Hearn Plumbing & Heating Seventy-Six Years Strong hvactoday.comAPRIL 2022 HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY TM If You Don’t Measure, You’re Just Guessing! ™ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: • The High-Performance HVAC “Difference Engine” • Servant Leadership Made My Company Better Certified HVAC System Performance is an idea whose time has come. What does this mean for you and your company? Special Report! SPOTLIGHT ON:APRIL 2022 VOLUME 6 NUMBER 4 HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY TM DEPARTMENTS APRIL 2022 3HVACTODAY.COM Today’s Word .........................................................................................4 High-Performance Product Review ...............................................6 Contractor Spotlight: Hearn Plumbing & Heating ..................8 NCI Update .........................................................................................23 HVAC Smart Mart ...............................................................................24 Ad Index ................................................................................................25 One More Thing ................................................................................26 TECHNICAL: NCI Certified System Performance: An Idea Whose Time Has Come Measured performance is evolving to the next level. With certified system performance you can add value to a home! 12 15 MANAGEMENT: The High-Performance HVAC “Difference Engine” We recently conducted a reader survey about how imple- menting a high-performance approach makes a difference in their marketplace. Check out what our readers say. 19 LEADERSHIP: How Servant Leadership Made My Company Better Contractor Jim Ball has always had a servant leader orientation. He explains why this approach to business benefited his company and can help yours too.By Mike Weil differentiator by 2020. Too bad the airlines hav- en’t gotten THAT message. The above-mentioned article cites other stud- ies that show customers are willing to pay a high- er price when they are loyal to a brand or prod- uct. Even the Harvard Business Review did a study that showed companies that increase cus- tomer loyalty by just 5% can increase profits by at least 25%! Doesn’t that make personalized customer ser- vice more important than ever? If customer service and building relation- ships/loyalty are your priorities as a High- Performance HVAC contractor, consider how you communicate with customers when they call. Also consider the impact of customers being misdirect- ed to the wrong person or department. Finally, think about measuring the on-hold wait time your average customer must endure. Are you making it easy or frustrating for them? When it comes to automated customer answer- ing and support systems, the key is to implement them properly and in a way that makes it easy for the customer to get to a “live” person if that is what they want to do. Even if you do have a live person answering your phones, how do they answer? Do they smile and say something like, “It’s a great day here at XYZ Comfort Systems. How can I help you?” Or are they chewing gum and saying, “Yeah, you reached XYZ Comfort Systems.” When I encounter the former, I feel like I will have my concerns or questions addressed imme- diately, properly, and in a friendly way. When I encounter the latter, well my blood pressure begins to climb as I anticipate NOT get- ting the customer service I deserve. When it comes to service, successful companies put customers before automation. I t’s April and that means it’s time for the Spring service season to begin. As customers begin calling to make appointments, how they are treated can make all the difference in their relationship with your company. Are they greeted by a live person or by a record- ing followed by a list of menu items? The latter is usually part of an automated customer support system. Depending on how these systems are set up and working, they can either streamline your business or they can frus- trate customers. Or both. For example, I recently had an issue with an air- line that arbitrarily changed my flights. So I dialed up the customer service line and was confronted with their automated “attendant” that gave me options for everything except what I wanted -- to speak with a living, breathing human being. Even when I eventually figured out how to get past the robo gatekeeper, I was then put on hold for 45 minutes until someone helped me. This adds up to what I call a failure to consider the customer. Automated customer support sys- tems that are difficult to navigate are neither cus- tomer-focused or relationship-oriented. From a professional standpoint, I understand the need to streamline and control call intake. Many contracting companies today use some kind of au- tomated customer support and answering system. While automated answering frees a business owner from taking calls at all hours, it lacks the personalized touch that customers get when talking with a live person. Furthermore, studies show that consumers ex- pect personalized customer service in exchange for their loyalty to a product or service. Check out this article from 2018 that is still pertinent today: ncilink.com/TopPriority. It predicted that customer service would replace price as a key When it Comes to Service, Put the Customer BEFORE Automation 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. 