And we're live. Well, not live, but coming straight out of the Building Performance Association's National Home
0:1010 secondsPerformance Conference. This was a full circle moment for me. This was the very first conference I ever attended, and
0:1717 secondsnow HBAC ADHD is one of a few inaugural podcast brought in to cover it. Man, that's just wild to me. So for this
0:2626 secondsepisode, we sat down with two guys at completely different stages of the same journey. Al Smith, who's been doing this for over four decades and built a
0:3434 secondspowerhouse in home performance, and John Whitehead, who's right in the middle of making the transition from traditional HVAC into the home performance world.
0:4545 secondsThis conversation is exactly what this conference is all about. Real experience, real evolution, and real talk about where the industry is going.
0:5454 secondsIf you're still sizing systems off gut feel or you're starting to question everything you were taught, you're gonna want to hear this one. Let's get into
1:011 minute, 1 secondit. Hey everybody, welcome back to the HVAC ADHD vodcast. I'm your host Jeremy Begley. Today we're going to be talking
1:091 minute, 9 secondswith Hal Smith and John Whitehead. Howal is a longtime contractor in the home performance space and has done some
1:171 minute, 17 secondsamazing things with his business. We'll let him tell you about that as we get down that road. John is a firsttime HVAC
1:261 minute, 26 secondshome performance contractor. He just started turning his HVAC business model into the home performance contracting
1:331 minute, 33 secondsbusiness model and bringing that in. So, the idea of the conversation today that we're trying to create with Hal and John is just the man that's been doing it
1:421 minute, 42 secondsforever, the OG with all the knowledge, passing that torch down to somebody who's just getting into the business in modern times because Hal has seen this
1:501 minute, 50 secondsbusiness change over the years in ways that many people probably did not because of how long he has stuck with it and what he's turned it into. So,
1:581 minute, 58 secondswithout further ado, I'm going to let these two introduce theirel and we'll go from there. Hal, take it away.
2:032 minutes, 3 secondsAll right. Yeah. So my business is Alcohol Home Solutions. We do lots and lots of things in upstate New York.
2:112 minutes, 11 secondsWe're right between Rochester and Syracuse. We also go down and serve the Ithaca market. It's 23 counties. We have
2:202 minutes, 20 seconds190 employees, just shy of 200. We have 125 trucks on the road.
2:272 minutes, 27 secondsBeen in business since 1984. So that makes 42 years we've been practicing this.
2:342 minutes, 34 secondsstarted as a HVAC electric and plumbing business.
2:412 minutes, 41 secondsI was very fortunate to get started 12 years old.
2:462 minutes, 46 secondsI didn't start my business at 12 years old, but I got entered into the business. So, I was on a church youth group trip and the chaperon was a master
2:552 minutes, 55 secondsplumber and he took a liken to me and I became his apprentice at 12 years old.
2:582 minutes, 58 secondsSo I I got out of I took trade school during high school, worked for a company for four years, and then I went business
3:063 minutes, 6 secondsat 22 years old. That was 1984. And 42 years later, here I am. So awesome, John.
3:153 minutes, 15 secondsHey, my name is John Whitehead. I'm out of Mortown, Iowa, and I've been doing HVAC since 1998. I went to trade school
3:243 minutes, 24 secondsand came out of trade school and started working for other contractors. And five years ago, my business partner and I
3:323 minutes, 32 secondsstarted our business on a CD and cooling. And three years ago, we partnered up with NCI and measure quick and became high performance contractors.
3:413 minutes, 41 secondsAnd that was a big evolution for us because we started measuring things that we used to guess about before. And it
3:483 minutes, 48 secondswas a huge transformation for us because part of that we were really good at mechanics and seeing the the turning on
3:573 minutes, 57 secondsa motor and making the unit make the house comfortable according to customer standards versus analyzing the true
4:054 minutes, 5 secondscomfort level by looking at things such as air flow and humidity and things that go along with that has really been an
4:124 minutes, 12 secondseye opener for us. And as of April 1st, I started a new company called Honest Home Performance and radon solutions. My
4:204 minutes, 20 secondsmain focus in our area is focusing on radon testing and mitigation and then also offering blower doors and building
4:284 minutes, 28 secondsenvelope solutions and hoping to work with weatherization contractors to solve clients customers and improve their
4:374 minutes, 37 secondscustomer improve their comfort and efficiency in their homes. And I'm excited to be on the panel with Jeremy
4:444 minutes, 44 secondsand Hal and be able to find some takeaways that I'm able to go home and implement in my own day-to-day operations.
4:544 minutes, 54 secondsThank you, John. Happy to have you in the home performance world. Happy to have you sitting up here with us today.
5:005 minutesThe first question is for that I'm going to ask today is for how I just since you've been doing it for so long. What when you first started bringing about
5:085 minutes, 8 secondshome thinking about bringing home performance into your business as a business model. What was the biggest challenge at that time and being able to
5:165 minutes, 16 secondsbring that the home performance world into the HVAC and plumbing world?
