Hey everybody, welcome to the HVAC ADHD vodcast. Today we have Eric George from
Comfort Advisors. Homecom Advisors. Home Comfort Advisors. Home Comfort Advisors. Home Comfort
Advisors.
I've known Eric for a really long time now. Uh we probably officially met through Dave Richardson from National Comfort Institute somehow someway. I've ran into Eric in National Comfort in Institute trainings and retrainings and reertifications, that sort of thing. he's had a similar career
path and diverged into real estate investment. So, um, Eric, tell us a little bit about where you came from and
where you're at now.
Yeah, thanks Jeremy. I think, uh, probably one of the first times I met you was actually at a Midwest
residential energy conference in Lexington. So, ResNet stuff. So, yeah, I uh started off in, you know, doing insulation and weatherization stuff uh, back in my early 20s. My parents had a small insulation company and uh I didn't really want to do it frankly, but I got into that position because my parents needed help and it was an opportunity to learn about construction and and they also had a u insurance restoration business that did mold, water, fire damage and all that kind of stuff.
So I actually got trained originally through um the Paul Davis restoration franchise to be a water damage restoration technician. So got to learn about how buildings fail and how they dry out. And then uh ended up running the insulation and weatherization company for about
three and a half years before we sold it. And then I moved down to Louisville and started building performance group. And I think that was shortly after that is when we linked up in 2010, 2011, something like that. So original focus was to do energy audits because I really um I got you know I got pretty good at diagnosing stuff or at least I thought I did back back when I had the insulation company diagnosing issues in houses um
and had went through a bunch of training with uh low-inccome weatherization assistance programs in Indiana was the program up in Indianapolis the organization up there that trained me and so I I wanted to really do energy audits and so I came down here and realized that not a big market for energy audits but That was when Energy Star Homes kind of kicked off and uh LG at the time KU was offering all the rebates for energy raiders to get started. So it was kind of perfect time, perfect place. started doing energy ratings. Did that for long time. Um and kind of honestly just got burnt out on it and kind of pivoted several years ago and and um started doing more real estate investing stuff, flipping houses, wholesaling, rental properties, and uh now I I pretty much just have I've sold off all my residential properties with the exception of four. And um I just I manage um oversee management of like five self- storage facilities now and have some partnerships in other ones.
So, um you did you is that how you did you start in flipping houses with the real estate stuff or did you start in the on the um storage space?
Started off with flipping houses and I I got started in that in 2008. So, right when the crash happened and banks were giving away houses, it was a good time to to buy. You know, there wasn't that many buyers as there is now. So, everybody was scared shitless and didn't want to buy anything because they thought it was just going to keep dropping. But I was more of a buy and hold investor. Honestly, I rehabbed a bunch of houses, but most of the rehabs I did, I kept because it was like I cashed out my 401k to start building performance and kind of went all in on that. I was like, "All right, well, I know construction. I know real estate to a certain extent." So, I spent a bunch of time um you know, learning about how
to invest in real estate and kind of made that my retirement plan more or less. and and uh you know the goal was to like pay off you know get to like 10 or 20 houses pay them off and that's that's the cash flow stream that you got and it paid off pretty well honestly um
but the rental properties that I had were mostly college rental properties and I don't know if you went to college
but when I went to college it was a show with with uh student rentals and
dealing with the property managers and stuff like that. So, um, I had a pretty good system in place, but we just got
tired of dealing with kids and their parents. And you charge them by the room. No. No.
That's how like the guys up in I dealt with a lot. Like I'm a good friends with one of the biggest um property investors
up in uh Clifton UC area. It's called UC for rent and they charge by the rooms.
It's like however many bedrooms is in there. That's the multiplier for the amount that they charge for rent there.
Well, you Yes. So, that's how I determine the rent cost, right? But that's not how the lease is structured
because unless it's a multif family property, you can't rent individual leases by the bedroom. So there's just
other landlord laws. You put them all on the lease though, like anybody's anybody on the lease. All the parents are on the
lease. So it's a pretty pretty secure their uncles or cousins, anybody you can make responsible. Have a co-signer pretty much if you're
going to rent with us. So anyway, that that uh we sold off most of our college rentals um over between
19 and 2023. And so we just kind of transitioned into storage. And um then when you know
everything kind of slowed down with the interest rates and prices went through the roof, then I just kind of was like,
"All right, well, I guess I'll I thought that was really when I saw you doing that with the self storage, I
thought that was a really cool and smart pivot. Like that's one of the top all any list you look on that's one of the
top like five current turnkey businesses that there is out there that parking lots and car washes usually are right up
there. Yeah, it's pretty it's pretty low maintenance honestly. I mean, you know, it's not really the topic of this
conversation, but you can uh you can really automate these things with call centers and software and and
automated controls and all that kind of stuff now. So, it's it's a business that I like. I I really like the asset class,
but frankly, it's not something that I'm passionate about. It's not like God's pulling me to keep buying these metal
boxes so hoarders can put their It's not that exciting. Yeah. It's I mean, the money's good and you can you can do very well in self
storage. Um, so I like the asset class for those reasons, but it's it's like it's not drawing me into like whatever.
