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26 minute read
Jim Bergmann’s journey through the HVAC industry is one for the books. From riding alongside his dad in the truck to launching industry-leading companies like TruTech Tools and measureQuick, Jim has seen it all. With a storied career as both a teacher and an entrepreneur, Jim has earned his place as one of the most respected voices in the industry.
We were thrilled to sit down with Jim for this podcast episode, not only because of his unmatched technical expertise and his standing in the HVAC world but because of his ability to tell a heck of a story. But perhaps the most interesting part? Jim used to be really skeptical about heat pumps.
As he describes it, he had a “come to Jesus moment” with heat pumps that turned him from a skeptic to a passionate advocate. Now, Jim’s in love with the heat pump in his own home, and in this episode, he shares how that transformation happened. Hearing him break down the technical barriers that once held him back, why he’s now a believer, and what needs to happen to ensure the transition to heat pumps is successful makes this a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of HVAC and the heat pump revolution.
Tune in to hear Jim’s story, his deep technical insights, and what he believes is key to the industry’s successful transition to heat pumps. You won’t want to miss this episode!
Show notes
- Jim's LinkedIn
- measureQuick
- measureQuick on LinkedIn
- measureQuick on Instagram
- measureQuick on YouTube
- TruTech Tools
Transcript
HPP Jim Bergmann
[00:00:00] Jim Bergmann: In our industry, we make things up and we wholeheartedly believe them. then we tell other people, this is the way that it is. And then they believe it. We pass these misnomers down and we're like super passionate but when they're proved wrong, we're not as passionate about our apology as we were about what we were wrong about, and that's where I am trying to change. Cause I was like, hated heat pumps andI thought they were just inferior technology. Now I'm like, yeah, I was really wrong about that.
[00:00:32] Ed Smith: Hi, and welcome to the Heat Pump Podcast. Our goal is to make sure the transition to heat pumps goes well for everyone, homeowners, contractors, and the planet. Today, we have the legendary Jim Bergmann He's the founder of True Tech Tools, the founder of MeasureQuick, a frequent guest on Brian Orr's show, and virtually any other HVAC show.
He was also a heat pump hater. His words, not mine. And he went through a religious conversion with heat pumps. Again, his words, not mine. He describes how he feels about his own heat pump in his house. And from that, you'll understand why he describes it as a come to Jesus moment. In typical Jim fashion, we talk at a very high level about heat pumps, and then we delve very deep into the technical specifics of sizing and installing heat pumps correctly.
It's a great conversation with practical and actionable advice for anyone in the heat pump space. Enjoy the show, and I'm really sorry about the singing.
[00:01:32] Jim Bergmann: You know, I only do singing intros, right? You got to sing my intro in.
[00:01:36] Ed Smith: And, and I'm super tone deaf, so I'm like really excited to do it this way. Welcome to the Heat Pump Podcast.
[00:01:42] Jim Bergmann: Thank you very much.
[00:01:46] Ed Smith: Welcome to the Heat Pump Podcast, where we tell the stories of entrepreneurs who are building the businesses that fuel the shifts to fully electrified homes. I'm Ed Smith,
[00:01:54] Eric Fitz: Amply Energy.
[00:01:57] Ed Smith: Today we have a man who needs no introduction in the HVAC space. We have Jim Bergman.
[00:02:03] Jim Bergmann: Thanks for having me on.
[00:02:04] Ed Smith: We've got some good topics on deck, oriented around heat pumps. But before we get there. We'd just love the Jim Bergmann story
[00:02:14] Jim Bergmann: Oh,
[00:02:15] Ed Smith: of your career in HVAC through founding MeasureQuick and where you are now, but
[00:02:21] Jim Bergmann: Yeah.
[00:02:22] Ed Smith: would love the long version.
[00:02:23] Jim Bergmann: I've been doing this my whole life. my dad was a HVAC technician. he was actually a refrigeration mechanic. He was on submarines in the Navy. I grew up from the time I was about three years old, riding along with my dad and learning HVAC stuff.
My mom was sick, she had epilepsy. she couldn't handle all the kids. I just rode around with my dad and learned a craft. my dad did not want me to go into HVAC. He wanted me to get my degree in engineering and, I coaxed him to let me do it so I could pay my way through college.
