HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY TM If You Don’t Measure, You’re Just Guessing! ™ hvactoday.comSEPTEMBER 2021 WORKPLACE SAFETY ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: CO Draft Testing: The Heart of Performance Safety Why You Need A Safety Culture The Power of Changing Your MindsetSEPTEMBER 2021 3HVACTODAY.COM SEPTEMBER 2021 VOLUME 5 NUMBER 9 HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY TM TRAINING: A Culture of Safety Keeping employees and customers safe is really Job One at Haller Enterprises. It requires a safety culture balanced with training. Here is how they do it. MANAGEMENT: The Power of Changing Your Mindset Mental blocks are often used to explain why you can’t achieve a goal. NCI’s David Holt explains how it’s all in your head and how you can overcome this self-imposed obstacle. 15 DEPARTMENTS Today’s Word .........................................................................................4 High-Performance Product Review ...............................................5 Partner Spotlight: Pearl Certification ...........................................6 NCI Update .........................................................................................19 HVAC Smart Mart ...............................................................................20 Ad Index ................................................................................................21 One More Thing ................................................................................22 09 MANAGEMENT: CO Draft Testing: The Heart of Performance Safety Contractor Tom Spall explains his company’s approach to performance testing and carbon monoxide safety. 124 SEPTEMBER 2021HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY ● 61.8% use the magazine to reinforce high-per- formance within their companies. “The information your magazine provides sets the foundation of the High-Performance approach we have in our company,” writes William Laurn of No Hack HVAC in Corona, CA. Mark Thompson of Ward Mechanical Contrac- tors, Denham Springs, LA says, “I am the field op- erations manager at my company. I read the mag- azine every month and find it to be a great asset in helping me learn how to better perform my job.” Your comments provide a guidepost to where we need to go in the future. For that, I personally am very grateful. FIVE SURVEY DRAWING WINNERS Contractors who took this survey were placed into a drawing for a new NSI 6000 Carbon Mon- oxide Monitor (See Dominick Guarino’s ‘One More Thing’ column on page 22 about the impor- tance of these new devices). We drew five win- ners. They are: ● Steve Houser of Houser’s Air Conditioning and Heating Service, Glenwood, IA ● Ernest Craig of A & K Service Heating and Cooling, Alpharetta, GA ● Gerald Kurtz, Sandstone Service, Monticello, IN ● Michael Quigley, Michael Quigley Plumbing and Heating, Manasquan, NJ ● Perry Sheppard, JPS HVAC of Omaha, NE. Congratulations to our winners who will re- ceive their NSI 6000 monitors in the mail short- ly. And thank you to all the participants who shared their feedback and comments with us. We know how busy you are, especially during the summer season. Your answers will help me and the entire magazine team do our best to serve you the content you need and want. And that is our ongoing mission. A s a journalist and trade press editor, I am always interested in what readers say about our publication, the articles we provide, and their usefulness. Over the years, many of you anecdotally shared what you like, don’t like, and wish we’d do more of and that is certainly very helpful. Sometimes it’s worth the effort of doing formal surveys to get specific answers to specific ques- tions and use that information to help guide the future content development for the magazine. So in July 2021, we did that survey. We even offered a reward for those who took the time to participate. More on that later. Here is what you told us: Readers of High-Performance HVAC Today are mostly HVAC contractors (nearly 90%) who are extremely interested in the technical issues that surround the High-Performance approach to delivering HVAC services. In fact, 82% of you look to this publication to get a laser focus on the High-Performance HVAC contracting indus- try and 90% of you fully trust the content within our pages. Furthermore, reading in-depth content with use- ful technical information is among the most im- portant features that you like about the magazine. More than 85% of you shared this detail with us. It is important to the team here at the maga- zine to understand how you use the information we provide. Here is what you told us: ● 80.3% of our survey