This episode of the HVAC school podcast is made possible by our sponsors, Mavic and navigable comm, refrigeration, technologies at refrig, tech, comm carrier and carrier comm field. Peace makers of the mr 45 recovering machine and the vp 85 vacuum pump and arrow laces find out more by going to air oasis.com /go he's creepy in a good way. Brian or hey. This is the HVAC school podcast, I'm Brian.

This is the podcast that helps remind you of some things that you might have forgotten along the way as well as helps remind you of some things you forgot to know in the first place, and today we're doing a new thing, something we've never done before. It's very popular with all the social media types to do a ask me anything or an AMA, and so I did that in the Facebook group, the HVAC school Facebook group, which you can find online if you go to Facebook and type in HVAC school you'll, find The group and the page they're very different. The group, mostly posts, are from other people on the page. Most of them are still for me.

The page tends to be pretty serious, not too serious, but still pretty serious. With the page. There's a lot of different folks asking different types of questions, but I asked the folks there to ask me anything they wanted to ask, and so I got asked a lot of different questions, we're currently at 200, and so that's a bit too many to answer in One podcast, I'm gon na kind of group them together, we'll do a couple of these. This first episode is gon na be more about questions that aren't asked about specific technical questions, but things that are asked to me generally about me about HVAC school and about the trade, and so that's what we're gon na do.

So here we go alright. So doing these in order the first question: that's kind of in this vein and the non-technical vein is from Dakota Brown and he asks do you think any will, or will you encourage any of your kids to get into the HVAC trade? Why or why not? And I actually answered him there, and the answer is yes, absolutely, my oldest son is going to be starting doing some apprenticeship and some kind of pursuing a career in HVAC coming up very soon so yeah. I think it's great if my kids want to get into the trade, because I think it's a great trade. I think it's a great business.

I don't there's anything wrong with it. In fact, I get kind of annoyed when people say why don't kids want to come work on this trade, then you ask him if they would let their kids or if they would want their kids to work on the trade and they say hell. No, I wouldn't want that. I want better for my kids.

Well, I mean why this trade is done well by a lot of us and there's a lot of opportunity in it too. So for some of us we got into it, maybe because it was what was there it's what was present, and so you start at the bottom and you kind of work, your way up to the technician level and that's where you stay and for a lot of Us that's where we want to stay, but that's not to say that that's the only place you can go. In fact you can pursue your education while working in the HVAC trade, if you want so. My answer to that is, I think, it's a great opportunity for young people.

If my children want to follow me into the HVAC trade that would be thrilled, it's certainly not gon na pressure them into it, but I'm definitely not gon na discourage them from it. In fact, I would probably encourage them to at least consider it so there's my answer to that. I think a part of the problem that we have with young people is that those of us who have already done it are negative about the trade. For some reason - and I don't fully understand that - I know it's not always easy, but I don't want easy for my kids.

I want good heezy and good or not antonyms, so you can have something that's very difficult and still be very good, and to me that's what the HVAC trade is. Is it's not easy, it can be difficult, but it's still very rewarding Daniel Anderson asks. What type of equipment would you self-identify? As that's a tough question, I don't want to say any brands that I don't deal, but I kind of think of myself as a dehumidifier, and the reason being is that I feel like I'm useful in certain circumstances, but I also tend to blow out a lot Of hot air next question comes from Daniel Fenner. He says: if you could restart life, would you choose a different career and, if so, what career? And if not, then why not? And these sort of questions are always tricky because of course, if you could restart, would there be some things that it might be fun to try? Because you don't know what would end up happening.

I think there's a side of me that always enjoyed, and I'm gon na reveal something about my selfie or something nerdy, but I've always enjoyed law and not law like criminal law, but law like constitutional law, understanding legal systems, sort of on a macro side of things. I think it would have enjoyed that. I think I would have enjoyed being a physicist. I really liked physics, but again both of those things they're, not practical.

You don't do a lot with what you learn, and so I think, if I had to do it all again and my life depended on it. I would just choose to do the same thing and maybe more focused. So I think I might have focused on commercial-industrial a little bit more, maybe tried to get into the commercial side, market or market refrigeration or chiller work sooner. That may be an the only thing I would change, but the HVAC industry is great and it's great fun, because, if you're awarded, at least by learning new things - and I always have - and I've always enjoyed learning new things and being able to do different things and Get bored really easy, that's the reason why I would stick with it.