He let me go to the vocational school. I graduated the top of my class out of that, then went into the Navy to get the GI bill and, did heating and air conditioning in the Navy. Went to the University of Akron. Spent, three and a half years in an engineering school and went to do my, internship. And making too much money to take an engineering job. Left school. Stuck out in heating and air conditioning. So I've got this sort of unique background because in fact, the only thing I didn't finish in college was Eastern Civ and Western Civilization.
And I got through all my engineering classes, all my calculus, all my science, all that stuff. I've got this engineering background, but I've got a, Passion for commissioning equipment. I was working for the train company in Cleveland and basically we did all the factory startups.
I got to see everybody else's work and I got to start up everybody else's equipment. And we did all the factory startups. spent my time in the union. I did a little bit of everything. 12 years of teaching high school. Then, About 2006, the iPad came out and I remember looking at that in my classroom, thinking man, if I could just get a display as nice as that iPhone on my meters, led to,now we got the tools talking to the iPad, man, if we could just do some calculations and then the reporting and then diagnostics and then it just was this whole metamorphosis and I've been working in the software world now for, about seven years, designing MeasureQuick.
I did a little project called iManifold before that. So I really like pioneered Bluetooth tools on smartphones. I've got some of the first patents on that. pioneered, smart probes MeasureQuick, which is a multi tool platform that allows, About 10 or 12 different manufacturers tools to talk to, the iPad all at once.
All different manufacturers can work at the same time so we can have a complete solution. And we've been working on Measure Quick primarily around, diagnostics, commissioning, Making technicians more productive, reducing callbacks, a lot of time just around, education, engineering, product design, product development, and, trying to make people's lives better.
[00:04:56] Ed Smith: And a brief stint founding True Tech.
[00:04:59] Jim Bergmann: Oh yeah, I did that too. I, so
[00:05:02] Eric Fitz: a lot of MeasureQuick's development. Yeah, I started TrueTechTools With my dad, It was interesting business because my dad and I went to Germany when I worked for Testo.
[00:05:11] Jim Bergmann: At one time I was teaching school, own True Tech Tools and was working for Testo as a technical specialist. And so I had all three jobs and I wrote 28 articles for seven different trade journals that year.
[00:05:24] Ed Smith: Wow.
[00:05:24] Jim Bergmann: I was super excited in the industry. I started True Tech Tools No internet company for testo had done over $35,000.
We did 70 some thousand the first year and then here too. We did $768,000 and then we did 1. 3 million and we were Testos largest distributor and then, that company will probably do, 25 to 30 million this year in sales. they exited About six years ago or seven years ago now,
So they've done a little bit of everything True Tech it was really about being process focused instead of product focused, a lot of people sell tools and sells solutions, but they don't really focus on the, why, like, why do we do this stuff? And a lot of that was about, Intimately understanding the processes that people had to do and put together a toolkit that would allow them to achieve that goal successfully, Because nobody had really thought through the whole process. if you're going to do an evacuation, what tools do you need? What hoses do you need?
What kind of gauge do you need? What kind of connector do you need? What kind of couplings do you need? What brass fittings do you need? So we're, packaging all that stuff up together and really selling the solution rather than just The product itself.
[00:06:25] Eric Fitz: I love that the evolution of your experience and background and where you've gone from, being intimately involved in figuring out what are the right tools to just get the measurements. To now figuring out, okay, we can measure some stuff. What does it actually mean? What is our target? how can we use these tools to create an outcome for a customer or for this equipment or whatever the scenario is to actually really create some value instead of just be like, how do we measure? That's, it's a good starting place, but it's certainly not the whole story.
[00:06:55] Jim Bergmann: That's probably my claim to fame. I think in this whole industry I had a student where We're calculating airflow, the sensible heat formula. And he goes, Hey, Bergman, if we could Rearrange that formula and measure the airflow to calculate the BTUs and I'm like, yeah, sure, man.
