1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:09,440 Welcome to the future, technologies and innovations that sculpt our industry. 2 00:00:09,440 --> 00:00:15,040 This episode brought to you by Haven IAQ, your home's ultimate clean air solution for 3 00:00:15,040 --> 00:00:17,120 active air management. 4 00:00:17,120 --> 00:00:22,720 Learn more at HavenIAQ.com. 5 00:00:22,720 --> 00:00:23,720 Hello everyone. 6 00:00:23,720 --> 00:00:24,920 Thank you for joining Did You Know? 7 00:00:24,920 --> 00:00:27,580 the ESCO HVAC podcast. 8 00:00:27,580 --> 00:00:31,880 So today we're spending some time with Kevin Hart, the Canadian, not the comedian from 9 00:00:31,880 --> 00:00:32,880 Haven IAQ. 10 00:00:32,880 --> 00:00:33,880 How are you doing my friend? 11 00:00:33,880 --> 00:00:34,880 Good, good. 12 00:00:34,880 --> 00:00:35,880 How are you? 13 00:00:35,880 --> 00:00:37,440 I'm doing really well. 14 00:00:37,440 --> 00:00:42,360 We've talked about a variety of topics in our industry that really need to be re-looked 15 00:00:42,360 --> 00:00:47,760 at and one of them is like residential controls and why no one cares about residential controls 16 00:00:47,760 --> 00:00:53,460 and why they really should, especially in today's society where we have controls for 17 00:00:53,460 --> 00:00:54,460 everything. 18 00:00:54,460 --> 00:00:57,520 I mean, I've got controls for appliances. 19 00:00:57,520 --> 00:01:02,800 Don't you think that I'd want to have controls for my comfort besides just a thermostat? 20 00:01:02,800 --> 00:01:06,120 Totally and especially for indoor air quality. 21 00:01:06,120 --> 00:01:10,440 We got smart thermostats a few years ago and they're Wi-Fi connected and we all know that 22 00:01:10,440 --> 00:01:15,440 they're learning and they're smart and sometimes that doesn't always go as planned. 23 00:01:15,440 --> 00:01:19,440 But in particular, the indoor air quality controls for residential have been really 24 00:01:19,440 --> 00:01:24,480 inadequate and that's been our observation and so thought we would talk to you about 25 00:01:24,480 --> 00:01:25,480 it. 26 00:01:25,480 --> 00:01:29,200 I mean, I think you have a background in controls or at least being interested in the controls 27 00:01:29,200 --> 00:01:30,200 world. 28 00:01:30,200 --> 00:01:31,200 Oh yeah, that was my world. 29 00:01:31,200 --> 00:01:36,680 So especially by the time I got into the commercial refrigeration sector and then I was all building 30 00:01:36,680 --> 00:01:37,880 automation controls. 31 00:01:37,880 --> 00:01:46,320 So I mean, I monitored, I had 160 stores that I could monitor, review, I could change inputs 32 00:01:46,320 --> 00:01:49,760 and outputs from my couch with a beer in my hand. 33 00:01:49,760 --> 00:01:53,840 Yeah, and especially being from the commercial world where controls are great and we got 34 00:01:53,840 --> 00:01:58,240 building automation systems which are, they're so advanced, they can respond to changes in 35 00:01:58,240 --> 00:02:00,280 occupancy levels. 36 00:02:00,280 --> 00:02:04,480 But in the residential world, we don't even have enough relays to connect to the equipment 37 00:02:04,480 --> 00:02:05,880 that we need to control. 38 00:02:05,880 --> 00:02:10,520 I mean, if you're thinking about like a dumb humidist that or an ERV controller, these 39 00:02:10,520 --> 00:02:14,620 things are like, do you want to be off or on? 40 00:02:14,620 --> 00:02:17,500 Maybe you can do min or max. 41 00:02:17,500 --> 00:02:21,120 These things are really, really quite antiquated. 42 00:02:21,120 --> 00:02:24,520 They're things you might expect 50, 60 years ago. 43 00:02:24,520 --> 00:02:30,520 And so I guess one of our big questions is, why isn't the IQ residential controls world 44 00:02:30,520 --> 00:02:32,240 catching up? 45 00:02:32,240 --> 00:02:36,400 And how is this holding us back as an industry from really doing proper IQ? 46 00:02:36,400 --> 00:02:37,400 Yeah. 47 00:02:37,400 --> 00:02:42,360 Well, I mean, when we think about this transition in technologies where we're moving from single 48 00:02:42,360 --> 00:02:48,400 stage and two stage, indoor and outdoor systems to all variable modulating systems, that's 49 00:02:48,400 --> 00:02:49,760 the whole principle. 50 00:02:49,760 --> 00:02:56,680 I use inputs and I use a controller to manage outputs and I change that capacity based on 51 00:02:56,680 --> 00:02:57,680 what I need. 52 00:02:57,680 --> 00:02:59,960 Like you're thinking about like a humidifier, right? 53 00:02:59,960 --> 00:03:04,840 Do I want to just like flood a humidifier pad with water or do I want to control how 54 00:03:04,840 --> 00:03:08,160 much moisture I'm actually needing to put into my space? 55 00:03:08,160 --> 00:03:13,160 Filtration, even there's so many things we can look at, dehumidification controls, are 56 00:03:13,160 --> 00:03:15,000 switches dead? 57 00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:17,000 Because I'm thinking maybe they should be. 58 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:20,680 Well, I think they should at least, there should be something behind it. 59 00:03:20,680 --> 00:03:22,720 There should be some intelligence behind the switch. 60 00:03:22,720 --> 00:03:28,040 I think we're beyond setting 50% RH and walking away. 61 00:03:28,040 --> 00:03:29,840 I think we know that that doesn't work. 62 00:03:29,840 --> 00:03:32,520 Maybe it works in the summer, maybe it doesn't work in the winter, right? 