During the 4th Annual HVACR Training Symposium, Jim Bergmann and Chris Hughes teamed up to give their humorously titled session, “HVAC Commissioning on Steroids Without the Pimples.” They talked quite a bit about commissioning tools like measureQuick and Trueflow and showed how someone could use them to test for return duct leakage.
Leaking ducts, dirty blowers, and duct restrictions are common problems that cause poor airflow, but it's difficult to explain them to the customer in terms that they can understand. Moreover, those issues are some of the biggest enemies of performance and efficiency, more often than equipment age and poor maintenance. Even though airflow may seem good on the surface, low superheat, low suction pressure, and low head pressure indicate possible airflow problems.
Return duct leakage can significantly reduce system capacity and efficiency. When we have leaky ductwork, we often have higher latent BTU gains, which reduces the sensible capacity (and the thermostat measures sensible heat). Return air leakage often comes from hot, humid unconditioned attics as opposed to unconditioned outdoor air, which makes up a good portion of supply air leakage.
You can estimate the impact of return duct leakage using the Mixed Air Formula, which requires two mixed air probes and measureQuick. You'll need to know the duct leakage dry-bulb temperature and return air dry-bulb temperature, and you'll get the mixed air dry-bulb temperature. Even though the mixed air dry-bulb temperature may only differ from the return air temperature by only a few degrees, it has a significant impact on the evaporator coil by increasing the dew point, which reduces the efficiency and costs the homeowner more money. measureQuick will display the data picked up by your test instruments and estimate the leakage and capacity loss with its Duct Leakage Screening feature. By watching their full session, you can learn how to do that test and add some more game-changing commissioning strategies to your toolbox.
TrueFlow integrates with measureQuick, and the apps alert the users when the measured airflow (TrueFlow) differs from the estimate (measureQuick), which indicates likely leakage and lets the HVAC contractor know that it's time to investigate the problem more thoroughly. The issue could also lie in improper probe placement, but most discrepancies occur due to duct leakage. When the two apps agree, then the user can be confident in the data and capacity.
Equipment capacity differs from delivered capacity in that equipment capacity is produced at the equipment and doesn't necessarily make it to the conditioned space. Delivered capacity accounts for BTU gains and losses that happen in the ductwork. Proper commissioning and catching the causes of reduced delivered capacity bring a lot of value to the customer and reduce the likelihood of callbacks.
measureQuick also has a vitals score based on measurements. The app shows the range of performance and identifies how the system measures up on those performance criteria. measureQuick also now reviews the performance of subsystems. It enables users to learn more about corrective actions, take photos to document a system, and use a geolocation feature to assist with documentation.
When technicians purchase tools and software to help with advanced diagnostics, they have the right to price their services accordingly. We can be confident that our more thorough results justify a higher price tag, which you can set based on your gross revenue target. You can figure out your gross revenue target by accounting for your sales, job cost, gross profit, overhead, and net income. We can also communicate our results to customers with simple visuals that customers can understand, such as those in TrueFlow and measureQuick's reports.
Jim and Chris also covered:
Impacts of leaky return and supply ductwork
How to sell the value of the work you do - with confidence
Using commissioning to catch issues
Workflow and Illustration of Workflow and Diagnostic Test Methods ( ANSI / RESNET / ACCA / ICC 310-2020 )
Establishing a commissioning process at your company
Steve Rodgers and Bill Graber class on Supply Duct Leakage from 3rd Annual HVACR Training Symposium: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03QDvytGjSE
Buy your virtual tickets or learn more about the HVACR Training Symposium at https://hvacrschool.com/symposium.
Read all the tech tips, take the quizzes, and find our handy calculators at https://www.hvacrschool.com/.

In this video, we have Jim Bergman from Measurequick and Chris Hughes from Tec The Energy Conservatory Talking about HVAC Commissioning on Steroids. Commissioning is one of the most important things you can do to a new system and they talk through some really practical things that you can think through and apply in order to make sure you get commissioning right. Big thanks to everybody who made the 2023 Symposium possible. our title sponsors Akka and Measurequick and all the other speakers and sponsors who made this possible.

This is one of many great presentations from that Symposium and next year's Symposium is coming up soon. You can get the virtual ticket and get access to all of the live content as well as recorded. And if you can make it down to Claremont Florida you can also get an in-person ticket, go to Hvacrschool.com and go to events and the 2024 Symposium to find out more. So here we go: Jim Bergman and Chris Hughes Talking System Commissioning All right.

I'm Chris Hughes with the Energy Conservatory My partner in crime on this one is Jim Bergaman with Measurequick and this is going to be commissioning on Steroids without all the pimples. What do we mean by that? Jim I Don't know. it's your slide. That's right.

we're going to Get Swole We're gonna know how to do it. We're going to use technology and we're not going to have all the side effects because me and Jim We've got a partnership with The True Flow and Measure Quick and we worked out a bunch of Kinks and we want to show you what that looks like today. All right. So let's go over the objectives of what we're going to be learning about.

We're going to learn the value of following a commissioning process on delivering comfort and reducing callbacks. Okay, then we're going to get into specifically understanding the impact of duck leakage. specifically return duct leakage. Then we're going to talk about how to sell the value of the work that you do with confidence.

