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 HVAC
Did you know your air conditioning system accounts for a staggering 40-60% of your energy consumption in Arizona? Ralph and Ben engage in an eye-opening conversation with HVAC expert Andy Hobica of Hobica Services. As the third-generation owner of a 73-year-old family business, Andy brings unparalleled expertise about the critical connection between solar power and efficient home cooling.
Welcome to another edition of the Harman Solar podcast. I'm Rob Romano, vp of Sales and Marketing at Harman Solar. With me my co-host not my friend, but my co-host Ben Walschlager Ben.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm also not your friend anymore.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're Mr.
Speaker 2:Everything there it is there.
Speaker 1:It is, Mr Everything. Yeah, you lost friendship two shows ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I miss having food at these podcasts. By the way, Can Can we start doing that again?
Speaker 1:We are going to hire a chef. Thank you, I have talked to the owner about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if you are a chef, yeah, we are looking for a chef.
Speaker 1:Okay, good, Anyway, you don't need any more food Today. What are we talking, Ben?
Speaker 2:AC HVAC. That's it, yep HVAC HVAC.
Speaker 3:It's a hot topic or cool.
Speaker 2:It makes up 90% of our bills. We live in a very hot climate. Our ACs sometime in the summer run 24-7. So we get these calls a lot with people like what should I do with my AC? We're a solar company.
Speaker 1:I'm like I don't know, call an AC company.
Speaker 2:What does HVAC stand for? I have no idea actually.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe we can ask Andy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we got a special guest here today. We do, we've got a special guest here today we do, we have a special guest.
Speaker 1:So with Hobica Services we have Andy Hobica. Hey guys, hi, welcome so.
Speaker 3:HVAC, heating, ventilation, air conditioning. See, I knew that.
Speaker 2:I'm sure I could have ruled it Put an S at the end Heating, ventilation, air conditioning, solar. I knew the AC part, the V. I was like what could it?
Speaker 1:Ventilation. That doesn't make any sense. All right, so we brought HVAC guy Andy on. Why? Because it's like you just said, it's the biggest part of our bills, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we get a lot of these calls during the summertime. People call in especially like new customers who have solar and they say like, hey, I have solar, my bill is low, but how come it's not zero? Why is it not zero? I'm like, well, you're running your AC a lot during the summertime. It still makes up your bill. It runs at night, probably because it's still 110. Remember last summer we had these nights where it was like 110 degrees at night. Remember two years ago, and two years ago it was like that as well. And guess what? Your solar system does not work at night.
Speaker 3:So yeah, yeah it does and yeah, it runs a lot because, you know, even though it's not 118 out 104 at nighttime the sun's not beating down your house, but it's still hot and it's been hot all day. So it's kind of contracted on the home and when you're sleeping you like it cold. I don't know about you, but I keep my bedroom at about 70, so it's going to be running all night long, 70?
Speaker 2:Cold with the fan on. Oh my gosh dude. They actually say- he works for an HVAC company.
Speaker 3:Yes, I follow a lot of health and wellness nutritional people and Gary Brekka said it's actually the healthiest for your body to sleep at 68 degrees. Really.
Speaker 2:Yep, I'm going to go home and adjust the thermostat.
Speaker 3:Right now I don't know if I can do that.
Speaker 2:I think I'm at like 72 at night.
Speaker 3:Most air conditioners if they're not designed by me and myself, they probably won't run that low, being that hot outside. It probably won't get to 68 degrees, probably the lowest it'll ever get, especially when it's 115, 120 degrees outside. Probably the lowest it'll ever get in Arizona a normal size home for a normal 2,500 square foot home and they have a five ton on it.
Speaker 1:Probably the lowest it's going to get is about 75, 74, because the heat load is just not there. If it's a single stage basic system and we can talk about that, okay. So for the guy that is like you, that wants to have a 70 degree bedroom, I mean, to me the instant thought about that is wow, that's going to kill my bill. How am I going to do this Normally?
Speaker 3:normally so standard home, especially a new build, and you know, basically like when you buy a house, they usually have a single stage system, right, okay, what a single stage system does is, let's say you have a 2,300 square foot home and it's a five ton system, do you really need five tons of cooling the entire day, meaning the hottest part of the day and the coolest part of the day? Probably not. Probably not. So about 15 years ago they came out with two stage and what two stage does is it can run at five but it can ramp down to about two and a half when you don't need the full five tons of cooling. So it starts saving money on electricity. It also has a blower motor, just like a pool pump. That's variable speed. So about five to 10 speeds on the blower motor for the airflow to ramp up and ramp down, pulling more humidity off of the coil.
Speaker 3:So air conditioners back in the day take a step back. They were invented to remove humidity out of the home, not actually cool the home. Cooling the home came later. Then, about 10 years ago, they came up with inverter technology for an air conditioning system. It's called a variable capacity air conditioner. I have two of them at home, my home, my entire family. If you do it for a living and you try it, you'll never go back.
Speaker 3:So variable speed systems work, just like mini splits do Multi-speed systems. So my air conditioner at home I have a couple of them, but they have 150 stages of cooling and heating. So the system can run at five tons of cooling but also has the capability to run a quarter of one ton of cooling and anywhere in between depending on what it needs to cool the house. So your five ton could literally be using no electricity and still keeping the house freezing when you're sleeping and the load's not there. So with solar the startup isn't five tons on, five tons off. It slowly ramps up and it only uses what it needs to cool the home at that time of the day. So it really helps out a solar system. Because people that say I have solar, why isn't my electricity bill zero?
Speaker 3:Well, your air conditioner is 18 years old and when it turns on, it's spiking your electricity and actually I looked it up this morning, ben, I knew it was about 50%, 60%, 40% to 60% of your electricity bill in Arizona is your air conditioner 40% to 60%.
Speaker 2:That sounds about right. Yeah, yeah, that sounds about right.
Speaker 1:So I've heard the term two-stage. I have a two-stage. It's older though it. I have a two-stage. It's older though it's a train two-stage unit. It's one of those big X21s or I don't know what they're called the XRs.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're good systems. They don't break.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, it has little issues.
Speaker 3:Here and there, everybody keeps telling me oh, you've got to replace it because it's 12 years old.
Speaker 2:And I'm like why my house is freezing An.
Speaker 3:Unless you have a compressor or an indoor coil leak. Just keep it going, Keep that train going. Well compressor two-stage compressor could be an $8,000 to $9,000 replacement to where replace the unit. Okay.
Speaker 2:And hey, your boy.
Speaker 3:Andy will hook you up.
Speaker 1:I got Andy, you got a guy. So this is good, you got a guy.
Speaker 3:Ben can't call me, but you can. That's fine. He's very hard to get ahold of.
Speaker 1:So there are options out there for people now that can actually they can do this stuff. I mean because, you're right, most of the houses out here probably have what 15, 18, 20-year-old units sitting on them yeah, most.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. The average life of an air conditioner in Arizona right now, especially all the new builds that happened like 20 years ago, is about that 15 to 20-year marker. And the bad part is most home inspectors don't even know how old the air conditioner is and they don't know how to read the model number or serial number, even though with Chad GPD nowadays it's so easy to find.