63 00:03:32,520 --> 00:03:34,000 There's some things that are seasonal. 64 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:38,720 There's some things that would work better if it had knowledge about the indoor air quality, 65 00:03:38,720 --> 00:03:40,580 the actual performance of the home. 66 00:03:40,580 --> 00:03:44,480 And then things like, is there even anybody in the home? 67 00:03:44,480 --> 00:03:48,140 And there's so many variables in a home, like is the shell of the home tight? 68 00:03:48,140 --> 00:03:50,360 Is it a tight building envelope? 69 00:03:50,360 --> 00:03:52,200 Is the duct work leaky? 70 00:03:52,200 --> 00:03:54,440 Is there a cooking event that we want to respond to? 71 00:03:54,440 --> 00:03:58,700 Is there a chemical event that we want to ventilate because of, or maybe the air quality 72 00:03:58,700 --> 00:03:59,740 outside is bad. 73 00:03:59,740 --> 00:04:00,740 Maybe there's a wildfire. 74 00:04:00,740 --> 00:04:02,600 We don't want to bring that air in, right? 75 00:04:02,600 --> 00:04:10,320 So if you were to give me a list of, Kevin, what would you want out of a smart IQ controller? 76 00:04:10,320 --> 00:04:14,260 I will give you back a fairly long list of things that I would want. 77 00:04:14,260 --> 00:04:17,520 And I'm not seeing that in what we have today. 78 00:04:17,520 --> 00:04:22,280 And I think that really sets back the industry because there are people who want to do this 79 00:04:22,280 --> 00:04:23,280 work. 80 00:04:23,280 --> 00:04:25,520 They want to put indoor air quality equipment in. 81 00:04:25,520 --> 00:04:29,720 And by the time they have two or three pieces of equipment to handle the different pillars 82 00:04:29,720 --> 00:04:32,600 of indoor air quality, things are not talking to each other. 83 00:04:32,600 --> 00:04:34,160 Things are not working very well. 84 00:04:34,160 --> 00:04:38,000 And then the opportunity for callbacks goes up significantly because the homeowner is 85 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:39,040 not comfortable. 86 00:04:39,040 --> 00:04:44,640 And typically these are discerning homeowners who want the best. 87 00:04:44,640 --> 00:04:46,000 Currently we want to bring that bar down. 88 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:48,480 We want everybody to have good indoor air quality. 89 00:04:48,480 --> 00:04:52,540 But currently the controls aren't delivering on the expectations of the homeowners. 90 00:04:52,540 --> 00:04:57,800 And so we're really, we're putting the people who are doing this work under a lot of liability 91 00:04:57,800 --> 00:05:03,120 that the solutions aren't going to do what they were intended to do because the controls, 92 00:05:03,120 --> 00:05:06,640 which frankly is unfair to the contractors who are putting that effort in. 93 00:05:06,640 --> 00:05:09,360 Well, let's think about those controls, right? 94 00:05:09,360 --> 00:05:15,440 So if we're thinking about the total comfort of a structure, we're not just talking about 95 00:05:15,440 --> 00:05:16,520 a thermostat, right? 96 00:05:16,520 --> 00:05:18,520 We're talking about ventilation controls. 97 00:05:18,520 --> 00:05:20,280 We're talking about humidity controls. 98 00:05:20,280 --> 00:05:22,520 We're talking about filtration. 99 00:05:22,520 --> 00:05:25,480 And we're talking from holistically. 100 00:05:25,480 --> 00:05:28,160 How do we manage this? 101 00:05:28,160 --> 00:05:34,000 And so that we're actually looking at it from an efficiency perspective as well, right? 102 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:38,840 When do I need to run these things and how much do I actually need to run them? 103 00:05:38,840 --> 00:05:39,840 Right. 104 00:05:39,840 --> 00:05:45,360 And what you just touched on were two different concepts that ended up in what we're calling 105 00:05:45,360 --> 00:05:48,080 the CARE framework. 106 00:05:48,080 --> 00:05:53,000 And so we're saying people don't care about residential controls. 107 00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:55,080 That's right now what we're going out and saying. 108 00:05:55,080 --> 00:05:57,240 We're making a big statement there. 109 00:05:57,240 --> 00:06:00,580 But CARE, it's really an acronym, C-A-R-E. 110 00:06:00,580 --> 00:06:05,320 And you just touched on two of them, which is that we think control should be comprehensive. 111 00:06:05,320 --> 00:06:07,080 What does comprehensive mean? 112 00:06:07,080 --> 00:06:09,280 It means the home is a system, right? 113 00:06:09,280 --> 00:06:11,360 I need five different controls on this wall. 114 00:06:11,360 --> 00:06:14,000 Somebody run some new control wire for me. 115 00:06:14,000 --> 00:06:21,200 Yeah, we need an IAQ controls that's not five different dumb controls, but that's one intelligent 116 00:06:21,200 --> 00:06:24,240 control that's taking in different inputs and outputs. 117 00:06:24,240 --> 00:06:30,240 It's more of a building automation system than a humidistat and a thermostat and a bunch 118 00:06:30,240 --> 00:06:31,860 of things that aren't talking to each other. 119 00:06:31,860 --> 00:06:35,980 So that's the first thing we mean is comprehensive. 120 00:06:35,980 --> 00:06:36,980 That's what we think. 121 00:06:36,980 --> 00:06:44,280 We think every system should be able to control filtration and ventilation and humidity and 122 00:06:44,280 --> 00:06:51,200 circulation and your sensible standard heating and cooling. 