Hello everyone and uh, welcome to a live stream at the fifth Annual Hvacr Training. Symposium My name is Ben Reed I am with measurequick as you can see by my hat and uh with me. Today is a fine gentleman who is, uh, teleported himself uh here to the Symposium down in Florida from Ohio and his name is Jim hey how you doing Ben Good man, good. Good to see you here even if you're not here in the in the flesh.

Yeah, yeah, you aren't kidding. So yeah. but but uh, we're here to talk about something very important. uh which.

it is a solution for our labor endemic and uh, maybe a term. a method in which you haven't heard uh, this, uh, talked about before because a lot of people use the term either crisis as in you know, skilled, uh, labor crisis or um, uh, something something related to that because it's it's a it's a fairly familiar term. but one of the problems with calling it a crisis is that a crisis is supposed to be temporary. and in the crisis, you are expected to see everybody banding together to come up with a solution.

And then you get beyond the crisis. Uh, we are not in a crisis because this has been going on for over a decade. We are in an endemic because we have learned to just live with it. We have not solved our problem of trying to, uh, get more skilled labor into the into this trade, into Hfac into residential HVAC It has gotten worse and we have developed coping mechanisms that's an end endemic So that's a piece of information that has really been in.

like at Measurequick. We've been thinking about it a lot and Jim has come up with an idea on how to tackle this endemic. So Jim yeah, can you go into detail? Yeah yeah. I think it's been I mean we've been you know I I was a high school teacher for 12 years and and um, it's It's very interesting when you look at how we tried to.

We we tried to solve this over and over with traditional methods. I mean every every time you know like if you go all the way back to Obama era funding and now in uh, inflation reduct act funding, you see all these fly schools pop up. You see them hire, you know, people make them into instructors. They they bust them in from everywhere they can get them and put them in classrooms and these people end up like trained by people in the field trained with the same methods that are this like long long.

um I don't even want to call an apprenticeship because it's not an apprentice, it's just a long time in the industry. Like the way that you learn this industry is, you spend time in it and you just learn by by being there every day by coming to work every day. There's not a lot of formalized training and the people when they come in, they learn fundamentals of the refrigeration cycle. they learn maybe how to you know, braze on a a piece of copper on a vice or they learn these skills.

but they're They're just such a small set of skills that they need to be successful. Because when you like, look at this industry, you know it's it takes I would say a solid five years before you even start to feel like you know what you're doing. and then it's probably another 10 years before you actually do know what you're You know you're doing and that's only at the level that you've been exposed to. Like yeah, there's so many people at Symposium that have way more than 10 years of experience, but they have like the same year 10 years over.

They just keep doing the same things they're doing over and over and over again. And that's what makes this Symposium So cool is because you get around people you get exposed to some new ideas, some new things and and uh uh just new ways of doing things. So you know we were we were backing up about oh gosh, it's probably been about six months ago and um you know we're just looking at what we're doing at at Measurequick and and uh Chad Simpson one of our one of our local contractors he uh he started hiring um people from Xerox people from like right outside of the industry that had like good communication skills. they they they knew how to come to work every day you know dressed in a nice pair of pants and a nice a nice shirt.

They they had good customer service skills, they could talk to people, they they had everything but HVAC experience right? They they were Um, they were polished. Um they were professional. but when it came to Hbac they had you know they had zero experience in the HVAC industry and so he and U Bench Nard were like well let's train them on Measure Quick and so they have a lab in In Canton Ohio and I actually went in with them early on and helped them design the lab to specifically teach Measure Quick and in8 to 10 weeks leveraging technology. They were actually able to put these guys out into the field and they weren't only doing well, they were actually an asset versus a liability.

I Mean most most people that you have for the first year are just a liability. In other words, you're hiring them because you need them. You're training them, you're investing in them. but they just cost you money.

they're not. They're not as much help as you pay them, but these guys were bringing in very, very high-end jobs and sales because all of a sudden using technology, they're able to identify the systems that were good candidates for replacement and then bring in the people that they needed to help get the sale closed. So it was. It was.

it was. You know the these jobs sort of started out as tuneups. You know they were sending them out there to do a tuneup on equipment, but it ended up they're actually at the end of the day. Um, the the customer actually said you know what I think I actually want a new piece of equipment and that led us to to two new roles in the industry.

One's called the the test and one's called The Arc And and what's interesting when it when you looked at what Chad and Ben did they they didn't send these guys to the Uh to the problem calls. In other words, these weren't service calls, these were tuneup calls. And I think it's so critical that that we focus on that for just a minute because what these guys were in a sense doing was to, um, give the customer an opportunity to make a decision before a decision had to be made. In other words, Mrs Jones Your system is 20 years old I Can surely keep it running for a little while longer, but eventually you're going to have to change it.

