The Home Star bill, which was passed by the House of Representatives back in May, has been sitting around gathering dust in the Senate. But late last week, Senate leaders announced it may be included in a new energy bill, and suddenly Home Star is hot again.

There isn’t much time right now for the Senate to pass Home Star — all 100 of our senators go on their summer recess next Friday, Aug. 6. But right now Home Star is a hot topic on the Hill — and that means that the bill’s merits are being fiercely debated.

I’ve previously written about whether the bill excludes too many HVAC contractors with its accreditation requirements. Click here to read: www.achrnews.com/Articles/Feature_Article/BNP_GUID_9-5-2006_A_10000000000000836166.

Another debate concerns the bill’s basic rebate structure. The Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA) has stated that the House version of the bill is better than the Senate version because it ultimately sends the rebate to the consumer, not to the contractor. In a letter to the Senate, ACCA stated, “the most efficient and effective way to offer a rebate program to homeowners is to pay the homeowner, and not require a small business contractor to float a loan it can ill afford for a lengthy period of time.”

Click here to read the entire letter: www.acca.org/press/news.php?id=323.

As the debate heats up, we’ll continue to cover it here at The NEWS.

There’s a new book out called “Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer)” by Stan Cox.

Cox is trying to hype up his proposal to reduce American dependence on a/c (I assume in the hopes of selling more copies of his book), so he recently wrote an editorial in the Washington Post. It was all about how we should stop using a/c and thereby switch to a more eco-friendly lifestyle. (You can read the entire article here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/09/AR2010070902341_pf.html)

Frankly, I wasn’t impressed with his vision. In Cox’s utopia of a “post a/c world,” businesses close down for a month or two during the hottest part of the summer. And then, of course, we stop using our stoves and clothes dryers, and hang everything on clotheslines, etc., etc.

Get real.

To me that sounds like a return to a bygone era that I have no desire to revert to. I’m grateful to be alive in this era, at this time, and in this country. And I don’t think that makes me anti-nature or anti-Earth.

I love to run outside, and I love to come home at the end of a run on a muggy Michigan day and cool down near my a/c.

And then there are the times when I crave a/c and can’t imagine how miserable I’d be without it. Like earlier this month when my husband I vacationed at his mother’s home in Cape Cod. It was 96 degrees, humid, and breezeless. We wouldn’t have been able to sleep at night without a/c.

But perhaps my example of craving personal comfort doesn’t help to make a national case for preserving a/c. So, help me out, HVAC industry! Tell me your reasons, justifications, and stories about your grateful customers to prove why we should preserve our comfort and our a/c.

The Dealer Design Award winners have been announced, but the fun is not over quite yet. It’s time for you to vote for your favorite product. We have pitted the winning products against each other in a bracket style competition that allows you to decide who will be the Readers’ Choice champion. Like any other bracket competition, the final winner will have to brave multiple rounds of voting conducted over the next three months. This interactive and enhance tournament style microsite feature allows readers to have a say in who will be the best of the best. After voting in the first round, it will be important to return in subsequent weeks to continue to vote for your favorite product.

Beyond the bracket competition, take a minute and peruse the product video gallery with its newly updated playlist feature and enter the monthly prize giveaway. Sanuvox Technologies Inc. has donated a Saber GENIUS 24V/110V 16” ultraviolet cleaner to be awarded the first month. Fluke has donated the Fluke 233 Wireless Remote Display Multimeter to be awarded the second month. The third and final product giveaway for 2010 was donated by ecobee. The company will be giving away one of its new Smart Thermostats that is programmable and Wi-Fi enabled.

For the next three months, the Dealer Design Awards microsite is going to be the place to be for all you HVACR product junkies. Of course I’ll be there too, but I will leave the voting and contest entering to you.

Go to www.achrnews.com/dealerdesign to vote and enter now.

The digital revolution has come. It’s not coming. It won’t be here in a few years. It has arrived. This revelation, be it earth shattering or not, is a wake up call to every contractor who finally got his company’s finances on the computer last year. It serves as a warning to every HVACR employer who thinks good pay, strong benefits, and a respectable career are going to be enough to attract the future industry workforce, as well.

Why is changing with the digital revolution so important? The answer is summed up in the difference between digital immigrants and digital natives. According to Don Tapscott, noted author, chairman of nGenera Insight, a think tank based in Toronto, and one of the keynote speakers at Honeywell’s Users Group meeting in Scottsdale Ariz., a digital immigrant is one who finds themselves adapting to technology and adopting it into their way of life. As for a digital native, they were born into technology and they don’t know any other way of life.

