It has been an interesting — and complicated — year when it comes to refrigerants. The year began with cutbacks in HCFC production. We had expected there to be about 90 million pounds of virgin R-22 in 2012, down a bit from 2011. But the EPA proposed at the most 80 million pounds and at the least 55 million.
September and October are always busy traveling months for those of us in the HVAC trade press. It makes sense as most associations hold their meetings during these months to get the highest attendance since this is typically one of HVAC’s shoulder seasons.
These comments are concerning Joanna Turpin’s article “Regulations Burden Contractors,” Oct. 15, 2012, on the costs to small businesses to comply with government regulations.
I heard a very discouraging report the other day. It said that in this particular community, less than one-half of the eligible voters had registered to vote. The day I heard the report was the last chance for potential voters to register for the upcoming election. And this is in a presidential election year.
The residential end of the HVAC industry used to operate under the premise that it was weather driven. If we had a hot early summer, then it would be “Katy, bar the door” on sales of new central air conditioning systems. Well, we just had a hot early summer and what happened? Not much.
There are a lot of new and innovative ways for contractors to connect with manufacturers, distributors, and — most importantly — their customers. However, sometimes a face-to-face, well-planned meeting is still the right tool for the job.