4 APRIL 2022HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY6 APRIL 2022HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY gauge cannot verify proper equipment venting. You’ll need a combustion analyz- er for that. The Dwyer 460 is an inexpen- sive and versatile solution for most draft pressure measurement applications. It comes with the following: z Carrying case z Dwyer 460 Air Meter / Draft Gauge z 4-ft. length of pressure tubing z Air velocity calculator z Various probes and accessories. We measure draft pressure in inches of water column (in. w.c.). The Dwyer 460 measures up to one-hundreth of an inch of pressure (.01-in. WC) and is very sensi- tive to pressure changes. To get this fea- ture in a digital manometer, it would cost hundreds of dollars. Pressure tubing connects the draft gauge to a curved metal probe that you insert into the flue for draft measurement. A small white ball inside the draft gauge moves up and down freely to indicate the draft pressure reading on the gauge’s black scale. Occasionally, inside the gauge may get damp from flue gas. To keep the ball mov- ing freely, clean the gauge regularly. If you want to learn more about the Dwyer 460, go to the NCI Store at ncilink. com/Dwyer460. -- by David Richardson, Director of Technical Curriculum and Instructor, NCI DWYER® 460 AIR METER AND DRAFT GAUGE The Dwyer® Model 460 Air Meter/ Draft Gauge is a low-cost instrument that is essential for anyone who diagno- ses carbon monoxide (CO) and combus- tion problems on vented equipment. This package is for natural draft (draft- hood) and induced draft (80%) equip- ment. Without the Dwyer 460, you could easily misdiagnose a problem contribut- ing to dangerous combustion readings. With proper training, the draft gauge will tell you if there is enough combustion air available for the equipment and that no building pressure changes are inter- fering with equipment operation. In a few short steps, it can also tell you if a flue is restricted or undersized. Contrary to popular belief, the draft HIGH-PERFORMANCE PRODUCT Written by HVAC Professionals for HVAC Professionalswith little to no identification on it. Eventually, my dad took over the busi- ness and ran just one truck. Marketing was based on word-of-mouth reputa- tion. The business operated this way for 50 years,” Tom Hearn says. He describes the business as be- ing 100% family-owned and operat- ed during that half-century. Tom’s fa- ther, Dan Hearn, continued in David’s footsteps until 2000 when Tom start- ed with the company. CHANGES Slowly the company began to change as Tom got more experience and took over many management functions. In 2006 Hearn Plumbing and Heat- ing added a second vehicle for Tom and in 2011 the company hired their first non-family employee. Sometime around 2010, Tom’s wife Dennielle joined the company part-time to han- dle bookkeeping and some other office functions. Four years ago, she gave up her years as a surgical nurse to join the company full-time. As the business grew, so did the need for additional office personnel to handle the rising tide of invoices, payroll, and so on. Other changes includ- ed Tom becoming involved with a best practices group called Airtime Success Internation- al. Through this organization, he met several other HVAC contractors who helped him better understand the busi- ness side of contracting. One of them was Tom Spall of TE Spall & Sons. “Airtime helped us tremendously on the business management side of things,” Hearn says. “Through that ex- perience, we were able to understand how to focus on what we are good at doing. “That meant learning the impor- tance of slowing down and fo- cusing on who we wanted to serve.” He adds that training became an essential cornerstone to the changes in the company. In addition to busi- ness management training, he began enrolling his technicians in technical training from manufacturers, distrib- utors, and National Comfort Insti- tute (NCI). “Four or five years ago, I began look- ing into the high-performance ap- proach. It made so much sense, and we now started understanding what was happening in a customer’s HVAC