So far, business has reacted positively to those who are dabbling in new office and field technology or dipping their toes in social media. They have been able to navigate the digital realm with some struggle, but most of their digital immigrant employees and customers are struggling just as much as they are and providing for their needs has been accomplishable. But what happens when the digital immigrant’s employee and customer base shifts? How will the digital immigrant running the business be able to provide for the requests and demands of the digital natives?

As Tapscott said in his presentation, “The time for tinkering is over. It is time to make fundamental changes.”

Slapping up a Facebook page and tweeting until your fingers fall off probably won’t make your business successful in the new digital era. It will help for now, but continued success is going to require a change in the way you think, interact, and communicate with the physical and social world.

Digital immigrants can become as fluent as digital natives, but it is going to require a rebuild and new approach to your business practices and not just a few tinkerings here and there. Don’t worry, we’ll learn together.

Seriously, what is the deal with all the bad how-to articles on the web these days? I frequently see an intriguing headline for an article that claims it will teach me how to do something I’m interested in learning. But, invariably, when I click on “How to train for a 10K” or “How to save money on vacation,” I’m disappointed by the lack of valuable information I find. The supposedly great how-to tips are frequently oversimplified and often filled with misinformation.

Just this week I came across an article that told me how to start my own HVAC company in seven easy steps. Yep, seven steps were all it was going to take me to become a pro business owner in the industry.

Step 1 told me to find out what HVAC certifications and licensing were required by my state. Then, for Step 2 I needed to come up with a business name and an eye-catching logo.

Whoa, wait a sec — what about vocational school and training? What about a step explaining how to actually gain the knowledge and skills necessary to repair and install HVAC systems?

And what about apprenticeship? Wouldn’t it be nice to learn from the experienced masters in the industry before going solo?

Shouldn’t any of this matter before I designed that sweet logo for Kimberly & Daughters Air Conditioning?

Well, not according to the so-called how-to article. Step 3 told me to purchase equipment, and Step 4 told me to create a price list for my services. By Step 6 I needed to start adding employees to handle my company’s increasing workload.

And, finally, Step 7 told me to focus on customer service and then sit back and watch my business flourish.

Give me a break.

Have you seen any articles like this out there? What’s the worst how-to article or tip you’ve seen related to HVAC?

This is the time of the year, when the do-it-yourself sections of local newspapers offer advice concerning residential air conditioners.

One recent wire service offering in my local newspaper divided up the help between “What you can fix” and “When to call for help.”

The “call for help” in the article involved fixing leaks and replacing the compressor. The article then suggested that homeowners check and clean filters, keep the outside condensing unit free from obstructions and hosed off as well as watching for drainage problems near the outside unit. I might also add that condensing units should be level. That’s a consideration in new housing developments on sloping land. Units can list a bit rather quickly.

But the newspaper article goes on to suggest the homeowners can play around with the sensor to the point of “bending the wire that holds it in place.”

I am one of those homeowners who has a regular maintenance agreement with a local contractor who typically takes care of all of the above before they amount to a problem.

What I’m not sure of is me bending any wires anywhere near an a/c unit.

Thoughts from contractors and technicians out there? Should your customers be bending wires?

Knowing when to let go can be a challenge. As I raced back to Kroger to beat Redbox rental’s 9 p.m. deadline on the fifth day, I thought to myself, it would have been cheaper to cut my losses and return it on the first day and rent the movie later when it was a better time. It took me six months to convince myself that renting movies this way could be a good idea. It then took me three weeks to master renting and returning movies that embodied both value and convenience. But one question remains, how many days do I wait before I cut my losses and return that unwatched movie?

I am curious as to how many of you contractors are pondering this same question. Not about your Redbox rentals, but about the add-on business you recently started to help offset the effects of the economy. Some I am sure found success and profit in their add-on business. I am positive, however, that others have found their new venture capital plan to be more of an albatross. It’s time to ask yourself some questions. How much time and money have you invested in this piece of the business? How much do you stand to lose/gain if you let this idea go? What will it do to your standard business’ reputation? Hopefully you asked these questions before you began, but things don’t always turn out as expected.

So, let’s hear it. Did you start an add-on business? Is it time to cut your losses and let go?

