Harmon Solar Podcast
The solar energy sector in Arizona is currently oversaturated, which has led to a scarcity of transparency. In response, we've created a podcast to provide an honest perspective on going solar in the state. Join us as we explore the intricacies of utilities, equipment, processes, and more. Our primary objective is to educate and empower you to make informed decisions on your solar journey.
Harmon Solar Podcast
Let's Talk Energy Audits
In this episode of the Harmon Solar Podcast, hosts Ralph Romano and Ben Wollschlager welcome their very first guest in the brand-new studio—Elena Chrimat, co-owner of Ideal Air Conditioning and Insulation! 🔧💨
Together, they dive deep into the real reasons behind rising utility bills, bust common HVAC myths, and unpack the truth about energy audits—when you need one, what it includes, and how it could save you serious money. Elena brings 16 years of industry expertise and drops knowledge bombs on ductwork, oversized ACs, attic insulation, and even those viral air filters that could be hurting more than helping.
If you’ve ever wondered why your energy bill keeps going up or how to prep your home before installing solar, this episode is for you. Expect straight talk, laughs, and loads of actionable takeaways from the Harmon Solar crew.
Welcome to another edition of the Harman Solar podcast. I'm Rob Fremano, VP of Sales and Marketing at Harman Solar, and with me, as always, is my partner, my friend my guy. Ben Walschlager. You guys know him as Mr Everything, ben, it's good to be here, is it? First of all, before we start, let's address the elephant in the room. I just want to say you're welcome.
Speaker 2:For being my friend. No welcome for being my friend.
Speaker 1:No, for building the studio. Oh right, you did nothing.
Speaker 2:You did everything all by yourself. That's right, so I'm thank me. I provided no input whatsoever.
Speaker 1:You really didn't look at these plants yeah, okay, you gave me a bad time about these plants, that's right but yes, this is our new studio. Yeah, it's nice, it's exciting, good looking professional studio this is they're going to come out really well or really bad, but we're gonna.
Speaker 2:We're gonna figure that out the only downside of having this new setup is with our old setup, as you know, people have seen before it's you just see? You know waist up. Normally I wear like gym, gym shorts and flip-flops you know, and I just have like my harmony. Now I have to, you know, nice pants and nice shoes, because, you see, this is, this is who I am now.
Speaker 1:This is all this is the first day I've worn pants in a month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know jim shorts was so much better.
Speaker 1:I'm all about shorts. We're doing a professional now we're doing it right, we are so today, which is a special day, we have a special guest because we are going to tackle the topic of energy audits, which we'll get into in a second. So with us today we have elena cremat. Right, see, I got that right with Ideal, air Ideal.
Speaker 2:Air, that's right. Ideal, what did you say? Ideal, energy, energy, I don't know. Yeah, that was all wrong, yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's Elena Kremat with Ideal Air Yep Welcome.
Speaker 3:Elena Welcome. Thank you guys.
Speaker 2:You're our first guest in our new podcast setup.
Speaker 3:Congratulations Awesome today, yeah, but do you feel special. I am special. That's good, I like her.
Speaker 1:I like her. So we want to get into your industry, because that's something we get a lot of questions about actually from customers I know you do especially, yeah, and we want to talk about what an energy audit is, but before we get there, so tell us about your business. So how long have you been there? What's your role there?
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, so my name is Elena Kremat and I am co-owner of Ideal Air Conditioning and Insulation. See, I told you have been doing this for 16 years now 16, wow yeah.
Speaker 3:Wow, and you know, we started out with just testing homes, and then we realized testing homes wasn't really saving any energy off of people's bills and soon thereafter started fixing duct work and insulation on the weekends and then realized that a lot of air conditioning equipment was not installed correctly or grossly oversized and contributed a lot to the energy bills, and so then we brought air conditioning in-house in 2012. And so now we're full turnkey vertically integrated air conditioning and insulation and home performance.
Speaker 1:And you serve the entire Valley.
Speaker 3:Yes, okay, very important.
Speaker 1:So, ben, tell us, why would we want to talk to somebody that does energy?
Speaker 2:audit. Yeah, so part of what I do at Harman. Someone will call in our customer or different customer or whatever, and they'll say you know, hey, I have solar, but my bills are still kind of high. Why is that? So it goes to me to kind of figure out the why. When I talk to these customers I say, well, there's two reasons, and only two reasons, why your bills would be high Either your equipment's not working or your usage is going up. So let's look at the first one your equipment. What's it supposed to produce and what's it actually producing? So if it's supposed to produce 20,000 kilowatt hours a year and it actually produces 20,000 kilowatt hours a year, then I tell the customer well, if it's not number one, then it's got to be the second option. So let's look at your usage. It has to have gone up. So I take a look at what did you use last year and what did you use this year, and in those cases their usage has gone up. Now my problem is looking at their utility bills and things like that. I can only see the numbers, the totals. I can't find out the why. So when I look at their usage I go, hey, it's gone up. Why is that In 99% of the time homeowners go nothing's changed in my lifestyle.
