ACCA's Wes Davis and Shift Logic's Brian Feenie on what real commissioning looks like, and the open questions that remain for modern inverter-driven systems
The Department of Energy ran the numbers. Somewhere between 70 and 90 percent of residential heat pumps have at least one performance-compromising fault. These aren't cosmetic problems. They affect capacity, efficiency, and how the system actually performs for the homeowner.
So commissioning matters. That part isn't up for debate.
What's worth debating — and what we got into with Wes Davis, ACCA's Director of Technical Services, and Brian Feenie, President of Shift Logic and Chief Encouragement Officer of ACCA QI — is what commissioning actually looks like in practice. Especially with modern inverter-driven cold-climate heat pumps, where some of the verification methods that worked on traditional systems don't fully translate yet.
This conversation covers the foundation. It also surfaces the open questions.
Most contractors think of "commissioning" and "startup" as the same thing. Wes pushes back on that.
For ACCA, commissioning starts at the design phase. Did you do a load calculation correctly? Did you select equipment correctly? Are you meeting ventilation requirements? Is the duct system tight and balanced? Then — and only then — does the equipment get energized.
ACCA's QI program breaks this into two certificates: a Verified Equipment Operation certificate, which focuses on the equipment itself running at peak performance, and a Verified System Performance certificate, which adds in the harder pieces — duct leakage testing, airflow balancing, full documentation. Wes calls the system-level cert a "great differentiator for the premium contractor." The equipment-only cert is where most contractors should start. Both apply to heat pumps today, with caveats we'll get to.
Brian's framing is sharper: “install instructions are not knee pads”. The manual that comes in the box is supposed to be read and followed. That's what commissioning is. After thirty years in the industry, he still sees the same shortcuts treated as standard practice — sub-cooling pressures, temp split, and not much else.
Here's the uncomfortable part. A lot of "commissioning checklists" in the field aren't real. The technician fills in whatever numbers the report is supposed to say, and nobody audits it until the callback happens.
Brian's challenge to contractors who advertise "best quality" is direct: prove it.
Most systems are overcharged or undercharged because airflow gets neglected. He gave a recent example from a training session — a technician insisted he measured static pressure on every install. Brian asked him to demonstrate. The probe placement was wrong. Same story with another client the week before. Basic measurements that should be table stakes aren't being taught or reinforced, and the whole sales process collapses into "were you comfortable before, and are you comfortable now?" That hands the diagnostic job back to the homeowner.
The cost shows up downstream. Brian shared one client he trained over the summer whose callbacks were costing them $344,000 a year. Once you put a number on it, the math for proper tooling and training stops being abstract.
Here's where it gets honest. If commissioning a traditional split system is well-understood, commissioning a modern inverter-driven cold-climate heat pump is a different conversation — and parts of it aren't fully solved yet, even by the people who think about this most.
A few of the genuinely hard problems Brian and Wes named:
Cold-weather evacuation. When you pull a vacuum on a line set to remove moisture, water normally boils off and gets evacuated. But if it's cold outside, the water freezes inside the line set, and now you're trying to remove moisture from a solid. Standard evacuation procedures that are measured in minutes can stretch into hours — and that's if you can get a clean decay test at all. Jim Bergmann posted a video on this that Brian called the most criticized video he's ever seen in the industry, because it pokes a real bear: a lot of cold-weather evacuations aren't doing what we think they're doing.
Refrigerant charge verification on inverter equipment. With traditional systems, you check sub-cooling or super-heat against a manufacturer target. With many modern inverter heat pumps, the manufacturer's guidance is essentially: weigh in the charge, let it run, don't worry about it. There aren't always pressure taps. There aren't always published targets for verification. In some cases, you have to measure compressor frequency just to know what capacity the equipment is running at — and you can only really verify performance at 100 percent capacity.
Multi-zone ductless. Single-zone ductless commissioning is reasonable: proper evacuation, proper charge weigh-in, temp split verification, clean filter. But once you have four heads on one outdoor unit, the picture gets murkier. As Brian put it: "How do I put nine probes on a ductless heat pump? I don't." The standard ducted commissioning kit doesn't translate.
Verifying in the wrong season. You can weigh in the charge correctly during a winter install, but you can't verify it the way you can in cooling mode with a sub-cooling target. One workaround Brian highlighted: a California contractor he knows builds a second commissioning visit into every install, communicated to the homeowner during the sales process. They come back in the appropriate season and verify performance.
None of this means commissioning isn't worth doing. Brian and Wes both estimated that today's MeasureQuick + ACCA QI workflow covers around 85 percent of what a typical contractor installs. The remaining 15 percent is real work in progress — for the standards bodies, for the OEMs, for the tool makers, and for contractors thinking carefully about how to do this right.
The other open question is structural, not technical. Brian went on the record challenging OEMs directly.
A lot of major heat pump brands aren't actually manufacturing the equipment they put their name on. There's been significant consolidation, and contract manufacturers are building units for multiple household brands. The information about how that equipment actually operates — what to measure, how to verify it, what targets to hit — sometimes doesn't make it from the actual manufacturer to the brand we recognize, much less to the contractor in the field.
Brian's point: brand integrity is at stake. The major HVAC brands are not far away from real damage if they don't partner with organizations like ACCA, MeasureQuick, or anyone else, and start giving contractors real diagnostic information for inverter equipment. "Don't worry about it, it'll be fine" is not a good answer.
Wes's add: read the manual. With inverter-driven systems, that's more important now than it has ever been. If your distributor can't help you find the documentation, and the brand isn't willing to share it, that's a signal to look at a different manufacturer.
A few practical takeaways while the bigger questions get worked out.
Commission the 85 percent you can. For ducted systems and traditional split-system heat pumps, the tools and the standard exist. MeasureQuick and the ACCA QI workflow are ready. There's no reason to wait.
Make the second visit a feature, not a liability. When you can't fully verify a system at install — because of season, because of equipment limitations — bring the homeowner into that conversation. A scheduled second commissioning visit is a sales differentiator, not a weakness. When a competing contractor is $3,000 less, "we'll come back to fine-tune the system" answers the question of how you actually deliver on a quality promise.
Use tools that document the work. Brian's framing on MeasureQuick: it's a textbook running diagnostics in the background. According to him, the best users see callbacks in the 2–5 percent range. Industry-wide, he sees 20–30 percent. You can't pencil-whip a report when the data is captured live.
Start small. This was Eric's point in the conversation: don't try to overhaul your whole company at once. Pick one in four projects, or one in five, and run a full commissioning process. Learn what your team learns. Adjust the install process based on what you find. Then expand.
Commissioning matters. The DOE numbers make that obvious. But this episode is the start of a conversation, not the end of one.