When you were in school, were you the class clown in the back row or the kiss-up in the front row? Or someone more average (like me) sitting in the middle?

No matter where you sat, there had to be at least one instructor along the way who made you sit up and pay attention. Now it’s time to give credit where it’s due — to the instructor who made a difference in your life by teaching you more than anyone else about the HVACR field.

The NEWS is currently accepting nominations for our annual Best Instructor contest, and we’ve made it easy for you to nominate your instructor. All you have to do is fill out an online form and tell us in 100 words or less why your instructor deserves to win.

On June 14, we will close the contest and begin to review the nominations, so you have just a little more time to get your bid in for the nation’s Best HVACR Instructor.

Think of it as one last homework assignment in honor of your favorite teacher, click http://www.achrnews.com/CDA/HTML/BNP_GUID_9-5-2006_A_10000000000000074504

When I was in college my goal was to have a job that would let me live in a big city so I didn’t have to own a car, could rely on public transportation, and enjoy all a big city had to offer. But I ended up in journalism, then corporate PR, then magazine editing, none of which paid enough for big city living.

So I lived for many years in a Chicago suburb about 40 miles from downtown. I had a car, but seldom drove it into Chicago; instead relying on a commuter train for periodic trips into the city. Empty nesting and downsizing caused a move a few years ago to a much smaller metro area about 80 miles from downtown Chicago. Now trips to Chicago are rare, mainly for trade shows and industry media events. I use a regional bus service that makes nine trips a day to and from Chicago. Each trip is promoted as about two hours in non-rush hour times and about two and a half hours plus in rush hours. Typically, it takes less.

But coming back from the recent National Restaurant Association Show, the trip ended up being more than three hours thanks to it taking more than 30 minutes to go less than a mile from the downtown departure point to the entrance to an expressway, which itself crawled slowly. All this didn’t bother me. I read a paperback, napped, and listed to a baseball game on ear buds attached to a small radio.

But having lived in more open spaces for several years now, I did wonder what the appeal was to big city living back in my college days.

If the Senate does, in fact, pass the Home Star bill, do you think it’s got enough cash to make an impact on your business?

Right now, the bill says it will provide $6 billion in rebates for homeowners who make energy efficiency upgrades to their homes. But keep in mind that that money also has to cover all the administrative costs of operating the program, so it’s actually a smaller amount that would be available to fund the rebates.

After the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) passed, some states received funds to offer rebates similar to what Home Star would provide on a national level.

Have you heard about how the state rebate programs turned out? Check out this YouTube video to see how quickly the funds for Arizona’s Energy Star Appliance Rebate program were used up.



Whoa — did you catch that? Within 3 hours and 38 minutes, all the Arizona rebates had been reserved. That included more than $3.1 million for clothes washers, $1.4 million for water heaters, and $400,000 for dishwashers.

Could this be the future of Home Star? Will all the rebates and money be snatched up so quickly you won’t have time to get in on the action?

When The NEWS hopped onto Facebook over a year ago, we set the goal to get more “fans” on the social media site than Alan Thicke. And with the help of our loyal readers we were able to take down that pompous, Canadian has been/never was.

Now that we have been on Twitter for awhile (twitter.com/achrnews), we decided it was time to revisit the sitcoms from the 1980s and capture yet another impressive victory. So we set our goals high — the highly respected father Heathcliff Huxtable. Yes, The NEWS was planning on beating Bill Cosby like a drum.

Then a funny thing happened. We got online and found out that Cosby has over 1 million visitors. Not going to lie to you, we were a bit shocked. Time to reframe the goal. Let’s go after Rudy! Sure she was cute in the 80s, but we were almost positive that she had gone down the road of Todd Bridges, Corey Feldman, and Danny Bonaduce and was probably a huge mess. Well, it turns out Rudy is a very well-adjusted adult. She graduated from college and still gets work in the industry and is rolling with close to 10,000 Twitter followers. We just can’t catch a break.

We then set our sights on Theo, a.k.a., Malcolm Jamal Warner. Surely two of the Cosby kids could not have turned out to be well-adjusted adults. And Warner uses three names so the odds that his life has gone off the tracks seemed fairly high. But foiled again, we found out that he has kept his nose out of trouble and is a contributing member of society. And Warner also has more than 9,000 followers. Dang the luck.