Speaker 2:I'm like, well, something obviously changed because your usage has gone up. Did you get an electric car or a hot tub? Did you have a house guest that moved in? Again, I don't know. I'm just looking at the total numbers. I don't know what's going on in your home. Did you adjust your thermostat down, you know? And again homeowners will say well, no, I didn't do any of that, nothing's changed. So then that's when I say tell them you probably need an energy audit. Then find out what's going on in the home, because somewhere in your home you're using more, and again I can't, I can't tell where. So you need to have some sort of professional to come out and find out where's the energy going in your home.
Speaker 1:So tell us so when your company goes out there. So what exactly? What's involved in an energy audit? What should a customer expect when you guys get there?
Speaker 3:Okay, so traditionally an energy audit. What someone would think about it as would be blower door testing, which is basically coming up with building leakage, and also duct leakage testing as well. However, what we found is that we can do this in a more rapid manner and save the initial energy audit costs by just doing what we call an energy audit express. And so the whole theory behind it is if I tell you that you know your home is leaking, uh 25 oh, one CFM 50, that doesn't really mean a lot to you, so it sounds professional, though Exactly Right.
Speaker 3:So the same goes for the duct system as well. So what we do is we'll, uh, essentially do an express audit. We'll get in the attic. We're looking at duct work. Uh, you know leaks. So if there's visible holes that we can see in the collars, connections as well as the building envelope from the attic space, so if there's big drops that we can see, or insulation is missing or it's just not installed correctly, and from there we can determine hey, you have actual room for improvement or not. The other thing that we can do as well, if it's just like a sudden spike in bills, a lot of times, yeah, sure, it might be like a ductwork disconnect or something like that just randomly occurring, but a lot of the times it's the air conditioning equipment. So let's say it's an aging piece of equipment, it's older and it has a leak or something like that that just has occurred and that's going to cause the system to obviously use a ton more energy and the bills to spike and obviously cause comfort issues in the home as well.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I noticed that a lot too, because I don't just look back, you know the last year I look at previous years and if I start to notice that their summer usage has is the culprit going up gradually each year, that to me goes that's got to be AC unit. So, like I take a look at how old is the home, I talk to the homeowner and I go, how old is your AC unit? Oh, I don't know, it's like the original one for my 20-year-old home. I go it's probably that. So get an energy audit because it's something with your AC unit that's causing your usage to go up.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:But that's good that you brought up duct work too, because that's something that a lot of homeowners homeowners don't obviously see all the time.
Speaker 3:They'd have no idea if there's energy being leaked, you know through their ductwork as well. What kind of like tools or things do you use during an audit? Is there any specific? So we're really big on airflow and what we call static pressure on an air conditioning system. We're using a manometer and essentially coming up with what the pressures are. So how much resistance is going through the coil? Basically, if those numbers are too elevated, then that's going to tell us that that system is way overworking itself. That's part of the Energy Audit Express. So you know some homeowners, they're engineers, they're very into the numbers and the and the um, you know nerdiness of that we have those customers.
Speaker 3:I like those guys, yes, and so with those, like sure, we'll do a full energy audit. Uh, where we're using a blower door and um, a, a duck leakage, you know, like a block, a duct blaster, for example, um, and that's going to give us our exact numbers. However, that is pretty expensive, it's pretty labor intensive, it takes multiple hours to complete something like this, and when you could get the same kind of results, which the outcome is, hey, what do I need to do without getting those geeky numbers? More often than not, I'd say 99% of the time, our homeowners are going with what we call an energy audit express.
Speaker 1:So you have multiple options. Yes so there's the Express and that's basically your how long does an Express take?
Speaker 3:It should take about anywhere between an hour to two hours or so to complete it An hour to two hours to do your Express version and the other version. The other version will take three to five hours.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's extensive, yeah, so those like a full-on energy audit.
Speaker 3:For us, like it's going to start at $500 and go up from there, depending on how many AC systems they have and what the square footage is. But, like I said, you know we're generally advising customers to go the more economical way, especially upfront, because you don't really need that.
Speaker 1:So Is it a set price for an express versus the other one, or is it?
Speaker 3:based on the size of the home. Is that those, those play fact? I'm just curious. For an Express it's just $99.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:So it's basically an in-depth estimate.
