Welcome back to Teaching the Unteachables, where we dive into teaching and learning methodologies
for professionals like you.
One of the primary topics of this year's educational conference is heat pumps and particularly
cold climate heat pumps.
This conversation will enlighten you on areas that you may not have considered for heat
pump adoption.
Hello everyone.
Thank you for joining us on Did You Know the ESCO HVAC Show.
So we're just about to wrap up the 2024 National HVACR Education Conference here in Las Vegas.
And I'm spending time with Kevin Furtinsky.
How are you, sir?
I'm very well.
Thank you.
You know, we started talking early on into this conference about technologies and heat
pumps and you're a significantly large contractor, right?
Yes, we are.
One of the larger heat pump installers.
Yes.
Not in the U.S.?
No, not in the U.S.
Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
And so it sparked the conversation of, okay, let's talk about this because we are having
a bit of a struggle in the United States to convince contractors of the adoption of not
just heat pumps, but heat pumps that work in colder climates.
We are starting to have a new generation of equipment, especially due to the DOE's initiative
for the cold climate heat pump challenge, so that we're seeing new products that are
qualified by companies like Energy Star as being cold climate certified and rated and
what that actually means.
And so there's a couple of different things going on with that.
But what's really important is that we look at the adoption side of heat pumps in general.
And so here in the U.S., there are a lot of people who say north of Mason-Dixon line,
we don't want to install heat pumps, right?
Right.
Well, you and I are going to talk about installing them north of the U.S.-Canada line.
The 49 parallel.
So now we're moving that line way forward so that we can talk about how heat pumps are
actually performing in these conditions.
Yeah, it is a little bit more of a challenge, particularly where I come from in Alberta.
It's one of the most unique places in the world where the term Chinook comes in.
And Chinook is a unique climatological occurrence that happens when the warm Pacific winds blow
over the Rocky Mountains and we can have temperature changes and bear with me, I speak in Celsius,
you're familiar with that, but we'll potentially see a 20 degree Celsius temperature change
within a matter of hours.
So we can go from very cool to very warm quickly.
We can also go from very warm to very cool very quickly.
So we do see that experience that as well.
So that brings another factor into trying to make these decisions.
Solar loading in the north as well.
Solar loading is a big one.
I speak of solar loading, what effect that a cold day temperature wise on the exterior
of a building and the addition of the sun loading with particular windows, the types
of construction, colors of homes, colors of roofs.
Now all play into this as well too.
They are.
And that building science comes into play and another big part of the education of that
and selection of equipment as well.
That selection of equipment is so critical.
So we've gotten into conversations of the rating systems that are utilized for heat
pumps and those are in design conditions and you definitely don't have design conditions.
No, far from, far from.
And it is such a wide variety, especially types of construction is a big one as well.
It depends on the age of the home, not only duct sizing, but we have the differentiation
between a two by four construction on the exterior walls to a two by six, two by six
sealed, all of those as well too.
Much similar.
I know we're talking similar things, but also big considerations that need to be taken into
that because the infiltration of a two by six to two by four is a big thing as well.
Yeah.
So we're starting to spend a lot more time looking at the envelope, looking at the entire
structure and ways that we can improve it to reduce that, that capacity of our system.
So we get better matchups and try to get our size to, you know, a proper load sizing for
the conditions that we have.
Now one of the things that we were talking about is jurisdictions, even in Canada, that
are really moving forward and being very aggressive about the electrification movement or the
decarbonization.
And so even in Canada, we're starting to see places where gas heating are not being allowed
to be installed.
Yes.
Vancouver, west of Calgary on the Pacific coast, they are looking at and are making
the moves to not allowing gas, natural gas installations any further.
They're going to all electric and any retrofits, which is a residential retrofit is our specialty
that they're moving away from natural gas and having to electrify even in commercial
as well.
Yeah, absolutely.
We're starting to hear a lot of that here in the U S. So when we think about the adoption
of that, when we think about the technology that is change and evolved, like here in the
United States, we had a, a kind of a push for heat pump integrations back in the 1960s,
1970s, and it wasn't very successful.
Some of that had to do with technology.
Some of it had to do with proper installation and maintenance.
And so there was a bit of a stigma with heat pumps here in the United States.
And so now that we're really talking about reintroducing heat pumps on much larger scales,
mass scales, did you encounter the same scenarios, Canada?
Yes.
My background does cross over from commercial to the residential side.