Um, you know, why don't we get somebody out here? Maybe we can do the heat loss calculation? Maybe we can evaluate your duck system. Maybe we can do some preliminary work so that when you're actually ready to change the system out, we have everything. We have everything already all mapped out right. and if you're going to use somebody else to do the job eventually, they'll need the same information.

But let's make a decision now. Well, we're not under addess where your equipment's still running before we actually get under duress and then we're end up with a like for like replacement because if we make the wrong decision and you're stuck with that piece of equipment for 15 to 20 years, right? Unless you want to change it early and that whole mindset of uh of doing that presentation and then obviously in a lot of these cases, once the consumer gets so far down there, they're like, you know what I got to change it Anyway, let's just go ahead and do it. They ended up getting that Sal So that test that a technical efficiency specialist really becomes a an advocate for the consumer to help them, you know, try and and and uh, prepare for the inevitable. Get the They have the skill set to you know, deploy, measure quick to take photos of things they need to take photos of, to use things like true flow grid to measure air flow and do a duck system analysis, see if the duck system's going to need work, um, to gather information about the consumer so we can look if there's you know, uh, financing available and deflation reduction act And these people don't need to, They don't need to know all this stuff.

What they need to know is where to. put the probe, how to run measurequick, how to do the duck system analysis, what to take photos of, and then using measure quii. We just get it right back to the right people, right? And that's the whole like concept of the test. and and I want to kind of H break it down a little bit related to the the work that the test is is doing.

They're like very simply. in my mind, it's the design. The design isn't really getting done. Um, the tests may be doing the design or they may be more I Think Gathering the data that the designer actually needs to do the design.

So think of it as you know. getting a picture of the existing equipment, model, and serial number tags, getting pictures of the existing duck system, looking at the counting up, the number of registers and supplies, and returns, and things like that. It's this where I'm going back. You know they don't have to take a whole design course, but they may walk through the house with a product like conduit where they have a liar sensor and they're doing a full um, like measurement of the entire house in you know, 10 minutes where they're walking through and they're getting a floor plan of the entire house so they can do a block load or a room by room load they're getting up in the attic and measuring insulation determine if you know because a lot of times we need to improve envelope before we, if we're going to go to a full electrification, we need to do envelope improvements.

So they're again, think of them as um, the person that is, um, that is getting the information so that we can actually do that design element. And actually it also has the skills to actually tune up the system to get it operating optimally until it's ready to be replaced. So like, you know, cleaning the coils, cleaning the filter. But I mean if we got into something like pulling and cleaning a blower that we' get a service technician out, right? I Mean they're not gonna.

They're not going to unwire things, they're not gonna. They're more skilled than a homeowner. Uh, like a an astute homeowner that would maybe maintain their own system, but uh, less skilled than a service technician. Yeah, and they they really kind of it.

It's still doing the work that isn't being done because a lot of technicians are not incentivized to spend that time or to collect that information. and they're the the business structure of most. Uh HVAC Businesses require a plethora of other things that need to get done on you. every Uh installation or service.

Call that all of those meticulous steps to be able to collect that information is it ends up being such a Divergence from their like uh Diagnostics and and fixing work that I Think that that's why there's that clash between like you know they're They're not collecting really good data because they don't have the technology, they don't have the training, and then they don't have the incentives uh, to do so well and nobody's collecting it. I Mean what? What literally happens a lot of times is that furnace or air conditioner runs till it's dead. The salesman comes out and he goes well. You have a two-ton how's it? How's it doing for you? You know they're like, well, it either doesn't cool enough or it cools or it's fine.

So you either get a like for like, or maybe you get an upssize piece of equipment a lot of cases, right? or Mrs Jones this is all that's available. So we're gonna. You know, we don't have a two and a half ton, so we're gonna put a three ton in, right? Because we don't have that piece of equipment. So again, it's like we have this opportunity while somebody's out there doing this tuneup to spend another hour or two actually providing them with a with a with a service that's going to help them to, uh, um, make that electrification decision if they want to go electrification or they want to go dual fuel or whatever they want to do, but it's gonna it's it's it's going to enable this to happen right where.

Right now, we don't have any vehicle that enables people to actually do this and we're watching I don't know if you saw that that um, the post on LinkedIn about uh, people in New York that that put on like four or five heat pumps into their home and they had a $600 or $800 electric bill and it was because they did the electrification before they did the envelope work. and um, and you know they're saying if we had done the envelope work first, then we could have sized the heat pump appropriately. And sometimes it's just like you know, adding taking an attic from R19 to R42 or something. you know it doesn't have to be, uh, crazy, um, amounts of work sometimes to get a house prepared more prepared for a heat pump.

but it it it does require somebody to actually like do an analysis because heat pumps. um well they're you know, as efficient of as a gas furnace. Let's say down to maybe in the 30 degree range once they get below 30 degrees, we want to give it every advantage that we can because the cop starts to fall off to the point where now gas you know can become more. um can become more cost effective and it's you know it's It's what's interesting with if you're a consumer, is, uh, if you probably averaged out your electric bills over the course of the whole year, even though you got this one chunk of an $800 or $600 bill, you're freaking out.