For modern inverter-driven cold-climate heat pumps — the kind we're most excited about — there are real technical questions still being worked out. We plan to spend a lot more time on this on the podcast, and at Amply, in the months ahead. Brian and Wes laid an excellent foundation. But the harder questions deserve more airtime than any single episode can give them
00:00:00.000 — 00:00:50.200 · Speaker 1
When you quantify that. I've got a client that I did some training for over the summer. Their callbacks cost them $344,000 a year, so you can buy plenty of tools and provide venue training and headaches and anguish, and dragging people across the finish line to get the work done. But at the end of the day, if I can impact that for a customer and mitigate that risk that they just live with, then I mean, the math works.
It's the fear of change, right? I talked about this at the symposium technician adoption. It was we kind of stink at doing it in a company like how to change our team or how to get our team to evolve, because we sometimes look at it from a top down approach, and it's just not as effective as it could be.
00:00:54.040 — 00:02:01.470 · Speaker 2
Hey everyone! Today's episode is a focused conversation on heat pump commissioning with two guys who think about this a lot. Wes Davis of ACCA and ACCA QI and Brian Feeney from Shift Logic, where he represents ACCA QI and Measure Quick, among others. Here's why this one matters. The Department of Energy is found that 70 to 90% of residential heat pumps have at least one performance compromising fault. So that's not a ticky tacky little thing. It's a mistake that actually impacts performance. So if you're installing heat pumps and you care about doing it right, commissioning is critical. But and you'll hear this throughout the episode, there are real asterisks and footnotes and caveats when it comes to commissioning modern inverter driven cold climate heat pumps. Had he commissioned a multi zone ductless system? Had he performed a proper evacuation in the dead of winter when it's freezing outside? There are open questions and legitimate technical complexity here. Bryan and West do a great job laying the foundation and explaining why commissioning matters. But consider this episode the start of a conversation, not the end of one commissioning. Modern inverter driven heat pumps is something we plan to spend a lot more time on, both on this podcast and at amplify, so expect more from us on it. If you want to dig in further, first check out ACCA QI and check out Measure Quick. But we also put together a free trust checklist that walks through what it looks like to compete on craftsmanship instead of price. The link to that is in the show notes. All right, let's get into this conversation.
00:02:17.190 — 00:02:19.550 · Speaker 2
Welcome to the Heat Pump podcast. I'm Ed Smith.
00:02:19.550 — 00:02:22.310 · Speaker 3
And I'm Eric Fitz. We are co-founders of Amply Energy.
00:02:22.350 — 00:02:32.030 · Speaker 2
All right. Today we have two guys who don't need much introduction in the industry. We have Wes Davis who is ACCA's director of technical services. Welcome, Wes.
00:02:32.070 — 00:02:33.350 · Speaker 4
Thank you. Glad to be here.
00:02:33.350 — 00:02:46.430 · Speaker 2
And we have Brian Feenie, a Swiss Army knife who is president of Shift Logic CEO, which means chief encouragement officer of ACCA QI. And he leads business development for measure. Quick. Welcome, Brian.
00:02:46.470 — 00:02:47.350 · Speaker 1
Good to see you, fellas.
00:02:47.390 — 00:03:11.700 · Speaker 2
So normally we run a nice meandering podcast here on the Heat Pump podcast. But today we have a focused topic which is heat pump commissioning, and we're excited to have both of you guys on there to tackle this, because it's a big, meaty and I think underserved question. So let's start at the top with a definition.
What is commissioning and how is it different from startup which a lot of contractors think of?
00:03:11.740 — 00:04:54.570 · Speaker 4
So that's a great question. To me, commissioning encompasses more than just that final step. When you energize the system and maybe change the set point to get the equipment to run. Commissioning to ACCA starts at the beginning with the design. So if I've done the load calculation correctly, I've selected the equipment correctly.
I'm going to skip the duct sizing, believe it or not, but I'm looking at ventilation requirements. If they're required, are they being met and then the equipment installation. And then we look at the distribution system. Is it tight. Is it balanced. And then last but not least is the documentation. And for a number of HVAC professionals that can be a heavy lift.
Especially the latter part where I'm. Testing the duct leakage and or balancing the airflow. No one will disagree that those are great things that need to be addressed, but it's hard. That's a heavy lift for many contractors. And so for Aqa, we've got a verified system performance checklist or a certificate and that looks at design equipment ducts and documentation.
And then we have a verified equipment operation. So let's just start with the equipment. Let's make sure it's operating at its peak or optimal performance. And then skip to the documentation. And we find verified system operation is a great differentiator for the premium contractor. And verified equipment operation is a great key certificate to get a contractor started.
And both can be a challenge. And we'll talk more about that later.
00:04:54.610 — 00:04:58.330 · Speaker 3
Awesome. Any color you want to add to the definition of commissioning.
00:04:58.370 — 00:05:53.240 · Speaker 1
Install instructions are not kneepads. That's my joke when I train on commissioning throughout the country that that's something I usually bring up in my classes. Is that install instruction that comes in the box is supposed to be read and followed, and that truly is commissioning. That's in there.
We tend to see a lot of shortcuts being made as a standard. Being in the industry 30 years. It's still being done the same way it was done 30 years. There's more to life than sub cooling pressures and temp split. And unfortunately that's what we see. So standards desperately needed because equipment's getting more expensive and the consumer is the one that's suffering at the end.
And it's a problem in our industry. And it comes down to who do we hold accountable. Because there's a lot of hands in the pot.
00:05:53.280 — 00:06:10.000 · Speaker 3
Got it. And I mean commissioning not only important for making sure the homeowner gets what they're paid for, but it's also how the install team, the company can avoid those callbacks, too. Right. So that's obviously a really important part of the value proposition of why it's worth doing all this work.
00:06:10.040 — 00:06:10.880 · Speaker 4
Absolutely.
00:06:10.920 — 00:06:52.670 · Speaker 3
And we came across this stat kind of curious to get your reaction to it. DOH did a study a little while back that found that something like 70 to 90% of residential heat pumps, in particular, have at least one, some kind of fault on the system when they did these audits across the country. And if you factor in duct leakage, as far as like one of the kind of system faults that almost goes to like 100% of the systems they found had an issue.
Why is that so high and why do you think that is? And if there's any kind of more detail you can kind of explain around that. Wes, you mentioned particularly the challenge of duct leakage testing what's going on there.
00:06:52.670 — 00:07:07.590 · Speaker 2
And just to add, it was a performance compromising fault, right? It wasn't like a Poindexter line. You did something a little bit off. It's like, no, it's actually going to impact how it works for the homeowner such that it like it really matters, right?
00:07:07.630 — 00:07:31.550 · Speaker 4
Absolutely. So, Eric, I think that there are a few things at play here. And I believe the Doe study looked at heat pumps and air conditioners and furnaces too. So it was I know this is the Heat Pump podcast, but I think they cast a little broader. Net it. And they did a sample on a number of homes across the country.
