Boston: 35°F, snow and rain. Baltimore: 43°, cloudy with rain. Cleveland: 29°, snow. Palm Desert: 75°, clear skies and sunny. One of the daily updates delivered to guests’ hotel rooms reminded visitors that the early-March weather in Palm Desert, Calif., was one motivating factor for attending the 119th Annual Convention of The Mechanical Contractors Association of America (MCAA)
Customers within my company, Utility Service Express’, Reston, Va., market want to be empowered. They want to be in control of their own research processes and buying decisions. With this in mind, I applied my 40 years of HVAC and plumbing systems experience into developing an Internet-based sales system that works.
Refrigerants exist without an exit plan, so the cost of destruction needs to be built into the cost of the refrigerant. In these days of ozone depletion and global warming issues, it now seems shocking that refrigerant gases were manufactured without a return plan. It can be fixed, but action needs to be taken.
Back in January The NEWS published an article on HVAC service techs and installers who work off the clock behind the bosses’ back and earn extra money doing side jobs. The respondents remained anonymous as they described how and why they made a living out of working on their own, sometimes with or without their bosses’ permission.
In September 2006, John and Tim Kirlin made a gut-wrenching decision. The successful mechanical contractors ended a lengthy search for a company to purchase when they bought American Combustion Industries (ACI) from utility Washington Gas. This acquisition may not have made any headlines but for the fact that they were buying a company that was bleeding red ink.
If you’re in sales, you have probably encountered this scenario. The customer nods and says all the right things and you leave convinced that the sale is in the bag. Later, you hear that he has decided to buy from your top (and less expensive) competitor. You realize, you’ve fallen prey to an all-too-common trap: unpaid consulting.
Daytona Beach is known for the spectacle of NASCAR auto racing. It is also home to many HVAC contractors who share the same business concerns as their peers across the United States. A few of these business owners shared their views with The NEWS during a recent roundtable session.
Randy Boyd of Heating, Airconditioning and Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) has little patience for those who complain that distributor sales in 2007 weren’t that great. “As of November 2007, distributors were collectively up 1.7 percent. Considering 2006, which was probably the best year ever, it ain’t bad,” said Boyd.
Manufacturers are not deterred by slower equipment sales in 2007; instead, they are eager to address all the opportunities in 2008, which include showcasing new, efficient product lines and embracing greener ways of doing business.
Ground-level ozone (O3) is a known lung irritant for humans. However, Marshall University had additional concerns with the airborne gas when planning its Microarray Core Facility (MCF) lab in its new, $48 million Robert C. Byrd Biotechnology Science Center.
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