In this video, David Richardson with NCI is going to be talking about how to set up a scope of work for a duct renovation project. Something you need to know how to do because a lot of times duct systems need to be upgraded. So David Goes Step by step how to do that? David is with NCI NCI is one of the best training organizations out there. Please go check those guys out.

They're doing great work! Big thanks to everybody who supported the 2023 Symposium which is where this class comes from. Measure Quick Akka being our title sponsors and everybody else who sponsored and spoke made it a great event. We're doing it again in 2024, early 2024 to find out more, Get your tickets either virtual or in person. Go to Hvacrschool.com go up to the top events, find the event, and then get your tickets because they are going to sell out really, really fast.

Here we go: David Richardson Talking about how to set up an ironclad scope of work for duct renovation project. Now one of the things I want to start this off with: I'm going to do my best not to get emotional as I I talk about this. Some of you may know my background, others may not. So for those of you that have heard this story before, I ask you to bear with me because I feel that it sets the stage for what we're going to talk about here.

This photo was taken in 2012. I actually had brown hair back then I was I may have been about the same way I can't remember but you'll notice there's a fella in the blue shirt beside me there that is Rob Doc Falk Rob is the daddy of residential air balancing. It didn't exist before he he started doing it and brought it from the commercial world into residential. 12 years before this photo.

I Was on my way out of the HVAC industry I Saw this industry as a black hole I saw it as a road to nowhere I was tired and sick of getting undersold on jobs. when we knew that our company did better work, it was about this time I mean I had one Foot Out Guys that I met Rob I met him at the Energy Management conference in Louisville Kentucky back in January of 2000. and Rob introduced me to airflow testing Diagnostics and what we're going to talk about today which is the result of that testing duct system renovation. as I said, I was on my way out.

Guys: What? Duck's renovation? What airflow testing did? It made work fun again. Instead of going out and having to deal with all the hassles and trying to use, you know, some type of selling technique that somebody had taught us. we went from high pressure sales to static pressure sales. We started taking the measurements that we were finding, presented them to the customer in an easy way that they could understand, and then let them make the decision.

and Guys These are some of the steps that we're going to get into as we start to talk about. Renovations I Think it's important that you understand this guys doctor Innovation is what kept me in the business I would not be in this industry right now if it were not for this specialized product that every single one of you can create. However, there are steps to it. so I want to make sure that we focus on this and as you guys understand, it is what kept me in the industry.

Rob changed my life that day and I'm hoping that what I present to you guys today may do the same. Some of you may feel the same way. you've got all these stuff going on. Our industry isn't changing more now than it ever has.

There's a lot of opportunity in that if you embrace it. So let's get started. As I mentioned Rob made this a game. A puzzle if you will.

There are puzzle pieces and of course this. They all fit all nicely together. Wouldn't it be great if every job worked like that? You'll notice that this was broken into four very broad categories. We've got design.

We've got installation, verification, and communication now. Within these four big puzzle pieces, there's also multiple little puzzle pieces. Let's take design. For instance, if you guys had the name some of the small puzzle pieces in design, what would you insert there grills I'm hearing somebody I'm sorry I'm wearing glasses and if I don't do this I can't see you grills, boxes, collars.

So we're thinking about the duct system Ed is going to talk about an annual d a little bit later on how to make sure that we've got that Foundation the Target that we're aiming for. We also get into the heat loss, heat gain calculations, equipment selection, equipment specifications. these are all part of our design. Installation is what you guys bring.

How many of you ever been sick and tired of getting undersold I said that earlier. but I want to ask you I was sick of it. How many of you are sick and tired of it? Do you want a better way to Market yourselves to prove the craftsmanship that you guys bring to the market? If the answer is yes, then this is what you need because your installation is what makes the equipment work I Don't know if you guys have ever thought about that. You bring the HVAC system to life through your installation.

The HVAC equipment is nothing more than a component in the systems that every single one of you build. You bring it life. Now there's a flip side to that. if you do the install wrong, you also kill it prematurely.

Double-edged sword. That installation that's on you guys. The verification is also on you guys. You can verify that your work does what you said.

It was going to do what you intended, what you promised and verify it and prove it. Now there's a scary part about that some of you may have said in my session with Chris Hughes yesterday and we talked about how data makes things transparent. the principles of our industry that are hidden from view measurement brings them out and we have two choices. We either address them or we run from them.

It's your choice. And then finally we have the communication side. When it comes to doctor. Innovation If I was going to rank one is an order of priority, communication is probably going to come tops because nothing happens until you sell something.

It's a quote by Red Motley Nothing happens until you sell something. And guys, we do a fantastic job of over complicating what we do. and sometimes it's it's valid right? What we do is essentially rocket science, but we have to boil it down to a level that a customer can understand. Most of our industry doesn't do our airflow, so we're going to boil this down to a level that a customer can understand.

Some of you may agree with this approach, some of you may not if you don't agree with it. I would encourage you to try it and see what happens. may even improve it all. I'm doing here is making suggestions that you guys can look at and you can quote me on this one.

Poorly installed HVAC systems. They're puzzles waiting for you guys to solve them. It makes our job fun again because now all this stuff. You guys know what we used to call it.

Neighborhoods that were five years old inventory. That's what five-year-old neighborhoods were if they were older than that. Assured inventory. If we could get in that neighborhood, it was game on and you guys will be the same way.

So if you're sick and tired of the grind and you want to make your work fun again guys, this is the way to do it. Let's preview what we're going to talk about First, we're going to talk about what Doctor Innovation is I'm really interested in neural feedback on this because everybody in this room will probably Define it just a little bit differently. so I want to hear what your take is on it and then we'll get down to the essence of it, what it really is, what we can distill from it. from that.

we're going to talk about the importance of Doctor Innovation why it's important. We're going to start off with that some of the stuff you guys may have seen in the presentation I did with Chris yesterday and then we're going to talk about five rules. You may come up with another ones. We're also going to talk about five questions to consider for any doctor innovation.

and then finally, we're going to break it down to seven steps and you'll notice that some of these steps, they may move. That's the challenge with Doctor Innovation There is no one-size-fits all, no flow charts. You can follow from start to finish because a lot of times it depends and this is where you have to adapt on the Fly you have to improvise based on what your measurements are and then finally we'll do a review and give you guys some next steps. So if you had to Define Doctor Innovation Doctor Innovation is blank.

how would you guys? Define it did I Hear fun? Yeah, you you get a hat. You paid attention. Doctor Innovation is fun. That's what it does.