I know there were some lots of details.
00:07:32.670 — 00:10:12.730 · Speaker 4
The challenge is in many cases, the age of the home. So as home builders have become more aware of the impact of duct leakage, they have either moved the ducts inside a conditioned space or they have specified in required duct ceiling. The Home Energy Rating Network and Energy Rating Index scores demonstrate how well different parts of the home perform, and one of those is the duct system.
And so if you've got a home that was Energy Star certified, if it has a Herz rating, it's entirely possible for an Energy Rating Index score, highly probable that that home's system, the duct system, was checked, measured and had to meet some tolerance, some specifications, some requirement for a tight duct system.
I don't think our built environment has quite caught up. And so in the old days when we just slapped regular duct tape before it was UL 181 even, or you only one tape has been around for a long time, but contractors didn't know any better. And bio. That stuff's expensive. Silver foil tape. Great, Scott. And so I think a lot of it was ignorance and starting in the, I'll say, the 90s or the or even the 80s, it became much more.
The industry became much more educated, much better educated, more informed. And so I think that has improved. But if you go to a home and say Mr. and Miss Smith, you really need to know. No, no. And nothing directed you. And it's highly probable that the ducts in your attic or in your crawlspace are leaky, and we need to seal that up.
It can be a heavy lift and it's nasty, dirty work or it's expensive work. There is a great company out there, aerosol, who can do a lot of duct sealing from inside the ducts, and doesn't require you crawling around in a hot or confined space, or a damp, clammy, cold space to apply mastic or other sealant to seal up a duct system.
So it's. And this business is tough enough already, and so adding on another layer of complexity and difficulty is a real challenge. And duct leakage is by far the biggest has the biggest energy impact. When you look at ducts and unconditioned space, that leakage just kills HVAC system performance capacity, the whole schmear.
So it's important and it's hard to implement and to get done.
00:10:12.770 — 00:10:28.250 · Speaker 3
Got it. Yeah it's definitely a challenge. And thinking more on the equipment side. What else from those stats. Why is it that there are in that study? There are so many faults found when it came to the air handler or the outdoor equipment. Do you have any thoughts there?
00:10:28.290 — 00:12:02.400 · Speaker 4
I think this gets to Brian's earlier point. Too often companies are not rewarded for doing good work. And again, this is a very tough business. Marketing operations. Meeting payroll. Building a team. Keeping the lights on. So many factors that just could eat up a person's time and technical competence is one of those things that we'll figure it out.
I know I've hired lots of installers, and you keep an eagle eye on them for 1 or 2 installs and then, okay, I think they're okay. We're doing fine. And before there wasn't a good way to have that insight to see every installation. How did they leave this job or that job. You can now see them all. And so some of it is advances in technology.
And we are very grateful for that. And some of it is still a mindset. It is a challenge to get technicians, installers to do things correctly. And sometimes when they test their work and they see, oh my goodness, my airflow is not good. I've measured my airflow and I am low and that's going to impact refrigerant charge.
And refrigerant charge is going to impact capacity. Fortunately, most customers have no idea. Oh, well, it's always been kind of like this. And the old system broke. New systems working, so I'm happy I'm okay. They have no idea what to expect. So a number of factors and I'll stop there.
00:12:02.440 — 00:14:51.580 · Speaker 1
I'll expand on that. Like Wes touched on the airflow side of things. Right. And without any type of standardized approach to I'll even call it startup at this point, the ability to pencil wipe a report and say whatever you know, it's supposed to say just perpetuates over time. And the sales process becomes, were you comfortable before and are you comfortable now?
Well, then I don't have to change anything. So we're putting the onus back on the consumer to be the the thermostat of their comfort. And it's like hitting the easy button. And Unfortunately, most systems are overcharged or under charge. They're never charged perfectly because of the fact that airflow is being neglected.
I was just doing a training yesterday and I said he was measuring static pressure and technicians. Oh, I measure it every time. I'm like, okay, can you show me where he was measuring it wrong. And then I had a client just last week sent me a picture of their probe placement, and they were measuring completely wrong static pressure.
So. And anyone probably watching this knows that already. It is a known issue, but I run into it way too often. Just simple things of basic diagnostics or basic measurements. They're not being taught or reinforced. And there's an expression that I certainly didn't make it up, but it's an inspect what you expect.
If you have a website or a billboard and you're saying you do the best job in the market, you're the best company, best quality, that's best quality that I would challenge every one of you to prove it, because I can tell you that most of the time your technicians are pencil whip in those reports or those checklists because they can be there's no clearinghouse to make sure that it's being audited properly until the callback happens.
And Eric, you mentioned callbacks, right? I mean, I was lucky enough to work with Wes, and we created a callback calculator to share with the world and help contractors actually understand how much the leaky boat effect is happening in their business, how much profit they're actually losing because most people do not attract it.
And it's all starting at the field. It's starting with that lack of commissioning, that Doe study. I was a part of that South Bay study years ago when I worked for White Rogers, and it's not surprising to see that most contractors really don't have good data on their own business. And so luckily, with some CRMs out there, you can start to track certain things like callbacks or recalls as they call them.
But there's still not a lot of great oversight in the field, and that's where this issue continues to perpetuate.
00:14:51.620 — 00:15:28.780 · Speaker 3
Got it. Yeah. Wow. Both of you have laid out like a whole spectrum of challenges from relying on the homeowner as this, like, super qualitative. Oh, are you comfortable and not like quantitative information? The challenge is around this idea of sort of pencil whipping or like, how do you really know that this is what was actually measured versus what was documented, a range of other things you guys covered.
I think this is like a perfect point to kind of shift from the landscape of challenges to let's talk about what does commissioning look like and what does it look like when it's done correctly. And so let's switch gears and dive into that.
00:15:28.820 — 00:17:37.680 · Speaker 4
Well, Eric, if I may, I want to build on something Brian said and sort of preface the To answer with. Sometimes it's beyond that last startup phase. At the sales process, the salesperson is doing everything they can to make sure that the customer says yes. And so bringing bad news to the table is not always welcome.
Especially if they don't know how to do it. And so a system with the was a furnace when the house was built in the 50s. Oh, and let's put an air conditioner on top of it. Well, that duct system is going to be a little undersized. I've got a coil that's now sitting over the furnace, and that has an impact on how well that blower performs.
And then maybe we replace it with a heat pump and Katy bar the door. And instead of taking some static pressure measurements or other measurements and determining, have I got enough duct system here? And if I don't, what can I do to fix it? It might be fittings downstream. It might be that back bedrooms add some more air back there after we do a load calculation.
Or it might be modifying something that has a big impact like the return. But if I haven't done that pre qualification, if I haven't assessed the system, if I don't know and I send a great install crew that has all the tools and they do great work, they're still going to bump up against that undersized duct system.
