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Welcome to the future, technologies and innovations that sculpt our industry.

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This episode brought to you by ServiceLogic, building efficiency and sustainability.

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Learn more at ServiceLogic.com.

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Greg, what's going on?

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Man, I'm just sitting here.

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I've got this truck full of cool stuff and I'm trying to decide which one of these nice

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digital multimeters I want to take up on the roof with me this morning.

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Man, I'm all about new tools and technologies.

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I'm always buying anything that I can get.

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Our industry has really changed with the tools that are available to us.

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Let's talk about tools for a minute because I've got tools that I like and I've got tools

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that have been around for a long time, but some of those tools aren't as useful as they

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used to because there's new tools.

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Let's talk a little bit about what did tools look like when you first got into the industry?

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Back then when I was knocking the dinosaurs off of my roof.

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Throwing rocks.

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I used a very reliable tester called the Simpson 260 Multimeter.

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It was an analog meter that had a needle that bounced across the screen and I could tell

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how many volts I was looking at operating with.

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Non-RMS?

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None.

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Now when I go into my garage and I open my toolbox, I see a plethora of so many cool

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tools that make our tools of old look antiquated.

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That's okay because it's evolution of our industry.

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As we change and as our equipment that we support change and as our customers change,

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they want, need and demand better, more accurate information.

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The only way you can do that is to stay current with your tool bag.

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Absolutely.

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At one point in my career, I was at the Indiana Masonic Home.

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I had taken a break from the family business to go do some commercial HVAC and refrigeration.

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In that department, it was a combination of maintenance and grounds people.

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All in the same building, all in the same department.

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One of the old guys that was in the grounds department, we were hanging out and we were

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talking about tools of the trade.

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At that time, I was rebuilding.

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I had a 66 Chevy truck and I was building a 400-small-block Chevy for it.

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I was talking about honing out the cylinders and he said, you know, there was a time that

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I used to hone out blocks on Model Ts.

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I'm like, tell me about the tools that you used.

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He said it had a wooden block that had a cast iron head to it and a mallet.

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You believe that.

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That was how they honed the cylinders in his early days.

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I remember this is 20 plus years ago and Dale was probably 80 at the time.

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Retired for decades.

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He was just a volunteer.

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He lived at the Masonic Home.

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He volunteered his time building engines for the tractors and such.

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Early on in his career, he used a mallet and an iron tipped wooden tool to hone cylinders

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of engines.

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Now, think about how tools have changed efficiency over the years.

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I know in my own side of things, tools have changed the way my efficiency is as a technician

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and now as a teacher and giving back into the industry.

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I've still got a dial-a-charge with R12 in it down here in my garage.

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Do I use that for charging a system?

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No.

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Can I use it to teach basic principles and fundamentals?

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Absolutely.

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But the tools have really changed, especially in this last couple decades.

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Well, I think that we have to change.

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Yes.

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And we have to change because if you're working on a Dykan VRV or VRF refrigerant system,

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you can't use a dial-a-charge because it's not accurate enough.

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So you have to go to digital instrumentation, whether you're weighing it in, weighing it

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out, or if you're checking pressures and temperatures, you have the ability now to do all this in

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an IoT environment with wireless sensors.

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And you're able to do it in real time and adjust charges, adjust airflow, and you see

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immediate response.

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And you may remember the days of making adjustment on a thermostatic expansion valve and you

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have to wait 15 minutes to...

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Quarter of it a turn, wait 15.

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And that is part of the evolution of the equipment and specifically the evolution of the tools.

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So think back, and you and I have talked before about the communication, how important communication

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is.

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Think about the communication tools that we're able to use now.

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We went from...

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And I'm not that old.

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I'm fairly ancient, but not that ancient.

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My first communication tool as a young technician was a digital beeper that beeped only.

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There was no LED readout, no number, no anything.

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Just one beep, call the office.

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Two beeps, call home.

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All right.

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So if you go from that, from 1982, when I started in the industry, to today, 2023, we

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have every app imaginable to communicate with.

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We can pull up WhatsApp and talk to somebody in Korea about this air conditioner we're

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working on for free, by the way, in real time.

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So I think our means of communication have to keep track with our tools in the van that

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we take onto the job site, but it's all to deliver a great customer experience because

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we're looking for better, quicker now responses so that when we're able to walk into...

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At the end of every job, the best thing to do is walk into your customer's presence,

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whether that be their home, their office, their store, and be able to communicate what

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you found and what the solution is.

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Your tools, and as they have progressed and advanced, allow us to be better at that communication

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side.

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What about from the business aspect?

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You have went all the way from a technician to owner operation.

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How has the tools of our industry also affected the efficiency in business?

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I think, Clifton, great, great point.

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We use tools now.

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Like XOI is a great tool.

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I know XOI very well.

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So Aaron Salo, the gentleman who developed the tool, allows us to give better, accurate,

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more quickly information available in video content through a web link, however you want

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it.

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What that does is enables us to operate more efficiently so that we're able to make the

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most out of our limited number of technicians' time.

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So if we can save a truck roll because we're able to document better, if we can save nameplate

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recognition software, save a trip of having to go back and reread a nameplate because

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somebody transcribed it improperly, all of these tools make us more efficient.

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So instead of having 10 technicians, which we wish we did, maybe we have eight.

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How can we make the eight perform like 10 by utilizing technology?

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I preach this all the time.

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We keep talking about the labor shortage and how do we promote more people into the trades.

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Yes, that is a fantastic topic.

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But at the same time, I look at it another way and go, what if we can't?

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What if we do not become that attractive to the additional amount of technicians?

