Make Trades Great Again
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Make Trades Great Again
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Ever wondered how the pros prepare for the harsh winter months in the HVAC industry? Well, you're in for a treat as we share our seasoned insights on dealing with the hustle and bustle of heating season, the significance of meticulous preparation, and the art of staying ahead in this game. Oh, and let's not forget the occasional 60-degree days that still have customers fretting about their feline friends' escapades in the great outdoors!
Next up, let's talk job site organization and the benefits of a well-organized trailer. It's all about categorizing and storing supplies effectively, ensuring the right equipment is dispatched and learning from those frustrating miscommunication moments. We'll also introduce you to our novel idea of a menu shopping annual maintenance program, a potential game-changer that's designed to enhance efficiency and improve our customer communications.
In our final act, we'll consider the concept of a pack out box for those all-important boiler swaps, maintaining an inventory of essentials, and the intriguing prospect of launching a new shop. We'll share our thoughts on the feasibility of acquiring a dedicated plumbing shop space and the financial implications. So, prepare for a thrilling ride as we explore the highs, lows, and hilarities of life in the HVAC world!
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Eric Aune @mechanicalhub
Andy Mickelson @mick_plumb
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Preparation and Stress in HVAC Work
Speaker 1But I'll be honest with you . I'll find somebody had taken you know they've gone to you know farm and fleet and grabbed a roll of the screen .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1This is a good idea , right ? No , it's absolutely not a good idea .
Speaker 2No , it's not Look at that .
Speaker 1Look at that Fresh cuppa cuppa . Joe , I got mine in the insulated mug today .
Speaker 2I'm running your , your custom ceramic here .
Speaker 1This is a good little cup , isn't it ? That's a nice cup . For the listeners that aren't watching , andy is drinking from this fancy little cup I found online that just is perfect for an espresso machine . Anyway , welcome to the May Trance Criticide podcast . This is , you know . I like that there's a little variety in what we talk about every day . Yeah , um , how you doing , man , I'm doing good , Doing good .
Speaker 2It's been been a good week , busy week .
Speaker 1I mean you have been busy . You've been busy like for months , Months .
Speaker 2I , you know , I , I . This is the first week . I'm we're excited , you know , like there's there's buzz going , you know . I mean we got a new guy starting here on Monday . Oh gosh the jealous Um and we've got a uh , I don't know they're just . Things are just kind of going . Yeah , you know we're not so cranking busy . You know , like heating seasons in full swing , we're kind of got our , got our pace set . It's like running an ultramarathon , I swear .
Speaker 1Oh , listen to you , cause I've never . Oh great , now you're going to start talking about ultramarathons and CrossFit and like , oh my god .
Speaker 2No , Well , you know . You know what I mean .
Speaker 1It's about like getting your pace , I get it .
Speaker 2It's like you know heating season , heating season rolls in and everybody's like , oh my God , the heat doesn't work . Now you know , people call in . They're like hey , yeah , my , uh , my , my furthest quit like six days ago and you think you could get it in the next month , maybe before the holidays , sweet .
Speaker 1You know , it's that initial panic that happened . So , when Heather and I were , we were out of the country and I had , ahead of that I probably have talked about this , but ahead of that I told everybody hey , it's going to be cold in the next few weeks at any given point . This is in October and , as we know in Minnesota , like you'll never stop here in Minnesota and talk about the Halloween snowstorm of 1991 . But anyway , okay , no , the fact is is it's going to be cold by Halloween and we were going to be gone over that timeframe and leading up to it and I told everybody in my uh , anybody that I had installed a boiler for anybody all of them that are in , that I have an email for if I installed them boiler . I called them and I texted them and I emailed them ahead of time saying please turn your heat on . Uh , I know it doesn't seem appropriate , but it's going to be cold over the next few nights . Just turn your thermostat up , just turn it up , just make sure everything works , please .
Speaker 1I'm going to be gone and I don't want you to be upset If you can't get ahold of me , cause it'll be out of the country Now . Of course I have some , you know , like ringer . Will Mike ring ? Will um take a call for me if I need to ? But this wasn't going to end up being emergency calls , or shouldn't have been right . We should have been ahead of it . Of course we leave and everybody , you know got cold , it's snowed and I'm out of the country and everybody's freaking out . But two long story to get to your back to you on that . It's been like 50 plus degrees for like a week and a half here in Minnesota . Snow is long gone . It's going to get cold any day now .
