Keith - a wetness engineer
The wetness services engineer (WSE) has taken over the role of the traditional plumber, combining practical skills in building infrastructure with a more significant service support role assisting customers to maintain low water usage (life-style and systems).
WSE’s deal with fresh water systems, waste water systems and all the various technologies of water purification and recycling.
Career and life:
- Trained as an water engineer with post-graduate qualifications in Service Design.
- Adopted the lifestyle/work balance of the “low consumption – low cost” downshifting model from the end of his education.
- Taken over fathers business: ‘Jim’s Renewables’ – works in that capacity just 3 days a week, specialising in ‘wetness services’; setting up a ‘Jim’s Water’.
- Keith has specific expertise in servicing a range of small scale Combined Heat and Power systems (bio-mass and Gas) used in water purification systems. These use sophisticated sensors providing on-line information for him to monitor their performance. The data is available to him at his home/office as well as ‘on the road’.
- Maintains rain-water collection and distribution systems, grey/black water filtration systems and small scale hydroponics.
- Divided parents’ house in two: lives in one half with his partner Rose and assists in the welfare of his aging parents who live in the other half.
- Drives to business tasks in his licensed private utility vehicle (PRT) which is fully electric. The PRT contains GPS guidance and scheduling facilities based on carbon rating rather than distance or speed. Within the vehicle he can access open source data on all the systems he services.
- Utilises localized apprenticeship scheme for assistance for individual jobs.
- Spends two days a week as a general handyman and garden maintenance supervisor for the downshifting Neighbourhood.
The ‘Keith: A Wetness Service Engineer’ vision was developed as part of the VEIL 2007 Workshops by Dianne Moy, Stephen Mushin, Graham Crist & Malte Wagenfeld