5:215 minutes, 21 secondsYeah. So you know being from New York and BPI was actually from New York and they so they first started targeting New
5:305 minutes, 30 secondsYork contractors. So all the contractors around me at that time were much bigger than I was all
5:385 minutes, 38 secondsstarted taking his BPI classes and I my brother was my HVAC salesman at that
5:445 minutes, 44 secondspoint and I sent him to BPI class and he come back and says hell we don't want anything to do with this
5:525 minutes, 52 secondsnonsense. That's a lot of work. I'm not lugging a blower door. So I said okay.
5:585 minutes, 58 secondsSo we I let it go for about six months and then we started losing some jobs to the contractors that were using BPI and
6:076 minutes, 7 secondsI said I got to go to this class myself and so I took the class and I just bought in hook line and sinker and my brother's no longer with me cuz he
6:156 minutes, 15 secondsdidn't want to bring a a lug a blower door around but yeah it we just bought into the concept is the home is a system
6:236 minutes, 23 secondsand you've got to you got to look at the whole picture not have the blinders on and just have never look back. We immediately we took all of our sales
6:316 minutes, 31 secondsforce and we said this is the way we're going to do business and there's some that you know did well and stuck with us and there's some that said I'm so but we
6:396 minutes, 39 secondsjust believed in it and we've marched ahead since during that time was there a lot of incentives at that time to support the
6:476 minutes, 47 secondswork or what was driving your work then did you have to do a lot of marketing or how were you guys getting the the home performance work when you first started out?
6:556 minutes, 55 secondsYeah. Uh there were not incentives at that time. It was it was more just the the local competition in the Rochester
7:027 minutes, 2 secondsmarket. We had some some large players that have now been bought by private equity firms.
7:087 minutes, 8 secondsBut you know, it was out competing against them for jobs, you know, that they were saying, "Hey, we're going to, you know, we'll do this global dollar,
7:167 minutes, 16 secondsyou know, and so all of a sudden we looked inferior because we weren't doing that." And so that was probably the motivation more than anything.
7:237 minutes, 23 secondsOkay. So you had some good competition to in the New York market because like you said BPI is from there. Building performance energy star for homes
7:327 minutes, 32 secondsoriginated there. Energy Star for existing homes. I forgot the name. What was that? Energy Star something out of New York. Anyway, it was an existing
7:397 minutes, 39 secondshome program. Energy Star ran at one time and it it came from New York. So there was a lot of support for that and a lot of competition like how was
7:487 minutes, 48 secondssaying. John, what is your biggest challenge right now as you go about bringing home performance into your business model?
7:567 minutes, 56 secondsRight now, my my goal, it really isn't a challenge cuz in in the circle of building performance, it seems though
8:048 minutes, 4 secondsthe people that know the truth really open the gates. What I've seen in the HVAC space is a lot of the people who
8:118 minutes, 11 secondsare gatekeepers are really gatekeeping on rules of thumb and on data that's made out. the way their uncle did it and
8:198 minutes, 19 secondsthey're not about to show you the way that they think is the right way. And so for me, my goal is learning and learning
8:298 minutes, 29 secondsproper practices and being in the space with integrity around doing the best way
8:378 minutes, 37 secondsthe first time and not having to come back and say I learned more or I did it
8:458 minutes, 45 secondsthe wrong way. I want to be I am here with the intention in the first day and a half so far have been very enlightening to learn under people who
8:538 minutes, 53 secondshave howled decades and decades of this experience who are just freely opening the gates of knowledge and offering
9:009 minutestheir experience and not learn any proper practices like they did in HBAC.
9:079 minutes, 7 secondsImproper practices are something that plagues all these industries. HVAC, insulation,
9:149 minutes, 14 secondselectric, every single one of the trades across the board have improper practices that get done over and over again.
9:209 minutes, 20 secondsThat's why this high performance space as how was saying excels the way does the way that it does. John, if you had
9:289 minutes, 28 secondsone question for how as you're getting started with his years of experience, what do you think that would be? What's one thing if you're like man if I had a guy with 40 years of experience I would
9:369 minutes, 36 secondssure like to ask him X what would in the context of HVAC 2 performance what what do you think 42 years
9:439 minutes, 43 seconds42 42 going on 43 let's say what was I would ask you how what what was the biggest eye opener
9:519 minutes, 51 secondswhen you started testing the full envelope as far as ways to improve
9:589 minutes, 58 secondsefficiencies and comfort in homes Yeah, I mean we started from the you
10:0610 minutes, 6 secondsknow this is how we did heat loss heat gains right and and you know when you when you start doing them right and then
10:1410 minutes, 14 secondsyou start getting involved in insulating homes and you realize what the the true heat loss heat gains are you roll like
10:2210 minutes, 22 secondswow oh my gosh this is you know it's 2/3 less than what you know the it was
10:2910 minutes, 29 secondstelling you and so It's, you know, I mean, just there's just no comparison. I mean, I can't
10:3710 minutes, 37 secondsbelieve there's so contractors out there doing it so sloppily and so wrong because the information is out there and do get I wish more HVAC contractors would would understand.