123 00:06:51,200 --> 00:06:53,360 That should all be controllable. 124 00:06:53,360 --> 00:06:58,900 And currently, good luck finding an IAQ controller that can do all of those things that have 125 00:06:58,900 --> 00:07:03,400 enough relays and that have the sort of software and intelligence to be able to operate all 126 00:07:03,400 --> 00:07:09,520 those pieces of equipment and then with algorithms that do it in a fairly smart way on top of 127 00:07:09,520 --> 00:07:11,800 that. 128 00:07:11,800 --> 00:07:17,500 So I wonder, are we starting to move into a point where we can start eliminating some 129 00:07:17,500 --> 00:07:25,360 of the physical controls and move into a IOT world where we can actually manage these things 130 00:07:25,360 --> 00:07:26,360 remotely? 131 00:07:26,360 --> 00:07:32,760 We still have to have controls like physical controls, but the actual analytics behind 132 00:07:32,760 --> 00:07:33,760 it. 133 00:07:33,760 --> 00:07:34,760 Yeah. 134 00:07:34,760 --> 00:07:41,120 And actually, that's the framework that we're coming to is that if you look at, I mean, 135 00:07:41,120 --> 00:07:49,800 Jim Bergman told me that the 24 volt wiring that the industry is doing is just not very 136 00:07:49,800 --> 00:07:50,800 sophisticated. 137 00:07:50,800 --> 00:07:55,280 I mean, we're not electricians and some of the wiring gets really complicated. 138 00:07:55,280 --> 00:07:59,680 And just in general, the training out there for technicians, it hasn't been amazing. 139 00:07:59,680 --> 00:08:03,540 And as we're bringing new people in the industry, there's already so much they have to learn. 140 00:08:03,540 --> 00:08:08,800 And so now you're asking people when they want to do fairly sophisticated things and 141 00:08:08,800 --> 00:08:12,280 the homeowners are saying, well, I want this and when this happens, I want this other thing 142 00:08:12,280 --> 00:08:17,040 to happen or I want to interlock so that when this turns on, this thing doesn't turn on 143 00:08:17,040 --> 00:08:18,040 at the same time. 144 00:08:18,040 --> 00:08:22,760 I mean, to go and wire, to go to figure out the wiring schematic for what you want to 145 00:08:22,760 --> 00:08:23,760 do. 146 00:08:23,760 --> 00:08:25,520 It's fairly complicated. 147 00:08:25,520 --> 00:08:28,240 And even some of it, I was an electrician. 148 00:08:28,240 --> 00:08:33,240 I look at some of the stuff Tim Di Stasio does in his own home and he's buying little 149 00:08:33,240 --> 00:08:39,460 transformers and little relays and little switches and contactors and solenoids. 150 00:08:39,460 --> 00:08:43,480 And I'm looking at some of the stuff he's doing and I'm getting overwhelmed trying to 151 00:08:43,480 --> 00:08:47,240 figure out and trying to trace the wiring and figure out what's going on. 152 00:08:47,240 --> 00:08:49,640 But it's pretty hard. 153 00:08:49,640 --> 00:08:52,680 It's one thing to talk about people who are in building science because they really care 154 00:08:52,680 --> 00:08:54,480 and they're taking the time to do it right. 155 00:08:54,480 --> 00:09:03,600 But if you're trying to say, hey, this has to scale to a 200 truck contractor and whoever, 156 00:09:03,600 --> 00:09:07,320 whatever technician just started on Monday is being given this job where they have to 157 00:09:07,320 --> 00:09:13,120 wire up all these things and it includes all these physical interlocks and all the sort 158 00:09:13,120 --> 00:09:16,080 of sophisticated things a homeowner could ask for. 159 00:09:16,080 --> 00:09:20,680 I don't think it's practical to do all the wiring. 160 00:09:20,680 --> 00:09:24,640 So I totally agree with you that it should be a lot of this can be done in software, 161 00:09:24,640 --> 00:09:25,640 a lot of the heavy lifting. 162 00:09:25,640 --> 00:09:30,240 Because at the end of the day, if you actually go to the piece of equipment, that piece of 163 00:09:30,240 --> 00:09:35,080 equipment has very minimal amount of outputs that I can give you. 164 00:09:35,080 --> 00:09:36,080 Right? 165 00:09:36,080 --> 00:09:39,480 Where there's still almost every IEQ piece of equipment is 24 volts. 166 00:09:39,480 --> 00:09:42,600 That means we're dealing with a limited number of terminals. 167 00:09:42,600 --> 00:09:49,000 And so everything else are just trying to make some sort of automation or logic work 168 00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:52,640 and trying to say, well, this piece of equipment can't be on when this piece of equipment is 169 00:09:52,640 --> 00:09:54,540 on stuff like that. 170 00:09:54,540 --> 00:09:57,680 And people are trying to do it through physical wires. 171 00:09:57,680 --> 00:10:01,140 And we believe that a lot of that can be done in software. 172 00:10:01,140 --> 00:10:06,200 And that's going to greatly simplify because you can reconfigure it in software remotely. 173 00:10:06,200 --> 00:10:08,140 You could be back at home. 174 00:10:08,140 --> 00:10:12,260 You could be back at the office after a day of hard work, setting these things up remotely 175 00:10:12,260 --> 00:10:14,280 or at least configuring it in the home. 176 00:10:14,280 --> 00:10:16,960 And then you can change it later over time. 177 00:10:16,960 --> 00:10:18,840 100% agree. 