Tag Archives: HVAC

Slowing Construction in Glens Falls, Queensbury Not Good For HVAC Business

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Not surprisingly the local construction numbers in Glens Falls and Queensbury were down in 2011. The Post Star reported today that construction in both areas declined by roughly half the level of 2010.

From The Post Star:

The city issued building permits for $13.81 million of construction in 2011, compared with $25.26 million in 2010, according city Code Enforcement Office annual reports.

Queensbury experienced a similar decline in construction activity, dropping to $28.6 million in 2011 from $41.2 million in 2010, according to the town Community Development Office annual report.

Read more: Construction Activity Slows in 2011 for Glens Falls, Queensbury

We are seeing the same thing in our business with the majority of our work coming from people remodeling a room or basement, not building new homes. There is much less demand for full duct systems and more for furnace replacements or repairs. There has been minor demand for some movement of duct work for better air flow, upstairs heat or new additions. However, this has not been something to be counted on like it may have been in the past. The jobs are scare and competitive.

Because we focus on sheet metal fabrication along with heating and cooling installation, we have a good idea of what’s going on locally. Granted, we are very small in comparison to other companies. However, we have been in the area for over 20 years and know many companies that have been seeing the same things. Much of the trickle down fabrication for these companies comes our way and last year was much slower.

If the 2011 trends continue through 2012, business in the local residential HVAC market will continue to feel the pain of the last few years. I don’t see many of our customers on as regular a basis like before the financial crisis. Many have found jobs in other fields or signed on with larger companies in the area. This can hurt us a bit because a lot of our business comes from the micro business service and installation professionals.

We can only hope for a warm summer and good air conditioning sales because the mild winter has not helped the beginning of this year. A summer with last years cool temperatures and we could see some lower revenues through the middle of the year as well. Last year we noticed a lot of customers asking about widow units rather than a new central air system.

If that trend continues, it would not be good for business throughout 2012.

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Being Creative in a New and Challenging Sheet Metal Fabrication Environment

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The shop has been busy the last few months and that has left little time for updating the blog and twitter on a regular basis. I figured I would update what’s been going on in this micro world of business that we play around in daily.

The overall business environment for us has improved since this time last year and I would expect that to continue into 2012. However, the environment that is improving is also changing, for the better and I hope this can continue into the future for us as a business.

Gone are the days of knowing a house foundation will be poured and ready in the month of May, the job scheduled for sometime there after and solid work locked in for a few months. That has changed to a more streamlined, get in, get out mentality for our tiny little company. One that has helped us change small things and set proper boundaries that may not have existed in the past.

We have done better this year as a sub-contractor rather than the company going out and landing the new house being built around the corner. We have gotten the word out to small plumbers and builders that we are a niche fabrication company that can come in, measure, fabricate and install a small residential change-out quickly and for a quality fee. This benefits us and them, along with keeping cost down for both and upping the potential job flow. We are finishing more jobs for a reasonable fee rather than a few home runs throughout the year.

Some are reluctant to give us a try and others seem to like the fact that they can let us do our job while they are setting up another job somewhere else. The new agreements, as stated earlier, have kept our cost down and our business up while being on each job for a shorter amount of time. We hope that this can continue into 2012 and maybe be our main focus through the next few years as our more niche clientele grows.

Most of our business to business customers are finicky and getting them on board with a new idea can be challenging. They want to keep as much in house as anyone else might, but the positives seem to be outweighing the negatives. We are finding that in the slower and pickier environment we find ourselves in these days, finding new and easier ways to do business are becoming the norm.

Creativity is key going forward…

Will The Co-Creator of The iPod’s New Company Change The HVAC Thermostat Market?

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There was a time when everyone saw the Apple iPod and thought to themselves:

“What is that white thing with a single button and why is it called iPod? What is i pod? What a stupid name.”

“I will never buy one of those, it’s too expensive. Nobody will ever buy one of those. What does it do anyway?”

I may be way off, but I know I felt that way until I actually had an iPod in my hand and saw how fantastic and simple it was to use. Now, between that and the iPhone, I don’t use anything else when listening to music.

So, will thermostats be the new iPod and change the HVAC industry?

I must admit I have never seen or used the new thermostat from Nest, a company founded by former Apple i-Pod co-creator, Tony Fadell. However, if this thermostat works like other Apple products, then anyone who is an Apple user knows this is probably a home run.

The simplicity and elegance of the case grabs you immediately when you look at the video and photos from Nest’s website. Check out more HERE.

The issue for consumers with this new breed of thermostat is the price, coming in at $249. However, when compared to the more expensive and intuitive thermostats at Home Depot or Lowes and if the Nest performs like it says, then it’s actually a reasonable cost. Splatf has a great post on the Nest, showing some of these comparisons. Check it out HERE.