system. We began implementing test- ing, measuring, and diagnosing air- flow issues. “Implementing the technical pro- cess wasn’t hard,” he continues. “We just made it part of how we usually run our processes in the company. Testing and measuring are required. They are not negotiable. I n 1946 the smoke was still clearing from the horrors of World War II. In Europe, the Nuremberg Trials were underway. Winston Churchill delivered his “Iron Curtain” speech warning of Soviet expansion (eerily familiar in 2022). In the small village of Madison, OH (named for U.S. President James Madison), 1946 also marked the birth of a small plumbing and heating busi- ness by David Hearn. Interesting- ly, residential heating has been at the core of the very early days of Madison with the establishment of the Arcole Furnace Company in the 1820s, which manufactured the Buckeye Furnace from ore mined locally. Hearn Plumbing and Heating op- erated mainly as a one-man shop. In fact, according to Tom Hearn, David’s grandson, the company operated this way for decades. “My grandfather only ran one truck CONTRACTOR SPOTLIGHT By Mike Weil Hearn Plumbing and Heating: Seventy-Six Years Strong Left to Right: Dennielle Hearn, Tom Hearn, and Dan Hearn 8 APRIL 2022 HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAYdays fabricating custom sheet met- al or training new technicians. Tom is general manager and has a vision for where he wants the company to go and how to get there. That vision in- cludes the need to bring on more team members. However, like so many companies today, the biggest issue is getting the right personnel to help manage the growing workload. Dennielle Hearn says they need to find people to fill new vehicles. “We have a plumbing apprentice who is training right now and who will crew a new plumbing service vehicle soon,” she says. TRAINING IS THE HEARTBEAT AT HEARN Tom Hearn says to achieve his goals, he needs a specific and organized ap- proach to training. They also need a similar approach to recruiting. He says they use technical schools outside of the area for new apprentices and seasoned technicians. For exam- ple, they send new plumbing appren- tices to a four-week school in Nash- ville, TN, called Total Tech. “Our HVAC installers and seasoned HVAC technicians take training in Ar- kansas. They attend four one-week training sessions over the course of 12 to 24 months at Ultimate Tech Academy, located in Little Rock. We also use another school called Perfect Technician Academy in Weather- ford, TX, for training new HVAC ser- vice and maintenance technicians,” he explains. “That is how we get our basic training done.” Advanced HVAC training is through NCI. Hearn says that he first learned of NCI from a fellow Airtime member, Summers and Zim’s in Atglen, PA. “They are a fourth-generation com- pany who talked about NCI and Com- fort Institute as high-end technical training outfits. So, I looked them up and found NCI was for real and locat- ed fairly close to us.” Fellow contractor Tim Volpone of H.J. Ziegler Heating Co., Inc. in Ashtabula is a friend of Tom Hearn and an ACCA member who brought in Jim Davis of NCI to address the group. Davis taught a combustion and car- bon monoxide class for the local ACCA chapter, and Hearn sent his techni- cians to it. “That class pretty much sealed the deal for us,” Hearn says. In addition to this “immersion” training approach, as Tom Hearn calls it, the company also does a lot of inter- nal training. “Every department meets once a week,” he says. “We have a compa- ny meeting on Mondays. Tuesday is our HVAC service and maintenance meeting, Wednesday is for sales, and “The hardest part was interpret- ing the data once we collected it and figuring out how to use it to educate our customers. I think that was the slowest learning curve for us: truly helping the customer understand the benefit of all these measurements to them.” He adds that the most challeng- ing part of the high-performance ap- proach for the technicians was their understanding of the “why” of what we wanted them to do. “We are always working on that through open communication and training.” HEARN PLUMBING AND HEATING TODAY From 2016 to today, Tom Hearn says the business has grown 30% year-over-year. In 2021 the company’s gross revenues topped out at $2.717 million, of which 40% was in plumb- ing and 60% in HVAC. The firm em- ploys 16 full-time people and services a 20-to-25-mile area around Madi- son, OH. He adds that they are begin- ning to push even further out, but 75 to 80% of their work is in the original service area. “We are 101% residential on both sides of the business,” Hearn says. “That is our niche, and we excel at it.” Tom’s father, Dan, is still present in the company spending most of his APRIL 2022 9HVACTODAY.COMNext >