Sometimes, the paths we walk in life take us to unexpected places. That can be good or bad or both. When it comes to doing things right, doing things in a transformational way means being open to changes and opportunities. It also means having perseverance to make something good happen.

That is precisely how National Comfort Institute (NCI) came into being.

Founded in 1994, NCI has been instrumental in transforming the HVAC industry’s approach to “High-Performance HVAC™ system performance.” They did this by focusing on delivering comfort, efficiency, and safety to end-users. Dominick Guarino and Rob Falke, the founders of NCI, embarked on a journey to re-center the HVAC industry around actual system performance and customer comfort rather than solely on energy efficiency.

Two Men: One Idea

Guarino joined the HVAC Industry in 1987 when he became part of the Contracting Business magazine team, first as an associate editor, eventually becoming chief editor and associate publisher.

Falke worked in his family’s HVAC contracting business in central California. In fact, he helped his father buy that business.
Eventually, Guarino filled a similar role, leaving the magazine to work for a Cleveland, OH, area HVAC contractor.

NCI's Rob Falke was a ground-breaker when it came to testing and measuring system performance
NCI launched it’s High-Performance HVAC Summit as part
of Contracting Business magazine’s HVAC Comfortech trade show
and conference. Pictured here is Rob “Doc” Falke (center)
running hands-on testing with contractors
at the show in the early 2000s.

Guarino recalls, “Separately, Rob and I saw the industry shifting away from providing optimal comfort in buildings. The focus was almost exclusively on energy efficiency. We met for the first time to test a mutual friend’s home, and began talking about this. Together, we thought it would be amazing to realign the industry with its core mission: delivering comfort through high-performance systems.”

The Birth of NCI

The initial inspiration for NCI was that shared vision between Guarino and Falke. Both men were veterans in the HVAC field who had seen the industry lose sight of its priorities. By the 1990s, government agencies like the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had set increasingly stringent energy-efficiency standards, often overshadowing other critical factors like air quality and comfort.

Guarino expressed his concern in a 1992 article published in Contracting Business titled “The Comfort Revolution.” This article challenged HVAC contractors to refocus on the end-user experience. He reshaped that concept in the pages of this magazine in its earliest days.

Around the same time, Falke was experimenting with applying commercial air balancing techniques to residential systems. He concluded that “there was no reason why the same techniques of measuring system pressures and airflows couldn’t be applied to residential systems,” an insight that would shape NCI’s approach.

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