178 00:10:18,840 --> 00:10:26,560 You know, I keep saying that it's time for our industry as a whole to start requiring 179 00:10:26,560 --> 00:10:33,360 our manufacturers to come to a unified communicating platform because right now we all have our 180 00:10:33,360 --> 00:10:39,560 own proprietary thermostats, which really what it comes down to is our proprietary algorithms 181 00:10:39,560 --> 00:10:44,520 for our communicating or PWM communicating that we're doing on these five volt DC communicating 182 00:10:44,520 --> 00:10:45,520 networks. 183 00:10:45,520 --> 00:10:50,480 Did you know that there was actually a time where our industry tried doing this, but it 184 00:10:50,480 --> 00:10:55,280 didn't have enough push because at the time people didn't understand this. 185 00:10:55,280 --> 00:11:00,320 So in the 1990s, we had this thing called the Climate Talk Alliance. 186 00:11:00,320 --> 00:11:08,540 And it was actually, it was an industry group, very much like Better HVAC, that was saying, 187 00:11:08,540 --> 00:11:11,280 you know what, we're getting tired of all these switches. 188 00:11:11,280 --> 00:11:13,440 And we're getting tired of all these proprietary thermostats. 189 00:11:13,440 --> 00:11:15,600 Why don't you all start talking on the same language? 190 00:11:15,600 --> 00:11:21,040 And we had a bunch of manufacturers, including some of our home automation things like hot 191 00:11:21,040 --> 00:11:24,480 water heaters and boilers and appliances. 192 00:11:24,480 --> 00:11:28,280 So some of our different manufacturers like GE and Rheem and a variety of different ones 193 00:11:28,280 --> 00:11:30,320 all joined this alliance. 194 00:11:30,320 --> 00:11:34,860 And they all decided that they were going to talk in the same language so that our home 195 00:11:34,860 --> 00:11:39,800 automation engineers, our home automation technicians could do this. 196 00:11:39,800 --> 00:11:42,880 They could literally, now it wasn't talking, you know, remote connection at the time. 197 00:11:42,880 --> 00:11:44,200 It was a matter of, hey, I'm on site. 198 00:11:44,200 --> 00:11:49,720 Let me get my scanner or my tool, let's connect to the system and I can manage this system 199 00:11:49,720 --> 00:11:52,520 all from one device. 200 00:11:52,520 --> 00:11:54,320 And we're like, yeah, that's great. 201 00:11:54,320 --> 00:11:59,680 And here we are, you know, almost 30 years later and we're going, hey, anybody got that 202 00:11:59,680 --> 00:12:02,080 18.8 control wire? 203 00:12:02,080 --> 00:12:04,600 I got a whole bunch of relays I got to put together. 204 00:12:04,600 --> 00:12:10,700 Yeah, no, like OBD2 ports and automotive, you know, that's a miracle that, and I know 205 00:12:10,700 --> 00:12:16,280 you know more about the background of that, but I think also like one thing is that with 206 00:12:16,280 --> 00:12:20,520 heating and cooling systems, going to inverters and getting more complicated and having heat 207 00:12:20,520 --> 00:12:24,080 pumps, it makes sense to go to communicating because there's so much more we need the system 208 00:12:24,080 --> 00:12:25,080 to do. 209 00:12:25,080 --> 00:12:28,280 It's not just on or off anymore and it's not one or two stages. 210 00:12:28,280 --> 00:12:29,280 It's multi-stage. 211 00:12:29,280 --> 00:12:32,160 And so you want to do sophisticated things there. 212 00:12:32,160 --> 00:12:38,620 I think in indoor air quality, there could be a similar equivalent to communicating controls 213 00:12:38,620 --> 00:12:39,980 in indoor air quality. 214 00:12:39,980 --> 00:12:44,080 You know, I think you might want an ERV, for example, you might want independent control 215 00:12:44,080 --> 00:12:45,080 of the dampers. 216 00:12:45,080 --> 00:12:48,120 You might want to say that I want the ERV to be sometimes negative and then sometimes 217 00:12:48,120 --> 00:12:51,680 positively pressurized, maybe based on the weather. 218 00:12:51,680 --> 00:12:55,800 You may might want to be able to say that I want to change the CFM automatically. 219 00:12:55,800 --> 00:12:58,360 I want it to boost at certain times. 220 00:12:58,360 --> 00:13:00,620 Maybe humidifier has variable output. 221 00:13:00,620 --> 00:13:01,960 Maybe it's not just on or off, you know? 222 00:13:01,960 --> 00:13:07,400 And so I think there are interesting things we could do in a communicating world of IAQ, 223 00:13:07,400 --> 00:13:11,360 but I think that there's a lot of opportunities in what we have in 24 volts that currently 224 00:13:11,360 --> 00:13:15,160 isn't even being exploited for what we have, frankly. 225 00:13:15,160 --> 00:13:21,840 You know, most how many ERVs do you think leverage more than just a single speed? 226 00:13:21,840 --> 00:13:28,600 Like how how many ERVs do you think ever change speeds after the day it was commissioned? 227 00:13:28,600 --> 00:13:30,240 I would say very few. 228 00:13:30,240 --> 00:13:32,080 How many of them are capable of it? 229 00:13:32,080 --> 00:13:33,080 A lot. 230 00:13:33,080 --> 00:13:36,000 But how many are set up for that? 231 00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:37,800 Where really do I ever encounter it? 232 00:13:37,800 --> 00:13:38,800 Yeah. 233 00:13:38,800 --> 00:13:43,160 So, you know, I think I accuse an interesting world where we actually have more capabilities 234 00:13:43,160 --> 00:13:45,320 than we're leveraging. 235 00:13:45,320 --> 00:13:49,460 And so I'd say step one is let's leverage what we have intelligently. 