April 30, 2024 • 24 mins
April 30, 2024
133. Breathe Better with Key HVAC Insights from Jessica Wicks
Discover essential home maintenance tips that could save you from costly repairs and ensure your living environment remains safe and efficient. In this informative episode of Homeowners Be Aware, host George Siegal is joined by Jessica Wicks, brand president of Ductz. From the often-overlooked air ducts to the critical dryer vents, Jessica details the potential dangers of neglect and provides vital tips for keeping these systems in check. She also explores the significance of selecting the right filters for HVAC systems and the risks associated with improper maintenance. Throughout the conversation, Jessica offers expert advice on assessing and maintaining home systems, ensuring homeowners can prevent costly repairs and maintain safe, efficient household operations. She also has great advice on how to hire the right person to come out and do work at your house. Tune in to learn how to keep your home’s air clean and systems running smoothly, ensuring a healthier living environment.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
George Siegal (00:00):
A question for all you homeowners Are you doing
the regular maintenance on yourAC system, your dryer, vent the
ducts that are running the airthrough your house?
Well, my guest today says it'ssomething that you really need
to stay on top of.
Jessica Wicks is the brandpresident of Ductz, a franchise
based in Ann Arbor, michigan.
She'll tell you what willhappen if you neglect taking
(00:26):
care of these items and what youshould look for when you're
hiring someone to come out toyour house and do the work.
I'm George Siegal, and this isHomeowners Be Aware the podcast
that teaches you everything youneed to know about being a
homeowner.
Jessica, thank you so much forjoining me today.
Jessica Wicks (00:41):
Thank you for having me, george, good to be
here.
George Siegal (00:44):
Yeah, you're in a little community that I love,
ann Arbor, michigan.
Such a beautiful place.
I appreciate you taking thetime Now.
We're talking about ducts todayand also cleaning a lot of
things around the house thatpeople might take for granted
and not do so as homeowners aspart of our regular maintenance.
How much should we really bethinking about this stuff?
Jessica Wicks (01:05):
Well, ducts.
Core services obviously includeduct cleaning, also includes
HVAC cleaning, restoration, sothere's a lot more to your
heating and cooling system, ofcourse.
Just you know, aside from theduct work, we also clean dryer
vents.
We clean the condensing unitsso the coils on your condensing
(01:26):
unit outside and we cleanexhausts so huge commercial
exhausts down to your bathexhaust, and so all of these
items need to be maintained alot of times because they're out
of sight, they're out of mindand they become part of deferred
(01:46):
maintenance, which then becomesa problem down the road.
George Siegal (01:51):
Oh, absolutely.
I think most homeowners don'tthink about those things until
they have to think about them,until there's some kind of
problem pops up.
So how much can you be ahead ofthe curve by doing regular
maintenance and staying out infront of all these things?
Jessica Wicks (02:07):
Well, we'll speak first to your HVAC unit and
system.
So your HVAC system.
Obviously you should bechanging your filters, and
everyone knows that.
Do they?
No, they don't, no, they don't.
But what's really cool now isyou can get on filter programs
(02:31):
and you can even just order yourfilter to arrive every month,
every quarter, whatever it is,as a reminder to change your
furnace filter, your air handlerfilter, depending on where you
are in the country.
So that's, honest to goodness,the one biggest maintenance
problem that we see every day.
The second one is failure toclean and maintain your dryer
(02:52):
vent.
So your clothes dryer anytypical family is doing five to
seven loads a week.
You, of course, clean the linttrap with every load, but still
things get past there.
You know how many times have wewashed on accident, you know,
kleenexes or a paper towel orsomething like that.
(03:14):
It gets past there and it getsclogged and clogs the dryer vent
.
When you get to a certain pointof contamination inside of that
dryer exhaust, you now have apotential for a fire.
So you don't want that tohappen.
Most newer dryers will cycleoff when they get too hot.
(03:36):
So if you ever notice that yourdryer is hot to the touch on
the outside.
Your clothes come out very,very hot, like you're unable to
handle them.
There's a smell, a hot smell,in your dryer.
All of these different thingsare signs that you should have
your dryer vent cleaned, and youshould have it cleaned annually
, to be honest.
George Siegal (03:57):
Now I would encourage people to Google video
of that, because if you've everseen one of those vents blown
out, the amount of things thatcome out of there is pretty
overwhelming.
But we don't really think aboutit because you go ah, it's
working, so I'm not reallyworried about it.
Jessica Wicks (04:11):
Right, right.
No, that's exactly it.
When that's cleaned, oftentimeswe'll remove at least a
five-gallon bucket for aresidential dryer, but
commercial dryers I mean it'sit's huge containment that we
have to do for for all thatdebris removed from a commercial
(04:31):
dryer.