Speaker 3:But I'm not being hey, they're old. But when you have a 40 to 60 to 5 to 7-year-old home inspector, they're just looking at it. Well, it works. I have a 15-degree split, 20-degree split between the supply and return. We're good, we're good. New home buyer buys the home. Six months in it dies. Oh, we just got to fix it. What's a 20-year-old system that runs an R22? And they're like, oh my God, I need a new system. Like I don't have any money. And then it goes crazy.
Speaker 1:So, like we talk about with solar, we always tell people solar doesn't really require a whole lot of maintenance. I mean, it's just not a lot to it, maybe cleaning panels, if you want to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's more of monitoring, make sure it's still working. Yeah, if it's working, it's working. It's either is or isn't.
Speaker 3:I've seen some videos recently of people cleaning them. Does that actually help the performance of the solar panels. Funny, you should say that.
Speaker 2:We just did a podcast with a cleaning company, because Ben's a skeptic, so am I, within reason, within reason, within reason, within reason Within reason.
Speaker 1:Ben's a skeptic and I've kind of always been a skeptic I'm just not as vocal as Ben is and we had a guy come on. Actually, what we did is he went and he cleaned the panels on my house and we kind of watched production. And actually I'm still looking at production. It's actually gone up a little more. That's good. So it's up to 9.5% since he's cleaned them. So there's value there.
Speaker 2:My pushback on that is you're in the service industry.
Speaker 3:We got to see the payoff on it Exactly.
Speaker 2:You're in the service industry, we're in the service industry. We don't work for free. So when the company comes out and cleans their panels, they don't do it for free, so there's a cost to it. Yes, production does go up, but at what cost?
Speaker 3:So we've kind of come to the conclusion Maybe it's worth it if you clean it yourself, Like once well.
Speaker 1:That's another whole ballgame. There's a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2:Like we agreed, like once or twice a year on cleanings, is fine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's how they were too. They were very honest and they were like you know, we'll do it once, maybe twice a year.
Speaker 3:You guys ever think about wrapping it up into your maintenance program? Yeah, well, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's what we're doing.
Speaker 1:That's what we have, yeah that's exactly what we're doing, so on that line.
Speaker 2:what about AC? Should you get your AC checked every month, have to pay someone to come out, or is it once a year?
Speaker 3:No, twice a year, so once before the summer, once before the winter. But on both of those checks, especially if you have a heat pump outside, meaning the air conditioner outside is for heating and cooling. A lot of people have natural gas for a furnace in the attic or in a closet. Then the air conditioner, the condenser outside only runs in cooling and then you have gas furnace inside for heating.
Speaker 1:Right, but on a heat pump.
Speaker 3:A lot of new homes that don't have gas in the neighborhood, a lot of, like you know, the new track homes. The air conditioner outside is the heater and air conditioner Inside is just an air handle that blows air, right, right, right. So, yes, so on those two services, especially if it's a heat pump, my techs, when we're all done, we pull the power and we clean that condenser coil. Okay, all you have outside is a condenser. It has a compressor in the middle of it, it has a condenser coil that condenses the refrigerant and you have a fan motor on top that pulls the hot air off of the compressor and the coil. The cleaner that coil is, the more efficient that system is going to run. And cleaning that twice a year is good.
Speaker 3:But I tell homeowners, especially in the summertime, for the four to five months when it's hot, unplug the system, wait for it to turn off, take a hose. Don't spray it with a hard sprayer and dent the coil and damage it. Just nice, easy breeze on the outside. Now the proper way is to take off the fan and go from the inside, but on the outside it's not going to hurt it and it'll work that much more efficiently. Okay, I strongly recommend it once a month when it's hot.
Speaker 1:Nice, let's backpedal real quick. We haven't talked about your company yet, so let's talk about how it's at Hobanica Services. Yes, sir, tell us about your company, tell us what you know, where you are, where you're serving who you are where you're serving, how long you've been around, all that good stuff, yeah.
Speaker 3:So long story short. I'll do the whole story real short, united States. They went to Phoenix because his dad that I never met, great grandfather. So Jeddu, because we're Lebanese, it's Jeddu and Siti, his grandpa and grandma. My Jeddu's dad started a dry goods store in Phoenix, actually like 3rd and Jefferson. So you look at an old Phoenix map, you can see Hoboken Sun's dry goods store next to the theater in downtown Phoenix Pretty cool, but long story short. You got that. And next to the theater in downtown Phoenix Pretty cool, but long story short, you got that.
Speaker 3:And then my grandfather went to the same area as grade school and high school, got drafted into the war, battled the bold saving Private Ryan's scene on the beach was there, took us and saw that movie when we were little kids just to show us like, hey, this is war and this is why you should be a proud American and all that fun stuff. So he took that, got out of World War II, was one of the only people in his unit that actually survived, got out, went to Phoenix College and wanted to go to electrical school because he wanted to be an electrician. The counselor said hey, Paul, we're full of the electrical school, but I have this new upcoming field called refrigeration. It's going to be real popular and you can learn a little bit of electrical in that. Worked for some companies and then said in 1952 started his own company in his garage in Phoenix. My grandmother, my city was his receptionist. And then the story is he had a big-ass family for all the kids, the creative workforce Wow.
Speaker 1:That was in 1952.
Speaker 3:So 73 years later, three generations still going strong 73 years, that's a cool story, though Holy moly. And then top-rated family company in Arizona, a couple of the big dogs like Parker and some of the other guys that have more reviews than us, but for a small, family-owned company with under 100 employees, I think we're at 6,500 five-star Google reviews right now, at 4.9 star rating, with zero complaints on the BBB and zero complaints on the ROC. There you go.
Speaker 1:Well, that sounds familiar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're a family-run company as well. Ralph and I are not family, though. No, not at all.
Speaker 1:So yeah, we've been around 50 years 50 years.
Speaker 3:yeah, that's very cool.
Speaker 1:How many trucks do you have? How many technicians do you have?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so currently have about 35 techs, got another 15 installers, I guess 8 to 10 office and then management and it's pure guys, you're pure hvac, hvac, plumbing, electrical wine cellars.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, interesting a little bit of everything yeah, yeah, wine cellars that's. I'm sure there's a story behind that one and and on many podcasts they ask that.
Speaker 3:So, long story short, I'll ask you a question, so you answer this for me and I'll answer it for yourself. If you have a wine cellar, okay, and it's like the size of this room or the size of your outside sales area, like think about it, like how big, so three 4,000 bottles of wine, what does that home also have?
Speaker 1:A lot of drunks living in it. An AC unit? Yeah, of course, as AC yeah.
Speaker 3:But if you have 3,000 bottle of wine, wine cellar, do you have money or are you poor? No, you have money. So how many air?
Speaker 1:conditioners. How many water heaters do you have? Oh goodness, Probably a ton. Yeah, Four or five.
Speaker 3:So those homes are in Peavey, scottsdale, desert Mountain, right, if you especially, and you care about your wine and you want to flex that hard when people come over, you have 12 air conditioners, you have three tankless water heaters, you have two panels, you have all the fun stuff. To where it gets us foot in the door, to where, why would they use the air conditioning company they've been using? If now they have a wine cellar with us, they can call one company for everything, one-stop shop.
Speaker 1:Smart.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That makes a ton of sense. You found your little niche there with that, and now.