Speaker 2:If you will. That's pretty good.
Speaker 1:That is pretty good.
Speaker 3:So we're really evaluating everything, and if aging equipment is involved, then what we'll do is we'll stick it in what we call a load calculation software it's called RightSoft and then we'll be able to see, hey, is this system oversized or undersized for the house? And then, you know, we'll determine hey, could that be a culprit? And a lot of our homeowners have issues with comfort, so they might have certain rooms that are hotter or colder than others and they don't know why you know why such high temperature differentials, and they just can't stand or bear to be in one of the rooms.
Speaker 1:So I've lived in one of those houses where the bedroom was ice cold and everything else was hot. Yeah, gosh, I hate that. That's like my mom's house, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's my mom two story home and like one side of the house gets really cold, the other side of the house gets really hot. I, the other side of the house gets really hot. I'm like what's going on, I don't know. But you mentioned something that's kind of piqued my curiosity. You said an ac system that's oversized for the home. Forgive my, you know, ignorance in the in the industry is a good word, I know. Thank you in the industry. Because I don't know.
Speaker 2:But in my mind, probably because I I'm a bit of a saltwater aquarium enthusiast, so, like when I build like my saltwater aquariums, I kind of oversize a lot of things like my pumps and my filters and all that stuff, because I don't want to deal with a whole lot of the maintenance. So it's better for me to, like you know, go bigger on that. So with an AC unit I would just think like, oh, my home, I want to go with a big AC unit and I can cool my home faster instead of a small one that's going to be running constantly. Is that not the case? You shouldn't go too big on a home for an AC.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's correct. So you definitely don't want to be just short, what we call short cycling. So system turns on, turns off, turns on, turns off, turns on, turns off. You want longer run times on a piece of equipment. The thing that you're explaining, though, like since you do have aquariums and other things that might, you know, put heat into the house what you do when you do the proper load calculation is you'll account for that, so you can include that in your load calculation.
Speaker 2:So okay, okay, yeah. So because I was just thinking if I have a small home, I want a big AC unit. It'll cool it down real quick. But you don't want it to do that because it'll, like you said, it'll keep cycling on and off, on and off.
Speaker 3:That's what we don't want. A lot of wear and tear on the AC, yeah, so think about it as like a vehicle, right?
Speaker 1:So when are you?
Speaker 3:using the most gas in a car for an air conditioner.
Speaker 2:Right, it's like putting a Ferrari engine in a Ford Focus? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:I'm still stuck on the fact that you're a saltwater. I didn't know this.
Speaker 2:You've been to my house before.
Speaker 1:I don't look at things around your house.
Speaker 2:A giant 200-gallon aquarium. I didn't know it was saltwater. It was the first thing that you would walk in and see. I just I'm not the services that you offer, so you have the express service.
Speaker 1:It's $99. Then you have the I will call it the nerd service, right? The more detailed service for the engineers.
Speaker 2:I like that. I like that the bend service right.
Speaker 1:So it's for the engineer, it's for the guy that really likes data, the woman that really likes data. Is that different charges depending on the size of the home or is that a set charge?
Speaker 3:Yes, that's different charges depending on the size of the home.
Speaker 1:But it's more than $99.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:It sounds like there's a lot more work that's going to be involved.
Speaker 1:And do the utilities offer any kind of a rebate or anything like that for what you do?
Speaker 3:So no Right, at the moment they don't. Actually, srp will offer $100 for the more comprehensive energy audit yeah. But, that still doesn't, you know, offset much of the cost.
Speaker 1:So I'm not asking the cost, don't worry.
Speaker 3:So they used to. They used to actually offer some pretty extensive rebates. But those kind of you know, have dwindled. However, they do offer like. Srp, for example, offers $600 for insulation as a rebate and then $400 for duct system sealing, and then anywhere from $75 per ton to $225 per ton for an air conditioning system, and then for APS it's a little bit lower. So we're talking $250 for duct system sealing, $250 for insulation and $200 for an AC replacement.
Speaker 1:I had no idea.
Speaker 2:I did not know that. See, I'm learning. Every episode we learn something new. I didn't know there was anything for any of that stuff. We put on these episodes, these podcasts, so that our episode, we learn something new. I didn't know there was anything for any of that stuff. We put on these episodes, these podcasts, so that our listeners can learn something new, but every single time we do this we end up learning something new. So that's okay. Did not know that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the cool thing now, though, too, is there's something called the IRA, and so there's some tax credits as well. So there's a $2,000 tax credit for a heat pump that is 16 CO2 and above.
Speaker 1:And then there's also a $1,200 tax credit for insulation. Man, it's good to know. I need to get a new heat pump.