And unfortunately contractors will have to skin their knees a few times. They will have to. There will be a few hard knocks, lessons or school of hard knocks. But once you learn that, oh great Scott, I still remember the first time we replaced a propane furnace with a heat pump and put in electric heat. Guess what size voltage went to that propane furnace?
It wasn't 220.
00:17:37.800 — 00:17:38.520 · Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:17:38.880 — 00:18:10.120 · Speaker 4
And I wrote the check to the electrician. The boss said, hey, no, no, no, no, I'm writing this check. And guess what? I never, ever forgot that lesson. So the hard lessons, they stick with you. I think this is going to be the same thing that contractors will have to learn and slightly modify their processes.
I think there's an opportunity there. Happier customer, better performing system, maybe even a higher sales ticket. So lots of opportunities for improvement.
00:18:10.160 — 00:18:30.950 · Speaker 3
Thanks for bringing us back to that. Just to reemphasize it, do load calques, measure the duct system. It doesn't matter if you do a textbook install the best install anybody has ever done. If you don't have sufficient duct capacity, if your load calques are way off, you're in big trouble. You're never going to be able to succeed.
So yeah, great point was.
00:18:31.110 — 00:18:32.070 · Speaker 4
One for one.
00:18:34.710 — 00:18:58.630 · Speaker 3
So let's switch gears and talk about this process and what it looks like when we're doing things the right way. One thing that comes up a lot, particularly with heat pumps in modern inverter driven heat pumps is refrigerant charge. Let's get into that a bit. With a traditional system, you might just be checking super heat or sub cooling.
What's different with these inverter driven systems?
00:18:58.670 — 00:19:17.030 · Speaker 1
Well the manufacturers don't care. There isn't that measurement, Erik. It's way in the charge or first pull the proper evacuation, weigh in the charge and don't worry about it. That's actually a quote from a customer yesterday. Weigh in the charge. Let it run. Don't worry.
00:19:17.070 — 00:19:18.630 · Speaker 4
Your manufacturer told them.
00:19:18.630 — 00:22:27.200 · Speaker 1
That's what their manufacturer told them. And so what the consolidation or the multi brand label of specific brands that are in the market right now. there's only a handful of manufacturers now, and we're experiencing a black box syndrome of they don't even know half the time what's even how those systems are running.
I don't know what capacity that system is running at. And some cases you have to measure frequency to know what capacity the equipment's running at. And the only way to really effectively verify a properly running system is at 100% capacity. And unfortunately, I was down with a customer doing measure quick training.
We were doing commissioning training on some variable speed heat pumps, and they never knew that they had to run that system at 100% to verify that it was working properly. And then the first hot day, guess what? That system was sounded like a jet airplane running through the house. Because the duct was undersized, they had over an inch of static.
I mean, a lot of things going on and they were told, just put it in it's plug and play. It'll just itself to the house. It'll just itself to the duct system. And this goes even you think back ten, 15, 20 years ago when variable speed blowers came out and the sales pitch was, oh, if you put in a variable speed blower, it'll overcome duct deficiencies, which we know is not true.
But that's what everyone was sold. And so there's still a lot of gray area of understanding in our industry, especially at the technician level, about how these things actually operate. And it's left up to the down channel partners to do it, that the distributors now have the burden of the warranty claims for stuff not being installed properly.
Forget about servicing it. Nobody knows what to do, right? Because you can't get the information out of the machines. So without essentially looking at temperature split on a ductless unit or even being able. Luckily you can still measure static pressure and flow on a ducted inverter system, but you're not able to verify charge very easily without knowing a ton about the nuances of that particular equipment.
So the industry right now is lacking an overarching method of commissioning and testing and troubleshooting that type of equipment today. And it's it's a sad state of affairs because with cold climate heat pumps and the promises that are being made and how they perform, I mean, some of these companies are designing systems without emergency backup heat, so it better do its job.
But I want to go on record and challenge these OEMs to do a better job, like they need to understand and need to help the industry be better at it, instead of just making it a black box that. Don't worry about it. It'll be fine. It's not a good answer to me.
00:22:27.240 — 00:22:56.840 · Speaker 2
Can I clarify one of the things you're seeing there, Ryan? Because the OEMs means original equipment manufacturer. But like the brands we know, the brands homeowners see on the unit outside their home, often those brands are not the manufacturer, right? There's contract manufacturers only hand them.
There's been a ton of consolidation. So your point is the manufacturer with the brand we know doesn't even fully understand their equipment because they're not the ones manufacturing it anymore. And so miscommunication is traveling downstream. Was that the sort of the route.
00:22:56.880 — 00:23:03.000 · Speaker 1
I think there's an element of that. And I also think that there's they just don't have the information from that manufacturer.
00:23:03.040 — 00:23:04.320 · Speaker 2
From the actual manufacturer.
00:23:04.360 — 00:24:02.600 · Speaker 1
Overseas. Right. So it's just this now it's complicated even more because that custody of info is, I think the thing that troubles me the most is the fact that brand integrity is clearly at risk here for all those major brands. Those are household brands that are a year or two away from really bad things if they don't do something right.
If if it's partnering with an organization like ACC or Measure Quick or it doesn't even have to be us, but like just do something to make sure that the industry is doing this stuff. Right? Because before those inverters came around, we finally figured it out, right? We knew traditionally a standard split system had the same type of process and methods to make sure it was installed correctly.
Right now it's all bets are off. And that's a scary thing.
00:24:02.640 — 00:25:42.540 · Speaker 4
I would supplement that by saying, I think it's more important now than ever for especially inverter driven systems, to really immerse yourself in those installation instructions. I think there are probably some growing pains, but that is the best place to start, and the tools that we have are best suited for ducted systems.
With a test mode where I know what to expect. Have a benchmark against which to measure. We would love to have a ductless solution at this time. We do not have one, but that is on the horizon. That's something that's on our radar. We are aware it's similar to charging in the wintertime. That is another challenge to get right the very first time.
Or to verify, maybe I shouldn't say to get it right. I think that the manufacturers provide procedures, you weigh it in, and if the manufacturer did their charge correctly when it left the factory, there hasn't been a leak or an issue. You can measure the line set and add refrigerant per that methodology.
The challenge is, is can we verify that. And in the summer I can I can run it in cooling mode. And because of the size of the coils, I have a really good idea of how that system should perform and the winter when things are reversed. There is less clarity, and so it's a trick. It's a challenge. Follow those manufacturer's installation instructions and you will be in much better shape than if you're trying to wing it.
00:25:42.580 — 00:27:23.490 · Speaker 3
Yeah, I feel like that's such an important the TFM. I read that freaking manual. And Brian like, yeah, your point you're making is this is absolutely an issue right now. And I think it's more important than ever before. You are even figuring out, hey, I'm going to be a dealer for this brand, this equipment, get into those manuals, understand what you're doing, and verify that they've got the proper documentation so you can actually figure out how to install the equipment correctly and commission it correctly if that documentation is not there.