Speaker 3:then you have people like in PV that maybe aren't super wealthy but they're like you know what? I want a wine cellar, but I don't want to spend $100,000 on a wine room. We'll do a wine wall. So we'll have Innovative come over, build them a wine wall, air condition it and you can do a wine wall that will hold 100 bottles for $12,000, $13,000. But you walk in and that's part of the kitchen.
Speaker 1:You see a glass wall with wine in it and it's a flex. When you come over you're having a party. Yeah, I already can tell our owner is going to be content yeah, you're gonna have a phone call.
Speaker 3:He has a wine cellar, he has a cigar thing. It's kind of like confidentiality. But we've done a lot of hotels. We do a lot of golf, golf resorts when you walk in and they have like the cabinets for the liquor. We've done all those wow nice restaurants.
Speaker 1:So you're broad spectrum from the basic homeowner living in a 1200 square foot home to that guy with 12 air conditioning that's actually my favorite, favorite person to go to is the 1200 square foot home right 70 to 85 year old lady, widow in a 1200 square foot home.
Speaker 3:That's my favorite customer by far because I I get to treat him like my grandmother and it's, hands down, my favorite customer. That's really cool yeah.
Speaker 1:So let me ask for the people watching. I mean, what are the most common things that you see that are causing people the pain, that why they have these huge bills? What things are they not doing? What things are happening that maybe they're not aware of? Where can they make it a better situation for them without spending a ton of money?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so a lot of people get the solar, like you said, and then they still have that high bill. Two main things how old is your air conditioner, how many stages does it have, how often do you service it? And then, last thing, you guys are going to agree, how much insulation you got in your attic, sure?
Speaker 2:So we do insulation as well. No, I agree with you too, because when people call in and they go to me and say, hey, I've had solar for a while, my bill's been low, but they're starting to creep up, the first thing they think in their head is, like my solar system is not working. So I tell them, like okay, there's two reasons, and only two reasons, why your bills would be high Solar system is not working or your usage has gone up. Let's look at both. So I take a look at you know, is the system working? Okay, it is. So if it's not number one, it's got to be the second one.
Speaker 2:So I notice, hey, I go, how old is your AC unit? It's like 18 years old. Okay, well, then it's. It's probably that. You know, is your home well insulated? I don't know. Like okay, this is starting to kind of make sense, you know. But but you know, people say, well, I don't change my thermostat, it's, I set it at 76,. You know, in the summertime, like okay, but as the older your AC gets, if your home is at 76, your AC is trying harder and harder and harder to keep your home at 76 every year, and it's time.
Speaker 3:So a little insight for you guys If you undersize a system, if you undersize it, it's going to run all day long, sure. If you oversize it, it's going to short cycle on off, on off, on off. So you don't want to undersize, you don't want to oversize. It's going to short cycle on off, on off, on off. So you don't want to undersize, you don't want to oversize. That's why people that actually know what they're doing, like Hobica and some of the big dogs, anytime we sell an HVAC system, we have to do a heat load of the house, a manual J heat load, and make sure that we install the right size system for that house. Now, if you have a really old system and it's 18 temperature down because it's not pulling enough humidity out of the house, because the compressor is not working at the right, you know, proper BTUs.
Speaker 1:Right, and how do you? You said, was it the heat? How do you? How do you right size? How do you know? What are you doing to determine if it's the right size or not?
Speaker 3:To size out the homes. How many BTUs you know per square footage?
Speaker 1:So you look at square footage and all that stuff. Yep, the one thing I've noticed in some different homes that I've lived in is you'll have one room in the house that's freezing, yeah, and then the other rooms are hot. It's just balance of ductwork, that's all that is.
Speaker 3:So usually when the rooms you're talking about or the houses you're talking about are on a trunk system, so you actually walk into the house and they got a drop ceiling right and all the bedrooms are cooled off of this metal ductwork that's sitting underneath the insulation, different from what we have here or in a newer home. You have flex duct work in the attic and that's how you can balance out homes, okay, and then you have zoning and then we can keep going. Baby, this guy knows stuff.
Speaker 1:I was going to say my head's spinning right now, so backtrack a little bit.
Speaker 3:I started working for my dad when I was about 12. Worked every single summer growing up. It was good money, hated it. Crawling 160-degree addicts, running duct work, running insulation, doing all the really, really tough stuff, learning my way up. And then, when I graduated high school, dad gives you three options Keep working, full-time military, get the hell out of my house. Wow, three things Like hardcore, but it's the reason I'm successful. He's very hard on me, but yep, stayed working Between the ages of 16 and maybe 25, I probably got fired six times. Yeah, just because me and my dad would butt heads.
Speaker 3:Oh okay, by your dad it's tough working for your father, but now especially going into sales and then him stepping away from the business. We're best friends again, perfect. But yeah, I've done everything, so install all the way. Growing up I was a full-time tech for almost 10 years, tried a little management out. 10 years. Tried a little management out, didn't like it, went into sales and never stopped. Now I'm setting records, okay.
Speaker 2:That's a good story. Your dad filed you five times Not being cocky.
Speaker 3:No, go ahead Per.
Speaker 1:Service Titan, I'm in the top 1% in the industry. You're just Arizona, though, right, I'm just Arizona. Yes, yeah, okay. So your company is just Arizona, correct. Arizona, though right, I'm just arizona. Yes, yeah, okay. So your, your company is just arizona, correct.
Speaker 3:That's all you guys do yes, and you're top one percent in the country in the united states for hvac electrical plumbing sales.
Speaker 1:Wow that's so. I mean that means that should tell me that you're dominating this market. I am, yes, okay, above the big dogs.
Speaker 3:Well, no, because, like you know, national you have like a parker and sons of a 600 million dollar company.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true, that's600 million company. Yeah, that's true, that's true.
Speaker 3:They have the people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true. Okay, all right.
Speaker 3:But none of their sales guys sell more than I do.
Speaker 1:Do you ever get people talking to you about solar?
Speaker 3:Asking you questions about solar All the time yeah. So what do you?
Speaker 1:do? What are they asking? I'd love to hear that.
Speaker 3:Answer you don't call Ben. Refer them to a solar company.
Speaker 2:We're the same way. People ask us about AC stuff and we're like let me just go on Google real quick because we don't know. We're solar experts.
Speaker 3:This is Ben's fault. Ben put Anthony up 10, 15 years ago, but he didn't. Why didn't you?
Speaker 2:I wasn't working here 15 years ago. It doesn't matter. You're not talking to him for 10 years 10 years ago.
Speaker 3:You only can talk to him if you're working here. Right, that sounds about right. That's just ridiculous.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't even Ben, it was his mom that reached out. That's true, my mom reached out but his mom.
Speaker 3:I love Julie, love her, but she likes every post on Facebook. She's a big supporter.
Speaker 2:Well, she lives alone, she's retired.
Speaker 3:My mom's the same way.
Speaker 2:Moms are like day. We'll talk about it at the end of the podcast.
Speaker 3:But his mom's really involved with my Facebook, always all over it because of my nonprofit and she loves giving back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we will talk about that I want to touch on that. So gosh, I'm not really sure where to go. I have a couple different areas. Back to AC.