And in the commercial side, there was that, that slower, less aggressive approach that
was being taken, but in the residential it's, it's very, a very big push.
We just, Canada just wound up the greener homes grant program, which was a significant
rebates from the federal government based on selection of equipment for installation
that potentially up to $7,500 credit, right?
That was given the requirements were home auditor, pardon me, energy modeling, energy
audit, things like that.
You were all required, blower door testing, things like that.
Oh, nice.
But people were very willing to jump in and have it done.
I think that the, the overall attitude is changing as well with Alberta, particularly
where I come from now is that we've always been that natural resource energy provider.
We provide a significant amount of natural gas to the all of North America market oil
as well.
And typically the old school attitude between commercial and residential was both throw
more heat at it, but there was never the consideration of, of comfort cooling.
And so that thought process wasn't there.
So that's a big change now.
And I think that that's the societal change.
That's mindset change.
People are looking at what benefits these have, even so much so it plays a little bit
of havoc with the infrastructure and the homes that we have that we're typical looking at
homes that only have a hundred amp service in them.
And even 200 amps now that you're out, you put a electric water tank, a car charger and
a hot tub.
Sorry, we're not talking about heat pump anymore.
Those types of things, even so much so that we, there are certain communities within Calgary
that are, have made a move to all electric in, in residential as well too, which is very
outside of that box that we typically think of natural resource energy coming from that,
you know, it's a typical strip town home complex that is everything is electric.
We have one example of one area and the show home that was built first era of all of the
other, we've gone in and given them several quotes for replacement and installations and
things like that.
The show home was set up on hundred amp service, but the remainder of all the units are 200
amp service.
So there's a problem, you know, and we can't do anything about that.
So it makes it even more of a challenge yet to what we could do and present issues, but
the mindset's there and that's the most positive thing about it, I think.
And working with people, it's our intent.
Yeah.
So let's think about that mindset and that shift of mindset that is happening.
Cause we see it here and of course there's always a little bit of pushback, but once
we get past that initial pushback, there's a lot of acceptance in it and a lot of promotion
of it.
So as a contractor in Canada, let's step back, let's just say five years, five years
ago, what was your mix of equipment for installations?
Heat pumps versus gas furnaces.
One hundred and zero.
Really?
Yeah.
Very, very well, I shouldn't say that there were limited, limited selections for heat
pumps.
I was in Vancouver, five years ago and in Vancouver, the lower mainland most particularly,
which is north, very similar to Seattle type of, a much more different mindset.
Typically they would have on a 20 to 25 year old construction residentially, they might
have a forced air furnace for the basement main floor, electric baseboards for upstairs,
second floor, which would support infrastructure and the addition of heat pumps was starting
to happen in newer construction five years ago.
So it was much more adopted there as opposed to Alberta where that growth is much slower,
but is certainly catching up.
So what would you say that is in the beginning of 2024 in comparison to that five year ago
period?
As far as natural resource too.
Yeah, or heat pumps.
Heat pumps?
I think we're probably about 90, 85% natural and 15% electric.
So it's growing, getting much better.
And that was a big part of that was the government grants that were available, incentivizing
people.
There are other grants and very similar to what we learned from DOE and the speaker this
morning that there are other incentives for you guys that seem to be tracking very similar
to what you...
Yeah, it sounds like it's very similar to what you...
Very much so.
And even that's coming, there'll be new programs introduced probably within the next couple
of months that will identify...
How do you make that?
Yeah, especially though, and one that did catch my ear was specifically about lower
income type housing.
It's broadening the market somewhat.
Isn't it though?
And also types of equipment that are available, there's so much more equipment available now
that does not necessarily need to meet certain...
When I say this, that we do track with our organizations the requirements that they must
meet i.e.
AHRI and matchups and things like that, that we did have a little bit of a difficulty with
one of the lines that we carry that we did bring in an option for our customers as well
too that we could still do it.
It's not as energy efficient, but still did meet the requirements, which opens up a little
bit more of a segment.
But I think that's where that mindset that we spoke of originally, people having natural
gases is very inexpensive comparatively speaking.
We pay more for electricity than we do for natural gas, of course, or as most do, where
Vancouver as I spoke about before, you pay more for natural gas than you do for electricity.
So there's a little bit of a flip flop there.
So broadening the market will help and expanding the audience for sure.
I know one of the initiatives here in the United States was to not have the electric
system back up heating on a heat pump system.
And that's something that we have to talk about when we're talking about load calculations
and what are the proper heat pump scenarios, because a heat pump can be really good, it
can be designed for a cold climate application and can serve a lot of purposes.