236 00:13:49,460 --> 00:13:52,880 And there's so much we can do pulling out of band data like what's happening outdoors 237 00:13:52,880 --> 00:13:56,720 with the weather or it's happening indoors with a couple additional sensors that we can 238 00:13:56,720 --> 00:13:57,720 add. 239 00:13:57,720 --> 00:14:02,960 You know, there's so much we can do already that, yes, I do think things should go communicating 240 00:14:02,960 --> 00:14:07,800 in the future, but but you know, let's start with what we have and actually leverage that. 241 00:14:07,800 --> 00:14:09,280 Yeah, I like it. 242 00:14:09,280 --> 00:14:13,880 There are a lot of controls companies out there that I'm sure would be very interested 243 00:14:13,880 --> 00:14:16,080 in putting these controls together. 244 00:14:16,080 --> 00:14:23,840 You know, we've got friends over like ICM and we've got friends over at Jackson Systems 245 00:14:23,840 --> 00:14:30,160 that that's all they do is build, you know, controls who do whatever functions that we 246 00:14:30,160 --> 00:14:31,160 have. 247 00:14:31,160 --> 00:14:32,160 And you're right. 248 00:14:32,160 --> 00:14:34,760 We've seen it on the IQ side. 249 00:14:34,760 --> 00:14:36,840 So we covered comprehensive. 250 00:14:36,840 --> 00:14:38,440 What is the A? 251 00:14:38,440 --> 00:14:39,440 Adaptable. 252 00:14:39,440 --> 00:14:42,560 So we believe that controls need to adapt. 253 00:14:42,560 --> 00:14:43,560 And what does that mean? 254 00:14:43,560 --> 00:14:49,840 It means, you know, imagine selling your customers and on on an IQ package, which instead of 255 00:14:49,840 --> 00:14:53,480 improving their indoor air quality, it brought in pollution into the home. 256 00:14:53,480 --> 00:14:57,920 It brought in wildfire smoke, you know, because there's smoke outside because it wasn't set 257 00:14:57,920 --> 00:14:58,920 up. 258 00:14:58,920 --> 00:15:00,500 It didn't adapt to the outdoor conditions. 259 00:15:00,500 --> 00:15:07,400 You know, we talk about demand control, which, yeah, it's been sort of framed as saving energy, 260 00:15:07,400 --> 00:15:11,440 but also can be used to boost things, to have better indoor air quality outcomes. 261 00:15:11,440 --> 00:15:17,400 And so there is a triangle where people say you either get energy efficiency or you get 262 00:15:17,400 --> 00:15:18,440 indoor air quality. 263 00:15:18,440 --> 00:15:19,440 You can't have both. 264 00:15:19,440 --> 00:15:24,440 And we would say that, well, if the controls could adapt and if on demand they could adjust 265 00:15:24,440 --> 00:15:28,400 the settings, you actually sort of do get the best of both worlds. 266 00:15:28,400 --> 00:15:33,560 And that probably the net net is at least neutral, if not positive in that you're saving 267 00:15:33,560 --> 00:15:38,340 energy when you don't need things versus them being on constantly at a low speed. 268 00:15:38,340 --> 00:15:43,560 And then you're optimizing for indoor air quality quickly when you need them the most. 269 00:15:43,560 --> 00:15:47,920 Man, I think about states like Florida with blower door testing. 270 00:15:47,920 --> 00:15:53,100 And then if you get below a certain point, you have to add outside air. 271 00:15:53,100 --> 00:15:54,480 But then it stops right there. 272 00:15:54,480 --> 00:15:56,760 It says you need to add outside air. 273 00:15:56,760 --> 00:15:57,860 Okay. 274 00:15:57,860 --> 00:16:03,640 How much air and what quality of air am I even monitoring the quality of air? 275 00:16:03,640 --> 00:16:07,320 And if I was to monitor it, how can I treat that air? 276 00:16:07,320 --> 00:16:11,280 Because we set up all these controls to maintain our indoor air. 277 00:16:11,280 --> 00:16:14,220 And then all of a sudden we go, oh, and by the way, let's go ahead and open up a six 278 00:16:14,220 --> 00:16:18,240 inch motorized damper and let's draw in some outside air. 279 00:16:18,240 --> 00:16:19,600 And I don't even know what it looks like. 280 00:16:19,600 --> 00:16:21,600 And let's just put it back into our system. 281 00:16:21,600 --> 00:16:22,600 Yeah. 282 00:16:22,600 --> 00:16:29,820 Well, and I would ask a similar question to previous, which is out of how many installs 283 00:16:29,820 --> 00:16:36,480 that happen per year in different climate zones, in different homes, but different homeowners, 284 00:16:36,480 --> 00:16:42,800 how many of those are really being personalized, customized, and commissioned in all the different 285 00:16:42,800 --> 00:16:44,600 homes? 286 00:16:44,600 --> 00:16:48,480 Or is it just copy paste, copy paste, copy paste? 287 00:16:48,480 --> 00:16:52,000 Which is I would probably think that it's the latter. 288 00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:57,400 I would probably think, you know, and frankly, depending on your climate zone and what's 289 00:16:57,400 --> 00:17:01,840 happening outdoors, outside of your home, and then even what's happening inside of your 290 00:17:01,840 --> 00:17:03,400 home, how many pets do you have? 291 00:17:03,400 --> 00:17:05,540 How much do you like cooking in your kitchen? 292 00:17:05,540 --> 00:17:07,860 How much do you like cleaning in your home? 293 00:17:07,860 --> 00:17:13,560 All of these things, you know, how much do you like paintings or, or you, you just bought 294 00:17:13,560 --> 00:17:19,920 brand new hardwood floors or, you know, whatever it is, homes are dynamic and they're different. 295 00:17:19,920 --> 00:17:24,920 And depending on who lives in the home, if that home gets sold and new people move in, 296 00:17:24,920 --> 00:17:29,320 you're going to have a totally different indoor air quality demand. 