A retired electrical engineer from Usk, Monmouthshire, is hoping to help reduce fuel poverty in the UK by an invention inspired by his old car and helped by the Welsh Government’s Business start up service.
Martin Lewis, who is in his seventies, has developed a versatile low energy heated armchair seat cover which costs less than ½ pence per hour to use and could he says reduce household annual heating bills by several hundreds of pounds.
It is estimated that 332,000 households in Wales are fuel poor and national charity National Energy Action (NEA) has proposed a trial of his B-warm units across the region.
The Welsh Government’s Business Start Up service local provider, Centre for Business, assisted Mr Lewis in securing funding, including a Welsh Government Innovation Voucher for £10,000 while Usk-based design consultants GX helped him to develop the prototype.
Economy Minister Edwina Hart said: ”This clearly illustrates that age is no barrier to starting up a business and that entrepreneurs have an important role to play in stimulating the economy. I am delighted our Business Start Up service helped Mr Lewis develop his business idea and take his product to market.”
Mr Lewis worked on a design for an affordable and efficient armchair warmer after his wife Audrey, who suffers with arthritis, said she wished she could take the heated seats from the couple’s SAAB car into the house.
Mr Lewis explained: “After my wife’s comment we tried out lots of car seat heaters and looked at chair warming pads. But they were inefficient, short-lived or extremely expensive. Clearly there was a gap in the market, so I went back to basics.
“By calculating how much heat a body generates in watts while active and inactive and then reworking electric blanket designs, I came up with a model which I found could be run for just 0.5 pence an hour.
“Even in our old and cold stone cottage, using the B-warm we can drop the temperature to as low as 13 and be very warm when sitting. Our heating bills have dropped significantly as a result.”
Mr Lewis was also paired with a business advisor who worked with him to develop a firm business plan and map out a cash-flow forecast to predict the prospective viability of the business over the long term. He was also helped to flesh out his ideas over a series of Welsh Government innovation workshops.
His new business Home Glow Products now have several hundred B-warm units for sale, at £79.99 each.
Mr Lewis said: “Now the first batches are on sale, I hope to get further help from the Business Start Up service with things such as website sales development, but first I need to be sure that the demand is out there, and that we can fulfill that demand.
“ At my age I don’t intend to start employing people, but I’m convinced that my product can make an important contribution to tackling the huge problem of fuel poverty in this country.”