Speaker 2:I know who to call and I know who to call.
Speaker 1:Now, too, mine's 15 years old, but wow, these are things that I didn't worry. I mean, obviously our industry has a ton of stuff that we play with, sure, yeah, this is good to know. So you should go back to your homeowner that you know again. You kind of talk about why would you need to use this kind of a service? I guess you kind of touched on that. Yeah, so I mean, what when you go out and do this, is there? Is there a most common thing that you typically find? I? I'm assuming you're probably working with homes 20 years or older for the most part, maybe not the newer, like we see in solar, most people that contact us 20 years plus have been in the home.
Speaker 1:They're looking for solar. We do get some of the newer stuff, but it really just seems like the bulk of people are 20 years plus. Do you see that same thing?
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, absolutely no-transcript.
Speaker 1:You say that is that on the newer stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's generally on the newer stuff. On the older stuff.
Speaker 1:What do you typically find?
Speaker 3:Gosh, it ranges.
Speaker 1:I'm just curious.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it could be. You know, like I explained for the duct system, most of the issues that we're finding are in the attic, so duct system could be holes in the system.
Speaker 1:Not enough insulation.
Speaker 3:Not enough insulation attic. You know big gaps in the attic that you can see that penetrate all the way down to the actual indoor space and then obviously the HVAC as well.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's another thing that when I talk with these customers you know about. Their usage has gone up and they say nothing's changed. Like I keep my thermostat at 78. And I've never changed that. Like, okay, you've set it at 78. But there are outside factors that are heating up your home. Your AC is now just working harder and harder and harder to keep your home at 78. You know if you have bad duct work or you know poor insulation and things like that, yes, your home is at 78, but instead of your AC running for you know five, six hours, now it's running for 12 hours just to keep it at that temperature.
Speaker 2:You know. So that's the issue that you know a lot of homeowners, just they don't know what's going on in their walls and ceilings.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, and also filtration plays a big role into that. So a lot of the returns that we see where the filter goes, they're like very, very undersized. So that will restrict airflow. And if homeowners sometimes they forget to replace their filters, we've seen them just sucked up all the way into the return and that's really a restriction. So that's going to cause a spike. So that's going to cause a spike. We've also seen systems that are miswired and they will. For example, the AC will turn on at the same time as the heater.
Speaker 1:We found that.
Speaker 3:And obviously that's going to cause, you know, thousand dollar bills, just you know, because they had somebody out there that kind of didn't know what they were doing, or a homeowner decided to try to replace the thermostat, miswired it. So you know, we see the wildest things.
Speaker 2:Speaking of air filters, I've seen the debates. I think you probably know where I'm going with this. A lot of people don't know if. What type of air filter should I get? Should I get the really cheap ones that you know that it's not filtering a lot of stuff, or should I get the really nice, expensive one that filters out all the stuff 3-5. Yeah, exactly, it's real thick. You hear the pros and cons to each. Like the really thin ones, it's easier on the AC unit, it doesn't harm the AC unit, but then the thicker ones, it does. So in your opinion, what is the best type of air filter that people should get?
Speaker 3:So this is obviously a big topic, right? So more people think exactly what you just described. But for the super cheap ones they're like 99 cents or a dollar. You can kind of see through them.
Speaker 2:They're flat.
Speaker 3:They're either blue, white or green. They don't capture very many particles. So while they're good for airflow, the particles can penetrate and then just get clogged in the coil and then you've got issues with your coil getting clogged up and then you have to clean your coil right. So we don't necessarily like to recommend those. But you can get either a one inch pleated filter. Those work just fine, but with a one inch pleat. So you'll see the ones that they sell at Costco very, very tightly pressed together as an accordion.
Speaker 3:You don't want those. Those will cause too high of a resistance, also known as static pressure. So that's what we don't want. Now, if you're somebody that has asthma or you have allergies in your home or just in general allergies in your home or just in general, what we recommend is to size the return box accordingly so we can put what we call a four inch thick MERV 13 filter. So these filters, instead of being one inch they're just four inches and when you spread them across like the surface area that you're getting is much. It's like three times the amount of just a one inch pleated filter. So those have a good pressure drop among them and that's what we'll recommend for energy efficiency and filtration.
Speaker 1:You said if there's returns not sized correctly, are you seeing a lot of that where the returns are too small?
Speaker 3:Yes, I would say 95% of homes in Arizona have too small of a return. For people that don't understand what that means or what Arizona have too small of a return.
Speaker 1:Wow. For people that don't understand what that means or what that is, what is a return?
Speaker 3:A return is where you put your filter in in your home. So it's just that grill that drops down and then you put your filter in.
Speaker 1:And you said how many percentage of people.
