40% of the UK’s carbon emissions come from our houses!  How we build our homes and how we live in them has a massive impact on the environment.  From starting out in a ‘fossil-fuelled’ job, System Engineer Dan Murray tells us how he has made the switch to focus on a more climate-friendly future.

“When I was at school, I thought I wanted to join the Police, so I chose A Level subjects that would be suitable to study Police Science at University. I did get to University but quickly realised that I was a more practical learner and that academic studies weren’t for me.  I applied to join the Police then, still aged just 18, knowing full well that I probably wouldn’t have the life experience they would be looking for. It was around the time Police recruitment was tailing off too, so I didn’t get in, for whatever reason.

So, I had to think about what I could do instead.  It seemed to me that people will always need a good plumber so went back to college. I actually started my plumbing apprenticeship aged 21, alongside lads who were straight from school.  That didn’t matter to me; taking up plumbing was a positive choice and I saw it as the start of my career.  My mindset was probably more focussed than some of the others.

My apprenticeship saw me cover traditional plumbing skills, including gas installation.  After my four-year apprenticeship, I stayed with my employer, Tai Calon Community Housing, for a further five years.  I worked on everything from boiler installations and repairs to heating and radiator installations, and all sorts of problems in between.  I enjoyed the job and loved working with my colleagues, but a chance meeting let me to a new opportunity.

I met one of the co-founders of Sero, who are a group of companies dedicated to reducing the carbon footprint of our homes and energy usage by using intelligent technology.  They could clearly see that my traditional skills gave me an understanding of heating and plumbing systems that could be useful to the business.  I was offered a role of System Engineer, working with the new technologies Sero are designing and installing in real homes.

This was definitely a career change for me, but I saw it as a massive opportunity to develop my own skillset.  One of the first things I did was to take an electrical installers qualification, so I would be qualified to install the full suite of Sero’s technology.

Being a System Engineer is a very varied role.  In a typical week, I’ll probably spend one or two days in the office, catching up on paperwork, ordering equipment or planning what I’ll be doing on site.  Then, I might be out with a business partner, installing and commissioning a new system and handing it over to them.  Sometimes I also visit the homes we look after if a customer has an issue.  Because our systems are so new, I will often spend time explaining to customers how they work and how they are different to, say, a traditional boiler.  As well as new build properties, we also work with partners to ‘retrofit’ our technologies in older domestic properties; that is, to replace older heating and energy systems with new ones. 

Almost all our system installations are monitored to see how they are performing.  This data not only feeds into what Sero are doing and also a big Welsh Government project on energy use and performance.  It’s through this performance data gathering that we can continue to make improvements going forward.  I always need to check that the tracking is in place and working on any of my installs.

As well as all that, I get involved in training people on how our kit works and designing training resources, making videos or building training rigs.  We hope to open a full practice workshop in the near future.  Because we’re a growing and a very busy team, I’ll often get asked to chip in on anything else that the team think I can help with!  For example, I have been interested to learn more about programming and what our digital team do.  My skills have grown to such a point that if I’m on site and one of them isn’t, I can often help them solve issues that might arise.

Starting my career with an Apprenticeship has turned out to be a really good choice.  It taught me a range of skills, from the practical ones to business skills, like customer service and teamwork.  Looking back, I don’t think the Police would have been the right career for me in the long run.  I also realise that with the phasing out of fossil-fuels, I wouldn’t have been able to be a plumber/gasfitter forever either.  I think joining Sero has definitely put me ahead of the curve on that front.

Looking to the future there will definitely be a need for people with traditional skills, like mine were, in plumbing, gas and electrical, but there will also be much more cross-over between them.  So many new technologies will require core knowledge from across many trades.”