HIGH-PERFORMANCEHVAC TODAYHVAC TODAY TMIf You Don’t Measure, You’re Just Guessing!™hvactoday.comDECEMBER 2019ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:How to Estimate Single-Room AirflowKeep Score and Drive Performance-Based SalesContractor Spotlight: Training For Excellence and SuccessDo You Train On Purpose?DECEMBER 2019 3HVACTODAY.COMDECEMBER 2019 VOLUME 3 NUMBER 12HIGH-PERFORMANCEHVAC TODAYHVAC TODAY TMTECHNICAL:Estimating Room AirflowNCI’s Rob Falke provides a method to estimate a single room’s airflow and explains its importance for diagnosing and fixing customer comfort issues.SALES:Keep Score and Drive Performance-Based SalesContractor Jim Ball shares his experiences helping customers bridge what he calls, “The Comfort Gap.”TRAINING:Why You Should Have an Annual Training PlanTraining doesn’t just happen. At Basnett Plumbing and Heating, training planning is a real process. Here’s how it works. DEPARTMENTSToday’s Word .........................................................................................5High-Performance Products .............................................................6Contractor Spotlight: Campbell and Company ......................8Photo of the Month .........................................................................19Member Update ...............................................................................20HVAC Smart Mart ...............................................................................21Ad Index ................................................................................................21One More Thing ................................................................................22161013DECEMBER 2019 5HVACTODAY.COMTODAY’S WORDBy Mike WeilMike Weil is editor-in-chief and director of communications at National Comfort Institute, Inc. You can reach him at MikeW@nciHVAC.comThe weather outside soon will be frightful, and world news is less than delightful. But the holiday season is here, so let us cheer, let us cheer, let us cheer. As I write this, Thanksgiving is just around the corner and Christmas and Hanukah are fast on its heels. It’s a time for reflection as we begin to close the books on 2019 and get ready for whatev-er awaits us in 2020.So here is a look back through the ‘eyes’ of my 2019 Today’s Word columns as well as through the lens of events that impacted all aspects of the HVAC Industry.IN A NUTSHELLThis time last year we began living with the results of a midterm election that created the scenerio for a lame-duck Congress. It set the stage for 2019 to be a year of the good, the bad, and the ugly. It’s enough to make your hair turn gray. Speak-ing of which, the technician shortage continues to be a big issue as the gray tsunami (of baby boomer retirement) is upon us. What are you doing to attract young people into your companies and into this industry?In 2018, economists made predictions of a looming recession. In early 2019 HVAC manufac-turers were far more optimistic, as reported by a study conducted by the AHR Exposition Compa-ny in January. Of course, the 2019 U.S. and China trade war went gangbusters and its impact on the HVAC in-dustry is still being assessed.GOOD NEWSOn the bright side, the new tax laws went into effect and helped small businesses around the country. Plus, 2019 was a year of great advanc-es in science, especially in stem cell research and the first ever image of a real black hole in space. Let’s not forget the 50th Anniversary of Neil Arm-strong’s taking one small step.With the onset of 2019, there were at least 14 reasons to celebrate and Performance-Based contractors around the country set the pace for actively working on the dream. That in-cludes the Performance-Based Contracting con-cept of measuring and not guessing. The dream calls for a lot of training, not only on ductwork and equipment, but also on the tools needed to get the job done right.It was a year to determine priorities — things like balancing tech safety with the need for the big summer payday. That also includes thinking about CO (carbon monoxide) and its impact on the High-Performance HVAC contractor. Are you ready to handle these situations? Are you and your people trained and certified?So, let’s keep the learning going and hope-fully attract more people into the industry. You will always improve your abilities to test, mea-sure, and diagnose airflow issues if you follow the idea of training by the rule of one degree.Furthermore, we all know that the need for comfort will never go away. But 2019 showed us that Performance-Based contractors also need to focus more on branding their High-Perfor-mance businesses as well as maintaining strong, positive online business reputations to grab a bigger share of the comfort business pie.SETTING THE TONEWith all this in mind, now is the time to look forward to 2020. From the team at High-Per-formance HVAC Today and National Com-fort Institute, we wish you — our readers — a safe, healthy, and productive year! Looking in the Rearview Mirror:2019 In Review6 DECEMBER 2019HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAYHowever, the RVA is NOT a good choice for low-velocity readings because it requires sufficient velocity for the blades to spin at a consistent rate. That being said, the RVA is one of the best in-struments for a direct read of outside air intakes on rooftop units, as it is the most tolerant of exterior wind conditions. Also, if you’re like me and you only want to take ONE tool bag to the roof, the 801 conveniently fits in one of the side pouches of any back-pack tool bag.The TSI / Alnor 801 RVA comes with a 4” head, allowing a greater read area. It also has a timed average