So, that's really kind of what I decided to pivot back and and and get back into the building science stuff and home
performance. That's just It's funny you said draw me back in because like when I saw you start doing content and stuff.
I'm like you think you're out but you suck me back in. You know the old Godfather thing like you're always we're
always get sucked back in. So tell us a little bit about that what you're doing now to pivot back to this.
Yeah. So I I decided last year it got to a point with building performance where
um my employees were they just knew they knew how to run the business and it didn't require much of my input. And so
I was like, you know, it's time for for you to take over. So David Cleveninger was my right-hand man for over 10 years,
12 years. And so I I sold the business to him. And he didn't really want to do energy audits, frankly. He wanted the
new construction side of things. It's way more consistent. And um and so I had
historically always done the audits. And so he's like, "Hey man, I'm I'm too busy. Like can I just keep sending the
audits your way?" And I was like, "All right, I guess." So So what is he doing? like ratings and stuff like Energy Star and all that
stuff. Yeah. Okay. So, um I should connect you guys too. I don't Have you ever met David?
No, I don't think I have. Okay. Connect you guys at some point. But, um anyway, yeah, he wanted the new
construction stuff. So, I I was like, "All right." And then it it's sort of just once I started doing more of the
online education and putting these videos out, I started getting more requests for inspections and, you know,
calls from HVAC guys. And and I'd always kind of had that reputation, at least in the metro Louisville area in Kentucky
and stuff, is somebody to call if there's, you know, issues other people can't figure out. And so I was like, you
know what? I feel like, you know, God put me in this position where I've got this talent and I've got this history
and this experience that a lot of other people don't have and I feel like I'm squandering it if I don't put it out
there and try to help people if I can. Right? So, it's like I just kind of took a different um I could I took a
different angle with it like just my mindset shifted a little bit around it whereas before I didn't really want to do the audits. It was like, you know,
this isn't going to make you rich and you know, blah blah blah or whatever. And I just I was like, you know what?
People really need people like me to help figure out these problems. And if I can help them, then, you know, that's
fulfilling to me, right? So, I don't want to spend every day of my life doing this. I'm kind of selective in the jobs
that I I choose. They're usually more complicated, larger homes, and so I charge accordingly. But, um, you know,
it's it's more fulfilling to me than some other things that I could be doing right now. It's fun solving the problem. Like I I
mean I feel the same way about ratings versus audits. Like ratings are like a mindless thing that I go through and I do either you did it or you didn't. I
check a box or you got to come back and fix it. But like like the home performance side of things in people's
homes and I felt the same way like when I was doing home performance and that's how I made all my money. I did not enjoy
it that much. Like I enjoyed figuring the stuff out that always challenged my mind but like from the day in day out
drudgery of that particular thing I did not enjoy it that much. But now that I'm on a different side of it, sort of like
what you're saying where doing more consulting, more education, that stuff, like getting back out there and figuring
those problems out, um, ends up being a lot funner. I just took one I was in Cincinnati for, you know, as you said, I
live in Knoxville now and, um, you know, I was 45 45 year Cincinnati resident. I
go back up there every Labor Day to do my fantasy football draft with I've been in it 20 years in the same fantasy
football league. So, um I was up there this past weekend, Labor Day, and then some one builder called me like, "Hey,"
or a HVAC contractor called me like, "Hey, man. Um I know you're in town every weekend on Labor Day. There's this
house that these builders are having trouble with. Can you go take a look at it?" And so I went back I was going to
go back Monday evening. I went back Tuesday afternoon instead. I stayed in town Tuesday to go look at the dude's
house and figure it out. This is a usual suspect stuff. Lead house. um super
tight, super whatever, you know, lead certified Energy Star home, but they're having he
had so much water in the third floor of the house or the sec uh probably like technically the third floor of the house
because these are like fourstory homes straight up and down um on the river down in in Cincinnati. They call it
Riverside Drive. It's like this huge complex of lead houses they built. But um and they all have the same exact
problem. So like he third floor just soaked, right? And they had the ceiling tore out. The duck works freaking rusted
and stuff. I put a blower door on there. Five me, you know, five minutes. I'm like, "Yep, there's your problem." The
roof on the outside's got air leaking, right? You know, it's one of those little bumpout areas, fake architectural
bumpout areas with the little roof and it just didn't get caught during the rain. It never would get caught unless,
you know, somebody was climbing way up into some place that they probably too dangerous for them to look. And every
with these tighter houses, as you know, like air has less and less places to leak through. So the places they do leak
through, it's worse and worse and worse. Dragging humidity, dragging humidity, dragging humidity. So it's easy fix once
you know what it is. But dude, that dude said he's the second owner. He's been there 18 months. He knows there's no way
that it could have. He's he's a commercial construction guy, so he's seen black and thought mold and got somebody in there. You know, he's like,
I know this I know this didn't happen in the 18 months I've been living here. That's what he told me. He's like, "I ain't lived here a full summer yet, so
there's no way." He's like, "It's been going on since this house was built." So, you know, that's the type of stuff that uh we we see, you know, on a
regular basis. Yeah. I mean, and I think I referred you to a friend who had a lead certified house. I wanted to talk that's on my list to
talk about today because that exposes a whole another thing about sampling. Tell that story because, dude, that is like
the that's the best indication of what happens when you use SAM. I hate sampling and like this is really the
greatest example of what could happen when you use sampling. So, did you did you actually talk to her?
