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Did you know your air conditioning system accounts for a staggering 40-60% of your energy consumption in Arizona? Ralph and Ben engage in an eye-opening conversation with HVAC expert Andy Hobica of Hobica Services. As the third-generation owner of a 73-year-old family business, Andy brings unparalleled expertise about the critical connection between solar power and efficient home cooling. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to another edition of the Harman Solar
podcast.
I'm Rob Romano, vp of Sales andMarketing at Harman Solar.
With me my co-host not myfriend, but my co-host Ben
Walschlager Ben.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Yeah, I'm also not your friend anymore.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Oh, you're Mr.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Everything there it is there.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
It is, Mr Everything.
Yeah, you lost friendship twoshows ago.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah, I miss having food at these podcasts.
By the way, Can Can we startdoing that again?

Speaker 1 (00:21):
We are going to hire a chef.
Thank you, I have talked to theowner about it.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yeah, so if you are a chef, yeah, we are looking for
a chef.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Okay, good, Anyway, you don't need any more food
Today.
What are we talking, Ben?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
AC HVAC.
That's it, yep HVAC HVAC.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
It's a hot topic or cool.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
It makes up 90% of our bills.
We live in a very hot climate.
Our ACs sometime in the summerrun 24-7.
So we get these calls a lotwith people like what should I
do with my AC?
We're a solar company.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
I'm like I don't know , call an AC company.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
What does HVAC stand for?
I have no idea actually.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Well, maybe we can ask Andy.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yeah, we got a special guest here today.
We do, we've got a specialguest here today we do, we have
a special guest.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
So with Hobica Services we have Andy Hobica.
Hey guys, hi, welcome so.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
HVAC, heating, ventilation, air conditioning.
See, I knew that.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
I'm sure I could have ruled it Put an S at the end
Heating, ventilation, airconditioning, solar.
I knew the AC part, the V.
I was like what could it?

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Ventilation.
That doesn't make any sense.
All right, so we brought HVACguy Andy on.
Why?
Because it's like you just said, it's the biggest part of our
bills, right?

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yeah, we get a lot of these calls during the
summertime.
People call in especially likenew customers who have solar and
they say like, hey, I havesolar, my bill is low, but how
come it's not zero?
Why is it not zero?
I'm like, well, you're runningyour AC a lot during the
summertime.
It still makes up your bill.
It runs at night, probablybecause it's still 110.

(01:52):
Remember last summer we hadthese nights where it was like
110 degrees at night.
Remember two years ago, and twoyears ago it was like that as
well.
And guess what?
Your solar system does not workat night.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
So yeah, yeah it does and yeah, it runs a lot because
, you know, even though it's not118 out 104 at nighttime the
sun's not beating down yourhouse, but it's still hot and
it's been hot all day.
So it's kind of contracted onthe home and when you're
sleeping you like it cold.
I don't know about you, but Ikeep my bedroom at about 70, so

(02:22):
it's going to be running allnight long, 70?

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Cold with the fan on.
Oh my gosh dude.
They actually say- he works foran HVAC company.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
Yes, I follow a lot of health and wellness
nutritional people and GaryBrekka said it's actually the
healthiest for your body tosleep at 68 degrees.
Really.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yep, I'm going to go home and adjust the thermostat.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
Right now I don't know if I can do that.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
I think I'm at like 72 at night.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
Most air conditioners if they're not designed by me
and myself, they probably won'trun that low, being that hot
outside.
It probably won't get to 68degrees, probably the lowest
it'll ever get, especially whenit's 115, 120 degrees outside.
Probably the lowest it'll everget in Arizona a normal size
home for a normal 2,500 squarefoot home and they have a five
ton on it.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Probably the lowest it's going to get is about 75,
74, because the heat load isjust not there.
If it's a single stage basicsystem and we can talk about
that, okay.
So for the guy that is like you, that wants to have a 70 degree
bedroom, I mean, to me theinstant thought about that is
wow, that's going to kill mybill.
How am I going to do thisNormally?

Speaker 3 (03:20):
normally so standard home, especially a new build,
and you know, basically likewhen you buy a house, they
usually have a single stagesystem, right, okay, what a
single stage system does is,let's say you have a 2,300
square foot home and it's a fiveton system, do you really need
five tons of cooling the entireday, meaning the hottest part of
the day and the coolest part ofthe day?
Probably not.
Probably not.
So about 15 years ago they cameout with two stage and what two

(03:45):
stage does is it can run atfive but it can ramp down to
about two and a half when youdon't need the full five tons of
cooling.
So it starts saving money onelectricity.
It also has a blower motor,just like a pool pump.
That's variable speed.
So about five to 10 speeds onthe blower motor for the airflow
to ramp up and ramp down,pulling more humidity off of the
coil.
So air conditioners back in theday take a step back.
They were invented to removehumidity out of the home, not

(04:11):
actually cool the home.
Cooling the home came later.
Then, about 10 years ago, theycame up with inverter technology
for an air conditioning system.
It's called a variable capacityair conditioner.
I have two of them at home, myhome, my entire family.
If you do it for a living andyou try it, you'll never go back
.
So variable speed systems work,just like mini splits do
Multi-speed systems.
So my air conditioner at home Ihave a couple of them, but they
have 150 stages of cooling andheating.
So the system can run at fivetons of cooling but also has the

(04:34):
capability to run a quarter ofone ton of cooling and anywhere
in between depending on what itneeds to cool the house.
So your five ton couldliterally be using no
electricity and still keepingthe house freezing when you're
sleeping and the load's notthere.
So with solar the startup isn'tfive tons on, five tons off.
It slowly ramps up and it onlyuses what it needs to cool the
home at that time of the day.

(04:55):
So it really helps out a solarsystem.
Because people that say I havesolar, why isn't my electricity
bill zero?
Well, your air conditioner is 18years old and when it turns on,
it's spiking your electricityand actually I looked it up this
morning, ben, I knew it wasabout 50%, 60%, 40% to 60% of
your electricity bill in Arizonais your air conditioner 40% to
60%.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
That sounds about right.
Yeah, yeah, that sounds aboutright.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
So I've heard the term two-stage.
I have a two-stage.
It's older though it.
I have a two-stage.
It's older though it's a traintwo-stage unit.
It's one of those big X21s or Idon't know what they're called
the XRs.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yeah, they're good systems.
They don't break.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Yeah, exactly, it has little issues.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
Here and there, everybody keeps telling me oh,
you've got to replace it becauseit's 12 years old.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
And I'm like why my house is freezing An.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
Unless you have a compressor or an indoor coil
leak.
Just keep it going, Keep thattrain going.
Well compressor two-stagecompressor could be an $8,000 to
$9,000 replacement to wherereplace the unit.
Okay.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
And hey, your boy.

Speaker 3 (05:52):
Andy will hook you up .