If your distributor can't help you find it, if the brand is not willing to share it with you. That's why I think about going somewhere else, because there are companies out there that are doing a great job here, and I'm hoping if we get more contractors doing that, then that's going to help send a very clear signal up the chain that like this has got to change in the marketplace.
I was thinking we might get to it later, but I guess you brought up this issue of cold weather commissioning. We're talking about heat pumps, variable capacity heat pumps. One of the biggest advantages in the last 15 to 20 years is this shift to these, this new technology that's really enabled cold climate heat pumps.
I think we should get into some of these cold climate specific challenges. And I actually thought it would be great to start with the most basic around evacuation. And what are some of the challenges specifically when you've had a cold outdoor temperature? We're talking you're getting near freezing Point.
What are some of the things that we need to be thinking about from those basic steps of setting up a piece of equipment, like starting with evacuation?
00:27:23.530 — 00:28:49.680 · Speaker 4
The challenge is water boiling off. So I create a vacuum in that refrigerant tubing, that line set, and that helps create a situation where water can boil off more easily. But when it gets cold outside, water still likes to remain a solid. And Jim Bergman did a great video on this, where he had a system that was sitting outside and he did a vacuum decay.
It looked tighter than Dick's hat band. Bring it inside, let it warm up, and oh my God, this thing's way out of whack. So that's challenge number one. And depending on the situation, if it's cold but the system died. Yes. Or was not maybe not operating well or it was operating but I'm going to replace it. Early retirement.
So the house is fairly comfortable. That's a little different situation than if it's a residential new construction and the house has had no heat ever. We've got line sets that are below freezing. Trying to warm all of that up in the field is virtually impossible. I'm sure there's a way to do it. Maybe set the thing on fire, whatever.
It is a problem, and I believe it's one that can eventually be overcome, at least in the replacement market. We need to give that some more thought, but it is. That's a real challenge. And thank you to Jim for bringing that to everyone's attention or reminding us, maybe.
00:28:49.720 — 00:29:30.640 · Speaker 1
I've never seen a video get so much criticism from the industry. Like, you would have thought he killed somebody's cat. Like it was just that he poked the biggest bear in the forest with that video, and I applaud him for doing it because it's something that's just look the other way, and, oh, it is what it is.
And we just can't without technical equipment is getting and how advanced it's getting and how delicate it operates. We cannot afford to just say, well, I don't care. Like it's not good enough anymore. It just isn't.
00:29:30.680 — 00:30:05.680 · Speaker 4
I was just saying some of it's just ignorance. I mean, people are not aware. Oh my goodness, really, I didn't know. I'm trying to do the best I can. I've got my micron gauge. I have got the big hoses on my vacuum pump. I thought I was doing everything right. Son of a gun. Okay, good to know. Thanks. Thanks for the heads up.
So it's a little bit of both. There are great contractors out there, HVAC professionals, and they learn something new every day and they apply it. And there are, unfortunately, a bunch of those who just need to learn that lesson. That's all.
00:30:05.720 — 00:31:03.790 · Speaker 3
Yeah. And from like a practical standpoint, this particular issue of Evacuation. I mean this, right? This drives typical evacuation is usually measured on the order of minutes. You do your decay tests, you see things are stable if you're in colder temperatures and you're part of the process of evacuation, you're dropping the vapor pressure.
You can go from vapor, water vapor that's inside the line set to instantly freezing. And now you're trying to remove moisture from a solid. And so you might need to have that line set evacuated on the order of hours in order to pass your decay test. And that's a big deal if you're standing out just waiting for hours and hours to even get to a place where you can then charge that system, it's a real challenge.
And we remind folks like, why is evacuation so important in the first place? Why do we need to get water vapor out of those line sets?
00:31:03.830 — 00:31:15.940 · Speaker 4
You don't want to make the chemical factory in your HVAC system moisture and refrigerant make wonderful acids that eat windings and all kinds of. Yeah. It's awesome.
00:31:16.220 — 00:31:17.300 · Speaker 1
So yes. Copeland.
00:31:20.380 — 00:31:26.580 · Speaker 4
Waterbed and HVAC systems HVAC boilers are here pretty good.
00:31:30.260 — 00:31:48.540 · Speaker 3
All right. So that was great. This is a huge challenge. And yeah I encourage folks to check out that video that Jim Bergmann posted. We'll drop that in the show notes. Let's talk about on the charge side cold temperatures trying to charge a system. Wes, you alluded to this already. The issues around ductless versus ducted.
Can we talk more about that?
00:31:48.580 — 00:32:50.300 · Speaker 4
Yes, absolutely. I would say that whether it's ductless ducted, whether it's an inverter or a single speed system, the challenge is basically the same. How do I verify that the charge is correct? I think there is a very well known, well-established, well accepted procedure. I can weigh in the refrigerant charge and I'm sure Jim's got a video on that too.
Maybe we do too. But weighing in the charge. Well known. Well, except a procedure. Is it the right amount? Did the manufacturer short me? Or did they put in too much? What? What? Do I have a leak? Maybe I did my pressure test, but. So the trick is knowing what's did. Did I do it right? And unfortunately, at this time, we don't know of a way to do that until we go into cooling mode.
And now the manufacturer has a very specific sub cooling target or some other refrigerant charge target that can be evaluated for compliance with their their specification.
00:32:50.340 — 00:33:15.490 · Speaker 3
Yep. Got it. And so yeah, this is like if you were trying to do it during the heating season it's really cold out. You're instead of a set of sub cooling you're looking at super heat. Super heat can be going all over the place in that unit, depending on what the actual temperatures are or what's going on with the unit indoors, like you're saying.
Whether it's if it's new construction and that the whole building is actually it's like 20 degrees inside the building and it's zero degrees outside.
00:33:15.810 — 00:34:08.320 · Speaker 4
And that thermal mass and yeah, it's going to take steady state. So no, that's exactly right. That's the challenge. And in the past I've known companies that sold a maintenance agreement with the new system or maybe even for a couple of years, and it gave them a chance to come back in a different season to verify if you weigh in the refrigerant charge, unless there was a problem with the manufacturer, which is I mean, they have a pretty good rate.
Sometimes things happen. I'm not going to say it doesn't happen, but they have a pretty good success rate coming off the line. And I would say nine times out of ten, maybe even 99 times out of 100, if you wait in the charge correctly, you've got a good scale, you're going to be fine. Can you verify it? Not till summer.
Can I give you a quality installation certificate? Not until we get to the cooling mode.
00:34:08.360 — 00:36:58.630 · Speaker 1
Well, Eric. Alex, we have a key contractor in California that they do their commissioning twice a year for their entire year of installations. It's part of their process. It's communicated to the homeowner during the sales process. And that homeowner knows that they're getting a second visit. It's called a commissioning.