Speaker 1:Well actually he's taking my mind outside of AC which is not good, so I got to bring myself back in. So if I'm looking to buy an AC I guess we've kind of talked about this, but I want to really drill into the customers. So when I'm watching this podcast, maybe if I'm looking to buy a new AC unit, I want to change up my house. When I just put solar in my house, I'm trying to make it more energy efficient. What are the things I need to look for when I'm buying an AC unit? What are the key things that I should look for? Because I know I'm going to probably talk to different companies and get different quotes right, always Correct. What are the key things that I need to look out for?
Speaker 2:Can we take a step back?
Speaker 1:actually yeah, take a step back.
Speaker 2:But before we're actually buying it. When should we buy it? When it's like, yeah, it's getting old, Is it time to buy a new one, or so?
Speaker 3:average life of an air conditioner in the United States is 15 to 22 years average In Arizona it's 12 to 15.
Speaker 2:So if your AC is at 15, time back.
Speaker 3:If it's over 15 years old, don't put a penny into it. If it's over 12 years old and out of warranty, most air conditioners come with 10 to 12 years warranty, depending on the brand. If you have more than a $2,000 repair in that 12 to 15 marker, don't do it, okay.
Speaker 2:So it's strictly just basically an age thing, correct. The older it gets time to replace it.
Speaker 3:Or if you have a really, really big repair. Does brand matter? Yeah, it does matter, yeah. So you know, train, lennox, give me your top brands, then you have some of the lower brands, Lots of brands.
Speaker 2:Now we can go into your question when it's time to replace it. What do we look for? What do we do?
Speaker 3:So if you're in Arizona, you're listening to this podcast, I'll tell you right now get four quotes. Make one of them Hobica. I guarantee it will be different than anybody else. Our process is all about the customer. So tell me how you're different. We always do a heat load. We always go around the attic, we always go on the roof. We always do a whole home walkabout. People cut corners Like I'll go to a home and I'll be like hey, ben, just making sure we have two and a half to three hours, are you good? And they're like I've had three quotes. They've all been here 30 minutes. I'm like unfortunately they just shot you a quote. Right, did they show sure the electrical? You know, make sure your breakers are sized right for the air conditioner, all this stuff. Like well, um, and I'm like exactly, so if now's not a good time, we can come back, but I do need a couple hours so I can serve you correctly. Yeah, I feel like we go with that Right, exactly, they're like.
Speaker 2:what do you mean?
Speaker 1:I'm like exactly that sounds so familiar.
Speaker 3:Right. You know how many times I've went out to quote a system good, better, best and I told the customer I don't care what you buy. You can buy a single-state system for 11 grand, it doesn't matter to me. Insulation, new ductwork, whatever you want, we can do whatever you want, but the thing is make sure it's sized right and actually doing. I'll go out to a home. She's gotten six quotes from different air conditioning companies, including the one I said all these big guys and I go out in the backyard and I'm like I know that color 2016.
Speaker 2:So I'll come in the home and I'll be like hey, betty, it's nine years old.
Speaker 3:She's like they all told me it was 14. I'm like I'm not going to say anyone's lying, I just look at the age. So I have you come outside so I can show you I'm looking at the right number. And she's like nope, october of 2016. I'm like, so I'm just showing you is what it is. If everything's working, okay, I would say we tune it up. While I'm here, let me look at everything for you. When, then, went in the attic and she had three inches of insulation, I left that home with a new water heater, a service agreement and 10 inches of insulation, brought up to an R38, and cut her electricity bill by about 20%, got a new water heater, stopped a freaking disaster insurance claim with mold and mildew all over her garage and drywall. And then who's she going to call in four years when her air conditioner breaks? Is she going to get four quotes, or is she going to call in four years when her air conditioner?
Speaker 2:breaks. Is she going to get four quotes or is she going to call me first? She's going to call me? Yeah, and that's what I mean. We see that a lot in this service industry. Everyone, every sales guy out there wants to make a sale. You know how many times do I tell people no, they shouldn't get solar.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We do it all the time. I take a look at your referrals and recommendations. I want you to call back you know a year or two from now and be happy.
Speaker 3:Also that customer has referred me four times since I've been there and I got four jobs out of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, I'll tell you, no, you shouldn't get solar, which is shocking, and I'm sure you'll tell people, no, don't get a new AC unit.
Speaker 1:Will you make a recommendation? Looks like so you're looking at all the different kinds of. I mean you have good, better, best. Let's just say, will you ever say if I were you or this is what I would do?
Speaker 3:I wait for them to ask me because I don't want to come off salesy Good, better, best, what do you think is best for you and your family? Yeah, and they'll go over like, well, I want to accomplish this, okay, well, this would do that the best, but you can go wherever you want. A lot of people will people get down to it. They don't have that comfort issue, they just want to replace because of the age. I look at them and say, tell me this your system right now, how it works.
Speaker 3:Let's say it was eight years ago. How was it working then? Was it cooling the house? Great, and you had no problems with it. They're like, yeah, like to be honest, eight years ago it was working great, wonderful. You want basic single stage. You don't have any comfort issues. There's no benefit of going with that variable speed system unless you have a higher bill, like some of these people, man, like they have a big house but for some reason it's just sealed, encapsulated home and they have solar and their bills 40 bucks. I'm not going to cut it down to 20 with freaking a variable right it just won't happen right, what kind of cut?
Speaker 1:I mean this is probably too broad of a question. I was going to say what kind of of a percentage of a bill drop do you think you can see on the average system?
Speaker 3:that's's tough because it depends on what they have Single stage, single stage for single stage, 5% to 10%. The problem is you say 10% and then the rates go up and then they're even.
Speaker 1:I saved the money.
Speaker 3:If the rate didn't go up, you would have saved money. But, it stayed the same. I'm like how much did your bill go up? I saved you a lot of money, but the bill went up. You a lot of money, but the bill went up. It's not my fault, kind of thing. And then, when you go to two-stage, it's about 15% to 25% on the max, and then variable-stage is 20% to 50%. Yeah, 20% to 50% for variable-stage.
Speaker 3:So I've proved it at my house, my old house, especially A new house it's a newer build that custom build that I built but my other one at 67 in Happy Valley, about 3,800 square foot, two four-ton systems had two single-stage four-ton systems on the house when I bought it in 2018, right, still in the home I rented out. Those people got a badass rental because at the end of the day, it wasn't supposed to be a rental, it was supposed to be my forever home and I ended up wanting something else. But, moving to that home, put my first summer, summer and a half there. So that year and then half of the next year, my bill was like 650.
Speaker 3:I like it really, really cold and didn't have solar on it. Right, came in, put two variable speed systems on it, cut it down to 219. Wow, wow, wow. That's what it does Single stage versus variable. I don't care how big your house is. My house didn't need that much cooling. It needed that much cooling at 118 degrees. Sure, it did not need that much cooling when it was 90 outside and I wanted my house to be 70 degrees.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So listeners, customers of ours, when you're listening to this, when I'm talking to you and I say things like oh you know well, I don't really run the TV a whole lot, or I switch to LED bulbs and I'm not seeing a huge difference, I'm telling you your AC unit is making a huge chunk of your bill. Sure, led lights and all that stuff is great and fantastic. But let's address the bigger issue AC.