I think it's been very good to me. Bren Ridley asked is the tool pros podcast better than HVAC school and that's a trick question. I can definitely say that Brent, Ridley and Billy Noth, the hosts of the tool pros podcast, are definitely cooler guys than I am, but seeing as how I produce both podcasts, I would be kind of shooting myself in the foot to say either. One is better than the other.

Next question comes from Daniel Wiggins. He asks when do you sleep, and I actually get this question a lot and I think, implied in that question about when do I sleep is that I seem to be doing a lot of different things, and that is true. I do a lot of different things, but let me clarify something about me. First, off as it relates to sleep, I love sleeping, so my wife is the type of person who can sleep three hours and wake up and be happy and chipper all day long and maybe get six the next night and then three the one after that and She'd, you never know for me if I don't get a nice tight somewhere between 7 and 10 hours pretty consistently.

I get extremely grouchy miserable I'm the kind of person who plans around my sleep when you look at the alarm clock and it says 11 o'clock and you think, okay, I got to wake up at 6, so that means that I've only got 7 hours. If I fall asleep right now and then you look again at 11:30 and a 6 and a half - and I start to panic - that's me my sleep is very precious to me. So, let's clear that up - but this sort of the implied question is how do you get all this stuff done? I'm gon na talk a little bit more about this, but I'm just the type of person who does a lot of stuff. If you have an idea, something seems like a good thing to do.

Then I just do it. I don't worry about perfection, and it doesn't mean that I don't try to do things well because I do. But what I find is is that in many cases when you first start doing something, you don't have enough experience to do it well, so you just do it to the best of your ability. That's certainly how it wasn't HVAC for me.

I can look back at some of the really stupid things I did, and I just did it the best. I knew how, at the time and now I cringe and that's true, a lot of different things. I've done podcasting speaking writing, anytime. I look back at things that I've done a couple years ago.

I am absolutely appalled and I'm not even happy with what I do now most of the time, but when it comes to the question of when do you sleep or how do you get it all done? I just do a lot of stuff, so pops in my head and I do it. Those who know me well know that that's how I function so, hopefully that answers that question next question is from Jeff Kuiper. He asks what tools do you provide for your employees? I'm two things: we provide a lot of the expensive stuff: ladders, recovery, machines, vacuum pumps, here's the problem with this question. If it were up to me - and I wasn't a broken human being, then we would provide vacuum, pumps, recovery machines and probably leak detectors, because that's an important tool and I'm trying to think maybe torches that would robably be the list and that's how it started out.

When I first started kalos, but then from there it just spun out of control where, because I'm a tool addict, I end up buying tools for people and then other people expect me to buy the same tools from them. So I've been in this death spiral of buying tools for employees in the last couple of years. I said enough is enough: staff who work out in the field. I provide them with $ 100 a month tool, stipend in addition to the recovery machine vacuum pump.

Ladders. Typically, obviously, the stock stuff, like your recovery, tanks and stuff, like that, we provide replacements and nitrogen and oxygen that sort of thing obviously, and we provide so the hundred I'm Atul, stipend plus the big stuff, is pretty much the standard, but I still end up giving My technicians, lots of free tools just because I love seeing guys who enjoy free tools, and so some of them have caught on to that and instead of going out and using their tool fund, they'll just put on the puppy-dog face and say: hey Brian: do you Have a leak detector laying around or did you have a soda gauges? I can borrow and of course I never get them back. So that's the long answer to that, but bill frisbee asks a very inappropriate question for which I will not answer but bill. You know the answer.

The next question is from Ed Miller. He says after all, is said and done how much of an HVAC company's revenue goes into the owners pocket. Every tank at every company I've ever been at is convinced. The owner, swims and gold coins like Scrooge McDuck, okay, so quick thing here, there's a couple things that I would ask you to know about your owner rather than how much money goes into his pocket, because there are some years that yeah you have really good year.

The owner me, for example, and kalos the most I've probably ever put in my pocket of entire year's earnings would be a couple percentage points, maybe two percent or something like that if the overall revenue, but you can't think of it in terms of revenue, you have To think of it in terms of profit, because if you have a very profitable company that does very well from a profitability standpoint, well then the owner can afford to put more in his pocket, and I think something you have to recognize is that owners take a Huge risk in starting a business, many of them put their entire lives on hold in order to get something started. That was definitely true of me, but I know it's true of a lot of owners, not just myself and I lived in a trailer 1500 square foot. Double-Wide trailer for seven years with as many kids as I have just saving up to build my own house and not really taking much out of the business. A lot of owners are that way.