Let's go out in the shop. I'll show you how to do that. Well, led me down a giant rabbit hole because measuring airflow and residential systems is like impossible. then all of the Other elements, air density, temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, elevation, all these other factors came into play that were screwing with my airflow measurements and I was so frustrated with trying to get this problem solved and then I got introduced to Testo that spring and I got a vein anemometer and a hydrometer all of a sudden my humidity and temperature measurements became really accurate and I can accurately measure airflow all the science started to actually work and but then it came across the next big thing was. I'm one day in a classroom again, I'm looking at a diagnostic chart and, it said for overcharge of a system on a fixed orifice, you'd have high suction pressure, high liquid pressure, low superheat, high sub cooling, and so one of my students asked me I know if it's way too high or way too low, but how do I know if it's, where it should be exactly where it should be?
And I realized, I've been doing this for 15 years. I never asked myself that question. I didn't really understand, what should the pressures be and the gauges be? I'm thinking, why am I even hooking up the gauges if I don't know what the pressure should be? Everybody's talking about the precision of digital.
What difference does it make if you have a precise measurement if you don't know what the measurement values we should expect? know my temperature should be 98. 6 and I know if it's a few tenths or a degree one way or the other, there's something going wrong. Yet with air conditioning, they're hooking up the gauges and people don't even know what the pressure should be.
And the pressures drive the temperatures, which are the driving force for heat transfer and refrigeration, it's like, should know this so that's really what measure quick was designed around if we're going to make a measurement, it's got to have a target or it's got to have a use.
It's not to be in a vacuum anymore, All these other apps out there when you hook them up, they tell you, 118 350. Okay, that's nifty. But what does it mean? Is it high? Is it low? is it, is it changing? Is it stable as it's so we, we really, started designing software, started designing MeasureQuick, we realized people have to commission equipment under a variety of conditions.
It could be 60 degrees in the house, or it could be 85 degrees in the house. It could be, zero degrees outside, or it could be 120 degrees outside. And the design stuff we see in textbooks, where they're telling us, it's going to be about 118 pounds on the low side and 300 pounds on the high side.
That's for AHR design conditions, and how often do we work at AHR design conditions? Almost never. it really came down to a couple of things it's just like learning about design temperature differences, how much colder is the evaporator coil than the return air, and how much hotter is the condenser than the outdoor air,when I was in education and teaching, it was the first time in my career I actually had the luxury of time where I could. Slow down, look at things, see relationships, see and start to remove the variables. I realized, Our industry is horrible because there's no really good formal education that takes you through step by step. one day a guy's a carpet installer, he's got good customer service skills.
And somebody says, Hey, how'd you like to be an HVAC technician? And they teach them all the mechanics. Mechanics fix things with tools. Technicians use technology, an auto technicians going to plug a computer in an auto mechanics going to fix your brakes,
Two different skill sets We don't really differentiate that in the HVAC segment. what I found is,in our industry We have a lot of great mechanics we just didn't have any technicians and the reason we didn't have any technicians because we didn't really have any technician toolsthat's what I've beenbuilding really since I started and If we're going to improve the industry, that's the direction we got to go.
[00:10:41] Ed Smith: and so that was the driving. force for you to leave True Tech and found measure Quick.
[00:10:48] Jim Bergmann: it is, iManifold. The Imperial Tools called me at the time and they're like, Hey, would you like to come out and design this product for us?
This, smart connected meter. And yeah, I'd love to. the owners of that company, we had a, pretty bad parting of way, cause they didn't come through with everything. They said they were going to come through with, They were good people, just not good business people. it was very interesting because in that whole process, they fired everybody that I worked with that iManifold. So I hired them all because I had money from True Tech. So I actually hired a 13 people worked out of a library for several months, found a place I could work in a dentist office and, bought a whole bunch of, 10 tables from a Facebook marketplace and up shop at, a bunch of used dry erase boards.
And, started cranking away It was about November, the week of Thanksgiving when everybody got fired. I told him I'd carry him through January until we figured out what was going to go on so that I wouldn't lose any of them. And then got the company spun up and, got everybody going by January.
And by September had, the first version of Measure Quick. And had it out in the market had our first contract with the utility. that carried us, through, and a bunch of us didn't take paychecks for two years because, it's a startup company and I still have my same shitty table.
I work on it. we bootstrapped this the whole way. we got up like 120, 000 technicians on Measure Quick today, around 11 to 16, 000, daily active users on the platform. So pretty cool. I think, changing the trajectory for a lot of technicians making a lot of lives better. Making a lot of these products relevant that I think otherwise wouldn't be relevant, smart probes and all you're doing is replacing your display with a display on your phone. It doesn't really help you any, but what we're doing actually, makes a big difference.