Speaker 1I mean it could be snowing tomorrow ? I don't . I don't even look at the weather anymore , not this time of year . Who cares ? It's going to get cold . And yet I'm replacing boilers that were at the moment when we scheduled it two , three weeks ago . Oh my God , oh my God . And now they're like yeah , make sure you close the door , cause the cat will get out . I'm leaving , I'm forgetting to close the door , because it's like 60 degrees out .
Speaker 2Right yeah , sunshine , exactly . Yeah yeah , I don't want the leaves to blow . Yeah , yeah , yeah .
Speaker 1They're doing yard work at the house I was at yesterday . Like literally I'm like , oh my gosh , what is this ? And people are freaking out . But that's good that you're getting those kinds of calls , because those are the ones that are . I mean , if you could just take a little bit of stress off .
Speaker 1For me it's the urgency of the job , right , right , like the rest of it's going to be challenging and every one of them you're going to be prepared for , but it's going to . There's going to be something that comes along that makes it take longer than you wanted . Whatever , all of that happens every single time . But for me I think it's that the night before just that Urgent . Like I gotta do this in this order . Like I'm very methodical in how I do most of these , like boiler swaps and stuff like that , right , and I have kind of an order of how I will do it . I know because it works , everybody does that right . But I think my stress on it , and even in my head , just the anxiety , is based off of , like there's a deadline , like it has to get , like certain amount of it has to get done at a certain amount of time , right .
Speaker 2There's definitely some of that and you know , like on boiler swap or you know , or furnace swap or whatever in the heating system swap outs there's . We've really found a lot of success in kind of trying to be prepared to like do that job and one of the things that we did I haven't posted it yet I need to I did a walkthrough on our new job trailer , yep , right and kind of how I got it set up right now and it's a work in progress but I have so I've got the old job trailers still sitting in the yard here , yeah , and I'm working on cleaning it out . It's gonna , for the time being , is gonna turn into , you know , boiler and water heater storage and I have about I don't know a quarter of that trailer of stuff still that was on the old job trailer that we don't need .
Speaker 1Yeah Right , like it doesn't need to be on the trim , like it piles up over time where you thought you were gonna stock something and you ended up never using it in the first place . That kind of thing .
Speaker 2Yep . So we went through and like , kitted out the new trailer with U-line cargo totes , so I had the previous . They used the yellow and black ones from Costco . Whatever they , hey , they worked , yeah , they break down , they break down . Yeah , you know they just weren't holding up . We were getting nine months a year out of them before they got a little sharp , jagged plastic edge hanging out and I was just like okay .
Speaker 1That's a long time . Honestly , those things to me are only as good as possibly . Stack of extra PVC fittings in the corner of the shop that you're never unstacking , or Christmas decorations Like . That's the limit of those things , in my opinion .
Speaker 2Yep . So we bought the flip top U-line . I got them in like two different sizes , so I've got the bigger size . That's like I don't know , 28 by 20 and 16 inches deep , like a 20 ounce or something like that , yeah they're pretty big and so I've got , you know , bigger PVC fittings in there . I built some dividers for the inside so that there's one that's got like two inch 90s , two inch couplings , two inch clean out tees , and so that way you open that bin up and it's like , oh , here's all of that stuff .
Speaker 1You're not like me .
Speaker 2You know , and it's relatively organized .
Speaker 1I'm like a squirrel in there looking for an acorn , trying to find the one street 45 I know is still in there . There's gotta be one more .
Speaker 2You know what baffles me , so get the . So and I know you know this and I don't know if you've is how many times have you taken that two inch or the inch and a half bin into some house like a rough inner or whatever , and dump the thing upside down on the floor right and like scattered ?
Speaker 1it all out so that you won't do that , cause mine's probably full of garbage , I'm not kidding you .