Many times. Many times. Yeah. Okay. Cuz I I think I have about half of the story and you may have the other
half of the story. I'll tell I'll fill in where I can. She's uh she's a good friend from college. She, you know, first original
owner of this uh town home. I guess it's a three-story town home with a rooftop patio thing.
Yeah. So, one thing we should uh context for this story, it's in Cincinnati, Ohio. There's a lead tax property tax
abatement. So, anything that is built to quote unquote lead standards, whether it's certified gold, silver, platinum,
you get a tax property tax abatement associated with that. Back then, it's changed now. It's less than it used to
be, but back when her it was she that thing she's living in was built in the prime, like the the height of all this.
And at that time, if it was a platinum building, you could get um
500 Yeah. half million dollars up unlimited years. That's what it was.
Unlimited years abate it. So you could get up to a half million dollars unlimited if you built Lead Platinum. So
literally any construction that you see in Cincinnati, like downtown Cincinnati, the revitalization of otr, like any of
that stuff, it's all driven by this lead tax abatement. Like all of it. So everything down there is is lead. So
like the reason I'm I'm saying that is that this is where so this building like there's two main green programs, you
know, green uh providers in Cincinnati and one of them was one I subbed work out from and this just happened to be
that one. So like she was part of that program. So go on go on with your story. Yeah. So anyway, she had uh big temperature differences between rooms on
different floors. She had uh she ended up having like a big leak between the garage and the first floor from
this is in a lead platinum building from a condensation drain line I think that uh that just it got clogged up or
something happened came through the garage ceiling. So she she actually called me uh earlier this year on that
in particular. This is before or after you had talked to her. This is another problem like earlier this year.
Earlier this year. Oh that's way after I talked. I haven't been I haven't you know I have not been involved with that situation. Yeah.
before like I've lived in Knoxville five years. I was still in Cincinnati or just moved to Knoxville when all that was
going on. She's had nothing but problems with this town home pretty much. And so she had comfort issues. She had big big
temperature differences between floors. She had, you know, no air coming out of certain vents and you know, you would
think if it's lead that the air flow is getting tested or pressure balances is happening or something. But anyway, the
last the last thing that happened they they um the leak came through the garage ceiling. They came out, cut out the
garage ceiling, and we're like, "Yep, it's from the drain line." And then they go to uh to patch the drain line, and
they're starting to just cover the drywall up. And she's like, "Wait a minute." Like, "What about all the insulation up there that's wet?" And she
calls me, and I'm like, "Don't let them put the drywall back up yet." So then she she tells them to stop, gets
a a restoration company involved. They come out there, pull out the insulation, dry it out. They find mold, you know. Um
I didn't know any of this. And then so and they went through the process of drying it out and all this stuff. And
there was duck work that was crushed. There was just a bunch of crap work that that had happened in this house. And they look real pretty from the outside.
They're very modern looking. They've got these architectural features that are attractive. Uh highly desirable area to
to live in. But the functionality of the of these houses. Oh, and then another
thing I went to stay with her actually this summer or last spring actually. one of the in the middle of her living room,
the floor is like this and and it's it's the wood floor, the LVP or whatever is
buckling. And I'm like, is that the floor or is that like the humidity
that's buckling the floor? Like it's humid. It's all these all these lead houses have the same problem, dude. They in Cincinnati and the Midwest
especially, they you and Energy Star, I'll put Energy Star in the same bucket because they allow the same to go on. They all use they get these houses
super tight and then they put bath fan ventilation in them, dude. And I'm telling you right now, like they are
humidity buckets and they don't have any kind of dehumidification, nothing. And the systems tech because of Energy
Star's that they won't do away with. Um, I mean, it's dead. The program's dead now, but I've been calling I've already gone our blog and
everything about this. Like, they're oversizing forgiveness and Energy Star is ridiculous. It's causing 100% of
these problems 100% of the time. They let these guys size way beyond what they should under the the the um guise of not
being able to get equipment, which is that thing that really was happening when they first wrote that, but it's so long gone and dead that it's just rid.
It's one of my biggest soap boxes ever. I freaking hate the the way Energy Star deals with that stuff. But the the funny
thing about that that lady's thing is like so whatever I forget the original I
think it was just comfort issues when you originally got me involved. You were saying like she was having had a leak through the ceiling too
when I got involved with it. Back then there was a flat roof. So she that might not have been in my
purview. I think I was just trying to figure out the comfort and the system and the lead stuff for her. And the
builder stood on the fact that that was a certified building. And I fought with
him tooth and nail and he's it was a I'm like, "Yeah, but this was not a tested unit. It's a sampled unit. So, there's a
good chance that none of this stuff even, you know, got done. He goes, "No, it's certified. Like, that's not my problem." Like, we already paid the
consultant. It needs to go back through them. Needs to go through the HVAC contractor. Like, every other thing
because the building, they got to be certified, but it was a sampled unit. And
yeah, it got the stamp. And I mean, it probably wasn't nothing nefarious done. They just didn't have to go in that unit
and test it, so nobody freaking paid attention to it, you know, or the the issues didn't get exposed, you know?