Speaker 1 (05:54):
I got Andy, you got a guy.
So this is good, you got a guy.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
Ben can't call me, but you can.
That's fine.
He's very hard to get ahold of.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
So there are options out there for people now that
can actually they can do thisstuff.
I mean because, you're right,most of the houses out here
probably have what 15, 18,20-year-old units sitting on
them yeah, most.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
Yeah, yeah.
The average life of an airconditioner in Arizona right now
, especially all the new buildsthat happened like 20 years ago,
is about that 15 to 20-yearmarker.
And the bad part is most homeinspectors don't even know how
old the air conditioner is andthey don't know how to read the
model number or serial number,even though with Chad GPD
nowadays it's so easy to find.
But I'm not being hey, they'reold.
But when you have a 40 to 60 to5 to 7-year-old home inspector,

(06:33):
they're just looking at it.
Well, it works.
I have a 15-degree split,20-degree split between the
supply and return.
We're good, we're good.
New home buyer buys the home.
Six months in it dies.
Oh, we just got to fix it.
What's a 20-year-old systemthat runs an R22?
And they're like, oh my God, Ineed a new system.
Like I don't have any money.
And then it goes crazy.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
So, like we talk about with solar, we always tell
people solar doesn't reallyrequire a whole lot of
maintenance.
I mean, it's just not a lot toit, maybe cleaning panels, if
you want to.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, it's more of monitoring, make sure it's still
working.
Yeah, if it's working, it'sworking.
It's either is or isn't.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
I've seen some videos recently of people cleaning
them.
Does that actually help theperformance of the solar panels.
Funny, you should say that.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
We just did a podcast with a cleaning company,
because Ben's a skeptic, so am I, within reason, within reason,
within reason, within reasonWithin reason.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
Ben's a skeptic and I've kind of always been a
skeptic I'm just not as vocal asBen is and we had a guy come on
.
Actually, what we did is hewent and he cleaned the panels
on my house and we kind ofwatched production.
And actually I'm still lookingat production.
It's actually gone up a littlemore.
That's good.
So it's up to 9.5% since he'scleaned them.
So there's value there.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
My pushback on that is you're in the service
industry.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
We got to see the payoff on it Exactly.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
You're in the service industry, we're in the service
industry.
We don't work for free.
So when the company comes outand cleans their panels, they
don't do it for free, so there'sa cost to it.
Yes, production does go up, butat what cost?

Speaker 3 (08:00):
So we've kind of come to the conclusion Maybe it's
worth it if you clean ityourself, Like once well.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
That's another whole ballgame.
There's a lot of stuff.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Like we agreed, like once or twice a year on
cleanings, is fine.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah, and that's how they were too.
They were very honest and theywere like you know, we'll do it
once, maybe twice a year.

Speaker 3 (08:16):
You guys ever think about wrapping it up into your
maintenance program?
Yeah, well, yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
That's what we're doing.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
That's what we have, yeah that's exactly what we're
doing, so on that line.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
what about AC?
Should you get your AC checkedevery month, have to pay someone
to come out, or is it once ayear?

Speaker 3 (08:28):
No, twice a year, so once before the summer, once
before the winter.
But on both of those checks,especially if you have a heat
pump outside, meaning the airconditioner outside is for
heating and cooling.
A lot of people have naturalgas for a furnace in the attic
or in a closet.
Then the air conditioner, thecondenser outside only runs in
cooling and then you have gasfurnace inside for heating.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
Right, but on a heat pump.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
A lot of new homes that don't have gas in the
neighborhood, a lot of, like youknow, the new track homes.
The air conditioner outside isthe heater and air conditioner
Inside is just an air handlethat blows air, right, right,
right.
So, yes, so on those twoservices, especially if it's a
heat pump, my techs, when we'reall done, we pull the power and
we clean that condenser coil.
Okay, all you have outside is acondenser.
It has a compressor in themiddle of it, it has a condenser

(09:11):
coil that condenses therefrigerant and you have a fan
motor on top that pulls the hotair off of the compressor and
the coil.
The cleaner that coil is, themore efficient that system is
going to run.
And cleaning that twice a yearis good.
But I tell homeowners,especially in the summertime,
for the four to five months whenit's hot, unplug the system,
wait for it to turn off, take ahose.
Don't spray it with a hardsprayer and dent the coil and
damage it.
Just nice, easy breeze on theoutside.

(09:32):
Now the proper way is to takeoff the fan and go from the
inside, but on the outside it'snot going to hurt it and it'll
work that much more efficiently.
Okay, I strongly recommend itonce a month when it's hot.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
Nice, let's backpedal real quick.
We haven't talked about yourcompany yet, so let's talk about
how it's at Hobanica Services.
Yes, sir, tell us about yourcompany, tell us what you know,
where you are, where you'reserving who you are where you're
serving, how long you've beenaround, all that good stuff,
yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:58):
So long story short.
I'll do the whole story realshort, united States.
They went to Phoenix becausehis dad that I never met, great
grandfather.
So Jeddu, because we'reLebanese, it's Jeddu and Siti,
his grandpa and grandma.
My Jeddu's dad started a drygoods store in Phoenix, actually
like 3rd and Jefferson.
So you look at an old Phoenixmap, you can see Hoboken Sun's
dry goods store next to thetheater in downtown Phoenix

(10:21):
Pretty cool, but long storyshort.
You got that.
And next to the theater indowntown Phoenix Pretty cool,
but long story short, you gotthat.
And then my grandfather went tothe same area as grade school
and high school, got draftedinto the war, battled the bold
saving Private Ryan's scene onthe beach was there, took us and
saw that movie when we werelittle kids just to show us like
, hey, this is war and this iswhy you should be a proud
American and all that fun stuff.
So he took that, got out ofWorld War II, was one of the

(10:42):
only people in his unit thatactually survived, got out, went
to Phoenix College and wantedto go to electrical school
because he wanted to be anelectrician.
The counselor said hey, Paul,we're full of the electrical
school, but I have this newupcoming field called
refrigeration.
It's going to be real popularand you can learn a little bit
of electrical in that.
Worked for some companies andthen said in 1952 started his
own company in his garage inPhoenix.

(11:02):
My grandmother, my city was hisreceptionist.
And then the story is he had abig-ass family for all the kids,
the creative workforce Wow.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
That was in 1952.

Speaker 3 (11:12):
So 73 years later, three generations still going
strong 73 years, that's a coolstory, though Holy moly.
And then top-rated familycompany in Arizona, a couple of
the big dogs like Parker andsome of the other guys that have
more reviews than us, but for asmall, family-owned company
with under 100 employees, Ithink we're at 6,500 five-star

(11:34):
Google reviews right now, at 4.9star rating, with zero
complaints on the BBB and zerocomplaints on the ROC.
There you go.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
Well, that sounds familiar.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yeah, we're a family-run company as well.
Ralph and I are not family,though.
No, not at all.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
So yeah, we've been around 50 years 50 years.

Speaker 3 (11:49):
yeah, that's very cool.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
How many trucks do you have?
How many technicians do youhave?

Speaker 3 (11:53):
Yeah, so currently have about 35 techs, got another
15 installers, I guess 8 to 10office and then management and
it's pure guys, you're pure hvac, hvac, plumbing, electrical
wine cellars.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
Oh yeah, interesting a little bit of everything yeah,
yeah, wine cellars that's.
I'm sure there's a story behindthat one and and on many
podcasts they ask that.

Speaker 3 (12:16):
So, long story short, I'll ask you a question, so you
answer this for me and I'llanswer it for yourself.
If you have a wine cellar, okay, and it's like the size of this
room or the size of youroutside sales area, like think
about it, like how big, so three4,000 bottles of wine, what
does that home also have?

Speaker 1 (12:33):
A lot of drunks living in it.
An AC unit?
Yeah, of course, as AC yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
But if you have 3,000 bottle of wine, wine cellar, do
you have money or are you poor?
No, you have money.
So how many air?

Speaker 1 (12:44):
conditioners.
How many water heaters do youhave?
Oh goodness, Probably a ton.
Yeah, Four or five.

Speaker 3 (12:48):
So those homes are in Peavey, scottsdale, desert
Mountain, right, if youespecially, and you care about
your wine and you want to flexthat hard when people come over,
you have 12 air conditioners,you have three tankless water
heaters, you have two panels,you have all the fun stuff.
To where it gets us foot in thedoor, to where, why would they
use the air conditioning companythey've been using?
If now they have a wine cellarwith us, they can call one
company for everything, one-stopshop.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
Smart.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
That makes a ton of sense.
You found your little nichethere with that, and now.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
then you have people like in PV that maybe aren't
super wealthy but they're likeyou know what?
I want a wine cellar, but Idon't want to spend $100,000 on
a wine room.
We'll do a wine wall.
So we'll have Innovative comeover, build them a wine wall,
air condition it and you can doa wine wall that will hold 100
bottles for $12,000, $13,000.
But you walk in and that's partof the kitchen.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
You see a glass wall with wine in it and it's a flex.
When you come over you'rehaving a party.
Yeah, I already can tell ourowner is going to be content
yeah, you're gonna have a phonecall.