One thing that a lot of people told me before I Came here and was going to do this presentation. I Had probably 10 of my best friends and say Chris how do I sell it Well today I'm going to tell you how to sell it. So let's talk about missed opportunities and I don't mean those kind of opportunities I Don't know if you're a fan of Dazed and Confused you know what that movie's all about, but I'll let your brain wonder what that's maybe about. Okay, now we're talking about these opportunities: Leaking Ducts Dirty Blowers Restrictive.

Ducks Let me ask you guys a comment. Let me ask you guys a question. What do these problems have in common? Anybody anybody want to take a stab at it? Efficiency? Airflow. All good technical things, right? they're They're hard to explain.

Here's what I think they have in common. They're the hardest things to explain to that person. Who is that that's our homeowner and you're like, well, you're static and your airflow and you're in your pressure boundary and they're just like I don't know I don't know what's that I Guess right? Why? Because they didn't go to school for HVAC They don't understand the word static pressure? We have to demystify that. We're going to talk about that Jim Yeah, So the the interesting thing is when you start looking at our industry as a whole, you know where the biggest problems are actually airflow and duck leakage.
and we have been trying to fix these problems inherently with refrigerant charge. You know, for years? That's what a lot of technicians end up doing and you know you look at equipment and aging and installation maintenance related things. actually the lowest problem on the tier, so we got a lot of. We got a lot of equipment out in the industry that if we just literally fix the airflow and duct leakage issues, got the charge right on the systems that would operate a tremendous amount more efficiently, right? And it's just the problem is we're going back in and we're we're replacing.

We're looking at equipment that's not performing well, replacing with new equipment without addressing the airflow and deduct leakage issues that are that are rampant in the systems. So one thing I want to talk about is if you haven't heard of this, this is what we call the ANSI Resnet Akka 310 Standard. So there's a process right design review. Total Duck Leakage Blower Fan Airflow Blower Fan Watt Draw Refrigerant Charge right? This workflow is spot on and you're going to hear a lot more about this coming out in the future, right? And we're basically saying, if you follow this process, it's a home run for you.

so get used to it. you're going to see a lot more of it. There's Federal dollars behind it that are really backing it up. We're going to get into how you can accomplish that and the other.

The other piece of that is really the electrification movement. You know we're going to see. a lot of this. Homeowners are going to be inquiring about electrification.

Unless you start actually following a process to assure your success in this thing you're going to I'll guarantee you will fail and we're already seeing failures with some of the some of the best guys in the industry. What's what's happened is is that even people with the best resources in the world can't find contractors to follow these standards to assure success in the job. Now you start to put that to scale and you talk about hundreds of installations. If we don't change what we're doing, it's going to lead some trouble.

and we've got some ways to make this a lot easier. Yep, so on social media and some of the Facebook groups. I Imagine you do right because you're here. That's probably how you heard about this.

So how many times have you heard? raise your hand if you've heard, or someone who works with you, say, man, the airflow is good. Yeah, so that's pretty prominent. This is good. I'm here to tell you guys.
When you have low superheat, low suction pressure, low head pressure, the flow of air is not good. It's measured right. And that's what we're here to talk about. We're here to make sure we're talking about measuring things.

So one thing I Want you guys to kind of think about. We've all had sheet metal screws, right? We use them every day, comes in buckets, lose half of them, right? They're rolling around the van. It's the one thing he ends up in your washing machine for your wife to deal with, right? That quarter inch screw. If you put it in a ductwork and you pull that screw up that tiny hole under basically about normal duck static pressure conditions of about 0.1 you're going to lose one.

CFM Think about that for just a second one. CFM Which is about like a beach ball every minute. That's a lot of air guys that you're just leaving through that duct work from one tiny sheet metal screw. Now, if that sheet metal screw can do that, think about the doors when you put them on your unit, right? They say if you've got a furnace and you jam that door in and you put the screw in and the gasket's missing and it's right next to the blower, how much resistance is happening? Right next to that fan motor? Tons of resistance that slide that little crack that's probably 40.

CFM That's disastrous to your air conditioning system, so you're probably asking yourself. Okay one: CFM uh Chris How do I know that? well I work for Steve Rogers And he taught me that right and this is the formula he laid it up. I don't know if you know Steve See, you might want to stand up. say hey, Steve's the brain right? the airflow brain.

So 1.07 times area times the Delta pressure right characteristics is how we get that 1.07 That's how we were able to throw that analogy at you: that one sheet metal screw is equivalent to one CFM at 0.1 inches of water column. Okay, so last year Stephen Bill did a class about duct leakage on the supply side of the system and I thought, you know what? Let's have some fun and let's talk about duck leakage on the return side of the system. So I just want to highlight last year Steve did a presentation with 384 CFM a supply duct leakage, infiltrate and load increased by 80 percent, Tonnage was increased and the problem got worse. If you haven't seen it, it's on.

