I continue to describe this column as my “Andy Rooney’s what’s right and what’s wrong with the HVAC industry.” I was a big fan of Mr. Rooney and enjoyed his two minutes a week discussing thousands of topics, where he might simply question the text on a cereal box on a given Sunday. He wasn’t mandating the text be changed, and for the most part he really didn’t need to have an answer. He’d leave that task up to the viewer. With this format over these past 25 years, I had my own questions with some industry response, such as:
 

• 1992. Telephone Modems-a Valuable HVAC Asset. Today, wireless is the way to go.

• 1992. When humidity is another word for comfort. Today, you can read Dr. Taylor’s column “IAQ: A Physician’s View” column at the front of this magazine.

• 1992. Are you ready for the Clean Air Act? Currently, we could use a “Clean Environment Act” that addresses the entire environment around us.

• 1993. “Seamless Services.” Today, it’s called integrated project delivery.

• 1994. Engineers on the cutting edge. Today, engineers are continuing to be challenged.

• 1995. Managing people in the HVAC industry. Presently, managers continue to look for the magic formula for employee satisfaction, quality control, and making a fair profit.

• 1995. Division 17000. A national example for facility management. At the time, I questioned “what if” we included a division into the contract specification that addressed proactive, practical operation, and maintenance requirements starting in the design phase. This still hasn’t caught on.

• 1995. Bar coding: Ready or not. Today, everything seems to come with a bar code, but facilities still are not embracing bar code benefits to operate and maintain their building systems.

• 1996. Regarding women in this field. Today, women continue to slowly grow in numbers within the HVAC industry but with just 1.2% of the HVAC technician workforce being female, according to the 2014 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

• 1996. Embracing the quality process. Today, does any consultant or contractor set a business goal to pursue the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award?

• 1997. Let’s promote scholarships for building infrastructure. So far, building infrastructure grants/scholarships still haven’t caught on.

• 1997. One should master time management. Currently, consulting firm owners continue to complain about the low engineering fees they receive, and yet no one has come up with a cost-effective solution to the design process that will quiet the complainers.

So there you have a dozen examples of my columns starting 25 years ago that asked a question, questioned a method, forecasted a concept, or just asked, “what if.” As the author of these monthly columns, I have never tried to convince the readers that I had all the answers, but there were times when I had what you could say was the start to a better way.

I think the HVAC industry could have excelled further if individuals would have said, “what if” instead of simply doing the same thing over and over again because it is an office standard. What if the designer were to be an intern for a piping contractor or sheet metal contractor to pick up some value engineered improvement? What if a contractor were to be an intern within a facility management group to learn how useful as-built drawings can be? Maybe 25 years from now, antiquated ways will have changed.

I continue to describe this column as my “Andy Rooney’s what’s right and what’s wrong with the HVAC industry.” I was a big fan of Mr. Rooney and enjoyed his two minutes a week discussing thousands of topics where he might simply question the text on a cereal box on a given Sunday.