Our Story

1996 - The Ploughcroft Journey begins

Ploughcroft started as a quality driven family business by Chris Hopkins and his father Bill Hopkins at Chris's home in Ploughcroft near Halifax - hence the name.

Working hard from the outset with customer satisfaction the goal, Bill focused on building maintenance while Chris specialised in roofing and particularly modern roofing techniques.

2002 - Quality becomes the official standard

The quality of workmanship resulted in a constant flow of recommendations and the business flourished, relocating to new premises near the centre of Brighouse. In 2002 Chris pushed the company to a new level, achieving quality standards including 'Investor in People' and ISO 9001 accreditation and the professional approach to business soon earned the name, the "Ploughcroft approach”.

2004 - Ploughcroft becomes the sole ownership of Chris Hopkins

Chris’s passion was to create an innovative roof training school to teach other people how to deliver the "Ploughcroft approach" and then employ them to build the business. Bill saw the idea as “bonkers”, to train staff to such a high degree so they could leave to establish their own businesses. Therefore, it was amicably agreed that Bill would continue in his own building company, while Chris would become the sole owner of Ploughcroft Ltd.

2005 - Building a world class company

As far as Chris was concerned, supplying high quality and professional services required truly professional staff and his ambition to build a world class company grew with a deep rooted conviction that specific ingredients would be needed for continued success:

1. An NVQ/CITY & GUILDS accredited training academy (recognised by the industry)
2. To put something back into the community and the industry by teaching and helping other companies and individuals, even competitors, to gain qualifications through the NVQ Centre.
3. Develop new innovative courses for the roofing industry and share the benefits.
4. Always deliver quality and customer service.
5. Never give up.
6. Keep an eye on the future … particularly relating to energy.

In September 2005 following Chris's development of the roof training academy, it was awarded full accreditation by the awarding body City & Guilds, centre number 5166.

RooferMan - The Launch

Known at the time as "RooferMan", Chris followed his principles of enabling opportunities and trademarked the name RooferMan TM.
He developed a franchise operation, which put roofers though the NVQ centre and then set them up in business in their own area as the local RooferMan. RooferMan

2006 - Investing in Solar Roofing Installations and a Professional Certificate

In a new initiative, Ploughcroft teamed up with the ‘NFRC’ and 'Construction Skills' to develop a unique training course to train roofers in the key competencies to install Solar PV and Thermal, working closely with several prestigious organisations:

• Viridian solar
• Solar century
• Worcester Bosch
• Vaillant

This won Ploughcroft the National Home Improvement Council Award for Innovation in Training 2007. Chris then spent the next two years training other roofing competitors and making provision for II colleges around the UK with this new course, which has now been formally recognised by City and Guilds C.A.A. and is an NVQ qualification - (the unit credit is VR298)

2008 - 'leading the solar roof revolution'

During 2008 Ploughcroft started to emerge as the leader in the solar roofing and renewables industry. Ploughcroft was lauded in the media as 'leading the solar roofing revolution' and dubbed Chris ‘Solarman’, a nickname that has now stuck!

This excellent media coverage and praise allowed Ploughcroft to go on and win prestigious contracts with:

1. 2008 – Vaillant Partner
2. 2008 – NPower Partner
3. 2009 – Plumb Centre Partner

2010 – Winning awards make Ploughcroft a winning company

In 2010 Ploughcroft was asked to build a solar roofing demo area for the Plumb centre at London's Earls Court for The Eco Build Exhibition. This went down a storm and was the biggest crowd puller, with live demonstrations of how to put solar panels on roofs. Chris was also asked to do a guest speaking spot on solar roofing and the state of the market. He also appeared at the Federation of Master Builders’ annual conference in York speaking about the solar market.

Ploughcroft continued its lead of the solar roofing revolution by winning the following awards:

• National corgi awards for best green business initiative 2010
• SME of the year 2010
• Yorkshire and Humber micro generation partnership best business initiative 2010

2011 - Future developments already achieved

Chris's expansion and development of Ploughcroft has seen Ploughcroft’s offices move to St. Peg’s Mill in Brighouse. This allows the Ploughcroft Training School to house bigger and better training facilities and class rooms, together with the Eco Roof Visitor Centre which is now open for the public and industry to see the developments and benefits of solar energy first hand. Today Chris continues to build Ploughcroft on his founding principles of delivering excellent quality service by highly trained professionals. He remains extremely approachable and always welcomes a chat to give or receive friendly advice.

Dragans' Den

Ploughcroft MD Chris Hopkins appeared on the BBC’s Dragons Den, looking for £120,000 of investment. Chris was a major hit on the show and managed to secure 2 leading investors in Deborah Meaden and Theo Paphitis.