[00:12:33] Ed Smith: Congrats on success. Eric and I know what it's like to not take paychecks for two years. I love the Ohio version in Silicon Valley. The startups are started in garages. I've never heard that the Ohio version is starting in a dentist's office. that's a new one for me.
[00:12:53] Ed Smith: Jim, I watched your session from a couple of years ago. I think it was called Heat Pump Hell. I was talking to Nate Adams,
[00:13:02] Jim Bergmann: Yep.
[00:13:02] Ed Smith: I think he said, once upon a time you were Mr. Gasify.
[00:13:07] Jim Bergmann: Oh, I still like my gas furnace.
[00:13:09] Ed Smith: But it seems like you've come around to heat pumps.
[00:13:14] Jim Bergmann: I will never not have a heat pump again. the funny thing was, is um, my experience with heat pumps was the experience with old heat pumps. And old heat pumps sucked. And they were hard to work on They were never comfortable. They blew cooled air cold air. They never seemed to run really well You know changing a lot of reversing valves and stuff like that There's a lot of problems with heat pumps now in all fairness a lot of them were installation issues, right? I mean putting them in right but today's heat pump Is nothing like The heat pumps of yesteryear.
Today, with the variable refrigerant flow and, inverter technology and, I think what really happened to me was, after I got my heat pump, it was the first time I experienced comfort in my house.
I've been telling Nate, we should ban straight cooling systems. We should just completely eliminate. the air conditioner, we should require the industry to transition over to heat pumps because there's always a benefit of the heat pump for the shoulder season period.
It's more comfortable and it's cheaper than gas and it's obviously, we're talking about energy efficiency. I think people got to watch because, a heat pump is way more efficient, three to, put one watt in, get three to six watts out, the electricity is more expensive. gas so it's it's this thing. you may not save money with a heat pump but you do use less energy. it's there's this money energy balance It's really hard for people to grasp so you don't want to consumer. Hey put a heat pump and you'll save money that's not necessarily true put a heat pump and you'll be more comfortable and you'll save money in the shoulder season and save money On air conditioning.
Yes, that's true if you were to talk about global warming, I'd nod and smile, I'm not going to get into that argument over it, but I do believe we should be conserving our resources. there's nothing wrong with using less energy, using less electricity, using less gas, being, better conservation of resources.
And, yeah. it was on borderline of a religious conversion and I was, I hated heat pumps so much, it's just it was my come to Jesus moment. when I put the Bosch unit in andIt really exceeded my expectations.
[00:15:16] Eric Fitz: that the piece about, there shouldn't be AC units anymore. Everything should be heat pumps. at scale, you're talking about 2 to 300 more in manufacturing cost, to have a reversing valve and a few other components to just make that happen. yeah.
[00:15:29] Jim Bergmann: even if we, if we did it right. Cause now you're not retooling lines.
[00:15:32] Eric Fitz: Yep.
[00:15:33] Jim Bergmann: your SKUs down your inventory costs down and if you look at the inverter technology, your Bosch has got two units that do all the way from 9, 000 BTUs to five tons.
right
[00:15:44] Eric Fitz: Right,
[00:15:45] Jim Bergmann: you know how much carrying cost and inventory that cuts out for the,
[00:15:48] Eric Fitz: right,
[00:15:48] Jim Bergmann: to build a unit like that. I
[00:15:50] Ed Smith: Totally.
[00:15:51] Jim Bergmann: insane. and just retooling lines. You don't have to retool a line to, to build,
[00:15:56] Eric Fitz: right,
[00:15:56] Jim Bergmann: models.
[00:15:57] Eric Fitz: it's almost neutral cost in the grand scheme of things
Now that you've gotten a taste of how amazing heat pumps are, why not go that next step?