What else work and dirty profitable. Let me go to working dirty real quick because it is working dirty and that's why most people don't pay attention to it. The young man who's running the show back here. we talked about it earlier.

You guys have all got rafter knees. You've got insulation been stuck up your nose and in your teeth. You know what it's like. It is not easy work.

But to the gentleman who said it on the other side of the room, it is profitable. Camera Guy I Apologize because I am like a frenetic kid I'm all over the place man. Doctor Innovation is work. That's why most people won't do.

It is because it's hard. It's not easy. It's not a silver bullet. It takes effort and you're going to find out if you don't have your why in place.

If you don't understand why you're doing it, you'll give up. I Know there were times when we first started doing this: I almost gave up because I was like I would throw my hands up and then I'd call Rob Falk or I called Dominic Guarino the CEO of NCI who's sitting on the front row. If you guys don't know Dominic you need to get the meeting. Dominic's a visionary and I can tell you guys that when I was getting into this Dominic's phone was available.

What's interesting, it was available more than than it is now that I work for it. So Doctor Innovation you guys you've seen, you've defined some principles that describe the essence of it. That's what's important. Duct renovation is a product that you bring into existence.

It does not exist until you discover it and until you make it available to the customer. It moved Beyond swapping boxes out and gets into the true HVAC system. One another way to understand this is to look at the root word of renovation. The Latin for renovate is Navarre and what that means is to make new.

So we're making the system new when we renovate it now. I'm going to confess to you guys, this is how we used to do most Doctor Innovations we went straight to repair it. Can you guys relate with that? you ever done it? Oh this is bad. Rip it all out and start throwing new ducks in.

Guess what we did? We put in a new screwed up Duck system. Great! It's because we missed some steps and you guys may want to take note of this. The first step in this is testing how many of you said in the presentation I Did last year on Five Airflow Diagnostics Anybody sitting on that? Okay, this ties in with that. Perfectly grateful that Brian invited me back because that those five Airflow tests for many of you.

That's what's going to generate the lead for this profitable work. It is having your technicians testing so we're going to go back on some of those things and tie them back into how this ties in. So we skipped the testing part and many tests but they don't diagnose and we started doing this. We had to do the Diagnostics with this.

There are tools that automate this for you. Now how cool is it that you can hook up wireless test instruments, sync them to an app like measure quick and it tells you what's going on. What an age for our industry Guys These are tools. That's why I Say this is the best time ever to get into this instead of having to do it the old school way we diagnose.

from that diagnosis, we start to prescribe repairs and remember what I said. Doctor Innovation is brought to life by you. You give it existence. So if you don't test, diagnose and prescribe the repairs if you're in a hurry to get in and out, you're not going to take advantage of this.

This is a differentiator. This is what will separate you. Don't jump straight to repairs. You guys may have heard the term.

If you don't measure, you're just guessing. Well, when we jump straight to repairs, we are guessing we need. Live Test data. When we're renovating a duct system right now, we're not starting from scratch.

We're starting with what is there. We are making surgical repairs and I'll give you guys two different approaches for this. There's a couple of barriers I need to make you all aware of though. starting is the biggest obstacle because it's like what do I do, Where do I go? There's so many different options.

You guys have so many different voices speaking to you about what's right, what's wrong. and because of that we start to fear and we get perfectionism. How many of you guys have ever said I'm a perfectionist I have It's not a blessing. It's a curse because what happens is unless you think you can do it perfectly right.

you never do anything. You never draw back and shoot the arrow. You just sit there and stare at the Target you can relate. can't you? I'm seeing some head nods.

Guys progress is not Perfection So when we do this, when you guys do this I want you to think progress not Perfection You are going to miss the target. But the more shots that you take, what's going to happen to those arrows, you're going to zero in. and then you're going to start to hit the bullseye. You're going to hit the bullseye again.

Then you're going to start splitting arrows because you're hitting the same spot repeatedly. That only comes by doing you. can't think this into existence. If you ruminate on Duck systems.

You're like man I Need to do this. Welcome to the world of perfection. You will do nothing with this. You are going to screw up if you do this.

One of the things that we do at NCI is we help you guys learn from our screw-ups It's a whole lot less expensive and guys I got 20 years of them. So needless to say, I have a lot of content so do not let starting be your biggest obstacle. As we say, perfectionism is one of the biggest obstacles to starting. What do you guys think is another one.

Some of you may be doing this, some of you may not. What are some of your first thoughts? That may be an obstacle to starting this? because these are very real and they will keep you from taking the first step. Customers don't want to do it. That's very real and some customers won't That's okay.

if they're happy with their crappy HVAC system. Let them have it. We can't force it on them. That's an excellent point.

some customers will not want it. What else? Tools are expensive, aren't they? They're an investment. Let me share a story with you. When we started doing Doctor Innovations our family company was going bankrupt.

We were in the red. We did not have the money to do this. My dad believed in me enough and what we were doing. It was reading articles by Rob Falk By Dominic He believed in what we were doing when we were gifted five thousand dollars instead of taking it and paying bills which is what he should have done and investing in the test instruments Within three Doctor Innovation jobs, those test instruments had paid for themselves and they started to continue the profits.

They are an investment. Excellent point. What else we got Tim Workers don't want to do the work. so we've got a labor shortage right now.

