Our guest Dennis Stinson II joins us to discuss the benefits of heat pumps, zoned heating and cooling and the efficiency that is associated with it.
Dennis is the Vice President of Sales at Fujitsu General America and he took some time out of his busy schedule to talk with us about all the options they can provide.
We ask how their products compare to standard HVAC options and how to ensure there are more intentional conversations about their offerings in New home construction builds.
"This is how we've always done it" should be looked at more frequently in all areas of home building and renovation.
New and more efficient options should be explored, that's how we innovate and become more conscious of our footprint.
More Info about Fujitsu General:
https://www.fujitsugeneral.com/
Find a contractor:
https://contractors.fujitsugeneral.com/
Our guest Dennis Stinson II joins us to discuss the benefits of heat pumps, zoned heating and cooling and the efficiency that is associated with it.
Dennis is the Vice President of Sales at Fujitsu General America and he took some time out of his busy schedule to talk with us about all the options they can provide.
We ask how their products compare to standard HVAC options and how to ensure there are more intentional conversations about their offerings in New home construction builds.
"This is how we've always done it" should be looked at more frequently in all areas of home building and renovation.
New and more efficient options should be explored, that's how we innovate and become more conscious of our footprint.
More Info about Fujitsu General:
https://www.fujitsugeneral.com/
Find a contractor:
https://contractors.fujitsugeneral.com/
0:00
foreign [Music]
0:06
all right so welcome back to MVP podcast season
3:26
three episode five uh we have Dennis here uh thanks for giving us the time
3:31
thanks for jumping on the call my pleasure my pleasure thanks for having me and uh looking forward to
3:37
talking about all the exciting things we're going to talk about over the next period of time yes uh we'll get down
3:42
some rabbit holes so we'll try to cycle it in and get back on topic but we don't
3:48
know where the conversation goes um but we start the show the same way so Dennis can you give us a background of
3:55
what took you and where your path took you to get to where you are right now in your career yeah absolutely so uh I'm
4:03
Dennis Stinson and I got to lead the sales team at Fujitsu General America which means that I'm Vice President of
4:09
Sales for North America so we get to say grace over United States Canada and the Caribbean
4:14
um so how I ended up here I grew up outside of Philadelphia um I started as a no Eagles
4:20
representative go Birds Go Birds we were by the way absolutely uh so I grew up
4:26
outside of Philadelphia uh went to a school in Pennsylvania called Millersville University uh met a pretty
4:32
girl there never left the area 30 some odd years later got into the manufacture
4:37
rep business did that for about 30 some odd years and had an opportunity to join
4:43
Fujitsu Fujitsu was always one of those shining stars on the hill in terms of
4:48
the products that they brought the industry that they were in and then also really just how the company was run it's
4:56
a good culture at Fujitsu being a Japanese company there's a lot of a lot
5:01
of good culture not to be overstated on where it is had the opportunity to come in as a regional sales manager did a
5:07
couple of things right ended up as director of national accounts did a couple of things right now I get to sit
5:12
as the Vice President of Sales so it's a it's a career that I'm not sure that uh
5:18
when I was 21 years old graduating high school where I was going to go but absolutely no regrets on the career and
5:24
the path and the great individuals that I've met throughout my last 30 some odd years in this industry
5:30
yeah it sounds exciting and uh so you worked your way up through that that
5:35
company that's what it sounds like Through The Years yes yes so um uh this is my eighth year with Fujitsu uh so a
5:42
couple years in each spot and just uh just a great company in a very growing industry and uh you know so this is one
5:49
of those rabbit holes that we're going to start down that oh yeah when you take a look at uh when you take a look at the industry that I'm in at HVAC and you
5:56
take a look at the space that I'm in and that is heat pumps you take pause and you see what's happening in the United
6:02
States and that is a tremendous investment in strategic electrification so we're we're moving away from fossil
6:09
fuels and that's not a political thing what that is is 30 years of a national energy policy of not being dependent on
6:16
foreign fuel sources so that's moving us to more efficient cars more efficient HVAC building the electrical
6:23
infrastructure there's still much more to go but nonetheless moving away from dependence on others for our very
6:29
existence and that that's driving strategic electrification and to take care of Home Comfort that means moving
6:36
more and more towards heat pumps heat pumps technology has come light years
6:41
from where it was 30 years ago so now you can do a whole home comfortably and
6:47
affordably with the heat pump so as working for a manufacturer that's that's all we do is make heat pumps and being
6:53
on the front end of inverter technology and all the geeky stuff a really good seat to sit in right now is uh to be
7:00
talking about heat pumps and to be working for a manufacturer that makes heat pumps and selling them in the
7:05
United States it's a good place to be yeah and and obviously like you said not
7:10
a not a political argument just a renewable energy source is something that would be a healthy thing to talk
7:17
about as we're we're talking about whatever side of the fence you are on global warming or fossil fuels uh any I
7:24
mean I've looked at um solar power from my house because I mean why not if I could power
7:30
it with the sun even slightly and it's I mean there's so many programs now where
7:35
it's free to install and it basically comes off of your bill like those type of things those creative financing
7:41
things like why not look into it I think it's absolutely new and when we look at Home Comfort System it's really governed
7:47
by a couple of things right number one is it comfortable if you put something in your home or in your property that's
7:53
not comfortable you wasted your money so number one it's got to be Comfort it's got to do what you bought it to do and
7:58
that's to make people cool when it's hot make people warm when it's cold so um the best HVAC system is the one you
8:05
never notice uh so the first thing it's got to do is make it comfortable and there's a lot of really uncomfortable ones out there and then the second is is
8:11
that Comfort has got to be affordable so can I afford what it's going to take to
8:18
keep me comfortable in this house or this property or whatever it may be can I afford that to be able to do it and if
8:24
I can put a piece of equipment in that's even more efficient and keeps me comfortable then I can save money by
8:30
doing this and then if there's a couple of bucks to incentivize me to go that way it just really becomes frankly
8:35
becomes a no-brainer at that point on why you wouldn't do it yeah and in my head like you hit the first two things
8:41
the cost and and can it make it actually comfortable um or ease I guess and like what I like
8:48
is in our culture because we have the system set up we have the capability of
8:55
then looking at that third tier making it efficient and I know that we've talked about high efficiency dryers and
9:00
washers and fridges and dishwashers and obviously furnaces but even the high
9:06
efficiency furnaces from what I know about ductless units which it sounds like you're at so much more efficient
9:13
than a regular furnace yeah so and that's a great the second Rabbit Hole a
9:19
great conversation is is that um you look at where your energy use is used in a residential property and more
9:26
than 40 percent of your home utility budget is spent on your HVAC so if you
9:33
address your home HVAC a little bit of savings there is going to multiply out
9:38
to a lot you can change all the light bulbs and that's good you should do that but the incremental effect is smaller
9:44
compared to the percentage that the HVAC system you take care of the HVAC your
9:49
domestic water and your refrigerator you got it pretty well covered you can change light bulbs at that point that's great but if you do your HVAC your
9:57
domestic Water Production and your refrigerator you you've made some significant impacts to your utility bill
10:05
yeah and I think and you can correct me if I'm wrong the biggest hurdle for the
10:10
ductless system is is getting it out there and getting it known like the marketing of it because as a builder
10:17
uh when you go into building a new home it's you talk to their contractor and they're like okay who are you going to
10:23
use for your HVAC and it goes to like the typical furnace unit and ductless
10:28
isn't really spoken as a a norm yet yeah so where are you at with your company in
10:36
terms of getting some share and some talk about the ductless units going into these new builds
10:42
so great question and you are 100 correct is that when we go into new
10:48
construction we tend to do things the way that we've always done it and that is let's get let's get uh somebody uh
10:54