[00:16:08] Jim Bergmann: Because I like gas I don't know I guess right now I'm not mature enough in my heap on experience to go, I'll never want my gas furnace again. I like knowing that it's down there to provide me with either supplemental heat where I do need it or, if your heat pump did go out in the middle of winter. And, let's say you had a refrigerant leak where you had to evacuate moisture. You would probably be better off running a gas furnace and not servicing the heat pump until had better weather to service it because you can't do certain service procedures in the winter, you really should not evacuate a system when it's below freezing. You can't get all the moisture out properly now I have had zero problems with my heat pump. And theoretically, my heat pump should be as service free as my refrigerator,if I got the
[00:16:56] Eric Fitz: Sure. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. No
[00:16:59] Jim Bergmann: theoretically, I should not even have to ever touch the refrigeration circuit on that again, and I shouldn't have to do anything but wash my outdoor coil, and I really believe that, but the other thing is I'm still not a hundred percent convinced.
[00:17:12] Eric Fitz: We have all the parts availability and stuff down, parts availability for many splits is not always easy. it's not like you can just call up and find a replacement motor or whatever, problem.I'll push you on a couple of things. AHRI data for the last two years, heat pumps have shipped furnaces. at least a lot of the country, there's pretty good supply chain around the replacement parts, that kind of stuff. But there certainly are pockets where that's not the case.
it's interesting To see that shift in the market
[00:17:43] Jim Bergmann: you go to California, that's giant gas market, Texas, giant gas
[00:17:48] Eric Fitz: right,
[00:17:48] Jim Bergmann: What are they thinking? They got all this free energy in the air. Those are areas that need heat pumps. No question about it.
[00:17:54] Eric Fitz: yeah,
[00:17:55] Jim Bergmann: it's it's insane that we'd even think about putting a gas furnace in, in parts of California, not all of California, they have mountains, they have areas that, you may need other heating, butmost of the country,south of Ohio, pretty much. you can get away with a heat pump without even batting an eye and probably, with a cold climate, heat pumps, then I don't think it's an issue, all the way up into Michigan, it's pretty easy to do, butit's just don't know industries, where like, everybody's ready for it yet,
[00:18:22] Eric Fitz: I'm sure you're doing it on this new place, but do some load calcs, commission the equipment correctly with the tools that you built. you might see that, if you get the right equipment, You know, might not even need electric backup or a gas and
[00:18:36] Jim Bergmann: I
[00:18:36] Eric Fitz: you can, yeah,
[00:18:37] Jim Bergmann: I'm going to, I'm going to put the heat pump in
[00:18:40] Eric Fitz: yeah,
[00:18:40] Jim Bergmann: I'll size it properly. I'll probably never run the gas furnace and I'll probably realize at the end. I think what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put an hour meter on the, induced draft motor
[00:18:49] Eric Fitz: yep.
[00:18:49] Jim Bergmann: that I can see how much I actually run my gas furnace. Although it may run during the defrost cycle, so I have to time how long a defrost cycle is so I can deduct that from the metric. But I don't think I'm going to run the gas furnace that often, I agree with you. I was listening to a Nate Adams did, Talking about, home stock and there's homes that are heat pump ready homes that need a little bit of work, to get them heat pump ready and then homes that are the basket case type homes.
[00:19:12] Eric Fitz: Right.
[00:19:13] Jim Bergmann: what I was thinking though, is that almost Every home, but the basket case home is pretty much heat pump ready. It's just may not be heat pump sole heating, they are heat pump ready. I mean, I didn't do anything to my house except swap out the outdoor unit. I even reused my indoor and just put a heat pump condenser on.
[00:19:33] Eric Fitz: Got it.
[00:19:34] Jim Bergmann: do that with a new refrigerant, that kind of stuff. But say I prepped my house at all for a heat pump. what it comes down to is, the load calculations are super conservative, when we're doing heat load calculations. And what happens is that we aren't taking enough time to actually give the heat loss calculation software all of the extra information it needs so they can trim that load way down.
Right. I mean, we were basically doing a block load and saying, you know, not, we're not putting in enough information for it to fine tune the calculation. So we end up with a super conservative number. And then we say, yeah, well, we'll just go up one size and that's been what the industry has done forever.
And until I got that heat pump I had to put a 90, 000 BTU furnace in because I needed a three ton drive because they didn't make that had a lower BTU input with a three ton drive. I'm thinking, well, it'll modulate all the way to 36, 000 BTUs, man. I'm thinking that's my house is going to be super comfortable. And until I got something that modulated down to 9, 000 BTUs, I didn't know what comfort was because 36, 000 BTUs. My furnace is cycling at 15 degrees,
[00:20:43] Eric Fitz: Right. Right. It's crazy.