That's when the time is spent to verify that the system is operating the way it's intended, and also review. Anything else? Thermostat, any of the key things that they feel is important to view with the customer. And that might be a period of months after that initial install was done. So to Wes's point, like, we know that the gold standard at this point that we could say across an industry is you could weigh in a charge and know that as long as everything is on the up and up, it will work.
So you can still provide that heating and cooling to that customer especially it's heat pump, right? But doing it with intent and being intentional with this is part of our process. And some would say, well, that's another truck roll or well, now I've got additional cost if it's communicated properly with the customer, and they're spending 18 to $25,000 for an installation, I don't know what I don't know.
Right. Because average homeowner buys one and a half HVAC systems in a lifetime. So if it's the first time buying one, I don't know if the difference between one visit or two visits as part of the package, if it's communicated properly and I prove with AI she certification, why would you risk having it done any other way?
Because it's actually proven that it's done correctly. So we're starting to see that happen now that it's actually okay to go back. As was said, could we hide it in a maintenance visit? Absolutely. We probably should at a minimum, because even going back to that cold weather charging, you can use charging blankets.
Some guys use duct blinds and try to get as much of that job done so they don't have to go back. But there's a certain limit where you're outside of physics and you can't. You just can't do it. We see it on the flip side, in markets in Arizona where a house is extremely hot, it's hot outside and you can't commission it properly.
You just can't. So you have to let that system run for a number of days where you can only hope that you wade in that charge correctly. Did all the best practices and then go back and verify. We're kind of at a crossroads with that of do we encourage that behave of an actual commissioning visit, especially with some of this equipment we're talking about, especially like it's got to be right or it's not going to last.
00:36:58.830 — 00:38:03.900 · Speaker 3
Yeah. it's such a great idea to have that as part of your process. And I know thinking a lot of contractors that we've talked with, one of the biggest challenges is like, man, making that change as a business that you're going to go on every project, you're going to go back three, 4 or 6 months later, whatever it is to do that sort of as part of your commissioning process.
What we recommend, whether it's this kind of a change for commissioning or something else in your process, start with maybe do it like one out of four projects or one out of five or whatever. Pick some fraction so you start to learn and then you'll realize, hey, this is actually not a problem. This is an opportunity.
Like you're saying, it's a way to reengage with the customer further, build that relationship, verify these key details. It's a way for your team to learn more about the equipment you're installing and how you might adjust your process knowing that you're going to come back later, how you set up that equipment initially.
And so it really helps close that loop and make sure you're getting that feedback in your overall process by going back. But start small. Start somewhere. You don't have to change the whole company full process all at once.
00:38:04.180 — 00:39:35.730 · Speaker 1
Well, and even one one step further in that area like that opportunity, right? Most customers disappear in the first three years after their install. They don't buy maintenance, right? So unless we gave it to them for free and force our way there every year, but typically they're not going to participate because it's brand new.
Why should I? And so there's this. People like a lot of consumers, are off the playing field for years two through five unless something breaks. If I owned an HVAC business right now, I would desperately be trying to get into that house. Your two year, three year for if commissioning was my gateway to do that by adding that second visit and create that bond with the customer and show them through transparency and reporting, that good thing I came out to do this, we had to make a little adjustment.
Now I can show you it's actually running exactly as designed. Oh, wow. That's great. While I'm here, I highly recommend that you do invest in one of our maintenance programs, because then I can do this every year and just reassure that you're going to get keep the lowest cost of ownership, get the most value out of your investment.
And so this thing does run ten, 15, 20 years today especially. Right. We're in a fix versus replace market. So if you have a cherished opportunity to sell a replacement in residential, you'd better be doing everything you can as a contractor to keep that customer captive more than ever.
00:39:35.730 — 00:40:29.400 · Speaker 2
It's also what a way to differentiate during the sale. We hear this all the time from guys who are like, the business they're building is one where they want to do it the right way, and they're tired of losing to a guy who is three, four, five, whatever. It was less the second visit for commissioning, because you're installing in a time of year when you can't quite do it properly.
A lot of guys say it's a liability. I don't want to be the guy who can't do it in one visit. The homeowner is not going to like that. Like what a way to differentiate. Like, how is this company who's $3,000 less? How are they promising to make sure your system is running right? If I cannot properly commission it now, I can get it running for you.
But I want to come back to just get that fine tuned for you. Like, it's just such an easy way to ask a question that educates a homeowner on the right way to do things and create some gap between you and whoever's not going to do it the right way. I think it's such an opportunity.
00:40:29.440 — 00:40:34.600 · Speaker 4
Do the plug for the Paul McHugh version of the Heat Pump podcast.
00:40:34.640 — 00:41:07.560 · Speaker 2
That is a good episode. The episode 45 for anyone who wants to tune in. Paul McCue does an exceptional job talking about this exact thing. Yeah, exactly. Wes. All right. This is awesome, guys. So we've talked about sort of what you do at a high level. Let's talk about technology and how you can actually measure these things.
So Brian, Measure Quick is a universal commissioning platform for a contractor who's not super familiar with it. What's the minimum tool kit look like? What does it do for them? How do they use it? Like fill us in a bit more on how that works.
00:41:07.600 — 00:46:10.840 · Speaker 1
At a high level. Measure quick is an app that connects to Bluetooth Smart Tools. Various brands. JB Field peas testo Yellow Jacket Superman Just I could list off many brands there, so it's brand agnostic for the most part, and it serves as a diagnostic tool first and foremost. So imagine an HVAC textbook running diagnostics in the background when those tools are live, bringing in data and information so that in it's all science and data backed.
So it's not ChatGPT. It's not a Google question of trying to get an answer from an already broken industry. I'll call it broken because I see it every day. And we just talked about it a little bit ago. Almost 100% of the systems, if we take airflow into account of a performance affecting fault. So why would I outsource that information?
Right. So if I'm using my Measure Quick app with my smart tools within a matter of minutes, I can actually have a good understanding of how a system is performing, whether my sub cooling is even close to being correct to the target of the equipment. What's happening with superheat saturation, temperature, estimated airflow EQ?
We can even calculate fan lock, draw, sear and air copy on heat pumps. It's all capable. And then take it one step further. There's standardized workflows that allow technicians to follow a process of testing commissioning. There's an actual step by step process to commission a heat pump, to commission an air conditioner, a gas furnace, which a lot of companies are desperately seeking out right now because they don't have that standardized process.
They have a standardized sales process, they have standardized everything else in their business. But the last thing that they haven't really been able to tackle successfully is standardizing the technical competency of their team. And with the skilled labor gap being what it is, a lot of folks are aging out.
