HVAC information for Homeowners

Not starting the air conditioning so early in the spring and being willing to keep a consistently higher thermostat setting were so important

I tend to not take on new projects because I just hate when they turn out to be so much tougher than I thought they’d be. This leaves me dealing with the status quo much more often than I probably should. But when it came to what we were spending on HVAC cooling each summer, something definitely had to give. We’re fortunate to live in a region where there are 8 months in a row that come with fine weather and stellar climate. However, the four months of summer from June through September is a real challenge due to the very high heat and humidity we get here. Thankfully of course, we have great HVAC equipment to count on. Our residential HVAC is good, reliable and relatively efficient. That said, we have essentially let the thermostat setting just run wild all summer. The cost for all that HVAC cooling have been staggering. So much so that I finally had to address it as much as I didn’t want to. But once I went to the HVAC company website, I found all the information and additional links to derive a sure fire strategy to reduce the costs of HVAC cooling. But the key was just accepting the heat a bit more. Not starting the air conditioning so early in the spring and being willing to keep a consistently higher thermostat setting were so important. It’s almost October and I’m so happy to report that we saved more than 30 percent of HVAC cooling costs over last year. That was far more than I was expecting and has spurred me to do even better next summer.
oil furnace

My wife and I were visiting my brother last week.

• It surprised me when one of his neighbors approached me and asked if I was busy.

I told him I was just getting ready to have dinner with my family, and he said he just had a question. He wanted to know something about his HVAC system. I tried to explain to him I was the other half of identical twins, but he didn’t believe me. He called me John and told me to quit joking. I walked him into the house and called out to my brother. The old man looked at John and then at me. He looked stunned to see that we were identical in every way except our clothing. He said he wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it. John told the man he was the HVAC technician and I was an electrician. We thought it was funny, ‌but a month later, the same thing happened again. This time he was at my house, and one of my neighbors approached him. Even though I was good friends with the man, he couldn’t tell us apart. He came into the house and shook his head. He said that if he hadn’t seen it for himself, he would not have believed it. He knew I had a twin brother, but he had never seen us together. He told us we should wear our uniforms. As long as they saw the HVAC technician and the electrician, they could see the difference, but i remembered our changing clothing when we were younger. That’s how I got my wife and he got his. We dated girls that were supposed to date the other brother.

a/c tune up

I asked why he duped the couple and he said it was policy

After graduation from HVAC technical school and getting my certification, my uncle asked if I would like to do my internship at his company. I was proud to be working with him until I realized what kind of business ethics he had. I had only worked there a week when I went with one of the older HVAC technicians. We were supposed to be doing a simple service on a furnace. He did the entire inspection and noted a few repairs that should have been easy to repair. Instead of doing the repairs like should be done during an inspection, he approached the owner. I thought he was going to tell them about the problem, but that wasn’t the case. He told the owner they needed a new furnace. He told them about the repair, but made it sound like the repair was only temporary. If they didn’t purchase a new furnace this year, it would plague them with problems all winter. The couple wanted to think about it for a bit, but he was pushy. He told them that waiting could be bad, and the repair needed to be made immediately or there would be more stress on an already stressed furnace. By the time we left, he had a sale for a new furnace, and I was disgusted. I asked why he duped the couple and he said it was policy. Upsell whenever you can, and you get a bonus. I quit my uncle’s company that afternoon and applied to an HVAC company that had work ethics and cared about their customers.
New HVAC

I wasn’t interested in becoming an HVAC technician, and I had given no one any reason to think it was what I wanted to do.

When my father started pushing the issue of me being an HVAC technician, I didn’t know what to say.

I made it clear to him I wanted to be a lawyer. I had worked as an intern in a law office during the summer and I wanted to follow my dream and not my father’s. Dad was angry that I didn’t want to join the family HVAC business, but that would not deter me. I had two other brothers and a sister, and if he thought he needed an heir to take over the family business, he would need to talk to one of them. When he threatened to turn me out of the house if I didn’t respect his wishes, I went upstairs and packed. I figured I could move in with my friend until I could afford an apartment of my own. Luckily, he had an extra room in his apartment, and he told me I could just pay a portion of his rent. Mom was angry at me for moving out, but she understood I didn’t want to be an HVAC technician. My father didn’t talk to me for almost two years, and I wasn’t allowed back in his house. When I graduated from law school, I invited mom to the house for a party. Dad wouldn’t come along, but he sent me a check. I put the check in drawer and never cashed it. I wanted my dad and not his money.

Air quality systems

My wife was always telling me to leave the repairs to the professionals, but fixing the air conditioning unit looked so easy.

There were very few working parts I didn’t recognize. I waited until my wife went to town and I went into the backyard. I felt like a thief in the night, looking over my shoulder and listening for vehicles as I opened the front of the AC unit. I had it opened and touched different parts, telling myself what they were for. I had the fan blades removed and had just finished cleaning the condensate drain when I touched a wire. I got a small jolt from the electric and chuckled, but then the jolt knocked me on my butt. I blamed it on my standing in the wet grass and went back to work. I saw a wire that was broken and wanted to repair it. When I saw the sparks, I realized it could have electrocuted me. I called the HVAC company and asked them to repair the AC unit. I told them about the broken wire and I was sure it was the reason my air conditioning was running intermittently. When the wire was close enough to conduct power, the fan would work. When the wire was moving around, the fan wouldn’t work. The HVAC technician seemed confused, but he promised to be there in an hour. I learned my lesson about trying to do HVAC repairs and stuck with cars. I know how to repair cars. Besides, if the HVAC still doesn’t work when the HVAC tech leaves, it will be their fault and not mine.

heating repair

When my husband and I went to look at the house, it was in excellent condition.