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Because it's not just that we have a shortage, it's that we have all of these changes in

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technology and regulations and refrigerants, so we have a lot of things going on in our

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industry.

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What if we just made our technicians more efficient?

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Exactly right.

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What if we can get an extra call a day or two extra calls a day because as the business

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owner, we've utilized tools in connection and in conjunction with our technicians to

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be able to expedite everyone's time more efficiently?

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Well I think one feeds the other.

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So if you're a company and you utilize technology and you utilize tools well and you're not

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scared of technology, you embrace it, you're going to attract, we talked about generations

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of folks before, we're going to be able to attract more talent because they want to go

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to companies who are not stuck in the middle ages and their knuckles are all dragged up

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from, or scabbed up from dragging on the asphalt.

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People are going to want to go there and you're going to be the employer of choice because

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you do embrace technology and as your tools evolve, I think your technician pool evolves

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with you and you attract the people you want to be there.

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The law of attraction is you build something nice and you build something useful and you

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build something that people want to be a part of, they're going to come to you.

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That's our human nature.

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It is.

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I completely believe that.

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When I spent my last years out in the field, I was a mobile engineer so I did building

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automations but I still worked on the refrigeration, I worked on the air conditioner, worked on

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electrical of grocery stores but I monitored hundreds of stores when I was on call, hundreds

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of stores from my couch.

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Every store would have roughly 2000 digital inputs and outputs that I can look at and

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I can monitor all of those and if I had something that was causing an error, I could look at

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that and I could evaluate it, I could look at trends in history and have a general idea

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what I needed.

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If I had a sensor that was bad, I could literally just borrow the output from another piece

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of equipment and use it as an input to get it by for a moment.

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Save that call on heading out to that job and when I do send the technician out to that

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job, they're taking the part with them that's already been identified as being a failing

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component.

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How does that affect a business?

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It multiplies your workforce.

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Well, it also allows, I totally agree with that.

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It also allows your customer to realize you're taking care of them and not abusing them.

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Because if you knew that and you sent a guy anyway, then you're billing them for an unnecessary

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trip.

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That's right.

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And if you're in partnership, the true definition of a partnership is you take care of my problems

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like you take care of your problems.

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So if your customer and you build that rapport with them and they understand that what you're

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doing is for the mutual benefit of you both, you're going to be really sticky and they're

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not going to want to get rid of you over a $10 or lower bid.

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And I think that as tools have evolved, if they're implemented properly, they make our

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customers realize that we really can provide better service because we're giving them better

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information.

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But we have to go back to the soft skills part you and I've talked about in the past.

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You have to be able to deliver that message one-on-one, eye-to-eye contact in a way that

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they understand it and in a way that they want to be communicated with.

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And that can only be done by listening first.

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You know, if I think about that technician trying to communicate with a customer, what

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better way to be confident in my delivery than to be confident in my results?

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If I have validated information in front of me, if I have a reliable reputable software

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that is showing me an exact outcome or scenario from a piece of equipment that I'm working

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on, I now can have that extra confidence of going to that customer, showing them exactly

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what has been found.

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So I see tools and especially digital tools and tracking and commissioning and documentation

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as being a vital part of our growth of an industry and aiding in that communication

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with our customers.

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So well said.

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And, you know, the image while you were describing that, that popped into my mind was an infrared

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picture of a three-phase contactor.

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And when you see infrared in motion, so to speak, in action, and you see L1 and L2 are

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nice and happy and black on the picture and L3 is lit up like a Christmas tree, it's

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very easy to show the customer in real layman's terms why they have to replace the contactor.

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Or why you need to dig deeper is, you know, to own the motor out, to mag the motor.

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What's driving this additional amp draw on L3?

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It gives you a tool and, you know, trust but verify.

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I think Ronald Reagan was quoted.

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This allows the customer to do that because, you know, unfortunately, we have some jack

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legs running around the country in HVAC technicians' clothing giving us a black eye.

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So when we're able to differentiate ourselves by being professional, by using state-of-the-art

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technology and demonstrating L3 needs to be addressed here on this power, and you can

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show a digital image of that in real time on your phone while you're talking to them,

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that's got to be a warm and fuzzy.

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If we think about what the digital technology has done just for a civilization, we now use

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media for communication.

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Every one of us.

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We used to have a telephone.

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Now we have a digital communication device that we tend to trust, that we use as input

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for our daily life.

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Why would we not want to utilize that technology that customers, that people are already comfortable

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with and just communicate with our technology?

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Yeah, great point.

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Great point.

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And think about this.

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When you and I were starting our careers, we're up on the rooftop and our job that day

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was to change air filters in 50 five-ton carrier rooftop units.

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What a boring job.

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Had we had a podcast where we could learn what was in the SNAP Act legislation, R32

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and R454B, while we were working instead of our AM transistor radio listening to whatever

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country you could plug into.

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We would have been better off if we had the tools that we had today just from a learning

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aspect.

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Every time you're by yourself and not having to converse with somebody is an opportunity

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to get better at your craft or at communicating or at listening or how to be a better dad.

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Use the technology, harvest the abundant crop of stuff laying out there for us to consume.

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Use the tools that allow us to do that.

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Amen.

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People ask me all the time, why do I enjoy doing these podcasts?

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It's because I can't.

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There's a time when I couldn't.

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Well said.

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Craig Crampton, thank you so much for your time.

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You are an absolute asset to our industry.

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Well, I appreciate that.

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It means a lot.

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I love to help.

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I love to help our young and upcoming rock stars get to where they want to be.

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Awesome.

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Everyone get a chance.

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Get on over to Straight Outta Crampton.

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Thanks, Craig.

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Love it.