They go a long time, not taking much other business trying to make a go of it and then a technician comes along and says: well the owners getting rich and I'm working my tail off right. There is maybe some truth to that in some places, but you also have to look at the initial sacrifice and owner had to make in order to get to that point. So consider that, but more than that, here's what I would say look at the way the owner lives. Do they live an exorbitant lifestyle? Are they the type of person who takes on a lot of debt to support their lifestyle, or are they somebody whose lifestyle is supported by good personal decision making? I would say if you get the owner who's spending his last dime on a boat and then trying to pressure you, because he's got I'm too much of a mortgage on his vacation home and the Adirondacks or whatever.

Now that to me is a character problem, because you're putting stress on your company and on your employees because of your personal decision making, if you have an owner who's, been very successful, worked very hard made. A lot of sacrifices built a profitable business, of which you are a part, and they are reaping the rewards of that. Why on earth would you want to be cranky with them about that? I mean from my standpoint. I would want to work at a company like that, because it means that there's more upside now, if you feel like you're being taken advantage of again, I would consider your options there and say: if you're working for somebody who's, dishonest or taking advantage of you well, Then, by all means to get a different job.

If you can't find a different job or a better job, then maybe it's not as bad as you think. It is not to be rude by any means, but I can assure you that most of your owners are not swimming in gold like Scrooge McDuck. Many of them have the very same financial considerations that you have, and many of them may not be making much more money than you do. I know for many years I certainly didn't make any more than my best technician so also.

My brother asks a very inappropriate question, of which I will not answer, of which he also knows the answer to what are some important traits to gain as an experienced tank coming into a new part or more specialized part of the trade. My opinion of what are the most important skills to learn something new and cuz. That's the question. Roberts Everson's asking is your going into a different part of the trade.

How do you learn something new? My suggestion would be, first of all, be humble. Listen more than you talk if you come in and start trying to talk about your experience. Well, and you see this you've met guys who do this, they come into your company, and all they do is talk about what they knew where they were. If it was a different industry, for example, when I was in refrigeration, I did this and when I was there, I did that and nobody cares.

If you're coming into a new segment of the business, keep your mouth shut and listen, just listen and be humble. That's can't overstate that the next thing is is that you got to read so you're gon na need to read manufacturer specific information. That's the first thing I would do if you're gon na work on a chiller, for example, then try to get the manuals off the thing read the data tags read any of the warnings and learn what the symbols mean and all that sort of thing that's gon Na be really helpful, pull some schematics and just go through them line by line until you know every electrical item, that's in each line on that schematic. Those are the types of things that a good technician does when they're trying to learn something new edie Miller asked wTF is a kalos.

So Kahless is the name of the company that my dad and I started together back in 2005 and we were sitting at the kitchen table. My dad's, a general contractor electrical contractor, I'm an AC contractor and we created this joint services company and we didn't like any of the names we were coming up with. We wanted something kind of ambiguous sort of like Kleenex or Nike, where you kind of make your own meaning, and my dad was learning some biblical Greek. We opened up a Greek dictionary.

We found this word kalos, which sort of means wholeness integrity goodness, and we liked the way it sounded, and so that's what we named the company. Just then simple, ed also asked ed, has a lot of questions there. What is the best way of explaining overhead to customers, especially the ones who like to Google prices of parts, people who are cheaper, cheap you're, not gon na explain things to people who are cheap, but there are some people who aren't cheap. They just don't want to feel like they're being taken and so the way that I would generally suggest talking about it when a customer does Google and they say that part only costs $ 5.

You are not paying for just that part, that's primarily not what you're paying. I don't talk to customers about overhead customers. Don't care about overhead. They think that you're going to the laughing all the way to the bank.

What I would say is you'd be shocked at all of the costs to run a good, solid business, with integrity to back up your warranties and then also when I install this part, I'm not going to just install the part, I'm going to check the entire system. As well and make sure that all the interdependencies are working so really the parts cost and airconditioning are just a very minor part of the overall expense of doing business. The bigger part is all of the expertise it takes to do what we do and frankly we have to pay technicians whether they're driving, whether they're waiting, whether they're at the counter picking up apart and that all adds in to the costs of giving you a good Result at the end, and so again a lot of customers aren't going to be happy with that because they don't get it. But most people understand most people work in industries where they don't have any parts.