It's just it's wild. And that happens all the time, whether it's lead or energy star or even freaking co- compliance. I mean, I could
talk about this the rest of the time. It's just the that gets through in new construction houses. And you'd see it a lot more than I do now, but
I hate it. It's it's wild. Like, uh, you know, the whole thing about um, exhaust fans in in
new construction as a form of mechanical ventilation in a humid climate. I've been I've posted several videos this year because 95% of the calls that I've
gotten this year on inspections have had to do with sweating ducks, humidity problems or or whatever. And uh in new
construction, that is the um the soup dour. They they just put in a a constant
run exhaust fan and the builders that actually build tight houses are sucking out, you know, 80 to 100 CFM constantly.
It's depressurizing the houses. It's pulling in humidity from outside from wherever it can and it's condensing um
on duck work all the time. I mean, it happens over and over and over. I literally get eight or nine calls of that every single
summer, dude. I mean, it's insane. Yeah. I mean, I feel like I got eight or nine calls every week this whole summer.
It's been This has been the worst summer in a long time. I feel like a lot of people wet, so hot in the Midwest. It's been way
more rain up until the last few weeks that than I can remember. So, it's just exacerbated problems that were probably
there before and and now they're just becoming more prevalent. So,
yeah. And I mean, and then the fact that everything's oversized no matter where you go. And like we just talked to Energy Star or not, like people are
putting in way still to this day oversized equipment because they they're scared. And then with the amount of
humidity, they get in a negative feedback loop where the co customers or homeowners are trying to turn down the
thermostat to get comfortable thinking that it's temperature and it's really humidity. And the next thing you know, it's raining in their house. Like, it's
just nuts, dude. Yep. Putting duck work in attics that shouldn't be in atticss. And you're depressurizing houses. So, when the
system doesn't run, the humidity gets up into the duck work and then kicks back on and you get water inside the duck work. It's there's a lot of things that
I don't understand about production builders. And you know, maybe you can shed some light onto it, but these these national large production builders, they
just have this this mindset of like, you know, here's how we're going to build it. And I don't care what climate zone
it's in or what part of the country. This is this the standard that we do, it seems like. And um it just
there's some national chains that have got their ass sued off for that stuff, though. Like Dr. Horton was involved in a big big huge lawsuit down in uh New
Orleans where neighborhoods neighborhoods full of people were suing them and they had to
go back and like you know remediate all that stuff and put dehumidifiers and I read I don't know if they're doing it in
every market because they're in a bunch of different markets but I read in that about that like as a practice now Dr.
carort and we'll put a whole home dehumidifier in every one of their their buildings. Like and I mean like dude I I
think that you know like that that's great for them to do it but like all these builders need to be thinking that way. Like I we live in a world where air
conditioning don't run enough with these homes built to the standards that they are to take care of the humidity all the
time. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty ridiculous. I mean, I I know, you know, we have a
pretty good relationship with that company here locally, and I would say that the leadership of that company, uh,
at least locally wants to do the right thing, but they just they don't understand like the building science
aspect of it. So, that's most of what it is. I mean, education, education, education. That's why we exist,
you know, today. Yeah. So, hopefully they'll change course and and modify a few things. I
mean, keeping duck work inside conditioned space would help a lot. right sizing equipment would help a lot. Getting rid of, you know, exhaust fans
running constantly would help a lot in our climate zone. So, um we know
Yeah, that's one thing Ash Rainy I, you know, they want to allow it, you know, in their in their um manual J
training, they don't consider that ventilation. They called it call it um added infiltration is what is what it's
referred to because that's all it is like and and the low calculation reflects that like you know your ventilation load does not increase your
infiltration load increases when you put exhaust ventilation on a constant you know fan on a on a load calculations
ashray needs I you know I don't know where they I guess you know air coming in or I don't know what the
qualification is for ventilation but that has to be taken out of out of the
consideration I think it should not be allowed. Well, then you also have some builders who will put either just an air cycler
or even an ERV on a house as as a form of, you know, trying to solve the humidity problem
and and that could just make it even worse, right? I mean, it's especially the air. You're just dumping hot humid air from
outside directly into the system and trying to pull that moisture out and drop the, you know, the the temperature.