How do you convince guys to do this type of a work? We will talk about a level of entry-level worker called a Doctor Innovator. They are your pre-installers It gives them a chance to get familiar with the system before they're doing it and they don't have enough knowledge yet to go. Man, this sucks. So get them while they're young.

So we've got fear, expense, hard work. We've got a work ethic problem. What else? What else if I miss you yell at me time. It takes time to do this and you need to price accordingly.

You've got to price it. What's that? It is? It's Hot. Yeah, you will sweat. Foreign? Yes.

I'm already sweating I'm like a so you've got installation conditions I Mean these are all complications. One of the things that's beautiful with Doctor Innovations is you can schedule it during shoulder seasons. I Don't know about your all's business models. Here's what ours used to do: Summer boom and start to go down a little bit.

Fall You know we start to do our maintenance contracts and then boom. it just plummeted. How many guys are slow right now? A lot of you're slow right now. Here's what happened.

We started doing Doctor Innovations We would schedule them out because my guys, they didn't want to be in the sweaty attic or hot sweaty at, you know, suffering from that. So we scheduled it when it was more convenient and we even offered them a price discount which was the real price. but if they wanted it done right then had to have it. Sure.

but it's this amount. We've deliberately priced it to scare them off when the weather was bad because we had so many other things that we needed to do. There's ways to handle every obstacle. You can either go around it over it.

Don't let an obstacle be a stumbling block, let it be a stepping stone. Well, when it comes to Doctor Innovation there's a whole lot of factors that we need to consider and this is one of the things that starts to kick in to providing obstacles. Because we've got to consider the building, we've got to consider the equipment. We've got to consider the Ducks All this stuff.

We deal with all these complex pieces that have to work together. We start overthinking, we freak out, and then we just I'm not going to shoot it I'm just going to hold it so we don't do anything. We revert back to what we know, which is swapping boxes a lot of times. Unfortunately, continuing in the rat race of low, low pricing, we have to consider all these factors.

But there is a time and a place to consider them that's really important to remember. It's not always on the front end. sometimes it is after you've sold the job and you're going to see one of my rules I Believe it's number four if I Remember that when it comes to these factors, there is one that is the most important. The factor: Once you take all these materials, you sandwich them, you bundle them together.

You've got a building. When I went to hers training years ago with Allison Bales he changed the term that I used to use a lot. I used to say building envelope Allison taught me a term enclosure because that's what we're doing. We're taking all this stuff.

we're enclosing it and in that enclosure. There's a couple of people here. the customer, your customer. They are the main factor.

and you have to get to them before doctor Innovation ever comes through. So there's actually some psychology that goes into this. We're going to talk a little bit about that. How many of you guys consider yourself salespeople? Man, Not only a couple of hands went up.

every hand that I go up. How many of you guys are married? your salesperson? You convinced a young lady or a young man to take, well, young young lady to take your last name. If that's not sales, nothing is, and to spend the rest, well, sometimes spend the rest of their life with you. So guys, it's all about persuasion.

We have to help the customer understand what's in their best needs. Our job is to inform them. We inform them with data and then they make a decision. Yes or no.

It's our job to provide the information. It's their job to make a decision. We got to make sure we don't get in the way. We have to make sure that we don't over complicate things and it's easier for them to understand how all these factors work together and there are ways that we can do that.

Now there are two approaches to this. before. I went to NCI training years ago. I Used to think well I got to rip it all out and start over.

Oh no no. there are multiple approaches that you can take. The first is what we call an air upgrade. Air upgrades are really simple.

It's like an entry-level duct renovation and we're going to talk about what it focuses on. some of the features that apply into this. The other approach to Doctor Innovation is what is called duct system Optimization and you're trying to accomplish two very different goals when you do this. So this is why you need the customer's feedback.

You need their interaction. You need to know what they want, what their goals are, and then help them achieve it. Air Upgrade: You'll notice the little illustrations we've got on the slide up there. There's a small blower that's what that's supposed to be with an arrow coming out 100 percent.

When we look at error upgrades, the goal is at the equipment. When we look at optimization, the goal is at the register where the BTUs are delivered. That's what we're focusing on. An air upgrade.

You guys can snap a shot of this just to keep it in context. If you want air upgrades, the two main focuses are on static pressure and fan airflow improvements. We are trying to help the equipment breathe now. Sometimes you may fix delivered.

BTU Issues Delivered airflow problems. But mainly it is a pre-packaged set of repairs. You pick and choose which repairs apply based on your measurements. Your measurements determine the scope of work.

Isn't that interesting? Every Doctor Innovation is customized, But what we have found with Air Upgrades is there is a series of repaired duct repairs that repeat themselves regardless of whether the ducts are in an added crawl space, basement and buried. And I was surprised. One of the obstacles that didn't get mentioned was we can't get to the Ducks. Is that an obstacle? Yeah, Does that mean we shouldn't say anything.

Let the customer decide. We have had customers tear their basement ceilings out because they were so uncomfortable. They're like whatever others know. Do not spend your customers money.

Let them spend it. So we make the work available and we're focusing on the equipment. Now here's some of the common features of an air upgrade. Here's what's crazy.

Many of you are already doing this. You're just packaging it anytime you talk about Doctor Innovation Don't talk about what it is because what it is is boring. What it is is work. It's sweat.

It's hard. The things that you guys mentioned, we focus on two areas: the equipment. and once again, our measurements will point us in the right direction. You guys will notice that a lot of these we do.

However, how many of them are being Guided by measurements? We have to make sure that the measurements guide us towards that filter repair, towards the duct fittings. So many times we'll look at it and we'll go. Boy, that's messed up and then we just assume it instead of measuring and verifying it. So this is where we have data to back up what we visually verify and you'll notice.

It always starts with a visual inspection. The measurements only back up what. You know? how many guys are doing some of this stuff already? Awesome. You're there.

you're there. Package it this way. Packaging is essential if you want to do this stuff. So we focus on the equipment, We have to make sure that the air gets out of it into the duct system.