YouTube Check that video out. We're going to spin that wheel halfway around and we're going to say what if it's on the return side? that's actually a real picture of a real job. My hand, My flashlight and I measured that job at 88 CFM A duck leakage to outside on a home. The conditions: Attic Air: 120 degrees at 35 percent relative humidity Return Air: 74.60 right? That's a hot addict because I Live in Louisiana And it's hot, right? So why do we care so much about 88? CFM If we have 88 CFM leaking out of our envelope, how many people would say? Well, that's a big deal.
Nobody thinks that's a big deal Doug You think that's a big deal Doug knows it's a big deal Doug Will you stand up for me for a second if you all don't have not met Doug Hang out with Doug Doug has impressed me. He's the only guy I've ever seen, install an air conditioning system and get to nearly zero CFM Adult leakage I Don't know if you guys have done duck leakage testing, but most of the time the equipment alone will almost make you fail. Doug Has mastered the skill. Talk to this guy, right? So let's do some math.

So if we got return duct leakage, we've got a mixed Airy equation that we can figure out. We know what can happen here. My attic is at 120 degrees, my return air is at 74 degrees. When I do my mixed air equation I'm at 73 degrees to show you what that looks like.

That's the formula straight from a textbook. Nothing new right now. when I do that formula I'm at 77 degrees, you're probably asking yourself Chris Who cares about three degrees? So what right? Just think that's a big deal. You think three degrees on the return side is a big deal.

Return Duck Leakage affects our evaporatorical. It's a huge impact. but how do we know that? This is how we know that. Here's what I would encourage you to go look at.

You can get a psychometric chart offline anywhere for free. Download it. Go. have some fun! First thing I Want you to do: Go plot the mixed air dry bulb on that psych chart.

Then go take that Supply Air Measurement and plot it on that psych chart. Here's a little tip: that's fun. If you draw a straight line from the mix air dry bulb through the supply air dry bulb, you're going to land right there on the saturation line. and when you have returned duct leakage.

so that's the dew point of the vat vertical. Sorry I Don't know if I pointed that out. That's how you're able to figure that out. So in this situation with duct leakage, our supplier temperature and dew point is going to be increased right because we got that hot wet air and we're going to spend more money and do more work.

And we're getting nothing good in return. We're just costing the homeowner more money. That is a huge efficiency killer right there. Not to mention the pressures in the house That we're altering.

That's a whole nother story. Jim You want to tell them how they can screen for that? Yeah, so this is um, uh Doc Lincoln Streaming and Measure Quick And it's actually a pretty cool calculation because what it does is you just deploy a couple of probes. So measure Quick I'll pick up. Let's ask a couple questions.

So first of all, you go return their duck like it's measure Quick and pick that up. Right now people think sometimes it's magic. It's not magic, it's just science. So what do you think are some some things are going to happen like.

First of all, what do you think is going to happen to your suction pressure? If we raise the entering air temperature in a Uh in a system, suction pressure is going to go up. So Measure Quick picks up the calculates what the suction pressure should be and it sees that it's higher than normal, right? What do you think is going to happen to the temperature split temperatures? Split's going to go down right because we're sucking an air. Downstream We're testing from Inlet to outlet measure Quick. So temperature split is going to go down and so what we're doing in Measure Quick is we're using.
There's about six other things that happen in a system, but we're using a lot of those types of variables and when they combine together, we know, hey, you probably got duck vacation in this job. So now all I got to do is we deploy a probe to the return a probe on each side, on each side of the blower. There's a caller mixed air probes. So what we're doing is we're looking at at the temperature of the air entering the Volute or entering the size of the fan.

Now it's real important to put a probe on each side because hot Elite can travel down one side of the duct. A lot of times you're going in, you're putting a probe in the ductwork. You're reading 70 degree air. Let's say you if you went to the back side of the ductwork where the leaks at it might read 100 degrees right? because there's a stream of hot air that's going down that your probe is not seeing because it doesn't mix until it gets to the fan and turns into the fan.

So I Want to get the mixed air temperature now we can put in our attic air temperature. We measure return air static and basically what we're doing is we're doing the airflow calculations and we can calculate how much capacity loss you have due to the total capacity loss due to the due to the leakage and from insulation. So since we gain and our estimated duct leakage at 25 pascals of pressure so we normalize your return air static back to 25 pascals so we can calculate that out. What Chris is saying is absolutely true, But here's the here's the other thing that we want to stop and think about for a minute.

So you when whenever we're doing dehumidification. What kind of cooling is that late in cooling, right? So we only have so much cooling we can do. and if we're if we're changing our our total load, we're adding more latent. What Are we robbing? What kind of capacity? Sensible.

What's the thermostat satisfied with Sensible? So now what we're doing is, we're robbing the sensible cooling from our system and that's being controlled by a device that measures sensible capacity. So we're going to increase our run time right. It's and uh, and that is where you're going to get your energy losses at. So this is a very, very significant find.

And what's interesting is also, if you think about what's happening, if we're pulling on a return, we're pulling 120 degree attic air. If we're leaking on the supply which is still really bad, we're We're pulling in infiltration air through doors and windows and other places because we're depressurizing the house. But it might be 88 degree outdoor air So the impact of the return air has much more problems creates many more problems in the system than supplier linkage does, but ultimately we want to eliminate both and I think it's really important too. Chris and I Put this presentation together because both of us I think were handed our lunch when we started doing testing with true flow and Measure quick and both of us probably called Steve too many times to say there's a problem here with the calculations.
I'll tell you a funny story. So this 88 CFM of duck linkage. this is my grandmother's house because I was looking for a house that I could just you know, rummage get into and of course your grandma's like yeah. so like I go in there and I'm like, okay, well I gotta do all this work and I'm gonna, you know, work on our integration.