Speaker 2Well , that's what I'm saying . I know that ours has been out like multiple times and I swear it looked like somebody swept the job site floor , dumped it in the box and then put the fittings back on it . Yes , like every Every Every little garbage come up .
Speaker 1Yep , I cut- . I do a lot of cutting of my PVC with a circular saw . That's just Mm-hmm , a lot of people don't do that . That's fine , it's messy , whatever . But I that's how I started . Let's say that's who- . Yeah , the first guy I worked for that's how he cut pipes . That's how I learned and it just becomes habit . The bottom of my fitting bins are full of PVC , Like full , Because I cut like right over the top of it . Don't make a mess you know that kind of thing .
Speaker 1Oh yeah , and it's just static too , right , so like it's just caked in there . Oh , it's stuck to everything yeah , so the bins are nice , so they're really heavy duty the U-line stuff , right .
Speaker 2Yeah , they're like a I mean like I guess what you would see in a like an unbreakable container . You know what I mean ? I mean there these U-line bins are built for shipping containers .
Speaker 1Yeah , so they're yeah , exactly , I was going to say they're like an inventory management kind of system , in the sense where you're they're throwing those things on pallets , shipping them across country .
Speaker 2Exactly , exactly , and so I bought . I don't know , there's probably about $1,800 worth of goods .
Speaker 1in this thing , you're probably I was going to say you probably spent a few thousand .
Speaker 2Yeah , we spent a couple bucks on them , but it was like I'm going to buy these and I've and I just I told the guys I'm like here's the deal If there's stuff in this trailer that's not in a bin , yeah , I want you to ask yourself why . Like , what is where does it go ? Do we need a bin for it ? Does it really need to be on the trailer ? Yeah , and if it and if it if it does need to be on the trailer and it doesn't have a bin , I've got five more five more of the smaller size bins in the shop . Let's make another bin and get it organized . Yeah , you know , yeah , and that way it's so much easier to you know , it's all they're all labeled your catalog . You can go into the trailer and be like here's this , here's that , here's this and Well , can I interrupt ?
Speaker 1I don't know . Yeah , you know . So I have always worked alone , right , and the conversation could be easy . I could bring it to you have multiple people working out of that same trailer . The trailer doesn't always leave the I mean , it does go to the job Generally , yeah , but it's also accessed . Just , you know , it might be parked at the at the shop , right , yeah , but either way you've got multiple people going in and out of it . You know it's not even the same person towing it to a job every time .
Speaker 2No .
Speaker 1So if you're not organizing it that way , I can say , just even from my own experience working for companies that have multiple people working out of the same situation or just working alone , and in comparison , there's no way you can yeah , you could keep track of what's going on . No , and I say that because , like I think I know what I I used to have a trailer that I used for storage and I used to bring it to the job when I did new construction . So similar situation , right , sure , but I would always say to myself I know what's in there . No way , the handful of times that I ever took , like , put in the effort to clean that thing out and organize it over the you know 10 years or more that I was using it , right , honestly , a handful of times that I ever took the time to do that , I would find stuff that I had no idea , I even had no clue , or just the obvious , like no brainers , you're going to have like 14 of something that you don't even need one of .
Speaker 2Right In the process of cleaning this trailer out , I found I think six like Bradford White Aqua Stats for that were sent out with Inderex and we never used them .
Trailer Organization and Equipment Usage
Speaker 2We didn't use them because we used the sensor , yeah , yeah , you know . So we had these Aqua Stats sitting there and I bet five of them . I paid for separately because they didn't come with the tank , but the supply house sent it because they thought I would need it . Yep .
Speaker 1I have a couple- .
Speaker 2I've had them for years .
Speaker 1Yep , lock-in-var used to do that , yeah , and I ended up with Lock-in-Var branded Honeywell aqua stats and I'd be like , why do I have ? I'd call it my salesman and go to them and be like , dude , why don't , why are you sending these things ? They're like 145 bucks . I don't even use them . I've never used one . You know , right in the installation of that tank , you know that kind of deal , cause the boiler has its own sensor . Why would I use this as a student ?