If you can't get the equipment right, it doesn't matter how perfect your duct system is and there is some equipment out there. Just so you guys know that if you look at the fan capacity tables, they aren't even designed to have a duct system on them. So make sure that the equipment can deliver the air. and the BTUs first airflow is the vehicle that the BTUs travel in.

So you got to get the air first. and that's why it's the one thing that we're going to focus on. So notice that we're focusing on not only the air side, but even adjusting refrigerant. Those of you that have done duct repairs as you've improved airflow, what have you had to do to the refrigerant? You adjust it.

Usually it's pulling it out so don't leave it because I don't know what you guys when I was a young Tech doing this if the suction pressure was low I was grabbing I'm going back to R22 days I was going out grabbing the magic green jug. You guys ever do that? Start throwing the gas to the system just to try to get the pressures up because they didn't know any better. I was trying to fix a problem but I wasn't Airflow will help us fix that. so you will have to readjust the refrigerant charge and then any repairs that you do at the equipment you make sure that you test out and verify.

Isn't that interesting? Is this a different approach than what you're used to I Promise you guys if if a redneck from Kentucky can do this, you guys can do this. We also look at the duct system. now. there is a level of change that you have to consider here because we're going to talk about chicken and egg here in a little bit.

As we start to look at some of the duck system improvements, your customers are going to guide you on this and you have to make a decision how far you're going to go with this because there is a very fine line that you may cross between being an air upgrade versus duct optimization. So you have to Define that line and sometimes it moves, sometimes it's blurry. You have to Define that, but you'll notice a lot of this you guys are doing anyway. Why not package? It is something unique that only your company does.

There's a lot of power in this guys. It's a customized product nobody else can replicate this unless they're doing the exact same things that you're doing it. They're doing the exact same way that you do it. It's specialized to you, so we focus on the equipment first.

Duck system second. So this is if you've got that duct system that's sealed up and the customer's like I'm not tearing my ceiling down. Cool. We'll see what we can do and I just want to make you guys aware.

Sometimes the house will beat you. Sometimes it'll leave you laying in a pool of blood and you got to do the best you can. That's if the customer wants to do something. So we've got the air upgrade approach and these features The second seduct Optimization with the duct optimization approach.

What we are doing is trying to bring an existing system up to the fact we're trying to renew it Nevada to where it actually brings individual BTU requirements to the rooms. and sometimes this can be a little bit of work. Sometimes it can be a whole lot of work, sometimes it's impossible. We talked earlier about perfection.

One thing that you don't want to do with this: Do not promise perfection. If you promise Perfection to a customer, you are setting yourself up for failure they can't afford Perfection And you can't afford to deliver it because it just takes way too long and it's way too expensive. So be very careful what you promise. Promise a noticeable Improvement and promise? to document it.

But we're trying to meet the Btu requirements of the room. so here's some of the features that go along with duct optimization. It gets into Equipment Component selection. Looking at the coil that's there, notice that this goes farther you're getting into actually the equipment.

Now many times you will downsize the equipment. Duct fittings are paying special attention to it. Tel is a term up there. what's that stand for total equivalent length.

So if you don't know what that means, sit on an Ed session this afternoon. He'll tell you all about that, making sure that you're using Smart Fitting Selection Smart Grill Selection: If you offer balancing, make sure that there are balancing dampers in the ducts. Do not promise duct optimization if you're not putting balancing dampers in. Otherwise, because you're not going to get it, you need to balance the system.

That's the verification side. But you'll notice what we're doing is looking at an ideal duct system here. And then finally the terminal devices, performance grade registers, and grills that actually deliver the air in the right quantities. The Right: throw the right spread to condition that room.

These all go back to Active Manual T Principles: So we're focusing on these things to make the duct system right. Here's the challenge. The customer has to want it. So let's talk about the importance.

Why Doctor Innovation is important If you guys had to Define Doctor Innovation's importance. Why is it important? What's it? Determine comfort? What else Delivered Performance, safety, Health efficiency during the opening session yesterday, Jim Bergman mentioned longevity. So these are all things that cause Doctor Innovation to be important from the performance aspect of it. There's four pillars of that that tie into a high performance approach.

Once again, if you said in Chris's session with me, you saw these a lot of times. we screw these up and we get the order out of whack. Most customers will focus on safety and health. First, that's where they're going to tie it down.

Those are going to be their top two priorities. our industry. We focus on efficiency, comfort and then we're like safety and healthy. Good luck.

Pardon. Yeah, so let's just speed it up a little bit. So with measurements we start to reveal some of these things. We start to hit hot button points and one thing to be aware of.

If there's no pain for a customer on their system, it's hard to create this need. Now, years ago I was diagnosed with high blood pressure I Got a feeling it's probably that perfectionism thing I didn't know it I had no idea until I went to the doctor. they slapped a cuff on my arm. They were like oh, you got blood pressure problems huh I Would have never known.

Sometimes we have to make the pain obvious because the customer doesn't know. Once again, we make them aware of it. So think about these four pillars about why it's important and when it comes to health. If you've got a duct system that's pulling half its return air out of an attic or a crawl space, that could be a safety and a health issue.

There's cause and effect relationships that happen with everything that we do and they can sometimes affect the safety and the health. Some of these repairs that I mentioned adding a large Central return into the main area of the living space. Consider what may happen, the cause and effect. If you put that into an area that has a natural draft water heater in it and now you're pulling that area into a vacuum, you may have created a situation that causes back drafting.

So for every change that you make, there is an opposite and equal reaction. Performance was mentioned when it comes to Performance. The state of the typical system is pretty rough and these numbers are still holding true. Over 17 years, 18 years now, these numbers are still holding true based off our field testing.

57 is what the average system delivers. The code approved system. You get a whopping six percent more. Congratulations you put the worst system in Allowed By law, you got a whopping six percent.

