In this video, my friends Jim Bergman Bill Spone and Kimberly Llewellyn talk about electrification which we all admit is a bit of a buzzword, but it is something that is happening more and more rapidly as we go away from Gas Appliances to heat pumps and other electric. Technologies And this presentation uh is short I Wish we would have made it a little bit longer, but it was actually one of my favorites of the entire. Symposium They makes up some really great points that I think need to be heard by the industry which is why I'm sharing it here on YouTube So here we go: Electrification at the 2023 Hvcr Symposium Brought to you by Akka and measurequick Thank you I Always like to say electrifications not like flipping a switch. It's okay to laugh, but it's not going to happen all at once.

It's not going to happen tomorrow. It's not going to happen everywhere all at once, but it is a trend. I Noticed a couple nights ago I saw my news feed that Shell Oil Company had bought an Elect Char electric car charging Network called Volta and the CEO of Shell Oil said the conversion to electric vehicles is inevitable. So Society is moving in this direction where you know either you can get on board or watch it happen uh in the background.

So Brian very kindly gave me the opportunity to use HVAC School and several other channels that we had access to to offer to contractors the ability to participate in this survey. So we targeted Heac and Home. Performance Contractors Because that's a belief that that I have and I share with Uh John Hohen who's actually here from a company called Duckling that's at the very earliest stages of inception and I'm a strategic advisor to them. So because of my Um, he found me because of what I was doing with my house, all electric house and and all the the kind of benefits and issues that we had there.

So some of you may have taken part in either the survey by clicking on a few links or an interview How many people did the survey okay, thank you and how many people did the interview so so several you are represented your your feedback. We were just looking for feedback, so 30 101 people were surveyed. This was a set of survey questions that we gave: I'm not going to go through this all in detail. We'll make the slides available, but it's just questions about are your customers asking about it? Are you ready to do it? Do you want to engage? and how do you want to engage with it? So it was just we weren't pushing any agenda, but just finding out what's going on.

So we had 101 survey respondents. We actually looked at some demographics of age, their role in the organization. Were they serving primarily residential? How many were already installing heat pumps? Because that's a large part of what electrification seems to mean. Two people into the public, we looked.

We were able to collect through this, you know Network a pretty broad survey across the country and even into Canada the awareness seemed to be pretty high. People have heard of it, 87 of contractors have heard of it, and how frequently customers were asking from rarely to frequently was 81 percent. So the conversations out there just a quick show of hands. Who in here is being asked by their customers about what you call electrification? Whatever that term means.

Okay, so maybe about 10 or less. We also asked what's the definition again because just like Brian said, that terminology can be challenging. What but what does it mean to you As the contractor and some people talked about fossil fuel conversion increase in Energy Efficiency improvements in indoor air quality upgrading the home system electrical system only using Renewables so it means a lot of things to a lot of people. The other requests were Beyond Just installing heat pumps because that seemed to be a core for all the respondents.

what other things are you considering and actually installing today? Anything else besides heat pumps? What are customers asking about weatherization and home performance? We also learn learn the term heat pump Ready Home which they use Kevin you know they'd use in New York Heat Pump water heaters, solar panels, induction cooking, home batteries, electrical upgrades Etc And then are you installing at least one other product today other than heat pumps and many of the respondents and sort of like don't don't fault us. but we'll be acknowledging that we're dipping into a special pool of respondents, but it's significant in the number and the pool represents people like you that are interested in this future installations. What else would you like to do in the future? So this is where we're looking for, saying what? What is the business opportunity to serve your customer and then will lead to the point of what do you think is missing? We also act because there's a there's a huge economic Drive in the economy. that's the inflation reduction Act It's not entirely clear for everyone we were talking about that yesterday, even with manufacturers with States what does that mean But is that question coming up And if and are you prepared to handle that? So this this again leads to what I want to get to here just to finish the presentation.