Um, it would probably average out, you know, pretty pretty reasonable over the course of year. But if you want to have an upset customer, you know, um, don't don't don't do the envelope first and let them get that bill because that's what's going to happen. It's it's not about cash, it's about cash flow and nobody wants to have that. That giant Bill come in and a lot of the approach of the traditional industry when like like the order of operations for solving, it is usually just looking at the system instead of thinking about the the the House is the house as a system and uh, and so without taking a different uh' tactic where you uh are solving the problem with with data, you're letting the data tell you what the answer is, but you need you need to have that like of the correct pieces of data to be able to inform that decision.

But the decision almost could end up being like an automated, almost more empirical output because if you have the correct pieces of data that are collected um, from the right uh locations using the right uh pieces of Technology then that that's what really enables the uh. the tees Paradigm Is that it's not it's it's taking somebody who is unskilled and being able to allow them to leverage data to uh, solve that Communications Gap I Think that's a an interesting way looking at because we got into a a T Ty run I'm super passionate about the fact that we have a skilled labor shortage and because I talk all the the time. we have a labor shortage and when you and he's 100% right right? we we are missing skilled labor. In Industry we we need skilled labor.

But the thing is is that what if could use unskilled labor. and Technology right? I mean I I I Don't have to. Uh, you know. think about the person that's at McDonald's running a cash register.

The cash register is a pullo of salale system. It runs the orders back to the kitchen. It it it it. It actually counts everything that's in the drawer.

It it's an accounting system. It it does a ton of stuff. Um, but that person running to register. they're not an accountant.

They're not A they're not a a line. Chef They're not running the orders back. They're literally just leveraging a piece of technology to do all that work for them right. We're taking a very complex system and we're putting a a a person with lower skills behind it that's got maybe good customer service skills, good customer forward facing appearance.

but they're leveraging technology so the answer becomes like we have spent the last you know, 20 years saying we need more skilled labor. Well what we actually need is technology that we can use unskilled labor and get the same results. And and but I was going to say that that probably is a little bit like you know for Tai it it would be jarring for a lot of people who have spent their career priding themselves like everybody who's probably watching this or everybody who's at this, uh, at the act at the Symposium they have, uh, put in an order of magnitude more effort than than a lot of people do to try to become that like really super skilled labor. And so to think that they might be working alongside somebody that doesn't know those HVAC skills could probably be a little bit, uh, jarring.

Well, it would be if if we were trying to displace those workers and we're not we're You know if if if I said we're going to use Measurequick to replace a service person you know, get a person in to do service work or a person in to do installation work I'd say yeah, no, you're absolutely crazy. You can't do that you need you need. Um, you need more formalized education. You need a lot more tools.

You need a lot more stuff to to displace the current Workforce right? But there's two things that aren't getting done in our industry. One is, we're not. we're we're not pre-screening homes and duct systems. And and and uh, Preparing People for electrification.

We're just not doing the sizing. We're not doing all that leg work. It does not take somebody with a high level of skills to aggregate data to bring data together into a system that we can now give to a person with skills to actually do the job. What? What I'm talking about is like better leveraging our skilled people.

So instead of sending out one person in your company that can do a heat loss calculation, have them spending you know, an hour at every home and an hour of driving and be able to do you know a hand. you know a handful of them. A Day To all of a sudden being able to do five to 10 times the amount of those because they have all that information they need at their fingertips. Because now we have people in the field that can go out and and and you know, pull in that data for them.

It's it's and you know on the other. We haven't talked about the The Ark a little bit. Maybe we should transition over to the to the To the Ark, but the Advanced Residential Commissioning Specialist I think a very interesting, uh, interesting role and that that almost came from you know, uh. in sumers fense going out to California and looking at energy Auditors in California and what they were doing in California and the Energy auditor was like honestly, never supposed to, you know, touch a refrigerant charge on a system, but we all know that they were.

They were topping off charges, getting sub cooling in the right range, readjusting air flow because this is work Again, that wasn't getting done commissioning work that wasn't getting done by the installation technician, right? So an install technician. They have the skills most of the time to do the Mechanicals the installation, connect the thermostat, connect the piping, do the maybe, do the evacuation. Um, you know they can. They can set up the Uh, the duct work and and run the supply register and all that stuff.