And so, if you know what profession they're in and they're kind of a friendly enough person that they understand that, if they're a lawyer say well, how much does the paper cost that you write your briefs on for being a lawyer? It's not the material! It's the expertise and it's the same with us once we get comfortable with the reality that it's the expertise, the part has very little to do with it. It gets a lot easier, alright, quick break here. I want to mention a couple sponsors, but one of them is a new sponsor and that is field piece. I've been using field piece tool since I started in the trade.

I remember my first meter that I used that had a temperature K type thermocouple on the meter. When I was wanting to measure superheat coming out of school, I didn't really understand it and one of the senior texts I work with had a field peace meter. He had one of the early ones with the interchangeable heads and he would clamp his temperature clamp into that. He would plug as the temperature clamp into it with a k-type thermocouple.

I thought that was pretty cool, so I got a feel peace meter and ever since then, I've always had at least one or two field piece tools on my truck and a couple field, piece tools that I really really enjoy and we have a lot of him Around kalos I've done some videos about them. Are the vpat 5 vacuum pump and the mr 45 recovery machine? They both have digital DC compressors in them, which make them very quiet. They're not susceptible to voltage drop like some are because they don't have that in rush. Amperage they're just very efficient, very light, very quiet.

They do the job really well, the vacuum pump the vpat 5. You can actually change the oil on the fly, which is really nice. You start contaminating or fouling your oil as you're running you can pop it out. Put some new oil and dump it out really easily as a really big fill valve on it.

So it makes it very easy to fill there's almost nothing else. I would want in a vacuum pump than what we have in the vpat 5 and then the mr 45 also great recovery machine. It's got the digital display right on it, so I definitely suggest you check those out. You can find out more by going to true tech tools, com and then also I want to mention refrigeration technologies.

They are a partner who makes this podcast possible. I can't stress that enough. Those guys have treated me so well. The pastor ellos Mike and John pastor, ello they're great guys.

They make really good products, it's the type of company that you want to support and they make a lot of products that you may have not tried. I would say if you see them on the shelf, give them a shot, see if you like them. Their pan and drain spray is a great replacement for pan tabs, their Viper cleaners that are not so chemically caustic they're, not so nasty. They don't have it strong.

Odors and things - and I think you're gon na find your customers are gon na appreciate that 9 log, big blue, just the whole line of their products, are really great, and I just can't stress enough that they're a big reason why we're able to produce as much Content as we are here at HVAC school because of their kind support, so show them some love and pick up some refrigeration technologies products. Next time you are at the supply house, all right, Michael J house, and by the way Michael, is a contributor to the podcast or a contributor to the website. I should say I love to have on the podcast sometime soon, but he's written some articles he's super smart guy, Michael, is one of those guys who's, definitely smarter than me. I appreciate him contributing so I got to say that quickly, but Michael asks.

How optimistic are you for the future of the trade? What are some ways you can get more people interested in joining the trade? I'm very optimistic, I think, there's no reason not to be optimistic when we think about the past in the trade one of the big things about our trade was is to pay good. Is the opportunity good? Well, I can tell you that there's never been a point in time with a pay and opportunity have been as good as they are right now for people who actually care - and the downside is, is because the reason for that is that the supply is so low. But I think we have a real opportunity to attract some young people into the trade who previously wouldn't have considered it and here's what I think the approach is young people most. If you ask them, do you want to work at a desk? Is that what you want to do, most of them would say no well remember when we were kids wouldn't be fireman, wanted to be astronaut, so we wanted to join the military.

We want to be police officers. Those are the types of things you want to do when you're a kid. Why? Because you do something right, and so, when you think a lot about a lot of jobs today, kids are like well, I want to get into science or engineering, or I want to be a lawyer. I want to be a doctor.

I want to be whatever. Why do you want to be those things? One is because it's what your parents tell you you should be, because you can make a lot of money right, that's one side of it, but the other is, is that you think you're gon na do things that are cool. When you ask kids today, young people under the age of about 35, what they look for in a job more than anything else, they will say impact. I did a podcast on this.

A while back for a different customer of mine that came out is that impact is the number one word that people talk about and impact happens. When you actually do real things and in air-conditioning, you can have a real impact. You have an impact in the lives of your customers. You have an impact in energy consumption in the Western world.