However, if you take measurements and you start to validate your work, you can actually get up to 88. Some of you may say wait a minute, why can't I get it to 100. you can, But at some points you have to ask yourself, is the juice worth the squeeze? That's why I Say don't focus on perfectionism, it'll It'll lead you down the wrong path. But these systems guys, there's room for improvement here.

now. What if you hit 75 percent? Is that a failure? It's progress. It's not. Perfection What if they started out at 35 percent? I would call that success.

So it all depends on what your parameters are what you have to deal with. That's one of the reasons that we have to keep this in context. There's four groupings that we put when it comes to what effects this delivered performance number and you'll notice that it's the entire system that we're looking at here in this illustration. We've got the equipment.

We have its capacity. We have equipment, airflow temperatures I'm assuming everybody, unless you're like living under a rock, has bought something from Amazon In here, they have distribution. They have the Factory The Warehouse what they call fulfillment centers. Well, in an HVAC system, that fulfillment center is the equipment.

It is what generates the BTUs We also have the distribution route. That's what gets the product from the Fulfillment center to our houses, the roads. that's the Ducks The Ducks are what delivers the BTUs the product of the equipment into the conditioned space. And then finally you have the retail outlets.

Sometimes that's a store, sometimes that's you or me. That's terminal devices. That's what determines if that product is getting to where it needs to go and then whether we receive delivery of it. Now, whether it's containing it or not.

it's a building issue, but you look at all these different principles that we've got combinations of these. They're what determines how well that system performs and what we can do by taking the right measurements. Not taking every measurement that we can, but taking the right measurements. We can pinpoint where the deficiencies are not only in the equipment but also in the system.

The biggest variation in measurements wins. That's the one that you want to focus on. We talk about one thing. It's going to be one of our doctor.

Innovation Rules We're going to talk about focus on one thing. This is a photo we took at a house in. Lexington Kentucky They were pulling triple the amount of air out of this room that they were putting into it. Airflow affects comfort.

What am I What do you guys see in there? There's two images. pardon the box says Seinfeld They got good taste infiltration. It's HVAC induced infiltration because that room is in a vacuum. This is what's happening.

It starts to affect those surface temperatures. You will never see this unless you've got some specialized test instruments I Know some guys at True Tech that can hook you up. These allow us to see different things. Have any of you guys ever put in the thermal image camera Eric Kaiser and Bill's phone had a fantastic session the other day.

You guys ever put a thermal image camera in your customers hands? Guys, they're like a dog hunting or rabbit. They will find problems for you. Come here. Come here.

look at this. They will be your best salesperson and we're going to talk about why that is so valuable here in just a minute. Now before thermal Image cameras. Before we had that, we used to use something called a smoke.

Puffer There's a gas called titanium Tetrachloride. Um I Hear it has side effects if you have too much of it, so that's to be determined. But once you gave that to a customer man, they were going nuts. They were searching for air.

It was neutral buoyancy smoke and it would travel with air patterns. It was the coolest thing. They could make air visible, so with our measurements, we're making air visible. This makes the effective air movement visible.

If you haven't invested in a thermal image camera, I would encourage you to. It will be one of your greatest sales tool. So to keep this simple, we've got five rules and you may add to these: You may not like these rules. That's okay.

it's not a one-size-fits-all approach, but you may benefit from these and some of them. You're going to go. Well, that's obvious. that's just common sense sometimes.

Common Sense isn't common practice. so we have to consider what we're trying to do here, what we're trying to achieve. So I would encourage you write these rules down, create your own, see how much you can come up with. Number One: This kind of sounds like the most obvious one, doesn't it? Don't fix the ducks on a piece of equipment that's grossly oversized.

If you want to own a nightmare, you fix the equipment on grossly over, You fix the ducks on grossly oversized equipment. Depending on where the Ducks are located, up to 40 percent of the building's load can be through the duct work. Well, Guess what happens when you renovate a duct system? You reduce those loads. And the oversized equipment that didn't look like it was very bad to begin with now barely runs, They're cold, they're clammy, or they're getting scorching hot, and then freezing in the wintertime.

Because guess what, You fix their duct system. Congratulations, you just owned a problem, so you have to be very careful with this. There are puzzle pieces that have to be used. If you just go in and say oh man, and you focus on the Ducks and you're not focusing on the size of the equipment, you're going to manufacture problems that will haunt you for a long time, especially if people spent a lot of money with you to fix this.

So this is where you'll see rule number five here in just a second. It ties in with this rule. This is common sense, right? Some of the stuff we know if the if the equipment's oversized, you need to get the Btu Factory right first. If the roads are too small, go into it.

You got to fix the equipment or equipment first. Rule number two: everything hinges on this. Involve the customer, make them A or what you want to do is make them a detective in their own home. You serve as the guide.

Is that an interesting way to look at this and you do that by getting them engaged. I Promise you if you can get the customer measuring now some places you don't want to measure them don't say hey. Come up here in this attic and let's go across 20 feet back to the air handler and let's measure static pressure. That's probably not a good idea because the customer if they end up through their ceiling on the floor, probably not a good day to be you.

so be smart. This is one of the things Bluetooth makes handy. They can see the measurements while you're doing them if you can involve them. One of the most powerful sales techniques that we ever used was putting a balancing Hood in a customer's hand and letting them measure air flow if they had a Target to aim for which we showed earlier, the illustration of the Target and the arrows if you have a Target to aim for if they have a simple Target to aim for and that measurement is way off, they're going to go.

What's going on? We should have this. why don't we have that? And then they start to ask questions. Here's the other thing that you do. You immediately put doubt in their mind for any competitors that have either come before or after you that are not doing the exact same thing you engage them before.

I started doing this when I was a technician. There was one thing I wanted the homeowner to do while I was there. What do you think it was? Go away. A lot of times they want to look over your shoulder.

They want to see what you're doing. You guys ever experienced that you're like leave please. We're in their home. Nobody knows their system better than they do.