Speaker 3 (13:43):
He has a wine cellar, he has a cigar thing.
It's kind of likeconfidentiality.
But we've done a lot of hotels.
We do a lot of golf, golfresorts when you walk in and
they have like the cabinets forthe liquor.
We've done all those wow nicerestaurants.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
So you're broad spectrum from the basic
homeowner living in a 1200square foot home to that guy
with 12 air conditioning that'sactually my favorite, favorite
person to go to is the 1200square foot home right 70 to 85
year old lady, widow in a 1200square foot home.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
That's my favorite customer by far because I I get
to treat him like my grandmotherand it's, hands down, my
favorite customer.
That's really cool yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
So let me ask for the people watching.
I mean, what are the mostcommon things that you see that
are causing people the pain,that why they have these huge
bills?
What things are they not doing?
What things are happening thatmaybe they're not aware of?
Where can they make it a bettersituation for them without
spending a ton of money?

Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yeah, so a lot of people get the solar, like you
said, and then they still havethat high bill.
Two main things how old is yourair conditioner, how many
stages does it have, how oftendo you service it?
And then, last thing, you guysare going to agree, how much
insulation you got in your attic, sure?

Speaker 2 (14:44):
So we do insulation as well.
No, I agree with you too,because when people call in and
they go to me and say, hey, I'vehad solar for a while, my
bill's been low, but they'restarting to creep up, the first
thing they think in their headis, like my solar system is not
working.
So I tell them, like okay,there's two reasons, and only
two reasons, why your billswould be high Solar system is
not working or your usage hasgone up.
Let's look at both.
So I take a look at you know,is the system working?

(15:06):
Okay, it is.
So if it's not number one, it'sgot to be the second one.
So I notice, hey, I go, how oldis your AC unit?
It's like 18 years old.
Okay, well, then it's.
It's probably that.
You know, is your home wellinsulated?
I don't know.
Like okay, this is starting tokind of make sense, you know.
But but you know, people say,well, I don't change my

(15:28):
thermostat, it's, I set it at76,.
You know, in the summertime,like okay, but as the older your
AC gets, if your home is at 76,your AC is trying harder and
harder and harder to keep yourhome at 76 every year, and it's
time.

Speaker 3 (15:44):
So a little insight for you guys If you undersize a
system, if you undersize it,it's going to run all day long,
sure.
If you oversize it, it's goingto short cycle on off, on off,
on off.
So you don't want to undersize,you don't want to oversize.
It's going to short cycle onoff, on off, on off.
So you don't want to undersize,you don't want to oversize.
That's why people that actuallyknow what they're doing, like
Hobica and some of the big dogs,anytime we sell an HVAC system,
we have to do a heat load ofthe house, a manual J heat load,

(16:04):
and make sure that we installthe right size system for that
house.
Now, if you have a really oldsystem and it's 18 temperature
down because it's not pullingenough humidity out of the house
, because the compressor is notworking at the right, you know,
proper BTUs.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
Right, and how do you ?
You said, was it the heat?
How do you?
How do you right size?
How do you know?
What are you doing to determineif it's the right size or not?

Speaker 3 (16:26):
To size out the homes .
How many BTUs you know persquare footage?

Speaker 1 (16:29):
So you look at square footage and all that stuff.
Yep, the one thing I've noticedin some different homes that
I've lived in is you'll have oneroom in the house that's
freezing, yeah, and then theother rooms are hot.
It's just balance of ductwork,that's all that is.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
So usually when the rooms you're talking about or
the houses you're talking aboutare on a trunk system, so you
actually walk into the house andthey got a drop ceiling right
and all the bedrooms are cooledoff of this metal ductwork
that's sitting underneath theinsulation, different from what
we have here or in a newer home.
You have flex duct work in theattic and that's how you can
balance out homes, okay, andthen you have zoning and then we
can keep going.

(17:01):
Baby, this guy knows stuff.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
I was going to say my head's spinning right now, so
backtrack a little bit.

Speaker 3 (17:07):
I started working for my dad when I was about 12.
Worked every single summergrowing up.
It was good money, hated it.
Crawling 160-degree addicts,running duct work, running
insulation, doing all the really, really tough stuff, learning
my way up.
And then, when I graduated highschool, dad gives you three
options Keep working, full-timemilitary, get the hell out of my
house.
Wow, three things Like hardcore, but it's the reason I'm

(17:28):
successful.
He's very hard on me, but yep,stayed working Between the ages
of 16 and maybe 25, I probablygot fired six times.
Yeah, just because me and mydad would butt heads.
Oh okay, by your dad it's toughworking for your father, but now
especially going into sales andthen him stepping away from the
business.
We're best friends again,perfect.
But yeah, I've done everything,so install all the way.

(17:51):
Growing up I was a full-timetech for almost 10 years, tried
a little management out.
10 years.
Tried a little management out,didn't like it, went into sales
and never stopped.
Now I'm setting records, okay.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
That's a good story.
Your dad filed you five timesNot being cocky.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
No, go ahead Per.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
Service Titan, I'm in the top 1% in the industry.
You're just Arizona, though,right, I'm just Arizona.
Yes, yeah, okay.
So your company is just Arizona, correct.
Arizona, though right, I'm justarizona.
Yes, yeah, okay.
So your, your company is justarizona, correct.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
That's all you guys do yes, and you're top one
percent in the country in theunited states for hvac
electrical plumbing sales.

Speaker 1 (18:24):
Wow that's so.
I mean that means that shouldtell me that you're dominating
this market.
I am, yes, okay, above the bigdogs.

Speaker 3 (18:31):
Well, no, because, like you know, national you have
like a parker and sons of a 600million dollar company.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yeah, that's true, that's600 million company.
Yeah, that's true, that's true.

Speaker 3 (18:37):
They have the people.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
Yeah, that's true.
Okay, all right.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
But none of their sales guys sell more than I do.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
Do you ever get people talking to you about
solar?

Speaker 3 (18:44):
Asking you questions about solar All the time yeah.
So what do you?

Speaker 1 (18:52):
do?
What are they asking?
I'd love to hear that.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
Answer you don't call Ben.
Refer them to a solar company.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
We're the same way.
People ask us about AC stuffand we're like let me just go on
Google real quick because wedon't know.
We're solar experts.

Speaker 3 (19:03):
This is Ben's fault.
Ben put Anthony up 10, 15 yearsago, but he didn't.
Why didn't you?

Speaker 2 (19:08):
I wasn't working here 15 years ago.
It doesn't matter.
You're not talking to him for10 years 10 years ago.

Speaker 3 (19:18):
You only can talk to him if you're working here.
Right, that sounds about right.
That's just ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
And it wasn't even Ben, it was his mom that reached
out.
That's true, my mom reached outbut his mom.

Speaker 3 (19:22):
I love Julie, love her, but she likes every post on
Facebook.
She's a big supporter.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
Well, she lives alone , she's retired.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
My mom's the same way .

Speaker 2 (19:34):
Moms are like day.
We'll talk about it at the endof the podcast.

Speaker 3 (19:36):
But his mom's really involved with my Facebook,
always all over it because of mynonprofit and she loves giving
back.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yeah, yeah, we will talk about that I want to touch
on that.
So gosh, I'm not really surewhere to go.
I have a couple different areas.
Back to AC.
Well actually he's taking mymind outside of AC which is not
good, so I got to bring myselfback in.
So if I'm looking to buy an ACI guess we've kind of talked
about this, but I want to reallydrill into the customers.

(20:02):
So when I'm watching thispodcast, maybe if I'm looking to
buy a new AC unit, I want tochange up my house.
When I just put solar in myhouse, I'm trying to make it
more energy efficient.
What are the things I need tolook for when I'm buying an AC
unit?
What are the key things that Ishould look for?
Because I know I'm going toprobably talk to different
companies and get differentquotes right, always Correct.
What are the key things that Ineed to look out for?

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Can we take a step back?

