The Living Legend of Captain CO ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: • Contractor Spotlight on Home Heating, Bend, OR • How Important is IAQ in High-Performance HVAC? • Should HVAC Service Be Based on Law or on Truth? JIM DAVIS: October is National IAQ Awareness Month! hvactoday.comOCTOBER 2023 HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY TM If You Don’t Measure, You’re Just Guessing! ™OCTOBER 2023 VOLUME 7 NUMBER 10 HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY TM DEPARTMENTS OCTOBER 2023 3HVACTODAY.COM Today’s Word .........................................................................................4 High-Performance Product Review ...............................................5 Contractor Spotlight: Home Heating & Cooling ......................6 NCI Update .........................................................................................23 HVAC Smart Mart ...............................................................................24 Ad Index ................................................................................................25 One More Thing ................................................................................26 LEADERSHIP: Jim Davis: The Living Legend of Captain CO Not many people know the tremendous contributions that Jim Davis has made to the HVAC Industry. Now you all will. 1611 MANAGEMENT: How Important is IAQ in High-Performance Contracting? Five contractors from across the U.S. and Canada discuss how they approach IAQ issues for their customers. 20 TECHNICAL: Should HVAC Service be Based on Law or Truth NCI’s Casey Contreras poses this interesting question about the difference between existing codes, and how systems really work.conducted a thorough clean up. Several thou- sands of dollars and three weeks later, my mold problem was resolved. The remediator suggested I install an extra de- humidifier to pull excess moisture out of the air and add fans to increase air circulation to pre- vent any mold from forming again. That sounded like band-aid fixes, so I called my HVAC contractor, who said they were not doing IAQ services. For that and other reasons, I changed contractors. The new company was fo- cused on training its technicians with National Comfort Institute and offered IAQ monitoring services as part of my maintenance agreement. PEACE OF MIND Two times per year, my HVAC contractor comes to my home to check on my HVAC system, run an air quality monitor, and provides me a re- port that shows exactly the quality of my air. Talk about peace of mind. Thanks to that report and the fact that the mold has never re-appeared made working in my home office safer, more comfortable, and frankly, hap- pier – to this day. The point is that because my new contractor was well-trained, understood the importance of airflow, and, maybe more importantly, how to ex- plain everything to my wife and me in terms we could easily understand, we bought the expensive maintenance agreement without installing an ex- tra dehumidifier and fans. So the question is, are you offering IAQ services to your customers, and do you explain to them what that means? If not, the time to start is now, in October, during IAQ Awareness Month. And check out our IAQ roundtable story on page 11 to see what some other High-Perfor- mance HVAC contractors are doing. F rankly, every day should be Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) Day, right? After all, as Americans, we spend more than 90% of our time indoors (according to the U.S. EPA), and shouldn’t that air be clean and healthy? The obvious answer is yes, but there is little guidance on what good IAQ means or how to accomplish it. There are agreed-upon norms throughout the HVAC industry for acceptable or even “good” IAQ. For instance, the American Society of Heat- ing, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engi- neers (ASHRAE), Standard 62.1 and 62.2 are both recognized ventilation standards. But what does that mean to your customers? It means nothing unless you make it a point to talk about IAQ with them and offer services to help identify sources of potential IAQ issues. CASE IN POINT … Several years before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, I began working from home in my basement office. It was a nice slice of heaven. That heaven changed when I noticed a white powdery substance on my office and bath- room doors and on the surface of some of my of- fice furniture. I had no idea what it was and, at first, ignored it as dust. But it got worse – forming on some of the basement walls and along the sills of the base- ment windows. So I called my HVAC contractor, who came out, looked at it, and said it was some kind of mold. He recommended a mold remediation contrac- tor who found that moisture was leaking into the basement through broken seals around my glass block windows. The remediator sealed off and misted my basement for three days to kill the existing mold, re-sealed the windows, and then 4 OCTOBER 2023HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY It’s National Indoor Air Quality Awareness Month! 