This episode brought to you by Carrier, for the
world we share. Well, hello, everyone. Thank
you for joining. Did you know the ESCO HVAC podcast?
So we're actually hanging out at the Carrier
facility in Indianapolis, Indiana today, and
we're joined by... Jeffrey Howard, the technical
training center manager at our training center
at the gas furnace factory in Indianapolis. Yeah,
it was really cool. We spent the day here. We
were invited to do a behind -the -scenes video.
So we're going to have some behind -the -scenes
factory video of the gas furnace. Largest gas
furnace manufacturing facility. It just, it's
kind of a crazy place, you know, half a million
square foot of, you know, manufacturing. But
the coolest part about it is the technical training
facility that you all have developed in the last
couple of years. You have 4 ,000 square foot
of dedicated hands -on training. Plus you've
also got a huge classroom upstairs. So tell me
a little bit about how training has evolved like
in the last couple of years. Yeah, so since we
started training in August of 2023, which is
when we first opened up the training center,
it's slowly progressed. But obviously, over time,
we're getting more and more people. But yeah,
4 ,000 square feet of training space downstairs
divided among six labs. So you have your three
ducted residential labs, and we have our ductless
and our VRF, as well as our crossover. taking
off pretty well. Yeah. That crossover was a pretty
significant lab. There's a lot of equipment in
there. And it's when we say crossover for those
that don't know what we're talking about, that's
our horizontal discharge units. They're really
becoming prominent in our industry. They're one
of my favorites. They're just, they're a convenient
piece of equipment. They can fit through gates,
you know, when you're working in, in congested
areas. And so it, but it's a different technology.
Like when we get into like inverter technology
and we were even looking at the cold climate
heat pump that you have in the residential ducted
training section, you know, that's using things
like vapor injection technology, but it's also
using a variable frequency drive instead of that
traditional inverter control board. So there's
a lot of technologies and I think it's important
for our contractors to stay up to date with the
training and Carrier is committed to that. This
is a phenomenal investment and it's a huge, huge
facility. And so when we talk about the different
classes, what type of classes are you offering
to the contractors here at Indianapolis? So it's
a great question. The different levels of training
that we offer for our distributors, our dealers,
even our internal people within our organization
is our foundational levels is what we start with.
And you've got to build those blocks up sturdy
from the ground. Start from ground zero. Even
if you think you know, let's relook at things.
Absolutely. There's things that change. There's
things that evolve. And if we're not growing,
we're dying, right? We want to continue to evolve
and get better and listen to our dealers and
our distributors out there to try to help out
the field. From there, from our foundations,
we actually go into our advanced, where we dive
into our different components, properly diagnose
it right the first time, all the way up to our
symposium series where we dive into psychrometrics,
we dive into air properties. We really get advanced.
How much time are we talking about? Say if we
came in for a fundamental class, how much time
are we going to be invested into that? So our
classes range anywhere between two to four days.
So it depends on the actual training course that
we're coming for. Right. But what we try to do
is get as much hands -on as possible. We know
as technicians, we know as people in our industry,
the best thing or the best way to learn is...
To put your hands on it. Yeah, exactly. Let me
get my fingers in this thing and see if I can
tear it apart and put it back together and make
this thing actually operate again. Yes. So in
those fundamentals, are you spending more time
in the classroom or more time on the hands -on
side of things? Well, we'll go through each individual
section. And we understand with adult learning
and technicians and stuff, right, you're not
going to sit all day. So it's not, hey, there's
no slide deck, keep going all day and you're
not getting up and moving. So we spend about
60 % of our time. In the actual classroom space
and the other 40 % in the labs, hands -on. Like
implementing what you learned in a classroom.
Yes, exactly. Excellent. And so as we move from
those foundational classes and we move into that
next tier, what type of time are we going to
be investing into those? As in days? Yeah. So
we will typically break it down into two days
for our indoor units, gas furnaces, air handlers,
things like that, and two days for our AC heat
pump. Oh, okay. Um, we completely flipped the
script though, from our foundations of 60 % in
the classroom, 40 % hands -on and it's more like
30 % in the classroom, 70 % hands -on. So we
really want to get down in the labs. We want
to take the equipment apart. We want to know
how to diagnose it. So here's how you do it.