Moving forward, I mean, frankly, you really do based on some of the best practices that we follow in HVAC our. So I think it's very much an opportunity, but we have to start talking about it differently. Is the pay an opportunity great in HVAC are sure? Is it going to be the same as a doctor? A lawyer - probably not, but I'm gon na bet you that if most kids knew what we actually do in our trade and it was explained to them by people who are enthusiastic about our trade, they would choose doing what we do over a doctor and a lawyer. I bet most kids probably would because what we do is actually very interesting, and I think that starts with us.

We have to be willing to be advocates and evangelists for our trade to the next generation. That starts with their own kids. Like I mentioned at the top of the podcast, if you don't want your own kid to do it, what else can I say you don't believe in it enough that you would be good with your kids doing it. My suggestion would be.

Maybe maybe the mindset problem starts with you. What is it about this trade that you don't like? Is it that it's unsafe? Is it that it's hard on your body? No, it doesn't have to be any of those things moving forward for somebody who really knows what they're doing really knows their stuff. You can pretty much pick the path that you're going to take. So again, that's my perspective on that.

So I'm very optimistic. Mike locust asked, do you miss me mike is in Colombia picking up his new adopted daughter and yes Mike. I do miss you, but not because I like you, because I need you to get back here and do work, and I just kidding no Mike is a great guy. So any of you have a chance to interact with Mike locust on the Facebook group.

He's doing a lot of good stuff he's adopted several kids, and this has been a long journey for him to adopt his new daughter and bring her home from Columbia and doing the Lord's work down there. So thank you for being who you are Mike. John Oaks asked: what do you think the biggest changes will be to our industry in the next 20 years? 20 years is a long time, but one thing that I definitely think is going to change is there's gon na continue to be this move of separation between the commercial side of our industry or really the workmanship side of our industry from the residential kind of sales Model side of our industry, so you see these big players like Google and Amazon who are trying to get into home services on residential. You already see that the companies who are most successful, the ones who make the most money are much more focused on sales than they are on the technical side.

That's just a reality. Is that bad I mean, in my opinion, it's bad because I'm a technical guy. I see the value in technical and I think that when you go too far into sales - and that becomes your focus, you can lose your soul and I think a lot of companies have done that, but there's nothing wrong with sales. It's not like it's a sin or something to be good at sales, it's its own talent, so I think the residential side is going to continue to slip more and more into sales.

It's going to be more about changing parts and changing boxes and the industrial and commercial side as it gets more complicated. It's going to require more true technicians and I think, there's going to be a continued split in that to where there may be such a big difference that they're kind of almost two different industries that you already see that residential technician and a large commercial technician. They really don't even speak the same language anymore in a lot of cases, so I think that's going to continue. I think there's going to be more awareness in the trades.

I think we're moving to that direction. I think there's going to be some smart kids who are actually excited to get into the trades moving forward, and I think that'll be a really good thing. I think good quality trades people are gon na make great living moving forward and it's going to come up to par with other professionals. So all in all I'm very positive about it.

I don't love that trend in sales on the residential side, but I think that's going to continue Ulysses Palacios. We call him the compressor, Decapitator and his previous life before he went to the dark side of the ammonia world because he always cuts apart compressors, and we appreciate Ulysses here at HVAC school. He asked what do you hate slash dislike most about this trade? That is a tough question. I'm gon na put it into two different categories and I'm probably gon na offend some of you and I'm okay with that.

The first thing that I hate and dislike most about this trade is the unprofessionalism and when I say unprofessionalism, that's not being goofy, it's not having a good time. I'm fine with that, and I think that happens in every type of business. You know I end every podcast with a dad joke. I don't think you have to be serious about everything to me.

There's a separation between being serious and being professional professional means that, at the end of the day, you care about some really clear things, and that is customer service. You care about quality. You keep your word that sort of thing and there's this whole range of different unprofessional activities that technicians and contracting companies participate in, and the first is not keeping your word saying. One thing: over-promising and under-delivering that to me is extremely unprofessional.

I think the way the technicians can port themselves out in the field can be very unprofessional with their appearance and just the way that they interact with people just not doing common sense, professionalism but the worst of the worst. To me - and this is the part run when I offend some of you - and I know that the worst of the worst to me is sexism, racism, unnecessary aggression. I see those things all the time and the groups, I've always had it. I've always interacted with it with the guys who I worked with, and I know that there's this mindset of boys will be boys and all that kind of stuff.

