So I'm here live with Crawford I don't know how to say your name Angle King he's all right angle King and uh so Crawford came up to me after one of the things I was doing. we were talking I was like man I know man I know I know you from somewhere I don't know and then I looked down he came by the booth I was talking with Eugene and Howard from Esco uh which by the way if you want great training Esco Institute great place to go online. uh but so I looked at his tag and it says HVAC school and I'm like hey this is kind of like stealing my my business or whatever and no it turns out that I that I stole his business. So Hvacschool.com not Hvacrschool.com that's actually Crawford's that's your business with your dad right? Is that is that how that works? Yep, Yes sir.

VR makes all the difference. And if you go to the website right now, don't be impressed. It won't blow your socks off. Yeah, it was the first one when the internet was created.

it was the literally the first website ever. Yep and all we do is change the dates and unfortunately, well fortunately um, we're so busy with the actual classes we teach I haven't had to find uh the time to uh actually go in and update it. revamp it. So basically if you want pictures or any like videos of what we'd actually do uh HVAC underscore school on Instagram Okay is uh, kind of like it started out originally as a place for me to put good pictures for the new website.

um, but eventually you know, hopefully I find the time to do it. Yeah, so you need to follow. So anybody who follows me at HVAC school, you know, you know it's like Hvcr is school and then on Instagram I think it's HVAC I don't know but HVAC Underscore School you got to go follow him on Instagram because his school. so this is what I want to hear about it's in Washington Um, people fly in to take this course but tell me about like what the course contains because it sounds like exactly the type of course that I've been wanting to promote and talk about.

Oh, certainly. so actually, um I listened to you guys this podcast about the Uh The Good the Bad the Ugly of the trades and I was doing it while painting a ceiling. which is if you ever painted a ceiling. A lot of fun.

Yeah and I love it. It's my favorite pastime. Oh yeah, and at the end of it, they're like, all right, describe your ideal trade school and uh, you're going back and forth with Ty and uh, was it Eric geyser Yeah. I'm like, okay to have a lot of Hands-On It wouldn't be long term, it'd be fast-paced it'd be work related.

I'm like, oh, that's literally what I do Yeah, and so the school has started originally. uh, 1988. my father who was a multiple engineer mechanical chemical. um, it's also like partially a credit for architecture.

Um, yeah, big shoes to fill? Yeah, good luck. So he's he actually started his own company and used to be a BowTech instructor after a while started his own school. So what we focus on is Hands-On Training You know you only retain about 10. what you hear retain about 80 What you do.

Yeah, so taking that model put on its head, say what's the fastest way you can deal with the labor shortage if people in and out getting you know, uh, successfully trained for the jobs they're going to. Um, we respect people's time and unfortunately I feel like with most schools the big disconnect is they don't actually respect the students. Time to say hey, you're here for two years, three years or whatever it may be. Let's get some student loans racked up.

But the hard part of that, you have to delayed earnings because they're not working. And can you remember what you did you know a year ago? Two years ago? Yeah, it's very little so all our classes are very, very short. but they're all Hands-On So we have a gas furnace troubleshooting class, two weeks of night school for the people in the local area. Uh, one week day class.

On that course, it's a minimum of 100 service calls and real furnaces that are completely functional. We go in I have to go through, tear out all the electrical harnesses, rewire them, add faults, tear apart components. but you get real troubleshooting experience. Yeah, so in a week's time, you get about two years of no heat calls.

nice and you have to pass with 100 correct on a test furnace you've never been to. um, pass fail. Just like the field. Awesome.

And so do you focus more on like the gas heating side or is it is pretty much everything. Oh, we do everything. The gas heating sign. We actually had a lot of people come through that were uh, electricians, 01s, O2s, people.

Kind of out of the ordinary because it's really just an electrical troubleshooting course, right? right? Taught through gas furnaces. Got it? Yeah, so we just have what. Mostly it is right. I mean if you think about it I mean there's a little bit of the combustion inside all that, but the majority of what we're really troubleshooting and this is true air conditioning Refrigeration as well.

but the majority is electrical and it does need the Hands-On Like you got to have meter in hand. You got to be able to connect things. You have to be able to understand what your Trace out circuits. that kind of thing.

It sounds like that's what you guys do 100. So we start basically with a fundamental understanding. We draw out. We build our own furnace when it comes to the wiring side of things.

Uh, everyone has. Every student gets a wiring board and has real components. real relays Transformers thermostats, sequencers for electric furnaces, high limit combinations for fan control for gas furnace we have uh I wish I could show you some pictures of this, but uh I mean you could show me but nobody else will see them they can get. Just go on.

Instagram you'll see it HVAC Underscore School on Instagram Yeah I Finally kind of made a little video of it, but okay, that's fine the viewers. He's showing this to me right now on his phone. Um yeah, yeah. so like a bunch of different training equipment I can describe it as a podcaster? um just laying it out.

kind of separating it out so they can work on it. Um, kind of exactly what. I've always thought like a lot of times people will spend a lot of money on these really expensive trainers that allow you to like connect things with with pins and and that's not realistic for the field like you actually want to see it in its real life type of environment. It looks like you've kind of done that, but in a way that people can uh, can assess and actually work on themselves.