But there's this gray area where Um between an skill set that you have of an installation technician and a service tech, a service person, Um, where they may or may not know how to properly charge a system, they may or may not have their CFC certification. They may or may not know how to adjust the air flow and get the system set up properly. And because of that, a majority of the systems in the field today are left uncommitted, right? They're just. this is again.

it's a task that's not being done. So when we say that we're going to use lower skilled labor or unskilled labor and enable them with technology to be able to do this, we're talking about a Uh A You know, a few thousand dollars wor of tools, Something that can be done out of a Prius something that we teach how to read a manual that can adjust the the fan speeds appropriately to get the air flow right. Somebody understands CFM for ton what they need to set it at and then somebody that understands you know how to charge a system by super heater, sub cooling and met static pressures and some basic things. so it's not a Again, this is not a high lift.

We're not teaching them the brace, We're not teaching them to solder. We're not teaching them how to wire controls and how to do the controls technician. We're not teaching them how to do duck work and how to how to do the mastic and how to do everything else. With installing the duck system, we're We're teaching them a subset of skills which is simply how to make sure that that system is performing to the design.

So now we've designed it because now we're using the arc together the sorry the test to GA the information to actually get a proper design done. We're not under duress. The consumer is actually able to make a decision. We pick the right equipment, We make sure the duck system is adequate.

We complete the installation, installer comes out. they do what they want to do, get the installation done. That's normally these people are like drilled into a in. you know, a seven eight hour day.

They're going to get that installed done. But what they're not going to do is get that commissioning done. So now we're going to send out a person post installation to actually set the airf flow to actually, um, get the charge correct on the system to actually performance test the system and make sure that it's getting the Heat or cooling to the space that we're not in training. a from the registers to to take again, maybe another visual punch list.

So they're taking photos that are coming back to the office in real time so that a third party can look at those photos and make sure that that installation is done and the test has got enough information to make sure that it's operating. You know, hopefully we get 100% score on it is operating as designed as engineered, the charge is right, the air flow is right, and now the system is going to last. you know, 20 years and we're going to eliminate the callbacks. We're going to eliminate the social media Fallout We're going to eliminate um, uh, the dissatisfied customer.

We're going to eliminate the high electrical bills. Um, we're going to eliminate the uh, the emergency calls in the coldest day of the year. It's It's a huge benefit to everybody and so that that Arc rule. Um, you know, really? what do they require? They require a CST certification.

Uh, they require somebody that's maybe a little more I would say somebody that's got a little more interated introverted. It's like very detail oriented that wants to. You know that's going to be a master of the manual. Read the book.

Um, make sure that you know they're they're They're uh, very detail oriented. So they're going through a process that maybe is built out measure quick. Very methodical to get a very consistent outcome right? It's we got a process in place to make make that outcome consistent. So it's it's These two roles are not displacing anybody.

They're not replacing anybody. We're we're actually filling two voids um, which is the design side and the Uh and the commissioning side that are not getting done. And then there's also this Big Boon to the company when they can. If they fill these two roles is they don't have to equip every installer with a true flow grid with a probe kit with this all these tooling and teach everybody the company.

Because now you know I'm I'm envisioning like one. Arc could commission two to three systems a day at most. So you need two to three arcs for every installation crew right? and um, uh. And so the other interesting thing is is we get is, well, how how you gonna pay, How you gonna pay for this right? and I think who who's going to pay for this because we're not commissioning equipment today and uh um, you know who we're Obviously we're getting sales.

Still, why would we want to do this? You know who what technicians are going to do this. So I I Think you know part of it is services that we sell. You know consumers are Are there are consumers that are interested on electrification? There are consumers that are interested in tuneups. Obviously, tuneups are a lost leader for company and you know, believe it or not, a lot of times uh, people want to say it out loud, but I will is that we we.

We go out. We don't go out to for a tuneup, to tune up the system. We go out for a tuneup because we want to identify a system that's uh, ready for replacement, right? It's A it is a uh uh very very rarely do we go out there and uh uh, not. With that mindset of of let's let's look for the systems that are 15 20 years old that are ideal candidates for replacement and let's suggest replacement to the consumer.

And that's not without. Um, that's not without. Merit Because these equipment only lasts so long and you're going to have to replace it. But now again, we're we're We're actually we have a running piece of equipment.

We're not under duress. We can. Actually, we can actually gather the right information with the right tools and the right technology and the right people and actually get a not only get a sale, but get a really good sale that may come with. you know, the higher end equipment.

The higher end technology that may come with a insulation may come with other things. Services that you provide. Um, on that on that test side and then on the on the Arc side. you know.