But we keep looking. And we have our target: Phylicia “Claire Huxtable” Rashad and her 669 followers. There is no reason to dislike her, but we have manufactured reasons since she is in shouting distance of our 355 followers. Here are the reasons we shall destroy her in a Twitter war:

1. She rode Bill Cosby’s coattails farther than Tom Arnold did Roseanne’s.

2. She accepted Ahmad Rashad’s wedding proposal on national TV only to divorce him and keep his last name. Not sure why, but that bugs us.

3. She has one of those diacritical marks over the last “a” in her last name. How annoying is that? And we can’t even put it in this blog because we can’t figure out how to type that in Microsoft Word.

Time for her to be taken off her high horse. Just go to twitter.com/achrnews and follow The NEWS. In addition to getting great links to breaking industry news, you also have the satisfaction of propelling the HVAC industry to a victory over a 1980s sitcom icon. Who’s with me? Let’s Go!

I’m not a gambler these days. In the olden days, when I had a business trip to Las Vegas I’d take a set amount of money. If I lost that, I’d walk away; if I doubled my money, I’d walk away.

These days I don’t gamble at all and I’m even finding ways to go on a business trip to Vegas and avoid nearly every gaming machine.

The slot machines in the airport are unavoidable but between trying to track down my luggage and ground transportation upon arrival and clearing security and getting to the gate upon departure, the machines are seen only in passing.

For the past two Vegas-based Food Marketing Institute expos, I’ve stayed in a slot machine-free business hotel about a 15-minute walk from the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. That hotel is on the other side of the Interstate, meaning my walk is on concrete sidewalks surrounded by vacant lots and I end up going into the convention center entrance of Mandalay Bay, far from the casino machines.

My nightly exercise walk heads away from the Strip along a road not noted for glitz and glamour but that does contain a business that apparently repairs damaged gaming equipment.

It ends up that the FMI Expo is moving to Dallas for its next show in 2012 so no gaming there. But it ends up that the AHR expo is going to Vegas in 2011 and The NEWS is thinking about putting me up in one of those massive casino hotels where one can’t avoid going from Point A to Point B without passing several dozen blackjack tables and several hundred slot machines.

I will carry no coin with me.

In my last blog I commented that it feels like the current Congress is going into overdrive. The House and the Senate have had a lot on their legislative plate, but they seem to keep gobbling up everything that comes their way.

Even more intriguing is that more and more of the legislation Congress is considering could impact the HVACR industry. According to Charlie McCrudden, vice president of government relations for the Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA), the industry is undergoing a higher level of government scrutiny than ever before — and it’s due to the increasing emphasis on energy efficiency.

I recently managed to catch McCrudden on the phone, and he said, “I’ve never had a two-month period like I’ve just gone through. The pace of what’s going on in Washington is really changing.”

What do you think about the HVACR industry being in the spotlight on the Hill? Will the Congressional focus on energy efficiency positively or negatively impact your business?

Facebook has launched its new Open Graph protocol and within less than a month, over 100,000 websites have integrated it into their site layout. Possibly threatening Google’s ranking system and moving the web towards what some call Web 3.0, Open Graph is a curious invention. It allows users to “Like” or recommend something outside of the actual Facebook program. Interesting to say the least, but what does it mean for the HVACR contractor?

Well, it depends on where the contractor stands on social media matters. If their business has a Facebook account and someone in the back is experimenting with Twitter, then you are on the right track. If the contractor is still operating on Al Gore’s version of the Internet with a monochrome monitor and a dot matrix printer, then you are about to get left behind.

The biggest problem contractors seem to have with social media is measuring ROI. It is tough and sometimes impossible to measure the monetary value of social media. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be involved in it. Sometimes it is cheaper, easier, and more beneficial to go to the masses rather than to lure the masses to you. There are a lot of participants in Facebook and Twitter alone. As you build a presence in these arenas, you build a following and you point traffic to your website.

I leave you with one warning as you forge ahead in social media. Privacy is not a luxury that online users have. Once the information is out there, it is out there. So speak wisely, but for goodness sake, please speak.

As a cynic, I generally believe that the men and women we elect to represent us in government are a bunch of fat cats who sit around and don’t do much while earning six-figure salaries for their public service. But the current Congress is proving me wrong about the sitting-around-and-not-doing-much thing.

Right now Congress is hoppin’, and the House and Senate are moving legislation fast. Of course, whether that’s a good thing or not is certainly up for all kinds of debate.