But as we continue to drop into our very low negative temperatures, it's not going to be
able to provide enough heat for our structure.
So I'm an advocate of dual fuel applications.
I'm really an advocate of making a comfortable solution for everyone.
Agreed.
And doing it as energy efficient as possible.
And reliable as possible.
So reliable as possible.
So what are the typical installations that we have seen in Canada, especially as it relates
to these heat pump incentives?
Natural gas and electric heat pumps.
So true dual fuel.
Yeah, true dual fuel.
Again, there's another challenge and that's where at the outset of our conversation here
very quickly was that we do have those big temperature swings.
Yes.
And we did experience that beginning of January.
Again, we were down into the match point, I guess, minus 32.
And there's nothing that's going to run at minus 32.
And there's not even a lot of electric options.
Very difficult to maintain that as well too.
So that's where really the natural gas is still the weapon of choice.
Yeah, the primary and secondary heat source.
Exactly.
To overcome those challenges.
And because it reacts very quickly, people are comfortable with it.
They recognize it.
You know, when you have 150 degree air from a supply grill with natural gas, forced air
heating, people know it's on.
They know it's operating.
It's like, okay, I'm on gas.
I'm good now.
We'll be right tonight.
Yeah.
That's, again, another mindset that's a little bit more difficult that we have to overcome
that, you know, the typical operation of these things as well too.
Yes.
Yeah, indeed.
So a lot of interesting things happening in Canada that we can look at as a reference
point as we start as a contractor, particularly.
How do I diversify my product line?
Because we've seen here just in the Midwest, we've seen contractors that won't even offer
heat pumps as options.
They don't believe that they're a functional option.
And the consumers are asking for them.
Agreed.
Again, I think it's that mindset.
I know we keep, we speak to that term and use that so often, but it's what people are
comfortable with.
Yes.
What's acceptable to everybody.
And I think, you know, the overall with contractors, understanding better the technology, teaching
the reason we're here, teaching your technicians, your installers, how to install it properly,
how to work with it, how to be comfortable around it is a big factor with it as well
too.
Yeah.
So any other trends that you see north of the border that people are talking about in
the industry?
Indoor air quality is a significant factor for us.
As I've noticed in Las Vegas this week that I've been here, it's very dry.
Oh my gosh, it's been horrible on the sinuses.
Oh yeah.
Even from the guy from Alberta to say this, that, you know, we are dry typically.
I know one of the things we've spoken of, I heard related a little bit to indoor air
quality is mold.
And I know that's an issue in other parts of Canada for sure, but you know, on the prairies,
that is not an issue.
We're always humidifying, not dehumidifying.
So that's a big one.
But yeah, indoor air quality is a significant factor because when it's dry, you also experience
more of those things that affect the homeowner and you know, all the users.
And comfort is a big thing, especially in residential.
It's the haven of where we live and you know, enjoy what we're doing.
Yeah, absolutely.
I see that growing and developing here as well.
We're seeing a lot of comfort specialists, which tend to be, you know, really IAQ specialists.
Yes, very much so.
All right.
Anything else we want to dive into while we've got a chance?
Totally loved my opportunity to be here.
Glad to meet you, man.
We've had so many fun conversations.
A fateful year to get me here and have super enjoyed it.
I've made some tremendous acquaintances, future friendships, most certainly.
And looking forward to coming back.
And as a contractor, and again, a little bit of a different approach that we're taking
in educating our own people and growing our technicians, knowledge is the biggest thing
you can do.
It is absolutely the power that, you know, and related to this, heat pumps, get out there,
teach people.
Support from the manufacturers is huge.
Dyken is amazing at doing what they're doing to help our organization particularly.
And those resources, they're invaluable.
Really to have the opportunity to speak to other people within the trades from a different
perspective of other than being just a typical contractor.
But you know, these people are developing technicians that are coming into the trades
that, you know, I think that my most common phrase that I use with anybody that I have
had through my training room and things like that is get comfortable being uncomfortable.
And learn and challenge yourself because it will pay off at the end.
And that's the same thing.
And I think that's the big thing with heat pumps, with technology and education within
the trades.
It's that move is here.
Your reference to automotive mechanics and having to learn, there's this is the future.
It's upon us and that was the time.
So well spoken.
Kevin Fortinsky, thank you so much for joining my friend.
I look forward to a future friendship here.
I as well.
Thank you.