I Started to cherish those people. They're telling me what they want. It was my job to figure out how to get it to them and if it was possible involve your customer. I I Was kind of torn because I wanted to put this as rule number one because if you don't do this, if they're like we're at work, go ahead and do what you got to do.

If you can't get them physically and emotionally involved, your chances of success drop drastically. So I was torn between making this rule one or rule two. So I felt rule one needed to be addressed first though. so Rule two, Rule three.

Some people may not agree with this. that's cool. but I will tell you from a lot of years of doing this: if you start focusing on every single variable that could needs to be addressed, when you've got a customer involved, you are going to fail. Information Overload This is a quote from the book Influence I Don't know if you guys are readers or listen to audiobooks.

This is one that needs to be in everybody's library that is in HVAC Now if you read it, I Mean it's a pretty thick book and it's about as interesting as watching paint dry. but there is a lot of fantastic information on five ways that we are influenced. And what's crazy is when you see how you've been influenced. So sometimes we use these tactics.

sometimes we have these tactics used on us. There's a quote in this book I'll let you read it I'm not going to read it for verbiage, but what it focuses on is when you're in a sales call. when you're talking to a customer. there's so many things that are going on.

so many interactions you have to pick one thing to focus on so that they can remember it. If you start puking out with the building infiltration, heat loss, heat gain, you start mentoring stuff like enthalpy equipment capacity, you're oversized. You start throwing all this stuff out. they freak out Any guys ever go to the circus when you're kids? Ringling Brothers Barnum Bailey Circus Used to come to the Central Kentucky area and there's always a lion.

Timer had a chair in his hand and he would put it in the face of a lion and the lion would just sit there and of course he'd crack the whip and all that the lion would just sit there. What? I Always ask why why did the lion such a vicious animal? Why did it just sit there and let that guy crack the whip at it and hold the chair in its face? Do you guys know the answer? I was fascinated when I found out why. paralysis by analysis. That cat was trying to focus on all four legs of that chair at the same time and it couldn't where I was trying to focus on everything all at once.

It froze. it didn't do anything. And guys, if we're doing that with customers on a sales call, we're trying to help them understand the importance of doctor. Innovation We're focusing on all these different things.

They freeze up and they go with the one thing that they do understand: price and if yours isn't the lowest, they're not going with you. So inductor. Innovation It is very important to focus on one thing and I Got to tell you air is the easiest. Sometimes static pressure is easiest depending on what you're doing and who's there.

Sometimes static pressure is the gateway to get into airflow, but you got to focus on one thing. Otherwise, your customers cannot absorb it. Now that line, if the lion tamer dropped the chair, guess what his name is lunch. Thank you Lunch.

I'm here all day. It's lunch. So guys, this quote there's there's so much that our minds can handle and that customer. They are already in a stressful situation.

They can only absorb so much focus on one thing and by them interacting. Guess what you're doing? You're making it an experience that they'll never forget. I Still have customers that you know. You run into them out in the grocery store or whatever and they'll talk to them.

They're like. That was so fun. we made it a game. They're stressed out.

take some of the pressure off of them. So rule number three: Focus on one thing. Number four: Get paid for your designs. Does this seem like common sense? Design takes time, Doesn't it? Here's where we get into some of the chicken or egg in order to have some of those targets you need to design first.

But what happens if you go through all the effort you put all this design in and you tell the customer this is what we need. Sorry, we're going to go with Chuck in the truck. he's a thousand dollars cheaper. Oh but bub.

and Skeeter they were Within 500. you do all this work for free. So I'm going to tell you this is a bold stance: Don't do it for free, Get paid for your designs. There is too much of your knowledge and time that goes into this to be given it away for free.

So we talked about focusing on one thing. Sometimes you've got to get some basic necessary information first, sell the job first, then get paid for your designs. At that point in time, it's worth you to invest in it. now.

Does that mean the proper design should be skipped? Absolutely not. That's not what I'm saying. if that's what you heard you, you weren't paying attention. You get paid at the right point in time and this is where we get into the chicken or egg.

So I'll share with you guys some of the little techniques that we used to use and that we teach at NCI. So number four get paid. There's a lot of time and effort that goes into this. These books are not cheap.

They're an investment in your education. There's a lot of great principles that are in them that will Aid you as you go out, make sure you're getting paid to do the work, and then finally use all the puzzle pieces. I'm assuming there's a lot of dads in here. Some of you guys may be dads like me.

When we put together Christmas gifts for our kids, there were always screws left over that ever happened to you guys Have you ever had a kid in the swing and they go swinging and they keep going? Am I The only dad that had that happen. That's because we skipped parts. There's instructions. There's reasons that we follow directions.

When you're looking at all these puzzle pieces, they can be intimidating. This is where you need to process, but it is a combination of proper design that's our requirements. That's what we're aiming for. actual measurements and communication.

Use all the puzzle pieces Don't leave out. Parts Otherwise there is a gap. avoid and sometimes it is huge. other times it's very small and sometimes the smallest thing may be the most important.

So pay very close attention guys. I Hope you enjoyed the five rules. They have served me well as we start to put this together. We've also got questions to consider because this is going to determine the approach that you take.

Depending on how you answer these questions is going to depend on what you do first. So many times we look at Doctor Innovation From one angle we have to approach it this way. There's actually multiple angles of attack that you can take. So why are you there? Did the customer call and say we're uncomfortable? We have had non-stop problems.

Is it your customer? Here's another obstacle. How do you handle it when you go out and you test your own duct system and it's the problem. How do you handle that? you better be ready for it because it's coming. If you do this, that is usually the first obstacle.

I Think I spit on you I'm sorry. That is usually the first obstacle that most people cannot overcome because their natural responses to try to do the right thing. and they're like man, we're going to have to go out and fix all these duct systems for free. Did any of you think that? Please be honest with me.

Did anybody think of it? Man, If I find this stuff, I'm gonna have to fix it for free. Absolutely Not That customer paid for your knowledge at that point in time, you're always improving. My dad had pancreatic cancer not too long ago. They made two small incisions to remove it.