At a meeting with some industry lobbyists in Washington, D.C., a few weeks ago, I heard someone comment that this Congress has taken on more than it can handle. Not only did they pass the health care bill, they are tackling Wall Street, immigration, climate change, job creation, and oh yeah, don’t forget that they’ve also got a Supreme Court nomination to battle through this summer.

But they are slogging through with remarkable speed. And one of the jobs bills that could impact the HVACR industry was passed by the House last Thursday, May 6. Called the “Home Star Retrofit Rebate Program,” it would legislate two programs — Silver Star and Gold Star — to provide rebates to homeowners who upgrade their homes with energy efficiency improvements.

The bill was nicknamed “Cash for Caulkers” since it was modeled after last year’s “Cash for Clunkers” program. But that’s a bit of a misnomer since it’s not just caulkers who will reap the benefits of the bill. Home Star would provide $6 billion in rebates to homeowners who upgrade their heating and cooling systems to specified levels of energy efficiency.

The Silver Star rebates are geared for specific improvements, such as replacing an old air conditioner with a more efficient one. The rebate amounts vary depending equipment purchased or improvement made (from $250 for a tankless water heater to $1,500 for an air conditioner) but max out at $3,000.

The Gold Star rebates are intended for whole-house energy reduction and are based on simulations comparing the energy use of a home before and after retrofits. The Gold Star rebate provides $3,000 for a 20-percent reduction in a home’s total energy consumption, with an additional $1,000 for every additional 5-percent reduction — maxing out at $8,000.

The bill is now under review in the Senate and should be up for a vote soon. You can read the whole text of the House-passed bill (H.R. 5019) and the current Senate version (S. 3177) of the Home Star bills online at the Library of Congress. Just search for the bill numbers at www.thomas.loc.gov.

And, don’t forget that your representatives will be heading home at the end of the summer to stump for the fall elections and try to win your vote. So if there’s something you don’t like or want to see them change in the current legislation, now is the time to let them know.

It’s a legitimate question that every participant in the HVACR trade should ask themselves and eventually answer. Take entry-level technicians for example. Do they want to be installers for the rest of their lives or would they rather get into service and repair? Maybe management is their final destination, or possibly they are aiming to be business owners running their own shop. With HVACR, the sky’s the limit, but it is important to set some initial goals.

Once those initial goals are reached, it is necessary to define new goals. If ownership was the goal, now that you are an owner you have to decide how far in this endeavor you would like to go. What volume of business and management responsibilities are you reaching for?  If you are happy being a one-man shop, then instead of focusing on growing your business, it might just be time to concentrate on improving your skills and certifications. Maybe you are interested in being a 10-man shop or perhaps a franchise. The more I work in the industry, the more I am convinced that it doesn’t really matter how large your company is, there is room for you in the diverse HVACR market. Cue the bigger is better and much more reliable argument in the background. Of course there are some crooked one-man shops with terrible business practices giving other HVACR contractors bad names, but there are crooked multi-million dollar shops operating under the same crooked practices as well. Bigger is not always better.  

There are tradeoffs to every level of being an HVACR contractor, so you have to ask yourself, “Just how much success can you handle?”

It has been four years since my wife and I bought our most recent house. But that doesn’t stop one of the local realtors (not even the one we worked through) from sending us a bi-monthly publication about home life.

Here are some of the headlines in one of the most recent issues: “Making Earth Sense and Money Sense,” “Energy Efficiency For All,” “Homeowners Guide to Eco-Improvements,” “Green & Clean,” and “Eco Centric Living.”

And the stories with those headlines make up at least 80 percent of the 24-page magazine.

Part of the “eco” focus may have to do with the issue being published around the time of Earth Day. But from what I recall from past issues, there seemed to be a lot of green and energy efficiency topics. So here is what I am thinking. It sure looks like homeowners are being told to think green as a way to save the planet and save money. So if HVAC contractors had their own glitzy brochures showing how their latest equipment can save the planet and save the customer money, there might be something to this.

It may just be a matter of tagging some HVAC terms onto headlines.

“Making Cool Sense To Save Money,” “HVAC Energy Efficiency For All,” “Homeowners Guide to Air Conditioning Improvements,” “Green & Clean Cooling and Heating,” and “Eco Centric Living Starts With Your HVAC.”

OK, not the greatest headlines, but you get the idea.