297 00:17:29,320 --> 00:17:35,840 And so, you know, I would ask the question, are the controls being set up to adapt to 298 00:17:35,840 --> 00:17:38,640 that climate zone, to that home, and to the homeowners? 299 00:17:38,640 --> 00:17:40,960 And for the most part, I would say probably not. 300 00:17:40,960 --> 00:17:44,240 No, no, none that I've seen. 301 00:17:44,240 --> 00:17:45,240 What about R? 302 00:17:45,240 --> 00:17:52,240 Yeah, so R is, and those were the two kind of, I would say those are the two very functionally 303 00:17:52,240 --> 00:17:54,320 interesting ones out of this acronym. 304 00:17:54,320 --> 00:18:00,280 The next, the next two, I would shift the narrative a little bit to, we want to add 305 00:18:00,280 --> 00:18:05,880 more sophistication when we want to add more technology because there's benefits to doing 306 00:18:05,880 --> 00:18:08,280 that, but it also has to be reliable. 307 00:18:08,280 --> 00:18:12,040 These controls have to be reliable because we know that if they're not reliable and you 308 00:18:12,040 --> 00:18:14,440 get callbacks, you're just going to stop doing it. 309 00:18:14,440 --> 00:18:15,440 Right. 310 00:18:15,440 --> 00:18:21,560 And IAQ controls, as they get smarter, they have the opportunity to stop working properly. 311 00:18:21,560 --> 00:18:28,000 We've all seen this, especially, I think a lot of IAQ controls and sensors, IAQ sensors, 312 00:18:28,000 --> 00:18:29,720 require an internet connection. 313 00:18:29,720 --> 00:18:30,720 Right. 314 00:18:30,720 --> 00:18:32,680 And there's one potential issue. 315 00:18:32,680 --> 00:18:36,680 If we talk about reliability, what if your system just stops working because you lost 316 00:18:36,680 --> 00:18:37,680 the internet? 317 00:18:37,680 --> 00:18:39,000 Yeah, absolutely. 318 00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:42,880 Or what about all the homes that don't have internet? 319 00:18:42,880 --> 00:18:44,320 Maybe it's residential new construction. 320 00:18:44,320 --> 00:18:47,960 They don't have the internet when that home is completed, or maybe your power gets knocked 321 00:18:47,960 --> 00:18:51,880 out or maybe the homeowner just doesn't want these devices on their network. 322 00:18:51,880 --> 00:18:58,720 And so how can we still create a reliable, consistent experience, even in this context, 323 00:18:58,720 --> 00:19:02,640 where the internet is a factor that we can't depend on? 324 00:19:02,640 --> 00:19:07,160 So that's a question because I really do see that IAQ controls are going to hit the market 325 00:19:07,160 --> 00:19:11,360 at some point and they're probably going to be dependent on an internet connection. 326 00:19:11,360 --> 00:19:17,320 And so one of the frameworks we have is as we move into an IAQ future with better controls, 327 00:19:17,320 --> 00:19:19,000 how do we make sure these controls are reliable? 328 00:19:19,000 --> 00:19:21,360 That's something we hear over and over again. 329 00:19:21,360 --> 00:19:23,600 Yeah, absolutely. 330 00:19:23,600 --> 00:19:28,360 And when we think about the equipment itself, we really are going to have to be aware of 331 00:19:28,360 --> 00:19:31,120 that E perspective of that. 332 00:19:31,120 --> 00:19:32,120 Efficiency. 333 00:19:32,120 --> 00:19:33,120 Yes. 334 00:19:33,120 --> 00:19:34,120 Yes. 335 00:19:34,120 --> 00:19:36,560 That is something that we also really care about. 336 00:19:36,560 --> 00:19:43,360 We think that controls obviously are critical to how long that thing is going to be running, 337 00:19:43,360 --> 00:19:45,080 how much energy it's going to be consuming. 338 00:19:45,080 --> 00:19:48,880 Oh, we got another friend on the podcast. 339 00:19:48,880 --> 00:19:53,120 There might be some pet dander in the air that needs to be filtered. 340 00:19:53,120 --> 00:20:00,040 With a premium on the cost of energy and an ever increasing focus on minimizing the time 341 00:20:00,040 --> 00:20:07,240 on service calls, IAQ control should be not only efficient, IAQ control should be efficient 342 00:20:07,240 --> 00:20:11,640 in how they operate, but they also need to be efficient in terms of how we install them. 343 00:20:11,640 --> 00:20:14,480 And so there's a bit of a dual meaning to efficiency here. 344 00:20:14,480 --> 00:20:19,780 We believe that these IAQ controls, as they get more complicated and more sophisticated, 345 00:20:19,780 --> 00:20:25,240 we need some mechanism to make sure that they get set up properly and quickly. 346 00:20:25,240 --> 00:20:30,200 We don't think that if, okay, Clifton, we're going to give you really complicated, really 347 00:20:30,200 --> 00:20:35,760 sophisticated controls, and now it's going to be a full day of commissioning and a huge, 348 00:20:35,760 --> 00:20:37,680 huge bill to get it set up. 349 00:20:37,680 --> 00:20:41,300 We need some really advanced technician who's been through multiple training sessions to 350 00:20:41,300 --> 00:20:42,400 do this. 351 00:20:42,400 --> 00:20:44,120 And maybe they get it wrong. 352 00:20:44,120 --> 00:20:45,360 That kind of speaks to reliability. 353 00:20:45,360 --> 00:20:47,700 But we think it needs to be efficient. 354 00:20:47,700 --> 00:20:52,880 And one of the ways that we propose to do that is through templates. 355 00:20:52,880 --> 00:20:58,560 We think that there could be a templated approach where you say, this is what I'm trying to 356 00:20:58,560 --> 00:20:59,560 achieve. 