I Just had a contractor today say well who's going to pay for the commissioning and and the resulting things that may need fixed after we put the system in. it's like well you are, you're already paying for it. You're paying for it In In in call backs, you're paying for it Market rep reputation. You're paying for it in you know and uh, opportunity losses When you're when you're technicians are out there fixing something that you already installed versus uh um you know installing something new.

um and your consumer I mean I think it was uh I don't remember who it was this morning. maybe it was was it was Dom from NCI said uh um you know being like buying a pizza and and uh and a Big Slice of it's missing right? And it's like the consumer consumer has no idea that you just stole a big chunk of their pizza because they they paid for performance. They paid for outcome, not for installation right? The outcome they're looking for is is Comfort The outcome they're looking for is safety. The outcome they're looking for is low utility bills.

Um, they're not looking just to have a a piece of equipment installed. So part of this is a mindset but also yeah I Believe you could add additional money into your into your jobs and explain the service that we that you offer to your customer that you're going to be sending out another party A third party. that's going to actually do the startup on the equipment and this startup could be done a day after. It could be done a month after.

It could be six months after. If you have your installers make sure the equipment's safe, you know you put a combustion analyzer on it, you measure temp, split, you do some Basics um because you know obviously it's not always. Let's say ideal to start up the cooling in the winter time or ideal to start the heating in the in the summertime. Or you may like, like Rayo Cook Paul McHugh He likes to uh, schedule these um, commissioning their startups when it's their shoulder season so they can focus on getting every install they can during the Uh during the peak season, right? But it it just comes down to um, uh, deciding how you fit these two roles into your into your Workforce and these could be people Again, they could be inside your existing Workforce you could transition to these jobs or people that you pull from the outside in.

But what we're what I'm telling you is that if you enable them with the right software, the right tools, that that that you do not have to have somebody with five to 10 years of HVAC experience to get very very good outcome. Because it's the first time in history we've actually been able to leverage some technologies that are going to enable these two Um jobs actually to be viable. and I want to go back to uh like because very exciting that like the techn like Lar is super exciting. The uh the fact that commissioning now is becoming a no-brainer because of how Easy Measurequick makes it.

But the so many comments that I see whether it's you know in in Facebook groups on on YouTube you know videos or or streams like it. A lot of the questions come down to being like well it is all about the money though it is the like you know the the. there are decisions that a business that an HVAC business makes to be able to build a specific a business model that allows them to be profitable so that they can continue being in business. So I want to I want to speak to that for a second because one of the comments was like but you know tools are expensive and I see that I see that all the time a couple thousand dollars is very expensive if if the let's say a technician is expected to buy it and I think that's absolutely stupid if a business believes that the technician is the one that should be buying tools because the cost to a business not basically doing what what I would call mitigating risk it is.

it is so high the risk that businesses are um, living with right now without being able to uh, make decisions based on empirical data. it is. It is absolutely mindboggling how much money is wasted because of callbacks and because of inefficiencies and because of you know, like, rework. The hard part is Ben is it's not often measured right.

We're in an industry where a lot of people don't have tools or they're not actively measuring the impact of that on their business. and they don't think about things like opportunity losses. So let me let me just like bounce this off you for a minute because I think this is important to understand. So the only people that bring Revenue into the company are your are your service tech, your field technicians like they're They're in contact with the customer they're actually bringing in Revenue to the company, everybody else the company.

When you like walk into to that office, the office is overhead. The benefits are overhead, the vacations are overhead, the secretaries are overhead the salespeople maybe you could say or overhead or not depends how successful they are. the parts person's overhead the uh, like there's probably 10 or 15 people in that office that are overhead cost. There's the overhead of the trucks, There's the overhead of the uniforms.

There's the overhead of any perks that you provide to your employees. You add all that up and that company has to make somewhere. Let's say $400 to $1,000 a manh hour to actually survive Because you you you've got a certain amount of Revenue that you have to that you have to generate just to support the overhead cost. Yeah and then on top of that you have the opportunity losses.

So again if if that person's out there fixing something that you already got paid to do then again that revenue is is lost because you're you're spending money at the same time you're not making money. So it's a double whamming. But if you don't measure that in your business a lot of times you're thinking well you know Bobbly makes you know $30 an hour So he was at the call an hour I only lost $30 You don't realize you lost $400 You don't realize if you would have had to test out there that one time that you would have that you would have um uh you know you would have paid paid that you Arc one you know two or three times over the amount of Labor that you you would have saved and it's because we just don't have tools to measure Now we had customers that have like service Titan that we actually have them start to measure things. Had a contractor call me the day they have 100% call back rate on their new installations so in the first year 100% of the jobs that they had installed they had gone back on for some reason or another Anything from a disconnected didn't have fuses in it to you know to some kind of a little callback new construction contractor, but 100% 100% callback ratio.

how much is that costing them And eventually they get to the point where they can't do any more work because they're so busy servicing what they've sold that they don't have the bandwidth for new for more installations. And we can't hire more people because we don't have the skilled labor you know. Um, so it it just becomes this perpetuating cycle. It it's like the the capacity like you hire 10 techs and the because of all the inefficiencies.