feature that allows the reading of the complete surface area to be averaged to a single value. All RVAs are directional. If you buy one that claims it is not, get rid of it. Odds are, it can’t be calibrated. The head of the 801 swiv-els so that supply and return/exhaust air can be read equally. You can program this instrument to directly read CFM. This includes using field derived correction factors. The RVA 801 comes with an optional cone kit that is perfect for small supply or exhaust up to 200 CFM. Finally, not only does the RVA 801 come with a NIST Traceable Calibration certificate, Alnor makes similar models that are detach-able and work with the TSI/Alnor Veloci-Calc, providing additional flexibility. I personally own three RVAs and consider the TSI / Alnor my go-to device.For more information, visit the TSI/Alnor website at ncilink.com/801RVA. — by Scott Fielder, Director of National Balancing Council.TSI / ALNOR 801 ROTATING VANE ANEMOMETERBoth the National Balancing Council (NBC) and National Comfort Institute (NCI), strongly recommend technicians own and use a Rotating Vane Ane-mometer (RVA). In fact, this instrument is required for both the NBC TAB Supervisor and the NCI Commercial Air Bal-ance Certifications. The rea-son is our “Right Tool for the Right Job” (https://hvactoday.com/right-tool-for-job/) approach. The TSI/Alnor 801 RVA is perfect for reading small sidewall grilles, reg-isters, and diffusers that are not acces-sible by the standard airflow capture hood. HIGH-PERFORMANCE PRODUCT REVIEWSWritten By HVAC Professionals for HVAC ProfessionalsDECEMBER 2019 7HVACTODAY.COMat the push of a button. If you desire to log data, the unit does have a function where it draws power from the system it’s measuring for long moni-toring periods. For technicians focused on customers who have high energy consumption, more accurate wattage measurements can aid in the analysis of potential energy savings and EER calculations. For contractors, whose focus is primarily in the residential single-phase market; the Amprobe ACDC-52NAV is an excellent meter for power factor correction. Gather power fac-tor, volts, amps watts, and phase verification. Change settings and the reading viewed with the onboard joystick.It’s ease of operation and single-step wattage reading is quick by measuring voltage and current simultaneously. For more information on the Mastech MS2203, visit their website at ncilink.com/MS2203. You can get more information on the Amprobe instrument at ncilink.com/52NAV.— by Justin Bright, Field Coach and Instructor, National Comfort InstituteDIGITAL POWER METERSHave you been looking to increase the accuracy of your power measure-ments and move beyond volt amps? The Mastech MS2203 is a true RMS three-phase intelligent digital power meter offering power factor correc-tion at an affordable price. Quickly gather voltage, current, active power, apparent power, reactive power, power factor, frequency, and Power factor corrected wattage. This meter comes with four clamp-on power leads, which are connected to three legs of power and ground. The current clamp is progressed from leg to leg, measuring and storing the data. It then calculates wattage Mastech MS2203Amprobe ACDC-52NAV8 DECEMBER 2019HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAYIn Southeastern Washington, in the shadow of the mighty Cascade Mountain Range, lies the city of Pasco. The area where Pasco is located was the site where the Lewis and Clark Expedition camped in 1805 and was a major stop for fur trappers and gold traders in the 1880s. Today it is home to the Hanford nu-clear facility, Boise Cascade, Tyson Foods, Bechtel National, Inc., the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory, and a major HVAC contracting firm known as Campbell and Company, Inc.This 37-year-old firm started out as a refrigeration service company owned by three partners – one of whom was Mike Campbell. Over the years, the company established itself as a go-to company for refrigeration system is-sues and grew at a fairly steady pace.Campbell eventually bought out his partners and began moving the com-pany into the residential and light commercial HVAC Service and Instal-lation business.Later in the company’s history, they got involved in the area’s wine industry. Pasco is located in what is known as the rain shadow of the Cascades – meaning most rain systems are stopped by the mountains and the city environs is part of a windswept desert with hot sum-mers, warm springs, and cold winters. It is perfect for growing grapes. Campbell’s company became adept at process piping and working with any systems that involve the use of glycol.“In the early days,” Campbell says, “the company serviced a lot of conve-nient stores and grocery store racks. We worked in the big chains – Albert-sons, Safeway, and so on. It was a bru-tal business to be in.Over the years Campbell says he and his team were asked by friends, family, and neigh-bors to help them with their heating and air conditioning issues. As Mike says, “We had to eat, so, we started working our way into that. We were pretty good at it. We devel-oped a reputation for show-ing up, which in those days, was half the battle for consumers.”A RECESSION THAT CHANGED EVERYTHINGDuring the early 1980s, when Campbell was just getting started, two major trends impacted the HVAC Industry in the U.S. First was the development of effi-cient heat pump equipment that pro-vided a new alternative for heating and air conditioning. In areas like the Pacific Northwest, because of the mild temperatures, heat pumps gained popularity pretty quickly. The second trend was a little some-thing known as the Great Recession – an economic