Speaker 3:And I'm glad we're bringing this up, because it just like light bulb went off. Not talking bad about windows, if your windows are from the 40s, you should probably get new windows, sure. The problem is, though, if someone has dual pane windows, but they're all dual pane like 15 years ago, someone comes out and quotes some new dual pane windows for like 85 grand for their house. That payoff is like 25 years. That's the problem. Their bill cuts by like 6% and they're like I got all new windows, like I spent 80 grand on it.
Speaker 1:Why did?
Speaker 3:my bill only go down this much. I'm like, yeah, I guess it was 19 years old.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, let's address the bigger culprit. That let's address the bigger culprit.
Speaker 1:That's so funny, that's so true.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, I always tell people, the larger the device and the longer it runs. That's the reason for your bill. So think about that. Ac unit, pool pump, water heater those are all big devices that run for long periods of time. That's what makes up your huge bill, not a tiny little.
Speaker 3:I got a little plug for you guys, because we do it. But go home and if you don't have, um, if you don't have a surge protector on your air conditioning system, make sure you have one on the whole home, cause we both know that per code. Now if you change out the panel, you have to do a whole home surge protector, and we do those as well. How would they know if they have one or not? What are they looking for? Go outside and see if there's something mounted underneath the disconnect next to the air conditioner. If they don't go over your panel and see if there's one right there, open up your panel. See if there's a breaker that's labeled a whole surge protector.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm going to go back to the variables, because now you got me on that. That's very interesting to me because I have a two-stage. I was talking about that. So what kind of money would someone expect to spend on a variable versus the other one? So I'm just kind of curious. I know again it's a hard question, but general ranges, I got it right now. I got it in my head.
Speaker 3:So when you're like a Lennox or a Trane, prices just doubled again because of these damn tariffs. But because of the tariffs, average air conditioner, variable speed, $25,000, $26,000. But we do sell a lot of different brands, especially with heat pumps. So if you don't have gas heating and you have an all heat pump, lennox also makes a brand called AC Pro. It's like the American standard of a train. They have a more, I guess, price-friendly variable stage system. Instead of 150 stages it's more like 25 stages. But that system's probably 18, 19 grand but still cut your electricity bill substantially.
Speaker 1:Would you do that? Or would you say you know what, if I'm going to spend 18 to 20, I might as well spend 25 on a train Depends on how long you live in the home. How long you're going to live in the home?
Speaker 3:If you're going to live in the home for 10 to 15 years, get the best. If you're going to live in the home five to eight, it'll still be worth buying the basic one.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, all right. So okay, got that. Let me ask you this A lot of people are out there trying to really push these, you know, fancy do as far as the in the house. You know what the thermostat the thermostat sorry, smart thermostats value in that? If so, I'm just curious because a lot of people say, oh, there's a ton of value in that you can do this, this, this. Some people, old school, like I don't want nothing to do with that, they're garbage, they make no sense.
Speaker 3:I just want your opinion with savings and with solar. Yeah, you need something with a program on it.
Speaker 3:I just want you to kind of explain that, yeah like wake, leave, return, sleep you can set different settings If you're going to be at work all day. If you have a variable speed inverter system, leave it alone, like if you like a 76, leave it there all day long because that system is going to ramp down and run here all day long. If you have a single stage system, maybe turn it to 85 when you're going to work.
Speaker 2:Okay, good to know.
Speaker 3:And I would highly recommend against super cooling your home, like a lot of these people say. I was going to talk about that actually Stay the hell away from super cooling.
Speaker 1:For you to talk about that because that's something that solar industry actually dictates that you should do.
Speaker 2:What's the difference between I think I probably know the answer to this, obviously Pre-cooling and super cooling.
Speaker 3:Well, super cooling would be to run it all day long, right, right? If you have a single-stage system, that's horrible. Variable-stage system is really good. Yeah, so super cooling with a variable-stage system is great. Pre-cooling, right? Is that what?
Speaker 2:you're saying yeah, pre-cooling. Yeah, pre-cooling or super cooling, you can use both If you have a single-stage system way yeah, yeah, super cooling is usually where the people put their ac down like to 65 degrees during the off-peak times and then it's completely dead during on-peak. Pre-cooling is more of like I'm gonna drop it down a couple degrees and the problem is is where your electricity?
Speaker 3:is is when the system's turning on. Yeah, on off, on off. You know 65. It's going to turn on and off like 60 times in the next hour. That's the problem. You want a more efficient system, like a variable stage system, so it turns on and it just ramps down. It's like cruise control on the freeway You're going down. So I'll tell people where do you get better gas mileage? A car that has one speed, like on and off. On and off, like, let's say, a 2001 Chevy Silverado, from here where we're at right now to, let's say, 303 and Bell. So it's a decent amount, streetlight to streetlight to streetlight. Or a Toyota Prius, right now, all the way to Vegas. Who's going to get better gas?
Speaker 2:mileage, the Prius to Vegas.
Speaker 3:It's 10 times as long though.
Speaker 1:The distance 10 times, sure, but it never. Yeah, I see what you're saying, that's variable.
Speaker 3:That's an inverter system. Why does anybody have a single?
Speaker 1:stage anymore.
Speaker 2:Well choice when people move into a home.
Speaker 3:People have a 500 credit score. They can't apply for financing and they have eight grand to their name and they need to put the rest on a credit card. I'm going to try to help them out and get the cheapest thing possible.
Speaker 1:How about like a two-story house? So I see a lot of I see both right Two-story houses that have two units, one for each story, or they have one unit. That cools the whole thing. Correct, it's just dependent on what the unit is Like.
Speaker 3:Mine has one that train I have a two-story home that train does the whole house? Do you have?
Speaker 1:zoning? Don't even know.
Speaker 3:How many thermostats? That's weird, it's not possible.
Speaker 2:You can go to her house. She's got one thermostat upstairs and it runs both units. It runs both units, controls the whole home.
Speaker 3:Wait, how old is the home?
Speaker 2:I think it was built in probably the 90s. I can get it on the phone right now, not during the podcast.
Speaker 3:So like on some of the really, old homes in the 50s and 60s. They'd have like two four-tons outside tied into one big air handler and with one thermostat. But I don't know what's going on there because I've never seen it in my life.
Speaker 2:It's very weird too. She also has only one air filter in the whole house. Your mom just needs to move. I know she needs to move. I know she needs to move.
Speaker 1:We've talked about this.
Speaker 2:Whereas my house it's a one-story smaller house. I have five air filters in my house it's a newer build. It's only a couple years old, but my mom's house. I always thought it was very weird.
Speaker 3:She just wants two.
Speaker 1:AC units.
Speaker 3:The more returns, the better.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So Ms Walsh is like I'm sorry, your house is messed up, just like your son. Your house has got issues.
Speaker 2:I always think it's weird too. Outside she's got a huge AC unit and a smaller AC unit. Two-story home, one thermostat.
Speaker 3:I'm like I don't know how this is I think there's another thermostat he's never seen.
Speaker 1:It's probably hiding somewhere. Where would it be, though, master?
Speaker 2:bedroom. Huh, lived in that house. It's in the hallway.
Speaker 3:I've never seen what he's talking about, so I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know either. I always thought it was very weird. I still don't believe you, but I love you. I'm going to call my mom.
Speaker 1:He's going to come over to your house now. Okay, I mean, I would Go back to my house.