Speaker 2Yeah , you , you mentioned that . You know well . Well , the multiple people pull it up , multiple people , uh , showing up at the job looking for something , and when it , when we initially started with that job trailer , it was like hey , we're going to do this , I'm going to put this stuff in this bin . Oh yeah , the um , the aqua stats are in the bin with the drop clause . Yep , yep , okay .
Speaker 1So I knew that that state , you know , yeah , but somebody should stop and listen to like retell it Like , did you just say it ?
Speaker 2I think you said yeah , hold , still , I'm going to poke you in the eye with the stick , because that's stupid .
Speaker 1Exactly , and then I'm going to poke myself in the eye and then we're going to have pink eye . Right , we deserve it .
Speaker 2So so it was . You know , it was like kind of one of those things . It was like , okay , I need to go through this stuff and if it doesn't like , jive like we've got one bin that's got feedwater , right Stuff , so it's got pressure reducing valves .
Speaker 1It's got backflows , it's got well , it's got right .
Speaker 2Like expansion tank valves .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , um , that kind of thing .
Speaker 2It's like the piping parts . There's one bin that's just got expansion tank brackets in it . It's got flex consoles , it's got the little quickstrap , it's got , you know , that kind of stuff like .
Speaker 2Hey , I want to mount a tank . What am I looking for ? Oh , tank mounting brackets . Yeah , that's what's in there , you know , and if I think , if we keep it that way , it's in . You know , talking with the guys , I haven't , and this is interesting . I've had the trailer . I think this will . Today is going to be its third or fourth install . I haven't worked out of it yet . Oh , the new one I personally have , yeah , you know , so it's . It's been miles and Rob , and I think I think it's working well . But , like I said , I got a little walkthrough video that I did to hear a few weeks ago and I just never posted it . Yeah , you're really good at that , I'm super good at it .
Speaker 1One of these days you're run out of room on your phone , but none of the videos are going to have been posted .
Speaker 2I can buy so many , like hundreds of millions of terabytes . I'm just saying I'm just saying yeah , no , I just store senseless videos .
Speaker 1Well , I mean , you know I'm not telling you anything you don't know . But you'd be fooling yourself if you truly believed that the job site trailer is working great and it's going to stay that way . It's going to change it's . You know things that change over time and that's good . You know . You got to live with it to know whether or not it's working or not , and I feel like that's .
Speaker 2You know , I said this has been a good week so far .
Menu Shopping and Maintenance Implementation
Speaker 2A couple of things that we're doing is like housekeeping stuff Not not that we have like downtime and we're we're doing that but I've found that in the last two weeks , um , we've finally starting to put into use of a couple of things . Um , we implemented like a , uh , like a menu shopping , um annual maintenance program . Okay , um , that we're , we're going to , we're going to try , we're going to , we're going to run it and it's , and it's basically it's it's . The idea is to help Cheryl figure out how much time to schedule for like a routine service , yeah , um , and then also uniform how much we're charging for that kind of stuff . So I mean , uh , here's a , here's a . For example , if we have a standard efficiency furnace , no AC or a cast iron boiler , those two items are essentially going to take the same amount of time to at least amount of time to service , at least amount of time to talk about all of the options .
Speaker 1Right , it's our base annual service Right .
Speaker 2So , like forced air furnace , cast iron boiler , we're going to do basic service on those clean burners . You know vacuum out heat exchanger , wipe down the cabinet . You know , check , check for problems . Yep , you know , and we're going to do that as our base .
Speaker 2And there's no parts except for maybe a furnace filter or what Right ? No , no parts at all . Okay , so just just just labor . Okay , right , yeah , labor , cleaning supplies , that kind of thing . Sure , then we're set up to do , um , we're going to do a , a , a , a , a , a , a , a , a , a like an add on if it's high efficiency . So let's say , for instance , the base furnace is 250 . Yeah , and then you got a high efficiency boiler . Then you do a base furnace with a high , or a base furnace or boiler with a high efficiency furnace or boiler . Add on , that adds 60 bucks to it .
