Re-skilling to take advantage of future opportunities makes perfect sense to Roy Littleford, head of Jarvis M&E. And, for him, many of these opportunities are likely to be on the electrical side
'I have always kept a positive outlook and, since the new year, I feel things are really starting to pick up.'

This has been the longest and deepest recession in Roy Littleford's 28 years at the helm of Jarvis M&E (formerly Jarvis Heating), but the Harpenden-based business has spotted those long-awaited signs of an upturn.

'Contracts are increasing in size and quality. Also there are more of them around,' says Mr Littleford. 'Main contractors are reinstating partnerships - things are definitely on the move.'

That judgement is based on plenty of experience - the firm can, after all, trace its roots back to the building firm EC Jarvis & Co founded by Ernest Jarvis in Harpenden in 1905. Primarily housebuilders back then, the present group, whose president is Lord Cecil Parkinson, has two distinct divisions: Construction and Development.

Installing pumped systems
Jarvis M&E is part of the Construction arm alongside Jarvis Contracting. It has over 50 directly employed staff and turnover peaked at £6.5m before the recession. 'This has currently reduced, but it should not take too long to return as output grows again,' according to Mr Littleford.

Jarvis Heating was at the forefront of domestic central heating back in the post-war years when it was founded by Tony Jarvis in 1946. He saw the potential to make systems more efficient by installing pumped systems in the new and larger family homes being built by Jarvis in and around Harpenden in the early 50s.

Fast forwarding to the present day and Mr Littleford sees another major change on the horizon for domestic heating with the demise of gas and oil-fired boilers and the emergence of all-electric systems. He is building up the electrical side of the business in preparation.

'Heat pumps and the other renewables are a big opportunity for our sector,' he says. 'The market is moving to all-electric systems; biomass and ground and air source heat pumps. Also looking further ahead, fuel cells will play a big part.'

He believes that established m&e firms will be called on more and more to give expert advice, but they still face the difficulty of being involved too late in the project process.

'There is a growing market for large, one-off homes with all singing all dancing services,' he says. 'This type of owner is interested in sustainability and not always concerned about payback - they want to do the right thing. However, unless the building involves us from the outset there is a danger of
the wrong choices being made.'

He believes that m&e work will continue to become ever more complex as the pressure to apply sustainable strategies across a wider range of buildings increases. The big danger is that builders seek to meet clients' aspirations without reforming working practices first.

'The traditional hierarchical approach to supply chains won't work anymore,' says Mr Littleford. 'As the solutions become more complex, it will become ever more important to get the m&e team in from the outset.

'Before the recession, we were involved in building up beneficial partnerships, but much of that work has been undone by the return of cut-throat pricing and crazy contract demands.'

Pressure on costs also means that the measures required to meet sustainability goals are often not priced in at the tender stage, particularly in design and build projects.

Looking for an angle
'If no-one has allowed for these upfront, everyone ends up looking for an angle as the project progresses,' he adds.

'The main contractor often assumes this can be covered by including insulation or putting in more efficient systems - and will try to get the right result without spending any extra. This results in non-compliant installations.'

The pre-qualification burden on contractors is another hindrance to progress. Mr Littleford is an active member of the Building & Engineering Services Association (B&ES) - formerly the HVCA, which Jarvis Heating joined in the early 60s - and is enthusiastic about the association's efforts to streamline the process and give members easier access to tender lists.

B&ES introduced independent Inspection & Assessment in 2003 with a view to making sure members already satisfied the various prequalification criteria as a condition of membership in a bid to reduce the administrative burden.

'That was a great initiative and is a big benefit of B&ES membership,' says Mr Littleford, who is a committee member of the association's Heating and Plumbing Services (HAPS) Group. 'However, there is still duplication out there as we are often asked to complete the prequalification questionnaire for individual clients even though we already meet the criteria. It is a real headache, particularly for smaller firms.'

However, as workloads pick up again he thinks contractors will become more selective and clients who make unreasonable demands at tender stage may find their options being reduced. The Government hopes that the start of the Green Deal later this year will help to stimulate that upsurge in workloads,
but he has doubts.

'They played around with the Feed-in Tariffs (FiTs) and have constantly delayed commencement of other incentives so, as a result, no-one trusts the Government to back their own measures in the long-term - this undermines confidence.'

As a result, he feels the Green Deal may struggle to achieve the Government's ambitious targets of refurbishing 14 million homes by 2020 and creating 65,000 jobs.

'Fluctuating' workforce
Jarvis is active in upmarket housing; commercial/industrial projects - with particularly good links in the education and healthcare sectors; and social/affordable housing developments all within a 20-mile radius of its Harpenden headquarters. The 50 staff directly employed by the m&e company account for about a quarter of the group's direct labour force, but there is also a need for a 'fluctuating' workforce to deal with the cyclical nature of building services work so sub-contractors remain an important part of the strategy.

Increasingly Mr Littleford sees water-related issues becoming a higher priority for his engineers and a sensitive issue with customers. The current supply crisis in the parched South East, in particular, is being exacerbated by tightening water use regulations. The Code for Sustainable Homes makes it almost impossible to fit high flow showers and large baths, much to the frustration of many new home buyers. Restrictors will be fitted as a matter of course to reduce water consumption and more rainwater harvesting will have be included as part of sustainable building designs.

Water companies are also struggling to manage leakage rates from ageing underground pipework and, in many areas, this means reducing the pressure. This will have serious consequences for existing systems over the next few years, according to Mr Littleford.

'Water providers will go down to the minimum they must supply [one bar pressure at the property boundary] and that is bad news for appliances like cylinders, combination boilers, water softeners and showers as some of these require a higher pressure,' he says. 'We can fit booster units to compensate, but due to their size this will be very difficult, if not impossible, in many properties.'

It is a problem, but not an insurmountable one, and simply reinforces the need for trained and competent m&e specialists, according to Mr Littleford.

'Emerging from recession looks like being a gradual process and that is a positive thing for our industry,' he says. 'There will be an increasing demand on our expertise. It is often said that the time after a downturn can be the most dangerous for contractors as there is a temptation to overstretch.

'We are building up our workforce and re-skilling where we see the future opportunities. That takes time and it takes investment, but the increasingly complex nature of what we do requires it and is also our biggest opportunity.'