out here to run some ductwork in this house we'll put a single system in the basement or the attic we call that unitary uh we'll stick an indoor unit
11:01
and an outdoor unit in it we'll take care of the whole house um and that seems to be uh pretty
11:07
inexpensive way of doing it um it is and it isn't when we look at a
11:13
traditional ductless system and it's called buckles because it usually doesn't use ductwork the main difference is is that we're taking the evaporator
11:20
the things that makes hot or cold and we're putting it where it's being used as opposed to sticking in the basement
11:26
pumping it throughout the house so think about that for a minute you take a piece of equipment you stick in the basement then you run it through
11:32
duct work and it loses its heat or cold by the time it gets to where you want it to go so according to ashrae we should
11:39
listen to Ash right we lose up to 30 percent of our thermal efficiency by doing that so you buy something that's
11:44
14 Seer it's 30 less efficient by the time it gets to where it is whereas a
11:50
ductless product we're sticking the evaporator at the point of use so now when I say that I'm 33 Seer I'm
11:56
delivered 33 Sierra because I'm in that room and doing it so the the scale of the efficiency goes through the roof the
12:03
second side of that is is that I'm putting evaporators in areas of use so I
12:09
am zoning a house or I'm zoning a property so now I don't have one thermostat downstairs when I turn it on
12:15
the whole house is 72 degrees I have a thermostat in each point of use so if if
12:21
I'm watching the Eagles in the Super Bowl and I want it to be 72 I saw that thermostat let's see how I worked that
12:26
in there but if I'm upstairs hairs in the bedroom and nobody's up there I don't need that to be tempered so I can
12:33
if I have kids off at school I don't need to condition their rooms to the same temperature the whole house so
12:39
merely by being able to Zone the house I make that comfortable but I also gain the efficiency of not tempering rooms
12:46
that I'm not going to be in and have no intention of being in so I get savings that way the last of all that is is that
12:53
I'm an inverter and what's really cool about all this and I'll get a little geeky for a minute but I take ac voltage
12:59
I convert it to DC voltage and I pulse it in through pulse modulation into the compressor and the fan motors and I got
13:05
all kinds of things going on we really should charge a whole lot more for the equipment than what it does but it's it's ramping up and down and what that
13:12
really means is is that that kilowatt of energy I am squeaking the efficiency out of that
13:18
um by the way that I'm I'm producing heat and cooling out of that that I can't get any more efficient than the
13:24
way that I'm doing it um so I am my units running on cruise control which ramping up and down to
13:30
match the need it's not all on or all off the best description of a traditional unitary system it's like
13:36
buying a radio without a volume control on it so you just turn the switch on and it's full blast and when you're done
13:42
hearing it you turn it off a ductless inverter system is like buying a radio with a volume control so you can turn it
13:48
up or down to match exactly what you need coming into it so a whole lot of different layers of why it just makes
13:54
sense and if you get to tell that story in new construction uh the property owner says I get it yeah no and I'm I
14:01
mean I've looked into these units before and I want to say I looked up your company and unfortunately in Wisconsin
14:08
we don't have any dealers so my call to action is to get something
14:13
up here in Wisconsin yeah absolutely that we can get this rolling because I I like the unit obviously efficient would
14:19
be great um to put into the market because I know that there's more people that are
14:24
looking for how efficient can my my space be
14:30
um because cutting fluff is a big thing of uh I'm gonna call it our Revolution
14:35
right now is to trying to get things cut the fluff just give me what I need and and we're good
14:42
um that's one huge area of the Home Building yeah absolutely so there's
14:47
there's two conversations there one is um so we all remember heat pumps back in
14:52
the 80s and I was that guy right my first home I was going to save the world I was going to put a heat pump in it and
14:57
I did I put a heat pump in my house and then I I learned that once it got about 40 degrees outside I wasn't saving
15:03
anything um because they didn't produce heat and I learned a concept very quick of backup resistant electric that as soon as it
15:10
got below 40 of the heat pump and extract heat from the outside to the inside so I needed to go to electric
15:15
heat which is basically a hair dryer a big hair dryer and that got really expensive really quick and I wasn't
15:20
saving any money and I hated heat pumps although I lived with it for another 10 years
15:25
the technology has come a long long way our system doesn't use any backup
15:31
resistant electric because it doesn't need it so if I take one of my pieces of equipment the vast majority of my
15:37
equipment can operate to minus 15 degrees at full output capacity so if I take a 12 000 BTU or one ton system just
15:45
a small unit and go to minus 15 degrees I put over 14 000 BTUs of heat out of it
15:51
so I put out more heat than I actually say that I'm going to that minus 15. so there's many places in the United States
15:57
and minus 15 you're pretty well covered so the conversation is is heat pumps
16:02
don't heat that raw well and I would say traditional unitary one system yeah
16:08
you're right you've got to oversize it to get the heat out of it ductless heat pump is entirely different entirely
16:14
different animal because of that inverter technology so it's a lot of heat output on that
16:22
well so I was going to ask like retrofitting is probably more costly than new construction right because
16:28
these units no I mean don't you know do you go ahead where are these
16:34
typically mounted would be the same as you would like vents like above a window or below a window or like what is yes a
16:41
great question Dan so it everybody knows us as that wall mount product that thing that hangs on a wall right so it's
16:47
rectangular it hangs on the wall if you ever watch you know any of the HGTV shows and they go to Europe you see them
16:52
all over the walls right um we actually have five different styles okay so I have I have the wall mount
16:59
product which is by far the easiest and the way the product works is I have an outdoor unit and then I run a pipe two
17:07
pipes and wire to the indoor unit I drill a three and a half inch hole in the wall and then I connect it to the
17:13
indoor unit that mounts on a wall so all of my piping is outside there's no duct work okay so once I drill a three and a
17:19
half inch hole all the piping and wiring goes the outdoor unit if I have multiple units I run multiple pipes so pretty
17:25
much the piping's on the outside of the house we got there's manufacturers of what's called slim doctor line hide so it looks like
17:31
downspout on the outside of the house so if you're if you're at the curb it just looks like downspout you really don't if
17:38
a contractor does a nice job and most do um that you'll never know what's on the inside but some people say I don't
17:45
really want that thing hanging on my wall I have you know a historic home or whatever I don't want that hanging on my
17:51
wall it doesn't look like an Instagram or Pinterest yeah exactly yeah so I also
17:56
have a ceiling cassette which is a two by two grid so if you want to stick that in the bedroom you got an attic over top I can do that that if you want a floor
18:04
console so if your house was heated with steam and you got radiators You Yank that out this fits the same spot uses
18:11
the same holes and covers the same unpainted spot on the wall it's perfect it does really well
18:16
um but then I also have ducted units and I know I started saying that I'm buckless but I also have ducted units so
18:21
I've got medium static mid-static and high static but at the end of the day if you say I would really rather have my
18:27
house be Grill and registers and diffusers I'd really rather it look very traditional then there's no reason why
18:33
you can do that your ductwork's only two feet long you can bring it in and blow it out the top and I stick it in the wall or closet in the ceiling or if you
18:40
say you know what um it's okay I'm going to Zone the upstairs I'm going to do a ducted system
18:48
I'm going to do a unit in my master bedroom and then I'm going to tie the kids bedrooms in a hall bath together
18:54
then I use a ducted unit to pick up those three rooms and doing grills and registers and diffusers so I don't want
19:00
you and your listeners to think that it's only the wall mount product it's by far the most popular but there are a
19:06
variety of different styles that you can make look very traditional and still get the benefits of efficiency and still get
19:11
the benefits of zoning and still get the benefits of inverter technology yeah and the reason I was looking into
19:19
products the ductless products is when I finished my house I didn't run HVAC up to my attic but I did end up finishing
19:26
it so it's it's fully finished carpet drywall I got awesome stained wood on the ceiling I didn't run any duct work I
19:34
really cannot I can't use the attic without some sort of temperature control for half of the year because it's either