Speaker 1 (20:23):
actually yeah, take a step back.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
But before we're actually buying it.
When should we buy it?
When it's like, yeah, it'sgetting old, Is it time to buy a
new one, or so?

Speaker 3 (20:33):
average life of an air conditioner in the United
States is 15 to 22 years averageIn Arizona it's 12 to 15.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
So if your AC is at 15, time back.

Speaker 3 (20:43):
If it's over 15 years old, don't put a penny into it.
If it's over 12 years old andout of warranty, most air
conditioners come with 10 to 12years warranty, depending on the
brand.
If you have more than a $2,000repair in that 12 to 15 marker,
don't do it, okay.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
So it's strictly just basically an age thing, correct
.
The older it gets time toreplace it.

Speaker 3 (21:00):
Or if you have a really, really big repair.
Does brand matter?
Yeah, it does matter, yeah.
So you know, train, lennox,give me your top brands, then
you have some of the lowerbrands, Lots of brands.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
Now we can go into your question when it's time to
replace it.
What do we look for?
What do we do?

Speaker 3 (21:17):
So if you're in Arizona, you're listening to
this podcast, I'll tell youright now get four quotes.
Make one of them Hobica.
I guarantee it will bedifferent than anybody else.
Our process is all about thecustomer.
So tell me how you're different.
We always do a heat load.
We always go around the attic,we always go on the roof.
We always do a whole homewalkabout.
People cut corners Like I'll goto a home and I'll be like hey,

(21:41):
ben, just making sure we havetwo and a half to three hours,
are you good?
And they're like I've had threequotes.
They've all been here 30minutes.
I'm like unfortunately theyjust shot you a quote.
Right, did they show sure theelectrical?
You know, make sure yourbreakers are sized right for the
air conditioner, all this stuff.
Like well, um, and I'm likeexactly, so if now's not a good

(22:02):
time, we can come back, but I doneed a couple hours so I can
serve you correctly.
Yeah, I feel like we go withthat Right, exactly, they're
like.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
what do you mean?

Speaker 1 (22:18):
I'm like exactly that sounds so familiar.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
Right.
You know how many times I'vewent out to quote a system good,
better, best and I told thecustomer I don't care what you
buy.
You can buy a single-statesystem for 11 grand, it doesn't
matter to me.
Insulation, new ductwork,whatever you want, we can do
whatever you want, but the thingis make sure it's sized right
and actually doing.
I'll go out to a home.
She's gotten six quotes fromdifferent air conditioning
companies, including the one Isaid all these big guys and I go

(22:43):
out in the backyard and I'mlike I know that color 2016.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
So I'll come in the home and I'll be like hey, betty
, it's nine years old.

Speaker 3 (22:53):
She's like they all told me it was 14.
I'm like I'm not going to sayanyone's lying, I just look at
the age.
So I have you come outside so Ican show you I'm looking at the
right number.
And she's like nope, october of2016.
I'm like, so I'm just showingyou is what it is.
If everything's working, okay,I would say we tune it up.
While I'm here, let me look ateverything for you.
When, then, went in the atticand she had three inches of

(23:16):
insulation, I left that homewith a new water heater, a
service agreement and 10 inchesof insulation, brought up to an
R38, and cut her electricitybill by about 20%, got a new
water heater, stopped a freakingdisaster insurance claim with
mold and mildew all over hergarage and drywall.
And then who's she going tocall in four years when her air
conditioner breaks?
Is she going to get four quotes, or is she going to call in

(23:36):
four years when her airconditioner?

Speaker 2 (23:37):
breaks.
Is she going to get four quotesor is she going to call me
first?
She's going to call me?
Yeah, and that's what I mean.
We see that a lot in thisservice industry.
Everyone, every sales guy outthere wants to make a sale.
You know how many times do Itell people no, they shouldn't
get solar.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
We do it all the time .
I take a look at your referralsand recommendations.
I want you to call back youknow a year or two from now and
be happy.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
Also that customer has referred me four times since
I've been there and I got fourjobs out of it.

Speaker 2 (24:03):
Yeah, exactly, I'll tell you, no, you shouldn't get
solar, which is shocking, andI'm sure you'll tell people, no,
don't get a new AC unit.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
Will you make a recommendation?
Looks like so you're looking atall the different kinds of.
I mean you have good, better,best.
Let's just say, will you eversay if I were you or this is
what I would do?

Speaker 3 (24:18):
I wait for them to ask me because I don't want to
come off salesy Good, better,best, what do you think is best
for you and your family?
Yeah, and they'll go over like,well, I want to accomplish this
, okay, well, this would do thatthe best, but you can go
wherever you want.
A lot of people will people getdown to it.
They don't have that comfortissue, they just want to replace
because of the age.
I look at them and say, tell methis your system right now, how

(24:39):
it works.
Let's say it was eight years ago.
How was it working then?
Was it cooling the house?
Great, and you had no problemswith it.
They're like, yeah, like to behonest, eight years ago it was
working great, wonderful.
You want basic single stage.
You don't have any comfortissues.
There's no benefit of goingwith that variable speed system
unless you have a higher bill,like some of these people, man,
like they have a big house butfor some reason it's just sealed
, encapsulated home and theyhave solar and their bills 40

(25:02):
bucks.
I'm not going to cut it down to20 with freaking a variable
right it just won't happen right, what kind of cut?

Speaker 1 (25:08):
I mean this is probably too broad of a question
.
I was going to say what kind ofof a percentage of a bill drop
do you think you can see on theaverage system?

Speaker 3 (25:15):
that's's tough because it depends on what they
have Single stage, single stagefor single stage, 5% to 10%.
The problem is you say 10% andthen the rates go up and then
they're even.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
I saved the money.

Speaker 3 (25:27):
If the rate didn't go up, you would have saved money.
But, it stayed the same.
I'm like how much did your billgo up?
I saved you a lot of money, butthe bill went up.
You a lot of money, but thebill went up.
It's not my fault, kind ofthing.
And then, when you go totwo-stage, it's about 15% to 25%
on the max, and thenvariable-stage is 20% to 50%.
Yeah, 20% to 50% forvariable-stage.
So I've proved it at my house,my old house, especially A new

(25:48):
house it's a newer build thatcustom build that I built but my
other one at 67 in Happy Valley, about 3,800 square foot, two
four-ton systems had twosingle-stage four-ton systems on
the house when I bought it in2018, right, still in the home I
rented out.
Those people got a badassrental because at the end of the
day, it wasn't supposed to be arental, it was supposed to be
my forever home and I ended upwanting something else.
But, moving to that home, putmy first summer, summer and a

(26:11):
half there.
So that year and then half ofthe next year, my bill was like
650.
I like it really, really coldand didn't have solar on it.
Right, came in, put twovariable speed systems on it,
cut it down to 219.
Wow, wow, wow.
That's what it does Singlestage versus variable.
I don't care how big your houseis.
My house didn't need that muchcooling.
It needed that much cooling at118 degrees.

(26:32):
Sure, it did not need that muchcooling when it was 90 outside
and I wanted my house to be 70degrees.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
Yeah.
So listeners, customers of ours, when you're listening to this,
when I'm talking to you and Isay things like oh you know well
, I don't really run the TV awhole lot, or I switch to LED
bulbs and I'm not seeing a hugedifference, I'm telling you your
AC unit is making a huge chunkof your bill.
Sure, led lights and all thatstuff is great and fantastic.

(26:59):
But let's address the biggerissue AC.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
And I'm glad we're bringing this up, because it
just like light bulb went off.
Not talking bad about windows,if your windows are from the 40s
, you should probably get newwindows, sure.
The problem is, though, ifsomeone has dual pane windows,
but they're all dual pane like15 years ago, someone comes out
and quotes some new dual panewindows for like 85 grand for
their house.
That payoff is like 25 years.
That's the problem.

(27:23):
Their bill cuts by like 6% andthey're like I got all new
windows, like I spent 80 grandon it.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
Why did?

