Employer Spotlight: The Insulation Team

Sam Hill and Elliot Baxter are the co-founders of The Insulation Team Ltd, a West Midlands-based firm specialising in loft and internal wall insulation. Both Sam and Elliot, along with several of their self-employed installers, have completed Cold Roof Insulation and Internal Wall Insulation NVQs with us. 

We spoke to Sam about his journey to retrofit business owner, the challenges they’ve faced along the way and how National Vocational Qualifications are helping him grow his company.

“WE CAN DELIVER THIS BETTER OURSELVES”

Before getting into insulation and setting up The Insulation Team, I did a few different jobs.  I was a technical engineer for Virgin; I’ve worked in customer service; I’ve done security work – I’ve tried a bit of everything! Without a doubt, having that varied background and that customer service experience has helped me with setting up my own firm.

We have two directors – myself, and Elliot – and the business is just shy of its third year. Before we set up ourselves, Elliot and I were doing underfloor insulation for another employer, under the eco schemes. After a while we thought ‘we can deliver this better ourselves’. We got a few private jobs going whilst we were working, and then gradually phased out the work for the other guy and went off on our own. Both of us have been in the insulation trade for the last 5 to 10 years. We knew we could deliver a better service by ourselves, so we went for it!

We predominantly cover the Midlands, but we do have national coverage as and when required. The focus of the business is loft, under floor and internal wall insulation in private domestic and commercial settings. We work on a variety of buildings including older ones. The older properties tend to be the ones that need under floor insulation – properties from the early 1900s up the 1940s were built with suspended floors. There’s no particular difference in the installation methods. You cut the floors open, carefully climb underneath, do what you need to do, and climb back out.

There are three employees on our books and we have quite a few self-employed lads that make up our two and three-man teams. We have some good lads who we’ve worked with for quite some time now. We know the standard of their work and we can trust them to do a good job.

“IF YOU HAVEN’T GOT IT, YOU NEED TO GO OUT AND GET IT”

The Insulation Team is the first business that I’ve ever been involved in running and it’s been a challenge. Probably the hardest thing we’ve had to overcome is getting all our accreditations and jumping through all the hoops required to demonstrate that we’re a legitimate company. Getting yourself to the point where you’re able to deliver work on ECO4 and GB schemes has been quite time-consuming and challenging. That’s probably been the hardest side of it all. Insulation work in and of itself is pretty straightforward! It’s the things around it that have really challenged my staff.

We’re now accredited up to PAS2030 and we’re registered on Trustmark which is a government-endorsed quality website. To get on there, you must be accredited, assessed, have head office audits and all sorts of things to demonstrate that you run your business to the correct standards.

We gained a lot of knowledge about PAS2030 requirements, such as NVQ qualifications, by talking with others in the insulation trade including companies involved with the grants funding. They’ll ask you for X,Y and Z and you’ve either got it or you haven’t. If you haven’t got it, you need to go out and get it.

“THEY’VE GONE OUT OF THEIR WAY TO FIND ANSWERS FOR US”

We first contacted DMR about NVQ assessment a couple of years ago. I can’t remember how we first heard about them; it was either a Google search or word of mouth. The girls in the office at DMR – Jody and Zoe – were very impressive in terms of their professionalism and knowledgeability, and they were very friendly and helpful. Anytime we’ve had any questions, we’ve called them up and they’ve gone out of their way to find answers for us.

“OUR LADS WERE ALL VERY POSITIVE ABOUT THEIR NVQs”

The NVQ course itself was very well integrated into the work we’re doing, and it wasn’t a burden. We’re already doing the work, and the NVQs just required us to document the standard of our work through different types of evidence like photos and videos. It’s straightforward and our lads were all very positive about doing their NVQs.

There was a good completion timescale for the assessment that gave us enough time to get jobs in place so we could collect the evidence. It was all very fluid and there were no crossed wires between ourselves, Mark [DMR insulation assessor] or Jody and Zoe in the office. Everything was explained thoroughly, and it was a straightforward process that was easy to crack on with!

We’re a bit further afield from Mark but we were able to complete our qualifications remotely through regular contact with Mark by telephone and email. We’re very experienced in our work, and we were extremely thorough with the evidence gathering so Mark didn’t need to come out to see us in person.

“WE’RE NOW IN A POSITION TO START APPROACHING BIGGER COMPANIES”

We’ve always had a good volume of private work and a successful process for generating leads. But after we got the NVQs, we were then able to go and get the PAS2030 accreditation [and access to grants funded work]. Having that at the bottom of your email signature and on your website, showing potential customers that you’re registered on government-endorsed sites – it really helps with demonstrating your professionalism and securing more work. Ending an email with “cheers mate, from Sam” doesn’t have half the impact as a proper signature with logos of your accreditations and qualifications. Customers, without question, feel more inclined to go with you. Gaining the NVQs has definitely helped our business; it’s had a very positive impact for me.

We’re always looking for more, and we’re now in a position to start approaching bigger companies, funders for ECO4 work and council projects.

 

“MAKING BUILDINGS MORE ENERGY EFFICIENT IS GOOD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT BUT IT’S ALSO GOOD FOR PEOPLE IN THEIR HOMES”

One of the main positives in our line of work is that we know, hand on heart, at the end of every job for every single customer, it’s going to make such a big difference for them. This is especially true with elderly customers who can really struggle in winter because it’s so cold, and sometimes they can’t even afford to put the heating on. It’s disgusting really, but this is the situation we’re in. To be able to tell our customers that not only can we make their houses warmer, but we can also help them save money on their bills…it’s a really nice feeling, and they’re always so grateful. With privately funded work, we always give a discount to elderly customers. Making buildings more energy efficient is good for the environment but it’s also good for people in their homes.

“IT FEELS LIKE THERE IS A QUALIFICATION SHORTAGE AMONG SKILLED INSULATION INSTALLERS”

We’re really focused on growing our company. We’ve got the private work ticking over and we’re now expanding the work we do under the government eco schemes. We want to go as far as we can, and we’ve not had any conversations where we’ve agreed that once we get to X number of employees, that’s as far as we’ll go.

With loft installs, you can sometimes do two or three of them in one day up without sacrificing your standards or cutting corners. If you’ve got three jobs on, you might think it needs three teams when you can actually give it to one team for one day, and they can earn themselves a bonus.

We try and stick with the lads that we know, but we’d like to grow the company. We’ve been looking on Indeed for wall installers but it’s difficult on websites like that because we can specify requirements that we need, such as a Level 3 NVQ, and the potential employee can simply tick a box to say they have that qualification. But when we actually come to chatting with them, it turns out they haven’t got it. So, we’re finding that a little bit difficult. There is a skills shortage in the insulation sector, but it feels like there is a qualification shortage among skilled insulation installers as well.

The Insulation Team accessed Insulation NVQ funding through the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero.

Could your insulation and retrofit firm benefit for government funded NVQ assessment like The Insulation Team? To check your eligibility, call us on 01942 673047 or visit our NVQ funding page.

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