19:40
way too hot and muggy or way too cold to even go up there unless I have the little floor mounted air conditioning
19:47
unit that runs out the window so I'm looking for a ductless unit up there
19:52
which would be super cool uh as you were talking you said that there are ones
19:57
that you can hook into to you have duck units is that a unit that you can take
20:04
out the old furnace and use the old ducks that are running throughout the house I got that too so that would be a
20:10
high static unit so if you wanted to pull out you got a gas furnace or an oil furnace and you already have duct work
20:17
in the property and you know that to be good then there's no reason why this couldn't
20:22
be a drop in there for that so you would have a horizontal draw through condenser so a typical
20:28
typical ductless condenser which is going to be inverter and do all the great things that we wanted to do but then have an indoor unit that looks very
20:35
traditional it looks like looks like a refrigerator box right small refrigerator box and would slide in right where the other one would go the
20:42
benefit of that is is that you're going to a heat pump you're going to high efficiency and in most places in this
20:48
country you're probably going to get some type of incentive to do it because of its efficiency so you could install today you can install
20:55
really high efficiency equipment cheaper than you can install standard equipment the incentives are that robust and once
21:02
the IRA act kicks in um it's going to be even more so and that's going to take a little while and that's going to be different by state
21:08
it's you know it's it's it's complicated there's a lot of layers to it but at the
21:14
end of the day if you engage the right contractor they'll know what's going on we're coaching up our Distributors and
21:19
they're coaching up to contractors so a good contractor knows what equipment qualifies for what okay yeah and I think
21:27
that's where I ended up stopping because I couldn't find a distributor in this area and I thought like maybe I could
21:34
pull one from Chicago being a bigger Market but I just don't know how far they travel I don't that's a landscape I
21:40
gotta find out more on so I would tell you this is going to be a cheap sales pitch but I'm not above that I would
21:46
tell you to your listeners to go to our website at Fujitsu general.com and on there it's a contractor locator so you
21:53
can enter your ZIP code or if you wait long enough it'll determine where you are it's a little creepy but it does geolocate you it'll tell you exactly
21:59
where you are and once it does that it'll tell you the contractors that are nearest you and again there may be some
22:05
rural areas where the nearest person is farther away than than what you think but nonetheless those are the people and
22:13
the people that are on our website um you only show up on our website if you've sat through some of our training
22:19
classes I cannot recommend somebody uh that that I wouldn't want my own home and what I want my own home is somebody
22:26
that's got a couple installations or many installations under their belt and have set through some professional
22:31
training to make sure that the job's good so yeah go to our website take a look at it learn all about ductless
22:37
there's there's an Eco rebate on there too so you can go in there and uh enter your ZIP code or again it figures out
22:43
where you are and it'll tell you all the rebates that where you're sitting what rebates you would qualify for and what
22:50
pieces of our equipment qualify for it and then a click through on how to get the forms from your local utility it
22:55
really can't be easier than that well yeah well we're going to add that website onto the show notes as well
23:01
um but one thing you said if if someone's creeped out about them knowing where you're located all those people
23:07
that are creeped out Delete all your social media because it's worse absolutely going on your website yeah
23:12
don't worry about the balloons it's your phone yes exactly
23:20
so like don't quote me on it but apparently there was English writing all over the balloon
23:26
so apparently that balloon was manufactured at some some parts or something was manufactured in the U.S I
23:31
don't know so there's something we manufacture in us that we ship to China that's newsworthy in and of itself I
23:37
know I know how much that cost um so you said you mentioned a minute
23:44
ago about insulation possibly being cheaper than a typical HVAC unit would I
23:50
hear that correctly it can be it depends on what you want to do and again that's a that's a broad
23:55
statement but for every installation is different and really the best thing that
24:01
anybody that's considered about doing some some work on their property is is no a good contractor
24:07
um so have the contractor come out and say what are my options what makes sense here you know I hear this nice guy from
24:13
Philly talking about this ductless stuff is that an option for this property that I'm looking to renovate
24:18
um does that make sense here and I'd love to tell you that I'm the best solution for everything in the world uh
24:23
there's going to be times when I'm not uh so but partnering with a good contractor that doesn't have a vested interest in anything other than doing
24:30
the job right is the best thing to do yeah and they're they're more common
24:35
than you'd think because I when I would go house hunting you go into older homes and have that radiant heating what
24:42
you'll notice when you go look at those properties you'll open up a closet door you'll just see like a tube running down
24:47
or over a doorway you'll see like a little circle coming out of the wall and all that is is the ductless unit that
24:55
they they didn't want to rip apart the old historic homes so they put in the ductless unit add the little circle and that's where you get your heat from so
25:01
you will see it you don't know what it is but you'll see it yeah yeah and there's a there's a variety of different
25:06
ones you yep you're right there's a variety of different ones where we do really well is in areas where there's
25:12
hydronics whether it's radiant or baseboard heat or radiators uh because by definition you don't have air
25:18
conditioning and air conditioning isn't considered a luxury anymore air conditioning is considered a necessity
25:24
so yeah anywhere there's hydronics we're in uh but also anywhere there's you know
25:30
large petroleum that's not easy anymore um gas is getting expensive so
25:36
um yeah it's a good solution it's probably what you have fun weather last summer I'm sorry yeah you just paid nine
25:42
thousand dollars I think for a new furnace and I don't know if that included his central air unit or not
25:48
yeah yeah so what's happening in um you know so there's two worry ways to
25:54
affect change right one is with a carrot and ones with a stick right and when we look at our industry there's the
26:01
incentives to drive people towards efficiency but there's also true tremendous new regulations that are
26:07
coming out in the marketplace and it was just a couple of years ago that we saw the changes to water heaters and we saw
26:13
water heater safety devices on natural gas units that bumped the price of domestic water heaters up significantly
26:19
a couple of years ago we saw fan efficiency rating what we call the fur ratings on air conditioners so that
26:26
jumped traditional PSC Motors into ECM Motors so our motor efficiency would
26:32
jump up when you think about what runs on a furnace the fan runs so if you want to affect efficiency you make sure that
26:38
their fans are efficient so that jumped everything up now we're changing the efficiency rating our Seer ratings on
26:46
how we're testing those so we're going from an M standard to an M1 and what that basically means is all of our
26:52
equipment effective January you know 40 days ago that all that
26:58
landscape changed so now that equipment had to get more efficient and when we get to 2025 we're changing the
27:04
refrigerator you're in the reason I bother spending any time talking about that is because we when we inter
27:09
introduce the fer ratings the equipment cost went up to comply with it when we
27:14
went to the M1 standards the equipment cost went up to comply with it
27:19
ductless product always met that when they came out with fan efficiency rating big deal with everything we have meet
27:26
that yeah and they came out with the M1 standard okay big deal you're you're looking for something to be 14 and a half Seer my
27:32
minimum is 18 Seer this is this is not a problem for me to do yeah so when we talk about the difference in pricing yes
27:39
our equipment at one time was more expensive to do but the other stuff has caught up for it to meet the minimum
27:45
efficiency ratings The the cost difference between it is not much if if much at all now if any at all uh simply
27:52
because the other stuff to meet the requirements uh the overall cost is increased
27:58
yeah and that's a good place to sit when you're already miles ahead of where the regulatory standards are yeah you guys
28:05
can sit back and and watch the other people panic try and meet it yeah I wish we were sitting back we're not yes
28:11
you're still you're still pushing I know you are physically but yeah
28:16
the the we are the fastest growing Market of the heac so we look at the segment that we're in we're still a