Speaker 3 (27:28):
my bill only go down this much.
I'm like, yeah, I guess it was19 years old.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
Yeah, exactly, let's address the bigger culprit.
That let's address the biggerculprit.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
That's so funny, that's so true.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
Oh my gosh, I always tell people, the larger the
device and the longer it runs.
That's the reason for your bill.
So think about that.
Ac unit, pool pump, waterheater those are all big devices
that run for long periods oftime.
That's what makes up your hugebill, not a tiny little.

Speaker 3 (27:50):
I got a little plug for you guys, because we do it.
But go home and if you don'thave, um, if you don't have a
surge protector on your airconditioning system, make sure
you have one on the whole home,cause we both know that per code
.
Now if you change out the panel, you have to do a whole home
surge protector, and we do thoseas well.
How would they know if theyhave one or not?
What are they looking for?
Go outside and see if there'ssomething mounted underneath the
disconnect next to the airconditioner.

(28:11):
If they don't go over yourpanel and see if there's one
right there, open up your panel.
See if there's a breaker that'slabeled a whole surge protector
.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
Okay, I'm going to go back to the variables, because
now you got me on that.
That's very interesting to mebecause I have a two-stage.
I was talking about that.
So what kind of money wouldsomeone expect to spend on a
variable versus the other one?
So I'm just kind of curious.
I know again it's a hardquestion, but general ranges, I
got it right now.
I got it in my head.

Speaker 3 (28:34):
So when you're like a Lennox or a Trane, prices just
doubled again because of thesedamn tariffs.
But because of the tariffs,average air conditioner,
variable speed, $25,000, $26,000.
But we do sell a lot ofdifferent brands, especially
with heat pumps.
So if you don't have gasheating and you have an all heat
pump, lennox also makes a brandcalled AC Pro.
It's like the American standardof a train.

(28:58):
They have a more, I guess,price-friendly variable stage
system.
Instead of 150 stages it's morelike 25 stages.
But that system's probably 18,19 grand but still cut your
electricity bill substantially.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
Would you do that?
Or would you say you know what,if I'm going to spend 18 to 20,
I might as well spend 25 on atrain Depends on how long you
live in the home.
How long you're going to livein the home?

Speaker 3 (29:15):
If you're going to live in the home for 10 to 15
years, get the best.
If you're going to live in thehome five to eight, it'll still
be worth buying the basic one.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Okay, yeah, all right .
So okay, got that.
Let me ask you this A lot ofpeople are out there trying to
really push these, you know,fancy do as far as the in the
house.
You know what the thermostatthe thermostat sorry, smart
thermostats value in that?
If so, I'm just curious becausea lot of people say, oh,
there's a ton of value in thatyou can do this, this, this.

(29:43):
Some people, old school, like Idon't want nothing to do with
that, they're garbage, they makeno sense.

Speaker 3 (29:47):
I just want your opinion with savings and with
solar.
Yeah, you need something with aprogram on it.
I just want you to kind ofexplain that, yeah like wake,
leave, return, sleep you can setdifferent settings If you're
going to be at work all day.
If you have a variable speedinverter system, leave it alone,
like if you like a 76, leave itthere all day long because that
system is going to ramp downand run here all day long.
If you have a single stagesystem, maybe turn it to 85 when

(30:10):
you're going to work.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
Okay, good to know.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
And I would highly recommend against super cooling
your home, like a lot of thesepeople say.
I was going to talk about thatactually Stay the hell away from
super cooling.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
For you to talk about that because that's something
that solar industry actuallydictates that you should do.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
What's the difference between I think I probably know
the answer to this, obviouslyPre-cooling and super cooling.

Speaker 3 (30:31):
Well, super cooling would be to run it all day long,
right, right?
If you have a single-stagesystem, that's horrible.
Variable-stage system is reallygood.
Yeah, so super cooling with avariable-stage system is great.
Pre-cooling, right?
Is that what?

Speaker 2 (30:43):
you're saying yeah, pre-cooling.
Yeah, pre-cooling or supercooling, you can use both If you
have a single-stage system wayyeah, yeah, super cooling is
usually where the people puttheir ac down like to 65 degrees
during the off-peak times andthen it's completely dead during
on-peak.
Pre-cooling is more of like I'mgonna drop it down a couple

(31:05):
degrees and the problem is iswhere your electricity?

Speaker 3 (31:08):
is is when the system's turning on.
Yeah, on off, on off.
You know 65.
It's going to turn on and offlike 60 times in the next hour.
That's the problem.
You want a more efficientsystem, like a variable stage
system, so it turns on and itjust ramps down.
It's like cruise control on thefreeway You're going down.
So I'll tell people where doyou get better gas mileage?
A car that has one speed, likeon and off.

(31:30):
On and off, like, let's say, a2001 Chevy Silverado, from here
where we're at right now to,let's say, 303 and Bell.
So it's a decent amount,streetlight to streetlight to
streetlight.
Or a Toyota Prius, right now,all the way to Vegas.
Who's going to get better gas?

Speaker 2 (31:47):
mileage, the Prius to Vegas.

Speaker 3 (31:49):
It's 10 times as long though.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
The distance 10 times , sure, but it never.
Yeah, I see what you're saying,that's variable.

Speaker 3 (31:55):
That's an inverter system.
Why does anybody have a single?

Speaker 1 (31:59):
stage anymore.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
Well choice when people move into a home.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
People have a 500 credit score.
They can't apply for financingand they have eight grand to
their name and they need to putthe rest on a credit card.
I'm going to try to help themout and get the cheapest thing
possible.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
How about like a two-story house?
So I see a lot of I see bothright Two-story houses that have
two units, one for each story,or they have one unit.
That cools the whole thing.
Correct, it's just dependent onwhat the unit is Like.

Speaker 3 (32:21):
Mine has one that train I have a two-story home
that train does the whole house?
Do you have?

Speaker 1 (32:27):
zoning?
Don't even know.

Speaker 3 (32:27):
How many thermostats?
That's weird, it's not possible.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
You can go to her house.
She's got one thermostatupstairs and it runs both units.
It runs both units, controlsthe whole home.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
Wait, how old is the home?

Speaker 2 (32:55):
I think it was built in probably the 90s.
I can get it on the phone rightnow, not during the podcast.

Speaker 3 (33:09):
So like on some of the really, old homes in the 50s
and 60s.
They'd have like two four-tonsoutside tied into one big air
handler and with one thermostat.
But I don't know what's goingon there because I've never seen
it in my life.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
It's very weird too.
She also has only one airfilter in the whole house.
Your mom just needs to move.
I know she needs to move.
I know she needs to move.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
We've talked about this.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
Whereas my house it's a one-story smaller house.
I have five air filters in myhouse it's a newer build.
It's only a couple years old,but my mom's house.
I always thought it was veryweird.

Speaker 3 (33:38):
She just wants two.

Speaker 1 (33:40):
AC units.

Speaker 3 (33:40):
The more returns, the better.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
Yeah.
So Ms Walsh is like I'm sorry,your house is messed up, just
like your son.
Your house has got issues.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
I always think it's weird too.
Outside she's got a huge ACunit and a smaller AC unit.
Two-story home, one thermostat.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
I'm like I don't know how this is I think there's
another thermostat he's neverseen.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
It's probably hiding somewhere.
Where would it be, though,master?

Speaker 2 (34:00):
bedroom.
Huh, lived in that house.
It's in the hallway.

Speaker 3 (34:05):
I've never seen what he's talking about, so I don't
know.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
Yeah, I don't know either.
I always thought it was veryweird.
I still don't believe you, butI love you.
I'm going to call my mom.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
He's going to come over to your house now.
Okay, I mean, I would Go backto my house.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
Forget that freak house.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
So one upstairs, including the master, and then
there's another one downstairs.
It's a three level.