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.COMOCTOBER 2023 5HVACTODAY.COM The Attic Pro was invented by a real HVAC technician who was also a fireman. As a one-man operation, he was looking for a way to help lift fur- naces and air handlers up into attics. His invention, the ATP1 lift, will span 14- to 24-in. trusses using built-in clamps that lock the lift in place once tightened. It can lift up to 250 lbs. using a man- ual winch with a built-in lock feature, which will take care of almost any air handler or furnace. The cable length is 20 feet, which in most cases is overkill, but you won’t have to leave it in the truck for certain jobs. You can put it to good use. Made of durable steel, the ATP1 has a beautiful orange powder coat, a protec- tive carrying case, and harnesses to use on the equipment you need to lift. You use the winch hook and provided straps to crank away. This tool will save time and money and help risk manage- ment reduce workers’ compensation claims each year. If you’re wondering where to get the ATP1, check out True Tech Tools . — Casey Contreras, NCI Instructor Supco ATP1 Attic Pro Utility Lift Removing risk is everyone’s job. Poor risk management can lead to workers’ comp claims, property damage, equip- ment damage, and unnecessary extra labor hours for the HVAC company. Let’s face it: doing attic installations can be high risk. They aren’t the easiest, usually requiring three technicians: one in the attic and two on the ground. The two on the ground must lift the equip- ment over their heads while the tech in the attic pulls. Supco International has eliminated the need for three guys, saving install- ers’ backs, and reducing potential prop- erty damage, and can help you save time with their ATP1 Attic Pro Utility Lift . HIGH-PERFORMANCE PRODUCT Written by HVAC Professionals for HVAC ProfessionalsIt’s all the other stuff that you can do with air. It’s the humidifier humidify- ing air. It’s about bringing in fresh air. “I always took his words to heart. That’s why I’ve always liked the idea behind a total comfort system. Total comfort comes from doing all the right things with air.” When Ric decided to hang out his own shingle, he took all his retirement savings and started Home Heating. “From the very beginning I wanted to be a highly rated company by con- sumers,” Secor explains. “I wanted to be known locally for doing good work. “So that’s how we started our journey. We focused on add-on replacement work,” Secor adds. HOME HEATING TODAY Home Heating has 11 employees today, plus Secor and his wife. The team includes one full-time salesper- son (one of his sons), and Ric is a part- time salesperson. They also have three service experts, two lead installers, and two assistant installers. Home Heating also has two techni- cians who focus on indoor air qual- ity. They use the company’s Aero- seal equipment to seal ductwork and handle the company’s in-house duct cleaning business (which includes dryer vent cleaning and dryer vent performance upgrade work). In 2022, the company achieved a little more than $2.8 million in gross sales, and Secor says they are current- ly on track to do between $3 and $3.3 million. “Despite supply chain challenges, we had a strong finish last year. We’re also counting on finishing strong in 2023,” Secor says. TOOLS OF THE TRADE Secor explains that when managing the company, he wants to automate and digitize as much as possible. To- day, Home Heating fields 14 service and installation vehicles, which he tracks using a system called Verizon Connect Reveal. He says, “This GPS lets us know where all our vehicles are at any time. That helps control fuel costs, cover scheduled services when something goes wrong, and keep customers in- formed when their service expert will arrive. “Plus, we own an Aeroseal ma- chine and do a lot of duct sealing. We’ve been doing this for nearly 10 years.” In April of 2023, Secor attended his first NCI High-Performance HVAC Summit, where he discovered the power and advantages of TrueFlow® Grids and DG-8 manometers. “We bought six of them, and our team is al- ready using them in the field,” he says. Another tool Secor says is a vital part of their operation is CompanyC- am, a tool for posting images and doc- uments to the cloud and works like a database. It is highly searchable, and I n Central