Speaker 3:I would say 95.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, if you're listening, guess what Odds are.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I. So, if you're listening, guess what Odds are? Yes, yes, absolutely. I mean mine's huge, aren't most of them?
Speaker 2:just huge. Why is that? Is it a builder issue?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's just well. It's obviously a builder issue. It's you know, when they were building these homes they were a contractor goes to bid right, and so whoever has the cheapest price will generally win the bid.
Speaker 3:So, a smaller return costs less than a bigger one. So that would be one example, also the type of grill that you have. So there's a stamp-faced grill versus what we call a bar-type grill. A bar-type grill, the louvers are spaced out a lot further apart, so it's more aerodynamic. It will reduce static pressure versus a stamp-based grill. It's just stamped out of a factory. Builders use them for cheap bids and a lot of homes in Arizona have them. Those will increase static pressure, which will increase resistance, which helps to increase your bills, which is what we don't want.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking now with comparing my home to my mother's home. I have a one-story home, one AC unit, I have five returns, I have five different air filters that I have to put in my home.
Speaker 3:Really, oh nice.
Speaker 2:Yes, Five. Five. One in the master bedroom, two in the hallway, another one kind of off to the side in the hallway and one in the office.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:My mother two-story home, two AC units. She has one air filter. It's an older home, much older home, and it's bigger than my home.
Speaker 1:I would think one would be more common and maybe somebody did something custom on that.
Speaker 2:No, or do you see more? These are mine's. Home is a track home. They're all the same.
Speaker 3:But I always thought it was weird. I have five different filters that I have to change. Well, and I'm wondering if those are jumper ducks or if they're actually returns. So when you have your AC running and you put your hand up to it or whatever, does the filter actually get sucked?
Speaker 2:up.
Speaker 3:So maybe your home was weatherized or maybe you've got an energy star home or something like that where they're taking good return amounts into accounts.
Speaker 2:I know it's very energy efficient. I haven't had to turn my AC on this year, awesome.
Speaker 3:Even though we've hit what.
Speaker 2:I know Crazy.
Speaker 3:What year was your home built?
Speaker 2:2021,.
Speaker 3:I think it was Well, there you go. That's probably the reason that was a good thing to share.
Speaker 1:I said my home was newer. That's a lot newer, that's really new.
Speaker 2:But I always thought it was weird that my home was smaller than my mother's home. She has two story two AC units, One air filter.
Speaker 1:What do you think? So here's something maybe a little different. So obviously I'm not from Arizona. Everybody knows that I'm not from here. He's proud of that. I'm not proud of that.
Speaker 2:Where are you from?
Speaker 1:I'm from California, I'm from Los Angeles. Sorry, I don't know if people don't like that, but anyway, the one thing that I've found living here the allergies are horrible. There's dust on my house and inside the house. That's unbelievable because we're living in a desert. It just it gets the layers of dust if you don't clean it every other day is just ridiculous and I don't know what to do about it right? So there's these people that sell these ionic machines that go in the ducts or that you can use separately, that are supposed to help with that. Have you had any experience with that kind of stuff? I know some companies like yours sell those things. Are they worth a darn? Do you think they work? Are they bad?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So for us, our big thing is do no harm, right? So a lot of the UV lights will emit what we call ozone, and ozone is not very healthy for you, right? So the UV lights that we sell, they don't emit any ozone and they do help with cleaning the air.
Speaker 3:It makes it just a lot more crisp. I have one in my home. It works great, but it's not filtration right. So when you're saying hey, my home is really, really dusty, I'm wondering how often are you shutting your interior doors? Shutting your interior doors?
Speaker 3:Do you have room pressure issues, that's causing a negative pressure, which means that, you know, the main cavity of the house is becoming negative. So air flows from a positive to negative, which will bring dust and debris from outside and that's why your home is more dusty. Or you might have leaks in your duct system that's coming into the house and that's causing it. We've gone back to homes where we've sealed and replaced duct work and the homeowner will tell us you know, every morning I used to come to the stove top and I would just wipe down my stove. You know black stove top, so you can really see the dust and she's like, after you guys were done, I don't have to do that anymore.
Speaker 2:So so you could do an energy audit, even if your home's not experiencing a whole lot of. You know, my bills are going high. I'm just noticing my home is dusty.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:I need an energy audit. Yeah, so I need an energy audit. It sounds like you need an energy audit.
Speaker 3:Well, you probably have solar on your home. I do, so your bills are probably fine.
Speaker 1:My bills are good. It's just the allergens, it's just the dust. So, it's interesting you said that, so I didn't realize that ozone, because a lot of those machines do emit ozone.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's bad. You don't want to breathe ozone, right?