Literally, you're only getting the like five maybe six worth six text worth of of value out of it because they're living with all of that inefficiency. And this is kind of taking a bit of a tangent. but it's important because it's the this I think is is one of the keys to helping people go through that transition because it's not even about measure quick, It's not. It's not about you know, connected tools.

It is about that being able to price in that risk and opportunity loss. And yes, the like people aren't measuring it. But I think that and we've talked about this before. I Think that we should be U maybe working uh with a couple of our partners to produce a couple calculators that make it very straightforward, just being like, okay, let's put in some numbers.

you know, what's your call back percentage or maybe estimate what it is And like like look at these case studies about how this is how this company runs its business and they had let's say maybe a 5% uh call back rate and that could equate to $150,000 a year. Like like once you price it in you can see how much money you're You're you're losing, but you need to. You need to make sure that you're comp that you're uh, accounting for those elements that a lot of HVAC business owners like. Let's face it, they don't go to business school for the most part they they they're they technicians.

Most of them are technicians that become business owners and the there's those blind spots of being able to like work with those factors that uh, you kind of. you need to have that other train which there is no HVAC training aside from maybe some coaching programs that help you understand how to how to work with that side of the business. Well I think too. you know, like looking at uh Chad's business too I mean he's got I can't remember how many like I don't know? Want to say it's like four or 600 Google F star reviews right? And we all know the companies are getting rolled up with with a lot of the BC and PE money coming in and rolling up companies and uh, you know what do you think a companies worth with the 500 uh, three star reviews versus 500 fstar reviews? What's it worth for your company to have that kind of customer satisfaction that that, um, you get that kind of reviews where you show up you know, on the on the on the top page when somebody searches that you have this, what? What's that? What's that worth for the marketing of your company? What's it worth for the value of your company I think there's there's so much value there and and they've deployed this stuff and they've actually made it part of their you know, obviously heavily ingrained in their business.

but there's so much value there that I I don't think, um, they may not be realizing at this second I mean they're realizing it obviously in uh I think people call just because the reviews. but I also think that they're building value a lot of value in their company when it comes to the value of you know when they go. if they Chad ever sells, it's it's it's it's about efficiency of his Workforce how much more work can they get done by leveraging technology than their competitors can get get done? How much more valuable are those employees I I Remember uh, there's an old uh adage that somebody said um, well what happens if I train my employees and they and they leave and somebody else said, well, what happens if you don't train them and they say right and um I think you know when we look at deploying Technologies like this, like training like this and this, that's why I think the Arc in that has to have so much Merit is is at first with measurequick I'm like oh you should You know every installer should have a set of probes every you know I do think every service guy had but no, no, the installer should focus on the installation. we should.

We should only have a handful of people in the on the company that actually use this stuff for commissioning. We don't need to retrain like I don't need to pull my installers out of the workforce for two to three days. uh and train them over several months and tick them off because they don't want to do this commissioning piece because theyve never done it before and why should I have to do it now I don't want to do that I What I want to do is bring people in the actually want to do this work that actually are um you know we can equip the right tools, equip with the right stuff at a fraction of the cost now for the company because now we're talking about equipping a a small amount of the company with these tools and instead of the uh instead of you know everybody and but we end up with the same outcome right at the end of the day. Every system gets commissioned at the end of the day.

And what's interesting, you know we talk about. You know the like if you put these on an installer's truck, they're going to use them once a day you put put them in the Arc. They're going to use them Three, They're going to use them all day, right? They're going to use these tools all day and same thing with the tests. They're going to use these tools all day.

So now we're getting the the best outcome for our investment and we're We have somebody that is you know specialized that it's going and the other cool thing is is that you know one of the things I talked to Chad about was like if you're G to send an Arc out and he's got, he's putting the Arc rules into his company right now I said one of the things I would make sure they do is if you find a problem on the job then the arc has to you know take a picture of the take a highlight it, show it in the manual show in the installation manual like even if it's something like the the flu pipe's not pitched properly I Want to You take a picture and show the manual because this is not about arguing who's right and wrong about the installation that the manuals are very clear, this is how it's got to go in. The manuals are very clear, You know what what stat static pressure the system can operate under. It's like needs to be that people at the company all need to work together. The the test needs to find the great the great the great jobs the the the highend heat pump installations the the uh uh not put the consumer under under pressure to make bad financial decisions to have time to work on the financing and get these jobs you know, scheduled and done.

and then the Arc needs to go out there and make sure that you know that that the systems installed properly and everybody gets what they wanted the other day. But the the the beauty of this whole system is is that it it It augments your existing installation service Crews Without uh without displacing workers and without uh, repurposing your existing Workforce right it's and I Think that's what's so unique about this opportunity. Um, and it it fits. Giant holes, fills giant holes of of work that's not getting currently bladed.