357 00:20:59,560 --> 00:21:04,260 I'm trying to achieve these, you know, installing a humidifier and a dehumidifier and some filtration 358 00:21:04,260 --> 00:21:07,640 and some ventilation based on these parameters. 359 00:21:07,640 --> 00:21:11,380 There should be a template that kind of pops out and gives you the wiring diagram and gives 360 00:21:11,380 --> 00:21:13,400 you the automation defaults. 361 00:21:13,400 --> 00:21:14,680 That makes sense. 362 00:21:14,680 --> 00:21:18,120 And then if you want to edit them, that's cool. 363 00:21:18,120 --> 00:21:21,880 If you just want to click next, next, next, complete, and you want to get to the end and 364 00:21:21,880 --> 00:21:26,440 have them set up in a smart way, then it should be able to do that. 365 00:21:26,440 --> 00:21:30,240 It should be efficient and it should work even if you're not a total expert spending 366 00:21:30,240 --> 00:21:33,360 your whole day staring at a screen and becoming an expert. 367 00:21:33,360 --> 00:21:34,360 Yeah. 368 00:21:34,360 --> 00:21:36,380 I'm in zone blah. 369 00:21:36,380 --> 00:21:41,280 And here are all my presets that should be relatively optimized for this zone. 370 00:21:41,280 --> 00:21:47,840 Of course, I can customize them if I need to, but pre-packaged set of operational conditions. 371 00:21:47,840 --> 00:21:48,840 Yeah. 372 00:21:48,840 --> 00:21:49,840 And that's a big concern. 373 00:21:49,840 --> 00:21:55,600 We have a big concern that we get to this future of more sophisticated IQ controls. 374 00:21:55,600 --> 00:22:00,920 And it's just, look at the current thermostats that have IQ capabilities. 375 00:22:00,920 --> 00:22:03,240 They're buried deep in the advanced settings. 376 00:22:03,240 --> 00:22:07,160 If you want energy efficiency and you want demand control and you want humidity set points 377 00:22:07,160 --> 00:22:10,840 that dynamically change throughout the year based on the outdoor temperature to prevent 378 00:22:10,840 --> 00:22:16,040 condensation on windows, all these are very advanced settings in most thermostats. 379 00:22:16,040 --> 00:22:20,580 You have to go hunt for these settings to activate them and configure them. 380 00:22:20,580 --> 00:22:27,320 And so you basically need a full education on that piece of control equipment that you're 381 00:22:27,320 --> 00:22:28,320 setting up. 382 00:22:28,320 --> 00:22:30,920 And we believe that that actually needs to change. 383 00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:34,480 We think that you should provide a couple of simple inputs of what you're trying to 384 00:22:34,480 --> 00:22:35,480 achieve. 385 00:22:35,480 --> 00:22:37,280 Maybe you're trying to achieve energy efficiency. 386 00:22:37,280 --> 00:22:41,220 Maybe you're trying to optimize for indoor air quality because you have a homeowner who's 387 00:22:41,220 --> 00:22:44,420 sensitive to certain indoor air quality parameters. 388 00:22:44,420 --> 00:22:51,580 We believe that the system should provide some templated or default presets that deliver 389 00:22:51,580 --> 00:22:56,560 on the promise without making the burden land on the technician. 390 00:22:56,560 --> 00:22:58,860 I love it. 391 00:22:58,860 --> 00:23:01,360 So when are you applying for the patent for this? 392 00:23:01,360 --> 00:23:07,800 Well, you know, with many industry changes that need to happen, we don't think that any 393 00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:09,820 of those ideas should be patented. 394 00:23:09,820 --> 00:23:15,600 We believe that I truly would love to see everyone in the industry move towards this 395 00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:17,360 framework, this care framework. 396 00:23:17,360 --> 00:23:23,240 We think that IAQ controls need to get out of the 80s or wherever they came from and 397 00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:27,560 move towards this future because it's going to be better for human health. 398 00:23:27,560 --> 00:23:31,680 It's going to be better for energy efficiency and it's going to make it much more likely 399 00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:39,460 that contractors offer IAQ and that homeowners are satisfied by the IAQ that they purchased. 400 00:23:39,460 --> 00:23:42,760 And so it's a win-win for the market and for the customers. 401 00:23:42,760 --> 00:23:44,680 Sounds like we're providing better HVAC. 402 00:23:44,680 --> 00:23:46,720 Yes, that's the goal. 403 00:23:46,720 --> 00:23:48,920 That is the goal. 404 00:23:48,920 --> 00:23:49,920 That is the goal. 405 00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:50,920 Yeah. 406 00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:56,080 And so, you know, we have a roadmap at Haven to deliver on this care framework. 407 00:23:56,080 --> 00:23:59,060 And to be frank, we're not fully there in all areas. 408 00:23:59,060 --> 00:24:03,020 And I think there's others who probably have aspects of this on the roadmap. 409 00:24:03,020 --> 00:24:08,220 But if you're in the controls world and you're listening to this and you do residential IAQ 410 00:24:08,220 --> 00:24:14,160 controls, we would invite you to think about this framework and think about this roadmap 411 00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:18,160 and how we're going to move the industry to a better place. 412 00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:19,160 Excellent. 