We took these mainly from the 32 interviews because we had the chance to dialogue with the the survey respondents. What are the pain points? What are the things? If they were to move in that direction, What do they need? What could be offloaded? What could you use as a service to help you do more work for your customers? Educating customers seem to be the number one answer and this actually this is these quotes are from the actual interviews. This is the number one we need non-technical answers to the benefits the customers received. That sounds like a common theme for the work you do I'm sure.

Uh, just talking with some. Just the whole conversation this week has been about trying to get customers on board with doing better work. They don't appreciate it because of number four on the list competing against low low cost or contractors that sell at a lower price. I Like that, like but hate the phrase the quote.

Hvc is stuck in a short sales cycle with Rip and Replace providers. The results in a race to the bottom. So what we're looking to do with Duckling and this is my part-time job I'm still with Truetech. don't worry about that or maybe you'll be happy.

but I'm I'm I'm distracted in this area because of the work I've done in my own home where I see things are moving and I see the opportunity because I think HVAC contractors deal with so much complexity that covers all the touch points of providing customers with electrified homes. We're already doing the work and it's a minor extension or adjacent part of work that could be added and it's something that could benefit your business and serve your customers who are moving in a certain direction. So with with that I want to open up the panel discussion. Thank you for listening to this can I have So I guess my first I I have a whole bunch of questions here.

but the first thing I want to do is just allow Kimberly to kind of respond to the results because when I look at this this slide is the one I want to keep up because it these are you know in in our own words kind of thing. um and so when you think about you know some of these top things that we that we mentioned here that are sort of the pain points or the barriers. what are what are your thoughts on that or what are you seeing or hearing? it never happened I know because I want to shake this up a little bit. so I want to I want So when when you hear the term electrification how many people have a positive reaction? okay how many people have a negative reaction? like be honest because yeah because that's like it's okay how many people get really mad like actually makes them angry to hear this term electrification? Okay, we've got some people being really honest here so I I can I can relate to that and now I'm going to get back to answering your question.

but I want to bookmark I'll tell you I'm interested in what makes you all angry or feel negatively towards that term electrification and I'll share with you in a few minutes from now. Like what makes me angry about it So now I'm going to get back to your question because this is important I want to know what people are walking in the room with like what? What? Do you want to hear? what? What do you need to say so that we can actually engage in a productive conversation because I hate to see it. But electrification? It's happening like this is an irreversible. Trend And there are good reasons for this irreversible.

Trend Um, but there are. There are choices being made. There are dictates being made that don't make any sense at all and that are really throwing up people's resistances for for very good reasons so pun intended. Yeah, yeah, didn't even know it.

So is there one on in particular that you think like one of these questions in particular? So it was a poorly formed. It was a poorly formed question. Let me reform. Now let Me reform.

So what are some of the things right off the bat that you see that make you angry or that you're seeing, uh, that are resulting in frustration? Uh, from the trade? Can you ask each one of us that question? I'll ask each one of you that and I'll start with Kimberly Okay, because I'm ready. I'm very flexible. As you all can see here, I'm a very flexible moderator I think now is that I Feel like it's being led by academics and that drives me nuts because it's It's being led by people in the industry who have excellent intentions and have very smart theoretical ideas. and they are so disconnected from the people who are actually going to have to do the work to make that transition happen.

And that disconnect results in massive areas of ignorance. and and there's not even enough self-awareness Within The groups that are leading the transition to say I don't I don't know this like I don't I don't know enough actually about heat pumps I Don't know enough about electrical panels and upgrades I Don't know enough about what kind of electrical load switching an entire neighborhood over to heat pumps from gas furnaces is going to have on this community? So there's not even enough self-awareness to say I need to assemble a team of critical skill sets that are way outside of my my my own Community my own comfort zone. Um, and and that's nice. And because of that it's not happening that lack of self-awareness So that drives me nuts.

That's what makes me angry because this there is a solution. But you can't expect for this to be a successful transition for us to do as well as we could with this. if we keep on trying to do business as usual and hand out like marching orders like it's not going to happen like that. So it's my answer.

