hvactoday.comSEPTEMBER 2023 HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY TM If You Don’t Measure, You’re Just Guessing! ™ Combustion and Co Safety ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: • Contractor Spotlight: Become the ‘ComfortMasters’ of Your Community • Getzschman: A Tale of Business Succession and Partnerships • High-Performance HVAC Is Our BrandSEPTEMBER 2023 VOLUME 7 NUMBER 9 HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY TM 11 DEPARTMENTS SEPTEMBER 2023 3HVACTODAY.COM Today’s Word .........................................................................................4 High-Performance Product Review ...............................................5 Contractor Spotlight: ComfortMaster, Inc. ................................6 NCI Update .........................................................................................23 HVAC Smart Mart ...............................................................................24 Ad Index ................................................................................................25 One More Thing ................................................................................26 TECHNICAL: Combustion Brain Teaser How do you decide when your combustion air testing and corrections are as good as they can be? Jim Davis shares his insights. MANAGEMENT: A Tale of Business Succession and Partnerships Scott Getzschman shares what putting a succes- sion plan in motion was like and what he learned. 15 19 MANAGEMENT: High-Performance HVAC IS Our Brand Despite a continuing tough economic environment, sticking with high-performance is the secret to future opportunities.5. Detect Malfunctions and Safety Issues: Combustion testing can help detect problems such as poor airflow, duct leakage, dangerous ex- haust flue gas conditions, and more. Discovering these issue early helps prevent costly repairs, sys- tem breakdowns, and safety issues. 6. Enhance Customer Confidence: Per- forming thorough combustion testing and CO safety checks demonstrates a commitment to customer safety and satisfaction. Customers are more likely to trust HVAC contractors who prioritize safety and take the necessary steps to ensure their systems are operating correctly. 7. Build a Professional Reputation: HVAC contractors who consistently conduct combus- tion testing and CO safety checks build a repu- tation for being knowledgeable and responsible. This reputation can lead to increased customer referrals and repeat business. 8. Long-Term Cost Savings: Regular maintenance, including combustion testing, can extend the lifespan of heating appliances and reduce the likelihood of major repairs or replace- ments. This can save customers money in the long run. 9. Educate Customers: HVAC contractors can use combustion testing and CO safety checks as opportunities to educate customers about the importance of proper appliance maintenance and the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning. This empowers customers to take proactive steps to ensure their safety. Combustion testing and CO safety checks are crucial for maintaining safe and efficient HVAC systems. They protect occupants from risks of car- bon monoxide exposure, ensure compliance with regulations, and contribute to the overall perfor- mance and longevity of heating appliances. N ext month is National Indoor Air Quality Awareness Month. Now is the perfect time to bring important IAQ awareness issues to the fore- front of your customers’ minds as you conduct your fall maintenance schedules. Improper gas-fired appliance combustion is one of many potential IAQ issues. From a High-Per- formance HVAC Contracting perspective, here are nine reasons why you should be perform- ing combustion testing and CO (Carbon Monox- ide) safety checks on every service call. 1. Prevent Carbon Monoxide Poisoning: Regular CO safety checks help identify potential sources of carbon monoxide leaks and prevent the risk of poisoning for occupants. As contractor Tom Spall says, “Draft testing is the heart of per- formance safety.” 2. Ensure Appliance Efficiency: Combus- tion testing helps verify that gas-fired heating appliances (including furnaces, boilers, and water heaters) are burning fuel efficiently. Efficient com- bustion reduces energy waste, saves money on fuel bills, and minimizes greenhouse gas emissions. 3. Ensure Proper Ventilation: Inadequate ventilation can lead to a buildup of combustion byproducts, including carbon monoxide, inside a building. Combustion testing helps ensure that appliances are venting properly and that in- door air quality is maintained at safe levels. 4. Comply with Regulations: Many juris- dictions have regulations and codes in place that require HVAC contractors to perform combus- tion testing and CO safety checks to ensure the safety of occupants. 