10:4910 minutes, 49 secondsAbsolutely. That brings me actually to a couple interesting things. We've been talking a lot about something called permanent load reduction, which is the
10:5710 minutes, 57 secondsconcept of being able to use a load calculation as a thermal map in the home and go through and expose all the thermal deficiencies of the home and
11:0611 minutes, 6 secondsreally integrating that into an HVAC business from a maintenance contract visit customer standpoint sort of
11:1311 minutes, 13 secondsconcept. And the only reason that that's actually a viable concept right now is because of the LAR technology. So that's making a lot of people be able to use
11:2111 minutes, 21 secondsthese apps like Amply and Conduit Tech and there's a couple other ones that have came online and walk through homes and do a load calculation in a fraction
11:2911 minutes, 29 secondsof the time that we used to be able to do it. So I say all that to ask how when you first started doing load calculations as a practice, how what was
11:3711 minutes, 37 secondsthe procedure then and how did you actually work that into your workflow from a day-to-day standpoint?
11:4411 minutes, 44 secondsWell, I mean, we went from the the true rule of thumb, oh, it's, you know, like this and sure that's 100,000 BTU house.
11:5411 minutes, 54 secondsI mean, truly from there, and that's how it was done back then. Sure.
11:5911 minutes, 59 secondsThen then we started, you know, for a lot of years we did block loads, you know, fairly accurate block loads.
12:0912 minutes, 9 secondsyou know, when in today's world with with heat pumps and you're you're s and you got to size every single room and you got to you got to come up with a
12:1812 minutes, 18 secondsheat loss, heat gain for every single room, not just the block load of the house. So now all of a sudden, you know, you got to go in and and sketch out and
12:2712 minutes, 27 secondsmeasure every room in the house. Well, that that's a lot of work and that's a tough job on a no cost estimate, right? Yep.
12:3512 minutes, 35 secondsSo these tools we with our business, we use Amply. We love those guys. Not that the other tools aren't good, but you
12:4312 minutes, 43 secondsknow, that LAR technology that truly just scans that house. You don't have to measure it. You don't have to sketch it.
12:5012 minutes, 50 secondsAnd and it gives you a a room by room, you know, true heat loss, heat gain per room.
12:5512 minutes, 55 secondsWere you guys doing that? actually going into the house and measuring room for room and everything before the LAR and then you eased into LAR like wow this is
13:0313 minutes, 3 secondsjust a thousand time way better doing it or you know is there a difference or some of my call them home solutions experts. Sure.
13:1113 minutes, 11 secondsSome of them were doing it better than others. Some of them claimed they were doing it room by room but I found out that there were some shortcuts being taken because it was such a long
13:1913 minutes, 19 secondsprocess. So, but now you know we equip them all with iPad Pros and they've all got the and and they can't turn in a job without an ample.
13:2813 minutes, 28 secondsAnd John, what are you using amply or conduit?
13:3113 minutes, 31 secondsYes. So, I can speak to that jury. Three years ago at the HDC school symposium, our company create new relationship with conduit.
13:4013 minutes, 40 secondsConduit. Working with Shelby has been a joy and we made a commitment with Shelby that we would use it on every single job
13:4713 minutes, 47 secondsunless there was extenduating circumstances and we had run into a couple hoarder homes a couple of other things of undesirable conditions.
13:5713 minutes, 57 secondsSure.
13:5713 minutes, 57 secondsWhere we haven't used it and actually learned a lot from thermal mass of a hoarder. Right. Because the load
14:0514 minutes, 5 secondscalculation on an empty home versus the load calculation and the reality of a zero degree day, right?
14:1214 minutes, 12 secondsCalculating the load and a 99% average day and then figuring the fact that
14:1914 minutes, 19 secondsthey've got approximately 17 tons of thermal mass stacked to the ceiling. We actually had an instance where we rapidly sized the furnace and we put it
14:2814 minutes, 28 secondsin on a below zero stretch and it was 4 days before the furnace actually caught up and warned up all the tray.
14:3514 minutes, 35 secondsOh my goodness.
14:3614 minutes, 36 secondsAnd so we've actually been scanning homes for 3 years minus just a couple.
14:4214 minutes, 42 secondsand our team has been really awesome about adopting the technology and I do admire you Hal for the years of
14:4914 minutes, 49 secondsfollowing the processes and I knew they were out there and when we made contact
14:5614 minutes, 56 secondswith Alex meaning and looked into his training with Rightoft and seeing the
15:0315 minutes, 3 secondstime commitment not only to do the work but to to properly train it just made sense for us to use the product from on it. It's been a great relationship.
15:1415 minutes, 14 secondsWhat is your actual workflow like? When do you implement it? Is it at when they're like, "Oh my god, I need a replacement." Or do you have a way to
15:2215 minutes, 22 secondstalk to your customers to go into the home and do that as a preemptive measure just to have on file for when the time comes?
15:2915 minutes, 29 secondsYeah, that's something we've talked about is to do that on maintenance with with a pre-existing client. However,
15:3715 minutes, 37 secondsright now we're we're rocking just one device. So, right now we do it on on proposals and we do it we right now
15:4515 minutes, 45 secondswe're doing it for free which I wouldn't advise if you can get around it because there's clearly a value there.
15:5015 minutes, 50 secondsYep. However, for us, the monthly investment and the way that it separates us from our peers in our community, the
15:5815 minutes, 58 secondsthe majority of contractors in our area, like you alluded to, how are pretty much sizing it with three fingers on the curb
16:0616 minutes, 6 secondsand so we we choose that that's included in our proposal. We don't share that data. If the customer wants to buy the
16:1416 minutes, 14 secondsdata, they're welcome to. We haven't had anybody take us up on that yet.