28:22
small percentage of what the overall volume is um it's a it's a 14 billion dollar
28:28
market uh so we're still a smaller percentage of that uh but at the end of
28:33
the day uh it is the fastest growing has been the fastest growing for the last 15 years yeah and I I do see it continuing
28:40
to grow which is awesome um I did a question on all right so you
28:46
covered the installation obviously maintenance and repair is the other side of the coin of okay yes maybe it's
28:53
cheaper to put in but Dennis what about repairs like I'm sure that's a pushback you get from clients
29:00
well I it we do and we don't so what you what we really do um so a little bit of a rabbit hole
29:07
um we know that in all product categories you get three segments right you get a destination brand you get admit to your brand you get a value
29:12
brand uh we position ourselves as a destination brand what that means is is
29:18
that we've got the highest quality uh that means that our dealer Network or
29:23
our contractor Network are earned so they invest in training they invest in
29:28
uh all the things needed to not just sales sales is a small part of it it's really how do you put it in and keep it
29:34
in is what we have to invest their time in so when somebody installs our piece of equipment today if it's one of our
29:41
Elite contractors out of the box our product carries a seven and five warranty seven year uh compressor
29:47
five-year Parts if you register in 60 days it goes to 10 and 10 and if an elite contractor puts it in our best of
29:53
our best it goes to 12 and 12. so the warranty on the product is 12 years so any products are covered inside of that
29:59
for 12 years um what we also do is coach up our contractors on how to maintain and how
30:06
to coach them or how to repair them so we have mobile apps uh for them to be
30:12
able to get out there and read the troubleshooting codes we have Hands-On training classes for them to be able to do it so I'm going to tell you we have
30:18
our count our human count in the United States half of it's in the technical
30:24
service side as opposed to the sales side so we we dedicate considerable resources on the back side so that it
30:31
goes in and stays in and it's reliable on doing but it really comes down to contractors investing in time and giving
30:37
them the resources to be really really good repair and service of products is a
30:42
non-issue for us because we hit it up front we require it to happen uh great investment in material and it all starts
30:49
with good quality stuff I'm not the cheapest but I am the best value yeah and I'm assuming there's no like
30:55
seasonable tune-ups like every year you have to have HVAC out to tune up your air conditioning and then there is there
31:01
is I mean everything mechanical requires maintenance to it right so it's not a set it and forget a piece of equipment
31:07
it's moving a lot of air air is dirty so there's going to be things that you need to do but again I think that's that that
31:14
conversation where you find some a contractor that you create a business relationship with right and yeah once
31:19
you a year they come out and they tune up your system remember that we're talking heat transfer here so if you've got dirt
31:26
debris and grime and a lot of it is cleaning if you got dirt and debris and grime
31:32
encompassing your heat exchanger you're not exchanging the heat the way you would want to so you can affect Comfort
31:38
but you're definitely going to affect efficiency so I would argue for the hundred and a half bucks that you're going to spend for somebody to come out
31:44
and clean it if it's once a year every other year and if you get a good contractor he'll tell you you know what let me come every other year because
31:51
it's not worth it but maybe you need to see me every year but what you spend for
31:56
them to do that you're going to regain in the efficiency and the comfort is going to be going to be the icing on the
32:03
cake yeah take care of the equipment and it's going to be the same thing if you get a typical furnace you're going to
32:09
have that twice there is no there is no HVAC system that um there's no motor car you drive
32:15
there's no HVAC system uh that you never have to touch again in your life so if you're if you're thinking you're never
32:20
going to spend a dime on maintenance you're going to spend money on replacement then yeah yeah
32:26
and you had uh you went through the whole breakdown of your warranty uh one
32:31
question that I always ask is transferable is that staying with the property or is that with owner or does
32:37
it depend on the situation I guess our warranty today is for the original owner okay
32:44
um we haven't gone down the Avenue of transferability and it really hasn't been that big of an issue for us
32:50
um that being said there are extended warranties out in the marketplace that could be purchased um we recently went down a new Avenue
32:57
we're working with a company called uh uh Service First Financial and it's actually a leasing of the equipment so
33:03
now a nice property owner you're leasing the equipment it's a set monthly payment and if it ever and includes all service
33:10
all maintenance all parts so it's uh kind of like your cable bill you know that it's a fixed amount if it ever
33:17
stops making heating or cooling um then you've got it covered it's part of your monthly fee yeah and you see
33:25
that all like on the agent side uh the one thing that we always see up here is
33:30
uh water softeners yes or reverse osmosis those systems rented from one of
33:37
the four big players up here um yeah it's not a very like uncommon thing
33:44
to see with those equipments being rented at all no so if you take a piece of equipment and you lease it for 12
33:52
years um 12 years from now I guarantee you that although I think I'm cutting edge technology today 12 years from now I'm
33:59
going to see I'm going to seem a little bit Antiquated and it's going to be the right time to change that over to the
34:05
new thing so the lease makes it really good if you're buying it then you're saying yourself well I'm going to
34:10
stretch it a couple of more years because I'm you know I'm in the free zone right now um and that's when it starts nickel and
34:16
Diamond death it's like driving a car over 100 000 miles right you think you're winning but you're really not yeah or like this or like the iPhone
34:23
cell phone trade-in right Marcus when your camera stops working and uh it's time to get a new phone
34:29
yeah that one hurt I was trying to scan documents yesterday and I couldn't get my camera to work it
34:36
found a railing in the floor a couple times that was frustrating yes says the
34:42
guy who's using an iPhone 8 yes I'm on like the iPhone 5. I'm very
34:47
updated I need to upgrade yeah I hear you I hear you I do um so I I mean you don't have to
34:55
convince me I like the product but I'm trying to say Devil's Advocate your system sounds awesome is there
35:02
anything that it doesn't do that a typical HVAC would do because you've got zoning down to the room which is
35:09
something a furnace I mean I guess it could do but you'd be paying it's an excessive yeah it can it can be done you
35:18
have access to do it it can be done but it would cost a lot it would be a lot of
35:23
demo if you're not doing it from the start you'd have to rip through walls to get wires run it would be chaotic
35:29
um the efficiencies up there the maintenance is like so is there anything that your unit can't do that a typical
35:37
conventional HVAC system would provide so your your differences are
35:43
um so if you're doing if you're doing how you're addressing
35:49
air changes in your house are different it doesn't mean that you can't do it just means that you're doing it differently so we know that there's a
35:56
lot of discussion about indoor air quality and what do we do with that well we know that our units got uh
36:02
appropriate filters in it we know that if you wanted to you could put some UV lights in it if you wanted to you could
36:08
realize um a different option of where you're putting a point of use uh UV
36:15
um so there's a company called fuel controls they make a great product called a Duo and they also make a trio and it's photocatalytic oxidation really
36:22
really good spot there are options to be able to do it be doing air changes in your house you can
36:28
build that into a traditional ducted system or what's very very common now is
36:34
using the bath ventilation fans Panasonic makes some great stuff uh to where they're using the exhaust fan in
36:40
the bathrooms on timers to be able to get the appropriate air changes in a property so
36:46
um some are used to building that into an HVAC system because I'm mounted on a wall and really don't have access to the
36:53
outside even though I run the pipes out there I'm really not pulling in fresh air then you would look for some other
36:59
way of doing it now if you're using one of my ducted ones or my ceiling cassette I do have a fresh air Inlet built
37:06
directly into those so the air would come in from the outside be treated and then dispersed but our most common
37:12
product of wall mount product you would need to look at another form of fresh air and fresh air is a good idea but I
37:19
would look at the bathroom ventilation fan to do that it'll do the same thing do it really well and it's very common
37:25
now a couple years ago that would have been a challenge today you're probably hard-pressed not to find an IAQ bathroom