George Siegal (04:32):
Now I want to go back to the air filters, because
I had an AC guy tell me onetime and I think they told me
this in in Home Depot, althoughI take anything they tell me
there with with a grain of saltis when you put your air
conditioning vent in or thefilter, sometimes people think,
well, I'll get the reallyhypoallergenic one that has the
highest rating, and I had an ACguy tell me that's not good
(04:54):
because it prevents airflow fromgoing through and actually
cooling your house efficiently.
So what's the right answerthere?
Jessica Wicks (05:02):
So the right answer is to use the filter that
your system was designed to use, and you should be asking your
HVAC installation company whatfilter is recommended.
For most residential units.
Your typical filter is a MERV 8.
(05:22):
Sometimes you can push it to a9.
Your typical filter is a MERV 8.
Sometimes you can push it to a9.
After COVID they weresuggesting a MERV 13, which your
heating and cooling guy wasspot on when he said when you
(05:43):
increase the filtration, you'relooking at the blower working
too hard, you're looking at apossible cracked heat exchanger,
things like that.
You're putting too muchpressure in the system and it
can't push the air as it wasintended.
George Siegal (05:54):
Well, you know, what I think confuses us
homeowners is when, especiallyif it's new construction, the
builder usually sticks a filterin there that probably cost them
a penny, that has no filtrationwhatsoever, and then you're
upgrading that yourself.
So you assume that they'restarting you with the right
thing.
But you really can't assumethat.
Jessica Wicks (06:12):
No, you can't.
You should always ask, or yoursystem always comes with a
handbook and a user handbook, soyou should look there first,
because you don't want to putyour house and put your family
in danger by increasing thefiltration when you think that
you're doing what's best foryour home Could actually be
(06:34):
posing a threat.
George Siegal (06:36):
Okay Now when I look up duct cleaning because
I've had that looked at andlooked into for my house,
because we get a lot of dust inhere and I was told there's good
things and bad things aboutdoing it, that if you don't do
it right you can really screw itup.
You can tear the the ducts thatare running through the house.
I mean, what is the?
How can you assess whetherthat's something you need and
(06:56):
will even benefit from?
Jessica Wicks (06:59):
You should always have an assessment, so an
estimate done, where yourcompany that you're hiring is
actually looking inside the unit.
It's looking inside the airhandler and they're looking
inside the ductwork too.
So they should be takingpictures for you and they'll be
able to assess do you reallyneed this or not?
(07:19):
And sometimes you don't, andthat's fine, and ducts
technicians are trained torecognize when it needs to be
done.
All of our jobs come withbefore and after pictures, so
ensuring that the customer knowsthat this was done and done
well.
Your duct cleaning should bemore than just your air ducts.
(07:40):
It should also include yourregisters.
It should include your blower,your coil, your drain pan.
The entire unit needs to becleaned, not just the air ducts,
because as soon as youre-engage that system and turn
it back on, you've justrecontaminated the whole system
if you haven't cleaned theentire thing.
So in some cases where there'sbeen a system that's been nicely
(08:05):
maintained, the house is clean.
There are no environmentalissues as far as like uh, high
traffic volume, living on a dirtroad, lots of pollen, anything
like that.
Uh, some.
In some cases, a residentialhome just doesn't require as
many cleanings as one like mine,where I have a golden retriever
(08:26):
, and so if you have a goldenretriever, you should probably
get your dogs cleaned.
George Siegal (08:32):
Well, we have a Roomba, and if we run that every
day, we have two dogs it getsfull every day, which lets me
know there's just an incredibleamount of dust, and so what are
the signs that people could lookfor where they could go?
All right, this is something Ineed to look into because
something's not workingefficiently here.
Jessica Wicks (08:52):
Right, right, the biggest thing is to look at
your returns, wherever yourreturns are.
So you have a supply which issupplying your conditioned air,
heated or cooled air, and thenyou have a return.
So in most cases your returnsare higher up and older homes
your return could be on thefloor.
(09:12):
So a floor return is alwaysvery, very telling of what is
being sucked back into thesystem.
So whatever you're seeing atthe return register is what your
air ducts are going to looklike.
George Siegal (09:28):
So, like a lot of ours, I'm looking up at one
right now.
There's a lot of dust on thereturn.
What does that mean?
Jessica Wicks (09:34):
Yeah, that's an indicator.
You could probably use a goodduct cleaning.
But you're right, if someonecomes in and they're just using
a brush system with just thecanister and they don't have a
negative air machine and they'renot using compressed air and
agitation tools, they'reprobably doing they're doing
(09:56):
more harm than good to yoursystem.