[00:20:46] Jim Bergmann: with a heat pump, it's on 24 hours a day.
The big thing we're missing when we're talking about, heat pumps and heat pump technology is,like me, I think a lot of consumers have never experienced comfort and once you experience comfort.you don't want to sacrifice that, we like comfortable chairs.
Comfortable cars. you could give me a multi million dollar home. And if it wasn't comfortable, I wouldn't want it. I'd rather be in a little cozy, comfy cabin somewhere with,comfortable heat that I would be in a giant home that's miserable.
Having an oversized heating system is like having chronic pain. Learn to live with it. And then when it's gone, you're like, holy cow,
[00:21:25] Eric Fitz: is living.
[00:21:26] Jim Bergmann: Yeah, this is awesome.
When I say it was like that come to Jesus moment, that's literally what it was like. I had never experienced that level of comfort in my house. And that's, that's really what converted me. And then it was just the added benefit of the cost savings and that kind of stuff.
We're way under selling. What I think we should be selling of, selling energy efficiency and selling green technology. It's you're going to be comfortable and, and we
[00:21:49] Eric Fitz: Yep.
[00:21:50] Jim Bergmann: now we can now match the load with, uh, with, uh, you know, loads are dynamic because the other thing we don't really think about, we talk about a heat loss calculation.
We talk about like, it's a fixed thing. It's only fixed at one set of conditions you know, and every day is different. So we only get design days, one or two days a year.
[00:22:08] Eric Fitz: Totally. And even within a day, it can be changing. You know, there's certain times of the year where you've got, you know, let's say late winter in the northeast where you've got snow on the ground, you're getting a bunch of reflected sun off the snow, bunch of solar gain. It can go from being 10 degrees in the morning and 40 degrees later in the day with a ton of solar gain.
And, you know, if, if you're. If your HVAC system is not responding to that, it's wicked uncomfortable. I remember, you know, growing up where you're opening all the windows and you're closing all the windows and you can't get comfortable at, through the whole day.
[00:22:38] Jim Bergmann: the big thing with a, with a heat pump was just matching the heat, the heat, the heat loss with the heat gain, you know?
And, and,
[00:22:45] Eric Fitz: Totally. And it's, it's continuously variable. It's not like there's 10 steps. It's, it's, you know, if you're, you got a heat pump that has a 8 to 1 or 10 to 1 turn down ratio, say 2000 BTUs to 20, 000 BTUs, you're infinitely adjusting in between those two points. So you can perfectly match what the loads are from the outdoor environment to the inside.
[00:23:10] Jim Bergmann: there's so many influences to the heat gain and heat loss of the house. so matching that up and providing that level of comfort, once you experience it, you never want to go back, you know, and it's, and it's, um, so that's, that's why I'm so passionate about it. It's because I had a great experience with it, you know, you know, one thing to talk about is, we are headed for a disaster if we don't get our workforce up to speed when it comes to, dehydration of the line set.
So pull in a proper vacuum and then getting the airflow right and getting the charge, right. those elements are so critical along with, making sure we have properly sized duct work and we, if we can get the duct work out of the attic, get it out, cause that's just craziness that we ever did that, get the duct work in a conditioned space and,just some simple things, but heat pumps don't recover fast you're not going to get a house down to 40 degrees and turn your heat pump on and have it recovered in six hours It's going to take 24 hours for it to catch up because it's only got 36 000 btu's to work with It doesn't have 100 000 btu's to
[00:24:16] Eric Fitz: Right.
[00:24:18] Jim Bergmann: And what kills me is, I've seen refrigerators that are 50, 60 years old. I've seen some that are a hundred years old. You still plug them in and still work today. And why do they do that? they're built at a factory.
Somebody paid really close attention to the brazing and, making the system really leak free. and they did a great job with the evacuation, which means, they got rid of the chemical factory. water, refrigerant and oil mix. It makes acids and those acids then you get the copper and they create formicaria corrosion and create, a sludge and all kinds of varnish and all kinds of other issues.
The way we eliminate that is we do package units.
[00:24:50] Eric Fitz: Or we got to really pay much closer attention to how we do the installations,that's going to be our Achilles heel. There's nothing wrong with heat pumps anymore.
[00:24:59] Jim Bergmann: it's the industry we have to fix.
