A London company whose robots spray insulation under the floors of houses without anyone lifting the floorboards.
Q-Bot makes robots that insulate homes from underneath. In many older British houses the floor is raised above a dark, cramped space called an underfloor void, and heat leaks away through it. Q-Bot's answer is a pair of robots that go into that space. A survey robot, called SurveyBot, builds a 3D picture of the void using ordinary and heat-sensing cameras, and a spraying robot, called Spraybot, then applies insulation to the underside of the floor. The company says installation takes one to two days, creates little waste, and avoids taking up the floorboards.
The idea came from architect Tom Lipinski and engineering design professor Peter Childs, according to Ingenia magazine. Mathew Holloway is named there as chief executive. The first trial took place in 2014 and showed an 80% reduction in heat loss through the floor and savings of up to £300 a year on residents' fuel bills. The company's stated aims are to make underfloor insulation easier, to help tackle fuel poverty, and to bring robotics to the building trade, making jobs "easier, cheaper, safely and effectively". It won a Highly Commended award in the 2014 CIOB International Innovation & Research Award.
Q-Bot says that its robots are completely made in the UK. Beauhurst's list of UK robotics companies places Q-Bot in the London borough of Lambeth. The company works with housing associations and local authorities across the UK, so its robots operate in homes around the country. In October 2020 it launched an improved insulation robot, and The Futures Centre profiled it as a British company using robotics to monitor and maintain buildings. We could not read the company's own site, so we cannot give exact addresses.
The team, according to the profile, brings together architecture, heat transfer, robotics, data management, and business and technology management. That is a mixed group, and it reflects how the work involves buildings and people as well as machines. The company's public pitch is also about everyday life: it says a typical insulated home saw about a 14% fall in heating energy use, and fewer emissions over the life of the insulation. These figures come from the company's own material, as repeated in secondary sources.
A company that builds and runs robots for the building trade needs robotics and electronics engineers, software developers, people who design and test the spraying systems, surveyors and installers who work in customers' homes, and staff who deal with housing providers. If you like construction, energy saving and clever machines, it is a good example of a robotics business that fixes a practical, local problem. The company's own website is the place to look for current roles.
Website: www.q-bot.co
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