4 SEPTEMBER 2023HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY Nine Reasons Why You Should Perform Combustion Testing & CO Safety Checks YOU SHOULD DO TESTING ON EVERY HIGH- PERFORMANCE HVAC MAINTENANCE CALL 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.HVACTODAY.COMSEPTEMBER 2023 5HVACTODAY.COM This integration is exciting news! Not only is a prominent tool manufacturer like Sauermann teamed up with one of the largest industry apps, but they also teamed with the entire HVAC industry. The data that measureQuick can cap- ture from these analyzers benefit the contractor and consumer. It can also potentially be used to combat poor law-making decisions or strengthen cur- rent laws. Can you imagine that you, the crafts- men, the guys and gals who truly care about the people you serve, are protect- ed by laws and/or regulations created by facts, not rainbows and unicorns? However, it’s important to remember that no tool nor app will ever replace the knowledge you gain or have. I am not fond of built-in diagnostics in anything. You should always use the knowledge in your noggins to diagnose everything you encounter. When you don’t know or can’t figure out the problem or diagnosis, seek to understand it first. Plenty of guys at Na- tional Comfort Institute (NCI) would love to help. All you need to do is ask. I believe with your NCI combustion analysis knowledge, the Sauermann Analyzer , and the measureQuick™ soft- ware app all put in proper sequence to- gether; you can knock analysis and clos- ing rates out of the park year-round. – Casey Contreras, instructor, National Comfort Institute The Sauermann SI-CA Integration with measureQuick ™ The Sauermann SI-CA 030 and SI-CA 130 combustion analyzers both integrate with the measureQuick™ app, which, as many of you may know, is testing and job-tracking software. measureQuick provides game-changing benefits re- garding closing rates, increased revenue, and more. If you already use measureQuick and have the SI-CA-030 or SI-CA-130 com- bustion test instrument, you need to up- date the Sauermann app and the analyz- ers themselves. While you’re at it, see if measureQuick also needs to be updated. The latest version of the Sauermann app is 1.2.5 for the 030 and 1.1 for the 130. HIGH-PERFORMANCE PRODUCT REVIEW Written by HVAC Contractors for HVAC ContractorsTIGHT DUCTS MOVE AIR BEST From the beginning of his career in the HVAC trades, Mellot says he used mastic and sealed ducts long before these practices became part of the lo- cal codes. “I needed tight ducts to get the air where it needed to go,” he adds. He laughs about how his suppli- ers told him that he used more mastic than everyone else combined in those early days! “Understanding airflow also helped me to better size HVAC systems.” He adds that it wasn’t as if he knew everything about airflow. He says he knew it was essential and made it a quest to be a student for his entire career. EDUCATION HELPED Like many High-Performance HVAC Contractors we’ve spotlighted in these pages, Butch Mellot is a big believer in training and education. In fact, before starting ComfortMaster, Butch was an instructor at a local tech school, and he says that in the early days of Com- fortMaster, contractors who attended his classes would send him work they couldn’t get to or needed help on. “Those things helped to build my reputation and got me started in the in- dustry as an independent contractor.” Other aspects of his training were his belief in contractor membership organizations like RSES (which he joined in the mid-1990s) and NATE after that. “I ended up becoming the local RSES chapter president, and was the state association president for a cou- ple of years. There is no doubt the things I learned through RSES, and then National Comfort Institute (NCI) helped my business grow,” he states. ComfortMaster, Inc. became an NCI member in 2009, and Mellot says that is when he truly began to understand the science behind proper airflow. CUSTOMER SERVICE FIRST Other growth factors include a focus on serving customers first and fore- most. Mellot says that when you focus on customers first, you don’t have to worry about money. That is a natural by-product. Focused customer service is a philosophy and market approach each of the 21 employees is trained to provide. The entire team practices this approach, from field technicians to dispatchers and office personnel in ev- ery contact with customers. Butch will be the first to tell you that not every customer walks away com- pletely satisfied, but he says the com- pany makes every effort to do what is right and resolve customer issues. “The key to this approach is airflow,” he says. “On each system we replace, we evaluate the ductwork, test it, and measure. We are not in business to sell boxes. We base recommendations on what we find. Then we let the custom- er