Go do it. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So you're doing
the actual field side of things, right? I need
to learn it. Now I've got to go do that. And
then we finally, when then we end up progressing
and we get. deep into the weeds, into our third
classrooms. Yep, absolutely. So when we look
at the classroom opportunities, is that primarily
for our dealers, our carrier dealers? We get
a lot of dealers, but we also get a lot of our
distributors that come in to do a lot of the
training. So we want to have that message consistent
on how to do things because, as we know, Over
the next handful of years, we're going to experience
less and less technicians potentially. So how
can we overcome that? Well, let's not waste time
doing things we shouldn't be doing. So try to
get that message, that consistency across the
board. Yep. And our distributors go back and
train their dealers too if dealers can't make
it in. Yeah. One of the things I was going to
ask next is, you know, with dealers, are we starting
to see more dealer training because of the new
technologies and the new refrigerants? I would
say, yeah. I mean, from being in the field myself,
One of the things I always try to do is learn,
right? Yeah. I want to take that personally.
I want to get to the next level. And there's
a lot of technicians, especially that are entering
the industry that want that as well. Oh yeah,
absolutely. They do. They don't know where to
get it. So we offer it not only in person, but
also online and anybody can actually go in and.
And sign up for that to get some free online
training. Oh, so if they're not a carrier dealer
or distributor, they can still get some training
from carrier? Yeah, absolutely. Tell me a little
bit more about that because that's really what
we're looking for. We're looking to a broad audience.
And I'm sure some of you that are listening right
now are carrier dealers, carrier distributors.
But if you're not, there's still training resources
available to you. Yeah, absolutely. So it's through
My Learning Center. It's mlctraining .com. So
you can get on there, create an account, and
then there's some material that's paid and unpaid.
So there are some free courses that you can run
through, such as our A2L, our 454B, and get up
to date, get up to speed on some of that if you
haven't. I hope a lot of people have by now,
but you know. Well, it brings a good point. You
know, walking through the facility, I'm seeing
a lot of A2L equipment in the training lab. So
were there preparations getting ready for that
A2L transition happening in the technical training
department? Yeah, absolutely. So a big reason
of actually creating the training center itself
was, hey, let's get ready for these transitions.
Let's get ready for these changes. And we know
we all don't like changes in our industry. We
typically don't like much change. Yeah, exactly.
So let's go ahead and get it ready. Let's get
it prepared. Let's show that we're committed
to actually helping out the technicians and helping
out our industry as much as we can. Cool. And
so have you seen a growth in the attendance in
the classrooms? Yeah, we've. Since our first
class in August of 2023 to today, we've had over
25 ,000 in -person training hours. Really? So
a lot of that's been 2024 and 2025. Yeah, no
kidding. Okay, so you guys got a lot going on.
And just looking at the classroom itself, I mean,
that's a massive classroom. I was trying to count
the seats, and I got up into the 70s. I'm like,
okay, this is a big room. And typically what
we're doing now is when we first started, it
was, hey, let's just have one big class. Well,
now what we're doing is we have so many people
coming in. that we're dividing the classroom
into two so we can simultaneously run two classes.
Yeah, absolutely. And we have a lot of schools
that are now looking to the manufacturers going,
hey, we've got some equipment in here, and it's
time that we start looking at what is the future.
And so do you see any schools or educators reaching
out looking for training resources? Yeah, such
as SkillsUSA. I mean, we're heavily involved
with that. I know our engineering department
is. We help out with as much as we can with that
and packages to give away to the technicians
that are advancing from state to higher up. But
even local schools, local vocational schools
come in and we actually will give them a tour
and kind of show them the training center. Show
them what's happening in the world. Yeah, absolutely.
That's awesome because it's really important
for us to stay up to date. I know we've been
in the field, right? We come out of the field
and we start teaching. We share that knowledge
that we learned. but we're sharing knowledge
that we learned on existing equipment. And so
we all have that responsibility of understanding
what's changing and getting the information so
that we can deliver that. We've even had schools
coming to us here recently looking for, hey,
what type of products do I need to be putting
in the classroom? And we're like, you need to
be doing A2L products, right? It's good to have
a mix of them. of, you know, our legacy R410A
stuff, but we really need to be looking at our
R454Bs and understanding, you know, what's happening
in the A2L world. And so our classes are adapting,
like they're evolving, and there's a lot of new
technology. What do you see as being the biggest
changes in training, or at least the equipment
that we're training on in the last couple years?
The biggest change that I see, especially going
from 410 to 454B, is... Very similar in pressures
and stuff. The biggest change is how do I wire
it up? Right. And once you learn how to wire
those few additional wires up, the first time
you do it, yeah, it may take a few minutes. The
next time, it's like second nature. So as long
as you continue doing that, you continue that
repetition, what we hear from our technicians
that come through is, oh, yeah, that's any other
day. Right. Once I get in here and see what it's
actually doing and, you know, and. Understand
what this dissipation thing is and understand
what this refrigerant detection sensor is actually
doing and understand it's just another component.