16:1816 minutes, 18 secondsSo how what advice do you have to scaling that type of operation? Like John said, he's using one machine right now and they're pay How many people are
16:2616 minutes, 26 secondsyou running right now, John? Service right now. We have six people on their team. There's two of us that do the So, as those systems grow, do you have
16:3416 minutes, 34 secondsany advice to John on how to scale the home the home inspection portion of it, like as far as being able to get into
16:4216 minutes, 42 secondsthe home and regularly do all of the home performance inspection measures and be able to grow that and scale it into
16:4916 minutes, 49 secondsthe size of company that you have? Yeah, I think you know we don't do a LAR scan on every single job. We, you know, we
16:5716 minutes, 57 secondsget called into the job for many different reasons. It might be a replacement water heater that we got called in on. It might be a, you know, a
17:0517 minutes, 5 secondsnew electric panel. So, so we're if if somebody's interested in a new electric panel, we're not going to do heat loss gain, right? So,
17:1217 minutes, 12 secondsabsolutely. But anytime there's any interest in in an HVAC upgrade or change, then we're, you know, certainly
17:2017 minutes, 20 secondsincorporating in the LAR stand. We do u do a an energy audit uh for for all of
17:2717 minutes, 27 secondsthese because in New York there's a program that that we actually um get get paid. We we tell our customers it's not
17:3617 minutes, 36 secondsa free audit. It's simply no cost. And it's no cost because you already paid for it through your utility bill. the systems benefit charge that $89 they pay
17:4517 minutes, 45 secondsevery month. They so they pay us $250 to do the energy audit. We certainly don't make any money on them, but it it
17:5217 minutes, 52 secondsbecomes at least we're paid for our time. Sure.
17:5517 minutes, 55 secondsSo, you know, as part of that energy audit, we're we're doing definitely an air advice uh you know, 30 minute report. That's part of it. We're doing a
18:0418 minutes, 4 secondsblower door. We're doing thermal imaging camera. Um so and then if there's any interest in an HVAC
18:1218 minutes, 12 secondsuh improvement or upgrade then certainly that uh LAR scan as part of the presence.
18:1718 minutes, 17 secondsPerfect. So it sounds like and if it's a comfort complaint or an HVAC complaint then HBAC complaint then you guys are definitely going to implement the LAR
18:2618 minutes, 26 secondsbut if it's one of the adjacent businesses it depends on what the business actually is.
18:3018 minutes, 30 secondsAnd for you guys John you're doing it every proposal that you do. Um, yeah. As long as it's as long as it's a system upgrade. Yep.
18:3818 minutes, 38 secondsWe're we're doing it on every system.
18:4018 minutes, 40 secondsDo you have any data or do you have any anecdotal um data about how that may have changed the amount of jobs that you're able to win? Do people seem like
18:4818 minutes, 48 secondsthey're more prone to um pick you guys because of the knowledge base that you present to them?
18:5418 minutes, 54 secondsAbsolutely. It's it's definitely a definitely a talking point. We also use
19:0219 minutes, 2 secondsstatic pressure profiling. We use the true flow rate on occasion when when the duct work is suspect and we also do a
19:1019 minutes, 10 secondsduct work system evaluation, take the measurements and then we sit down at the table with the customer. We look at
19:1819 minutes, 18 secondstheir existing equipment. We look at the scan. We we inform them that this is nonbiased third party based on accurate
19:2619 minutes, 26 secondsmeasurements that this is this is true life data. And then we compare the the lack of air flow because you guys can
19:3519 minutes, 35 secondsdefinitely testify there's not been a system that we've run into yet that was properly sized or had properly properly
19:4319 minutes, 43 secondsuh proper amount of duct work. And so it definitely gives us a leg up to start a conversation. And then in the end of it
19:5019 minutes, 50 secondsall, if we don't get a deal signed while we're there or our only ask is that they use the knowledge that we've imparted in
19:5919 minutes, 59 secondsthem to be more educated with the other contractors and to ask if if they are proposing a system that's a ton bigger,
20:0820 minutes, 8 secondshow much duct work do I have? Where where are you going to get rid of?
20:1120 minutes, 11 secondsSmart. I like your approach. That's very smart. We actually have implemented a process just recently where we got the
20:1920 minutes, 19 secondsthe same version of the wholesaler notebooks with our company business card on them. And so when I go to talk to the
20:2720 minutes, 27 secondsclient or we go to the basement to do the duck work survey, I give them the notebook and our company pen with the
20:3420 minutes, 34 secondsNCI clipboard and I take the measurements and I have them write down the data and then we use the assumed
20:4120 minutes, 41 secondsstatic or excuse me, we we assume we use the assumed friction rate of 6 to be on
20:4820 minutes, 48 secondsthe side of caution and educate them on the fact that the majority of us were taught the wrong way to read the docu.
20:5520 minutes, 55 secondsthe later we're reading it at a more accurate way but still not precise and we empower them and in most cases I feel
21:0421 minutes, 4 secondslike the majority of our clients have more wisdom in our industry than some of our peers at that point.
21:1021 minutes, 10 secondsThat's hilarious. Um how what is the biggest change that you've saw in the industry that you can put a finger on
21:1921 minutes, 19 secondsfrom the time that you started doing home performance to today?