37:31
ventilator yeah and we've used the bath fans for circulation for HVAC when we're
37:36
restoring a spot it just depends on the electrician running it to the right
37:41
switch that it turns on and it meets code and all that stuff but I've found inspectors don't
37:47
uh they don't frown upon it but they don't like it because it's different it's different
37:52
from what they're used to well it's an education piece right so it's uh you're used to it pulling area out not
37:58
introducing air in when you think of fresh air you're thinking of air coming in and if that's created negative how can air come in so it's a it's a it's an
38:05
education piece yeah and I leave that for the HVAC guys because that educational piece I'm not I'm not
38:12
licensed in and I don't know numbers to run on doing those calcs but
38:18
um yeah the the circulation is a big one but it sounds like you've got that system down I would think a little bit
38:24
better if you're introducing uh the UV light as a cleaner on top of the filter
38:32
yeah so there's there's options to do that I like the Standalone stuff too I like the idea I like the idea that some
38:38
things are meant to do specific tasks I like that um you know I never was a fan of the built-in TV VCR I think that they're two
38:46
different things so I look at my HVAC the same way that if I want if I want heat and cool air I have something
38:52
dedicated to do that if I want my indoor air quality I can invest in something and again
38:58
there's some there's some products out there field controls comes to mind there's many um but they monitor the quality of the
39:04
indoor air and then cycle based on what they're reading so there's really good technology that is much much better than
39:11
what you can build into an HVAC system and I think the benefits of zoning and efficiency outweigh
39:17
um any disadvantages of having a different dedicated piece of equipment but I'd argue that that equipment's
39:23
better than what you can stick there so yeah yeah and I had I had another thought earlier about
39:29
um liquid propane because obviously in rural areas they don't have the typical gas line that you can hook up and I mean
39:36
I had a cabin up north that were just off of liquid propane is that something that your unit can work with
39:43
now we're electrical together so we're 100 oh it's all electric it's 100 electric so awesome so we're so we're a
39:50
heat pump right so I mean we're we're back to that sixth grade physics you know where we take the three different
39:55
states of matter where we take you know um liquid solid and gas and you change
40:00
temperature pressure to change the status of it so by moving refrigerant around the system we are compressing it
40:07
when you compress it you exhaust heat when you expand it you absorb heat so a heat pump all it does and I make it
40:15
sound really simple but all it does is take heat from one area and pump it to another so in the winter time we are
40:22
expanding the gas outside we're collecting the heat from outside and you can collect heat from 18 degree air or
40:29
zero degree air there's heat in it just doesn't feel like it but you can take the heat out of that we move it to the
40:34
inside and then distribute to the inside air conditioning is not something that
40:39
makes cold it's something that makes the absence of heat so what it does is it collects the heat
40:45
on the inside takes it outside so a heat pump is just an air conditioner that
40:51
works both ways a heat an air conditioner just takes heat from the inside puts it to the outside yeah I was watching a Netflix
40:58
documentary on uh I think it was like the best 100 inventions of from like the
41:05
1950s to the 2000s and one of them on there was the air conditioner apparently it was invented by a guy who did uh
41:13
carrier yeah he was a mail carrier right or a newspaper his last name was carrier
41:18
I forget whether it was Joseph or Charles or wig called Chuck but it was a guy named carrier you know the big blue
41:24
oval carrier yeah he's the guy that invented air conditioning commercial air conditioning and there was something
41:30
about he did he did print like newspaper or letters or something but he couldn't
41:35
get the dye to dry in the climate that he was in so he hired some engineer some smart guy to
41:43
try and figure out how to control air and that's the whole birth of
41:48
HVAC and I didn't know that story I'm going to reuse it it's a great story but I knew that he uh I knew that he
41:54
basically invented it made it commercially viable and yeah it's really just you know again it's it's sixth
42:00
grade physics it's liquid solid gas and when you change from one to the other it takes energy to do it and part of that
42:07
energy is heat so you can make heat or extract heat so it's
42:12
pretty basic stuff when you think about it yeah no it is very cool uh where do
42:18
you see uh the next step in the U.S because I feel and you could correct me
42:24
if I'm wrong Japan in the in the U.S I think are infrastructurally built a
42:30
little bit different where I think that Japan can they're more on this front of
42:36
Electrical uh Power and I might be mistaken but I believe they have a
42:41
Highway uh a small portion of their Highway that has solar panels
42:48
it may very well be so uh I didn't see it but it may very well be I would tell
42:53
you that the United States is different than the rest of the world we know that sometimes we take a lot of pride in that
42:58
but we are different from the rest of the world the rest of the world go back to that conversation that there's two
43:04
ways to affect change carrot and stick yeah the rest of the world doesn't pay what we pay for electricity it is
43:10
downright cheapier you know when you're in a landlocked country and you are trying to develop electricity and you're
43:17
paying 38 or 40 cents or 50 cents a kilowatt hour all of a sudden efficiency
43:22
and Zoning is the only thing you want to talk about you would never stick a system in the basement run ductwork to
43:29
the house and waste that energy because it's so expensive and so precious to do
43:34
um you're also looking at overall cost and materials in the whole nine yards so the vast majority of the world does not
43:41
heat and cool like we do um the vast majority of the world does not use a unitary system with duct work
43:47
we are the one spot in the world that uses ductwork because our energy sources
43:52
are relatively cheap we get upset when our gas goes to three dollars a gallon that's not expensive in the in the
43:59
scheme of the world we get upset when our electricity goes to a dollar fifty
44:04
um you know a kilowatt we get all bent out of shape out of it the reality is that's a downright bargain for the rest
44:10
of the world so so the world is much farther ahead of us in terms of efficiency and whether that's making
44:16
domestic water or that's making air conditioning or whether that's making heating we're we lag behind only because
44:24
we've really not had to have the the push to have to do anything different why change if you don't have it yeah and
44:30
do you think that's the main reason of why things haven't changed or there isn't as fast of a growth in this field
44:37
and I don't want to make it like a political thing but no well I would tell you that over the last over the last 15
44:43
years more things have changed than the last 10 years in this industry they've probably changed the last 40 years so we
44:49
look at the continued change in um in the type of fuels that we're going with and certainly big mandates for for
44:56
Change and efficiency and that's driven by you know our national energy policy
45:01
and that started really back in the 70s I mean when you know for those of us that are old enough remember waiting in
45:06
line to buy fuel based on your license plate you know the whole Miracle movie the whole nine yards that was real for some of us I haven't heard about this
45:13
one yeah yeah so the end of the day this has been a national energy policy for
45:18
decades through all administrations it's not a political thing just why do we have to buy our fuel from somebody else
45:24
when we can do things better um so that's been driving slowly along moving along and now we're seeing some
45:30
resources come back in on that we're watching our natural resources get more and more expensive so this kind of makes
45:36
sense to to do things differently is it going to make sense for everybody to go to electricity no but it makes sense for
45:42
more to go there than are there now um so we can be able to to go down that Avenue where I see things going and
45:49
where the industry going is where we're now starting to combine our Mechanicals so you're going to see domestic water
45:56
working in conjunction with the HVAC system you'll see domestic water being heat pump water heaters but heat pump
46:03
water heaters maybe being tied to your HVAC system so if I'm taking if I'm taking the heat out of the upstairs
46:08
bedroom instead of dumping it outside why don't I stick it in the domestic water so we're going to see heat
46:14
recovery product products now we're going to see more and more of that become mainstream coming into it so in
46:21
the summertime when I am heating my pool why don't I take uh the cooling from
46:26
somewhere and put up my pool and in the wintertime why don't I you know so at any one time between my domestic water
46:32