The install is in the Attic it's a four foot plenum. the ends there's like a short three inch sleeve and then the unit. not a lot of return duct work screwed to the wood platform caulked on the inside. I Call Steve I'm like something's not right I'm like it's saying I'm getting all these weird numbers I'm like it's acting like there's tons of return duck leakage I'm up here looking I've been a tech for 20 years I call Steve I'm like Steve It seems like there's a lot of duck leakage, but it's not possible I'm telling my boss it's not possible Steve goes but did you did you measure it I said no but Steve like I know what I'm looking at man I'm like I'm like you haven't been in the field.

he's like, well, you haven't measured obviously a whole lot and I'm like oh, what are you going to tell your boss? All right? I'm like I I think you're wrong. but I'm I'm in it. So I go in. me and my dad going to my grandmother's house.

she was gone for the weekend I said dad I Gotta no. he's like shoot my dad's HVAC Tech he's like I Gotta know too. Let's figure this out. It's a carrier.

Uh Comfort Maker system. We take the doors off, we pull the blower off, we cap off the supply because we didn't want to disconnect the supply polymer and we isolate that whole thing, put the door back on, pull it down, and we go. 88 Cfm's in Dagos. Dang, that's a lot of leakage and I'm like, yeah, but where the hell is it coming from? Literally.

We were there in that house till midnight. air sailing a four foot plenum. Now we started at about nine o'clock at night. Okay, so we were there three hours.

It was a science project and it was decked around the flanges. So we're ripping up the decking of the attic and we're painting with mastic. and I didn't realize that the leakage was behind the caulk. the the plenum was screwed to the wood and whoever had cocked in the plenum probably my dad not to throw him under the bus was probably him.
He cocked the insulation to the wood. What does that mean? That means? Well, the plenum's right next to the blower. We just talked about resistance next to the ductwork. It's where it's strongest.

So all four sides of that plenum is just sucking right past the caulk line right going into the insulation and into the plenum. We sealed it up and we got down to: I Want to say Hcfm after we caked those four scenes I Never would have thought that in my life. So here's what I'm telling you: if you think you can look at ductwork and say that, don't leak I'm telling you from 20 years of experience, it got me. So this unit.

This real life unit of my grandmother's house. The analysis shows that I've got a capacity loss of 12 percent from those 88 CFM This is real life I Used Measure Quick to pull this off right. How many people you think would have you know your homeowners who would be like cool with 11 percent of capacity loss? Some of them may not know, right? The equipment might be slightly oversized. Uh, you got some issues there, but wouldn't you like to know that? Wouldn't you like to deliver the full efficiency you can to your customer? How do I know when I have returned air duct leakage, right? That's where we're headed.

Here's what: I'm gonna tell you. Tec And Measure Quick. We got the integration for you, right? You don't have to go do the visual inspections if you don't want to. You may not have to Dugout Dig out the duck Buster If You don't want to, and this is kind of how it works, It's got an airflow measurement kind of going on on the back end.

If you've got a true flow, you take an airflow measurement with the true flow. Our integration works like this: This is what you don't see I believe it's a 15 difference. His airflow measurement is different than my airflow measurement. We're going to give you this alarm: measured airflow does not agree with estimated airflow and at that point in time you know you need to go to work on cylinder work, right? Wouldn't that be convenient? Wouldn't that be something nice You could show to the homeowner and say, well, my tools tell me you've got duck leakage guys.

This has never really happened before in the industry. This is a first and I think What's really important to understand is is the true flow grid measures the air that goes across the filter, goes across the true flow measure. Quick estimates how much air is going to cross the evaporator coil. So we're always seeing irregardless of of what the true flow measures how much air is going to cross that evaporator.

So whatever is going through that true flow should be going through that evaporator. If they're different, then you've got duct leakage between the the where the true flow measurements made and the evaporator coil. And we did this sort of painstakingly because because, uh, because we argued a lot. Yeah, this isn't working right? Well, yeah, it was just uh, but it wasn't so much, it's literally trying to solve a huge problem.
We were because we we both agreed that the airflow measurements were were equal, but we couldn't figure out where the heck the problem was and the problem actually ended up being us. I mean that was it and what we're the reason that we we got so passionate about this. We're like man, if this is a problem for I mean we're sort of, uh, not to toot my own horn. but I've seen a few things in my lifetime and I've and when I step back and have problems I'm thinking what what the hell is somebody else going to do with this stuff right? They're just going to get frustrated and throw this stuff away.

and that's and that's the problem we have when we start using new tools and new technologies out there. The first thing we tend to question is is this is this even right? Is this tool even working right? And we have set so many poor experiences with things like capture hoods that are not appropriate for residential air measurement and we get we get you know, crazy readings out of those static pressure methods uh, measuring methods which are really just a an estimation of airflow. And then we actually start measuring airflow. It's a whole different thing now.

The other beauty of this is that um, when measure quick and true flow don't agree, You also want to look at your probe placement because measure quick absolutely requires on good Pro placement to get an accurate measurement. So this is also when they agree. This is a probably my favorite part about using the true flow measure quick combined is when they agree we can be very confident in the capacity measurements because we know we have a good measurement of airflow. We know the the truth the probes for measure quicker in the right position because if they didn't if they weren't they wouldn't agree with true flow.