Anybody think that was a good answer? Let's give a round of applause of that. Mr Bergman Well this is what. Uh if you just close your eyes for a minute and you you relax in this room right now and you you guys are all experiencing what improper electrification is going to feel like right? I Mean you just get wearing your sweatshirts because this is completely possible I Can tell you that electrification is not possible because I Honestly do believe it is possible to do electrification, but not with a skill Setter Industry currently has and the biggest problem that we're going to see in my opinion is that we can't even put an air conditioning systems right and heat pumps are a whole another skill set and challenge especially in Northern climates where we have never put a heat pump in before. Bill will tell you we had to bring in somebody from Ohio to charge his heat pump in Pennsylvania Because we couldn't get the tech, we offered him everything to do the job and to do a proper evacuation on the system.

Bill's system. when I went over there and looked at it I popped the cover off and the acid smell was amazing because they had not done a proper evacuation on the system and Bill had done everything in his power to get the system installed right. Yet, there was three heat pumps put in that house before the final one that's in it today and then the Souza got cold. He didn't have his electric heat cooked upright and it's not.

This is not a failure of the equipment. Equipment can do everything it's supposed to do. It's a failure of our industry. And this is honestly when I say get used to wearing your sweatshirt.

If we flip the switch to electrification today, this is this is what we'd feel like or even worse. I'm a huge advocate for hybrids I think the way that we should be doing this is the hybrid system, especially in the northern climates. We should. Cars should be hybrid and homes should be hybrid and we should move into this slowly and learn how these systems work and then eventually get people moved off.

The problem is with hybrids in my opinion is you're still paying the cost of having the gas connected to your house and so this is what I was going over with Nate I'm like Nate I'm not seeing any savings with this heat pump and he said well that's because you haven't disconnected your gas meter yet and until you disconnect the gas meter, you're going to have the just the cost of having the line of your home and so it. But but it's enabled me to test the technology at my house and see that I can actually run my heat pump and be super comfortable and where it really saved money is on the air conditioning side. It does an amazing job with the air conditioning, but this is not without challenges and the biggest challenge that we have that by far the biggest challenge we have is our our skill set as technicians is not there yet to be successful with this at Mass at Mass at Mass adoption we're just not there Bill Good 12 questions. So I'm angry about the fact that people get angry and stay angry and and don't look at it like opportunity because Jim just talked about the ability and Kimberly you know the equipment is there is is ready, the skills techniques are lacking and what are you here for? Why did you come this week? People sit people on online.

people sitting here. you came to learn to improve your skill set again. I'm angry that people get angry and stay angry and don't look at it like opportunity. It's a hard problem, but I want to be part of the solution that that's in.

Like Brian said I share openly on a Facebook page mostly sponehome.com Facebook Group 650 700 members I'll share things almost every day every week, at least about what's going on my solar production when the inverters go down, uh, when the heat pump isn't keeping up when the system's shutting down. Uh now I've got a weather station there to look at wind and other things going on. but I'm all into it. I'm and I try to say like I'm I'm trying to bring the house of the Future into today's world to play with it to go through some hardship, but for the common good and the benefit of moving this industry forward.

And and I'll say skating to the Electron because that that's where everything is is trending, the Tendencies are uh, let's be part of the future. Thank you. All right everybody got one clap, no more clapping Until the End Okay, because otherwise we're just gonna Clap the whole time. Yeah and I did start it I did start it right I did start it.

That's true. Started his hand rubbing and now it's turned to clapping. Yeah, that's good. Can I bring up another Point that's really important.

Um, so there's a huge difference between new construction electric home in a retrofit all-electric home. and and we have to be really careful about make drawing that line because it, um, it's darn. It's very difficult to switch a poorly built home with very little insulation High infiltration. Um, to switch that, especially in a cold climate from a gas furnace to a heat pump and not increase operational costs and also not run the risk of hitting a critical weather event and and freezing out your your clients.