my house my pool some of my other things something's hot that wants to be cold something's cold it wants to be hot so
46:37
instead of making that why don't I just move it around yeah I like that I mean you already made the dinner you might as
46:43
well eat all the food rather than throw it in the garbage you got it you got it I like that yeah I like that and you
46:49
mentioned there's it makes sense for some and not for other obviously it's it's per case basis but as a property
46:56
owner who does rentals I eliminate gas as much as I can because gas means boom
47:03
and I don't want my tents to deal with it so I do electric stoves I would probably prefer to eat off of a gas but
47:10
in a rental electric makes more sense are these units something that would be
47:15
easy enough for the normal renter who doesn't want anything different they're obviously
47:20
renting because they don't want to own a home so they want a plug and play unit something easy enough for them to get in
47:27
hit the thermostat understand how it works and just roll with it yeah so today the equipment is set up
47:35
um so in terms of a rent they're liking it I don't have to tell you but the overall
47:41
cost the monthly cost is how you value it so if you have an Antiquated HVAC system in there and it's costing them
47:47
400 bucks to heat on a pool that you can't charge as much per month I mean it's that that property is only worth so
47:54
much in totality per month so isn't it better that the vast majority of it goes to those who's honing the note on the
48:01
property instead of those that are running the gas or electric into it so the better the efficient piece of
48:06
equipment the better return you can get on your monthly charge for them to live there yeah you know so when we take a
48:13
look at the at the property that standpoint that makes a lot of sense the equipment in and of itself can be controlled in a lot of different ways
48:20
um you can it'll ship with a wall mount thermostat it's either wired or Wireless but if you want to dial it into an app
48:26
so you can change the temperature in your property anywhere in the world as long as there's Wi-Fi at the property you can do that we can tie into Google
48:33
and Alexa and you can yell at your equipment and it'll turn up and down um so we even talk AI into an app called
48:39
ift which is if this then that which is really cool so if it gets a certain temperature outside it'll change change
48:46
the temperature in your Sonos will play white Christmas in your garage door open and it'll tell you you need milk and all
48:51
that kind of fun stuff so there's a lot of really great technology but at the end of the day if you want to turn it on
48:56
and off and go up and down we got that if you want to control it from anywhere in the world and do all the G whiz stuff we plug right into that that's fine too
49:03
yeah in that I could see for those out of state investors who aren't on their properties uh we just had somebody on
49:10
that has an Airbnb and I'm thinking if I own an Airbnb 10 states away and it's
49:16
vacant like it'd be nice to go on my phone and be like hey make sure that this is not going below 50 degrees so my
49:23
pipes first or that or that you know I've got um you know I'm uh I'm a VRBO or whatever I'm
49:29
on a short-term rental and I'm changing over um what's to say the person that walked out the door didn't crack it crack it up
49:36
to 85 and I'm now so where I am I can adjust it I can set schedules uh I can
49:41
do what I want to do I can also verify that the heating is actually on I probably have a camera on the outside so I know when they leave so I can also see
49:48
what's going on on the inside I would tell you that we've introduced some cloud-based technology we have our own
49:54
cloud and uh so we do some residential stuff when we do some commercial stuff there when you look at commercial
50:00
properties there's just some great dashboards that you can look at multiple properties at the same time on there so
50:06
let's go right down the Avenue of of what what your listeners are doing yeah and I can see it being useful in
50:13
apartment complexes and all that you can Zone it per unit uh and know what's going on that one there's a level of
50:19
troubleshooting yeah I'm sorry there's a there's a level of troubleshooting too so if you had a trusted uh contractor
50:25
somewhere you could give them access so they could see what the fault codes are prior to going out there so they could
50:31
roll out with the solution instead of so as an investor then now you got a service charge not a diagnostic and a
50:37
service charge you've you know you're you're and trust me your contractors will like the idea that they don't have
50:43
to be Gophers for three hours a day yes yep and I mean you try to mitigate that
50:48
as much as you can like I've gone down to a unit and called the HVAC guy because I was like hey I know it's going
50:54
to cost you 250 bucks just to come out and read this thing so can I do it for you and I'll tell you what code pops up
51:00
so that you only have to do one trip but I mean I have to pay myself to do that
51:05
like it would be nice to go on the phone and just have that all done so that is a major major cost savings yep and like
51:12
you said your contractor will love you for it oh absolutely they're they're no they're they're happy not to be stuck on
51:17
the highway picking up a part oh yeah um and you alluded to the transfer of
51:23
energy a little bit go how far or how close are we on the horizon with all of that is that like just introduced onto
51:30
the floor are we are you guys working on actually implementing that system in no
51:36
so those products are available in other parts of the world um we have a big refrigerant change
51:42
coming here in 2025 so we are in the United States we're changing our
51:48
refrigerants uh to match the um coyote protocol so what that means is that
51:54
we're reducing our global global warming potential below 750 on our refrigerants so there's a pretty significant change
52:01
in our equipment coming in 2025 and to be able to meet that demand we're doing that now and you'll see the equipment
52:07
start rolling in next year you'll see some new equipment some new
52:13
Innovative things coming into the market and I just came back from Atlanta which are our Big Show big HVAC show was there
52:20
um and we saw some of that equipment there you'll see more of that once the refrigerant change comes in because anything you do now you got to
52:27
completely change 18 months from now and nobody's got that kind of engineering time to be perfectly
52:33
honest with it after just changing efficiency now change in refrigerant you introduce what we have to introduce but
52:39
if you don't meet regulations you can't sell so you gotta you got to make sure you meet the rules first yeah and
52:47
there's been subtle changes that have been felt already I know that some units the freon that it uses isn't allowed
52:53
anymore so yeah that's the refrigerant changes yeah yeah and I was going to ask is that what's changing with the fridges
52:59
now so those are all going to be up to the next standard where the thing is now is no longer going to be even needed I
53:06
don't know it yeah so I mean we we saw some time ago where we went from Freon
53:12
R22 to r410a at a glow smaller global warming potential and then the next step
53:18
is in 2025 when we drop below 750 and that's going to take us into R32 or 454b
53:26
the industry is kind of splitting on which way they're going and there's reasons for that you know really well beyond what we need to talk about but
53:32
there's reasons why some are going one way and some are going to another but nonetheless it's a change and it reacts
53:39
differently so that means that the equipment the compressors are different the tube diameters different heat exchangers are different so the
53:45
equipment is fundamentally different it's not just getting a new can and sticking this new stuff in there it's
53:50
the equipment is entirely different yeah and you were talking about was it an R rating
53:56
a Seer rating a Seer rating okay I wasn't sure you'd mentioned something and I didn't know the numbers so Seer
54:03
Sears seasonal Energy Efficiency rating and that rates residential air conditioning
54:08
um so today the requirement is air conditioning sold in the South
54:14
considered the Mason-Dixon line to be the delineation and it basically is everything below that it's got to be 14
54:20
or better everything above that's got to be 13 or better the South has a higher dependency and more year-round on air
54:27
conditioning so you would want the higher standard there we passed into M1 which is can effect in January and what
54:35
that means is is that the equipment is now rated to a higher standard so it's addressing variable speed motors and
54:41
it's doing a lot of good things it's the right thing to do it is the right thing to do but now there's the CR2 rating so
54:47
basically everything that was 14 Seer if it were on the same scale would have to
54:52
be about 14 and a half Seer so so the equipment fundamentally is
54:58
changing so either you take higher efficiency equipment and retest it and re-rate it that's the term that we're using or you redesigned it some
55:04
redesigned some re-rated but nonetheless the piece of equipment you had yesterday is not the equipment you can use today
55:10
to make it even more complicated and why wouldn't we in the south
55:16
everything was by an install date so what you could sell and install on