Speaker 2So that's going in taking care of condensate . It's going into a little bit more in depth heat exchanger cleaning . You know , maybe you know rinsing and scrubbing down the heat exchanger , that kind of thing . On a boiler the furnace may not have quite as much , but either way , like , say , making sure the condensate drains are open and clear and then run them through a few extra processes . And then you know , so we had another add on . That's like indoor AC . There's another add on this outdoor AC . There's a base service . That's AC service . So if we get some of the calls in the spring , hey , I want my AC to be serviced . Okay , it's X , Right , you know , because we're not going to be looking at , we're not necessarily going to go in and service the furnace at that time . Okay , trying to do it so that it's more of that flat rate design of everybody knows up front and it's part of it is just to improve the efficiency and the communication with the customer .
Speaker 1I'm kind of surprised . I mean , I'm just surprised you didn't have this . You must have just been .
Speaker 2It's been in my mind for yeah , but what have you ?
Speaker 1I mean , you must have had this sort of in place , but you weren't like putting it all in one spot . Right , like ? I mean right , because I serve as .
Speaker 1I have mine set up that way more or less . I don't . I'm not doing the , I'm not doing the AC , forced air stuff nearly as much , because I just more or less started telling people I'll do that over the last year . But yeah , I mean the flat rate part of it's , the , in my opinion , the no brainer , regardless of like . I can't even imagine telling people a price based off of like hourly rate to do that work because he'd never make any money . You know what I mean .
Speaker 2Well , yeah , and so I had an annual Boiler tune up thing right , and so it was there it was . We had a price on it and you know we were using it . And then we were kind of constantly getting a call from you know one of the guys like , hey , am I billing that ? Are we using that this time ? You know , are we doing this one T and M ? You know this one's a little different . What if it's a combi ? You know , and it was like you know , these are all totally valid questions of like I just , you know , trying to , in the chaos of , of running in the business , it's been stuff that's like , oh , we'll figure that out later , yeah . And then , inevitably it's like , well , we , if we've just figured it out now , you know we wouldn't have to talk about it later . No , I know , I think it's a great idea , that's a .
Speaker 1I can't yeah , I can't even imagine you not doing it that way , especially since the guys have the . I know that you're scheduling the guys and telling them what they're doing , but when they get there , are they always like wouldn't it be better if they're prepared to know exactly just like ? This is what you're doing and here's the items you're going to do while you're there , like the checklist feature that we have .
Speaker 2That's . That's the second component of this . Is that so , like you know , a base furnace is going to have , you know , 10 or 12 , yeah checklist items , right , and then the high efficiency add on is going to have six or eight more , and then you just go in and pick the checklist that you need for the tasks that you're doing and click , click , click , and then you can attach all of that right there , yeah , and then you can send it to the customer and the customer goes hey , oh , you know , actually they , they did actually come in and do that .
Speaker 1Yeah . So yeah , I know that makes a ton of sense . Um , I'm not . I should be . I tell myself I don't need to do something because , like it's just me , but I'm not using the checklist feature like I should . I should be using that .
Speaker 2It's pretty cool , it's . I mean , once you get it set up and dialed in , it's actually really cool to be able to to just scroll down through it and and I do it , I mean I've been doing it myself , I mean I'm the same way you know , I mean I've been doing this for 25 years .
Speaker 1What do I need ?
Speaker 2a checklist for Exactly I think . I don't know what an insight of a furnace looks like yeah , you know yeah .
Speaker 2And and you go down through it and then you're like , oh , I forgot , yeah , you know what , here's an item , here's an item that we just added . This or I need to add today yeah , I have , I , but I've come across it this week that wasn't on our checklist is check the intake . Check the intake in the exhaust terminals . You know it's like no brainer , but it isn't , you know , because you're in the basement , you're in the crawl space , you're wherever you look at it . Oh , venting looks good , exhaust looks good , blah , blah , blah . And it just was never on my radar as a like . It's a mental note . You don't like oh yeah , okay , I'm leaving the house and I can see the steam coming out the gym .
Speaker 1You know great , well , yeah , but it must be working , because you weren't there because of an error code or something like that .
Speaker 2Yeah Right , Exactly , Must be fine . Well , we've .