So it's important to be really common sensical. So I agree with Jim that. Definitely with with existing structures, dual fuel systems only make sense. Um I think when we're talking about new construction and if you're building it from the outset with really low loads like and this has got to be part of the plan.

and part of the solution is that every new building that we bring online it's either going to be an asset or a liability. And and it should be an asset just out of the gate. which means it should be really low load. It should be resilient to weather events that we can't control and and you can in these cases, if that's how you.

if that's how you're designing and that's how you're actually executing, you can go all electric and and even up into Northern climates. This is another point I Want to make there not all heat pumps are created equal? They're cold climate heat pumps that can maintain 100 capacity down to negative five negative 10 degrees. You just have to. You have to choose the right equipment.

You have to size it properly for your design conditions. Um, so those exist, but they're not all created equal. But that is a totally different scenario than having an existing structure that's poorly insulated High infiltration and just swapping. You know, swapping in a heat pump for a gas furnace like that could be dangerous.

and it's also difficult on the grid. So that's one of those common sensical things that drives me nuts because it's like, well, you can't just throw a bunch of heat pumps into New York state right without truly upgrading the building envelope. So though I work for heat pump manufacturer and I do believe they're part of the solution, we've got to get better at working together with weatherization contractors and with designers to to do things like I'm In Texas I have an uninsulated vented attic? That's where my air handler is. It's crazy temperature differences in the winter and in the summertime, so it makes no sense.

So the retrofit I'm doing. you know, like walking. The talk is is doing exterior insulation after replace my shingles, putting exterior Insulation at the roof line to get that into condition space I don't like spray foam? that's just me. So but these are the kinds of Holistic Solutions that we have to be thinking about.

You know, for existing structures. Great yeah, great answers I mean a lot of these questions I think that we got, um, are kind of assuming that everybody is super raw raw Pro full bore electrification. so um, you know, take that, take some of that with a grain of salt. But but people are looking for advice and are struggling.

so I'm gonna go with kind of a simple one from Eric Farron he asked. As a person who is in a primarily gas furnace market and gas is cheap, can you explain to me how switching to a heat pump will be better for the customer? as far as utility costs go, I just have a hard time wrapping my head around it. so I'll give that to Bill First up, this isn't going to happen everywhere all at once. but I think there's a an inevitability of the increase in energy costs in in some of the Um existing construction retrofits, or remodels or upgrades I Like to think of those or preach those as permanent Investments they're one time and they're They're insulation or or protection against.

You're hedging against future price increases. So if you can get it right, you start saving this year next year. But it may make sense for your for your Um, your clients, it may not. It may make sense in your area, it may not.

Uh, we we talked to some people in the interview who are with a Rural Electric Association in Uh, Central Southern Washington State and they're at Kevin Brace yourself. Seven cents a kilowatt hour. We talked with some other people who are 31 to 39 cents a kilowatt hour for electricity and that seven Cent area. That's not going to make sense right now to do but I I Want you to keep your eyes open for opportunity.

So I want to answer the question I Think it's really important, Like if you're in a gas market, how are you going to save money like in Kevin's Market Here's how you save money. Honestly, how you save money is when you look at things like a steam boiler, right? A steam boiler. If you looked at the rating of it's 80 efficient. And it's 80 efficient when it's running and producing steam right? So it it's not 80 efficient when it first starts.

When it first starts, it's producing no steam, right? And it runs for probably 15 to 20 minutes before it starts to generate steam. Those are called Dynamic losses. So here's how you save money in a heat pump. Market You put many split heat pumps in a home with a steam boiler and you use it in the shoulder season.

When your boiler is actually about 50 30 to 50 percent efficient because the boiler when it hits Peak load when it's cold enough outside, when it's zero, the boiler is 80 efficient. It's going to heat the home just fine. But if we use a heat pump in a shoulder season to eliminate that, what's called Dynamic losses of the boiler. So when the boiler would be cycling when it needs like you know, a heat for a short time, so the boiler comes up, it gets heat.

It takes 20 30 minutes to make heat, but then it overshoots the house temperature because now it's it's too much heat from the radiators. We get the huge swings. We can eliminate all that with heat pumps in the shoulder season. This goes back to the hybrid system, so if you want to save money, you save a huge amount of your boilers 30 to 50 percent efficient.