Speaker 2:I guess not. Yeah, you breathe.
Speaker 1:O2, not O3. Not my thing, man, I just plug it in and it does what it does, right. So that's interesting. That's interesting. I hear a lot of people that do have the sealing issues. I know there's that stuff called. Is it AeroSeal? I've heard it. Yeah, Is that what you guys?
Speaker 3:So we don't do AeroSeal. The main reason for that is it's only good for holes that are one-eighth of an inch or less, so we find holes that are much larger than that all the time. Really, when you do find holes that big, then you need to reinforce it with some other type of fiber material, so like a fiber mesh, and then you put the mastic over it. So for us, like we're actually touching every collar, every connection with our hands and sealing it up and then reinforcing it when it's applicable, I think AeroSeal works great for, like a flat roof house. Where it's not accessible, then sure, okay. But you know it makes sense If you've got access to the duct work and the full attic. The hand seal method definitely is far superior. So we've gone in. Actually, we did a study. We were part of a study back in 2012 where we tested a bunch of homes that actually did have aeroseal and what we found is a lot of ductwork was still leaking.
Speaker 3:And it just didn't make a lot of sense to us, and that's why we decided to just stick to the hand seal method.
Speaker 1:Because it's not capturing the holes bigger than an eighth of an inch.
Speaker 3:Right and again, will it make it better than what it was? A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely it will make it better, but for us we feel that the best way to do it is to put our hands on it. On, we check the solar and everything's good. Then you say maybe you need an energy audit, maybe this or that. So we know why they're calling us and we push them to a company like yours. Are people calling you saying, hey, my energy bills are too high, so I want you to do an energy audit, or are they saying other things? I'm just curious the reasons they would call you directly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a multitude of reasons. So it could be the energy bill issue, or just people calling in saying that they have hot rooms and they're just so sick of it. Also, just people, just you know, might want an energy audit so they can know what to do before getting solar. We've had that. They want an energy audit so they can know, you know, what to do before they replace their air conditioner. Just a variety of reasons.
Speaker 1:Do you guys ever talk a percentage of efficiency or savings that you can offer by doing certain things?
Speaker 3:That's very difficult to estimate is what we found.
Speaker 1:I love that answer because, there's so many companies out there that say, oh, it's about a 30% efficiency increase and this and that which is absolute BS.
Speaker 3:We know it's.
Speaker 1:BS. So, I love that you said that, because it's so true you can't estimate that you don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we get those calls all the time. How much is a solar system? Like well, it depends. A lot of salespeople will try to do their different sales tactics and I'm like, well, I'm going to be honest with you, it's going to depend. I need a lot of information from you first.
Speaker 1:I'm not just going to give you a number.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:Yep, are you more? Are you? I'm sure you're. Are you more seasonal? Obviously you're doing AC stuff, so I'm sure they're seasonal. Do you have a lot of people where you're getting ready, you're getting ready to get into summer. They want, they want tips from you, they want to know what they can do, they want the audit to get ready for summer. People that want to. I don't. And also, as this time of year again, march, april, we start seeing 90s and we start blowing up, right, and is that the same thing with your business?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is pretty similar Absolutely, especially with HVAC, you know. So we're full service. So right now everybody's, you know, people are just turning their air conditioners on for the first time, so maybe it's not working good or it's not blowing as cold or whatever the case is, and yeah, we just get an influx. But plus, people just want, you know, they think now's a good time to add insulation to their home and everything. But you know you're not the only one thinking that. So it's kind of hard to keep up with all of that.
Speaker 2:That's the same thing, yeah, as you guys know. Same thing I tell solar customers too. You know they wait till it's, you know, june and July, and they're like, oh, I want to get solar now. You should have got it back in February, when you knew the temperatures were going to increase and your bills are going to increase. Now it's too late. Let's be a little proactive and get it done beforehand. I'm sure you see that too in your industry. It's hey, it's middle of July and my bills are high.
Speaker 1:Great, how often should somebody get an energy audit?
Speaker 3:I would just say one time honestly, really yeah, unless you're making changes, drastic changes to the house. So what we find is, anytime you have the cable man in your attic or you have an electrician in the attic and they're messing around with your can lights or you're adding lights or whatever type of remodel you're doing, then sure, yeah, have another energy audit done so you can see, hey, is my attic still okay or not? Cause anytime you have somebody in the attic, really the last person to be in the attic should be the insulator. Anytime you have somebody in there, they're trampling through it and you don't know what they're going to do. They might have to cut a duck that and squish it to get to the far corner of the attic to put that light in.