21:2721 minutes, 27 secondsYou know, it doesn't stop at home performance. You know, I mean, you you go in and you
21:3621 minutes, 36 secondsThere's a lot of companies out there insulating and air sealing homes, but they don't pay any attention to moisture mitigation.
21:4521 minutes, 45 secondsSo, they're throwing mold. So, you know, there's a lot more to the business.
21:5021 minutes, 50 secondsPeople ask me, "Why the heck do you do gutters?" Well, I only do gutters when I do basement waterproofing. And I only do
21:5821 minutes, 58 secondsbasement waterproofing when I've tried to mitigate moisture. Yeah. So, they all go hand in hand. Sure.
22:0322 minutes, 3 secondsUm, you know, somebody calls me to for an estimate on gutters and and they're getting four other estimates from the cheaper. You know, that's not the
22:1122 minutes, 11 secondsbusiness we're in. We don't do that. We only do gutters when it pertains to our basement waterproofing work when we're trying to mitigate moisture. But it you this this business just it doesn't stop.
22:2422 minutes, 24 secondsIt keeps you you got to you got to take all these pieces of the puzzle and bring them together. I can I can John, you
22:3122 minutes, 31 secondssaid you're in the radon business. I uh I bought a a fancy new electronic radon test machine and I was testing it at my
22:3922 minutes, 39 secondshome. Uh it was a $2500 device and I would have never in a million years guessed that I had a radon problem in my
22:4822 minutes, 48 secondsown home. uh I'm not on a hot spot on the map. I have a very dry, very tight. Everything's masonary. There's no cracks.
22:5822 minutes, 58 secondsAnd this this new device is reading 16 pico carries and my wife is ready to kill me. She's in the medical
23:0523 minutes, 5 secondsprofession. So, she wasn't happy. But, uh so I said, "This device must be garbage."
23:1223 minutes, 12 secondsSo, so I went I went and got a carbon absorption test and 4 days later 16 people curious. I'm going, "Oh my gosh,
23:2223 minutes, 22 secondsthank goodness. One fan with two suction points, I'm down to 08." So, so I solved it pretty quickly. But,
23:3023 minutes, 30 secondsuh, so what because of that, we're now every I I equipped all my trucks with
23:3623 minutes, 36 secondswith radon carbon absorption tests. All my technicians, all my installers, they're giving these tests out. So far,
23:4423 minutes, 44 secondswe're, you know, we're giving 10 tests out. Three are coming back with over four equal. Holy crap.
23:5023 minutes, 50 secondsSo, the the potential for radon is way more than I ever dreamed uh out there. Yeah.
23:5723 minutes, 57 secondsAnd to speak to that a little bit, how that's something that I've been really picking up on at this conference is the difference between trending data and
24:0624 minutes, 6 secondsspot data. So when we're testing any of these things, humidity or radon or carbon dioxide, we're
24:1624 minutes, 16 secondslooking at either a moment in time or a trend.
24:2024 minutes, 20 secondsSo the carbon absorption test when used properly, when installed properly, when
24:2724 minutes, 27 secondsstored properly, when sent properly, has a potential for accuracy. So too does the continuous radon monitor. However,
24:3524 minutes, 35 secondsit is only a snapshot in time for the 48 hour mandated period. And any of these tests are best to look at the trending
24:4524 minutes, 45 secondsdata, right? So, if you had a bulk water issue, you would clearly not necessarily need a whole house dehumidifier for the
24:5224 minutes, 52 secondsrest of your life. So too was radon. If if you have stack effect on a windy day, if you have a deep frost level, if you
25:0125 minutes, 1 secondhave a bulk water below the slab issue, it's a trending relationship. And that's something in our industry that a lot of
25:0825 minutes, 8 secondspeople don't take into account that's been a real talking point that I've noticed throughout this conference so far is are
25:1725 minutes, 17 secondswe looking at a at a snapshot in time or are we looking at a at a long-term trend? And that's something that's very
25:2525 minutes, 25 secondsimportant with any of the data. A lot of people in our industry who are the snake
25:3225 minutes, 32 secondsoil type will point out something that's that's a temporary ETD and come up with a really high dollar permanent fix that
25:4125 minutes, 41 secondsreally is a uh it's not a coste effective measurement. And so that's something that's been an eye openener
25:4925 minutes, 49 secondsfor me on the radon testing side of things and also using the data as far as pressure field extension
25:5825 minutes, 58 secondsto see that I'm not sacrificing the customer's energy. I'm not costing them an energy penalty.
26:0626 minutes, 6 secondsSure. And that's something that since I've met you in the last few years, Jeremy, that I've really started learning a lot about is is the Pascal
26:1426 minutes, 14 secondsand looking at we really only need five Pascal of suction. And if we create 20 and we get down to that 0.5 range, yet
26:2326 minutes, 23 secondswe're still wasting 15 Pascal up the block sucking conditioned air, it went from a $100 operating cost a year to a
26:3226 minutes, 32 seconds$500 operating cost a year over 20 years. Wow.
26:3626 minutes, 36 secondsWow. This this conference really opened my eyes to that.
