Building Ireland travelled to Two-Mile Borris in Tipperary and touched base with Hybrid Heat Solutions proprietor Thomas Maher to find out more about this modern heating and plumbing outfit which has been delivering value-added solutions across the domestic, education, healthcare and industrial sectors for two decades and counting.
Celebrating 20 years in business, Hybrid Heat Solutions is an industry-leading plumbing and heating contractor specialising in designing, installing and commissioning high-efficiency renewable energy systems. Established at the turn of the millennium, Hybrid Heat Solutions provide bespoke systems, tailored to the specific requirements of each building, to dramatically reduce heating costs whilst simultaneously increasing comfort levels.
Consigning traditional heating options such as gas, oil and solid fuel to the past, renewable heating technology has completely transformed not just plumbing but the construction industry as a whole and Hybrid Heat Solutions – trading as Thomas Maher Plumbing & Heating Ltd. – has built up a stellar reputation for installing the most effective and efficient renewable energy systems, including underfloor heating, geothermal and air to water heat pumps, smart controls and heat recover ventilation (HRV) units across County Tipperary, the greater Munster region and beyond.
As an approved installer of both Daikin and Mitsubishi systems, Thomas guarantees his customers a return on their investment by offering the best products backed up by unbeatable service levels, acting as a single point of contact for everything from consultation and design through to installation and aftercare.
With heat pumps and underfloor heating systems now being incorporated into practically every residential and commercial new build design – not to mention a huge volume of retrofits – there is no doubt that renewable energy is the future of heating and plumbing…. “It’s the way things are going,” Thomas agrees. “We got into it early. We’ve been doing this for 15 years already and it’s certainly not new to us. I served my time with a company that supplied heat pumps so, when I started out on my own, I had very good training and wasn’t going in blind.”
The advantages of renewable energy are manifold. As well as being a clean, cheap, efficient and low-maintenance source of energy, Thomas points out that the comfort levels are also vastly superior to traditional central heating: “The result is warmer and more economical homes, which are more sustainable and feasible with a lower carbon footprint. It’s a win-win for everybody,” he notes.
It’s vitally important to Thomas that he uses only premium brands, which ensures that quality is a given, with customers assured of the best of the best. “I deal with Mitsubishi and Daikin because they manufacture the best products and also have a great aftersales service,” the Tipp man continues. “Having said that, I like to be able to do all my own repairs and don’t like to wait for anybody else. When it comes to customer service, I operate independently, with a rapid response time, and try to do everything in-house.
“Mitsubishi and Daikin are at the high end of the market and they are the best heat pumps money can buy, so you won’t have any problems with them. And we don’t want problems because callbacks don’t pay and are no good to us. You put in quality products – it’s the only way to go. Look, they all need servicing but the last thing anyone needs is to be called out on Christmas Eve because somebody has no heating. We don’t need that silly stuff and you can avoid it by using quality products.”
A broad swathe of the market is covered by Hybrid Heat Solutions. “While the majority of our work is in domestic new builds and retrofits, we also cover schools, nursing homes, industrial buildings and have done quite a bit of underfloor heating in hospitals. We worked extensively in local schools during lockdown and were also kept busy with work in nursing homes, which we have been doing for many years. There’s rarely a week goes by that we wouldn’t be in a nursing home.”
As the need to protect the environment becomes increasingly obvious and more pressing, there has been an explosion in retrofitted renewable energy systems of late. “Yeah, there are a huge amount of retrofits going into existing homes and we’d regularly be fitting heat pumps for Better Energy, Tipperary Energy Agency and home owners themselves.
“We’re retrofitting around 80 heat pumps a year and it’s growing all the time. This is a market that will continue to grow, too, as we are going to have to go with heat pumps as kerosene is being phased out to reduce our carbon footprint. As well as retrofits, we also work on a lot of new builds – installing heat pumps, underfloor heating, geothermal heating and HRV, predominantly repeat business working for a core of the same builders that we have worked with for years.”
Word of Hybrid Heat Solutions’ proficiency has spread far and wide, resulting in an ever-increasing catchment area being covered, from Cork to Galway and Limerick to Dublin. Thomas currently generates full-time employment for an experienced crew of six. “Good men are hard to get so you try to hold on to them,” he states. “We have invested a lot into training – they start at the bottom and work their way up.”
While it is obviously important to provide a professional service, in the modern world, speed is also of the essence and Thomas aims to move both quickly and efficiently: “We like to get in an out as quickly as possible. Nobody likes delays. Once you are organised and know what you’re doing, then you can get the installation done efficiently and move on to the next job. We always aim for a fast turnaround. Whether it’s a full team or just two men on a job, you strive to get in and out quickly so that you keep disruption to a minimum.”
The strides that have been made in renewable energy in recent years have revolutionised the heating and plumbing industry – can this technology improve much further? “I don’t think it’s realistically going to be possible to make new builds any more efficient, but the retrofit market is going to become very big and home owners will be spending a lot of money upgrading their homes,” Thomas opines. “A vast number of local authority homes are being retrofitted and we’ve worked on a number of these. We have just done twelve homes in Templetuohy and Tipperary County Council have appointed us to do twelve more in Thurles.”
If traditional heating methods aren’t quite a thing of the past just yet, they look destined to become so sooner rather than later. “I haven’t put in an oil boiler in ten years and if I’m asked to do one I’ll tell the property owner to forget about the oil burner and put in a heat pump,” the owner of Hybrid Heat Solutions,” reveals. “You simply won’t get the efficiency and comfort levels out of an oil boiler that you get with a heat pump. It’s a different type of system with low energy and low heat. You heat the home up and keep it heated at a comfortable level and it’s easier to maintain.
“With a heat pump you have a nice continuous heat and it’s comfortable all the time, as opposed to too hot or too cold or in your face,” Thomas concludes. “You also have hot water all the time, which is very convenient. Hot water is prioritised within the system and is always there.”
Twenty years in, it looks like many chapters remain to be written in the Hybrid Heat Solutions success story.
Hybrid Heat Solutions,
Cloncleigh,
Two-Mile Borris,
Thurles,
County Tipperary.
Tel: 087 4431766
Email: [email protected]
Web: hybridheat.ie/
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, March 2022, Vol 8 No 3