It's just an extra security function that we're
putting on top of them. Yep, absolutely. I did
see a really cool ductless lab there. And in
that ductless lab, we're starting to see. More
products that are more hybrid, I would call them.
A single outdoor unit that can now function on
your existing ductwork, but you can add additional
heads to that. Have you seen contractors looking
for much training on that technology? Yeah, so
our crossover where it's just, hey, I'm going
to use my ducted system that I have, either a
gas furnace or an air handler. You're going to
have that side discharge, as you called it there.
We call it our crossover system. That's really
just one outdoor unit, one indoor unit. But with
our ductless or our single phase mini DRF is
what we call it. Yeah, you can have that ducted
air handler, vertical air handler with multiple
indoor heads. Yeah, it's really it's bringing
that whole VRV, VRF world into the residential
application. And it's a pretty significant product
when we look at the solutions that it can provide.
So many contractors are needing to learn that
because it's something that they've never even
been exposed to in the past unless they were
in the commercial environment. Yeah, exactly.
And it's not just. New homes? A lot of people
think, oh, it's just going to go in new homes.
No, there's applications where it could be used
in retrofitting or in existing homes as well.
Sure. You know, two of the other labs that you
had are focused on that VRV, VRF side, and you're
actually working on two -pipe systems and three
-pipe systems. Can you walk us through a little
bit about the differences between two -pipe and
three -pipe systems? Yeah, one with three -pipe,
you're going to have your hot gas bypass. It
comes back to your system for a little bit better
performance, lower temperatures, things like
that. Other than that, there's differences between
each of the branding that we have of those. But
in both labs, we have both heat recovery, heat
pump. We go through how do you start them up?
How do you make sure that everything's set correctly?
How do you get it through your software that
you're using? How can you validate it once you're
done? How do I know that I did it right? So we
really dive into the foundations of our VRF right
now. So as an educator who was a technician before,
you understand the classroom. If you're speaking
to an educator that's listening to us right now,
what recommendations do you have for them that
they could do to prepare their classroom for
all these new technologies that we're seeing?
It's a very, very good question. What we would
say and what we've noticed is that you've got
to keep up to date on what the changes are. It's
still okay to have some of the older stuff as
well, but how often are we really going to start
seeing that stuff out there? Yeah, especially
for installation. Think about a lot of our students.
A lot of our students are going to be going out
into the field. They're probably going to be
continuing with some type of an apprenticeship,
whether it's through just their contractor or
they're going to be joining organizations like
the United Association. They're going to continue
their education and that learning experience.
But a lot of times they're going to be doing
installations. Whether you're going into residential
or whether you're going into commercial, you're
probably going to start. You're the youngest
of the blood. You're going to be hauling some
heavy stuff around. It just seems to be the thing,
right? That's how we all grew up in the industry.
It's part of it. And so our students are going
to be. technicians that are going to be introduced
to this new technology before even some of our
service technicians are. And that's where I feel
it's so important to understand these new refrigerants
and installations. And that's another thing that
has changed with A2L refrigerants is the installation
parameters sometimes have to be looked at, right?
When I'm installing an A2L system, do I have
enough space in this area? Do I have enough ventilation?
So there's additional requirements that you go
into. So when we're looking at I'm sure you've
probably had to change your curriculum in the
last couple of years with a new facility as well.
Yeah, we've not as much changed. We've just added
two. Oh, okay. Built upon it. Yeah, we want to
build upon it. Hey, what did change in this area
or that area? And what do I have to do differently
now? And then we try to break it down to where
it's easy to understand. Obviously, we can all
look through different service manuals, installation
manuals, and sometimes you're all over the place.
But we try to break it down where it's, all right,
let's do this together. We're going to get through
it together, not leaving anybody behind, and
we'll make sure you understand before you leave.
Yeah, very, very cool. So with technicians that
are listening to us right now going, hey, we're
a carrier dealer, and we've got new products
coming in, and I haven't been able to convince
my boss that I need to go to training. Is there
anything that I can tell them to encourage them
to get me into classes here at Carrier? If you
are a dealer and looking to come to training,
we always say go through your distributor. Your
distributor has all the information, the accessibility
to get into it, to help you out, to make sure
that they can get you from point A to point B,
and they will assist in all of that. If not,
again, you can reach out to us at mlctraining
.com as well. Very cool. All right. We appreciate
that so much. My pleasure. Thank you.