change that forced many companies out of business and created the need to find new ways to manage a company, keep it alive, and make it successful. These two ‘events’ changed everything.According to Campbell they began to see issues with heat pumps. “They were just becoming popular in our area and were unique in that airflow, especially in heating mode, was criti-cal. Issues popped up but we couldn’t really articulate what they were. In those days no one focused on perfor-mance-based duct design. We tried to work through it using our slide rules, but the answers weren’t ap-parent, and we were mostly guessing. It was a little bit of a wild west kind of thing.”In the late 1970s the West Coast experienced a build-ing boom. A lot of low-end HVAC equipment was being installed to keep costs low. The recession in the early 1980s put the brakes on new construction and for a year or two virtually no homes were being built. “We formed our company right in the middle of both these issues,” Campbell adds. “It was a pretty im-portant time – we went from boom-Training for Excellence and SuccessMike CampbellCONTRACTOR SPOTLIGHTBy Mike WeilDECEMBER 2019 9HVACTODAY.COMtown to bust. There were little to no building permits being issued for an entire year.“It was a time of great lessons learned early in our company history. It set the stage for us to create a culture and pro-cess to survive such downturns and thrive in upturns in the economy. This stuff all comes in waves and we had to learn to ride those waves.”CAMPBELL AND COMPANY TODAYAnd ride those waves they did. To-day Campbell and Company brings in around $31 million annually with 65% of that in residential and 35% in commercial work. Besides residential HVAC retrofit and replacement, the company does indoor plumbing, indoor air quality, as well as their own electrical work. Campbell does everything in-house with around 200 employees. How did they get here? He says a lot had to do with figuring out better ways to manage processes and learn-ing how to diagnose airflow issues in duct systems.“When it comes to airflow, I had a come-to-Jesus moment years ago while I was attending an HVAC Comfortech event. There I met the people from Na-tional Comfort Institute (NCI) who demonstrated how measuring static pressures and airflow through testing makes all the sense in the world!”Campbell explains that this was some 10 years ago and at the time, his company was experiencing a tremen-dous uptick in warranty work which was getting in the way of them doing more profitable projects. NCI helped him realize this was the missing com-ponent that he and his team needed to achieve service excellence.“When I got back to Pasco, we had a big management meeting and put it on the table to think about testing ev-erything we install. Some of my man-agers were not thrilled with the pros-pect, others were. A core group of our leadership team bought into the Per-formance approach and proceeded to change our company culture dang near overnight,” Campbell says.“We shut the company down for a full week and hired NCI to come in and retrain everybody. Once we did this, the warranty situation nearly vapor-ize, seemingly overnight. The result: we actually had techs available when the weather turned cold or hot, to fix equipment and charge for the work. We had more opportunities than when bogged down with warranty work.“We saw our profits soar. It was one of the most important ‘moments’ in our company’s history. It changed the company trajectory in a big and posi-tive way.”SYSTEM RENOVATION AND AIR UPGRADESWith the advent of a new culture surrounded by measuring system per-formance, Campbell and Company be-gan focusing on duct system renova-tions and air upgrade work.“It’s really hard to do the right thing all the time,” says Mike Campbell. “My dad told me that years ago and — dang it — he was right. If you are a Perfor-mance-Based Contracting™ firm, you cannot charge what your competitors charge. You must charge more be-cause you are providing so much more in the way of service.“You can’t even sell the same way they do. You must figure out what the differences are between your offerings and theirs, what the value is, and price accordingly. Once priced right, the value of our offerings must be at the core of our sales message.”Campbell says, “the performance culture isn’t about symbolism. It devel-oped slowly over time and is very pow-erful when you can test and show the customer what is happening in their ductwork that is impacting their wal-lets and their comfort. It is also power-ful to be able to make the repairs, mea-sure again, and show the customer how much improvement was actually made. CULTURE OF EXCELLENCEMike Campbell concludes that in his opinion, Performance-Based Con-tracting™ creates a culture of excel-lence. “I think that when you can mea-sure, diagnose, and resolve customer comfort and other issues, you are ab-solutely providing the best service for your customers. “I just wish it didn’t take me so long to discover the truth about measur-ing and also wish we started doing this much earlier in our history.“Performance-Based Contracting gave us the tools to really measure what we do. When you can measure it, you can predict success. It is incum-bent on all contractors to test.”Campbell concludes by saying, “You don’t walk away until a job is done right. By doing these things, employee and customer engagement, plus pos-itive referrals will grow in a positive way. We are the company that is the absolute best option for a substantial HVAC investment. Positive word-of-mouth reputation is the best reward.”Congratulations to Mike Campbell and his team, our December 2019 Contractor Spotlight.Next >