[00:25:01] Eric Fitz: Yep. And it is, it's amazing to see. All the different types of products that are out there within the heat pump category in particular, where you've got ductless units, you've got low static pressure units that can go in a relatively small space.
[00:25:18] Jim Bergmann: You can do mixed application when you're ducted and ductless.
[00:25:21] Eric Fitz: You've got. conventional vertical, high static pressure air handlers and you can do, multiple single zone units where you've got a room that has really dynamic loads. You want to have a single outdoor unit serving a single indoor unit in that space, but the rest of the home is set up with served by piece of outdoor equipment.
And it's incredible the problems that you can solve. And my gosh, I think. The number one thing that you've been focused on is that, heat pumps are about comfort.
[00:25:54] Jim Bergmann: that's the magic of heat pumps. it makes your home more comfortable.
you've done a great job painting a picture of how awesome Heat pumps can be when done right.
[00:26:05] Ed Smith: there's this interesting thing about heat pumps that we're seeing. We've got customers who are going up against other companies and they're telling us stories of companies who don't do the design right on heat pumps and are signing an unbelievable amount of release of waivers because they install the heat pump.
The homeowner calls 10 times. Saying it's not working. I'm not comfortable. It's not working. I'm not comfortable. It gets escalated to the distributor and when they do the math on it looks like just the wrong system was put in if you put the wrong system in you'll never recover and Then they give the homeowner, 30 or 50 percent of the cost of the system back and so heat pumps are in this weird space of when you do them right They're the best form of HVAC that's ever been invented.
But they're easier to get wrong
[00:26:58] Jim Bergmann: other forms of technology. you're the best person I can think of to comment on why that is, Jim, and what we should do about it.
so the worst case scenario
[00:27:06] Ed Smith: Yeah.
[00:27:07] Jim Bergmann: is an oversized heat pump on an undersized duct system to keep it running you have to remove refrigerant charge. because now removing the refrigerant reduces the efficiency, duct systems,high static and it's in heating mode, you're going to have high head pressure.
It's going to make the heat pump trip off, And then obviously oversized, you're not going to get any of the benefit of the comfort element of it.
if we're talking about like a retrofit, which a lot of these heat pumps, the majority of them are going to
[00:27:33] Ed Smith: Yeah.
[00:27:34] Jim Bergmann: retrofit applications. But if you're not going to modify the duct work, then
if we're going to transition to heat pumps, here's the only thing you got to do, size for the duct work, look close at the supply and return air inlets, fan inlets and outlets, So we want to better design thosevery tightly seal everything downstream to their point of filtration to make sure that you don't pull in dirt past a filter. the filtering as much as you can get the charge in the air flow, evacuation, make sure that and I'm a big proponent of pulling down 100 microns pulling it down to 100 microns with a K no more than 200 microns. The reason that we pull a vacuum is not as much about degassing it as it is dehydration.
when we want to have the dew point down in that 50 to 60 degrees below zero range, because if you think about a heat pump, if it's negative 15 outside, Like you are in Maine sometimes,
[00:28:31] Eric Fitz: Yep.
[00:28:31] Jim Bergmann: got to be 15 degrees colder than that. So you've got to be at negative 30. For that heat pump to pull heat out of the air,
Yep.
25 negative 30 Because you heat travels from hot to cold So your outdoor coil has to be colder than the outdoor air in order to pull heat from the outdoor air which means that your metering device is going to be you know The refrigerant is going to be negative 30 and if you have moisture in that system It's going to fall out your metering device and it's going to cause a problem.
So with cold climate heat pumps deep True evacuations that we make sure the systems are really dry is really important. Or in the case of a, especially in the case of a mini split type application, because,they don't have built in filter dryers. And so the only way you can manage moisture and we don't do it through a proper evacuation is through desiccant. will get you down to around negative 60, dew point if you, have a good dryer, he just like it. We only have one chance with evacuation, so we got to get it right.
[00:29:29] Ed Smith: this,
[00:29:30] Eric Fitz: We saw each other last Jim at the, Building Science Summer Camp. And I met someone who he showed me, the data that he was, for heat pumps that he's commissioning, pulling down to sub 50 and often sub 20 micron. cause he just really wants to make sure, he doesn't have had problems.
Right.