Speaker 3 (34:32):
Yeah, unfortunately, where's the air handler located?
In the attic Upstairs?
Yeah, okay, well, that workssometimes, just because heating
rises.
So air conditioning from topdown, so it could work.
It does work, yes, but you'regoing to have hot spots and I
can't do anything about it onthe second and first floor
because there's floors above it.
So I tell everyone, if you cando anything, anything, buy a

(34:54):
single-level home with an attic,don't buy a flat roof.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
Ever, ever Talk about that.
Why not?
You can't get to the ductwork.
You have a hot room.
You have a hot room.
I can't do anything for you.
That's like similar.

Speaker 3 (35:04):
Except put a mini split on it.
It's like, oh, they have to dothat, but then you have seven
grand per room.
It gets expensive, wow.
So another thing we'll do we'llgo to a home.
Someone buys a brand new home,or they buy a home that's used
and the person before theminstalled a new air conditioner.
They're like, okay, cool.

(35:26):
So what we'll do is we'll takethe duct work off of that room,
so the house will just be cooledoff the air conditioner and
we'll take a load off of it,like 200, 300 square foot for
the master bedroom and we'll puta mini split on the master
bedroom.
You can keep that mini split ascold as you freaking want it,
because it's a variable speedsystem just for the bedroom.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
So I was going to add a couple things you touched on
that I want to talk about.
So can you redo, deduct workand you can change the way the
house is put together right,yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:51):
And then the R value of the duct work.
So a lot of the older homeshave like an R4 and they need an
R8.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
So I mean that could get expensive too, like if I
wanted to sit there and changethe way mine's done and then add
a second unit.
Obviously I could do it.

Speaker 3 (36:02):
It depends on what's a lot right.
So it depends on how coldsomeone wants it.
Some people will come in andthey're like, hey, I know it's a
brand new unit, but it's notcool in the house, right Like I
need a new unit.
Well, now you're at 15 to 25grand possibly.
Well why not just keep yourexisting system and we'll put a
$6,500 mini split on yourbedroom?
It's going to freeze you outand it's going to cost almost

(36:25):
nothing.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
I will say thank God, my house is freezing.

Speaker 3 (36:28):
So I guess it's working.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
Like this room.
Yeah, Literally that one unitkeeps my house.

Speaker 3 (36:33):
It's like an icebox in my house.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
So I mean it really works well.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
This is like a Tony Robbins seminar the colder, the
better you stay awake.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
The other mini splits , like, for instance, people
have garages that are hot.

Speaker 3 (36:45):
So what I did?

Speaker 1 (36:47):
I like to talk about this because I put an off-grid
2K solar system on my house inthe back and then it ties into a
solar mini split.
It's a solar electrical minisplit, so it works off of the
solar and then I have an 8K ofbattery in my garage and so
between those two things itfeeds the mini split.
I never have to use the gridever on that mini split nice

(37:08):
ever.
And then the battery isrecharged by solar as well, so
that's kind of cool.
I love mini splits.
My garage went from a milliondegrees to now it's it's 72
degrees in there.
It's unbelievable.
So I was wondering do you do alot of mini splits in garages
all the time, all the?

Speaker 3 (37:22):
time.
So we did a lot of them, like,let's say, you say maybe one a
week for the longest time.
It got real popular DuringCOVID, just during COVID we did
thousands of them.
I bet, I bet yeah becauseeveryone turned their garage
into a home space, their officeor a gym Gym.
I started going crazy, right, soI go to the gym every day.
We didn't even talk aboutpersonal life.
I'm at the gym six to sevendays a week, at 4 am, I can't

(37:43):
tell.
And if you can't go to the gym,I was going crazy.
Right, so I was just like insane.
And, yeah, everyone's like, hey, hey, I want to get one of
those units for the garage, it'sgreat.
So we come out and either theyhad to go and call my boy Tommy

(38:04):
at A1 and get an big the garageis mini, split on the garage and
cold as you want he's doing.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
I called A1, they put an insulated door on and then I
installed the solar mini split.

Speaker 3 (38:14):
Well, no one does it better than Tommy Mello, they're
great.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
I like them, they're great, they're really good.
But yeah, and then I world andjust did it myself and I was
like this is great.

Speaker 3 (38:25):
And then a lot of people call us because they just
want to keep the garage coldbecause of their cars, right?

Speaker 1 (38:28):
Yeah, sure.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Like my dad's got.
We put a four-ton dual zone onmy dad's garage because he's got
six classics in Peoria.
And then a lot of people callus because they're like, hey, I
don't have that car, but I'mgetting solar.
And they're saying the batterysystem in cold so I need to put
cooling to it.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
I'm like, cool, let's do it, it doesn't need to, but
it'll work better right itdoesn't need direct, it can't
take direct sunlight.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
It can't take direct yeah, that's what really hurts
it but it can take heat.
Will it work?

Speaker 1 (38:53):
and last longer if it stays cool.
It will so like my inverter'sin the garage, and so it helps
that I keep my garage cooler.
Some can cool, but they willwork.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
Yeah, every electronic device has an optimal
temperature, Even the moduleswe put on people's homes.
Optimal temperature is like 85degrees.
I'll have people come out andhave me come out and they're
like.

Speaker 3 (39:18):
My solar guy told me I had to have air conditioning
in my garage because of thisbackup.
I say, well, I'm a solar personso I don't know that.
But if you said that and youtrust him, all you're going to
see in the garage.
The best part about this islet's say he's lying.
Let's say maybe he's lying.
You're now going to haveanother room in your garage.
Your wife kicks you out of thehouse, man came baby and he goes

(39:38):
.
Andy, I like the way you'rethinking.
That's a smart way to think.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
I looked at it too.
Part of it was a gym and allthat, but part of it was over my
garage is a couple bedrooms.
So by keeping it cooler in thesummer, now the upstairs
bedrooms are cooler, huge.
Yeah.
So people don't realize thatyou let your garage get to 100,
whatever degrees now the insideof your house suffers from that
All that heat load's coming upAbsolutely, so mini splits are
just fantastic.

Speaker 3 (40:00):
They're fantastic, they're amazing.

Speaker 1 (40:02):
It makes sense.
You're saying if you have adead room or a hot room and you
just can't really do much aboutit, it's a cheap option.

Speaker 3 (40:08):
Yeah, If you have a smaller room though like, don't
buy a $6,000 mini we can correctit with ductwork.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (40:17):
Like a lot of rooms.
You're going to a room and thecustomer's like you know.
So what are my favorite ones?
So obviously I'm in sales, butyou can do one of two things.
I hey, mr and Mrs Homeowner,where are the hot rooms so I can
sell you more stuff?
People are saying like, do youhave any uncomfortable rooms?
Cha-ching, cha-ching.
Right, how we do it, and Icoach people to do it and it's
proper, I'm not lying.
Come out and say, hey, realquick, take me to the most
comfortable room in your house.
Take me there.

(40:37):
What do you like doing in this?
Like, yeah, I don't want to behot while we're having family
time.
I'm like great, are there anyother rooms in the house that
you'd like to do theseactivities that maybe you don't,
because they're not as cold asthis room?
And they're like, yeah, let metake you to them.

(40:59):
Take me to the two rooms.
I'm like okay, so one of themthem off as good as that other
room, like your family room.
You maybe do more activitieshere.
Maybe your wife be happy withyou.
Oh, dude, it'd be taking somuch stress off my shoulders.
Okay, cool.
So no matter what, whether wereplace your system or not,
we're going to make this roomcomfortable, we agree.
And they're like, yeah, andthen you make that room
comfortable.
I'll tell you how.

(41:22):
But without a mini split, yougo down, we're sitting like,
okay, real quick, I just want togo over apples to apples.
He's making that room morecomfortable and he's doing this
and this and this and I'm like,well, no, and I'm like, oh well,
I can match his quote.
Let's take all that out.
No, no, I need that.
Okay, cool, well, you told meyou needed it.
So how you do it is a master thedoor, because there's no return
in the bedroom.
He has one, I have one, butmainly you don't to where, if

(41:50):
you don't have a master bedroomreturn?
Now the return becomesunderneath the door to actually
exit to the filter.
How an air conditioner works isit has to be sucked through the
filter and the air blows acrossthat coil.
The coil's cold, from thecompressor, cold air into the
house.
So everything has to go back tothat filter.
So adding a return to thebedroom might cost $800.
We'll solve your problem.
Huh, easy fix, wow.
But if you have a tri-levelhome, you're screwed.