Speaker 1:So it's a good point. So I mean, I was going to talk about red flags. We kind of you hit on so many of them. Right, you talked about rooms that are hot, uh, particles in the air. There's different things. There's even appliances. Do you guys don't look at appliances at all? No so that would be more of that.
Speaker 3:That's a different thing, right yeah, I would say, the pool, though, is a big one.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, the pool, the pool pump and things like that.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, so a variable speed pump obviously helps dramatically. I actually put one in my house back in I don't know 2015 and measured the reduction and over the year I saved about $1,200 off of my energy bill, just from you know, upgrading to the variable speed. However, nowadays, now in this day and age, a lot of homes already have these pool pumps in.
Speaker 1:I would agree that mine didn't have it and I bought and it's nice because it has the app and I can play with it, and yeah, I've saved a ton of money doing that.
Speaker 2:That's, if you have a pool and you don't have a variable speed, you need to bite the bullet and go do that, yeah, I always tell people when I'm looking at their energy bills, the bigger the device and the longer it runs, that's going to be the bigger impact on your bill. You think of your AC unit. It's huge. How long does it run in the summer, 20 hours a day? Okay, well, that's going to be the majority of your bill, because I do get those customers who are like, okay, those are small items, you're not going to see a huge change on your bill. So I'm sure you know doing an energy audit, you know people are like well, I switched to LEDs, is that going to be a huge impact?
Speaker 2:Like no, like it's great that you did that you might've saved a couple cents, but you know it's not. It's not. The bigger issue is your pool pump, your AC units? What are these big ticket items that are going to be causing? You know?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the third one would be the water heater. I would say for sure, again, another big item that runs for a long time right.
Speaker 2:Bigger the item, longer it runs, more impact on your bill.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but like a refrigerator, for example, that'll save $90 a year for upgrading to an energy star you know. So, uh, I would say get one if you want, but don't do it for energy savings Right.
Speaker 1:Do you guys deal with the water heaters and stuff? Do you do that too, or no?
Speaker 3:Not yet, but that is coming here in the fall. Oh, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:So are you going to do the? What are those called, the ones that the non-traditional ones? The tankless, the tankless. Are you guys going to mess with that, or are you going?
Speaker 3:to just do. And then obviously, heat pump. Hot water heaters are a big thing, so that's something that is also tax credit eligible Heat pump hot water heaters. Yeah, so basically it has a little mini condenser next to it and it's basically a heat pump, hot water heater in a tank and it works really well.
Speaker 2:I've never heard of that either. You're learning something new every day. No, I haven't heard of that.
Speaker 1:no, that's coming soon, you said.
Speaker 3:For our company, yes. For your company, yes, and there's a tax credit for it. There is Nice.
Speaker 1:Are you learning something Because?
Speaker 3:I'm learning a lot.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's really cool. That's pretty cool. I do. I want to look at the tankless thing because I think that's interesting.
Speaker 3:People keep mean, I think it's, as long as you're upgrading your water heater to something more efficient, whether it's tankless or tank or whatever it is I think really the most efficient that you can do is a heat pump hot water heater. But you know, I'm going to look that up, I'm going to Google it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've never heard of that because I am. My water heater is like probably 12 years old and it's hanging on by a thread.
Speaker 2:It's hanging on. You know it's one of those things.
Speaker 1:So when it comes to your company, so the one thing that we have to, the challenge that we have on a daily basis here at Harman, is why Harman right, it's always that question why we have to sell our company, why are we best? And I can give you a million reasons. You get bored.
Speaker 3:But they're all true. I'd like to hear we got time.
Speaker 1:But I want to know why our customers, why should they call you? What is, what is different about your company? What is the thing that makes you, that separates you from everybody that's out there in the Phoenix area?
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, the best thing, I think, is that just we're vertically integrated. So a lot of companies that do energy audits or home performance, you know they might subcontract out their HVAC, for example. Hvac, for example, and for me personally I think the as an owner the reason why we chose to bring it in-house is so you just have full control. You get your guys certified, you can know what you're training um and and hold them accountable honestly and just know the people and their um, integrity and their values and what they care about. I think is a really big thing. So that would be the first one.
Speaker 3:And then the second one is you know we just do things right by properly sizing equipment, for example, or the duct work. We know how to design it. I mean, we literally go through studies, we've gone through geeky conferences where we figure out the best way to do something. So we kind of take it to kind of the nerdiest level that you can take it. And so if you just kind of want something to just get you by, we're probably not the best fit for you as a homeowner, you as a homeowner. But if you want something that's very, very high quality and you're going to get a product that will yield results like comfort in the house and, just you know, good energy usage and just good air quality, then we're the partner for you. And it's not cheap, because these upgrades aren't cheap as you know, solar isn't either.