decide what they want to do.” Mellot adds that on the business’s N ot many people have heard of Nicholasville, Kentucky. Unless, of course, you are from Lexington and sur- rounding areas. But Nicholasville, founded in 1798, is a commuter com- munity for those working in Lexing- ton. The city has grown rapidly, espe- cially in the late 20th Century, and is home to ComfortMaster, Inc., a $3.5 million HVAC contracting com- pany that oper- ates primarily (75 to 80%) in the residential space. Company own- er Walter “Butch” Mellot says that he started work- ing for himself back in 1997 or 1998. “Around that time,” Mellot says, “another contractor asked me to run his business in another state. His name was Mickey Click, and though that proposal never worked out (Mick- ey passed away,) he helped me get started by letting me borrow a service truck for six months before I had to pay for it. From that point forward, it was just a matter of working hard and growing my customer base throughout Central Kentucky.” In 2003 ComfortMaster was in- corporated, and Butch Mellot never looked back. 6 SEPTEMBER 2023HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY CONTRACTOR SPOTLIGHT By Mike Weil Become the ‘ComfortMasters’ of Your Community Butch Mellotwith the challenges this job provides.” Even when it comes to sales, Mellot builds from within. In fact, there are no salespeople. He says everyone sells. “Between me, the residential man- ager, the commercial manager, and our service technicians, we all sell,” he says. It’s a team effort. In my expe- rience, many customers prefer when one of us comes out rather than hav- ing a salesperson call on them. We’re an all-hands-on-deck team working together to complete the job.” Mellot adds that his technicians do not mind selling, which isn’t always true with other contracting firms. “We make it easy for them, and we teach them not to hard-sell anything,” he explains. “We provide them with flat rate books so they can put togeth- er systems, price them, and sell them. But that comes AFTER they examine and test the systems, discover custom- ers’ issues, then put together some op- tions to address those issues.” CHALLENGES FROM WITHOUT Every contracting company is im- pacted by external challenges, from government regulations to building code issues, supply chain issues, and more. For Butch Mellot and his team, that is all in a day’s work until the on- set of the COVID-19 crisis. Mellot says that changed everything. “Initially, the pandemic shut us down for three weeks, but then HVAC contracting was classified as an essen- tial service. A lot of the construction work slowed down, but it did contin- ue. We had a tough time getting any maintenance and service work done.” He says the shutdown impacted both sides of his business because ev- erything and everyone was closed. “For any open businesses, they were hesitant to have someone coming in. Nobody wanted contact with anybody.” But the struggle also impacted his employees. He says the field crews didn’t like the idea of going into differ- ent locations all day. “We lost some employees because they felt like the chance of exposure to COVID was too strong. Some mis- interpreted the laws and what the gov- ernment was saying during the shut- down. They were content with the idea replacement side, they reinforce this approach through regular meetings and training. He says, “Customer service first means training. We do a lot of in-house training. Our state requires continu- ing education, so we take care of that expense for our team as well as their li- cense expense. I always try to send our technicians to factory schools. And, of course, technical training from NCI is critical.” BUILDING FROM WITHIN Another aspect of the ComfortMas- ter approach is building a solid team of technicians and promoting from within the company. For example, he hired a young woman named Brittany McClanahan as a dispatcher, who was very good at that job. “She had a propensity and attitude to learn. And she wanted to grow be- yond dispatching. So I started work- ing with her on duct design. Today she designs and sells residential construc- tion jobs. Being in this position has worked out very well. The builders like working with her, and she is pleased SEPTEMBER 2023 7HVACTODAY.COM The ComfortMaster Team consists of 21 employees who serve both commercial and residential customers.mode. We continue to fall behind in getting projects on the books because of the lack of personnel. At this point, I’m probably 30% short of personnel. The result is forcing us to have four to six weeks of project lead time.” To counter that, ComfortMaster re- doubled its effort to recruit new tech- nicians through its association with a local trade school. Two of his employ- ees, including Brittany McClanahan, are instructors there, and he served on