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Sustainable energy is now a more-viable and planet-friendly option for many people. With increasing numbers of people wishing to install solar collectors and other energy saving products to their roofs, it is more important than ever to employ a competent person for the job.
What are Active Roofs?
While roofs have primarily been used to keep out the weather, active roofs are now also required to provide electricity, hot water and heating to the buildings over which they stand. The products which provide these services include Photo Voltaic (PV) and Solar Thermal modules, micro-wind appliances and a host of other clever gadgets.
What does this have to do with roofers?
The UK, like all its European Colleagues, is committed to renewable energies and reducing C02 emissions and if we are to reach our targets we must bring Active Roofs into the mainstream. Across Europe, a huge amount of avoidable damage has incurred by badly installed solar panels in roofs, mainly down to poor interfacing with the roofing covering. Many products and systems could, and perhaps more importantly, should be being fixed by roofers who, with some yop-up training, have all the necessary skills to install these devises while keeping the roof weatherproof. Suppliers recognise this and are actively seeking roofing contractors to come forward and become involved in the process.
What is NFRC doing about it?
NFRC has recently completed a 3 year project called Eur-Active Roofer which is all about increasing the spread of active roofs. One of the main ways to do this is to encourage roofing contractors to become fixers wherever possible. To make this happen, NFRC has set up training courses to bring roofing contractors and suppliers together, and act as an information hub for all those involved in the process.
Although Eur-Active Roofer officially came to an end on 20th July 2008, NFRC is committed to continuing its work on Active Roofs, Green Roofs and other roofing innovations by way of training and support to the roofing industry and in particular our members.
NFRC has been running solar training courses since July 2007 and over 100 member companies are now trained. This is supported by a dedicated "trained solar installer" search function on the NFRC website. For further information on these training courses or to find out more information on the Active Roofs programme please contact Kevin Taylor.
Links
If you are considering installing solar collectors and other micro-generation systems then visit following websites where you will find all the information you need on grants and other installation related topics:
Click here to find a NFRC trained installer of solar collectors.