It's just I don't get it, man. I really don't. ERVs are not dehumidifiers. We say this all the time, people. It doesn't have a
condenser. It doesn't have a drain line. It doesn't have anything. All it does is recover a little bit of the humidity
from the incoming air and put it in the outgoing air. That is it. Like Yeah. And like some of them do a better job than
others. Moisture coming in. Yeah. Exactly. It's it's a crazy crazy
uh misconception that's happened over the years. Like I for a long time when I
first got in this business, I did think they dehumidified. That's how people would present them to you. But and then I learned what how they really operate
and come to find out they're not really doing that great of a job. Yeah. And to be honest, I mean like probably 1015 years ago when we met the
the I think the general consensus was if you have humidity issues, it's because
you don't have enough fresh air in the house. True. And and so then they were like, "Well, we got these fancy ERVs and HRVs, so
let's put that on the house." And then the problem gets worse. And they're like, "Well, but that's what was supposed to solve the problem." I'm like, "Huh?" And then you start looking
into it and it's like, well, that's just like you said, not a freaking dehumidifier. It's an expensive air
exchange box that doesn't need to be used for this purpose. Dude, one of my biggest aha moments was we were having
so much trouble with the moisture in these lead houses and like every year, every summer, and we're trying to find
the right way to ventil ventilate them. And I was at an a um ResNet conference
and I sat in on Nikki Krueger's uh dehumidifier section session and she's like, "Yeah, our boxes um you know, our
dehumidifiers, they ventilate, but like a lot of these ventilating dehumidifiers, all of them except for
the Santa Fe used to now April Air's copied what Santa Fe is doing, but all of them with they called it a
ventilating. Honeywell had one, April Air, a couple people had one. They called it a ventilating dehumidifier.
All it did was uh dehumidi which was did some benefit but it did dehumidified the incoming air stream and did nothing for
the relative humidity in the house. So like it it would still be whatever it was in the house. So Santa Fe thought
about the problem different. They said we don't care about the incoming air stream. We want to maintain RH in the
house. And so like the way that works is if the air comes in and it has humidity
in it and it raises the relative humidity in the house beyond the set point which it should be 50% if you're
you know designing ACA standards and all that and you're then then the dehumidifier will come on as needed but
if it doesn't raise the humidity in the house then it's not that much of a problem. And I to me that was like man
that makes a ton of sense way more sense than any of this other stuff. And so I got a hold of Nikki. I had her come do a
webinar at our at our um for the rate for the local raiders there in Cincinnati and we just started saying
get this point because it was a point and lead for whole home dehumidification like you guys need as part of your pathway you need to get this point you
know because if not your house is going to affect degradation and it got to the point where now even in my design we
started with GBC when we were doing ratings but e rate you know rating suggestions but even in design I keep it
we have a signoff sheet like if you're not going to use dehumidification in your design, then you're going to
sign and say that you understand all the problems that it could potentially cause because it's that big of a deal. Like
you got to have it with these houses. Yeah. So, what are you spending most of your time doing now? I mean, as far as
the building science stuff, I So, we we have three main revenue
silos, which are um design and commissioning. That's my main that's the
main bread and butter right now. Like that's running running the business. second and pretty close with design and
commissioning is I'm subbing out a bunch of um Energy Star projects and NGBS and
stuff like that from SK. They have the Knoxville market pretty much locked down with that stuff. So, I've been subbing
out a bunch of that stuff from them. And then, but I'm trying to go I mean that's that is the stuff that I want to go away
from as the third branch which is the education, training, content creation,
all that stuff starts taking off, which it really has in the past probably six months. um leaps and bounds. Like I've
got, you know, sponsors for the podcast and we're doing trainings and all kinds of stuff. Really cool stuff. And um I
got the website, actually, you're the first person even to hear this out loud, but I've got the website um getting
completely redone in December. We're getting ready to launch a brand new website that's going to have a learning management system built into it. So,
we're going to start doing online trainings uh that are just, you know, ever call them evergreen where you don't
really got to mess with them after. If people want to buy them, they can. And if they don't, then that's fine, too. So,
um, that's that's sort of that's where I'm at right now, uh, with everything. So, it's all building science. It's all
HVAC, home performance, you know, related. It's just different little silos of that neighborhood.
Yeah. I mean, it's kind of why I started doing the creating the course last year. It's like I just saw a gap between
certainly homeowners and building science people, but also just general tradesmen, HVAC contractors.
100%, dude. 100%. And it's like if I can find a way to reach these people, make
it fun to learn and make it interesting and apply it to the symptoms that they're having, then you know, hopefully
I can help a bunch of people and, you know, maybe I make some money, maybe I don't. It really wasn't uh I didn't
start it with the intention of make making a bunch of money on it. It was really more of like I think this is a cool idea. I'm going to see how far I
can run with it and um you know, I'm going to continue to work on it. So I like what you're doing too. It sounds
like similar. Yeah, it's real close. That's why I wanted to have you on. I was like, I thought it was so cool that you're jumping back in. And I think at
our age though, like that is the thing like we got a lot to offer now that we, you know, we we've learned trial by fire. We've done it all. We've done I
won't say we've done it all because nobody's done it all, but we've done a lot of home performance and, you know,
we've we've both taken the NCI trainings and retrainings and all that stuff. So, there's a lot of knowledge in our brains
um to get out to people. you know, especially like I think that the HVAC crowd is starting to lean into home
performance a little more than they used to and I want to be able to bridge that gap for them as much as possible. Like I
think that that is great that they are starting to think that way and I think technology um really lends itself to
pushing them that way because now that the technology is out um it all centers around best practices and the kids are
like hey where's the technology at? So it just like plays into each other very well. So I want to be a part of that, you know, so that's why I'm doing it.