George Siegal (09:59):
How would you know if they tore one of them?
I mean because they're allthose.
They look like aluminum foilvents.
If you look up in the attic itlooks like something that would
tear very easily.
Jessica Wicks (10:08):
Flex duct does tear easily.
There are special brushes andspecial air whips for just
cleaning flex duct, and so youdo have to be very careful and
make sure that your contractoris using the appropriate tools
for the job.
Just like any job, there arecertain tools for certain
(10:29):
surfaces, and the same is truefor air ducts.
George Siegal (10:34):
Now sometimes it's frustrating when you call
out a professional and you watchwhat they do.
And it's actually somethingpretty simple.
Like we have a Sub-Zero I thinkit's a Viking or Sub-Zero
refrigerator and so we'resupposed to get the coils
cleaned every they say every sixmonths to a year.
So the guy pulls open the vent,goes in there with a little
broom vac, cleans it out.
(10:54):
$200 later he's done.
Took him about 10 minutes.
So it looks like that'ssomething I felt comfortable
tackling myself.
I could go in there and cleanthose ducts, the ones that are
up and running through theentire house.
Not so comfortable with that.
Jessica Wicks (11:09):
Right, it's not a do-it-yourself job, absolutely
not.
George Siegal (11:13):
Yeah, but some of them are.
I mean, if you know you canactually do something.
Coils on a refrigerator, I meanthey do say to shut it off so
you don't electrocute yourself.
There are certain things that Ithink homeowners should be less
likely to dive into than others.
Like I don't think unless youreally know what you're doing, I
(11:34):
don't think anybody should messwith electrical.
But if it's a cleaning thingsometimes that's based on we're
too lazy we probably won't be asthorough as you.
You have people that aretrained to know exactly what to
do.
I mean, you know there's nogetting around.
It's better if a professionaldoes some things, but there's
some stuff we can do ourselves.
Jessica Wicks (12:09):
Absolutely.
We get hundreds of calls eachyear that they bought a kit at
one of the box stores for 40bucks and they were using the,
the rods and the brush to cleantheir system and it.
It works really well if you'redoing it well.
Um, if you reverse the drillbecause it attaches your drill,
if you reverse the drill causeit attaches your drill.
If you reverse the drill, allof the all of the, the actual
rods come apart.
(12:30):
So we get calls to come andretrieve, uh, actual rods and
brushes.
Uh, we get several of thosecalls each year.
Um, read the instructions,never reverse the drill.
And it's always good to usecompressed air of some sort.
We have special tools toactually reverse the air back
(12:54):
toward you so you can pull thedebris toward you rather than
pushing it back into the dryer.
If you have a flex hose fromyour dryer vent or as your dryer
vent, you can just, to behonest, you can go and pull that
off and just replace it,replace it with a new one, get a
(13:18):
new clamp, new foil tape, a newtransition outside.
You could certainly want to.
You know, if you're able, youcould tackle that yourself, but
you're much better off to justcall someone who knows exactly
what they're doing and exactlywhat your needs are.
George Siegal (13:35):
Now, maybe you already do this, but if not, I'm
giving you a great idea youshould really have two types of
pricing One for calling us thefirst time, and the second one
is calling us to fix somethingyou tried to do yourself.
Jessica Wicks (13:45):
Yes, yes, you're right, I like this idea, yeah.
George Siegal (13:49):
There's a lot of merit to that.
It's like, hey, if you're goingto really screw something up
and make our job more difficult,you're going to pay for for it.
I know plumbers who do that.
Yeah, no plumbers, that's a.
I interviewed a guy in yourbuilding who was great Matt
O'Rourke.
But yeah, some plumbers I theycome out there and they're doing
something that looks reallysimple because they have the
(14:11):
right tools to do it.
But what you don't realize as ahomeowner is if you take on a
project like that and mess it upespecially if it involves water
shooting through your house ora toilet backing up or things
there's things you can reallymess up that then just make the
problem worse.
Jessica Wicks (14:26):
Right, right, exactly.
George Siegal (14:28):
Yeah, no, I try to avoid doing that Now.
Women in your profession it wasinteresting to see that
originally there weren't a lot,but now you see that changing.
Are there a lot more women thatare getting involved in doing
what you do?
Jessica Wicks (14:43):
Absolutely.
It's a great field.
It's a great industry.
I really enjoy it.
But I grew up in this.
I worked for my dad's heatingand cooling company here in Ann
Arbor, michigan, and so withthat we're seeing more and more
women.
It's a great industry becausethere's a lot of movement, a lot
(15:06):
of potential for growth, so youcan move into new roles fairly
quickly.
You can relocate should yourfamily needs to relocate.