I just don't accept it. I don't accept Oakland women commenting about their bodies and it ticks me off. It ticks me off that it's accepted in this trade. I wrote an article about this early on when I first started HVAC school and I ended up deleting it because I got so much negative feedback and that early on I didn't want it to be a distraction, but I'm gon na leave this kind of diatribe.

Let me just write here and I'm not gon na, let it bleed anywhere else, but I think we need to get real about the fact that yeah we're humans - we're not gon na be perfect, but we don't need to be proud of our dark sides. An HVAC and a lot of the trades of blue-collar trades there's just a lot of like cavemen grouse nests that I don't appreciate. It's not a matter of me being a prude or me not having maybe even some of those same thoughts, sometimes, but it's being a professional and not parading that out there not being proud of it. I think that's something we got to adjust and it's the thing that I really do hate most about this trade, probably and then the other side of it is I dislike it when people don't see the value in the trade where they see it as just another Job and they degrade it below other professions like being a real estate agent or a lawyer or whatever else out there in a professional services world.

I think it's a great trade and I think we need to be proud of it and be proud of the work we do and I think we need to be clear about that out in the marketplace not to degrade our value, not to be ashamed of charging Prices that help us have good lives. It's one thing to take advantage of Grandma. That's not what I'm saying I'm. Certainly, if you know me, you know, I don't advocate for the sales model in residential businesses as being sort of the driver, but I do think we need to be confident in what we do competent in what we do and be unashamed about.

The fact that we make a good living doing it - those are my top two things. Philsie doe says I should list why bas men are better than HVAC boys, Phil Phil, Phil, Phil, Phil, Phil, Phil, Phil, hey Phil Zito has a podcast. It's called BAM. We're building automation, monthly, so maybe you should go over and let Phil know what you think about that RBI.

Yes, men, better than HVAC boys Phil's been on the podcasts great guy and he is just trying to trigger me. I will not be triggered Josh Thompson asked as a new tech to the industry and my company. What would help the most in making me the best tech in the business and I've written about this in the past? There's several articles about that. I've even did a podcast about it.

I would say: that's the best thing you can do to help you be a better tech in the business is being willing to take time to read, and I know that it's like most people when I say that they're like okay yeah, but give me another tip Because I'm not gon na do that, you just got to read. If you don't read you don't read manuals, you don't read books, you don't do research instead of just search, go out to actually understand, rather than just to find a single answer. You're gon na struggle. I don't know how else to say: cuz, you can always be relying on somebody else to do your research for you, so you got to read.

I want to say that doesn't mean that the job is reading. It just means that getting better at the job is probably going to require reading and to some degree now. Obviously, there's tricks of the trade tactile things that you wanted to do with your hands and that those are excellent, very important and those come with experience and with focused attention. But if you don't read, then you're always going to be tied to the people who are around you and their talents.

So if you're not reading books, you're not gaining new information, then you're gon na be stuck with the senior guy who you're working with who may have a lot of incorrect information bill Albrecht asks. How do you manage your time being a business owner, husband, father of 10, kids, podcaster and a major contributor of the HVAC community? Well thanks Bill for saying all those nice things most of them are true. I don't know that I'm a major contributor of the HVAC community, but I certainly don't shy away from that. If that is the truth, I appreciate that.

Okay. So how do I manage my time time? Management requires discipline. It requires discipline in doing the things that you set out to do more than anything else. There are very organized people who they list out everything, and then they set a schedule for themselves and they keep the schedule.

I respect people like that. I know people like that, I'm not one of those people. I am a checklist person, so I write a lot of checklists a lot of things that I know I need to get done, but then I tend to not even look back at it again. I really write it so that way I can kind of prioritize it in my head, categorize it and then I just go and do it a lot of it is prim more than anything else is that I just commit to do a lot of things and when You commit to do a lot of things.

Then you do the things that you commit to do if you're the type of person who does the things you say, you're gon na do the kind of person who keeps their word. So I've often said this, and I think people who have worked with me would attest of this bill. Spoon has often been, I want to say, frustrated, but he's been surprised by the way that I function where I take on a lot of different things and the things that I believe in I have some sort of litmus tests that I follow. Is it something that is core to what I do so it has to be core to helping the HVAC industry.

It has to be core to helping kalos, which is my day-to-day contracting business. It has to be good for my family or people that I care about those are sort of my standards. I very rarely make decisions based on money. That makes it a lot easier, because that way, I don't have to kind of chase that next buck.