Well, and to the technology piece, I think you've got a lot of young trades
now who are used to using apps and software and different tools and stuff like that and they they want to know,
right? So, if you can teach them from a historical standpoint where we've been, where we got to, and like make them
appreciate these tools that they got and actually use them, you're going to make some headways. And hopefully they can like, you know, I I think the industry
is still dominated by a lot of people between our age and retirement age, right? and and a lot of those people
don't necessarily want to change what they're doing, but maybe if they get some some techs that are really savvy at this stuff, they can start implementing
these things into their companies and start changing the way that they do things and helping their customers more.
Um cuz I mean, you know, I imagined when I first learned about the whole Matterport 3D scanning at things, I was
like, man, wouldn't it be cool if they had an infrared version of this and wouldn't it be cool if they had a way to
just convert that into a blueprint and then convert that into a heating cooling load calculation and we're here. I mean,
what's Yeah, we have it. There's all that exists and that's, you know, that's coming. Does the infrared 3D
thing exist now? It's a what? Scan a house? Scan a house in 3D? Like Matterport with
with infrared? Yeah, it's called conduit tech with infrared. Yeah. Oh, not infrared. It's LAR.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Infrared. Yeah. If you're saying specifically infrared, no, but like LAR
though, have you seen conduit tech? Yeah, I've seen I've seen the software. I haven't actually played with it yet. Okay. So, you need to get a demo of that
and do it. You're going to love it, dude. So, like it literally will scan you. it take this and this is like I have a a webinar coming out um it'll air
by the time it'll be in over with by the time this airs but I have a webinar coming out called your HVAC your HVAC
super your HVAC superpower and why you may not have it yet and so it features conduit tech another uh software called
no so Labs which is HVAC uh AI assistant and then measure quick so basically the
concept is like if you use these three things you have x-ray vision of what's going on in the house at all times you
know but conduit at tech um will allow you literally 15 minutes, bro. I'm not even joking. Like, if you do the back,
it's there's little on the back. So, there's two ways you can do it. One, it has all the most common for every error
construction. It has all the most common thermal profiles for every error construction uh programmed in it. So, if
you don't know or you're not going to take the time to really Yeah. find out, it makes some pretty good assumptions
for you as long as nothing's been changed in the house, which you know is pretty much all the time. So, I'm not a big fan of the assumptions, but if you
got to use it, it's there. The other way is like we're actually the training that we're teaching is um called um permanent
load reduction through the eyes of conduit tech. So, it's basically teaching the steps of doing a manual J
load calculation, but also being able to look at each one of the elements of the home and expose home performance
opportunities or aka load reduction opportunities while you're doing the scan. But, um, if you had all that
information already and you put it in before you went out there or you put it in right where you're sitting at the table, if if you have it, once you
collected it, however long that takes, that's a different process. I'm not talking about that. But however long it takes you to get the correct
information, once you put that into the software, it takes about five minutes to put it in all the little fields. Once
you do that, 15 minutes, you can walk through a 30,000 square foot house and have a full 3D scan, a full load
calculation, and a full 2D scan that's exportable out of it with it scaled and
dimensioned and everything for you. 15 minutes, dude. You have it all. Like, it will blow your mind.
That's I mean, I want to get in on that and I don't know what I need to do to sign up or whatever, but I I know that
my clients would pay for that kind of thing because nobody else is doing it around here that I'm with yet. So, we all I'm tough. People were blown away
by it, dude. They see you doing I'm like, "Hey, come here and look at it." You could see the thing scanning. It's It's just like remember back in the day
Comfort Institute always said the big show, teach the big show. Get the instruments in their hand. It's the same
way with this stuff, dude. People were like, "Wow, that's crazy." You know, once they see it, they're like, "You really did something there."
And that's another thing that I've really tried to emphasize like in my videos that I put out. It's like you can
know all this stuff. You can know as much building science as you know anybody else, but if you can't explain it to the customer, if they don't
understand what you're saying, then you're not going anywhere. You're not going to like sell the job. You're not going to be able to convince them to do
some big renovation because you're just not translating right. You're not creating an emotional
connection. I mean, that's what I I did at one of those Midwest Energy conferences, I did a session one time about um emotional connection in sales,
and I did a bunch of research on it. And literally, neuroscience says people make their decisions with emotions and then
they justify it with logic, not the other way around. So, if you don't find some way to connect what you're doing to
their house to their emotional well-being, then you're probably not going to get to sell. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, are you
going to NCI next week? Yeah, I'll be there. They I got one of the NCI scholarships. Actually, I applied for it and they gave me one. So,
it wasn't on my radar, but Nick had sort of reached out to me and was asking about some sessions and he's like, you
know, we got these scholarships if you know, wasn't in the budget. And I applied and they gave me one. So, I'll be there. I'll see you there. I'll be there all
week. Yeah. I'll introduce There's this guy uh Winston who's he uh Winston Cheese. He
he is one of the sponsors of the podcast and he has this um software called No. It's an HVAC
AI assistant. Dude, the is crazy. Like it will a it plugs into your ERP.
So, Service Titan, one of the bigger ERPs. It learns all your clients and um what their appointments are and stuff
like that. It will give your tech on the way to the appointment, a AI voice
summary of the appointment, telling him who he needs to talk to, what he's there for, what he needs to do, all that
stuff. Once he gets there, it has an always on feature. records the entire sales call or the entire service call.