And here's here's something for anybody who's like on the technician side, who who is watching uh, watching this or is going to watch it kind of moving forward is how much does uncertainty affect your work? How impactful is like the fact that you're you're missing certain pieces of information like maybe you haven't thought about it, but you are living in a like in ignorance on every single call that you're going to if you're not collecting all of the data points um to be able to kind of get to those conclusions that the test and the s are. Then you have uncertainty that the work that you're doing like that you don't have all the information. There's something that the homeowner didn't tell you, there's something that the previous installer service person didn't didn't like. Add to the ticket or or kind of write down or it's just not obvious or you don't have time to do it.

And so all of the time you are living your lives you are. You're doing your work in this sea of uncertainty And that's what ends up leading to callbacks is because if you had certainty of knowing exactly what it is that you're supposed to be like that, that's wrong with the system like and and you knew exactly what needed to get done every single time every problem is right there in front of you. then like then there's no more callbacks and everything's gonna be a lot less stressful because like if there are callbacks then that point you have the like, if you had the data then you made a decision not to act on it. well then that's on you.

But what if there was a world where you could still do the best work you want to do but then there's bookends to your work so that you have the the preliminary data that you need to do the best job and to not have uncertainty And then you also have the the information that after your job is done you can now have a bunch Mark to to to understand how well you did and what type of improvement you need to make in the future because I know that all of you that are watching this you want to get better. That's why you're here and so like battling uncertainty is kind of the key here and that's what these two roles are supposed to do for you. That's what's in it for you. I think also I mean when I go back I remember when I was a probably the first five years that I was doing this maybe the first 10 I don't know now but I would go home at night and I'd be thinking about jobs in the middle of the night where I had seen something, maybe not understood it and was just trying to figure out what what what What did I miss? like what like what else was happening on this job like why was this doing this and you know I you you'd see something and you'd sort of.

you wouldn't be a wouldn't be Earth shattering enough youd investigate a little further. almost be like a but it it be in the back be in the back of your head all the time and I remember for the first five or 10 years I could not sleep at night because I'd always be like reviewing service calls in my head thinking about did I do this? Did I do that? Did I put the screws back in? Did I miss something with the airf flow? Did I miss something with the charge and I missed something with the installation and you know a big a big part of it was we didn't have a process but not like we have today with um with measure quii. But the other thing was is that I didn't take the time like I I was fix I was fixing the root C I was fixing the symptom without doing a root cause analysis. Um, you know I I get online all the time and I see these guys you know showing these nasty nasty blower wheels or whatever and then like they're bragging about how they spend all this time the pressure wash and clean this floor wheel in the driveway and all I can think about is did you did you? Did you check the filter and make sure that dirt's not bypassing the filter? Did you offer a filter upgrade so that the system will will stay clean longer? Did you? Did you look for duct leakage? Downstream to the point of filtration? Did you try and figure out what was causing this problem before you Before you you know after you clean that BL wheel to make sure that this doesn't happen again, right? And you know we? it's it's It's like you know the guy that goes out there and he says finds a shraer course leaking.

You know every job he goes out it's a shraer core leaking because they don't do a a leak check on the system and they add a little refrigerant and they just think in the back of their head I wonder how long this is going to last you know and uh and a handful of those jobs every year they end up going back on because they they they fixed the symptom which was a little refrigerant, added refrigerant but they didn't really take the time to do a leak check. and when you when you get in the habit of of you know checking airf flow with true flow, doing a a duck system analysis and you get in the habit of nine probes you know a measure Quicks Every time suine liquid line, high pressure, low pressure uh return Air Supply Air static return air and Supply Air Temperature outdoor air. When you deploy those nine probes every time on every system it will you will find problems that you're otherwise going to Overlook because you're looking at the entire system instead of looking at the symptoms and a system approach versus a symptom approach is so much better and it it arrives in so much better outcome. and it's just something that we we.

We've gotten in a mindset of being so busy and being so like we got to we got to clear the board out. That's another pet peeve of mine. I Always tell people like your first call should be your only call of the day, right? I mean um when I when I go in you I'm going through through uh uh treatments right now for for cancer treatments and I go to my doctor. He literally there is no there's no time frame with him.

No matter how much time I need to spend with him, he'll spend with me. It's well. well. I'm there I'm his only patient.

We need that same mentality when we're in the HBC industry. It's It's not about just you know, putting a capacitor and charging $600 and walking out the door. It's about looking at all, looking at the entire system, looking at Uh opportunities for uh electrification, opportunities for upgrading the system, upgrading the duct system, opportunities for that, that the the longterm making that sale versus the short term of just fixing the symptom. and I think of we can change that mindset.