Speaker 2We're dealing with a slant fin you and I talked about this one the other day , and so I was kind of scrambling around trying to figure out why this thing wouldn't stay running . I mean it would , it had run for you know eight , nine hours , and then it would be offered the whole day and not want to relight , and I , I finally figured out what the problem was . It was a spark , the ignition wire , Okay . Which crazy Anyway . But in the process of really digging deep into this boiler , I know I found that the intake had like five or six wasps nests in the intake . Oh , and it was run to the boiler .
Speaker 1Yeah , but that doesn't often have an intake connected to it .
Speaker 2No . So it had a PVC air intake ran over into the boiler and it had these wasps nests in there and I'm like , oh , we're not getting a pressure switch fault , so it's really shouldn't be that , but nonetheless we're you know they shouldn't be there , right ? And so that was that , that kind of spawned , that , that comment of you know what . We need to add that because there's really no reason why we shouldn't be checking the air intake and the exhaust terminal .
Speaker 1Well , what I find when I do , and I'm not like I said , I'm not checking it- I'm not going to pretend , I check it every time .
Speaker 2I check it if there's an air code right .
Speaker 1So we already covered that , but I will say that I have found something that makes me want to scold my customers . Such a , I'm such an idiot . And no , my brain . That's where my brain goes immediately . I'm like I want to yell at somebody .
Speaker 1I'll see people put like window screen material with , like you know , a hose clamp around the outside of their pipes , on their you know furnace or boiler , their tank lists or their water heat . I mean , you name it right . Yeah , I'm like please don't do that . Oh , my God , it's just a recipe for killing your appliance , for having no heat , for taking a cold shower in the middle of it . It's just going to say you know not anymore and you're going to be pissed and you're going to blame me for it . You know like , don't do that . Right , I find that's what I'll find when I you know the wasp thing not out , absolutely not unheard of . But I'll be honest with you , I'll find somebody had taken you know they've gone to you know farm and fleet and grab a roll of the screen .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1This is a good idea , right ? No , it's absolutely not a good idea .
Speaker 2No , it's not . It's not . Yeah , the bugs will not crawl in the exhaust , I promise you , and they're not building a nest in there .
Speaker 1Yeah , and I'll tell you what it's . You know , we're just going to deal with the problems if they come , but let's not make them ourselves . That's what I try to tell people .
Speaker 2Yeah , the guys and I have we've had this conversation and I'm like they're like , well , what do you , what do you think ? You know bird screens , blah , blah , blah . And I'm like , yeah , yeah , you know , probably should be . Um , on the intake , you know , if it's close to the exhaust , like anywhere near where the exhaust is , like it's a you know the little pancake termination or something like that , don't , just let let it be whatever . The factory , you know bar grid is , that's fine . Um , the exhaust terminal , let it be whatever If it's . If we've got an indirect on there , I don't even . The exhaust is totally fine . No squirrels , no bugs , no mice , no , nothing are ever going to get in there .
Speaker 2Because it's running out and at a high they're going to jump in there and they're going to be like this is a gross place to be . Why do I want to be here and they're out ? Yeah , hopefully that's the case . Yeah , but on the intake side of it , uh , we had a , uh , a Slantfin concept 21 that we pulled out here , uh , in the last couple of months .
Speaker 1I don't even know what that is .
Speaker 2That it's dropped , do I ? What is it ? What is it ? Uh , concept 21 was that uh boiler had an aluminum or a ceramic burner on the bottom .
Speaker 1Oh , I never seen one Pan .
Speaker 2Oh yeah , got a hot surface igniter that was custom to this concept .
Speaker 1Oh , that's lame .
Speaker 2Yeah , that's super awesome . Um , yeah , that boiler . Yeah , it was short lived , I think . I don't think it made a very , had a very long run and then it was done . I mean it was , yeah , I think it was Slantfin's uh , you know , steps into developing high efficiency . Okay , it was about that era .
Speaker 1Okay , probably mid nineties , oh , it's just pretty munchkin Okay , yeah , yep , and uh so you had the concept 21 , was it intake concept ?
Speaker 221 intake . So it had this little goofy intake on the outside that was like this stainless steel box , you know . So it was the one that used like safety vent .
Speaker 1Yep , no , a square thing . Yeah , I know what you mean . Yeah .