By the time you sit down at the table, it has either a sales proposal or a summary of service to present to the
client. And then for an as an assistant, it has over 15 million pieces of HAC
documentation programmed into it. So you can take a picture or create a text with model number of what you're working on
and it finds the exact model uh owner's manual for the exact thing that you're
doing. if you're trying to wire it, if you need a wiring gr diagram, if you need combustion information, whatever is
available, it'll grab it for that piece of equipment and give it to you. That's awesome. Yeah, dude. So, he'll be The point of
saying all that is he's coming to the conference. I'll introduce you to him. He's a really cool like dude is from the tech space, but he just leaned in the
HVAC and like it they're they're killing it. It's crazy. Yeah, I think all this kind of stuff is really exciting with for this industry.
you know, just the last couple years and I think the next five years are going to be huge with the implementation of this
type of tech and the ability for people to get to real solutions a lot faster
and be able to train people a lot faster, I think, and just give them um
these tools that they can utilize that they can run with and actually grow with. The training piece of it is huge. I was
just talking to a guy um not talking I did another guest that I had on right before you, a guy Rob Larson that I met
at the Measure Quick training. He's a works for he is a general manager of a distributorship. That's what I'm trying
to say. He was talking about the training aspect and just like measure quick. He's like, "Dude, we have such a
labor shortage right now that we need to be able to take an 18-year-old out of high school and have once he gets his
his universal, have him functional in a couple weeks. Like that's what we need for this industry to keep, you know,
working right." He's like, "If not the shit's going to fall apart if we don't get the labor thing solved." He's like, "So measure quick." He's like, "That
actually makes that possible." Like it teach you don't have to teach get them all the way through hrack school and
have them understand every single concept. Like you get them their universal that teaches them enough about
pressures and temperatures to make them dangerous and then you put measure quick in their hand and you get them out in
the field. He's like and that's he's like measure click will do the rest. He's like they don't need to know the how right now. They just or the why
right now. They just need to know the how. He's like they can learn the how anytime. That was like like light bulb
moment for me. I'm like dude you're right. That is what we need to be using the technology for. For sure.
Exactly. That's awesome. I mean, that gives me a lot of hope that this industry can actually pivot and move in
the right direction because I feel like it's just been people like us trying to pull it along for the longest time and
just banging your head against a wall and seeing the same results constantly over and over. So hopefully this will
start to change. That's why I'm in a little bit of a like I don't want to say argument but discussion on LinkedIn about like somebody posted some other
study about the HVAC you know these systems going duck leakage affects it. I'm like dude well we don't need another
study. Like I'm sick of all these studies that they're doing like we need action. Like we've had study after study
everybody in the industry knows what the problems are. Like we don't need no more damn studies. DOE wants to do something.
Put some money into getting these guys trained up dude you know. Yeah. Yeah. So what do you think? Um,
I'm curious. What do you think is the solution to get more people trained in this industry? Because I mean, we got to go in the high. I mean, we
just got is that, you know, like I I don't want to get political or or anything like that, but like Trump leaned into the trades and he's like
making it a big deal, and that's the right thing to do. Like, we need to get back into the high schools, make people
feel good about working in the trades, and start training them up in the high schools again. Like, I mean, that is the
only way to fix the problem, man. because they it's been demonized for so long as like a less than way to make
money just for the promotion of higher education and and the colleges and stuff that now pe you know it had a bad
connotation to it like we got to get it back on the good side of things with people so that they start you know seeing it as a path true pathway for
their kids like that's that's the thing well that and frankly a lot of people can't afford college uh
that too that's another whole big dumbass thing spend tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of dollars on degrees and you
can't get a job and the job that you do get doesn't pay back the student loans that you took out and all that you're just perpetually in
debt. So, it's a real opportunity, I think, to be in the trades and hopefully get out in front of these guys. Um, but
yeah, I mean, like Kentucky only has, I don't know, one place that teaches building science that I'm aware of and
it's not really very comprehensive and so like there's state by state. So, you're saying you're about to build a training center?
That's not what I'm saying. I'm gonna sit right here and do this thing from my office and, you know, work with people
like you to train online. I I have no desire to build a training facility. I would love to help teach there, though.
Yeah, me too. There's that. I'm thinking there that I've talked to the community college and that's just I, you know, I'm
asked them about like, hey, why don't you add this little course on, you know, I don't want to teach your whole HVAC school like the basics, but I do have
some stuff I think they need to hear. Yeah. like even engineering schools like or architecture schools. I' I'd love to,
you know, be a guest speaker or whatever and just talk about the the experience that I have and what these what people
miss when they get into the trades or architects, they just design things to look pretty, but they forget about the framing aspect of it or where the duck
work's supposed to go and you know, all that kind of stuff. There's just for the architects, I'll tell look so I just reached out to the local AIA rep,
uh, American Institute of Architecture, and asked him like, "Hey, can I put on a webinar, uh, for your group?" and you
know talk you know not a webinar but a training inerson training about high performance HVAC and you know how it
should be looked at in design and all that stuff and so if I was you I'd talk to them like he's like he goes yeah man
um this is great we have people that'll sponsor this we have a place to put it on everything so he's getting me in
front of like a whole group of AIA architects from Knoxville dude so that that's something they're they're always
looking for CUS if you if you go online or chat GPT and you say um help
write a AIA CEU proposal. It'll show you how it has to be set up. It's not hard.