In the fall and the spring, it's 80 percent efficient. In the winter when it's a peak load, get rid of the dynamic losses. The other thing we should do is completely I'm a big proponent of completely eliminating air conditioning systems. Every one that's sold should be a heat pump.

We should because the shoulder season is where you save the money and the shoulder Seasons where heat pumps work and work very very well. and then we just go to the Uh when we need the um you know the the peak demand, then we keep the existing heating system in. I mean it's that simple and then we go back to things like again, Steam boilers are awesome. If you have the right controls on them we gotta.

We got to learn how these things Dan Houlihan Will tell you the people that knew how these things worked are dead and if we just went back and learned how Like About Vapor stats and instead of pressure stats and and learn how to optimize furnace operation 90 plus furnaces I Was at a class the other day and 16 out of 16 people had never clocked a meter on a gas furnace. You can take a 97 percent efficient furnace and make it into a 90 efficient furnace by simply not getting the fuel input right and getting it into condensing mode so there's there's you can save money in a Northern climate by going to a heat pump. Every air conditioner should be a heat pump and just used during the shoulder season where we can save the money on the on the dynamic bosses. Oh any other thoughts on that? No, it covers it all right.

So interesting. Interesting idea though. So I'm just going to ask this as a question then because Jim just gave a very big idea which sounds regulatory to me I said you gave a big idea I didn't say you created a big idea, work on listening listening skills he didn't want to take credit again. Again, Yeah, so that's that's a that's a big idea.

The big idea is all right. No more, no more air conditioners. Everything's got to be a heat pump. What are your thoughts? 30 bucks.

It's all costs well. I mean realistic, About about people's budgets, you know, and about emergency replacement situations. and to look at the very real supply issues that most manufacturers have had. So I would say yes within reason and yes, we should be, uh, proactively replacing systems when it makes sense.

Now, the most unsustainable thing you can do is to take a system that's actually functioning and working and throwing it out like that's That's another thing that that really frustrates me is that you know for where. I I Believe strongly in in the responsible use of resources. but that includes, like, the resources like all of the embodied energy that went into making another coil or condenser. So throwing out a piece of equipment that's actually functioning reasonably well doesn't necessarily make sense in that that scenario.

But if you know that you've gotten that warning from your, you know your technician, that your system is definitely on its last leg like we've limped it along one more summer than than maybe proactively. Yeah, you replace it good. Um, just just a thought to springboard that Kimberly mentioned emergency replacement and that tends to happen when the when the weather goes to the extremes. yeah uh.

in the the rest of the time that I'm taking a branch off of that but work towards consumers who want to do electrification like EV Chargers heat pump, water heaters other things want to move in that direction that can be scheduled during the shoulder season. The non-busy part of the year can help you level, level your workload, level your business, income level your Staffing so there's an opportunity there. It's a concept which I've heard over the years many times I want you to consider that too and I would care to add to that that electrification will never work unless we fix duct leakage. that's the other giant giant um, elephant in the room.

We don't talk about a lot, but uh uh, Ducks outside the conditioned space induct leakage are going to make this, uh, impossible. and I don't think a lot of us appreciate how much duck systems leak and I think that's one of the most overlooked things in our industry. Uh I Think you know this last year working with Tec on on the true flow grid and working with Measure Quick and the frustrations that we had like we're trying to get there we couldn't We always thought there's something wrong with our calculations and we would go through and recheck things and measure quick and recheck things in Tech and literally it took us almost a month to figure out. All we had to do is call Steve and he told us but that that uh that it was all duck leakage issues.

