Almost all installers throw away old ventilation systems. A mortal sin and out of date, thinks Rogér Keijsers of ventilation specialist Interduct. He recently started giving those devices a second life. "Old stuff? After our treatment, they are as good as new."
Utrecht, Royal Jaarbeurs hall 9. It is the stroke of eleven on Tuesday afternoon. Rogér Keijsers still has to recover a bit from the two VSK+E awards he won this morning. "That we, as a small player among all those big guys (manufacturers, ed), are able to live up to that, isn't it wonderful?"
Were you in tears?
"Well, I still had something to set myself off, shall we say. I had started this two years ago. That fell apart for a while due to personal circumstances. Six months ago I picked up where I left off. Now I'm here with two prizes. Really great."
What exactly do you do?
"Interduct consists of 23 companies. We design the project management of ventilation systems, but we are also manufacturers. We have our own wholesale business in filter shops as well as pipe materials. And then we also have a service and maintenance branch."
But what did you get those awards for?
"We give old ventilation systems a second life that are now being thrown away without mercy. And the whole of the Netherlands is still full of them. Especially in the '70s and '80s, a huge number were installed. They are now all in need of replacement."
Sounds like gold trading to you guys: take them out and replace them with new ones.
"I don't think that's a golden trade. To just haphazardly take everything out of houses and throw it away is out of date."
To give the beast a name. You guys turn that old stuff into new stuff.
"Yes, we refurbish them nicely, then check them and fit them with new software if necessary."
What are you getting yourself into? I mean, why are you doing this?
"I just see that the prices of new products are getting higher and higher. And so we throw away a lot. Beautiful circuit boards, for example, that are still completely intact. That's a deadly sin, of course. Because in the end they all still have value and we throw it all away and meanwhile we have to pay more and more for the waste. So you also throw money away with it."
Which appliances do you give a second life?
"Mechanical ventilation boxes, heat recovery systems and roof fans, those are the big ones though."
How much of that is released every year?
"I don't know, but I do know that hundreds of thousands of homes are being preserved. Those houses are all being insulated, and you know what they say: insulation is ventilation. So you also have to add lungs to that home."
Is there a demand for refurbished, used ventilation boxes?
"Huge. For a division of BAM, we may refurbish all homes in the renovation market. In Beverwijk we take out the old systems, in Haarlem they go back into the residential area, after a refurbish treatment."
Want to know how this story ends? How much CO2 savings it saves, how this circular dream of Roger Keijsers started and how to refurbish old appliances? Then listen to the full interview here.