So let's get into what that looks like. When you have duck leakage, it means we have return air duct leakage or misplaced probe like this is what's going to happen. That real red arrow? That's that's best I could do with airflow. Right when you have duct leakage there, that's when you're going to get that alarm you just seen.

Okay, all right so it's just a little picture analogy to kind of show what we're talking about. Now let's talk about one. One thing Jim was kind of hitting on about equipment capacity and then delivered capacity right? There's a huge difference now. Equipment capacity.

What does that mean right? It means that air conditioner can produce so much capacity, but it doesn't mean the capacity is going into the space. Let's say that air conditioner is in a ventilated attic, right? You've got duck leakage. Equipment capacity is really. it could show that it could show work and bad.
But if you've got a little bit of hot air, you're going to raise the enthalpy. You're going to be like, man, this thing's working really good. It's three tons working like a 3.2 ton. Awesome, right? That's equipment capacity.

Then you have delivered capacity. and I Love this part about measure quick, right? You put your probe at the return, put it in that Supply and now what do you get? You're getting delivered capacity right? What's going into the home? Because that's what matters to the homeowner, and that's what should matter to you, right? So in this scenario: 30 000 BTUs We've got a little duct leakage. We could lose 6 000 BTUs Where did it go? We're right out of the duct system. Everybody with me, right? All right.

So our three ton turns to a two and a half ton, right? We want delivered capacity. So is it important to have equipment capacity? Absolutely. But it's more important to focus on delivered capacity. All right.

So catching these issues delivers real value for the homeowner and the customer. And just for fun, there goes our Tec car. I Don't know if y'all caught that it took me like an hour to put that together. I Mean come on, you know if you can see the TC logo on the top of the hood, you're missing out.

But that's where the rubber meets the road guys. So this is the Uh Again, we're looking at vital scoring. This is probably one of the most popular pieces of Measure Quick that we put in as of recent Because this is this is the consumer forward-facing document, right? and what we came up with was like what are the vitals right Because it comes down to it: if your refrigerant charge is right and your heat transfer rate is Right Meaning your temperature split is right and your distribution is right. If those couple things are right, the equipment will work right.

I mean here's the thing you got to remember right? We're talking about delivered capacity. The equipment is actually engineered right. The guy's engineering. Then there's third party tested.

HRI Tested a selection of that equipment's tested. It's got to pass those Ahr requirements. The Uh: The odds of a piece of equipment not performing well it does happen are very, very rare. Right when we when we buy a 36 000 BTU a piece of equipment, we can be assured at HRI conditions it's doing 36 000 BTUs of cooling.

We'll use Measure Quick. We can be assured that as the as the load changes, Metric Quick will adjust the output capacity corresponding to the load. just like we talked about with the extended performance. Stables But the big thing here is that when we're scoring this system where we're communicating this to the customer, we're looking at refrigerant charge.

we're looking at heat transfer, looking at air distribution and airflow. We're looking at it from Inlet to outlet to make sure the system's performing. This is where the revenue when you're talking about generating Revenue per ticket finding opportunities. The guys that are up there testing the equipment.
The equipment will perform all the time. It's the big picture of the duct system that they're that we're missing and a lot of people say you know, Well, who wants to do duck Renovations it's hot in the Attic that doesn't work. Helpers, helpers. That's what we have helpers for, right? So so we want to make sure that we're giving those helpers those opportunities to to do that work.

All right? So we talked about those. Uh, the measurement conditions pass fail. So one of the big things we've done this year is to do the subsystem review. In the subsystem review is for your technicians primarily.

so it points out when you're taking a snapshot of data on measure quick, we want to make sure that your technicians are aware of what measurequick is actually detecting. so it wasn't enough just to give you the measurements. What we're telling you is the charge in range is the is or is the airflow and range is the filter. Do you have enough filtration? All those kind of things and that's what those those are actual and then you're delivered capacity.

Where do you see the difference? Like if you're picking up extra hot air from your return side or you're you're definitely become a supplies. So the the supply side leakage. we can't detect with Measure Quick and we really can't detect with True Flow because they're We're measured on the return side of the system, right? But what you should be doing what all duct systems should have is the duct tightness test, right? And that's where the duct tightness tester comes in play. So and that's that's really where.

Um I think uh, you know. We we found out both Chris and I ended up having to put a duck blaster on to actually track these problems down and find them. There's just no way of doing without it, because unless you measure, you really have no way of knowing. All we knew at that point was we had two.

Here's a problem with two measurements. It just becomes A. It just becomes an argument, right? And so we're arguing over the measurements. And basically the way we solve that is, we make a third measurement to actually start to quantify.

Uh, where the problem lies, right? And that's the The Challenge And this is really the reason we're doing this presentation is, if you're going to start using Measure Quick and you're going to start using True Flow together, you're gonna. You're gonna find discrepancies and what we're trying to tell you is the discrepancies are air leakage and and uh, you can believe that because we have pains. We have been through a lot of pain on our own to figure this stuff out and we're talking probably between Chris and I Bet you we spent 200 hours yeah of of uh, of a testing. recalculating.