And when we I mean literally when you figure out a screw hole, one screw hole in a in a ductwork is one CFM and you look at how many CFM adduct leakage we have it just makes this again another impossible thing to do unless we start properly installing systems, seal the duct systems up, make and and do things like aeroseal. I'm a big proponent of aeroseal on the system is a big proponent of mastic and a big proponent of keeping the the Ducks inside the envelope because it to me it's a it's a crazy thing that we're putting ductwork outside where it's it's going to leak all the energy and gain all the energy that that it does. So what's the question for you? What? What do you think about? Um, what do you think about manufacturers or Distributors um having better kits of parts for ductwork that you know? there are a few. Um, there are a few.

There are a few manufacturers making sort of snap in place type of duct work. I I Seems to me that it makes sense that we need more products out there that are you know, pre-sized pre-gasketed lock in place kind of system? Yeah. I'm curious what the yeah, what the room thinks about that because makes sense to me. Any thoughts from the room about some of the existing Technologies or or um, just as a just as an idea in general something we should move forward.

I Think you can get any no matter how good of Technology you make, you can put it in the wrong hands and get it screwed up. It really comes down to education more than we have great products right? I mean if you look at the if you look at the mini split and um, it's Achilles heel is the flare right people? And we've been flaring in this industry and honestly, a good flare joint is stronger than a brace joint. Period. If you make a flare right, it is stronger than a braised joint and it's an excellent mechanical connection for crying out loud.

We use them on brake lines and put thousands of PSI on them. We've been using them forever in our industry and some of it comes down to improper tools. We don't have good tools to make good flares, some of it comes down to technique. But no matter how no matter what products we make, unless we're training people to actually do those processes correct, we're just going to end up in the same boat.

It's honestly, training is right now where our biggest problem we have I Just want to add to that, it's a balance between either put labor to spend money on labor materials or poor results. so so there's a you can use if there's better materials to use, that upfront cost might be higher, but it's easier to install or you could use more more materials and more labor to do it. Or you could pay for it on the back end when it doesn't work and you're getting called back or you get a dissatisfied customer. Etc So just look at the full economic picture when you look at things.

don't just buy the cheapest materials as I look at the kind of the questions that were submitted. A lot of them fall into this kind of standard electrification question bucket which is about like, well, what do you think about how the grid is going to be able to handle it? What do you think? well like? what? What are the answers? I would rather us focus on things right now that we could maybe do something about or start to think differently about. So I Want you all to ask questions? raise your hands. But I'm going to ask the first question because I Because to me, this seems like the most obvious.

What about Energy banking? What about using buffer tanks for for heat energy storage? Or you know, a hot for heat storage and using ice banking for uh, you know, kind of low temperature? BTUs What are your thoughts on that? Because that to me, seems like the easiest way to kind of get where we're where we're headed. Projects? We're going to see more of those designs. Absolutely. And it makes sense.

We need more we need. We need more thermal storage options and probably some commercialized thermal storage options. So I Say yes, but why not in residential? Uh, maybe for some of the reasons that that we've pointed out, that it's just, there are so many more projects and there's so much. um, there's so much less resources put towards the design and coordination phase of that, so it would have to be really more Plug and Play to make it a reliable solution and also profitable for the installing contractors.

And where are you going to put it? Yeah. Physical space? Exactly. Yeah, Where you can put it and who's going to want that? You know they don't. Um, that's where everything should go.

Everything belongs in the Attic So Jim I Was really struck by your comment about the workforce needs and training and I've been really impressed by everybody who's here and this is like The Cutting Edge of people who want to learn. I You know I'm doing survey work. Um, a lot of what I hear feedback on. People don't want to get trained.

so how are we going to fix that problem? So I mean if you think about, there's about 760 000 uh, technicians in the industry today and so we have less than one tenth of one percent of the market here. that's actually you know, getting trained in and and excited about this I think there's some opportunities to to to fix things with with technology. but but I don't know. there's like an easy answer for this.

I mean it's it's got to be voluntary. It's got to be taking pride in your work. It's it's it's I Think what's going to happen honestly is as we go to the electrification and people feel like we feel in this room right now, cold and miserable that it's going to um, that it's gonna, it's it's gonna, the consumer is gonna drive it. They're not going to put up with it.