26:3926 minutes, 39 secondsI think, you know, the point that was just made here that Hal started out making and John really drove home is like it's even connected beyond what we typically assume. Like we sit here and
26:4726 minutes, 47 secondswe talk about home performance and that's a very specific thing and it means a few things, but like when you really start looking at the house as a connected whole system, the systems go
26:5626 minutes, 56 secondsway beyond even the stuff that we as top level professionals would even, you know, really look at on a day-to-day
27:0327 minutes, 3 secondsbasis. So like I applaud both of you for like taking that step and connecting it and then John, you know that applying the the building science to to being
27:1227 minutes, 12 secondsable to save energy there. That's a pretty amazing leap that you just made.
27:1527 minutes, 15 secondsSo I um I applaud that um type of growth and I think that um how you talked about
27:2427 minutes, 24 secondsyou guys just you keep growing and you just added on or started doing a really unique IAQ program. You want to talk about that for a minute?
27:3227 minutes, 32 secondsYeah. Uh, so you know, we're we're using this this air advice, the 30 minute test, and it gives a to John's point, it
27:3927 minutes, 39 secondsgives us a a a quick 30 minute look in time, but when when we compare that and then we do a 4day test, they're pretty
27:4727 minutes, 47 secondsclose most times. You know, you're not whatever you see in that first 30 minutes is a pretty good pretty good indication of what you might see for a long-term test.
27:5827 minutes, 58 secondsAnd so that, you know, that just opens up conversations and and if uh if if there's some things that are of concern, then we would do you know a longer test.
28:0628 minutes, 6 secondsBut uh something else that we've just just getting into now new knew uh my wife who was a director of nursing uh
28:1528 minutes, 15 secondsfor 32 years joined our company and uh she uh
28:2328 minutes, 23 secondswe're we're starting to work with uh the healthc care industry and and customers that are asthmatics and how to how to
28:3228 minutes, 32 secondsimprove uh the breathing in their own home. and and there's there's money out in New York State to help these
28:3928 minutes, 39 secondscustomers improve their home and and the whole objection is to that they don't have an asthma attack and have to go to
28:4528 minutes, 45 secondsthe ER. Uh so we're able to take that funding and then also braid
28:5228 minutes, 52 secondsthat with some some of the low income funding that's out there that we can insulate in air seal homes and do that.
28:5928 minutes, 59 secondsBut but that empower plus money doesn't allow us to make some of the changes for for better breathing in the home for to
29:0729 minutes, 7 secondstreat the asthma. So we're very excited just getting started with this to pair those two things together and really make a a bigger difference in in the homes.
29:1629 minutes, 16 secondsYeah. I heard you talking about that earlier and and that's why I kind of brought it up. To me it's like such an amazing thing. Um, I can remember back
29:2429 minutes, 24 secondswhen, right, when they were starting to formulate Obamacare, they did a bunch of studies on sick building syndrome and
29:3229 minutes, 32 secondsschool age children and they took a a data set of school-aged children and they said, "These kids miss school more than anybody else due to health reasons.
29:4029 minutes, 40 secondsLet's look at what those health reasons are." And then when they started digging into it, they found, hey, it's not anything that we can put our finger on.
29:4829 minutes, 48 secondsLet's go look at the home. And then they called in energy auditors into the home and they came into the home and then they said we need to do a study on this.
29:5529 minutes, 55 secondsAnd they started a small sample study where they actually started fixing the homes and still monitoring the children and seeing how much school they missed
30:0230 minutes, 2 secondsin correlation with the home being weatherized and and and um the IAQ improved and everything like that. And
30:1030 minutes, 10 secondslo and behold, the kids school uh the amount of times that the kids miss school for being sick went way down.
30:1630 minutes, 16 secondsSome of them almost to nothing. So, they were just getting ready to um put into the Obama part of Obamacare. The thing
30:2430 minutes, 24 secondsthey were trying to do is exactly what he's talking about here is like get Medicare to first get get involved and send a nurse out to the home and then
30:3230 minutes, 32 secondshave a professional like House Group come out to the home and do an evaluation and fix the home, fix the sick building syndrome and then the kids
30:3930 minutes, 39 secondsaren't sick anymore. It's not IAQ problems. It's not allergy problems.
30:4330 minutes, 43 secondsIt's not sickness problems. And it's not carbon monoxide problems. Because one thing about CO a lot of people don't realize is that it at low levels in
30:5130 minutes, 51 secondschildren, it manifests just carbon monoxide poisoning and sickness manifest just like colds and stomach flu and things like that do. So, a lot of these
30:5930 minutes, 59 secondskids could have been having these symptoms from water heaters not venting properly or all this different stuff that's going on and on and on in the
31:0731 minutes, 7 secondshome and they're just never getting better and they're always missing school. To me, hearing him say that that's now a program in New York, it blew my mind. It's like a big deal and I
31:1631 minutes, 16 secondsthink that other people like including you know Sean as you move up in your your home performance world and everybody else should really start
31:2431 minutes, 24 secondsthinking about how they can do what these guys are doing or how they can bring that program to um their community
31:3031 minutes, 30 secondsbecause it is a next level service that can solve a lot of problems for people if you figure out how to to fund it the right way. So, that's a little bit of a
31:3931 minutes, 39 secondssoap box, but like I was just blown away by by the that them uh doing that program there.