Statewide smoking bans are becoming more prevalent as local and federal legislators determine that protecting workers and customers against second-hand smoke is essential for increased public safety. May 1 added the entire state of Michigan to the list of states with smoking bans in place. With one of the most comprehensive smoking bans of any state in the United States, Michigan is set to significantly reduce the number of places citizens can smoke, even in bars.

Once the smoke is gone though, the question remains, “Are the employees, and the customers of an establishment that once allowed smoking, really breathing clean air?” The smoking may have stopped, but it stands to reason that without changing the filters in the HVAC system and cleaning the ductwork, it could take quite some time to truly clear the air.

Enter HVACR contractor.

Many business experts have been suggesting that one of the ways contractors could supplement their businesses in these leaner economic times is with service and maintenance contracts. With an increasing trend of smoking bans hitting the law books, it sounds to me like a whole new customer pool could be opening up for contractors in these areas. And for those contractors in Michigan especially, this just may be the silver IAQ lining in their current economic cloud.

What do you think? Are you ready to put together a Clear the Air service package?

Let me know how it turns out.

At the AHRI spring meeting last week, I heard Dave Pannier, interim president of North American Technician Excellence (NATE), say that certification through this program has reached a plateau. He wants to know why more technicians aren’t choosing to certify or recertify through NATE.

I want to know why, too. Are there any techs out there who can tell me your reasons for not bothering with certification? Post your comments — I want to hear your side because, frankly, I’ve heard stats that make it sound like it’s stupid not to get certified.

Pannier rattled off a few of these numbers at the meeting. The ones that stuck out to me were that NATE-certified techs have higher pay rates and fewer callbacks than non-certified techs.

So can you tell me what your perspective is as a tech? Why have you decided not to be certified? Or, if were previously certified, why didn’t you want to renew after your five years were up?

I know that NATE is planning to create an industry survey to find answers to these questions, but let’s get the discussion started here first.

The bosses want us to step up our Twitter game. My initial reaction was how could my pearls of wisdom and award-winning writing possibly be cut down to 140 characters? Do you ask Emeril to cook with only three ingredients? Do you ask Roger Clemens to only throw one type of pitch? Do you ask Miley Cyrus to only write one annoying song?

And by “initial reaction” I mean the reaction that never actually got verbalized to the bosses. In this economic climate you would be an idiot to fight that battle. Instead, I got onboard with some fake enthusiasm about the task at hand. But a funny thing happened along the way — I found it to be an informative and engaging form of communication.

So, I ask the NEWS’ readers to give it a shot. Join us at twitter.com/achrnews. You will be able to read breaking news, interesting links and commentary, — and in the interest of full discloser — a few uninteresting posts. Not all of them can be winners.

I have decided to help launch our new Twitter plans by having my first Live Tweet Diary. Actually, that sounds like something that would appear on late night Cinemax. Well, regardless of what we name it, hear me out. On Sunday, May 2 on NBC, Clockwork Home Service and One Hour Heating & Air Conditioning will be an important part of Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice show. The NEWS will use this opportunity to watch the show and live tweet during the two hour broadcast. So please follow along and feel free to reply with your own comments. The Donald’s hair should give us plenty of material.

Here is hoping the powers-that-be are not reading this blog. I guess I did not think that one through. Join us May 2 at twitter.com/achrnews.

Everyone’s heard of eBay and Craigslist, but have you heard of www.baarter.com? Instead of online auctions or classified ads, this site is set up strictly for bartering. You make a post that lists what you have and then describe what you’re hoping to trade it for. While it sounds a bit like another Cragislist knock-off, my interest was piqued by this post from a guy in Nebraska:

“I will trade my 25 years experience in HVAC work, new furnace or AC installs, duct work, etc. for a late model cruiser motorcycle. 750cc – 1300cc. Must be in excellent condition. I am fully insured and provide professional workmanship.”

So, he’s willing to trade 25 years of HVAC expertise for a bike? I have to wonder exactly how that will work out. It sounds like it could be a bit messy to arrange this to both parties’ satisfaction, and I’m afraid someone’s going to get ripped off.

Say, for instance, that somebody calls Mr. Will-Work-for-Motorcycle and offers him his dream cruiser in return for working on a small home project. But what if that little project spirals out of control and ends up costing him more time and effort than the motorcycle is worth?

Have you ever bartered your skills and services for something other than money? And was it worth it?

Maybe I’m too pessimistic. Maybe bartering is the way to go in the current economy, and this guy’s going to get a great bike in exchange for a few hours of work.