(42:10):
So flat house is the same way,flat roof you can't get into the
ductwork.
I can't do anything about it.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
Yeah, flat houses and flat roofs are tough for us too
, because we can't look at thestructural.
So it makes it really hard toput panels over it.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
Yeah, we do it, but it's just harder.

Speaker 3 (42:26):
We do it but it is a different process.
And then people you know likethey'll buy these flips, like
you know, it's a pig withlipstick.
They're like oh my God, it's aflat roof, but I have 10-foot
ceilings.
Where'd the ductwork go?

Speaker 1 (42:44):
They put it on the roof and they foam it in.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
Oh yeah, I've always seen those.
But a homeowner doesn't know,they're not on the roof, the
ductwork on the outside, Ialways think like isn't that
just going to get hot in thesummertime?

Speaker 3 (42:57):
You got all that cold air running and then the sun
beat down on it.
Well, it's the same as olderhomes.
So if you buy a 30-yearprobably don't have enough
insulation unless they blew itin, they usually don't.
On top of your duct work'sprobably like an R2 or R3 R
value.
So if the air is coming out ofthe system at 40 degrees, by the
time it makes it through your160-degree attic to that room
it's raising by 30, 40 degrees.

(43:17):
If your duct work was insulatedproperly and you had the right
amount of insulation, it comesout at 40, it goes in at 40.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
It's crazy Might as well.
Just have glass duct work onthe ceiling, on the roof.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
Do you guys?
I know?
One of the things that I didwhen I moved into my house was I
had all my ducts cleaned.
I mean because it was amazing.

Speaker 3 (43:34):
So the only thing we don't do is duct cleaning.
But hey, I'll give it a plug.
My boy, shane, owns Dirty DuctsD-I-R, so that's the one thing
that we sub out that we don'tactually do.
But Dirty Ducks is amazing.
We probably give them 20 homesa week.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
So you absolutely recommend it.
Oh yeah, how often I include iton every sale.

Speaker 3 (43:54):
How often would you do it?
Twice a year.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
Yeah, I agree, twice a year In.

Speaker 3 (43:57):
Arizona, In Arizona.
So when you get it done, youcome home afterwards holy crap.
And then you can take it a stepfurther and you can have
hospital grade filtration inyour house, like I do.
So you have a four to six inchfilter right before it hits the
coil, and then you put UV lighton it with a catalyst and you

(44:18):
have nothing in the air.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
So that's what I was asking about next.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:21):
Filter takes care of all the dust, all the big
particles, and then UV andcatalyst takes care of
everything you can't see.
And then our system, the PureAir X.
So Pure Air and then X at theend.
You can't buy it online, youhave to buy it from a contractor
because it has to be done right, installed in the air
conditioning system.
As long as the system's running, it's actually the one system
that was proven to kill COVID.

(44:41):
So it kills the flu, killsanything in the air that you
can't see, and the UV lightactually kills COVID.
It's because during COVID itcouldn't spread outside.
It was because of the sun, UVlight.
What does a system like thatcost?
Prx is like $1,500.
Really, that's it, yep.
Every three years you got toreplace a bulb.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
It's not bad, you'll be coming to my house, yeah,
right.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
That's all it is.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
I thought it would be much more than that.

Speaker 3 (45:04):
So then, if you wanted to run, you just have to
if you're not using airconditioning just turn the fan
in the on position and then, ifyou have a variable speed system
, your fan will ramp down toabout 10%.
You could run it all year roundand it's going to cost you.
Without solar, it's going tocost you 30 bucks.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
I bet your house smells like nothing.
You light a candle and there'sjust no scent.

Speaker 3 (45:22):
No, you have a level on the PRX.
You have a level one to five.
If you go to five, like me, yousmell that like ozone smell.
But, I like it.
My house smells like rain pours, so I've been since probably
the 90s.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
I don't know if you remember they had those boxes,
the ozone boxes.
I can't remember the name ofthe company, but I still have
one today that I use.
There was lots of them, yeah,but there was an original one
that I can't remember, but I'duse those as well.
Those things are great, yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
So it's that on your whole home.
Okay, I'd like to do that.
We're going to talk about thatbecause I think that works.

Speaker 1 (45:52):
That stuff's amazing.

Speaker 3 (45:53):
It does work.
You're right, I wouldn't own itif it didn't.
I like the ozone smell andstuff and then000 a system I'm
like.
I have three of them.
They're phenomenal.
I didn't pay $25,000 per system, but I also didn't get your
10-year warranty.
You're about to get.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
I can't stand all the dust and stuff in the air.
It's terrible.
I have a studio at home that'sgot black tables and it's like
they're just covered every otherday, if I don't clean them, my
black stove't clean them thebest thing about.

Speaker 3 (46:24):
Hobica is we have a lot of free coupons that we give
to anybody so you can get afree whole home evaluation on
your water, your plumbing, youcan get it done on electrical.
You can get it done on your airduct work.
You can get a hot roomevaluation for free.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
We'll come out and make sure it's a hot room.
So do you guys do the waterheaters, the ductless, tankless,
tankless?
I always do that the tanklesstankless.

Speaker 3 (46:45):
You're fricking, you're missing out, unless
you're a hundred years old andyou and your wife live in sun
city with no kids in the home.
Like you need tankless.

Speaker 2 (46:53):
Well, you hear that Wow.

Speaker 3 (46:55):
You come home from work and your wife and two kids
have taken showers and you comehome to no hot water.
Well, tankless, unlimited hotwater and very, very efficient.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
So you like those.
I've heard positive andnegative about tankless.
What negative.
I've heard people say thatthat's it.
Well, I've heard the expensive.
It is expensive.
What's the cost?

Speaker 3 (47:11):
So a standard water heater, right, you go to Home
Depot and you're going to buy awater heater for $1,000.
It's a residential water heater, plastic drains and you're not
installing it Right.
So for a a, three grandinstalled by a good company like
us, tankless is going to beabout seven to nine.
That's not that much.
But it also has a 20 to 30 yearshelf life, when a normal water
heater in Arizona should bereplaced every 10 years.

Speaker 2 (47:33):
Okay, well, that's about equal then.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
If you think about it , well, three grand.

Speaker 3 (47:38):
But paying for it up front.
Right, right, especially ifyou're going to be in the home
for four years you can replaceit twice.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
There's six grand, but people don't replace it in
10 years.

Speaker 3 (47:45):
They let it go 14, and then it explodes and they
have to call their remediationcompany.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
What's yours, mine's like about 13 years old Dude,
dude, I already got him.

Speaker 3 (47:53):
We're going to go over and clean his dog, but it
looks good.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
Add insulation PRX and water heater.
My water heater looks nice.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
This podcast was well worth it.
He's Peoria.
I'll give him your address herein a little bit.

Speaker 1 (48:05):
Actually, I would like you to come over.
I've always been looking atthem and I've been reading a lot
about them and I think theymake a lot of sense.
Oh, they do, and my wife'salways complaining at 7 o'clock
that we don't have hot water.

Speaker 3 (48:15):
And then the only thing we haven't talked about
and you guys started it, so Ihave to bring it up Purification
.
So you have drinking highalkaline underneath my sink, so
that $14 bottle of water you buyat the store, I have it at my
sink.
And then, as well, if you don'thave a softener in Arizona,
you're really screwing up.
We have the third hardest statein the country and our water is

(48:36):
really hard.
So every home that we come outto, we offer them hey, would you
like me to test your water forfree?
Test it and show them theirhardness.
You see all the calcification.
This is what's going on.
Drain the water heater.
See all this crap.
This is hard water.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
Is your softener different than anything else?
I mean, I have a softener in myhouse.
It was there when I got it, soit's just a basic solder.
Yeah, it seems to work when Iput salt in it everything's
great.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
When I don't, it's bad's starting to be like common
as an ac unit, like but also,all new homes come with a loop.
If you don't have a loop andyou got to install the loop,
it's very expensive.
Okay, so just the loop alonecould be like six grand, and
then you got to buy the softenernow and I do have the.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
I do have the alkaline machine, so I've had
that for 10 years now.
Amazing those.
I won't touch anything butalkaline water.
So I mean you have to, I haveto.
I've been telling you that foryears.

