Lansing’s All Star Mechanical Larry Kirchoff talks with WLAJ’s Susan Angel about how businesses, faced with rising costs, are responding – without gouging Lansing customers! In this segment, Larry and Susan explore how businesses are coping with their costs rising, and how having great employees (paid a living wage) reduces turnover (and cost), how working with customers on their budgets (and factoring in long term functionality of their furnace and air conditioning equipment) can pay off for both the business AND the customer.
Inflation has affected the home heating and cooling (HVAC) industry a lot. Here’s what we’re doing to help YOU, the customer, as prices everywhere go up. We’ve done that in a few ways:
Absorbing the cost of price increases, so you don’t have to pay for them (we do)
Retention of our staff – paying them a good wage means they are happy and stick around. Training is a huge cost in our industry. Happy employees love to help customers!
Check out this short video interview with Larry Kirchoff, All Star Mechanical and Susan Angel from WLAJ.
Are you on YouTube today looking at how to fix your furnace? Are you SURE about that?
We’re experts, so you don’t have to be. And if you need to show this to someone in your household who really needs to stop searching YouTube for fixes, we won’t tell anyone š
If you’re in the market for a new furnace or air conditioning system at your home, do you know that many of the companies in our area who appear to be different companies are owned by the SAME company? That’s right! That second or third quote (or fourth quote)? Same company.
Stick with an independently owned, locally owned company with Lansing-area people helping you out, no fake mustaches needed.
Women, we know when you invite a home service pro into your house, you’re going to have one of the following experiences “is your husband home?” or “what does he think about this?” And we know it is YOUR house, and your spouse doesn’t know any more about furnaces than you do, or you wouldn’t have called a professional!
If you’re not feeling the respect, you need to call us. We’ll explain everything, (but we won’t mansplain) and you’ll feel confident that you have the best solution for your home.
Drop everything and come see my new furnace and A/C! I mean, really, it’s one of the bigger investments you’ll ever make at your house, and really, so worth it! At least our friends in our video think so.
WLAJ 53’s Susan Angel interviews Larry Kirchoff of All Star Mechanical to talk about what being a “company of conscience” really means, and also, how All Star Mechanical thrives even while being politically outspoken.
Last week I wrote about changes coming in the industry that assure that everyone is going to pay more for HVAC replacements starting in 2024. I wrote about how these changes were at least some sort of attempt to combat global warming, even if I donāt think itās the best path forward, at least itās something. I also wrote about Heat Pumps and how I donāt like the way itās being promoted, particularly because there are companies that are all too eager to sell something because youāll potentially get a rebate, regardless of whether youāll actually benefit from it. And then I talked about what we at All Star Mechanical are doing in our little corner of the world to assure you that you are getting what you need and not what will make the most profit for us. I mentioned that we size our equipment so that the equipment works as closely to the manufacturers specs as it can. I explained how my supplier told me that we bought about half of the smallest furnaces in the state of Michigan that Trane manufactures. It was something like 40 out of 80 of those furnaces were purchased by us in 2021. Thatās pretty telling.
As I write this this morning, I have updated numbers to show even more, how the math is not mathing. The numbers are staggeringly out of whack. The smallest furnace is 40,000 btu. As of early Monday morning September 11th, 2023, in the last 365 days, 37 of these 40,000 btu furnaces were sold in Lansing. Every single one of them was to us. In the state of Michigan, they sold a total of 83. So again, we bought almost half that were sold in the entire state, AND EVERY SINGLE ONE SOLD OUT OF THE LANSING BRANCH right here as a small company in little ol Lansing. The next numbers Iām going to share are even more telling. In the last 365 days, my supplier has sold 390 furnaces at 80,000 btu. We purchased 1 of those. In the last 365 days my supplier sold 261 furnaces at 100,000 btu. We didnāt buy not even one of them. They also sold 119 furnaces at 120,000 btu and again we purchased zero of those. Iām not saying there arenāt houses that donāt need 80-120,000 btu furnaces, but there arenāt THAT many. In 15 years of business, Iāve installed only a handful of 80,000, a couple 100,000, and only one 120,000. I started out not knowing what I know now, and thatās why we sell so few of them, itās just not necessary most of the time.
What this tells me is that other companies are installing 60,000 btu furnaces when a home only needs 40,000. 80,000 btu furnaces when the home only needs 60,000, and so on. We sell a huge amount of 60,000 btu furnaces, and a good amount of 40,000 btu furnaces. The last time we installed an 80,000 btu furnace was in a home that was over 5,000 square feet back in November of 2022. That was the only 80,000 btu furnace in the last 365 days. The furnaces we install are always getting as close to the efficiency as they are rated at. I can only imagine how inefficient so many of the furnaces that are oversized are. Not only are they inefficient, they are getting more wear and tear, and likely louder than they should be as well as not providing the best comfort.
It is my belief that these companies are content with selling you something that has a sticker that says itās 96% efficient but installing something that will not operate to the design specs and therefore not getting its desired efficiency because the consumers only measuring stick will be if it reaches the set point on the thermostat. An oversized furnace will operate like a car in the city by starting and stopping hundreds of times a day. That wastes fuel and adds unnecessary wear and tear. The furnaces we install are sized closely to assure highway miles most of the time. A properly sized furnace offers the best efficiency, comfort, and noise reduction as well as longer lifespan of all the components due to less wear and tear. Global warming isnāt the only reason to size equipment properly, your energy usage and untimely repairs are money out of your pocket. If every company did what we do, weād use A LOT less fuel, which would be more impactful than much of whatās being implemented next year. I often wonder why the energy companies donāt lobby for contractors to size equipment properly, maybe it has something to do with not selling as much of their product.
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
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Crawl spaces are never easy, but when theyāre finished, itās rewarding. This was hard work, and itās beautiful if I say so myself. Itās art and I call this one āThe Immaculate Installationā.
With all this spring like weather. I just wanted you all to know that we are ready to install your new ish central AC. ššš No humans were harmed in the making of this video, but only due to sheer luck.
