LONDON: BDR Thermea’s brand new training facility, Acorn House, in Warwick, has been officially opened by Chris White, MP for Warwick and Leamington. Chris White and Lee Robinson, customer service director unveiled a commemorative plaque to mark the occasion.
Chris White said: “It was a great pleasure to be able to open the state of the art new training centre in Warwick. BDR Thermea is, through its household brands such as Baxi, a major local employer and shows that our area is at the forefront of advanced manufacturing, training and support.
“As we seek to reduce our carbon emissions in the years ahead, domestic heating and hot water will play a big role in making our homes more energy efficient. BDR Thermea’s presence and investment in our community will ensure that we are able to share in this green dividend.”
Lee Robinson, customer service director, addressed guests, including Mr White MP, representatives of local government, local charities which the company supports, industry bodies, trade press and other representatives of the heating industry, and thanked them for coming.
“I am extremely proud to celebrate the official opening of our new product training centre and showroom”, he said. “We have invested over half a million pounds in this new centre and increased the local training capacity by 100 per cent.
“This year we celebrated 40 years in Warwick, and, despite the tough economic conditions, we think this investment demonstrates a real commitment to the area.”
He went on to explain how Acorn House is the latest training centre to be opened by BDR Thermea, which now has a network of 13 training centres across the UK. “Each year we invest several million pounds in training resources for our customers and also our staff,” he added.
As well as providing training on its own products, BDR Thermea is working with organisations such as BPEC, NICEIC and Summit Skills to provide professional skills training. These qualifications will help installers to future-proof their businesses, enabling them to install low carbon technologies and for their customers to be eligible for the available Government grants and tariffs.
Last year training was delivered to around 10,000 installers through BDR Thermea training centres; 98 per cent of delegates rated their experience as excellent or good. “Our organisation is absolutely committed to setting the benchmark for customer satisfaction, and absolutely committed to delivering excellent training,” added Lee.
Acorn House will provide the blueprint for the refurbishment of existing training centres and for future facilities. It has good sized class rooms and excellent ‘hands on’ training bays for both domestic boilers and new, low carbon technologies.
In addition, wherever possible, the environment has been considered, and the low carbon technologies used for training installers on accredited and certified courses are also used to provide heating, hot water and electricity for the building.
For example, solar thermal panels on the roof and a biomass boiler provide hot water to the washrooms and kitchen area and a Baxi Ecogen dual energy system (micro-CHP) supplies electricity, as will solar PV due to be installed later this year.