Speaker 3 (49:33):
You won't touch anything but alkaline water.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
You know that when I drink this stuff, it actually
gives me a stomachache, comparedto drinking alkaline water.
This does.
Yes, agreed, but it's all yougave me.
It's all we have.
It's all we have.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
I mean, I drink either 8.5, 9 or 9, just do it
All right.
So this podcast is costing me alot of money.
I don't know about that.

Speaker 3 (49:47):
I don't like that.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
But you know what you came in today and you gave us
you got goodie bags, a goodiebag.
Look at that.
No one ever gives us goodiebags, I know.

Speaker 2 (49:55):
How come we should make it standard now?

Speaker 1 (50:00):
This is the first time we've had any old bike here
.
Yeah, nice, which is kind ofnice.
I've used that before.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
The best part is my last name's on everything I was
going to say.

Speaker 1 (50:07):
you're all over the place here Water leakage alarm.

Speaker 3 (50:12):
I might need that for my water heater.
I gave you guys each three ofthose.
Basically, you want to unscrewit, batteries included.
Install the battery, screw itback in, put it underneath your
sink.
If you ever have a water leak,it'll go off like Okay, I got a
wine thermometer.

Speaker 1 (50:24):
Wine bottle thermometer there you go.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
We talked about the wine cellars.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
I'm not going to drink tonight.
Yeah, yeah, a digitalthermometer.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
Yeah, meat thermometer.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
Yeah, that's cool.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
I think I'm grilling something tonight, so I'm going
to definitely use that.
This is really nice.
Thank you very much for this.
You're most welcome.

Speaker 3 (50:44):
I really appreciate that.
I get it all made in bulk fromour friends across seas and when
you buy 10,000 meatthermometers they come out to 12
cents a piece.
Well, now they're 40 cents.
All right, I have plenty.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
So one last thing is I know that you have a nonprofit
that you work with or that youhave, so talk about that.

Speaker 3 (51:06):
Yeah, so I founded it about, I want to say, 12 years
ago, been a 501c3 for abouteight and been a QCO for a year.
So QCO, a qualifying charitableorganization, so actually like
a Catholic school.
So when you're about to do yourtaxes, I think it's per couple
last year it was like 436.
I'm sorry, couple 938, single436.

(51:28):
Friends, family give.
Last year it was like 436.
I'm sorry, couple 938, single436.
Friends, family give me thatmoney.
You're gonna get it back in yourrefund, so it's a dollar for
dollar match, right, um and Iwas able to get a lot of money
last year.
So now blowing up to where I'mactual qco took a long time to
get there, but it started about,you know, 12, 13 years ago.
And once a month we go downtownphoenix.
We feed and help out thehomeless, but basically they
stand in line and what?
And we have one next weekend,actually on the 27th, but we

(51:48):
have one once a month, usuallyat the end of the month on a
Sunday, because when it gets hotI work six days a week, so at
the end of the day, sundays, weget off, unless I'm working.
But I'll have it.
We'll get down there 6, 7, 8, 9am, depending on how hot it is
outside.
Probably 7, 8 next weekend Getand basically 1,500, 2,000
homeless people will line up at12th Avenue in Jefferson and
they'll go through our tentsystem.

(52:08):
Basically we have water,nonperishable food items, five
or six toiletries, so we get thesame thing Alibaba, little mini
shampoos with one bag at a timeon it Shampoo conditioner,
razor, shaving cream, deodorants, baby wipes we have individual
baby wipes.
It's a shower and a box for ahomeless person.

(52:28):
And then we partner with acompany, another nonprofit
called Dog Days Out Arizona andthey set up right next to us and
if you're a homeless personwith a dog, they'll give
harnesses, leashes, littlefooties for the dogs, treats,
and that's Monique who runs that, a good friend of ours.
We talked to her today, butactually look up online.
So Instagram, facebook one bagat a time on Facebook, one bag

(52:49):
at a time AZ on Instagram andthen as well, dog dogs day out
Arizona on social media.
They're huge.
That's awesome for the dogs.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
That's awesome.
Do you take donations for itemsto Hannah?

Speaker 3 (53:01):
Yeah, take donations.
Obviously, if someone justwants to donate cash, it's great
, it's all 100% tax deductiblebecause it is actual 501c3 QCO.
But this is what I tell peopleLike Andy, I want to donate some
money.
Before you donate money, orbefore you judge and say that
I'm doing it for fame orwhatever, come to an event, just
come See it.
I guarantee it will make yourday, make your month and make

(53:21):
you a better person.
And then a little shout out forsalespeople If you want to make
more money and you're in salesor you're in a high-level job,
come and get back, see what itdoes for your money.
Absolutely, it makes me abetter person every single day.
And then customers are like hey, your website, I heard about
that one bag at a time thing.
What is it?
Talk about it for an hour.
I get very genuine andemotional about it because I
love doing it.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
Right, cool, we need to take information on that
because I know Harmon's alwayslooking to do some stuff.

Speaker 3 (53:46):
We've done a lot of company programs so you have the
company involved.
Each of the employees all buystuff will come and pack bags
and then go distribute.
We do it all the time.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
I think we'd be interested in maybe having that
conversation, love it.
So I'll get the informationfrom you.
That's really cool.

Speaker 2 (53:59):
I like it.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
How about?
So?
If somebody wants to reach outto learn AC, water heaters,
insulation, whatever it is, howcan they find you?

Speaker 3 (54:06):
guys, HOBAICAcom, Really easy to schedule online
602-995-0387.
And then personally, if anyoneis interested in anything about
me, they want to talk about me,they want to talk about sales,
anything like that fun stuff.
Just add me on social media.
Andy Hobayka, only one in theUnited States.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
You do some sales training and stuff too right.

Speaker 3 (54:28):
Yeah, states andy y training and stuff, true, right,
so hlb aica and I'm the benefitfor me.
Any conference I go to, I don'tneed a qr code.
I literally just tell them well, I'm the only andy hobak on
social media I'm the only benwalsh log on social media, you
know.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
Wow, you have something in common, ralph
romano, with your common namethere's a ton of us.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
If you look up ralph romano on social media, you'll
find a murderer on 70 differentpeople.
Yeah, there's a mob guy thatwas murdering people, so not
related okay, not related.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
Are you the same guy?
Are you the same guy?

Speaker 1 (54:49):
running from the law anything you'd like to add no,
this was fun.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
This was good it was.

Speaker 3 (54:54):
I really appreciate the opportunity.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
Thanks for coming and thanks for having me.
We appreciate it, and so, ben.
What's next?

Speaker 2 (55:01):
what is next?
I'm sure we've got a lot comingup.
I was actually I'll tell youthis right now.
I was talking with the GlendaleFire Department today about
fire code setbacks, and havethey ever encountered a home or
business that had solar wherethere was a fire?
What do you do?
What's the safety?
It's very different that wouldbe interesting.
We might be having them as aguest.

Speaker 1 (55:23):
Okay, and I know we're going to probably do
something on SRP soon too.
We might be having them as aguest.
Okay, and I know we're going toprobably do something on SRP
soon too.
We have to kind of get intothat, Changes that are coming
there that are going to impactgoing solar.
So for the next three yearsespecially, so we'll get into
that as well.
So again, hey, thanks forjoining.
Thank you, thanks for beinghere, that's what I do.
Thanks for watching and we'llsee you next time.

Speaker 2 (55:39):
Appreciate.