the school’s advisory board. “This is one of our biggest windows of opportunity to recruit employees,” he says. “The problem is, nearly 80% of the students I hire from the school get stolen from ComfortMaster be- cause someone is willing to pay them more than their experience and train- ing allow. “That shows you how bad the skilled workforce issue is now in our area.” GETTING THE WORD OUT Because ComfortMaster is a high- performance HVAC firm, they have built a reputation for being able to solve the unsolvable. They are The ComforMasters of their commu- nity. Mellot says most of their leads come from word-of-mouth recom- mendations. “We’ve gained a reputation as prob- lem solvers, and we get a lot of calls from people with balance issues, hu- midity control struggles, moisture problems, and so on. As a result, I don’t need to do much advertising. For example, Mellot says Comfort- Master gets a lot of work from builders who have issues with projects they’ve built or are in the middle of building. They are also called in when a build- ers’ customer has a problem. “More often than not, customer is- sues stem from duct design issues,” he says. And then there is the health and safety aspect of ComfortMaster’s work. Mellot says most of his techni- cians are trained in combustion safety and carry personal carbon monoxide (CO) monitors on every call. He explains that they test every building that has gas appliances in them. “We also carry CO monitors on the trucks so the techs can offer them to customers,” Mellot adds. “We check installed CO monitors and smoke detectors during shoulder seasons and replace the batteries as part of our maintenance and inspection procedures. of being unemployed rather than be- ing exposed to the chance of getting the COVID infection.” Today Mellot says the company still feels the effects of “long COVID.” None of the people who quit came back once everything re-opened. “We struggled through and eventu- ally replaced them. We kept going. It wasn’t until around six months later when the shutdowns impacted mate- rials and equipment availability, and supply chain issues continue to be a struggle today. For example, I quoted a project re- cently, and my supplier told me the product wouldn’t be available for 72 weeks! So, I had to redesign that proj- ect and double the number of unitary items to achieve the same outcome as the original design. But I was able to get the equipment in the new design. Even so, we still experienced a two- month delay getting in the motors necessary for the project. “There are still some items that continue to have supply chain issues. Electric motors seem to be the biggest issue right now.” RECRUITING IS HARDER “Since COVID hit,” Mellot contin- ues, “we’ve been in constant catch-up 8 SEPTEMBER 2023HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY CONTRACTOR SPOTLIGHTSEPTEMBER 2023 9HVACTODAY.COM CONTRACTOR SPOTLIGHT “Anyone in the HVAC business to- day needs to align themselves with one or two trade organizations like NCI, RSES, BPI, and other groups. This way they have a constant source of new information and can keep up with industry changes. These things help us to be, what we call, the ‘Com- fortMasters’ of our market area. “It’s also important to remember that learning is a continuous process. When you stop learning and trying to better yourself in the industry, you will fall behind quickly,” Mellot concludes. For these and many other reasons, the High-Performance HVAC To- day team has chosen to shine the spot- light on ComfortMaster, Inc. Con- gratulations to Butch Mellot and the entire ComfortMaster team. tunities also come from the networks you build, and for us, our investment in training through NCI has also helped us build a network of like-minded fel- low contractors around the country. “NCI membership provides terrific educational opportunities and helps to keep us up with the pulse of the indus- try. High-Performance HVAC Con- tracting training changes your per- spective on how to look at and analyze customer HVAC issues. It goes beyond equipment problems and demon- strates how the HVAC system impacts customer health and safety. Comfort is only part of the equation. “All these things help us to build a strong reputation of trust and exper- tise. They provide us the opportuni- ty to correct issues of concern from a health and safety standpoint as well as provide a revenue opportunity. Most other contractors in our area don’t do these things,” he says. THE STRUGGLES ARE REAL – SO ARE OPPORTUNITIES Despite the workforce, supply chain, and other issues they face, Mellot says there are many opportunities for con- tinued growth. “Growth requires dedication, an in- vestment in continual training, cre- ativity, and focus. Opportunities are tempered only by the lack of a skilled workforce,” Mellot explains. “Oppor-Next >