Oregon, sitting on the eastern edge of the Cascade Moun- tain Range along the Deschutes River is the city of Bend. This high-desert area was one of the few crossing points for pioneers in the early 1800s as they journeyed along the famous Oregon Trail. It is an area also traversed by the Lewis and Clark Expedition and eventually was settled, becoming a critical logging community. It is also one of only three conti- nental U.S. cities with an extinct vol- cano within its city limits. Today, it is known for its outdoor recreational activities, and its primary industry is tourism. SETTING THE STAGE Bend, OR, is also the place that Home Heat- ing and Cool- ing calls home. Owner Ric Sec- or and his wife, Cecilia, started this High-Perfor- mance HVAC contracting company in November 2010. “My journey in the HVAC Industry began working for my Dad. He had a commercial HVAC company in San Diego during the Vietnam War, and I worked for him for 10 years after high school. “Dad always said that air condition- ing is just not air conditioning or air. 6 OCTOBER 2023HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY On the Journey to High-Performance Professionalism Ric and Cecilia Secor CONTRACTOR SPOTLIGHT By Mike Weilheat tape on the drain line. “There was a long pause, and then the customer said it must have been another company and hung up. That one instance of using CompanyCam proved its worth and saved our bacon.” THE JOURNEY MUST INCLUDE TRAINING When it comes to the tools and in- struments his team uses to perform their work professionally, Ric Secor says success requires training. “I think training is important. It re- ally helped me. At one company where I worked for more than 20 years, the owner provided me with training op- portunities that changed my life. He did this during a time when most HVAC companies in the late 1980s and 1990s didn’t focus on training.” Secor explains that as a result of his experiences, his philosophy is to provide as much training as his team wants. “We aren’t a huge shop but have a training room with operational equip- ment,” he explains. Secor regularly uses outside training firms as well. He recently sent one of his newest team members to the Ul- timate Technical Academy in Ar- kansas to earn an EPA certification. Other educational outlets include reading HVAC trade magazines. He says he discovered National Com- fort Institute (NCI) in some of those magazines. Then, he met NCI train- er David Holt in 2018 at a program in Washington. “That is where I really came to un- derstand how NCI membership could benefit my company.” Subsequently Secor joined NCI to help advance his team’s technical prowess. He says he is excited to get his guys going with combustion and carbon monoxide (CO) safety training and refocusing on airside testing and measurement. “We are at the highest NCI member- ship level. We’re saving up our NCI bucks to use for training. I hope to have one or two of our service experts attend the CO training this fall. After that, I plan to send some of our guys to airflow training scheduled in the Pacific Northwest and Denver over the next couple of months.” BRINGING HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC INTO THE FOLD After attending his first NCI High-Performance HVAC Summit in Branson, MO, in 2023, Ric says he was utterly amazed at the systematic Secor says it is a great tool to help ed- ucate customers about their systems and Home Heating’s solutions. “CompanyCam allows us to edu- cate customers about what we do so they can decide if we provide more value and are worth the extra mon- ey. It allows us to take and share job photos. We can share information be- tween teams and with customers. We can document and use those images to prove what we did to solve customer problems.” SAVING THEIR BACON In one case, CompanyCam even saved Home Heating from problems when a consumer was looking for someone to blame for their problems. Secor tells the story of this particular consumer who called them requesting maintenance work on their at- tic system. Later, that consumer had a fire and blamed Home Heat- ing because they said it was caused by some heat tape that Secor’s service expert used on their drain line. “I opened up the customer’s Com- panyCam file on my cell phone, saw which tech was on that call, and also saw he took a picture when he was leaving,” he explains. “We hadn’t been there since. So, I asked the customer on the line if I could send them a picture showing no OCTOBER 2023 7HVACTODAY.COMsales point of view, I see the high-per- formance approach as being essential. Once we become more proficient at it, we can show actual data to prove to customers that what we do and recom- mend is based on testing, measuring, and