respondents say they use the magazine to find out more about the high-per- formance approach to contracting. ● 77.6% say High-Performance HVAC To- day content helps them to do their jobs more efficiently ● 71.1% find the publication useful for locating additional training for their teams. So How Are We Doing? “SURVEY SAYS ...” TODAY’S WORD By Mike Weil Mike Weil is editor-in-chief and director of communications and publications at National Comfort Institute, Inc. Contact him at ncilink.com/ ContactMe .SEPTEMBER 2021 5HVACTODAY.COM by making manufacturer equipment rat- ings a thing of the past. Check out what each chart has to offer. System Performance Guru ▲ Enthalpy Chart ▲ Air Density Correction ▲ Btu Density Correction ▲ Heat Pump Performance ▲ .50” Fan Performance ▲ .80” Fan Performance ▲ .80” Variable Fan Performance ▲ Cooling Capacity. Duct Design Master ● Duct Design Tables ● Static Pressure / Blood Pressure Table ● Airflow requirements ● Static Pressure Budgets ● .50” Fan Performance ● .80” Fan Performance ● .80” Var. Fan Performance ● Nomenclature lookup. Only an NCI-certified professional can buy these clipboards. Your untrained competition won’t stand a chance. For more information, or to buy these clipboards, go to ncilink.com/ClipBd or call your NCI Customer Care Representa- tive at 800-633-7058. — by Casey Contreras, NCI field coach and instructor A Great American Pastime Before you get too excited, I’m not talking about baseball. I’m talking about the great American clipboard. And not just any clipboard like the one invented in 1908 by George Henry Hohnsbeen. I’m talking about the two clipboards every National Comfort Institute (NCI)- trained contractor and technician has come to love. NCI clipboards are printed with all the tables and charts necessary to help you complete your High-Performance HVAC diagnostic process. Designed for two different users — one is for the system performance guru, the other is for the duct design master. The NCI clipboard has saved thou- sands of man-hours across the country HIGH-PERFORMANCE PRODUCT Written by HVAC Professionals for HVAC Professionalsmance HVAC contractor to a market- place segment where value is more important than price. Click here to learn more about the Pearl Certification Process (ncil- ink.com/PearlCP). A HIGH-PERFORMANCE APPROACH Pearl started in 2015 when co-found- ers Cynthia Adams and Robin LeBaron opened the doors to a firm that, at a high level, creates and provides a suite of sales and mar- keting tools for contractors. LeBaron, who is Pearl’s president, says, “In es- sence, Pearl is a platform for which we’ve created a suite of tools that help homeown- ers understand what they need to do in their home to improve their com- fort, health, and safety, then find the resources to make those improve- ments. We put them in contact with contractors, real estate agents, ap- praisers, and eventually lenders to achieve high standards of excellence and ultimate value.” LeBaron says their approach goes beyond certifying what already exists to giving homeowners the resources they need to keep making improve- ments. That includes educating them as well. EDUCATING HOMEOWNERS “There is quite a knowledge gap within the market with regard to un- derstanding what the high-per- forming home and high-per- forming oppor- tunities are,” he adds. “The knowl- edge gap extends from homeowners to agents, appraisers, and all the rest.” From a Pearl perspective, the stan- dards a home could be built to, with reasonably affordable technology compared to what typically exists to- day, demonstrates that gap in terms of HVAC performance and building shell performance. In terms of what may narrow that gap, LeBaron points out things like smart devices, plus the ability to gen- erate and store energy. Opportunities, he says, also lie in air filtration, indoor air quality improvements, safety is- sues, and accessibility issues. “The key is to make these invest- ments cost-effective. And even when they’re not, they still offer so much improvement in the health and livabili- ty of a home that educated consumers W hy are certifications so important in the HVAC (and most other) indus- tries? The answer can be complicated, but in general, it’s because they provide a third-party document attesting to a status or level of achievement. Certifications are des- ignated credentials earned by an indi- vidual to verify their legitimacy and competence to perform a job. Your certification is typically displayed as a document stating that you’ve been trained, educated, and prepared to meet a specific set of criteria for your role as a professional. Earning certifications through Na- tional Comfort Institute (NCI) shows your commitment to being the best technical expert the High-Perfor- mance HVAC Industry has to offer. But other certifications can help you and your company stand so far out from others that you virtually have no competition. PEARL CERTIFICATION This month we shine our spotlight on one such company. Pearl Certifi- cations is a Charlottesville, VA-based NCI partner that brings your skills to bear on what is called the high-per- formance home marketplace. Pearl’s focus is on being the standard for the most comfortable, healthy, and ener- gy-saving homes on the market. Their certification can increase a home’s value and introduce the High-Perfor- 6 SEPTEMBER 2021HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY PARTNER SPOTLIGHT By Michael Weil Certification Can Provide ROI for Residential Stakeholders Cynthia Adams is co-founder and CEO of Pearl Robin LeBaron is co-founder and president of Pearlright in the first place,” Adams con- tinues. “Our certification system in- cludes a significant number of points for quality installation and the ability to document that the contractor did do a quality job. By the way, the doc- umentation process NCI-trained and certified contractors use when perfor- mance testing is proof a house is per- forming to a level that warrants our certification. You can’t achieve our highest level of certification without having that documentation. “This is why we believe our certifi- cation platform is a good fit with NCI and the goals of that organization.” CREATING A WHOLE HOUSE CERTIFICATION DEMAND Both LeBaron and Adams say that their approach is a push-pull to the market. They want to bring homeown- ers up to speed, so they look for and demand high-performance services. And that may lead to more contractors looking to get involved. Because Pearl’s approach is a whole- house certification, Adams says they en- gage with HVAC contractors, insulation contractors, plumbers (because of wa- ter heating), LED lighting specialists, appliance installers, and others. She says that is why they creat- ed something called Green Door (ncilink.com/GreenDoor). This con- sumer-facing portal enables homeown- ers to engage themselves in “updating their home’s record, learning about additional improvements they might make using that contractor again, or a complementary trade. This holistic approach is unique in our industry.” PEARL AND HOME APPRAISERS Another major partner for Pearl, ac- cording to LeBaron, is the appraiser community. He says, “Pearl is about ensuring the homeowner recaptures the value of their higher-performing homes. Appraisers are vital in that transaction. So, just engaging with them and helping to train them is a big part of what we do. “We also train real estate agents so that they can communicate the value of high-performing homes to potential buyers during the sale. We’ve found that a trained agent makes a huge dif- ference in ensuring that such a home sells for a higher price.” What about HVAC distributors? LeBaron and Adams say they too have want to invest anyway. “We are interested in addressing that education challenge,” LeBaron says. “That is one reason I think this rela- tionship with NCI is a really good one. The nerve center in every home is the HVAC and associated distribution sys- tem. Clearly, high-performance HVAC is central to that. We want the home to perform as well as it possibly can, and for that to happen, the HVAC and distribution systems need to perform as well as possible.” Cynthia Adams, the Pearl CEO, adds that their high-performance con- tractor focus is at the heart of provid- ing consumers superior installation quality in homes. She cites a NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) study that shows how incorrectly installed high-efficiency equipment leaves the homeowner with low efficiency and dissatisfaction when it comes to saving energy dollars and achieving superior levels of comfort. PARTNERSHIP ROLES Adams adds that the installation quality issue is a direct link to HVAC manufacturers. She explains, “man- ufacturers would like to see no call- backs and a happy customer when it comes to the mechanical equipment installed in their homes. The contrac- tor has a lot to do with that. Unfor- tunately, many contractors don’t do a good job installing equipment, and fewer still do performance testing on their installations.” She says that’s why Pearl wants to educate homeowners on why proper installation and performance testing is so important. “We want to lift and elevate those contractors who are doing that work SEPTEMBER 2021 7HVACTODAY.COM Energy savings, quality installation, indoor air quality, and more are all important to a High-Performance