I do like to make money like anybody else, to support my family, and it allows me to do cool things like going to Haiti and teaching some kids, which I like. It allows us to go on vacation, which is fun, but truthfully once you realize that what it is that you want is what's best for the people around you and you keep kind of resetting yourself to true north. Then you'll do a lot of things that are helpful to people and so that's kind of how I live my life. Do I spend as much time with my ten kids, as maybe some people have two kids spend with each child? Probably not, but we do a lot of things together as a family.

There's a lot Heather's family, frankly we're a homeschool family. So there's a lot of things that we just do it's regular life, stuff yard, work and going to church and spending time of the evenings together, and we every dinner together and those sorts of things. And so you make time for certain spaces in your life. But other than that I am very busy.

The truth be told, though I'm not nearly so busy, as my wife is, if it wasn't for my wife, being such a hard-working lady and basically taking motherhood as a full-time job. There's no way, you would even know my name, I wouldn't be able to do any of this, so it's a testament to her more than anything else, and those of you who follow her on social media or online know that that's the best answer I can give To that question, even though it's kind of a non-answer Jeff Blanton asks why do I spell my name with a Y instead of like an eye like a normal Brian, it's good question Jeff. I don't have the answer to that. It's especially more confusing, given that my father's middle name, which is spelled Bri a an and I'm supposedly named after him after his middle name and even my grandmother, always spells my name with an i' and she's.

The one who named my father, Robert Bryan, or which is his name - it's like I'm confused by it, but you know what why not Chris Plunkett asked who cuts my hair yeah Chris real funny. I get it there's not much hair to cut anymore, but it is my wife who cuts it, maybe she's the one who put something weird in my head that caused this trouble that I have nowadays Zachary drew Simpson. Another guy who I really enjoy hearing from in the group he wrote is the era of the mechanical diagnostician long gone out of the residential trade. If so, how will the residential trade fair, when there are a glut of service technicians that only have experience selling and no experience diagnosing or repairing? I think we're already seeing that I mean larger companies tend to have a lot of that.

They might have one really good technician, maybe two a bunch of sales tax, some installers and then that's it, and it is what it is. It's gon na be what its gon na be. There will be small companies that are still very technically excellent. Unfortunately, those companies are gon na have a hard time making it, because it's the sales model that helps self-perpetuate and residential.

I don't have the answer to that. I don't want to be negative. I've seen it happen, I don't like it, I'm not comfortable with it. I think there's a lot of sales trainers out there who are wolves in sheep's clothing frankly, and they believe that they're doing the right thing, but in the end, they're just teaching technicians that you really don't need to be technically excellent.

That's the unintended consequence of that. In my opinion - and it's too bad, but I think those of us who care about the trade we can do something about that to the best of our abilities inside the organizations that we work in next question is from Jeff, Bieber Dorothy says who or what inspired You to get into HVAC it's a really boring story. Frankly, what inspired me to get into hvac more than anything else, was the fact that i already knew the girl I wanted to marry at a very young age when I was 16, I knew that I wanted to marry my wife and she had expressed to me That she kind of liked me - and that was a huge opportunity because, like everybody liked my wife when young and I was a nerdy little skinny kid, but I liked fixing things at that point in time. I was electrical apprentice and I'd done a couple other things and I just thought I need to get my own trade.

My own thing, my father, was by that time already a general contractor and he had been an electrical contractor before and we opened up the pamphlet to the local trade school and he said why don't you consider air conditioning refrigeration, because that seems like an interesting job. He knew I liked science and he said I think, there's a good career and I looked over the pamphlet. I said you know that looks great. I went and visited it and there was all kinds of neat machines there, and that was the start of that and like most things, I think if you are a passionate person, you bring your passion with you wherever you go and HVAC kind of got in the Way of that, as well as my desire to hang out with the girl of my dreams.

So maybe that's a sappy story, but it is the truth. So Regan Murphy asks me a question that I was going to throw in here, because it's loaded, based on current observations about HVAC manufacturers, innovation and corporate culture in 10 years, who do you predict, will be the top three manufacturers and sales of residential HVAC equipment in The United States, so corporate culture, innovation, all that jazz. I would love to say that the companies that have the best innovation of corporate culture will be the winners ten years from now, but I think there's going to be a mix there always is. You have companies that sell to the bottom and they'll sell a lot of equipment because there's a huge market for people who sell to the bottom.

