All right. So for those that are in here right now, um You may watch this after the fact, you may watch this now. I'm currently live from the Ahr Expo I have a friend of mine a friend I guess acquaintance a friend. What do you want to call it a friend I don't know, we're a fake Internet friend that's a good aware of each other.

There we go, we're aware of each other. So this is uh Holden Shamburger Burger, right? Sham Burg from the HVAC Time YouTube channel and uh, we are live at the 2024 Ahr Expo in nice, sunny, warm Chicago that's an understatement, right? Yeah, Exactly. That's a very accurate description. Yeah, so for me, um, you know Southern California it's uh, this is a bit different because we were.

we was like 40 when I left. so well I was about the same, you know I I getting on the plane was right at 40 and we had just come out of some W winter weather. uh and then stepping off of the plan play as soon as I stepped out of it. uh I instantly see my breath I was like H that was the same thing when I stepped out I have a video on my phone and it was like why the hell can I see my breath? Something's not right So Chicago you aren't right.

That's pretty much the the summation of this, right? No, but um, the show just started. For those that are just tuning in right now, this is uh Holden Shamburger from the HVAC Time YouTube channel. So if you guys don't know who Holden is Holden has heavy commercial heavy industrial, would that be the right way to say it? Channel Yeah Commercial industrial? yeah and you know something that I really appreciate about your content is that I can follow it I also have a general understanding of Hbac, but still I can follow it and I can understand it, especially when you break things down when you're explaining control issues and different stuff. I can I can understand it So I appreciate that about your channel and and that's intentional on the way that you know we need more people.

we need better trained people. But the heavy commercial Industrial Market historically has been very difficult to get into and so one of my big objectives, especially for the chiller side, is to lower that barrier so that more it's more accessible to people. Because one of the big things we've seen is as everybody's retired out, they've taken all the knowledge with them and very few of them left the knowledge behind as they went. And you know I I See that all the time throughout the audience and talking to everybody online.

It's just there's only so many ways of fixing that. In my opinion, this is just my way of trying to go about it. So similarly, um, you know I came up in a time when people didn't want to share information. you know they were hoarding it.

Um, I still have you gotten any of the like I don't want to say nasty emails but emails telling you to stop sharing so much? Uh no. I've gotten like a couple of those where the guy's like I paid a lot of money to gain this knowledge and you're giving it away for free you know I got some comments like that early early on on. uh but that didn't last long. No, I don't get that kind of feedback at all at this point I don't I haven't gotten it in a while.

But my my answer to the gentleman that told me he was upset that I was given this knowledge away for free was that I had to pay in a lot of Blood Sweat and Tears for my knowledge too. and I also know that it took away from my family time it took away from all this. So if I can make it easier for the next guy, if Holden can make it easier for the next guy if we can all make it easier for other will bring the industry up together and that's what this industry needs right now. Yep and obviously too When you can find and and this is becoming a trend, there's um, there's a trend on the residential and air conditioning side called better HVAC and that's something new that's coming where people are gonna band together and try to change things and make it easier for people.

um I don't want to say this is replacing, but this is the new industry organization right? because I came up uh, very involved with RSS uh very good organization. It still does exist, but it doesn't have the numbers and the strength that it used to and I want it to. but it's just you have to change with the times and so you know there's a lot of people that want to make this easier for everybody. and it's cool to have this cool community that we have and see if you guys don't know this that are watching this, you know Cen Holden uh Brett Wetzell was Jessier from Advanced Refrigeration Podcast Like all these different creators, for the most part, we all get along.

It's a community and we could all reach out to each other. You know when I'm having a struggle with the software I'm using Streamyard which has nothing to do with air conditioning, but I'm streaming I'll reach out to another creator that uses it or vice versa. you know and we can all help each other. And I think that's important with this trade? I think it is.