Now, 10 years previous to that, it would have been a major surgery now if my dad had done 10 years previously. Does that mean that he sues the doctors because they cut him wide open instead of using the two small surgical incisions. Would he have a valid point if he did that? No. Because technology has changed, techniques have changed, and guys, as you learn, you get better.

You learn. You do when you put a system in. Even though there may be problems, you did the best you could at that point in time. Now you're learning new things, new skills, new test instruments that weren't available and you start to apply them so don't offer to fix this stuff for free.

It's this is not Pandora's Box It's one of the biggest fears. that's one of the things that we had. However, I will tell you if you're not prepared for how to handle that, you're in trouble. So to make that easier, my contact information I believe is is available.

if not, get with me after the class. what we have at NCR what are called Planned response statements and I'd like to offer those to you guys if you'll email me for them and I won't spam you or do anything like that I just want you to have the information because it's it's a it's a resource that I wish I'd had when I started to do this. but they are planned response statements. If you run into this situation, here is a suggestion for how you handle it and everyone's a little bit different.

you'll you'll know by how you how the customer reacts. Number Two: What are you trying to accomplish? Does that customer want the perfect duct system? Or they just want the equipment to quit breaking what are their goals and you've got to ask questions to get to the root of that. If a customer is talking, you need to be writing number one. It's courteous.

Number two, You'll never remember everything. If they tell you an important point that they want fixed, you need to write it down. If you don't write it down, it didn't happen. figure out what you're trying to accomplish and I will tell you that as part of the communication piece.

That's really important because there were things that we sold a job based off of for ductor Innovation and it was a minute detail. but to the customer, guess what? It was the hinge point that sold the job and we blew it because I didn't write it down, our sales guys didn't write it down. oops. And then the customer calls and they're You know they're like not happy.

You know we just spent all this money. This is one of the things that we want to address that hurts. So write it down even the most money detail. Find out what the customer wants to stall.

You have to put the ball in their Court as you involve them as they become a detective in their own home. As they start to discover these problems, they will tell you what they want. We have one young lady. she did a lot of cooking.

She said I want to register underneath the stove where I cook I want a damper in it and when I'm cooking in the summertime I want to be able to open it when it's in the wintertime I Want to be able to shut it? Simple request, right? You know how many guys would have over thought that? Well, you don't need that much. Heating and Cooling in the garage is going to mess up the rest of the house. She told us what she wanted, so guess what? we did? We gave it to her. We put her in control of her air and we trusted her with it.

What a novel idea. We didn't assume our customers were idiots. You have to know what their pain is. They'll tell you.

Sometimes it's indirectly, sometimes it's not. So you have to look for the clues. What are some clues that you guys typically look for That a customer has pain, there's some comfort. Clues Fans fans are really common.

What else taped off? Ducks Excellent space heaters. Window units that's like sticks out like a sore thumb. You got a window shaker? What else? Closed doors. We don't want to heat that part of the house.

What about smart vents? Oh yeah. I can turn the air on off in this room. What else? Anything else? What about scoops on registers? Huge. Yeah.

these are all visual. Clues We know this stuff. Capitalize on it. Ask that customer.

how come you have that door shut. We talked about number four earlier. Your access? Can you get to the Ducks That's going to determine what you promise and that's going to determine the how far you can go with this. How many of you are in here? from areas that have basements where the Ducks are in? Soffits? Okay, you're going to be limited by some of the things that you can do unless that customer's pain is so great that they're like let's rip the drywall out and they will.

Some do it. it's not the majority, but some do it. So you're going to have to get creative and there's ways to do that. Your imagination is going to be the limitation.

You got to figure out how much access you have. It's going to be limited. We can Design Perfection on paper, but we're always going to be limited by free area. There's only so much that we can do how much access and sometimes there's going to be bigger guys like me.

I don't fit through small holes so you have to account for how much room that you actually have and then finally, how many people need to touch the renovation. So let me let me clarify. touch here. How many companies do I have in here that are maybe five people or less? Okay, so quite a few of you.

How many are ten or more? Okay, depending on the size of your company and how many people are involved in this, your level of detail may have to go granular. You may have to have a lot of details. If you're five people or less, you're going to be more engaged, more directly involved. You can leave out some steps if you have a technician, if you have a sales person, if you have an installer Warehouse someone who's a verifier, you've got five people involved if I counted right, that need to touch that renovation.

They need to know how the Baton is being passed to them and what their role and their responsibility is. Notice that one of the big puzzle pieces was communication. How many people need to touch this? How many people need to be involved. This is where most Renovations go south is when you make the transition.

Do I have any sales people in here and I'm not talking about because you've convinced somebody to marry you actual sales people in here. Okay, so I got some sales people. I'm not trying to beat you guys up, but typically where most problems happen is from the sales person to installer handoff those of you that have done this work. Would you agree with me or not 100 percent.

Let's all beat up on the sales guys. No, I'm just kidding. So, but seriously that you have to have systems and processes in place that account for that. Otherwise you're going to go off the rails on this and you need to account for that.

Make sure you know how many people need to touch it, what their roles are, and what they're going to be doing. They need to know what they're doing. Has that been communicated? So guys, there's stuff that does that for you. I will tell you.

photos, videos. Priceless. As I said earlier, your approach may vary and guess what? Cool. That's okay just because we make soup a little bit differently, it doesn't mean it's wrong.

Sometimes the outcomes will be the exact same as long as all the ingredients are the same or puzzle pieces whatever analogy we're using. If your approach varies and you're having Success With It Don't change it. Fair enough. I'm presenting options that you can look at.

There's so many guys I want to go. You're wrong. I'm right. Whatever you guys use the approach that works for you I'm simply giving you a choice to consider.

Now let's get it under the nitty-gritty For our time remaining, we've got seven steps for this. and you'll notice that some of these steps they change. That's why when you look at Doctor Innovations they're chicken or egg. What comes first? Chicken or the egg.