Home. High-Performance HVAC is the nexus for this.8 SEPTEMBER 2021HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY “So, we’re not relying only on one-off testimonials when we say that Pearl cer- tification helps contractors’ customers see an ROI on their installations. We have appraisal studies that back that up,” she says. Both executives say that contractors who already hold NCI certifications have a leg up and can truly benefit from working with Pearl. Between high-performance testing reports to Pearl certification, contrac- tors can finally prove a return on in- vestment to homeowners. And if that doesn’t close sales, what will? For these and many other reasons, the editors of High-Performance HVAC Today magazine are pleased to shine the September Spotlight on Pearl Certification. sations with a distributor now.” THE NCI CONNECTION LeBaron says that one of the most ex- citing partnerships to date is with Na- tional Comfort Institute. “We feel, with- out exaggeration, that NCI has some of the best contractors in the U.S.” “Pearl Certification can provide two things that could be very valuable to an NCI contractor,” continues Adams. “One is the power of increasing closing rates. Contractors in our network see a five to 10% increase when leveraging Pearl in their sales conversation.” She adds that they have appraisal studies -- including a new one to be pub- lished in the future -- that show a Pearl whole home certification can increase home value on average by 5%. PARTNER SPOTLIGHT a role to play, though that is down the road. Adams says, “Initially, we felt like it might be more compelling in engaging distributors if we had some recogniz- able names within the portfolio. I’m talking about contractors who work directly with us and some recogniz- able manufacturers. “We are finding that manufacturers are making the introductions to their distributors, which is a much stronger approach. “From a marketing and brand loyal- ty perspective, there is a benefit that we can bring to distributors through our program. “It’s possible that by the end of the year, Pearl will announce our first dis- tribution partner — we are in conver-SEPTEMBER 2021 9HVACTODAY.COM training, we now have the tools and knowledge to quantify the improvement in CO safety, comfort, and efficiency. We joined National Comfort Institute (NCI) in 2003, and in that first year, we brought in NCI trainers to conduct in-house training and certify everyone in the company. We have been students of High-Performance HVAC ever since. Here is what we train for on every call: ● Causes and effects of CO poisoning ● Proper diagnostic procedures ● Proper repair procedures ● How to prevent problems from occurring. One part of our training that is vital to success is using a combustion analyzer, knowing where to place it, and interpreting what its readings mean. When taking combustion training with NCI, you learn what to look for when equipping your team for doing combustion testing. An important feature is a fast response to CO and oxygen level changes. In an article written by NCI CEO Dominick Guarino (ncilink.com/ABCs-7), he explains that you should check out the pump volume when you look at any analyzer specifications. “The more volume it can pull,” he writes, “the faster the analyzer will respond to chang- es. At a minimum, it should pull at 400 cc/ min. A better volume is 700 cc/min.” Guarino also points out two other features to look for in a good analyzer: ● A high-range CO sensor. The higher the range, the more likely it will quickly bounce back from a very high reading in a flue. Look for a high minimum of 4,000 ppm. 8,000 ppm is better B ack in 1993, I set my company onto the High-Performance HVAC Contracting path. To me, testing, measuring, and diag- nosing issues filled a gap I’d been experi- encing in my company almost from the beginning when my father and I started it back in 1985. One of the critical features of the performance approach, at least for me, is the combustion analysis portion and carbon monoxide (CO) safety. We embrace that as heavily as we test and measure on the airflow side of the equation. These two things are invisible, yet they impact custom- er comfort, safety, and efficiency more than any- thing else. The key is you cannot quantify that impact without instruments and testing. And you can- not correctly use those instruments and test ac- curately without training. IT’S A CULTURAL THING Training is simply part of our culture here at T.E. Spall and Son. As a result of our performance CO Draft Testing: The Heart of Performance Safety By Tom Spall MANAGEMENT HVAC technician conducts a carbon monoxide draft test on a domestic hot water heater.Next >