It's just like learning points that have to be in there and a few other things and then put it in front of those guys.
They'll submit it and get you a session, dude. Yeah, that was actually one of the points of the the course was actually
going to create a I was going to create planning to still create a secondary version of the course that's more targeted towards trades people and get
CU approved for it. I could probably Yeah, that's important. I could probably get the current course um approved for
CUS and just go down that path, but um frankly, I've just been too busy and I need more help. So,
that's Hey, dude. I I I know exactly what you mean. I I was solo solo and I'm
sure you got other help, but I had didn't even have an assistant. Once I got one person helping me, it meant so
much. So, like it was helping to push me this little stuff that I'm trying to do that I always get to get to forward a
bunch, you know? Yeah. It's just a matter of prioritization and putting it in place and making it happen, right?
It's true. Wake up and do it. I mean, it's it's showing up. That's what matters, I think. Yeah.
Yeah. So, cool, man. Um, go ahead. But I just wanted to say we're running up on the time uh here in just a few minutes. So,
um, tell me what you got to say. Talk about whatever, man. It's been a good Let's do this. This is what I usually do
at the end of all my sessions here. So, this is a really cool little exercise. The world's getting ready to end. You
know it's going to end, but at some point civilization is going to restart. The last person on Earth asked you to
leave a message for the next civilization. What do you write on the wall? The hell kind of a question is that?
That's the one I love. What do I write on the wall for the next civilization?
Oh my gosh. Um, man, everything doesn't have to be political. Everything doesn't have to be an argument. everything, you
know, doesn't have to be, you know, one side versus the other. There's there's so much commonality amongst people and
there's, I think, common ground that, uh, if you just, man, if you just get
back to basics and like I don't know what you how you feel about your faith or, you know, whatever, but you know,
God created this planet. He created us all for for a bigger purpose, frankly. And if if your if your entire life is
focused on just making money or achieving things or status or whatever
and you're not growing, you're not helping other people, you're not, you know, loving your neighbor, at least
trying to get better as a person and it's just always about attack the other side and this person's trash or
whatever, like society just will fall apart again. Like you you you have to take a different approach. And I really
feel like our country's f founders had this intention when they started the
United States. And I think that they would be appalled at the situation that we're in today. They definitely would. But my gosh, man.
We have so much potential with the people that are here and the people that want to come here and uh the things that
they could achieve together if we could stop allowing ourselves to be
manipulated and divided by apps and politicians and whatever. It's just it's
so draining. And I've just had to, you know, I've just had to turn off the news.
Frankly, I don't watch the news that much either. I don't watch any mainstream stuff. I trust and I got off Facebook except I'm on
there, you know, little occasionally for business stuff, but I do not comment on anything on Facebook any ever in my life
again. It's toxic. And so, you know, if if you could just get back to basics, take care
of your body, take care of your mind, take care of your soul, you know, help each other grow uh together and stop
trying to just constantly fight against each other, man. You're going to get so much better, so much farther as a
society, as a neighborhood. I mean, the just the people around you, you're going to help more people live better lives at
the end of the day. That was awesome, dude. So before we go, tell everybody where they can find you
at. Anything you want to plug, any kind of promo you want to do, go ahead and tell the world. Yeah, man. So, uh, the main site is
learnhomecomfort.com and, uh, that's kind of my my blog site. You can also get to all my socials. I'm
on Instagram, Facebook, uh, LinkedIn. Haven't got on TikTok yet. People keep telling me to do it. I just
not on there, but you're trying to reach homeowners, so that might be I'm trying to reach home. So, I think eventually I will probably repurpose my
content. But you can get on my socials there. Um it's ericyhomecomfortadvisor.com
and um yeah uh YouTube channels also pretty much all the socials are at
homecomfortadvisors. So if you're interested in uh joining me on this journey, if you want to be a
guest on one of my shows, if you have some content or you have some uh topics that you'd like for me to talk about or
dive into, you know, just reach out. I'd be happy to help you. Awesome, man. Thank you, Eric, for
joining us and it was awesome catching up with you. I am uh anxious to see the rest of your journey as you continue it.
Yeah, I can't wait to hang out next week. Absolutely. Looking forward. Tell you I'm on your show next week. Is that next
week? That's next week. Oh, NCI. That's right. Yeah. NCI NCI. I still need to get your show scheduled. I
think you do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It'll be It'll be September, October at this point. Whatever. Okay, cool. We'll catch up next week
then. I and hang out. I'm looking forward to that. It's awesome. The only reason it's not I didn't even, you know,
realize what you're saying. I've literally only been committed to it for two weeks now. So, it's not even permanently in my mind that I'm going.
So, yeah. Cool. I'll see you, man. Thank you.
/ @homecomfortadvisors 
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