Well, it depends. and you're going to find that some of these steps are interchangeable depending on why you're there. Those five questions that we just looked at, depending on how that's answered, is going to depend on whether you're the chicken or the egg. So sometimes you get cracked, sometimes you don't.

So seven steps. These are abbreviated. You may want to snap a picture of this because we're going to go into each one individually, but this is the overview of it of how it starts. Number one is based off of a technician's Viewpoint In many situations, Doctor Innovations are generated from the technician.

They are the one that gathers the lead. If you're a technician. and you're not measuring static pressure and calculating airflow on every call. Renovation has died before you ever left the job.

You guys are the hinge point when it comes to most renovation. How many technicians do I have in here? got a lot of you I was one too I Know I'm a reform technician. now. you guys have tools.

I have a clicker. Start with the equipment. look at it. Most problems.

We can tell with our eyes we can hear it. Sometimes you guys ever hear that blower that's operating against restrictive ducts. You can hear it. Sometimes we can smell it right.

You can smell things sometimes. I Would never encourage you to taste an HVAC system I Hear It's not fun, but most of our natural senses we can use to get a gauge on what the equipment is. Once we have an idea, we've done that overview. Then we start to measure.

We identify duct deficiencies. We'll walk through how to do that once we've done that. Then we diagnose, we figure out what's going on. We use industry standards, manufactures data as our Target where we're shooting those arrows at.

that's our Target Then we need to conduct an interview now. Notice: I've got a note at the bottom there. Step four versus step one. This is one of those chicken or egg things.

Why are you there? If you're a salesperson, if you're a comfort advisor, and you go in, the technician has already generated the lead. Well, you may go back. It depends on why you're there and what steps are already have already been accomplished. So it depends.

After that interview, you're going to conduct a scope of work. Now here's what's interesting: Scope of work for the customer and your team. Why does the customer scope of work come first? I'm sorry I Heard a bunch of different things. More supportive expectations Guys, it's their idea.

They're telling you what they want so you have to write the scope of work for them. We'll talk about how to do that. I'll give you a hint. don't go into detail, but you also need a scope of work for your team.

Depending on how many hands touch that, it's going to depend on the details that you give. Finally, you're going to do the doctor Innovation work and then you test out any work that you do. You need measurements before measurements after to compare against. You also need tools.

Now for those of you that have been to the NCI classes before, you know that, we talk about plotting fan airflow. Guys, that's a service tax tool. Once you're getting into renovation, you need a higher level of accuracy. There's guys right on the other side of this booth that offer a tool that measures airflow directly.

We were in their Labs back in August and I was blown away at the accuracy of this device. They passed the NCI torture test with flying colors and we're like we're sold. It's a direct measurement and it is a salesman's secret weapon. Don't don't make them do the math.

Let the let the app do it. Let the workflow do it. You need a manometer. You the more money you spend from a manometer, the more accurate it's going to be.

Depending on the cost of your manometer, it may just be a random number generator. Make sure that you you get what you pay for. We all know that. so you need a way to measure airflow.

One at the equipment, two at the system. You need to know what's coming out of the registers. Depending on how far you go with this, you may not even get to that step. that depends on what the customer wants to do.

Many people think doctor Innovation You have to measure everything depends on what the customer wants. That's why they're number two. Involve them, find out what they want, because that's going to depend on the path that you take. Whether you take the air upgrade approach or whether you take the duct optimization approach.

you also need temperature velocity measurements. There's a bunch of different test instruments that you need to do this, so the barrier for entry you mentioned earlier. It's expensive. It does take an investment to do this.

that's why not everyone will do it. Good news for you, which means competition's low. Let's talk about number One Visual inspection. Some of these are pretty common.

Look at the equipment. what are some of the things that you guys commonly look for As soon as you open the equipment up, maybe even before cleanliness. I Heard rust? What else? Water spots. There's all kinds of visual things that we're looking for are the Ducks connected? So actually that would fall in the duct systems.

So then we can also just by looking at the Ducks looking for Kink points. we're doing a visual inspection of all the different aspects. My buddy Vince Defilippo calls this walk on the ship. He just walked in.

He looks around, he takes notes if he sees something of Interest he's pulling out his phone, snapping a shot to pass along to his guys. Why would we have building down there? Why would that be an important factor when we're doing a doctor? Innovation Because we're looking at the Ducks right? Yeah, the building is what contains the air. It's what contains or hopefully contains the BTUs It's the part of the duct system that makes the connection from the air from the supply registers back to the return. If you don't account for it, you're missing a massive part of the HVAC system because you could have the perfect duct system.

If the building's screwed up, forget it. you're still going to have problems. So all these are things that we want to encounter in visual inspections and we could have an entire class on visual inspections. Make sure you're looking for the right things.

Number two: We're going to measure the system. Last year we talked about vital signs. There's four of them. your medical professional, your doctor, specialist, whoever it is.

They take Baseline measurements and they don't do it just once. They do it every time. Some of them they only do once. But if it's a statistic that can change, they're going to measure it and they're going to document it.

And I would encourage you to do the same because this is what you're aiming for. These four. Vital Signs They all have HVAC system equivalents. This is where we get into total External total External in my opinion, or external dependent on what source you look at is the first that tells you an Hvec system may be restrictive.

May not start with total External Joey Henderson Gave a fantastic presentation yesterday on airflow. Diagnostics He talked about the importance of external static pressure. When you look at it, it'll give you clues that there are air side restrictions. Start with it now.

Total External will tell you that there's a problem, but will not tell you where. This is where you need additional measurements. You need to measure the component pressure drops you're looking in particular at the coil at the filter. Sometimes the coil is internal.

so any equipment Replacements that you guys do if they're Air Handlers or package units, make sure that you measure and record the coil pressure drop on that piece of equipment on Startup Otherwise, it's going to be nearly impossible to find the engineering data on it unless it is unless it's actually manufactured as a separate coi