Wednesday was the day we’d been waiting all year for; the Heating Installer Awards winners announcement LIVE in the main Installer Plaza at 1pm. But before that, we had work to do.
We arrived at the show at 8am to help CIPHE with its pre-show briefing, being held in the main Installer Plaza area. Following this, we attended a couple of talks and managed to finally visit some of our clients’ stands. We got involved (of course we did) ending up in a bath, a Crystal Maze dome and a lovely air-conditioned booth (thanks Samsung Climate Solutions) among other things!
The awards came around in no time. Herding 22 finalists from our stand to Installer Plaza is the biggest challenge we face each year. We’re pleased to report that this year, for the first time, we didn’t lose any on route!
It took a team of nine from Refresh to run the announcement plus capture the ceremony from every angle for every social media channel we need!
We want to say a huge congratulations to everyone who entered the awards this year: the standard was incredibly high. But as our judges tell us, there can only be one winner. This year it was the very talented Nick Irlam, from Lancaster, who took home both the UK Heating Installer Award 2024 and Best HVAC Installer!
Damon Blakemore was awarded Best Sustainable Installer 2024, in addition to coming runner-up to Nick in the national awards, and David Davies finished third. We also awarded Luke Neale the Rising Star award.
Day two was truly a highlight for all the team at the show and back in the office. We got to know the group of regional winners and category shortlists so well over the year, and honestly feel personally invested in their success. Our network of friendly installers continues to grow as a result, meaning we can help even more clients to access their ideas, thoughts, time and social media accounts as a result!
One installer told us this year that as a result of winning his region, he’d just secured a £60k job that he wouldn’t have won without the acknowledgement. We then heard this time and time again. It’s truly humbling to know that this is the impact that the awards have, and it’ll spur us on for next year for sure as we really ramp things up for our 10th year!
Meanwhile, over to Refresh, it was another busy day for the on-stand team. Thanks for coming to talk to us – we had some really great chats, and we look forward to speaking to some of you again soon.
The Refresh day two team diary:
- Helped CIPHE with its pre-show briefing on InstallerPLAZA
- Attended the launch of Building Safety Week, a key feature of the show for 2025
- Delivered more Refresh-ments. We’re beginning to grow really fond of the Deliveroo-inspired bag now
- Key meetings on stand to obtain exciting, hot-off-the-press updates from a client that will make it easier to access plumber apprenticeships
- Lined up over 30 people for a group photo (do you know how hard this is?)
- The Heating Installer Awards 2024 ceremony LIVE
- Met our winners, toured them around the show, and then to Weatherspoons!
- Met The Mountain from Game of Thrones
- Talked to lots of installers inspired by this year’s awards
- Held a client meeting with Gas Tech Heating – great to see you!
- Attended PlumberSocial until we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer
- Re-stocked the fridge for the 100th time ready for day three!
As the final day approaches, we’re excited and tired, but ready to go! Let’s go Team Refresh!