Speaker 2And , and so Rob and I are disconnect , cutting the spoiler off , and I'm like God , this thing stinks , yeah , that's done , whatever . And I take it out in the driveway and I'm like it , the the boiler , it's the boiler that's staying , oh no , and it is chalk full . Has this little like ? It's like the same size screen that's on a cheap over the range hood ? Yeah , you know that little like eight , nine by nine .
Speaker 1Oh yeah , like the metal foil , great . Thing .
Speaker 2It's got one of those inside of it in the topside , where the pipe going outside is that connected to is like stacked full of mice and chipmunks . Oh , dad , you know , oh yeah that does stink .
Speaker 1Oh , my God that stinks so bad and I was just like , oh , that's nasty , it's like when you get a mouse in your garage , that's a bad one , that's a terrible one , oh , yeah , um . When they're dead , obviously yeah , um , yeah . No , that's crazy . The uh one thing to add to your trailer , though I think I heard you mentioned this the other day . Maybe you're not doing it yet , but maybe you're
Efficiency and Organization for Van Maintenance
Speaker 1talking about it . There's something I've been doing on my van and it is related to two things . I haven't done it for the install side yet . I've talked about it but for the maintenance . I have a . I use those crates for storage like bulk stuff on the van .
Speaker 2It's like the pack out crate yeah , but I don't grab the crate and carry it in .
Speaker 1I never do . It's just not how I work it , except for one now , cause about , well , I don't know , three , four months ago I started I I clean out the van pretty well and one of the crates it was always just kind of this dumping crate and I said you know , this ain't working . So I made that crate my tankless water heater um maintenance crate , so like it literally just has and I'm sorry tankless water heater , and then half of it is boiler and so it has my um cleaning chemical for the fire side of the heat exchanger If I need it . I don't always use that , anyway it has um that . You know what do we use ? The calcifery . The calcifery , it has like six jugs of that in there at all times , cause you'd never order enough and they're always gone when you take the last one .
Speaker 1But um and so like , that's my like , make sure I keep this thing full so I never have to worry about if I have that stuff on my van or in the shop and it doesn't take up a lot of space , right ? The other thing I think about the trailer when you talk about it and then what I want to do and I've had this conversation with some friends too in the past like I really want to come up with a pack out box that fits on my van , that's not going to take up too much space but that is set up to where , like it has like the absolute necessary things I know I'm going to put in on like a boiler swap , like the isolation valves that I love to use , then screw onto the bottom of the basement or you know , like I use it on every one of my indirects without fail , the way I do it and I've just done this forever and it's a coat , it's partially code required , but it's also just a safety thing in performance . But I put a uh thermostatic mixing valve on every indirect . Well , why should I stock that in the shop ?
Speaker 1Like it doesn't do me any good in the shop . So why don't I just keep a box that has like these specific items that I'm ordering over and over anyway ? Why don't I just keep them in a bin that I bring into the job and they're in that one spot then all the time , like reliably ? That's what I want to do , kind of like a kit . Does that make sense , hi ?
Speaker 2Yep , rob and I were . It's funny to say that because Rob and I literally uh , last week we're talking about you know , like what , give me , you know , and I , I asked the guys this occasionally , not maybe directly , like this , but it's what makes you more efficient . Yeah , right , like what ? What do you ? What do you if you were going to look at your ? You're doing a daily task , right , yeah , you're out doing your job and you go , I go to the van and I take this off the shelf and then I get this one thing out of it and I put this back and I get this and I put that back and I get this and I put that back and I got you know this , these five items that I'm going to go do this with . How do we eliminate that ? And it's the same concept , um , and what I , what I'm going to I need to work through it a little bit and today is going to be part of it is we're going to uh Rob's making a list of the things that he basically says .
Speaker 2I use this on every single uh 100 series 85 install . That's got an indirect and so we have , you know , five , three quarter female adapters or whatever you know female by press , it might be three . We have three of those . We have , you know this , to get our uh low loss header connected . We have these parts to connect to the bottom of the boiler . We have these parts to trim out the expansion tank and the feed water , and those are on every job . That's what I'm talking about . So , yeah , exactly , and that's and that's we're going to take . I think , if I can get it all to fit right , I'm going to take the deep organizer bin and I'm going to probably make two or three of them and then I'm going to order probably 10 or whatever work , 10 jobs worth of those materials to have in bulk at the shop so that we can grab a boiler install box .