Speaker 3:Forget that freak house.
Speaker 1:So one upstairs, including the master, and then there's another one downstairs. It's a three level.
Speaker 3:Yeah, unfortunately, where's the air handler located? In the attic Upstairs? Yeah, okay, well, that works sometimes, just because heating rises. So air conditioning from top down, so it could work. It does work, yes, but you're going to have hot spots and I can't do anything about it on the second and first floor because there's floors above it. So I tell everyone, if you can do anything, anything, buy a single-level home with an attic, don't buy a flat roof.
Speaker 1:Ever, ever Talk about that. Why not? You can't get to the ductwork. You have a hot room. You have a hot room. I can't do anything for you. That's like similar.
Speaker 3:Except put a mini split on it. It's like, oh, they have to do that, but then you have seven grand per room. It gets expensive, wow. So another thing we'll do we'll go to a home. Someone buys a brand new home, or they buy a home that's used and the person before them installed a new air conditioner. They're like, okay, cool. So what we'll do is we'll take the duct work off of that room, so the house will just be cooled off the air conditioner and we'll take a load off of it, like 200, 300 square foot for the master bedroom and we'll put a mini split on the master bedroom. You can keep that mini split as cold as you freaking want it, because it's a variable speed system just for the bedroom.
Speaker 1:So I was going to add a couple things you touched on that I want to talk about. So can you redo, deduct work and you can change the way the house is put together right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And then the R value of the duct work. So a lot of the older homes have like an R4 and they need an R8.
Speaker 1:So I mean that could get expensive too, like if I wanted to sit there and change the way mine's done and then add a second unit. Obviously I could do it.
Speaker 3:It depends on what's a lot right. So it depends on how cold someone wants it. Some people will come in and they're like, hey, I know it's a brand new unit, but it's not cool in the house, right Like I need a new unit. Well, now you're at 15 to 25 grand possibly. Well why not just keep your existing system and we'll put a $6,500 mini split on your bedroom? It's going to freeze you out and it's going to cost almost nothing.
Speaker 1:I will say thank God, my house is freezing.
Speaker 3:So I guess it's working.
Speaker 2:Like this room. Yeah, Literally that one unit keeps my house.
Speaker 3:It's like an icebox in my house.
Speaker 1:So I mean it really works well.
Speaker 3:This is like a Tony Robbins seminar the colder, the better you stay awake.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:The other mini splits, like, for instance, people have garages that are hot.
Speaker 3:So what I did?
Speaker 1:I like to talk about this because I put an off-grid 2K solar system on my house in the back and then it ties into a solar mini split. It's a solar electrical mini split, so it works off of the solar and then I have an 8K of battery in my garage and so between those two things it feeds the mini split. I never have to use the grid ever on that mini split nice ever.
Speaker 1:And then the battery is recharged by solar as well, so that's kind of cool. I love mini splits. My garage went from a million degrees to now it's it's 72 degrees in there. It's unbelievable. So I was wondering do you do a lot of mini splits in garages all the time, all the?
Speaker 3:time. So we did a lot of them, like, let's say, you say maybe one a week for the longest time. It got real popular During COVID, just during COVID we did thousands of them. I bet, I bet yeah because everyone turned their garage into a home space, their office or a gym Gym.
Speaker 3:I started going crazy, right, so I go to the gym every day. We didn't even talk about personal life. I'm at the gym six to seven days a week, at 4 am, I can't tell. And if you can't go to the gym, I was going crazy.
Speaker 3:Right, so I was just like insane. And, yeah, everyone's like, hey, hey, I want to get one of those units for the garage, it's great. So we come out and either they had to go and call my boy Tommy at A1 and get an big the garage is mini, split on the garage and cold as you want he's doing.
Speaker 1:I called A1, they put an insulated door on and then I installed the solar mini split.
Speaker 3:Well, no one does it better than Tommy Mello, they're great.
Speaker 1:I like them, they're great, they're really good. But yeah, and then I world and just did it myself and I was like this is great.
Speaker 3:And then a lot of people call us because they just want to keep the garage cold because of their cars, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure.
Speaker 3:Like my dad's got. We put a four-ton dual zone on my dad's garage because he's got six classics in Peoria. And then a lot of people call us because they're like, hey, I don't have that car, but I'm getting solar. And they're saying the battery system in cold so I need to put cooling to it.
Speaker 1:I'm like, cool, let's do it, it doesn't need to, but it'll work better right it doesn't need direct, it can't take direct sunlight.
Speaker 3:It can't take direct yeah, that's what really hurts it but it can take heat. Will it work?
Speaker 1:and last longer if it stays cool. It will so like my inverter's in the garage, and so it helps that I keep my garage cooler. Some can cool, but they will work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, every electronic device has an optimal temperature, Even the modules we put on people's homes. Optimal temperature is like 85 degrees. I'll have people come out and have me come out and they're like.
Speaker 3:My solar guy told me I had to have air conditioning in my garage because of this backup. I say, well, I'm a solar person so I don't know that. But if you said that and you trust him, all you're going to see in the garage. The best part about this is let's say he's lying. Let's say maybe he's lying. You're now going to have another room in your garage. Your wife kicks you out of the house, man came baby and he goes. Andy, I like the way you're thinking. That's a smart way to think.
Speaker 1:I looked at it too. Part of it was a gym and all that, but part of it was over my garage is a couple bedrooms. So by keeping it cooler in the summer, now the upstairs bedrooms are cooler, huge. Yeah. So people don't realize that you let your garage get to 100, whatever degrees now the inside of your house suffers from that All that heat load's coming up Absolutely, so mini splits are just fantastic.
Speaker 3:They're fantastic, they're amazing.
Speaker 1:It makes sense. You're saying if you have a dead room or a hot room and you just can't really do much about it, it's a cheap option.
Speaker 3:Yeah, If you have a smaller room though like, don't buy a $6,000 mini we can correct it with ductwork.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:Like a lot of rooms. You're going to a room and the customer's like you know. So what are my favorite ones? So obviously I'm in sales, but you can do one of two things. I hey, mr and Mrs Homeowner, where are the hot rooms so I can sell you more stuff?
Speaker 3:People are saying like, do you have any uncomfortable rooms? Cha-ching, cha-ching. Right, how we do it, and I coach people to do it and it's proper, I'm not lying. Come out and say, hey, real quick, take me to the most comfortable room in your house. Take me there. What do you like doing in this? Like, yeah, I don't want to be hot while we're having family time. I'm like great, are there any other rooms in the house that you'd like to do these activities that maybe you don't, because they're not as cold as this room? And they're like, yeah, let me take you to them. Take me to the two rooms. I'm like okay, so one of them them off as good as that other room, like your family room. You maybe do more activities here. Maybe your wife be happy with you. Oh, dude, it'd be taking so much stress off my shoulders. Okay, cool.
Speaker 3:So no matter what, whether we replace your system or not, we're going to make this room comfortable, we agree. And they're like, yeah, and then you make that room comfortable. I'll tell you how. But without a mini split, you go down, we're sitting like, okay, real quick, I just want to go over apples to apples. He's making that room more comfortable and he's doing this and this and this and I'm like, well, no, and I'm like, oh well, I can match his quote. Let's take all that out. No, no, I need that. Okay, cool, well, you told me you needed it.