Or maybe this guy is willing to barter his skills and services for a motorcycle so when his wife sees it in the driveway, he can say, “Sorry, honey, they didn’t have any money, so they offered to pay me with a bike.”

Because right now that’s the only way my husband’s going to get one.

Being one of the 20 million people who participated in the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, I am happy to report that I will not join with the 500 million worldwide participants on the 40th Anniversary. Happy because I will instead be readying for a trip to Chicago to visit about 45 of my best chiller buddies. The Chiller Services Group (CSG) meets twice a year in mass to compare notes, exchange ideas, and plot a masterful takeover of all service work for chillers. So far, the group has not taken possession of all service work, but they are good people, and I am sure they will make it happen.

But, back to Earth Day. When I was an eighth grade student, the thought of getting out of school for two hours to fill two garbage bags seemed a wonderful way to enjoy some sunshine. Little did I know that I would be part of something that has grown to become so popular. Usually, no one ever wants to follow my lead with regard to picking up anything. My daughters won’t pick up their clothes in their room, won’t pick up the phone when I call them, and won’t pick up after the dog — a rather large dog that leaves rather large presents throughout the yard.

In a perfect world, for my Earth Day, someone else would pick up all the stuff — especially the large dog presents in the yard — and someone would do something even more lasting than a one-day grandstanding show of gathering garbage.

That’s why I think the CSG is really a nice group of people, and, it is rather fitting that they are meeting on Earth Day. They are hell-bent on keeping chillers tuned up and clean. A nice way to save energy, and a nice way to celebrate Earth Day, especially if we can find a way to check out the Cavs NBA playoff game against the Bulls.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but it’s true. The best effort of an uneducated contractor is less than acceptable. This thought came to me a few weekends ago as I watched a home improvement contractor unearth inches and inches of moldy, standing water from underneath a newly installed shower. In the episode, what was initially presented as possibly a crooked contractor was finally revealed as nothing more than an incompetent contractor. According to the host, the original contractor had employed some practices that showed he was not trying to take advantage of the homeowners, but in the end, his installation techniques would have rotted the entire bathroom on the second floor, collapsed the ceiling in a section of the kitchen on the first floor, and caused possible water damage to the basement — not to mention the serious case of mold that was developing.

As an uneducated, uncertified HVACR contractor, it could be very easy to find yourself in this same position. Whether a one-man shop or a multi-million dollar business, knowing how to correctly install, duct, seal, clean, and maintain an HVAC system is possibly the most important set of tools in which you could ever invest. Granted, there really is no substation for on-the-job and real life experience, but new discoveries have been made and improved methods have been developed to ensure that HVAC systems are installed and that ductwork is sealed correctly. Keeping this in mind, taking the time to continue your education and to earn proper HVACR certifications could be the best customer service options you could ever offer your customers.

Sometimes energy saving doesn’t require massive overhauls in HVACR equipment. It may just be the case of adjusting the temperature.

In the home, that usually means turning down the thermostat in the winter so the furnace doesn’t cycle on and off as much and it doesn’t have to work as hard to hold temperature. In the summer, the opposite applies concerning the air conditioner.

But what about an ice rink over on the refrigeration side? Out in Rockford, Ill., a couple of indoor ice rinks generally held temperatures around 18 or 19°F while in use. But late at night, when the buildings were empty, the temp has begun being set at 25° as a way to control energy costs.

A second tweak was reducing the number of light fixtures, adding eco-friendly bulbs and motion sensors.

The net savings in the two buildings is projected to be $30,000 to $40,000 per year because of those two initiatives.

What I liked about this story is that it didn’t involved massive overhauls of equipment and the introduction of a lot of new technology. One involved the turning of a dial; the other the unscrewing and screwing in of bulbs.

So I’m wondering about other ideas you might have on “simple” ways to trim costs in places that use a lot of commercial refrigeration. I’m suspecting what I just wrote about isn’t unique to just the ice rinks cited. I’m also suspecting that there may be a lot of additional ways to save energy. Let me hear from you.

Comedian Lewis Black is fond of explaining why solar energy will not work: “Because the sun goes away each day and doesn’t tell you where it is going.”

But don’t tell that to the respondents to a recent Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. The survey said 44 percent of Americans believe solar energy should become a standard method of heating homes, while 23 percent don’t believe solar energy can have a standard heating role in homes.

Check out more of the survey by visiting: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/environment_energy/44_favor_solar_energy_for_home_heating