413 00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:23,600 And if someone is interested in contacting you to have further conversations about this, 414 00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:25,600 what's the best route? 415 00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:29,200 They can go to haveniaq.com. 416 00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:34,660 We've got an email contact form there or they can go info at haveniaq.com. 417 00:24:34,660 --> 00:24:38,700 There's different mechanisms from our website to contact us. 418 00:24:38,700 --> 00:24:42,880 And if they just want to create an account and try out Haven, it's pro.haveniaq.com. 419 00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:43,880 Excellent. 420 00:24:43,880 --> 00:24:51,040 I think about all of our like brilliant technicians out here that have a passion for IT as well. 421 00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:53,640 And they're sitting here going, you know what? 422 00:24:53,640 --> 00:25:03,600 I think I could actually be the right person for organizing, you know, this layout of data. 423 00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:07,080 I could create some code for this. 424 00:25:07,080 --> 00:25:10,520 And then you got me out here going, I just want to connect the stuff and I want someone 425 00:25:10,520 --> 00:25:15,000 to come up with the quick button for doing this. 426 00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:16,000 That is the tension, right? 427 00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:19,280 Because we have people who are like, oh, that should be open source and I should be able 428 00:25:19,280 --> 00:25:24,040 to create, you know, Python scripts or SQL or, you know, whatever it is. 429 00:25:24,040 --> 00:25:27,920 And then you have other people who are like, you know, how do I get in and out of this 430 00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:32,500 home as quick as possible so I can get back to my family and, you know, whatever. 431 00:25:32,500 --> 00:25:36,720 So it's quite the tension to try to figure out, you know, what, those are two different 432 00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:39,440 user experiences, right? 433 00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:41,960 One is we're open. 434 00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:46,280 You write your interface, you write your scripts, you write your algorithms and it'll work with 435 00:25:46,280 --> 00:25:47,280 our hardware. 436 00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:48,280 That's the open source model. 437 00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:51,960 And then you've got this very closed source model and you get the whole Apple experience. 438 00:25:51,960 --> 00:25:57,360 And I don't really believe that either of those, if you focus solely on them, are a 439 00:25:57,360 --> 00:25:59,560 great solution for the whole industry. 440 00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:03,400 You know, I think either there needs to be two companies who do a really good job of 441 00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:07,440 either or you need to find a balance between those two. 442 00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:10,680 And currently we're trying to find where that balance point is, pun intended. 443 00:26:10,680 --> 00:26:11,680 No, absolutely. 444 00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:13,860 And we're looking for your input. 445 00:26:13,860 --> 00:26:17,620 This is one of these topics that is going to evolve in our industry. 446 00:26:17,620 --> 00:26:22,960 We are going to start putting pressure on our manufacturers to work with a unified communicating 447 00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:23,960 platform. 448 00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:29,200 And so it opens up a lot of opportunities for us as an industry to go, you know what? 449 00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:31,860 We have some updating to do. 450 00:26:31,860 --> 00:26:39,180 We have the ability to take existing control networks that we have and build ways for those 451 00:26:39,180 --> 00:26:40,780 to communicate. 452 00:26:40,780 --> 00:26:46,240 We have the ability to take our current resources and be better at what we're doing. 453 00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:54,760 So we have a lack of quality controls in our residential IAQ industry that needs to change. 454 00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:57,100 We're encouraging you to participate. 455 00:26:57,100 --> 00:27:00,740 We're encouraging you to go, oh yeah, I guess we don't. 456 00:27:00,740 --> 00:27:06,160 Let's join forces and see if we can't come up with something better or encourage some 457 00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:09,080 of our manufacturers to do that as well. 458 00:27:09,080 --> 00:27:10,080 Love it. 459 00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:11,080 Yeah. 460 00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:12,720 Thank you, Kevin Hart. 461 00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:14,340 Thank you so much for joining us. 462 00:27:14,340 --> 00:27:18,380 We appreciate you hanging out with us and I look forward to our next conversation. 463 00:27:18,380 --> 00:27:19,380 Thank you, Clifton. 464 00:27:19,380 --> 00:27:30,200 Have a good one.