We can leverage a little technology. We can get the right people in to do the to do the Uh, to do the right right jobs and and better leverage a better leverage or a skilled labor. and again, this is going back. You know if if I can get data back with measurequick to the skilled labor force that can help me walk through that either the the, the sizing, the solution, the problem, the commissioning if I can it's it's It's now about leveraging technology and and then better leveraging your skilled labor.

So when it comes back I think we can actually make a transition from you know, the the whole set mindset of saying we need more skilled labor to saying no, we need to better leverage your skilled labor and we need to bring people in and leverage technology to make that SK skill labor more efficient. And I think if we if we change that mindset a little bit, we actually have an opportunity in the endemic that we have in the industry and actually um, you know and actually move forward. and it's not just measure quii. by the way, because I think I want to call out.

You know we learned a lot from Energy Conservatory with their uh, guided workflow sort of going through and doing a duct system analysis and the step by step their app. We actually did the same thing with Measurequick because we're like um, you know we need to walk people through this process step by step. but it's gotten to the point now. where like I said, we can spend about 90% less time teaching the measure, quick process, and and literally walk somebody now step by step through.

um, what information to gather, what photos to take, um, what probes to use and where to avoid those probes. We can tell when the technician arrived at the job, when the system is stable, what the system score was. See the photos in real time. There's a lot of cool stuff coming uh that it's G to make that Workforce more efficient and I want to kind of maybe like wrap it up by again talking to who I believe the audience is which is a lot of technicians that uh will be watching both on the Measurequick and the Hva school Channel where uh there? I I have seen a lot of kind of dis sparing uh either their comments or response reactions to this type of uh I guess not altruistic but you know bigger picture uh uh kind of approach and I want to again kind of uh help help connect the dots that a lot of this is just is problems with the the business model where the like as Jim was saying is that the if you were to as a business owner if they understand that you know this embracing this is not just oh it improves the industry no no no this is everything about the bottom line for them it is risk reduction and opportunity enhancement.

So like you find every opportunity you reduce your risks by or order of magnitude because you now have certainty on all of the data that's coming through and then like that literally just makes money come out of the business like that is. that is an answer to a a very profitable scalable business I I think also when you look at turn into company I will say this was definitely me if I didn't feel that the company had the had my my customer like like I don't I don't care who you are when you're going out in the field those are your customers. You as a technician or you as an installer you have the relationship with that customer. Yeah you're a representative of the co of of the of the company.

but if you feel like your company is screwing over your customer then you have a very short life at that company because you just can't live with yourself and this is about honestly it's about doing what's right for the for the for the customer. It's about being able to sleep at night. it's about you know I think all of us especially when you look at the Hvbc group the people get together there There we we have a we have a sort of an Unwritten code or like the morals and the ethics are extremely high in the group right? we're We're all looking to do what's best for the industry. We're all looking to do what's best for the environment.

We're all looking to do what's best for the customer. and when when you know when PE money or outside money comes in and all they're fixated on is profit, it turns a lot of stomachs and it makes a lot of churns. So these these roles also are very very much proc customer proc consumer not putting people under that Financial pressure You guys all know how that feels I mean all of us at some point in our life had to make a financial decision that we didn't have the money to do something, but we didn't have a choice to do it and we ended up in some kind of a bad financial situation. You don't ever want to put somebody in that situation.

you and you you you feel that pain personally right and you want to do what's best for the for the customer when it comes to doing that installation right, You you feel like they paid for it. These two new rules assure that the customer is getting the right products, the customer's getting the right Solutions The customers getting the the equipment started up properly and they're They're very much I think um, going to help eliminate some of the churn, some of the pressure that technicians F to perform because they're going to make the company profitable and I think you know I think that's to me, that's one of the most important elements of this is that that, um, it's and Chad Simpson always talks about this. It's got to be win for the customer. First a a win for the Technic and then a win for the company.

and I think when we look at we look at from that perspective and we have that mindset of um of uh, that win-win win um and we're more outcome focused I Think it, uh, that deploying these two roles in the industry uh, becomes a lot easier. Yeah, Well Jim we should probably let wrap this up. Um, but uh I Just let me see if this shows up here. Um I'm trying to display.

Yeah, so there there's the article for anybody that's interested. Uh, just go to measure quick. go to the news section you can read more about kind of the vision behind this. Um, but uh, but yeah.

like this is a lot of this is trying to fix those problems. It's just another creative approach to kind of get us out of that rut where everybody is frustrated all the time. Everybody is complaining about how expensive tools are and complaining about how you know a lot of owners or businesses are not. You know they don't do the right thing like we're just we're trying.

We're trying our best to to try to attack all that head on. Um, so if you're if you're interested, show this to your uh uh, people in your company who you know might have influence over adopting this. And yeah, then let us know if you're interested because we'd love to. We'd love to work with you to try to get this and running.

So all right. Thanks! Ben Yep, everyone enjoy the rest of Theos.