There's going to be, They're going to eventually be willing to pay money to have people come in and do good work at their homes because um you know it's right now. It's at race to the bottom with pricing because when energy is cheap you can do a sub quality installation. and the consumer they have they have no they have no nothing to measure it against. They don't know what it would cost to operate their home if if the install was done right.

If the you know if it was a quality installation they have no idea. They get a 200 Bill and they think well that's just what it costs to cool my home. they don't realize it could be a thirty dollar bill. but when you start doing this in mass and people aren't comfortable and utility costs are high, then you get a lot of public outcry that that I think it's going to end up in Regulatory and people are going to be you know and and people be required to do some things and that's that's really like if you think back when we did CFC certifications initially it weeded out a lot of the Dead weight in our industry because people just left because they're like I'm not going to deal with us right and that's probably what's going to happen again is we're going to have a a Exodus of people that are are or the bottom feeders in our industry.

But I Don't think there's an easy answer I Honestly don't I have an answer? Well, we've had standards like you know, Akka the guys that have been building standards. We've been building standards as an industry forever. but they're all voluntary, right? and so um, you know we're trying to like with Measure Quick Right now, we're trying to bring people awareness at their standards and that they need to be following the standards and this is how we get the results. This is this is how electrification is possible if we actually follow the standards that are already in our industry, but if if we have a tremendous number of people that aren't even aware that standards exist Chad will tell you uh, that, um, he's with uh Stimson HVAC He just sat down with some of his technicians last week and he said he thought first measure quick was a problem.

He's like this just takes way too long. Then he realized his technicians were the problem and he realized that he had had been a long time since he had read a furnace manual or an install manual on a piece of equipment. and they sat down with their technicians and read the installation manuals. So one of his guys said he's been in the industry for 30 years and he's never read an install manual on a piece of a piece of equipment and he was like, wow, this is pretty interesting I Didn't realize there's all these facets.

How do you fix that? How do you fix? You know? we're an industry of mechanics. We can mechanically get all this stuff hooked together, but none of it works right. We don't you know? Brian's a unicorn. The fact that he, uh, he's a, he's a reader I mean he's homeschooled and he's a reader.

A lot of us are public education and that wasn't the most exciting thing in the world to do, right? And we got into the trades because we didn't want to read, we didn't want to do math, we wanted to work with our hands and hook stuff up. So now you got this this: Gap The Skills Gap Huge skills Gap Where people need to be have better math skills, better reading skills, better technology skills in general and but we don't have a Workforce that's prepared for that. When you're homeschooled, reading is the only thing there is to do. Yeah, what else is there? Go ahead Kimberly you had some well I think I I agree with I agree with what Jim's saying and I Also think that we've got to get.

We've got to get our heads above the clouds a little bit and we've got to realize that this is a very Broad and deep problem. and in order to effectively address it to me, it looks like we have to capture people's imaginations. We have to capture their hearts and their passions. We have to get people to tap into their own inherent motivations to do better.

And so part of that is just and I'd say broadly like in media in you know, in our movies. In our personal interactions, we have to start telling stories that mean something to us and we have to start casting Heroes differently. We've got it. I Don't care if you're a homesteader, if you're a Green Peace member and you care about sustainability like actually, these are all different facets of the same Stone And that is you care about resources and using them well and and we need to start telling these stories that capture the imaginations of all of us so That we want to do better so that we want to read that manual we want.

we're willing to take that test, sit in the chair, you know for a class. Um, and and people do better when they they believe that they can do better and that when they believe that they can contribute to a problem and make a difference. And so part of that I Think it's just human nature like we've always told stories they've They've been important in in motivating people, inspiring people, and in in Um and tapping us into our deeper selves. And that's what.

that's what we've got to I think start doing better, a better job at Um yeah. So so when is HVAC the movie coming out? Yeah, exactly. It's George Clooney Play me like um Walter White Or you know, uh, you should be paid by uh, the Mad Heisenberg over here. Yeah.

So one of the challenges that I had as a contractor in trying to implement electrification is that you've got an 80 or 90 furnace with an air conditioning. It's a middle summer middle of winter and it breaks down. You need to provide a solution. Quick but electrification.