diagnosing their comfort issues. “It won’t be easy. We are on this long journey, and it’s sometimes frustrating to see how long it takes to make it work within our company. Still, as the team becomes better trained and more prac- ticed, the hope is that struggle will de- crease as success increases.” BUT WAIT, DUCT CLEANING? Duct cleaning has been part of Home Heating’s service of- ferings since its sec- ond year in business. In those early days, Secor subbed out his duct cleaning services to what he calls “one of those carpet-air duct cleaning companies.” But that all changed during an installation project where he was up in a customer’s attic while his duct cleaning subcon- tractor was working in the primary bedroom. “I was coming back towards the at- tic access and had a funny feeling that I should go down and not let the duct cleaning company owner know I was watching him. “He was doing a reverse air sweep back towards the vents with this cus- tom tool he invented. And suddenly, this poof of dust came into the cus- tomer’s bedroom. The owner of the duct cleaning company looked at me, and I looked at him, and we didn’t say anything to each other. Luckily, I had covered the customer’s bed in plas- tic before work began. That was the last time that duct cleaning company worked for us.” Several months later, Secor found and bought his own duct cleaning truck and began doing that work in- house. He never subbed it out again. PROFESSIONALISM IS SO IMPORTANT “My goal for Home Heating is for our trained High-performance HVAC crew to look at customers’ homes and method-based approach to total system performance. As stated earli- er, he bought six TrueFlow Grids and already has his service experts using them in the field. “The fact is ductwork has always been important to me,” Secor ex- plains. “It’s very easy to look at test- ing and measuring when we are out on a duct cleaning call. Our duct cleaning business is also a great way to start a relationship with a potential HVAC customer. “What is cool is how excited my duct cleaning crew is about measuring stat- ic pressures and airflow,” he adds. “They finally can see the “why” be- hind it after cross-training over the last few weeks, and they can see that these measurements are not hard to do.” Starting a performance approach with duct cleaners is a different, but Secor sees it as the perfect way to get all his technicians on board. Though at the early stages of implementing a high-performance culture, Secor al- ready sees the advantages it brings his company and his customers. “I know it will reduce the chance of callbacks, of getting blindsided in the field,” Secor says. “Even from from a 8 OCTOBER 2023HIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAY CONTRACTOR SPOTLIGHT The Home Heating team includes 11 employees. Service, installation, and duct cleaning techs are excited about their new Trueflow Grids, which they already use in the field. Field technicians at Home Heating and Cooling wear their logos with pride and showcase their professionalism every day.OCTOBER 2023 9HVACTODAY.COM CONTRACTOR SPOTLIGHT “As I said before, all of this is a jour- ney. Not just a journey to best-in-class craftsmanship, but also to what I call professionalism. We are working hard to become top professionals, and that is an ongoing process. But it is our goal,” says Secor. “From my perspective, being pro- fessional and looking professional is priceless to the public. It shows pride, and that’s good. Pride in craftsman- ship adds real value to people’s lives,” he concludes. For these and many more reasons, the team at High-Performance HVAC Today selected Home Heat- ing and Cooling, Bend, OR, as this month’s Contractor Spotlight. Con- gratulations to Ric Secor and all his team. best interest. You can’t forget or ig- nore the duct system. You have to un- derstand the impact of duct leakage on airflow and comfort. holistically. It goes way beyond just changing out equipment. When there’s leaky ductwork or ductwork that needs modification either at the equipment, up in the attic, or underneath the house, we must find it and fix it. When finished, we will have a product we can stand behind,” he explains. “What helps us right now is test- ing-in and testing-out and under- standing the details behind system performance. It is just not turning on a system and walking away. It requires understanding equipment sizing, air distribution, measuring, testing, and why you must do them. “In the end, we need to nail down our airflow skills. We have to hone our people skills. We have to work hard to figure out what’s in the customer’s “From my perspective, being professional and looking professional is priceless to the public.” – Ric SecorNext >