So we now have to elevate the learning curve or escalate the learning curve of younger technicians, newer technicians to the industry, and I give them the tools to do it. So a standard kit, if we're looking at a cooling commissioning heat pump or AC nine probes. So that includes two static pressure probes for the indoor as well as two micrometers to measure temp split.
And then outside we need five probes, which would be an outdoor air temperature spectrometer, refrigerant pressures and refrigerant temps. So total of nine give you an actual full performance because a lot of times when I'm talking to technicians, I'll ask them, hey, who can calculate some cooling?
They all raise their hand, right? I'm like, all right. Who can calculate sensible capacity? No hands. How about latent? How about total? And then I swipe the screen over and they see it live. And see the effect that a sub cooling condition could have on the capacity of the equipment. Because when you just take three measurements in time, you're missing what's happening with the entire system.
You actually don't understand what's happening with the system. And that's where measure quick in the commissioning sense to me. Is it non-negotiable these days? Because you can't cheat. You can't pencil whip a report if you have live factual data that's defensible. And if I'm a business owner, why in the heck would I risk that and be in front of a judge having to defend myself based on a pencil whipped checklist that my technician turned in with the right answers.
Right. So embracing technology today, I think is much easier to do than it was, say, 5 or 10 years ago, because we've seen a rapid advancement of tech being implemented in businesses. And there's a lot of shiny toys out there right now. They rhyme with AI, but there's good and bad parts to that. You know, there's certainly good.
We use it in measure quick, but we use it the right way. So digital tools, to me they're precise. They're accurate. If I have an old manifold that's been sitting in the back window of the van and my hoses are rotting and getting sun exposure, and then I have to oh, I know what that pressure is, right? Because I have to tap it three times on the side and I've got the right reading.
I don't know. We're now working on critical systems here because of how sophisticated they are. You can't just go old school on this stuff anymore. You know, beer, canned cold doesn't work because I can't even figure out where to get that reading. So utilizing the tools is just helping the industry get better faster.
By no means does it make the industry dumber, because I find a lot of technicians that have been doing this for 20 plus years are still learning. At least I hope they are right. We shouldn't stop learning. I mean, I was around before the cell phone and the internet. I still have to learn.
00:46:10.880 — 00:47:14.070 · Speaker 3
Totally. Brian, I love everything you just covered. I mean, it's a product you guys have. I think the piece, just to tie it back to what you said earlier, what I really like about a lot of the workflows is it reminds you for your particular piece of equipment you've got. Where do I put my static pressure probes in order to measure static pressure correctly?
Gives you warnings if you're getting weird readings that are don't make sense. And maybe like there's an issue with how you set up your probes. And so not only is it reminding you of where to how to place these different sensors, it's also giving you a sense, not just what the number is that it's reading, but where it should be, because like just telling you that it's whatever pressure or whatever temperature.
That doesn't mean anything unless it's in context of where it should be. And that's such a powerful way to learn. And then there's the last piece about the pencil whipping. Certainly there are bad actors out there. I think they're relatively rare. I think more of the value is we're humans trying to write stuff down manually.
We make mistakes. You're tired, you're trying to get the job done, and.
00:47:15.230 — 00:47:21.510 · Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah. And so just having a tool that can measure it and document it for you just reduces that human error that happens to any of us.
00:47:21.550 — 00:48:49.940 · Speaker 1
Well, like even like the targets and ranges, knowing where you need to be. The other part is, if you have a tool that can generate diagnostics of where to even get like where to even start, like I know it's not right, but I don't even know where to start to correct it and to be able to remotely stream and collaborate with the service manager or a fellow technician in the moment.
And like to me that's next level. Like that's what I talk to younger folks in the trades. Gen Z. Gen X or not Gen X. We don't want that anywhere but millennial, Gen Z and newer. They were raised on technology. They expect their job to include technology in it. Yet we make them learn from old books that were done in stone and old processes in school.
That and we give them an analog set of gauges and say, go get them. You need to know the fundamentals. Of course you do. But there's also an element of I need you to do work today. So like, how do we bridge that gap? But also how do we connect with today's future talent? You have to embrace. You have to meet them where they are.
Like my daughter is 22. She's raised on technology. If I had her do things in an analog basis, she'd be very bored and frustrated and not want to do that task. Even though there's a learning lesson in there, it's not something I'd want to do every day. I'd pick a different field. So that's my soapbox.
00:48:50.180 — 00:49:19.860 · Speaker 2
I want to bridge another gap from Measure Quick, which is going to help you do like actually quantify your commissioning checklist. I want to jump over to that acuity certificates. Wes will reference it a couple of times, but I'm realizing we haven't talked about like what is the Akaki certificate and process?
There we go. And Brian is the CEO of that, the chief encouragement officer. So either one of you guys can tackle it but like tell folks what that is.
00:49:19.860 — 00:51:02.730 · Speaker 1
So it's taking the key process or the key standard that Wes was alluding to earlier and digitizing it and measure quick. So now you've got a tried and true workflow which is highlighting your best practices, proper pressure test on your line set. Proper evacuation, proper decay test. You are holding yourself accountable to doing those things as you go through the workflow, and you can upload pictures to verify, but your airflow in your charge, those critical pieces of the system fan.
What draws a requirement? You actually have to direct capture electrical with a multimeter, a Bluetooth multimeter to achieve an accuracy certificate, and it has to score an A or an A+ inside a measure. Quick. Which is the best, right? That's where your install should be. So those that use measure quick.
It's a very easy lift for them to do key certificates, because if they're already following that process, I mean, I just had a conversation with a client today. They're already doing measure quick. It's a no brainer, but some of those that have to cross the chasm of technology adoption. And I want to do a QE.
And now I've got to get a tool investment, and now I've got to train my team. That's where there's a heavy lift, right? And I'm not going to ignore that. That could be a big ask for a company. But when you look at reduction in callbacks, you know it's been proven over and over again and measure quick land that callbacks are drastically reduced.
We see our best users down to 2 to 5% callbacks across the board. What I see the reality is 20 to 30 in the market right now.
00:51:02.730 — 00:51:05.410 · Speaker 2
So that's huge. And that's when you dollar value.
00:51:05.450 — 00:51:55.680 · Speaker 1
When you quantify that. I mean, I've got a client that I did some training for over the summer. Their callbacks cost them $344,000 a year. So you can buy plenty of tools. Yeah. And then your training and headaches and anguish and dragging people across the finish line to get the work done. But at the end of the day, if I can impact that for a customer and mitigate that risk that they just live with, then I mean, the math works.
It's the fear of change, right? I talked about this at the symposium. Technician adoption. It was. We kind of stink at doing it in a company like how to change our team or how to get our team to evolve, because we sometimes look at it from a top down approach, and it's just not as effective as it could be.
00:51:55.680 — 00:51:57.440 · Speaker 2
That's super compelling.