Speaker 3:So how you do it is a master the door, because there's no return in the bedroom. He has one, I have one, but mainly you don't to where, if you don't have a master bedroom return? Now the return becomes underneath the door to actually exit to the filter. How an air conditioner works is it has to be sucked through the filter and the air blows across that coil. The coil's cold, from the compressor, cold air into the house. So everything has to go back to that filter. So adding a return to the bedroom might cost $800. We'll solve your problem. Huh, easy fix, wow. But if you have a tri-level home, you're screwed. So flat house is the same way, flat roof you can't get into the ductwork. I can't do anything about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, flat houses and flat roofs are tough for us too, because we can't look at the structural. So it makes it really hard to put panels over it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we do it, but it's just harder.
Speaker 3:We do it but it is a different process. And then people you know like they'll buy these flips, like you know, it's a pig with lipstick. They're like oh my God, it's a flat roof, but I have 10-foot ceilings. Where'd the ductwork go?
Speaker 1:They put it on the roof and they foam it in.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I've always seen those. But a homeowner doesn't know, they're not on the roof, the ductwork on the outside, I always think like isn't that just going to get hot in the summertime?
Speaker 3:You got all that cold air running and then the sun beat down on it. Well, it's the same as older homes. So if you buy a 30-year probably don't have enough insulation unless they blew it in, they usually don't. On top of your duct work's probably like an R2 or R3 R value. So if the air is coming out of the system at 40 degrees, by the time it makes it through your 160-degree attic to that room it's raising by 30, 40 degrees. If your duct work was insulated properly and you had the right amount of insulation, it comes out at 40, it goes in at 40.
Speaker 2:It's crazy Might as well. Just have glass duct work on the ceiling, on the roof.
Speaker 1:Do you guys? I know? One of the things that I did when I moved into my house was I had all my ducts cleaned. I mean because it was amazing.
Speaker 3:So the only thing we don't do is duct cleaning. But hey, I'll give it a plug. My boy, shane, owns Dirty Ducts D-I-R, so that's the one thing that we sub out that we don't actually do. But Dirty Ducks is amazing. We probably give them 20 homes a week.
Speaker 1:So you absolutely recommend it. Oh yeah, how often I include it on every sale.
Speaker 3:How often would you do it? Twice a year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, twice a year In.
Speaker 3:Arizona, In Arizona. So when you get it done, you come home afterwards holy crap. And then you can take it a step further and you can have hospital grade filtration in your house, like I do. So you have a four to six inch filter right before it hits the coil, and then you put UV light on it with a catalyst and you have nothing in the air.
Speaker 1:So that's what I was asking about next. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Filter takes care of all the dust, all the big particles, and then UV and catalyst takes care of everything you can't see. And then our system, the Pure Air X. So Pure Air and then X at the end. You can't buy it online, you have to buy it from a contractor because it has to be done right, installed in the air conditioning system. As long as the system's running, it's actually the one system that was proven to kill COVID. So it kills the flu, kills anything in the air that you can't see, and the UV light actually kills COVID. It's because during COVID it couldn't spread outside. It was because of the sun, UV light.
Speaker 3:What does a system like that cost? Prx is like $1,500. Really, that's it, yep. Every three years you got to replace a bulb.
Speaker 2:It's not bad, you'll be coming to my house, yeah, right.
Speaker 3:That's all it is.
Speaker 1:I thought it would be much more than that.
Speaker 3:So then, if you wanted to run, you just have to if you're not using air conditioning just turn the fan in the on position and then, if you have a variable speed system, your fan will ramp down to about 10%. You could run it all year round and it's going to cost you. Without solar, it's going to cost you 30 bucks.
Speaker 2:I bet your house smells like nothing. You light a candle and there's just no scent.
Speaker 3:No, you have a level on the PRX. You have a level one to five. If you go to five, like me, you smell that like ozone smell. But, I like it. My house smells like rain pours, so I've been since probably the 90s.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you remember they had those boxes, the ozone boxes. I can't remember the name of the company, but I still have one today that I use. There was lots of them, yeah, but there was an original one that I can't remember, but I'd use those as well. Those things are great, yeah.
Speaker 3:So it's that on your whole home. Okay, I'd like to do that. We're going to talk about that because I think that works.
Speaker 1:That stuff's amazing.
Speaker 3:It does work. You're right, I wouldn't own it if it didn't. I like the ozone smell and stuff and then000 a system I'm like. I have three of them. They're phenomenal. I didn't pay $25,000 per system, but I also didn't get your 10-year warranty. You're about to get.
Speaker 1:I can't stand all the dust and stuff in the air. It's terrible. I have a studio at home that's got black tables and it's like they're just covered every other day, if I don't clean them, my black stove't clean them the best thing about.
Speaker 3:Hobica is we have a lot of free coupons that we give to anybody so you can get a free whole home evaluation on your water, your plumbing, you can get it done on electrical. You can get it done on your air duct work. You can get a hot room evaluation for free.
Speaker 1:We'll come out and make sure it's a hot room. So do you guys do the water heaters, the ductless, tankless, tankless? I always do that the tankless tankless.
Speaker 3:You're fricking, you're missing out, unless you're a hundred years old and you and your wife live in sun city with no kids in the home. Like you need tankless.
Speaker 2:Well, you hear that Wow.
Speaker 3:You come home from work and your wife and two kids have taken showers and you come home to no hot water. Well, tankless, unlimited hot water and very, very efficient.
Speaker 1:So you like those. I've heard positive and negative about tankless. What negative. I've heard people say that that's it. Well, I've heard the expensive. It is expensive. What's the cost?
Speaker 3:So a standard water heater, right, you go to Home Depot and you're going to buy a water heater for $1,000. It's a residential water heater, plastic drains and you're not installing it Right. So for a a, three grand installed by a good company like us, tankless is going to be about seven to nine. That's not that much. But it also has a 20 to 30 year shelf life, when a normal water heater in Arizona should be replaced every 10 years.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, that's about equal then.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:If you think about it, well, three grand.
Speaker 3:But paying for it up front. Right, right, especially if you're going to be in the home for four years you can replace it twice.
Speaker 2:There's six grand, but people don't replace it in 10 years.
Speaker 3:They let it go 14, and then it explodes and they have to call their remediation company.
Speaker 1:What's yours, mine's like about 13 years old Dude, dude, I already got him.
Speaker 3:We're going to go over and clean his dog, but it looks good.
Speaker 1:Add insulation PRX and water heater. My water heater looks nice.
Speaker 2:This podcast was well worth it. He's Peoria. I'll give him your address here in a little bit.
Speaker 1:Actually, I would like you to come over. I've always been looking at them and I've been reading a lot about them and I think they make a lot of sense. Oh, they do, and my wife's always complaining at 7 o'clock that we don't have hot water.
Speaker 3:And then the only thing we haven't talked about and you guys started it, so I have to bring it up Purification. So you have drinking high alkaline underneath my sink, so that $14 bottle of water you buy at the store, I have it at my sink. And then, as well, if you don't have a softener in Arizona, you're really screwing up.
Speaker 3:We have the third hardest state in the country and our water is really hard. So every home that we come out to, we offer them hey, would you like me to test your water for free? Test it and show them their hardness. You see all the calcification. This is what's going on. Drain the water heater. See all this crap. This is hard water.