We're doing calculations, testing things, even looking at things like you know, uh, beyond what a lot of you guys think about like you're even working at altitude. You know we're at sea level. Most of us work at sea level, but just the frustration of of measuring an altitude knowing all the things that change. and so, uh, different measurement technique, different devices, and you know what? We've learned a lot along the way.
So I think that the key thing we're trying to drive home is you can trust the tools and but now it's the and uh, you need to start looking at where the problems lie. Yep, all right. So this is why I don't know if you guys know but I'm kind of a Storyteller and kind of a hype man and it's Story Time right? So Jim's going to take a seat and take a seat for this one. Yeah, all right.

So the answer we all have been waiting for right? How much do I charge for this? So you buy the tools, use measure quick. What do I charge this homeowner right? We're going to talk about how we should approach these situations and I'll tell you. I've even got a local in here that knows me pretty well. 20 years in the trade I would say the last good eight I got really good at selling Diagnostics I Actually, not only to customers, other mechanical contractors in the area would call me and I would go help them out and we would do it.

So I I'd like to think I have a little bit of street cred on how to tell you how this goes. So one thing I'm going to tell you is you got to get out of your own head right? You gotta have confidence. You can't go into this situation thinking oh man, should I explain that I'm a high Performance Contractor Should I talk static pressure. You know, like get out of that zone attack.

Be confident, right? This is about confidence. Trust yourself. Trust the data. But I will tell you this.

If you are in the position of running the business, there's two questions you should ask yourself. Look, I'm not a CPA but I was per I Had a pretty healthy business with my dad. Two things: I Learned two questions I would tell you to ask yourself what's my gross revenue Target If you don't know that you need to go find your CPA and have a sit-down conversation about what you think it should be. That's very important in running a business.

The second question you need to ask yourself, is that reasonable to ask of my gross revenue generators? My technicians in the field can I really ask them to do this much revenue? That's something your CPA can help you out with right? Two very important questions and it will probably lead you to something that looks like this sales job cost gross profit, overhead, net income. That's what your CPA is going to lay in front of you now. I've laid out what I would call a healthy example of a properly operating business right there at two million dollars. Screenshot it if you want, but that's a healthy air conditioning business.

Okay, not going to get too much further in that, but if you're running your business, that's a good place to start. That's about where our family business is running. Okay, now now that we know what our worth should be and you've had your meeting with your CPA right, you can figure out what you're probably your hourly charge or ticket price needs to be. How do we convey that message to the homeowner? This is where I feel like a story is coming on, right? So when I look at this guy, what do I see Chris you have high cholesterol now.
This is a true story. This happened this year. I've always been a very healthy individual until recently, right? The Louisiana food got to me. but I tell you what I went to my doctor and I you know what I see in my doctor confidence and I'm expecting value.

but why? here's how I know why because it took a while I go to the doctor he goes hey I wanna I wanna get your cholesterol checked because I went to Saint Tammany Hospital they drew blood right. they stabbed me and they didn't take one. Two, they took three vials of blood. That's a lot of blood right? I was there for a little while, got my free cookies and everything.

Okay seems like a lot of blood but I'm like you know what? What do I know I'm not a doctor I just see the value in this doctor I'm gonna do whatever he tells me to do right. Let's look at the data. Here's what: I Really want you to pay attention to what do you see on the left side of that screen that's an app. My doctor says oh, you need to download this app That's how you get your results really fast and I'm like oh okay, that's kind of weird I haven't done that before.

so I get my my chart app I get my results from my blood chart and I'm like oh I have no idea what any of that means I'm the homeowner right? and I'm like what does that mean over my head but you know what? I do understand green and yellow and I knew yellow was no good I still didn't really know exactly what my problem was. but here's what's interesting. Look at Measure Quick Does that not look very similar to my My Chart app that came from my doctor. Now if I'm going to trust my doctor with an app to tell me what's wrong What? I'm not trust my Measure Quick app for my air conditioner right? We got a prostate test coming so placement is critical.

Foreign personal attention from my doctor. Okay, just like our Diagnostics and Measure Quick hey, you got some duck leakage. My doctor sends me a note because I'm like I don't know what this means He was quick to go. hey Chris I recommend a low cholesterol diet and I'm like dang it I knew that's where he was going.

What does that mean? There goes the steak right? No more. Stakes there goes the red meat and I don't know about you guys I'm from Louisiana I'm from the boot. You ain't been to the boot. The food is amazing and I freaking love food right? So I had to figure this out I'm like man, what am I going to do talking to my wife right? I got high cholesterol I'm not feeling very good and I'm just no I'm unhealthy I know I'm not in the place I want to be So I did some quick research and guess what I did I stumbled across another what app it's called Hungary Root.
They should pay me marketing for this, right? But it lets me pick my groceries out by category, my food by category, and I'm like man, this is pretty interesting I'm intrigued I like to cook I can see myself doing this and I did that's my Hunger Root box shows up to my house right and I'm like let's get it done. It takes this to get here now I wish Neil Comparetto would have made it. He'd have got a huge laugh out of this. He got me hooked on turmeric.

It's Kind of a Funny it's an inside joke right? But look, it's real value. It is not this. I know you are not feeling well but I have run some checks and I can tell you your blood pressure is good right? and you don't have a temperature. Why don't we just see how this plays out.