Our company installs full duct systems for forced air heating and cooling applications. We have installed many thermostats, a good number of them are very high quality, look nice and are intuitive. However, not all of them are very easy to use and many of the calls we get from customers are in regards to the thermostat. Many have extensive instruction books and complicated ways to reset or fix minor problems, usually ending in the purchase of a new thermostat.

The Nest looks simple and easy to use in pictures and company write-ups, but can it deliver in the real world. That will be the test. But if it can be to HVAC what the iPod was to music, I think they may change the way HVAC and consumers look at thermostats in the future.

For more detail, check out these other sources:

Brave New Thermostat: How the iPod’s Creator Is Making Home Heating Sexy ( Wired.com )

Tony Fadell Demos His New Nest Learning Thermostat ( TechCrunchTV )

Our First YouTube Video: Short Clip of Knockin’ Tin

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I uploaded my very first YouTube video this evening depicting part of what I do on a daily basis, hammer sheet metal together.

The video is short and not very interesting but you have to start somewhere. I hope to upload other videos showing a small glimpses of what we do throughout the day. Visit our YouTube channel HERE.

For now, just a small clip of me knocking together a small plenum for a gas forced air heating & cooling system.

New Photos of Our Most Recent Custom Furnace Installation

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Over the course of the last few months our fabrication work has been up, while the new construction heating and air conditioning installations have been down. However, the retrofit and change-out of old furnaces has been relatively steady and we are looking for that to continue through the winter.

Here are some photos from our most recent replacement of an old oil furnace with a new oil furnace and newly added central air conditioning system.

Below is a photo of a custom transition to fit the new cased coil to the furnace and a new custom reducing vertical 90 elbow. All the joints are sealed and the coil is ready to be hooked up by our technician.

The next photo shows some of the new supply trunk duct and the newly installed return air on the backside of the low boy oil furnace. Because we are working in an older home with many obstacles, the return trunk duct had to be accessed by a new custom 90. Again all the joints are sealed and leveled properly.

Below is a picture of a couple 6″ round supply lines that needed to be run through the wall and into the crawl space on the other side.  As usual the runs are sealed, hung securely and leveled.

The next photo is a closer look at the sealing of the 6″ round duct and the runs as they enter the tight crawl space. These are typical setups when installing oil furnaces in Warrensburg, NY area, which is roughly 20 to 25 minutes north of our fabrication shop in South Glens Falls, NY.

 Visit our website at www.kesheetmetal.com

Moneyball and How It Can Help Change Our Micro Business

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This past weekend I treated myself to the picture show and checked out the new movie Moneyball. If you haven’t heard of or seen the movie, below is the synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes:

Based on a true story, Moneyball is a movie for anybody who has ever dreamed of taking on the system. Brad Pitt stars as Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A’s and the guy who assembles the team, who has an epiphany: all of baseball’s conventional wisdom is wrong. Forced to reinvent his team on a tight budget, Beane will have to outsmart the richer clubs…..more

and the trailer:

A specific scene of the movie peaked my interest and made me think about what goes on in my company and the local HVAC industry as a whole. In the scene, Billy Beane is having a meeting with his teams head scouts and they are going over new players to possibly add to the roster. As each scout gives his typical and cliched notes on each player, Beane looks around and realizes that everything is the same, nothing has changed and in order to progress and move forward, things need to go a different way so the team can replace talent, have a successful season and achieve their goals on a very limited budget.

Sometimes in any industry or life, change is the hardest thing an individual or group can do, especially when money is tight. It’s scary to venture outside your comfort zone and go against the grain of your normal life or business pattern to achieve something great.

This struck a chord because I have realized that in order for my company to succeed there have to be changes made. The company has run the same way for 20 years and we sometimes seem to be standing still. Not only that, since the economic downturn, it feels like we’ve gone backwards and are struggling to just get our legs back underneath us.

My main point is that in order for us to move forward and grow the company, we must embrace new technology and new ways of performing our day to day business. Whether it be social networking or easier ways of accepting payment, things need to evolve and move forward in order to avoid stagnation. This will, in turn, breed the success I would like to see for the company in the future.

Making changes can be hard and the old guard will always fight back and disagree with major changes. This is usually why no one takes chances and risk what has already been gained, because they may feel there is too much to lose. However, when things are just status quot and you feel like your standing still or in slow motion, something needs to happen. I am quickly learning that means things need to change. At least, that’s how I see it for my company and what may be ahead of us.

The big question, for us, will be what is our best strategy being that we are such a tiny micro business. Resources are limited and so is time because of the responsibility load on both my father and I. There will obviously be many other questions that will have to be answered and that is part of running any business with any budget. I am convinced, like Billy Beane was that season, that there needs to be more out of the box questions asked and answered for this company to succeed in the future.

Go to Amazon and get your copy of the fantastic book Moneyball by Michael Lewis HERE and for your Kindle HERE