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Is mold turning contractors into snake oil salesmen? Dealing with equipment from other sources.

There have to be things that businesses do to fight a downturn in the economy. What you do to keep your employees busy and keep the black ink flowing?

As the summer selling season wanes and the ebb of a new fall season is only days away, there may be a few lessons to be learned from air conditioning and heat pump shipment trends.

The “sexiness” of the mold issue has died down thanks, in part, to the general media, which hasn’t found a lot of high profile so-called “victims” to write about. But the HVAC trade knows better. There are still a lot of problems related to mold.

Prior to Aug. 4 of this year, I did not know that a Vito Joseph DeLeo existed. That’s all changed now. And it’s all because I, along with a few other slow-moving tourists, missed the ferry back from Staten Island to New York City that recent hot afternoon.

Those who work on supermarket refrigeration equipment are well aware that three different technologies are trying to maintain or gain footholds. One is traditional direct expansion (DX), another is called secondary loop, and yet another approach is called distributed technology.

The common practice of trying to get a bargain at any price causes me to wonder: In our world of auctions and reverse auctions, just how cheap is too cheap? Within the HVAC business, perhaps the most notorious of offenders in the buy-it-cheap world is a common weekly event otherwise known as commercial bid day.

Dry up houses before sealing; not the real world.

The New Horizons Foundation, an HVAC and Sheet Metal initiative, with its original funding from the Sheet Metal And Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association (SMACNA), is involved in its most comprehensive study to date. The purpose of this study, called “Identifying Alternative Futures,” is to attempt to get an idea of what the HVAC and metal industry will look like 10 years from now, in 2017.

There are many external factors that have an impact on HVAC contractors’ businesses. Are there some things, besides weather, that can’t be overlooked and need to be addressed? Or is it better to concentrate on the core business and not worry about things beyond your control? That’s a tough question.