. 'Tall order,' thinks Jo.

He says it takes a couple of years' training to bring a recruit up to the standard he wants and where they are capable of representing the company with clients.

He sees the firm growing to at least 15 staff but not all of them would need to be engineers as some would be working on the pre-fabricating in the workshop.

Committed

Mick singled out one member of staff, Paul Wells, who is contracts manager but is also a CAD designer. He runs the prefabricating side. He had previously been managing director of a canal boat manufacturer. Paul seems to love the work.

Mick says the pre-fabricating side is around 30 per cent of the business and he expects this to grow in line with the firm or more.

So far, Vertdegree has not had to advertise 'because the customer is your best salesperson'. Other work comes from the website and small exhibitions.

Jo sees the biomass boiler installation market as having three bands with the largest companies in the top band and all having access to funding 'so they can take on big installation jobs'.

At the bottom are the one man in a van firms which source cheap boilers and make a living.

She says Vertdegree is hopefully near the top of the middle band. The company was the first to be awarded Microgeneration Certification under HETAS which has its own audit scheme. It is also a member of HVCA. Vertdegree is working towards its ISO14001. Furthermore, Euroheat had the first HETAS-approved training course.

'What Euroheat needs is more people like Mick,' said Simon Holden, co-founder of Euroheat. 'We are looking for additional UK partners but despite the scope for this industry to grow there just aren't enough trained installers to get on board with biomass.'

Mick is conscious funding is limited. 'The banks will not lend us the money. Having to put your house on the line for £15,000 is ludicrous. Small businesses like ours need working capital.'

So far the biggest job has been worth £180,000. Also he will not work with a firm which has retentions clauses.

'We have been caught a couple of times and cannot afford to be caught again.'
His contract is different. He requires 30% of the money when he starts the job, another 30 per cent when the equipment goes to site and the rest when the job is finished.

Mick says the work is still coming in so maybe the trick is to become an expert in your field.

The first year the company turned over £30 k and this year it is up to £500,000. Given a fair wind it could be worth about £2 million in a few years.

He wants to keep turnover at about this size. But while the company would become saleable at that turnover, he is adamant. There is, and always will be, a Not for Sale notice up over Vertdegree.

As for Paul Braithwaite, the new term might be the not-quite-so biomass sceptic.