Speaker 1You should make a list , though , of those parts , so that's what . I started doing with the maintenance stuff is I just have a list . I've been getting it online where you know where I'm buying it from , but I just have that list and I named it . And so then I go into the list . I just hit reorder , Reorder . I literally it's like two clicks . It's really useful .
Speaker 2I use on the bottom of the for the indirects .
Speaker 1I use the because you you like it's rare in my opinion , or you probably shouldn't do it in my opinion run three quarter to the indirect and so right , I'm just using a three quarter female by one inch press adapters .
Speaker 2Yeah , okay .
Speaker 1And yeah , we're doing the doing the same thing . I'm not putting any valve or anything on those two Like I'm just literally straight adapters to it . And I'm no putting valves on my lines between the tank and the boiler either .
Speaker 2Yep , we have for , just for , purely for , uh , reducing the amount of time it takes to get the air out . We've been putting a a Webstone Pro ball drain .
Speaker 1Uh , I , I did that for a couple of years and then I realized I can just tell the boiler to do it .
Speaker 2It . You , you can and tell you get that certain scenario where it's like for some reason that didn't work , and then you spend 35 or 40 minutes screwing around with getting air out of it .
Speaker 1Yeah , I haven't had that problem , but I know what you mean Um and also . I'll spend . I'll spend two days getting air out If it means I don't have to call back on it a job . But that's just me . Oh yeah , that's , that's I don't . I'm not paying somebody to do it , I'm paying me right .
Speaker 2Right , and that's , and that's where we looked at it and said , hey , I'm going to just put this $40 ball valve in here , we're just going to press that in there and then we're . There's absolutely no chance that we're going to have an air lock .
Speaker 1No , I hear you on the . I used to do that and but I stopped . Um , well , cause that one , that one inch it's a $65 valve , right , but still cheaper than a callback .
Speaker 2Um , it's a , it's a half an hour yeah .
Speaker 1No , let's wrap it up . We're getting long here , but that's a good conversation . I agree with the . You know the kidding of it . It's interesting to see how your , your trailer is going to turn out as it's right kind of evolves . I know it's early on , I mean it's turned out , obviously , but I think it's probably in change and as we , as we've discussed . But that's cool , I'm interested to see how it goes . You ever real quick ? You ever think that I know you're , you're operating , you've got the beautiful shop there on your property . Everything's secure and easy . You think you ever going to get to the point where you have to go in town ? I'd love to Really .
Speaker 2Yep , uh , I'd absolutely love to , and , and , and , everything's going to be in the wrong .
Speaker 1You're going to be in the wrong spot all the time . That's my biggest fear .
Speaker 2Well , yeah , so
Considerations for Opening a New Shop
Speaker 2I . So there's two reasons I say that I would love a to have my own personal space to to go back for you ?
Speaker 2Yeah , cause I never got to use it as that . No , right , I mean , it's like we built the shop and that was kind of the intention . I was like , oh , I'm going to work out of it and I'm so one man shop . Yeah , I'm going to work out of it and I'm going to have somewhere to come out and screw around , and and then I hired somebody and all of a sudden it's like , oh , we have a plumbing shop in the backyard . Yeah , and it's been that for 10 years . Yeah , absolutely yeah , nothing wrong . So I I guess I would love to have somewhere in town which is going to be significantly more expensive , um , but I would love to have somewhere in town that we could have stocked items , yeah , so that the guys could be like , hey , I'm going to run to the shop and it's not way out here , you know .
Speaker 1I mean you've been out here and it's not , it's not like way out there , but it's not when you're 20 , when you're five miles away on the other side of you know , part of partly on the other side of Missoula . It's a 25 minute .
Speaker 2Oh , 25 to half drive Sounds crazy , but that's the way it is .
Speaker 1I experienced it when I was there . Yeah , yeah . Well , let's mark it in the calendars it's November of 2023 . We're talking about Andy may be getting a shop one day . We'll see . We'll see . All right , dude , I'd love to Thanks . Thank you .
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