Speaker 3:It's just, you know what are your goals right, and we have solutions for all different types of budgets and everything. But you know, it really just depends on what the goals are for the home and the other thing. The third thing is we're still locally owned and operated, right. So a lot of HVAC companies here in the Valley have been bought out by private equity firms. And you know, you still have me, you still have my business partner and all of us under one umbrella, so I think that that matters too to keep your dollars local and not, you know, throw them to.
Speaker 1:So I mean, what I heard is family owned right Integrity, which, wow, that's.
Speaker 2:Sounds very familiar to me. I know a solar company, I know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sounds like it. Locally owned and operated, right? So you've got a local throat to choke. Yep, that's the way we say it local throat to choke. You remind me a lot of us. Yeah, I can just feel it. I've never met you before, but, just talking to you, your values are very similar to what we do. Right, we're not the cheapest, but there's a reason for that. So you get what you pay for, and I'm a big believer of that. I'm never going to look at the cheapest, because the cheapest is usually a reason. It's the cheapest.
Speaker 1:We usually have to come back behind people and fix the cheapest.
Speaker 3:And you're probably in the same boat, I would assume 100%, and that's part of the reason why we still have so much work honestly.
Speaker 2:And integrity is another one that you mentioned too. That's us all the way. I'll tell people all the time no, don't get solar. Like what? Yeah, a solar company is telling me no. Like I've got three other quilts from other companies, good, go with them. I'm telling you no because I'm looking out for you and your best interest. How much do I get paid by telling you no, nothing I, and say this was a bad decision. Now I'm stuck with this. So I'm telling you no out of your best interest, because our integrity means everything We'll actually get bad reviews online for telling people no.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, we've had a bad review. Actually, we just got one like two weeks ago, and the guy was mad that we couldn't come out for two weeks for a mini split estimate and it's like you know well, you would.
Speaker 2:Was it Ralph? Did Ralph write the review?
Speaker 3:It wasn't Ralph, it's like really you didn't even use us. You have no experience with us. You're just mad because we couldn't come out for two weeks. That's so not fair.
Speaker 1:That's not fair. Yeah, that's not fair. Yeah, hopefully you respond to that.
Speaker 3:You know I got a little heated and I kind of left that on the back burner for a minute.
Speaker 2:Respond. I will, I will. I respond and I don't send it. I'm sorry. Who are you again, because you're not one of our customers.
Speaker 1:Well, you're never going to make everyone happy, right? That's just the reality. I think people have learned that when they look at reviews you got to take some of them with a grain of salt. There's just some of those people out there that they live for that stuff.
Speaker 3:Right it so armchair warriors.
Speaker 1:I like that you do mini splits. I installed a mini split in my garage. I don't know. You have to have a mini split in a garage. Mine's solar, though it's kind of cool. Oh, cool it works off electrical and solar. I'm sure they're very, very neat. I mean I was just thinking I've got to turn that back on. It's getting hot.
Speaker 2:You should do that, yeah I.
Speaker 1:If someone wants to get a hold of you, so tell us again. You know how can they get ahold of you? Where can they find you? They want to book an energy audit or anything at all. They want to do with you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so our company is ideal air conditioning and insulation. Website is wwwideal air azcom and our phone number is 480-839-0082.
Speaker 1:And would you be upset if we sent our customers to you?
Speaker 2:Absolutely not, Because we do get those customers. Like I mentioned before, I say you should get an energy audit, and they go okay, Because they have a relationship, they trust us, they go off our recommendations and they go okay. Who should I go with? And I'm always like I don't know, Google it Right, but we've never talked with anyone.
Speaker 1:We never have, and I'm going to tell you this has been really good. I've learned a lot. I really appreciate you spending time with us and we are good, I think, if we get people that call. I'm going to push them your way. We'll push them your way.
Speaker 2:Awesome it just makes sense for us.
Speaker 1:I love how you guys do business. I think you're very aligned with what we believe and that's so important, so we should definitely share customers.
Speaker 3:Awesome, awesome.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Anything you want to add, Ben?
Speaker 2:Thanks for coming out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we really appreciate your time, we really appreciate joining us Do you like the setup.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having us. It's a beautiful office. You're the first person to do this. See, I feel so honored that you chose me to be the first contestant. We're one for one. We're one for one.
Speaker 1:All right, so we're going to be back again soon. We've got a lot of exciting stuff coming. It's just unbelievable, the stuff we've got coming lined up.
Speaker 2:Lots of guests.
Speaker 1:Yep, a ton of guests, a ton of different industries. Yep, really good stuff. And even a little bit of Vegas slipped in there. So we'll talk about.