The ceiling lights were gorgeous, and I fell in love with the built-in corner cupboard in the dining room.

We had the inspections completed, and the well was fairly new. The HVAC system had recently been installed, and the insulation was less than two years old. Everything in the house was exactly what we were looking for, and I was eager to go through with the sale. We had one final walk-through the day before closing on the house, and everything was still perfect. The day of the sale, we went to the lawyer’s office, signed all the paperwork, and paid for the house. We walked out with the temporary deed to show the house was now ours. We headed directly to the house, and my heart fell when we walked in. The sellers had removed all the ceiling lights and the built-in corner cupboard. The entire house looked like it was under construction. When we walked out back, the air conditioning unit was gone, and so was the furnace. I called the realtor and then the lawyer to see what we could do. The realtor said she would get in touch with the couple, since everything they took was part of the sale property. The lawyer gave us the name of a lawyer who would handle the lawsuit. We were going to need to call the HVAC technician and hopefully get our money back to purchase a new HVAC system. Life would not be fun without HVAC.
air conditioning repair

I wanted to hire two new HVAC technicians for my company.

I went through all the applications I had received in the last three months, but I had big questions about all of them.

The only application that looked like it had some promise was from a young lady. She had graduated from HVAC technical school with honors. The only thing that bothered me was that she was female. I knew women could do just as much as men, but I knew the men that worked for me. Some of them were very crude, and I couldn’t afford to have a harassment suit put on my HVAC technicians or my company. I sat there looking at the application when my wife came in. She looked at the application and said she would make an excellent addition to the HVAC company. Her credentials were impeccable, and her skills were better than some of the other HVAC technicians. She pointed out where she had worked before moving into the area. I called the woman in for an interview. She wasn’t a young girl, but a woman, and she had been an HVAC technician for almost fifteen years. I was certain she could handle herself in any situation, and her skills as an HVAC technician were amazing. I had already called her previous employer, and he thought highly of her and gave her a glowing reference. I hired her on the spot when she came for an interview. She blended right in with the other HVAC technicians. Even when they began teasing her; she quipped right back at them.

energy saving tips

I was thinking about opening an HVAC company, but I had a lot of research to do before moving forward.

I had to work up a five-year business plan to take to the bank and get enough money to start the business.

I needed numbers to show the cost of the HVAC service vans, the tools for each, and the inventory I would need. I had to hire two HVAC technicians and give the bank the numbers for their acquisition, their pay over the next five years, and what their benefits package would include. There was the necessity of having a place to run my business out of, the monthly costs of rental fees, power, water, sewage, and other incidentals. I was lost in a mountain of paperwork, and the bank had set up an appointment for me in two weeks’ time. I wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing after just looking through the paperwork. It was daunting, and I did not know where to start. I called a friend of mine and asked for his input. He sat down and went over the paperwork; page by page. He showed me how to look up the numbers I needed and where to go for other information. He suggested I print out the costs of the service van and the tools. He also told me I should have a detailed tally of all the inventory I would need, and a contract for leasing or renting a building to house the business. If it wasn’t for him, I would have burnt the paperwork and quit. I’m not a quitter, but starting a business is more stressful than running the business.

 

 

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As much as i wanted to own an HVAC company, my HVAC company was a failure.

I was an excellent HVAC technician, but that didn’t make me a good business owner.

I gave no thought to needing business acumen when I started an HVAC company. I took all the classes that were recommended, but I didn’t think any of them pertained to me. I didn’t have the HVAC company opened, before I had to close it. I knew nothing about HVAC marketing, and the bank wouldn’t help me unless I had a five-year business plan. I had my seed money, but that would not make any more than an HVAC technician working on my own. I talked to my wife and told her I knew nothing about business management, and without that knowledge, or knowing someone who had it, there was no sense in my being an HVAC company owner. I couldn’t believe she was smiling when I was so upset. She offered to help, but I wasn’t ready for her to make more mistakes than I had already done. I hadn’t even dismissed her yet, when she reminded me that her dad owned a business, and she worked for him before we got married. She was his business manager, and anything that needed to be done in opening the HVAC company, she could guide me and help me run the company. We were a partnership, and I had been ready to dismiss her, not thinking about who her family was. Our partnership not only grew during the opening of the HVAC company, but the company itself grew over the next five years, thanks to my wife’s business management.

Quality air conditioning

My husband had his heart set on getting a new furnace last year. He told the HVAC technician that if he found too much wrong with the furnace, he should let him know. He wasn’t averse to purchasing a new furnace. I had never known my husband to want to spend money so quickly. When we bought the new air conditioning unit, it took a year, and several months, to decide if it was necessary and which AC unit he wanted to buy. He was now pushing the HVAC technician to let him know if he could get a new furnace, and wanted justification for doing it. I looked at him oddly when the HVAC technician left, and he wouldn’t look at me. I wanted to know why he was pushing so hard to get a new furnace? He asked if I had been over to my sister’s house lately? Between working, taking care of the kids and the house, and being a wife, I didn’t have time to go anywhere. He said they had purchased a new furnace and his brother was raving about how energy efficient it was. He wanted to have a new furnace like theirs. I would not put out the money for a new furnace just because he thought it was a great deal. Our furnace was less than ten years old and it would probably work well for at least another five to ten years. I told him we could start saving now, and when it came time for a new furnace, we may have one that is even more energy efficient than his brother’s.

 

 

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