31:4431 minutes, 44 secondsJeremy, I can jump on that box a little bit, too. Since we joined up with National Comfort Institute, every single furnace that we maintenance, we do a
31:5331 minutes, 53 secondsfull combustion analysis on. All of our technicians carry personal CO alarms. We do sell low-level carbon monoxide
32:0232 minutes, 2 secondsalarms. It was an eye opener. And for those of you in the room who don't know, the actual big box carbon monoxide alarms will not go off until 70 parts
32:1132 minutes, 11 secondsper million and not until after 1 to four hours of exposure. So what that means in plain English is that you can
32:1932 minutes, 19 secondsbe exposed to 69 parts per million for your full life legally. They meet the standard. However, if they don't pass
32:2632 minutes, 26 secondsthe threshold of 70, they're not required to alarm. And there's been a lot of studies and a lot of tests done
32:3332 minutes, 33 secondswhere people in the other room here, some of the vendors have actually taken those alarms and put them in bags with
32:4132 minutes, 41 secondsover a 100 parts and they didn't go off for 6 to 8 hours. And so my advice to anybody in the room or anybody listening
32:4732 minutes, 47 secondsto this on the internet is to make an investment in your own health and have a low-level CO alarm. Our NSI 6000
32:5632 minutes, 56 secondsmonitors alert at 15 parts per million after five minutes of exposure. And when
33:0233 minutes, 2 secondswe when we deliver those to our clients, we advise them to take them everywhere because they're battery controlled. I
33:1033 minutes, 10 secondseven say take it to Bingo since they don't smoke there anymore. They won't be followed up.
33:1833 minutes, 18 secondsUm, how how long have you been coming to this conference now? How many years?
33:2133 minutes, 21 secondslike your when was your first do you remember your first one?
33:2633 minutes, 26 secondsI 10 years I'm guessing 10 years and over the 10 years what keeps you coming back? Like why do you come back year after year?
33:3433 minutes, 34 secondsI I always learn something every single time.
33:3833 minutes, 38 secondsThat's the amazing thing about this group right here. Like it doesn't matter how many times you come to these conferences and especially this one. And I tell everybody this, like I'm not
33:4733 minutes, 47 secondssaying it cuz I'm here. Like I've said this many, many times in my life, like this conference is from a learning perspective, like where you want to come to learn and get the most value from it.
33:5633 minutes, 56 secondsThis is the conference. There's there's other ones out there that um put a lot of fluff in it because they need marketing dollars. And you know, you see the trade-off. Like we don't have some
34:0534 minutes, 5 secondsof the cool fancy food and all that stuff here, but like what you do have is a different type of food that's feeding you in a much better way. So, like
34:1234 minutes, 12 secondssometimes, you know, the trade-off is the trade-off, but this particular conference provides um that type of uh education to new and old folks alike.
34:2334 minutes, 23 secondsAnd on that note, John, so far, what's the best thing you've gotten out of the conference? What's the your favorite thing? Let's put it that way. What's the favorite thing you got out of the conference?
34:3234 minutes, 32 secondsFirst and foremost, I owe my attendance uh to the Amply podcast and seeing Peter to start all night.
34:3934 minutes, 39 secondsI was cleaning the shop one day and I've been listening to podcasts from from you, from Ample, from a lot of people
34:4734 minutes, 47 secondsand hearing deer talk about the conference was the draw for me. And today I got to sit in on on zonal pressure testing with the blower door.
34:5934 minutes, 59 secondsOh, yeah. and looking at the the zonal pressure difference between different spaces, which was really intriguing to
35:0635 minutes, 6 secondsme. And breaking down the blower door, seeing how much of that's actually coming from the attic and how much of that's coming from the garage if it's
35:1535 minutes, 15 secondsattached. In yesterday's session with TEC, Jake and Bill really broke down the
35:2235 minutes, 22 secondsnumbers on the TEC the TEC workflow and breaking down the
35:2935 minutes, 29 secondsend factor between five is a large portal a large lack of integrity in the structure and seven and beyond is death
35:3835 minutes, 38 secondsby a thousand cuts and and making that connection of this is where I can break out my infrared camera and look for the
35:4635 minutes, 46 secondsmother hole that's costing you or this is where I can get the smoke puffer out and see where I can just empower the
35:5335 minutes, 53 secondsclient to hey seal these cracks and save yourself some money quick commercial J
36:0136 minutes, 1 secondsure 6 weeks from now there's another BPA conference in beautiful Saratoga New York it's a regional conference it's
36:0936 minutes, 9 secondsgoing to be wonderful come and see us in New York the regional that's one thing I love about BPA too is they always do the
36:1536 minutes, 15 secondsregional events and it's a great way to um get little tidbits of the knowledge that you may not be able to come and get
36:2336 minutes, 23 secondsthe whole thing but get some chunks and you know in your own backyard that's always a beautiful thing right um so
36:3136 minutes, 31 secondslet's see here I I I got a few things I still want to ask you guys um what how much time do we got left here 250
36:3936 minutes, 39 secondsprobably about 10 minutes or so um I'll save the last thing for last that I always do. But the one question that I
36:4836 minutes, 48 secondswanted to ask um how is where do you see the HVAC industry specifically out of
36:5536 minutes, 55 secondsthe tra all the trades? Where do you see the HVAC industry going next now that we're here with the inverters and the technology starting to and AI starting
37:0437 minutes, 4 secondsto make its way in the HVAC and stuff like that? Like from your experience, like you've been in a long time and you've seen a lot of changes along the
37:1137 minutes, 11 secondsway and even more so because you're in home performance. So what is it you think like where do you see the HVAC industry headed?