55:21
December 31st is not the same equipment you could sell and install on January 1st in the north it was all based off of
55:29
is all based on manufacturing dates so as long as you made it by December 31st
55:34
you could sell it in perpetuity in the north okay so you have all of this equipment that all of a sudden became
55:40
door stops in the South that's flooding to the north so if your listeners are
55:46
south of the Mason-Dixon their equipment costs they should have they should have made this decision two months ago but
55:52
their equipment costs just jumped up because they have to go to the new standard if you're in the North
55:58
you may not get you may not get the picture that you pointed at but you're going to get a really good piece of equipment so maybe it's slightly
56:04
different color or shape or size we're working through that inventory in the north okay but again ductless we met all
56:10
those requirements nothing changed I have a new sticker on my box that's the only difference my equipment passed right through really meant nothing but
56:17
on traditional unitary yeah there's a lot of a lot of people that are that are not sleeping well at night based on where that equipment's
56:23
got to go and where it could be sold yeah no and I I'm excited to see the changes and I I hope that I can
56:29
introduce that into some of these rentals um that I have coming up because
56:34
I mean everything about it screams like it's a good idea and that's where we're headed anyways so I might as well jump
56:40
on the boat yeah absolutely reach out we'll find a right way to do it and then you can do a good test job and a
56:45
testimonial one I did this on this side of the street not on that side of the street and these are the results I have yeah I mean I'm just I'm sure it'll be
56:51
better because I mean that's always a question you get when you are looking for a new unit or the tenants coming in
56:58
how much is rent what does it usually cost in heat what is the water bill yeah like those are all things that I I have
57:05
sit I've set out printed year out reports that I can send it yeah this is
57:10
what you were looking for so if those numbers could drop for them and drop for me like that just screams a win-win yep
57:18
so what I was I was gonna ask two things um back to Marcus's question earlier you
57:24
you mentioned how like when you're doing new construction how are you guys
57:30
trying to change that conversation or what are you guys doing whether it's with marketing or with the agents or the
57:37
home builders to be part of that conversation to promote your product as opposed to a
57:43
traditional duck list because I mean obviously there might be like under the table um
57:49
relationships where it's like hey if you're building this house make sure you mention carrier for example or whatever
57:55
the other brands how do you get into that conversation so we get in that great question so
58:01
um we get into that conversation in the old-fashioned ways that we go out to job sites and we find out who's doing the
58:06
work um then from that once you find them you know the type of work that they do and we have the conversation with Builders
58:11
and developers and it really comes down to bringing the right contractor in that has faith and confidence that they can
58:18
do it well and do it right we do a couple of layout jobs and once they see that they work fine uh then it tends to
58:24
blossom and grow out of there you know Builders have got a tough job they do yeah um you know they're worried
58:30
everything about a roof deciding the air conditioning the faucets the Landscaping the and it goes on and on and on and on
58:36
and on and there is a level of if it's not broke why do I want to fix what's not broke
58:41
what what what's the benefit for me to do um when we're now seeing a lot of the
58:46
incentive packages that are coming down um that can also be used by Builders and
58:52
not just Replacements now we're seeing some incentives that are driving that behavior and once you try it and realize
58:58
well it really didn't cost me any more to do it and my people that are buying a house are looking this as a premium
59:04
because it's zoning and efficient and all these other things um you know I'm going to move this forward but it takes it takes character
59:11
or stick to make people change what they're doing and um so we got a couple of those things but it is it is really
59:16
Word of Mouth we advertise like crazy but at the end of the day when was the last time you saw an ad for HVAC you
59:22
probably see one every day but unless you're looking for it you don't think about it so we're going out there in a Grassroots and having those
59:28
conversations
59:34
I was gonna say it it is hard as a builder like Dan was alluding to like
59:40
you have those relationships like oh Bob takes my HVAC stuff I always work with Bob I know but what does Bob bring and
59:47
sometimes the general contractors or the subs that are going to bring them in kind of get offended when you push back
59:54
on it but I mean there's a question there and everything is negotiable so I
1:00:00
have to ask the question and if you get upset that I'm asking the question I don't think we're gonna have a very good relationship anyways but it takes that
1:00:06
either the homeowner to ask the question or the contractor to bring up hey there is another option and do you want to
1:00:13
learn about that like education that's the first thing I see is education yes
1:00:19
yeah and that's you know so somebody's got to be able to try it and get the Comfort level with it that's really what
1:00:24
it's all about is getting the Comfort level um it as a contractor and I understand that
1:00:30
business very well as a contractor if you're mentioning if you're proposing to do something different than what they've
1:00:35
already done then you own that at that point but if I'm putting in what you asked for well if it's not hot or cold
1:00:41
that's I gave you what you asked for so there's a little bit of that going on there too um but you know at the end of the day we
1:00:48
are making significant strides down that Avenue uh part of that was when we introduced the
1:00:54
um the high static product so part of that is is do heat pumps really work there really is this whole big thing the
1:01:00
United States the heat pumps really work and the answer is the good ones do um so uh it's getting the confidence of
1:01:07
the Builder that I can heat and cool this property entirely with the heat pump um and now okay well if that makes sense
1:01:13
then why don't I start looking at zoning so you have some of the some of the very forward-thinking builders that are saying I understand heat pumps yep the
1:01:21
good ones work and I do understand zoning there's a great value in that and that's something that I can sell I can
1:01:26
monetize that I can get value out of that so yeah my my mindset only because it's
1:01:34
part of my past experience with certain jobs and it's always networking for me
1:01:41
um so like when you talk about Like Home Efficiency uh on your end right and you know cost
1:01:48
per use things like that I used to sell LED lighting and I used to be in the national accounts and if there's a way
1:01:55
for you to develop Partnerships or like hey I'm aware of this new construction new whether it's commercial residential
1:02:02
blah blah we just sold this led package to them do you guys have that where like scratch
1:02:08
my back I'll scratchers they make sure you mention that we can provide you know um the heat pump in
1:02:14
yeah so we do it we do a lot of different things uh down that Avenue and that's whether we're we're partnered
1:02:20
with somebody else um a lot of our Partnerships tend to be down the energy
1:02:26
modeling side uh so that's where we do really really well is uh partnering with
1:02:31
energy modelers that are going into accounts and whether that is a Housing Authority whether that is a builder
1:02:38
um that's going in and saying let's do an overall package here so let's do the lighting let's do the appliances let's
1:02:45
do the domestic water let's do the HVAC we're doing business with a lot of companies that are now uh effectively
1:02:51
leasing the product to uh the end user where they're putting the equipment in
1:02:58
there then assuming the utility bills and charging a fee and making their money off of the difference of what it
1:03:04
was to what it is so there's a lot of different there's a lot of different models out there now based off of but I
1:03:10
guess they always were there but based off of uh efficient equipment going into a property but yeah we're working with
1:03:16
the builders we're working with the hospitality people um and yeah it does make a difference it does make a difference yeah that model
1:03:22
seems like what the the solar panels are you make your you make your money off the difference of what it was rather
1:03:29
than what it is and after 20 years you pay it off and now you're you're fully solar everybody wins yeah everybody wins
1:03:37
I'm less than what I was yesterday and if anything ever goes wrong it's your fault uh yeah and if I'm really good at
1:03:44
doing what I'm doing and I'm using uh good equipment then there's a there's a delta T in there that I can make some
1:03:50
money off of so yeah yeah we work with quite a few of those and it's it's a really good business model a lot of
1:03:55