How many times has your doctor told you that? Does that make you feel very confident? That's going to be the result? Nothing. This is what it should look like. Stand up Doug All right I know you are not comfortable but I have run some checks and I can tell you everything is running as expected. Why don't you see how you do for a couple weeks and let me know.

Limited value, limited confidence. This is what it should look like with Doug right? We want to get to here. You have leaky return duct in your attic. The good news is we can fix it for 835 dollars and it will have a big impact on addressing your comfort issues.

Does this look like real value delivered with confidence? I could have went to the store and just got an accu-check meter right? I could I could have checked my cholesterol look I could have went to Walgreens Target you name it, picked up a 29 meter. Let me ask you something. would you stop eating quality Louisiana food based on a 29 meter, Would you would you? you'd be like no, no, it says it's high but you know we. We just bought these two inch cut steaks like it's going to happen right? Sorry.

We'll start next week right? Does this look like value and perceive confidence? Do you really want to trust that guy right? Y'all know who that is I would dress that guy look I feel another story coming on I work for uh Nick's Heating and Air in Hammond Louisiana I'm primarily a uh duck man I make duck work for all our commercial residential but I also uh, manage uh the installers and assist the service tax with uh questions out in the field and put out fires. All right, there's a story I think that needs to be told. We received an email from a customer uh regarding a certain store that was having uh humidity issues. They had brought in a performance company and uh, they wanted to test, bring a professional test and Balance company in to find out how bad of a problem it was.
So the company the customer called us and asked us to go look at it, see what we could find. We brought out the true flow. We did the measurements, measurements said we were good. It led us to another problem they had remodeled a few months earlier and uh, disregarded some control on a makeup error that nobody caught and that was the primary problem was the makeup air was not functioning causing negative pressure in the building without the true flow.

I Could not give them the numbers that they needed to see to let them know that there was not a problem with their duct work or the toning of the building but it was something else. I Sent this uh tool out with my guys and they did all the testing and they got done with the testing. They got the results. The results was this report.

This report got sent to the email Chang and with that everybody got to see the numbers. This wasn't my opinion, it wasn't my company's opinion. this was a tool that showed the numbers and it showed where the problems were and where the problems weren't That's a friend of mine who lives about 20 minutes away from me. I Didn't even know this guy before I Came on board with Tec He buys a true flow.

he's the sheet metal technician inside of that company. Doesn't go out to the field true flow measure quick now they're sending like they're they're asking. Rick Can Rick come to the job. We got issues.

Nothing adds up. Rick's out there with the true flow and just making things happen. He's like the go-to lead technician at this point, right? I Wish he could have been here because he it wasn't paid to do this. He told me the story at lunch one day and I said man, please can I film it.

That's reality right there. Let me ask you a question. Does this look like value you paid to be here? Are you having a good time right? Was this worth it? Yeah. Does this look like value? Y'all have the HVAC school app I would imagine you do.

You're here right? This looks like value. If you haven't had a true flow, please come test it out. But do those numbers look like value? Does that look like value right? You see where we're going here. These apps, man, it's the future.

This is what you can do with Measure Quick and the true flow. That's the resident Act of Standard 310 we were talking about and that's a quick snapshot to say we can get you accomplished. Talk to me and Jim about how we can do this because this is what we'd like to see the industry go to. So today's training objectives guys.

The value of following a commissioning process. Check for that leak and duct work right and go sell it. Go sell it with confidence. Go use the apps, Go get the data, take the data to the homeowner, and use that data just like your doctor would.

So some final questions: Do you have an established commissioning process? That's a general question looking at heads nodding or not hotting. Do you have a commissioning process? You put in a new system? What are you doing? Turn it on running out? There Are you commissioning it? That's what we're asking you guys to do. We're asking you to help us make this the industry standard. Start commissioning.
That's that's the key. Jim You want to add anything to that? No. I think it's it's also. there's there's a lot of ways to do this too.

You don't have to. You don't have to train everybody in your company to commission. You can actually have one or two people that are commissioning Specialists for your company that go behind your technicians and actually follow this process to actually vet the equipment. make sure it's running right and then you focus with your installers.

What I would do in that case is if I find a deficiency then I'm gonna I'm gonna train my installer and make sure I don't have that deficiency again, right? But the the key thing is here is is putting in a process. The key thing about this is you guys are learned something in this class hopefully and going home and changing what you're doing again. I I Said this earlier today, but I think it's worth restating is that you're around a lot of bringing people at this at this Workshop that are going to give you a lot of really good ideas on how to fix your business. But unless you go back home and you implement them and you actually use this stuff and actually start to start to try and do it, it's it's uh, it's not going to get done.

and and this this is not. uh um, it's not hard, but it's it's not easy. And the the key thing what makes it not easy is you're going to find more problems with your installations than you've ever found before and now you have to figure out how to get them solved and the solutions are in manual D Manual J Manual S their Solutions are there. The whole industry's been here, we just aren't using, we just aren't using the uh, the right tools to solve the problems.

And so a big part of this Workshop this year was trying to trying to to make you aware of the tools that are available and uh, to get you actually using them. So some final questions: Do you measure airflow? Today you do good for you. We're asking you if you don't have a way to do it, come talk to us. Come talk to Steve We're not saying you got to go buy a true flow.