You look at big-box stores, there's some very large big-box stores that will remain unnamed, that there's nothing wrong with their business model, but they sell to the bottom. They sell for price right, primarily and so there'll be brands like that there'll be premium brands. Here's something I would love to see, so I'm not gon na answer your question directly Reagan, but I would love to see a more premium brand come out in the HVAC industry. You have the couple of big names, and now it's become mostly about marketing.

I don't really see a real true premium brand, who just stands out head and shoulders above everybody else, and I would love to see that, whether it's a company that we already know who decides to change their focus or maybe a new company comes out that nobody Knows about yet so we'll wait and see: Nate Adams also good friend of the podcast great guy, as how do you onboard green tax and what parts are applicable to the industry at large? How do you onboard Green Tech's? Well, I mean when you are onboarding anybody. It requires a lot of communication and a lot of accountability. The idea that some companies take some kids straight out of trade school or regardless of whether it's a one-year or two-year program and throw them essentially directly into a truck to do maintenances is scary as heck. So as far as onboarding Green Tech's, I don't think it has to take as long as some people think it has to, but it does require a process of Education.

We do a combination of in classroom education where I go through and cover all the basics with them, and then they ride with somebody in the field and they get a chance to do it. And then they come back in and they do more education. And then they go back out and then usually we'll give them a mix of both commercial and residential maintenance and that's a good way for them to get their feet wet, maybe a little bit of residential installation. Because you see different aspects of the process there and then when we finally are ready to put them out into a truck, we put them in the lowest possible risk situations and for us, that's primarily property manager, maintenances.

So it's a very simple residential maintenance. But it's areas where there's no customer so they're doing a residential maintenance, but they can have as much time as they need and they're encouraged to take as much time as they need to do it properly. And then we do a lot of follow-up on those calls to make sure that they're done properly that's sort of the green method we take for green Tech's and what can the industry as a whole apply? I think the industry as a whole needs to recognize people are very capable of learning more than you think they are, but they require a lot of reiteration. So the idea that you tell somebody something once and they know it or they're they should be responsible for it.

Cuz you hear that a lot. Well, I told you that you should have known better. That's bull malarkey I mean this industry is so broad. You got to tell somebody something 20 times before it sinks in so just embrace that that you just have to beat the same drum over and over and over and over and over over over no matter what it is you got to beat the same.

Drum teach your technician, how to measure superheat and so cool one time that does not mean they understand it, you're going to teach them how to do it and you're gon na come back and teach them how to do it again and you're gon na teach them. What it means then you're gon na remind them how to do it then you're mind them what it means and they're gon na give them examples and diagnostic situations to be in, and it's very broad, and I think we get very impatient with people if we tell Them one time and we expect them to know it and that's something that I'd know. I have definitely fallen into that trap. So it requires a lot of consistency.

But the truth is: is that there's a couple key things that have to be taught have to be understood in order to be a basic technician and do maintenance, and if they really have a good grasp of those things, then they're able to learn a lot of The other stuff, while they're out there, because then they have a perception to know that something's not right and that's the biggest thing. It's giving them enough understanding that they can know when something's, not right. Even if they don't know exactly what it is because then they can pull on some support and help them solve the problem all right. So thanks for listening to this sort of State of the Union, ask me anything.

Podcast we're gon na have some more of these. That are based on some of the other technical questions that were asked. A lot of people ask me questions the things that I don't know a lot about, and I was being made fun of about that. But I don't really work on boilers.

I don't do a lot on chillers and yeah. I mean I'm not gon na come out and tell you that I know things that I don't know if there's something that I do know about those topics. Well I'll tell you what I do know, but sometimes they get a pull another. So, on the boiler side, my expert is Dan holohan he's the man when it comes to boilers and on chillers I've had Jeff Niemann on quite a bit, so I'll try to pull those guys back in and have them talk about those topics with you on the Podcast, so as always, thanks for listening thanks to our sponsors, nav AK, arrow Asus, carrier field, peace and refrigeration technologies, those are the companies that make the podcast possible.

But while we're on the subject of business, I have a friend who actually is doing really well and what he does is he takes pictures of salmon wearing clothes. It's crazy! It's like shooting fish in apparel. Alright, thanks for listening, we will talk to you next time on HVAC school podcast. Thanks for listening to the hvac school podcast, you can find more great HVAC our education material and subscribe to our short daily tech tips by going to HVAC our school comm.

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