private Equity money there really good business as well yeah that's cool and uh you were mentioning the companies that
1:04:01
you work with and I'm I'm asking because I'm hoping for this answer are these companies newer companies or are you
1:04:08
getting HVAC The Bobs of the world who've been doing it for 30 years to
1:04:13
understand like this is a new technology that's coming learn something new expand your business introduce this option
1:04:20
because I see it as like an Uber taxi like taxis didn't develop up and didn't
1:04:26
move on with the times and here comes Uber all they did was create an app and now they're bigger than what taxi could
1:04:32
have been when they had the fleet and the the knowledge of I mean the roads
1:04:37
they only tell you I would tell you that our client base is all over the place
1:04:43
um so knowing how we go to market we go to market exclusively through wholesale distribution so we sell our product to a
1:04:50
Wholesale Distributor who sells it to a contractor who installs it um we would be nothing without our
1:04:56
Distributors so our Distributors uh are our advocates in a Marketplace they create the relationship with our
1:05:01
contractors our dealers if you will Downstream but they're also coaching their people up on technical support
1:05:08
they're having the parts they're just they're just a great One-Stop shop and they're also putting all the other parts
1:05:14
and pieces together for me to sell I sell the equipment but I don't sell the wire I don't sell the pipe I don't sell the insulation I'll tell the pad I don't
1:05:20
sell the disconnect I don't sell all the other stuff that goes with it so distributor puts all that together represents my interest really well so
1:05:28
when you ask what does the typical profile my customer look like and I say there's not
1:05:34
um that can be the young guy that's driving efficiency that's that says I never want to put another boiler again
1:05:40
in my life I want to do this kind of stuff that's him but that's also the older fellow and I'm careful how I say
1:05:46
that because I'm in that demographics now but I get that older guy that says you know what this is just a really good solution this is a really good solution
1:05:53
for my customer most contractors don't consider themselves salespeople and they get
1:05:58
offended when they do consider themselves salespeople I'm a consultant of sales I do it's right for my customer
1:06:04
I'm not trying to push them down the Avenue of something they don't need or want I'm in the comfort business and I'm
1:06:09
going to give them the best recommendation so it's our job to show them where the winds are with our
1:06:15
products where the quicksand is but also where the winds are as well so that you can win you can make money your
1:06:21
customers happy they refer you to their niece and nephew and co-worker and and that's how it works so it's it's it's
1:06:27
gaining the confidence and that really comes from really good distribution and we got it yeah we had that same
1:06:34
situation with LED lighting so when you're bringing that up it's all too familiar with using distributive reps and you know hey yeah then they're the
1:06:41
ones that deal with the contractor or the Electric Supply uh houses and there yeah so that's our model yeah so it
1:06:49
works I understand yeah so how do we get in contact with your wholesaler to get these wholesale prices on units
1:06:55
I have I have two I have two furnaces two Central airs and I think they're
1:07:00
probably pushing 12 to 15 years old each I told Marcus in our first episode I had
1:07:05
to replace the capacitors in both the central airs because they went out one one went out early June and then
1:07:11
like two or three weeks later the other unit had that capacitor go out and I I swapped them myself but I'm dreading the
1:07:18
time and the hit to my pocketbook when I have to either replace one or both furnaces
1:07:24
ambassadors go and that means your compressor is drawing some amps which means that you're closer to the end than
1:07:30
you are to the beginning so right good times doomsday your capacitor is your
1:07:35
warning call right this is what it is yeah so um you know our website for for those
1:07:41
that aren't going to do their own work uh the website is our place virginitygeneral.com is the best place
1:07:47
to go to locate a contractor there's a bunch of choices on there and as always you should talk to more than one and as
1:07:52
always you should try to find an HVAC contractor an electrician an exterior
1:07:58
guy and a landscaper before you need them so you should have that relationship before it's in the middle
1:08:04
of the night and you and the guy on the back of the phone book looks like the most attractive guy it's probably not so whoever
1:08:11
can be there in an hour may not be the right person you want could be there was actually I was
1:08:18
listening to a podcast and they said if you want to find and you want to build relationships with good contractors
1:08:24
go sit at Home Depot at 5am and anybody that walks in the door ask
1:08:29
them what they do and you'll find a contractor who's on the ball because if your contractor is going in and starting
1:08:34
his day at five they probably have their ducks in the in their in order which I might I might say go sit outside of an
1:08:41
electrical supplier sit outside of a plumbing supply or uh you know I yeah whatever
1:08:47
the source of material yes that's for individual areas go to different areas they were talking on the building side
1:08:54
like if you want if you want a new kitchen well you want a deck go see who's humping the lumber out at five in
1:09:00
the morning yes yeah that's kind of what they're alluding to so yeah if you're looking for lighting or Plumbing go to the plumbing house or the lighting house
1:09:05
and and you'll find that contractor so we uh I'm based out of Philadelphia Jersey Shore is not nearby
1:09:12
um darn family's got some property down the shore and a lot of that is rental down there
1:09:17
um which is good right that's all that's all great uh what you tend to find is that there's contractors that specialize
1:09:23
in rental properties and what I mean by that is is that they understand the business unit what they understand is is
1:09:30
that there's time of the year that you do maintenance and there's time of the year that you do emergency and you just kind of balance it all out so you
1:09:36
understand that when a property owner calls you and says the heating or air conditioning sounds because they got
1:09:41
tenants in there and they're down there for a week and they need air conditioning by the time they come back from the beach it's got to be fixed so
1:09:47
they you know they they figure that out so the nature of your business I would say find somebody that understands the
1:09:54
profession that you're in and understands that you are working in a rental situation and there are
1:10:00
um it's not a matter of I'll deal with it it's a matter of I can't deal with it I have a tenant I have a higher responsibility so find somebody that
1:10:07
understands that model and it'll work really well yeah and obviously check out your
1:10:12
website for those those folks uh as a step one at least yep
1:10:19
you see that Network growing as as things get implemented and you guys grow stronger so it's only going to get
1:10:26
bigger and bigger and bigger so I got Nationwide I got more than 10 000 contractors on there so I'm I'm I think
1:10:34
I'm pretty good yeah no that's a positive positive note where you guys are sitting so yeah congratulations on
1:10:40
where you've taken it and I'm I'm really looking forward to seeing what's new and what's coming absolutely you ever get to
1:10:45
the East Coast come and see us uh we got a place in Manhattan we're based out of Pine Brook New Jersey so never get to
1:10:50
the East Coast come and see us we'd love to show you more about our stuff and uh for your listeners check out our website
1:10:57
um there's some great info there and I get a lot of local resources as well so we can help your listeners we can help
1:11:02
you so thank you appreciate it awesome and we'll tie your website and all your contact uh information or what what's
1:11:09
the best way to contact you or is it just to go to the website look for the distribution of the website we got an info box there awesome there we can
1:11:16
um based on how that comes in we can get I can get one of my people people on it I can get one of our reps on it I can
1:11:21
push it to a distributor or contractor you know based on if it's an emergency yeah you want a
1:11:26
contractor there if it's uh if it's if it's a what if then let's get the right people out there that got the vision to
1:11:32
to take a look at it yeah very cool no that's awesome we'll put that in the show notes uh so that
1:11:37
people have questions can get a hold of uh you or whoever needs to be to get it answered not him directly he's he's a
1:11:43
higher up man he doesn't take care of that yeah I'm always happy to take phone calls just not happy to put my email
1:11:48
address all right no yeah no worries yeah no that all works well I appreciate the
1:11:54
time and thank you for the knowledge it's awesome um I love the technology I'm looking forward to this growing bigger and
1:12:01
bigger so fantastic uh and we'll we'll be looking out on the the Midwest at least you got it great
1:12:08
podcast man thanks for the invitation thank you for the time Dennis learned a lot today thank you very much
1:12:14
bye [Music]