Mike Murphy

The Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute (ARI) and Mexico's electrical standards development agency, the Associación de Normalización y Certificación (ANCE), agreed to work together on the development of HVACR industry standards, signing a memorandum of understanding.

My Sept. 25 missive ("Losing the Thermostat Wars") was met with a barrage of comments. What was notable about these comments? For one, nobody was mad at me. However, during the process I learned some serious things about exceptions for programmable thermostats from these people.

If the readership of The NEWS can be used as an indicator for the industry, then the average age of people in HVAC is going up, which means fewer young people are joining the industry.

I discreetly cheer for whichever team is behind while watching football games on television. Truth be told, I nearly always root for an underdog. So it is that I stand and cheer for the unappreciated thermostat on the wall.

Feature selling is what it's all about for too many HVAC salespeople. It takes a while to truly understand that the customer only cares about those aspects of the product that produce benefits for them. A red car is only a red car unless it's someone's favorite color. Then, it's a benefit.

Honest mistakes are always forgivable. But there is a big difference between an honest mistake and a bad mistake. The bad mistake is the honest mistake that a company tries to hide from.

English has got to be one of the most difficult languages to master, I mean really - A–E–I–O-U and sometimes Y? And, if that weren't enough, let's say a kid wants to get a job in some promising industry. Think of all the abbreviations and acronyms that await.

Residential HVAC contractors traditionally solve space heating and cooling problems. However, a study conducted a few years ago suggested that temperature issues may only occur in 17 percent of homes. If so, there may be a lot of opportunity being missed.

On July 21 there will be the passing of a Lennox baton - John Norris Jr. will trade his role as chairman of Lennox International for more travel time with his wife, more fishing, some bird-watching, and more time with his favorite philanthropy, the Nature Conservancy.

Here's a suggestion for a special holiday. Let's call it Groundhog Day for HVAC. If the warehouse manager steps outside and sees his shadow on July 10, you only get four more weeks of inventory availability. Of course, we hope he sees the sun.