We'll teach you how to do it, anyway. what you have in your tool bag right now we just want to see you do it right. And and then if you move on to this because you like what we're doing, support is great. But let's get you started.

You need a duck leakage, right? How many of y'all are doing duck leakage testing? Got one? If you're not, you can't assume looking at this ductwork is sealed right I've made the mistake 20-year veteran call it literally calling my boss saying yeah, that ain't leaking and I got my you know what, Hand it to me right? he does love food I do love food my my my how the tables have turned. Here's Jim right Hey Doc you have high static pressure. What do I see right there I see value and I see confidence am I right? I'll leave you with one word of advice guys. you need to become the doctor.
The house doctor. That's it guys. Thank you. Appreciate it! Big thanks to Jim Big thanks to Chris They're both great friends, both great.

Educators Really smart guys. Take a look at Measure Quick and the energy Conservatory to learn more about some of what they were talking about in this presentation. Thanks for watching. If you're willing, give this video a thumbs up and drop us a comment.

don't forget to hit that Bell icon to stay updated with all of our future videos. And as a quick reminder HVAC School isn't just a YouTube channel. Dive deeper with us at our main website Hvacrschool.com Curious for more knowledge? on the go? We've got you covered! Tune in to the HVAC School podcast available on all your favorite podcast apps. Also, don't miss out on our free mobile applications available for both iPhone and Android.

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13 thoughts on “Hvac commissioning on steroids w/ jim bergmann chris hughes”
  1. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Yans Labrada says:

    hello, I want to know about a device, It's luck like a filter drier, located in the discharge, close to the compressor, in condenser units, carrier, and Goodman, I appreciate your help thank you Are you in Kanata ?

  2. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars BRADASS OFFGRID HOMESTEAD says:

    High Cholesterol is HEALTHY!!!! You are brainwashed, please do your research…

  3. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars JerryAIRE says:

    Thanks

  4. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Swanz says:

    I test airflow often but in comercial/industrial systems. I wish there was a better or easier/quicker way than traversing with a hot wire. Thats all i have for somewhat accurate measurements. I also test tesp to compare results

  5. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Brian Mcdermott says:

    Great info. Bryan. Thank you.

  6. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars HartleyWassup69 says:

    What about building codes that require heat laden “fresh air” to be dumped into humid climates Return Air?

  7. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Sebastian Kaluzynski says:

    Smaller company i work for in northeast keep the install team primarily for equipment replacement ( 95% of install work) which means existing ductwork in New England homes, Homes with ductwork ranging from the 60s-90s which is panned bays and generally designed to have 30% leakage or more and much of said ductwork inaccessible. Homes from 90s-2010s were done in housing boom, most often by lowest bidders and you once again got inaccessible crap ducts or flex bonanza or a combo of both. Point being that over 90% of homes have majority of ductwork concealed or inaccessible so what's the point of measuring the losses if in reality there's no point of selling the $800 sealing job when it comes with an $8k-80k remodeling job, possibly new ductwork+insulation. Few attics and even fewer basements that got the ductwork accessible in totality, are an impossible sale the way you guys explained. I can see this testing being done on the old system if it's still alive and sold as an add-on to the new system. Keeping in mind that no client will want to hear the new system they just paid $15k for will need another few thousand to seal it. Minding that in northeast the ductwork is predominantly insulated on outside and sealing job means re-insulating after as well, which adds significantly to difficulty level and Cost for all involved far beyond some $800 and often running entirely new ductwork may be easier and cheaper. Now selling a $10k+ ductwork job to a client who had an existing system that in their mind worked good until it died on top of a $10-20k replacement is a whole different ball game, even when it's actually possible. Nobody gonna rip up 10 million house to replace concealed ductwork even if they have a 40% leakage. If memory serves, that's why the old timers oversized the systems to have that leakage included in their calculations and still be able to deliver proper BTUs to space. Great idea in theory, maybe even in practice in certain areas. Can't see it too widely implemented not only due to above mentioned many restrictions but also because there's far to few actual pros understanding it compared to those who don't. Clients who could afford this service, have the ducts in their mansions concealed, clients who don't have it concealed, most often can't afford it and then there's a few who wish they could and many who don't give a rats ass so long cool air blows. I've done Energy Star homes etc with darn near 0 leakage tested and confirmed and know the difference it makes, just saying the current market for it in my area is less than 1 in a 1000.

  8. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Jtorrey81 says:

    Nope. This is absurd and only about pushing an app. Tape/seal your joints. Problems solved

  9. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Mike Cianfrocco says:

    Amazing seeing this live!!!
    See you in 2024

  10. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars famous dude says:

    Ductless Mini Split….end of the story! Service area Ottawa??

  11. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Billy Vandervoet says:

    I don’t understand, if you do things right and don’t cut corners then you are talking to half ass techs.

  12. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Bob Y says:

    Great information if your ductwork is running through an attic or unconditioned spaces . For people in the Midwest with basements & ductwork running through conditioned areas, leakage is not that big of a deal, as long as it’s making it to the conditioned area . By far static pressure is the biggest killer here in the Midwest (and that boils down to improper duct size,a killer no matter what neck of the woods you live in💨 ). Manuals J,D,S & yes the one that no one uses, manual T & Life will be good (at least the HVAC system will be good 😂).

  13. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Robert Destefano says:

    Ty 👍well done

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