A cold weather heat pump. You got to replace the line set because the liquid lines got to get or the liquid line the small Line's got to get insulated. The Mocp value of the outdoor unit is a lot higher. So now you got to get an electrician to run a new home run.

There was five conductor wire going to the thermostat and two conductor wire going to the AC I've got to replace the thermostat wire and that makes it cost prohibitive for the typical family on a budget to switch over. So my question is, how can we make a cold weather heat pump, outdoor unit with a coil or an air handler where the Mocp is 30 amps for a three ton unit? How can we make a wireless interface with between all those things with a thermostat where we don't look? Wireless Technology is here. There's no reason why we need to be pulling eight conductor wires all over our house anymore. Can Mitsubishi Implement that to make it easier for contractors to implement electrification and and not have to break the bank of some poor family that's just trying to get their air conditioning going in the middle of July I I Hear you and it's very it's it's a well taken question.

Um, I can tell you we're working on it. You know, why can't we? Well, I could I Um so yeah, peeking behind the curtain a little like you take a company like Mitsubishi Electric They're a global company. They're serving many different markets. There are other Global markets that are way ahead of the U.S market and U.S has actually been getting the leftovers from a lot of the product design from other other markets for them for for decades now.

So we are working on that. We're working on exactly exactly the that checklist that you just named. Like being able to reuse line sets, not having to rerun wire, being able to, you know, hopefully not having to upgrade your panel. But but that being said, like some of those things, you know, it might get two out of three.

You might get one out of three. Like if we want to upgrade infrastructure, that means some of the infrastructure is going to have to be upgraded and there's not. I Can't promise we're going to be able to check all those off. But yeah, that's going to be a challenge.

But why does a more efficient heat pumps have a higher Mocp? Well, I have to have to have this. So you're talking about one of my favorite topics: Tim You know this. so you don't size the conductor based on mocp, you size it based on MCA. The MCA is higher in some cases, but not always so much higher.

So a lot of times we're running new conductors when we don't need to, it depends on it. depends on the Celsius rating of the conductor that's being pulled. Is it NM Cable Is it so like? this is an education thing as well? I'm not I know you know all this so you you know this but a lot of people don't and so some a lot of times you don't have to run a new circuit just because the majority of technicians believe that you have to size the conductor to the breaker and you absolutely do not as part of the national Electrical code. So there's things like that as well that play into this.

Um I Want everybody to go ahead and just uh, because we're already. we're over time. now we're done. But I want you to go ahead and just kind of final statement.

Wrap it up. this is, we did not schedule enough time for this. I apologize. Um, so what are kind of your final words? Final thoughts: We'll start with uh, start with Bill and then we'll go gym and then Kimberly don't get angry and stay angry.

Get involved. uh, lead or look to encourage your leadership to change and I'm going just talking about electrification. I'm talking about everything and if you want to learn more, stop by the True Tech Booth We're actually looking for more contractors to get more feedback, more engagement. Please come by and learn some more.

If this stimulates your thinking, don't expect to reach everyone here. but I'm seeing some head nodding. That's all. Jim My final thought is you can have my furnace when you fry it out of my cold, dead hands.

Nobody wants to furnish Jim They're coming for our furnaces Democrats Joke Kimberly That's really my final thought. No I Know I know that? That's it, right? I Know I knew yeah I could tell I can Are you sure you're done all right? So I my final thought is just thank you. Um I I Agree with Bill I think I Think you should get angry if you feel angry, but then, but then use that energy. That's energy and and believe that there are people out here you know on this side of the table who want to hear your input and let's work together on the solution.

We're here to listen and work with you. Thank you so much! Big thanks to my friends Kimberly Bill and Jim for doing this. They are pillars of the HVAC community and people who I really look up to and respect to find this session and all the other sessions that were at the Symposium this year Go to Hvacrschool.com Symposium. Thanks for watching our video If You enjoyed it and got something out of it.

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