Starting Out: Phil West, West Energy Technologies

DURING the mid-90s Nottingham Trent University suffered major problems with cooking-related false fire alarms. As building services consultant to the university, I was asked to resolve this problem. The only solution I could find was to take control of the ventilation away from the students.

The fans were controlled by controls which the students didn't like because the fans remained on even when there was no cooking. Students either masked the controls or smashed them so the fans would not operate.

While Nottingham Trent University used our services to resolve the most difficult problems, this proved to be one of the most brain-taxing ones.

Following a few hours of deep thought I decided the most fool-proof method would be to monitor the current usage of cookers and toasters. However at that time there was nothing commercially available to provide the type of control I considered to be the solution.

David Gilderdale, the university's construction services manager, agreed we could carry out our initial field trials at the Maltings student accommodation.

Once proven, a mark one version of the controller was fitted to each kitchen which eradicated the cooking-related false fire alarms.

Simon Smith, at Nottingham Trent University, continued to specify our controls on other student accommodation. In these early days he had to defend the specification when the value engineering took place by those who could not grasp the massive benefits of our controls.

Nottingham Trent subsequently sold its student accommodation to University Partnership Program and Philip Layen, sinking fund manager of UPP, began using our controls more widely in student accommodation.

Its design and development manager, Bob Giles, adopted the concept from Nottingham and I understand it is now in their standard specification for all new university student accommodation.

By 2006, mainly through telephone sales, I had managed to get our controls into the standard specification of some 27 universities. Brunel University now has about 1,000 controllers installed.

In 2003, I decided we needed to offer controls for bathroom ventilation. While the current sensor was fine for electric showers, we needed a sensor for conventional showers. I set about developing the Thermistor sensor.

Once developed, I could see our controls could be suitable for a much wider audience and particularly suitable for boosting whole house ventilation.

I had been in discussions with Marc Primaroh, group research and development manager for McCarthy and Stone since 2003. While he was a great advocate of our controls, he could not justify their use until the implementation of the 2006 building regulations.

The air tightness required under the new regulations led him in the direction of whole-house ventilation. He quickly saw the benefits that our controls could offer particularly with retirement and assisted living type apartments.

We are now included in their national specification.

Although I had been in discussions with the large fan companies since 2003, gaining acceptance of our technology was almost impossible other than sales of a hundred or so units per year to NuAire,

Being specified by McCarthy and Stone, followed by winning the H & V News Awards for Air Movement Product of the Year, has certainly made a difference; both Vent-Axia and Xpelair will be offering our controls built into their fans in the near future. Ventmiser has now been recognised by the House Building Federation and is featured on its website in the Innovate for Homes section.

The H & V News Awards Judges said Ventmiser was an "important development"; The fact that in 1998 there were some 233,488 false alarms at a cost of over £21m, I believe, justifies the above statement.

With over 10,000 units now installed and about 7,000 units in university student accommodation, I believe our controls have had a major impact on carbon reduction from fire engines, not to mention the carbon reduction benefits by only ventilating when necessary.

Looking to the future, the drive towards zero carbon homes will demand increased use of precise controls for ventilation, our core business.

With sole ownership of the patents of our controls we should hopefully enjoy a secure and prosperous future.