It definitely is. You know? Um, I Think that manufacturers and it's getting better. Making it easier for technicians too is key to this because there's some manufacturers we're not going to name names, but there's some manufacturers that covet their information and make make it behind a pay wall. You literally have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars to get access to softwares and manuals.

While I understand what they're trying to do, keep it proprietary that doesn't work in this industry right now, it's too difficult There, you know well and one of the things that I see is and I really really see it on the industrial side. So the more that they can control the market, the more they can control market share and where they get to work. Uh, it. It helps in their recruiting and retention because well, if you truly want to be one of their people then you've got to go in and work for them specifically.

It helps boost them and at the same time. you know, talking to those who have gone before us and have' kind of walked that journey early on. A lot of those large manufacturers had a lot of market and then over time things shifted and they allowed the regular Market to come in and start owning a lot of that space. As that happened, they slowly lost and lost and lost more of their market share of what they got to work on.

Granted it it focus them into a more niche market. I would say yeah, but because there's certain jobs that unless you have their name, you're not going to walk into that job. There's a lot of industrial facilities that we may get to work alongside. because I'm not with any manufacturer, we may get to work alongside them, but we'll never.

they will not allow us and that's okay. like I think I think it's an appropriate place, especially for a major uh, municipality that is serving an entire you know? City District right? So something goes wrong there. You know they. we need to make sure we got the best people.

Well, a trend that I noticing though too is that with with the popularity and the growth of social media. I Don't know if this is true, but this is my opinion on the matter. Manufacturers are starting to make it easier to work on their equipment because they don't like the negative stuff they get on social media because it's so hard. So for instance, major major air conditioning manufacturers are making their softwares that are Bluetooth capable free.

no behind, no pay wall behind, no registration. You literally just go up scan a QR code you can access the unit. There's several manufacturers that are doing that and I think that that's important now. I Also think that you know having some super Advanced features.

Okay, maybe have some of those Advanced features behind some sort of a registration. but let's make it easier. let's make it better for the industry. Well, I and I agree with you, especially on more standard and smaller tonage systems.

Something we're really seeing, especially on the chiller side right now is there's a lot of, uh, a lot of the equipment is moving to. You have to have this, uh, like an access code code almost sometimes. Yeah, where you have to go in and only if you're registered with them and you've done all this stuff will they allow you to even give you a code whereas before, as long as we had at least had some kind of training, we could access it with just a generic code from the factory. Yeah, and that's no longer possible.

or now even to get their software. Uh, their software is behind a pay wall that is up to the local branch to decide to a light access to and even when they do let you have access, they're going to charge you an arm and a leg for it. So yeah, that's to me, it's a very they're going further the other direction on that side of it and again it comes back to Market and I Know they get a lot of negative uh issues because there's a lot of people on this side who don't know what they're doing and they are making a lot of big mistakes and those mistakes cost hundreds of thousands of dollars like you get into a centrifugal. Chiller An overhaul starts at about 100 Grand Yeah, I I that so you know I I Get the give and take it just I I Wish we could find a better balance because so far what I've seen is there's not a there's not a lot of support that that I've been able to get from my side.

Granted, that could be just a local issue. Maybe that's not a national issue because I talked to some of the actual Factory Whether it be Engineers or technicians. at times they reach out and they're usually extremely helpful. but they're also not the ones making those decisions either.

Yeah, yeah. so I'm going to put it out there. If you're a package unit manufacturer and you're making me pay a lot of money for a tool to be able to set up your package unit with a Uh smartphone you know who I'm talking about. make it easier Okay Jump on board with the the easier companies I don't want to have to pay a ton of money to buy a tool for a one-off startup.

So all right, well, we're going to wrap this up. There's going to be a lot more streams throughout the day. Holden's got a million different places if you guys don't know. Holden's channel.

it's called HVAC time I put a link in the video comments subscribe to his channel. Check it out! Holden's a great dude thank you very much Holden I Appreciate you and uh, we will catch everybody here shortly when we come back on. I'm sure we'll have another guest so.