That was a close one.

A client of ours recently called because their boiler wasn’t working. We arrived shortly after 10 that morning to check things out, and boy were we in for a surprise. The boiler had literally cratered internally. Unfortunately, the burners continued to fire. Instead of venting properly, the flue gasses were spilling into the mechanical room. From there they made their way into the duct system through return air leaks, finally coming to rest in the living area of the house. Uh oh. I guess that explains why both the Mr. and Mrs. woke up with headaches that morning (and no they didn’t have too much to drink the night before).

The levels of carbon monoxide they were experiencing were high enough to make them sick, yet low enough to go undetected by their UL listed CO detector. Now we have been selling low-level CO detectors for years, and we had been doing work in this home for years. Yet we had never talked to them about purchasing a high quality, low-level CO detector. Why not? Did we think they were too expensive? These people live in a 17,000-square-foot house — I think they can afford a few low level CO detectors. Did we not believe the low-level CO detectors were a good product? If you ask my technicians what the best accessory we offer is, most will tell you it’s the NSI3000 Low Level CO monitor. Did we not offer it because we were lazy? Probably. It’s embarrassing to say, but many times we miss out on sales simply because we’re too lazy to bring it up.

Our clients got lucky on this one — they woke up with a headache instead of not waking up at all. What could happen to your clients if you fail to offer them add-ons?

Michael Atchley is president of Oren Atchley Air Conditioning and Heating.