While ACCA and its members had a successful year, there were a number of challenges the industry faced as a whole. Some of the biggest were keeping up with the regulatory proposals and bills in Congress.
Qualified HVAC technicians are desirable commodities, so when HVAC contracting owners get their hands on good techs, they’re willing to go to great lengths to keep them in their uniforms.
Steve Lauten, president and CEO of Total Air and Heat Co. in Plano, Texas, started working in his father’s residential HVAC business as a teenager. During high school and college, he gained employment with a commercial contractor, spending 13 years working with one large mechanical contractor before joining the family business in 1987.
Tightening a home’s envelope may reduce the air supply needed for combustion, and when there’s not enough combustion air, equipment could have combustion ventilation problems. Thus, the people who sealed up homes (often referred to as the weatherization industry) needed a way to determine if sealing a home up would undermine the safe operation of combustion equipment. To meet this safety need, they embraced combustion appliance zone (CAZ) depressurization testing.
Pick a trend, any trend, and hop on board. Or, you can wait for everyone else to start doing it and play catch up — your choice. By being proactive, you can divert more traffic, capture more eyeballs and leads, and slowly cause your competitors to lose relevancy and cool points, which isn’t a bad trend either.
The ASRAC established the Central Air Conditioners and Heat Pumps Working Group in July 2015; it is the latest of several working groups to successfully create negotiated efficiency standards for industry equipment. Other negotiated rulemakings aided by working groups include walk-in coolers and freezers, regional standards enforcement, and commercial rooftop air conditioners and furnaces.
Technology is an important aspect of any business that desires long-term existence. The implementation of technology allows both the contractor and supplier to be mobile, connected, more intelligent, and flexible.
HARDI's Annual Conference in December, the organization’s Emerging Leaders program sought to strengthen the HVACR industry by developing the talent of its up-and-coming distributors, manufacturers, and vendors.
Nearly 61,000 HVAC industry representatives enjoyed sun and reasonable temperatures as the 2016 AHR Expo rolled into Orlando, Florida. Preliminary numbers show that more than 18,254 exhibitor personnel welcomed 42,672 visitors.