[00:29:50] Jim Bergmann: can get the,doing that evacuation and you're not number one, this is not hard. it's just about some better practices.
our industry, we make things up and we wholeheartedly believe them. then we tell other people, this is the way that it is. And then they believe it. And we pass these misnomers down and we're like super passionate about when we're believe them, but when they're proved wrong, we're not as
passionate about our apology as we were about what we were wrong about,
and that's where I am trying to change. Cause I was like, hated heat pumps andI thought they were just inferior technology. Now I'm like, yeah, I was really wrong about that.
but I had taken my knowledge of the old heat pumps and put it on the new heat pumps, assuming it was like the same type of technology,
[00:30:38] Eric Fitz: Yeah.
[00:30:38] Jim Bergmann: but we do this kind of stuff all the time where all heat pumps are hard to work on.
It's you know what the secret is to not work to, heat pumps, just not having to work on them. If you
and you, do proper evacuation, you do a proper charge, you don't really have to work on it. how many times have you worked on your home refrigerator?
why isn't the home refrigerator? everybody's got one. Why
[00:30:57] Ed Smith: industry just booming with maintenance and Why aren't we pulling 'em out and cleaning behind the, they got it figured out.
yeah,
[00:31:03] Jim Bergmann: get the charge right, and
Piping's tight evacuation's, Charged, For the most part, they're problem free.
[00:31:08] Eric Fitz: Yeah.
[00:31:09] Ed Smith: between a home refrigerator and a heat pump. It's
yeah,
[00:31:12] Jim Bergmann: the same thing,
[00:31:13] Eric Fitz: Yeah.
[00:31:13] Ed Smith: For folks who are building a heat pump focused business, what tactical advice or where would you point them to, to learn, to get educated, to make sure they build the sort of business that leads to outcomes like you're experiencing in your house right now, and not the downside?
[00:31:33] Jim Bergmann: Oh, boy, that's a tough,
all the complexity of a heat pump now has been managed with better controls with a thermostat.
if you get a good stat, so I would say stick with one heat pump manufacturer, get it, get one that's got variable refrigerant flow, find a thermostat that you Ecobee, Sensi, and,true flow grid with hoses, but a, it's about, find a product, stick with the product, learn the product, learn the thermostat.
And then got it licked. It really comes down to. Good installation practices and fundamentals and airflow and heat loss calculations critical. You want to make sure that you're sizing properly.
If all else fails, size for the duct work, heat pumps are nothing to be scared of. It's just a matter of doing the basics, doing the fundamentals. I don't know that nothing more I can tell you than that because there's nobody that's going to. Everything you need to know about heat pumps you can learn on YouTube today.
honestly, you can. and the interesting thing is, consumers are almost becoming more educated than contractors are in some cases because they're interested in heat pumps, they're interested in comfort, they're interested in carbon footprint reduction. Whatever reason, and they're actually spending more time researching heat pumps than contractors do right now,
I think there's a whole market play out there where a contractor could really differentiate themselves and be way ahead of the market,if you're looking to sell in 10 years or something, if you focused heavily now on heat pumps, your company would be exponentially more valuable because you'd have, a crew that could actually, provide better install and service than anybody.
Cause you'd have more experience, it's a really good time consider transitioning over to that kind of technology.
[00:33:12] Ed Smith: That call to action for folks building HVAC businesses is the perfect place to end the Heat Pump podcast. Jim, thank you. This was awesome. I learned a ton.
[00:33:28] Jim Bergmann: hopefully I didn't babble on too much. I, I like to talk,
[00:33:30] Eric Fitz: you were spitting wisdom, as they say. This was awesome.So much fun. Thanks, Jim.
[00:33:35] Jim Bergmann: yeah, thank
[00:33:35] Ed Smith: Yeah.
[00:33:35] Jim Bergmann: hopefully we can change the industry one, one contractor at a time.
[00:33:40] eric outro: thanks for listening to The Heat Pump Podcast. It is a production of Amply Energy. And just a reminder that the opinions voice, were those of our guests or us, depending on who was talking. If you like what you've heard and haven't subscribed, please subscribe in your favorite podcast platform. We'd love to hear from you.
So feel free to reach out. You can reach us once again at hello@amply.Energy. No .com, just .energy. Thanks a lot.
