In This Podcast:

Frank Landwehr

Frank Landwehr, vice president of marketing and product planning for Emerson Climate Technologies Inc.’s air conditioning business, talks about a survey of 300 residential HVAC contractors addressing how prepared the HVAC industry is for the regional standards change.

Q: Emerson completed a survey on how prepared HVAC contractors are for the upcoming 2015 regional standards. What did you guys discover?

A: Sixty-six percent of the 300 residential contractors surveyed were either unaware or unsure how these regulations were going to affect them. That’s down from the 74 percent unaware in September, so people are becoming more aware, which may be due to the news of the court settlement. In fact, 17 percent said they’d heard about it, but were expecting a delay due to the court case, which is what actually happened. As we go forward, we expect greater awareness as we continue these surveys and the deadline approaches.

Q: Do these numbers surprise you?

A: In September, we were a little surprised that 74 percent were unaware — we thought that was a little high. When we were 12-18 months ahead of the regulation changes in 2006, that unaware number was about 10 percent, so this high number was a little unexpected. As we talked through it, we realized that this year’s move from 13 to 14 SEER is not as technically challenging for contractors as the move from 10 to 13 SEER was. Most contractors have already installed 14-SEER systems, and are probably not as concerned about the technical training and field issues as they were in 2005. Perhaps that’s why they’re not following this change as closely.

Frank Landwehr
Vice president of marketing and product planning, air conditioning business
Emerson Climate Technologies Inc.
www.emersonclimate.com

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Publication date: 8/18/2014  

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