100 Yeah. and because like electricity, for anyone, it's not like a normal intuitive thing. You walk in knowing it's difficult, especially for people coming from a career changes. Um, the average age last time we checked was 43.

So we have a kind of an older clientele. Um, but the way we teach wiring is we actually have real components, real diagrams. And they started by doing basic systems. So we started with a standing pilot on the gas furnace side.

and then you know, a spark proven pilot. Then you know you get like a Honeywell white Watchers Uh, hot service igniter. Yeah. and you wire it up.

You guys have these burner assemblies that fire off and it's kind of like a stepping stone because once you get the wiring done instead of tracing it out or writing, it's like, hey, actually, just grab the wire. Real wires, Real components. Granted, it leaves me with a ton of work after every class because everything's wired backwards or blown up or burned out. And um, yeah, they actually wire the system.

so they work. and then from there we have these other boards to bring in where once again, they're faulted. So we flip a switch, something electrically, reads a different. So let's say you're testing a high limit, right? You're getting 24 volts, Um, passing through it.

Wait a minute on either side of it, that's an open switch. The switch is compromised. That's the problem. And then we do that with gas files and pretty much every component of the furnace.

to start the idea of Hopscotch troubleshooting right. Going from like a common leg where your voltage comes from through like the R terminal to the thermostat. pass it through whatever safety relays or circuits you have to the gas valve. What your readings are, what they should be what you actually are getting and we do that a lot.

And then we get to the actual furnaces. We have about Uh 24 furnaces right now and on the side of them there's a switch box so if all the switches are turned off, it works perfectly. You switch one of them on all of a sudden. uh RW doesn't connect to the thermostat right? Switch to uh, pressure switch doesn't close all right, which three inducer motor doesn't close so it gives real world application and the reader The Meters actually read the fault as you would see in the field, which makes it nice.

Yeah, um yeah, it reminds me a lot Like that's the reason why I have HVAC simulator here with me in the booth is because they they're taking electrical troubleshooting and putting it right onto something that you can actually take measurements on. So it's like taking measurements on a schematic. but you're doing this in a very real world. a very tactile type of environment.

and I think it's great. So I wanted to basically just talk to you. We were joking around because when I first started HVAC school I Imagine you know you and your dad looking at like who the heck are these guys stealing my name? You know, because you guys have been around since What like the early 80s is that right? Uh I think it was he's he had uh 88 was a trademark I think the name or 85 something like that but before my time? Yeah, yeah, that's awesome I guess a huge fan I think your stuff is fantastic I use it all the time. so it's like I tell everyone you know it's great material.

um I think we're playing. we're both kind of uh, you know, big hitters in different fields or different sports. Yeah, different sports. Yeah, so which which sport am I uh well because I'm kind of the uh, the market on the Hands-On Okay, so I'm more like I'm more like, um, um, like golf I'm a little more like sophisticated curling.

No, no more like curling. Uh, you know where it's just it's it's not as physical. Um, you're more like um, see, maybe I'd be more like horse racing. you know it's possible.

Um, and I'm the jockey. uh and you're more like a rugby. Yeah, yeah, okay, it's good. I feel you.

You're much more refined and you know, eloquent about it. What we do is, uh, obviously it's very effective in how we teach it. but um, it's very much to the point. and yeah, I mean for example, we still use the same website from when the internet was created.

Yeah, so I think everybody should go. Um, go to Hvacschool.com and check it out. What we're talking about. It is what we're gonna.

It's vintage I think I think at this point I don't think you should change it I was actually I actually had like it's very funny to bring that up for the longest time because you already have your website. It's great. You're very very, you know, amazing what you do I was like, well I can't really compete with that nor do I want to. It's not my, uh, my field of Interest right? I'm just going to keep the original website.

the dates still work. If you want to see what we're doing, check out the Instagram Yeah, um, because as you imagine, if you have 25 people all wiring something or testing furnaces, they're blowing up left and right. Yeah, and it's like oh wow, that took me 80 hours to build and it just blew up right? So that's what you spend your time doing is like yeah I yeah yeah. I like it? No, that's awesome.

Yeah. So for Hands-On training, look them up. Um, Hvacschool.com If there's anything else, um, maybe they want to shoot you an email or something. Is there a good email that they could contact you? Uh, HVAC School at Hvacschool.com or HVAC School at HVAC School or Comcast.com Okay, something like that.

All right. Yeah, there you go. HVAC Okay HVAC School at Hvacschool.com That's pretty straightforward. Yeah.

awesome. We work clever on that one. Yeah. I like it original? maybe? Yeah, Yeah.

All right. Crawford Nice talking to you. It's been great connecting and for anybody who's looking for that kind of hands-on experience that we were discussing on the podcast Crawford and his dad are the gangster guys to talk to him. So yeah, thank you.

And oh yeah, one last plug. we do air conditioning and heat pumps and ductless systems as well. Okay, yeah, that's right, you were showing me the ductless systems. That's great and that's actually really, really a big need.

It's a lot more trending on that. You get a bunch of like the uh The Verve is broken down into internals and we dive into that pretty heavy. um yeah. sweet.

awesome. Thank you so much thank you! Nice to meet you.