00:51:57.680 — 00:52:52.430 · Speaker 4
A QE certificate is really just a piece of paper or maybe a PDF, but what it represents is a whole lot more. And it does it in a simple way. Consumers I mean, if you show them pictures and if you showed them measurements, it okay, what I but if you've got a quality installation certificate, it boils it down to a very, very simple statement that I met the requirements in a standard.
We've all probably got a diploma hanging on the wall, and that piece of paper represents something to us for what we had to do to get that or that certification. A key certificate is no different. It's just a piece of paper or PDF, but what it represents about you and your company, what it represents about who I'm going to recommend.
Go to your house to fix your system. Huge.
00:52:52.670 — 00:53:17.670 · Speaker 2
Love it. All right. That is an incredible endorsement for both Measure Quick and the Akaki certificate. I do not want to be accused of gotcha journalism, but this is the Heat Pump podcast and you referenced it a couple of times, guys. So if you're doing heat pumps, where is measure Quick and Akaki ready to go and what heat pump applications are we working on.
But not quite there yet.
00:53:17.710 — 00:53:18.430 · Speaker 1
Yes.
00:53:20.790 — 00:53:24.230 · Speaker 2
Good. All right. Excellent answer everyone. The audience is going to love that. Right.
00:53:26.670 — 00:53:58.269 · Speaker 1
So there's certain let's talk cold climate or inverter driven heat pump systems. Those that currently have high pressure, low pressure taps and be able to verify pressures and temperatures. Call it a ducted system. We're there today not to call out brands. I mean dike and fit is what comes to mind. To me.
That's a very popular brand of heat pump installed. And I I've personally worked on those in the past and they that is very much capable of being commissioned with measure quick and actually
00:53:59.390 — 00:55:48.170 · Speaker 1
some of the other brands. Right. Where are we going? What's the future. Hold that coming up with that industry standard of the way it in. And trust me, it's going to work. That's a problem that I feel we'd like to solve and I think Wes would like to solve as well. So if I had to bet, I'd say that's possible, right?
And standard heat pumps, standard brand heat pump like traditional heat pumps. Not talking the like you've got brands like train that have a XV series product that can do its inverter, but its a traditional design like those work, no problem. So like as far as a majority, I'd say a significant part of the heat pump market is possible today.
Like that can all be achieved for key and measure quick. It's those that newer style, I guess I'll call it or the way and only is the challenge. Ductless is another. How do I put nine probes on a ductless heat pump? I don't, right, but there's critical things on ductless heat pump such as proper evacuation, proper way in charge, making sure the temp splits right, as long as I know where capacity I am, and then keeping that filter clean.
So there's not a lot of overly complicated process behind making sure a ductless system would work properly. But it gets complicated when you have multiple heads and you've got now four heads on one outdoor. There's understanding what's happening there. So it's all on the radar. So like it's it's hitting really fast and furious.
And a lot of people are in, I think in over their heads right now. We need to solve that problem.
00:55:48.210 — 00:56:02.730 · Speaker 4
Every company is a little bit different. The product mix I would say for most companies measure quick. And the certificate is going to be applicable to 85% of the systems they install in service.
00:56:02.730 — 00:56:03.610 · Speaker 1
I agree with that.
00:56:03.610 — 00:56:04.290 · Speaker 2
Very helpful.
00:56:04.330 — 00:56:06.570 · Speaker 4
It's actually 84.7 but I round it up.
00:56:06.570 — 00:56:10.650 · Speaker 3
So thanks for the clarification. That actual decimal point really matters.
00:56:10.690 — 00:56:17.210 · Speaker 2
Yeah I appreciate you dumbed it down at first and then you kind of nerd it out at the second. So there was really nice combo there Wes.
00:56:17.490 — 00:56:41.970 · Speaker 3
All right. So Brian West, this has been great. I've got one final question for you to kind of help wrap up the conversation here. We've covered a lot of ground, but if there was a magic wand that you could wave, that would change one. Maybe two things about the commissioning approach, particularly for inverter based heat pumps.
What would it be? Brian, I'll I'll pick on you first.
00:56:42.010 — 00:56:42.490 · Speaker 1
I mean, first.
00:56:42.530 — 00:56:44.210 · Speaker 3
You're ready to give that a shot.
00:56:44.210 — 00:57:36.080 · Speaker 1
I'm gonna go back to the OEM comment that I made earlier. I feel that there is a huge lack of collaboration in our industry to ensure that this product is being put in properly every single day. I would love to see collaboration at a much deeper level with diagnostic tools that help bridge that gap of workforce development at the same time.
Like, I think that would be my wish is I don't think they ignore it per se. I just think that that detached from what's actually happening every day in the field, and that's what's given our industry a bad name, and it always has and I don't see it getting any better unless something changes at that type of level.
So I'm going kind of big for that, but that's what I would do.
00:57:36.120 — 00:59:33.790 · Speaker 4
If I could, I would make commissioning whatever you want to call that. However you want to define that the standard, not the exception. It is unfortunate that oh my goodness, they commissioned the system. Is this thing. That's amazing. That should be standard practice. How far you go are you doing duct leakage testing.
Are you air balancing? Oh, but are you just installing the equipment correctly? Is the unit moving the right amount of air through it? Based on my load calculation I did with Amply. Or is it the right charge? Is it the right? If I got power, I remember a contractor telling me brand new install high end unit and it was out in the hinterlands.
It was the last house on the electric line and they were getting, I don't know, stupid low voltage. Here's this brand new high speed unit. It's going to solve all the problems and it's broke. What's going on? Oh, well, we measured the voltage. We've got to get the power company out here to do that, to make sure we get the right amount of input voltage, the opportunity to ensure that we're doing our job right.
And that's going to take a change of mindset from some owners. It's going to take a change of mindset to figure out how we're going to accomplish this, how we're going to work this into our operations. Do we do it at the time of install? Do we come back a couple of days later? A couple of months later, there's problems to be overcome.
But my one thing would be to make commissioning the standard, and then manufacturers will trust HVAC professionals to do the job right, and maybe they'll be a little more free to share that information and make it more available. I agree we need to vote with our feet at the moment, but we have a trust issue that we need to overcome.
And I think that doing our job right and commissioning is a piece of that is a great place to start.
00:59:33.830 — 00:59:43.070 · Speaker 2
Awesome answers, both of you, throughout the entire episode. Brian. Wes, thank you both for joining the Heat Pump podcast.
00:59:43.110 — 00:59:43.750 · Speaker 1
Thanks, guys.
00:59:43.790 — 00:59:45.670 · Speaker 4
Glad to be here. Thank you for having us.
00:59:45.710 — 00:59:47.150 · Speaker 3
It was great. Thanks, guys.
00:59:50.110 — 00:59:52.470 · Speaker 5
Thanks for listening to the Heat Pump podcast.
00:59:52.670 — 01:00:12.430 · Speaker 3
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 to 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.