37:2037 minutes, 20 secondsSo in New York they you know they've had lots of heat pumps incentives right and
37:2837 minutes, 28 secondsthey just now are finally saying you know we've been incentivizing people based on the size of the heat pump. So a
37:3537 minutes, 35 secondsfive ton heat pump got the biggest rebate. So guess what guess what heat pump got put in all these houses? So typical.
37:4437 minutes, 44 secondsSo they're now finally changing it and they're saying look it if you're not going to get a heat pump rebate until
37:5137 minutes, 51 secondsfirst of all you turn in a blower door and you have to calculate how many air changes per hour. You have to get it down below 10 air changes at a bare
38:0038 minutesminimum to say the house is even close to being heat pump ready. So they're finally changing uh you know and and towards the better.
38:0938 minutes, 9 secondsThat's a long time in coming there.
38:1038 minutes, 10 secondsYeah, it certainly has been. uh uh you know, but but what that means is there's a lot of HVAC kind, you know, in New
38:1938 minutes, 19 secondsYork there there's there's close to a thousand uh heat pump installers that work with this clean heat program and there's
38:2738 minutes, 27 secondsabout 75 contractors that are doing it shell work. So that's I hear that's the ratio there. So
38:3638 minutes, 36 secondsthere's a lot of HVAC contractors that need to learn about home performance and show work. Still a lot of work to be done.
38:4338 minutes, 43 secondsAnd John, I'll ask you the same question. Where do you see HVAC headed from your perspect perspective?
38:4838 minutes, 48 secondsKnowing what I know now, I would say that the old school folks who are setting their ways and their rules of thumb are either going to need to jump
38:5638 minutes, 56 secondson the high performance ship or they're going to need to swim to shore or sink on the way. I think that the things that
39:0339 minutes, 3 secondsused to pass for good enough, our industry has gotten away with good enough. The bar has been so low. Nobody called to complain. We're kicking butt.
39:1339 minutes, 13 secondsDoesn't work anymore. The mismatch systems with the mismatched up work. The the temperature difference with the heat
39:2139 minutes, 21 secondspump versus the temperature difference with the furnace when we go from fossil fuel to electrification. the people who aren't on the high performance ship are
39:3039 minutes, 30 secondslike I say they're either going to sink or they're going to swim their bugs off and try to get your your comment reminds me of Dom from
39:3739 minutes, 37 secondsum National uh Comfort Institute one of my mentors a few years ago he said a thing that has stuck with me this whole entire time he
39:4439 minutes, 44 secondssaid we went from working on Timex's to Swiss Swiss watches overnight and he's like and that is a scary thing for a lot
39:5139 minutes, 51 secondsof these guys out here so I hope that the guys like you I hope your prediction is right I do hope it swims to the top instead of the bottom because if not I
39:5939 minutes, 59 secondsdon't know what comes next because the technology is not going to step stop improving. So these guys have got to start learning where they have actually
40:0840 minutes, 8 secondsreally never started learning you know beyond just the the typical HVAC school and you know there's still guys bending metal and stuff you know that are 40
40:1640 minutes, 16 secondsyears old like that's not going to fly anymore. So people need the education is paramount. Um I appreciate you guys
40:2340 minutes, 23 secondsbeing here today. Uh we're almost up on the time. I have one more question. I ask all my guests this at the end of every show. So, I'm going to let both of
40:3040 minutes, 30 secondsyou guys um answer it. Is if society ended today and you had to write something on the wall to leave behind for the next society that was formed, what would that message be?
40:4540 minutes, 45 secondsYou think about it, how I'll go ahead and watching enough of Jeremy's podcast at the kitchen. Think I'm ready for
40:5240 minutes, 52 secondsthis. I would borrow a line from a good time.
40:5940 minutes, 59 secondsHonestly, get emotional when I think about his line. He says, "Never stop alerting." And he's also taught me that you're never alone.
41:0941 minutes, 9 secondsBecause like Ty, the people in this industry who know the truth, they're here to share it with you. These rooms
41:1541 minutes, 15 secondshave been full of women and men of the trades who have opened their their mouths, their hearts, their brains, and
41:2341 minutes, 23 secondstheir arms to embrace us. And those who are willing will succeed, and those who won't will get what they sell.
41:3241 minutes, 32 secondsVery well put. Appreciate that.
41:3541 minutes, 35 secondsYeah. And I guess for me, uh, do the right thing. You know, we've always been about customers for life. And you know, sometimes you don't always you
41:4341 minutes, 43 secondsleave a job and you don't make money, but if you did the right thing for the customer, that money will come back to you someday. And so, do do the right thing.
41:5041 minutes, 50 secondsThousand% love it. All right, guys.
41:5341 minutes, 53 secondsThank you very much for joining us on the podcast today, Al and John. It's been an awesome conversation.
41:5941 minutes, 59 secondsThank you very much.