Speaker 1:Is your softener different than anything else? I mean, I have a softener in my house. It was there when I got it, so it's just a basic solder. Yeah, it seems to work when I put salt in it everything's great.
Speaker 3:When I don't, it's bad's starting to be like common as an ac unit, like but also, all new homes come with a loop. If you don't have a loop and you got to install the loop, it's very expensive. Okay, so just the loop alone could be like six grand, and then you got to buy the softener now and I do have the.
Speaker 1:I do have the alkaline machine, so I've had that for 10 years now. Amazing those. I won't touch anything but alkaline water. So I mean you have to, I have to. I've been telling you that for years.
Speaker 3:You won't touch anything but alkaline water.
Speaker 1:You know that when I drink this stuff, it actually gives me a stomachache, compared to drinking alkaline water. This does. Yes, agreed, but it's all you gave me. It's all we have. It's all we have.
Speaker 2:I mean, I drink either 8.5, 9 or 9, just do it All right. So this podcast is costing me a lot of money. I don't know about that.
Speaker 3:I don't like that.
Speaker 1:But you know what you came in today and you gave us you got goodie bags, a goodie bag. Look at that. No one ever gives us goodie bags, I know.
Speaker 2:How come we should make it standard now?
Speaker 1:This is the first time we've had any old bike here. Yeah, nice, which is kind of nice. I've used that before.
Speaker 3:The best part is my last name's on everything I was going to say.
Speaker 1:you're all over the place here Water leakage alarm.
Speaker 3:I might need that for my water heater. I gave you guys each three of those. Basically, you want to unscrew it, batteries included. Install the battery, screw it back in, put it underneath your sink. If you ever have a water leak, it'll go off like Okay, I got a wine thermometer.
Speaker 1:Wine bottle thermometer there you go.
Speaker 2:We talked about the wine cellars.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to drink tonight. Yeah, yeah, a digital thermometer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, meat thermometer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 2:I think I'm grilling something tonight, so I'm going to definitely use that. This is really nice. Thank you very much for this. You're most welcome.
Speaker 3:I really appreciate that. I get it all made in bulk from our friends across seas and when you buy 10,000 meat thermometers they come out to 12 cents a piece. Well, now they're 40 cents. All right, I have plenty.
Speaker 1:So one last thing is I know that you have a nonprofit that you work with or that you have, so talk about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I founded it about, I want to say, 12 years ago, been a 501c3 for about eight and been a QCO for a year. So QCO, a qualifying charitable organization, so actually like a Catholic school. So when you're about to do your taxes, I think it's per couple last year it was like 436. I'm sorry, couple 938, single 436. Friends, family give. Last year it was like 436. I'm sorry, couple 938, single 436. Friends, family give me that money.
Speaker 3:You're gonna get it back in your refund, so it's a dollar for dollar match, right, um and I was able to get a lot of money last year. So now blowing up to where I'm actual qco took a long time to get there, but it started about, you know, 12, 13 years ago. And once a month we go downtown phoenix. We feed and help out the homeless, but basically they stand in line and what? And we have one next weekend, actually on the 27th, but we have one once a month, usually at the end of the month on a Sunday, because when it gets hot I work six days a week, so at the end of the day, sundays, we get off, unless I'm working. But I'll have it. We'll get down there 6, 7, 8, 9 am, depending on how hot it is outside. Probably 7, 8 next weekend Get and basically 1,500, 2,000 homeless people will line up at 12th Avenue in Jefferson and they'll go through our tent system.
Speaker 3:Basically we have water, nonperishable food items, five or six toiletries, so we get the same thing Alibaba, little mini shampoos with one bag at a time on it Shampoo conditioner, razor, shaving cream, deodorants, baby wipes we have individual baby wipes. It's a shower and a box for a homeless person. And then we partner with a company, another nonprofit called Dog Days Out Arizona and they set up right next to us and if you're a homeless person with a dog, they'll give harnesses, leashes, little footies for the dogs, treats, and that's Monique who runs that, a good friend of ours. We talked to her today, but actually look up online. So Instagram, facebook one bag at a time on Facebook, one bag at a time AZ on Instagram and then as well, dog dogs day out Arizona on social media. They're huge. That's awesome for the dogs.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Do you take donations for items to Hannah?
Speaker 3:Yeah, take donations. Obviously, if someone just wants to donate cash, it's great, it's all 100% tax deductible because it is actual 501c3 QCO. But this is what I tell people Like Andy, I want to donate some money. Before you donate money, or before you judge and say that I'm doing it for fame or whatever, come to an event, just come See it. I guarantee it will make your day, make your month and make you a better person. And then a little shout out for salespeople If you want to make more money and you're in sales or you're in a high-level job, come and get back, see what it does for your money. Absolutely, it makes me a better person every single day. And then customers are like hey, your website, I heard about that one bag at a time thing. What is it? Talk about it for an hour. I get very genuine and emotional about it because I love doing it.
Speaker 1:Right, cool, we need to take information on that because I know Harmon's always looking to do some stuff.
Speaker 3:We've done a lot of company programs so you have the company involved. Each of the employees all buy stuff will come and pack bags and then go distribute. We do it all the time.
Speaker 1:I think we'd be interested in maybe having that conversation, love it. So I'll get the information from you. That's really cool.
Speaker 2:I like it.
Speaker 1:How about? So? If somebody wants to reach out to learn AC, water heaters, insulation, whatever it is, how can they find you?
Speaker 3:guys, HOBAICAcom, Really easy to schedule online 602-995-0387. And then personally, if anyone is interested in anything about me, they want to talk about me, they want to talk about sales, anything like that fun stuff. Just add me on social media. Andy Hobayka, only one in the United States.
Speaker 1:You do some sales training and stuff too right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, states andy y training and stuff, true, right, so hlb aica and I'm the benefit for me. Any conference I go to, I don't need a qr code. I literally just tell them well, I'm the only andy hobak on social media I'm the only ben walsh log on social media, you know.
Speaker 2:Wow, you have something in common, ralph romano, with your common name there's a ton of us.
Speaker 1:If you look up ralph romano on social media, you'll find a murderer on 70 different people. Yeah, there's a mob guy that was murdering people, so not related okay, not related.
Speaker 2:Are you the same guy? Are you the same guy?
Speaker 1:running from the law anything you'd like to add no, this was fun.
Speaker 2:This was good it was.
Speaker 3:I really appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 1:Thanks for coming and thanks for having me. We appreciate it, and so, ben. What's next?
Speaker 2:what is next? I'm sure we've got a lot coming up. I was actually I'll tell you this right now. I was talking with the Glendale Fire Department today about fire code setbacks, and have they ever encountered a home or business that had solar where there was a fire? What do you do? What's the safety? It's very different that would be interesting. We might be having them as a guest.
Speaker 1:Okay, and I know we're going to probably do something on SRP soon too. We might be having them as a guest. Okay, and I know we're going to probably do something on SRP soon too. We have to kind of get into that, Changes that are coming there that are going to impact going solar. So for the next three years especially, so we'll get into that as well. So again, hey, thanks for joining. Thank you, thanks for being here, that's what I do. Thanks for watching and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 2:Appreciate.