The heating and coolingindustry is booming and we'd
like to see that especially.
We were seeing a pattern aboutfour or five years ago where,
(15:26):
similar to electricians andplumbers, the trades were aging
out faster than they were beingreplaced and they're retiring
and we didn't have thereplacements for those
journeymen and HVAC technicians.
So it's definitely switched.
We're seeing a differentmindset for trade schools.
(15:49):
Rather than just assuming a newgraduate, high school graduate
is going to university and tocollege, trade school is an
option and it's an acceptableoption and we love to see it.
The industry is growing, itpays well, there's a lot of room
for growth, a lot of educationavailable and so it's amazing
(16:15):
For women, same thing and wewere seeing too here just within
our company.
There's definitely been a shift.
And just to have other women,kind of you know, beside me and
behind me, and it's beenincredible.
(16:36):
It's been a lot of fun and weall have each other's backs and
lots of business coaches, womenbusiness coaches.
We see that the women arereally.
They're really capable ofjuggling a lot, being organized,
they're reading throughfinancials very quickly.
(16:57):
They also are very empatheticwhen they're speaking to a
franchisee.
We coach franchisees after theycome through training and on
everything from sales tofinances to HR, to I need.
Where where's my growth at?
So when do I add more equipment?
When do I add more equipment?
When do I add a salesperson oranother truck?
(17:19):
And just seeing all of thosedifferent milestones where we
could consider that as a growthpoint is huge.
So we support each other,support one another and it's a
great industry to be in.
George Siegal (17:39):
Y'all just seem a lot more trustworthy than us
guys?
Jessica Wicks (17:41):
I don't know about that.
George Siegal (17:43):
You're not going to touch that one.
Yeah well, you know, I justalways feel like somebody's
trying to take me, so it's niceto see that that's really
changing.
And then when you set upfranchises for businesses around
the country, to me the biggestchallenge is those companies
finding good people and I know Ican speak for where I live in
Tampa.
(18:03):
There's a lot of knuckleheadsthat show up at your door when
you call different trades.
And to me that's the biggestchallenge in running a business
is the people.
If you're good as an organizedleader of people, you still got
to have good people as anorganized leader of people, you
still got to have good people,absolutely, absolutely.
Jessica Wicks (18:32):
So lots of training, obviously, lots of
mentoring across the franchisebrands.
We see, when we get a really,really good location, who's just
kind of hitting all the markswith their technicians and with
their sales teams, and we, we goin there and kind of make an
example, a shining example, ofthem and then we share, and
we're able to share those, uh,those success stories and what's
(18:54):
working with one another.
It that's the glorious thing.
In my mind, the most gloriousthing about being part of a
franchise network is thatcamaraderie, the ability to
support one another.
Because if you go and startBob's ducts cleaning, that's
great.
Well, it's Bob and histechnicians.
And in a franchise you have theability to reach out to one
(19:17):
another, ask questions, seewhat's working for others,
implement it and try it in yourown location.
They borrow technicians andtrucks and equipment from one
another.
Locally.
We like to ensure that theneighbors play well together,
everyone works well together,and so it works out really
(19:40):
nicely.
George Siegal (19:41):
Yeah, no, I would think so.
I would think that ifbusinesses just realize just
being honest with the customer,doing what you say you're going
to do, showing up on time,proper follow up, just there's
so many things that I think getlost because everybody right now
automatically thinks they'retoo good for what they're doing
and they should should be theboss, and they don't focus on
learning the job and being agood worker first and then
(20:02):
working your way up.
Jessica Wicks (20:04):
Right, right.
I absolutely agree with you.
George Siegal (20:08):
A lost art.
Jessica Wicks (20:09):
We're constantly speaking to it.
We're constantly trying toteach new things, explore new
avenues, new vendors, whateverthat takes to improve the hiring
process, to improve the salesexperience, the customer
experience.
It's an ongoing training, to behonest.
George Siegal (20:35):
All right.
Well, let's bring this backaround then to the homeowner.
So what advice do you have forhomeowners about how they should
focus on the different thingsthat you do and how they should
prioritize what should becomepart of regular maintenance for
them?
Jessica Wicks (21:02):
recommend homeowners in all cases.
We always have our new year'sresolution right.
You're going to lose weight,I'm going to drink more water,
and I really feel it's importantto take the home into
consideration.
What improvement am I going tomake this year?
What do I need to?
What are my goals?
We're always concerned withhealthy food, healthy water,
where things are being sourced.
(21:22):
We need to be a little moreconcerned with healthy air and
what we're breathing in keepingthe home safe, keeping the air
filtered.
You know I have conversationswith people all the time.
I live in Michigan.
We don't use the airconditioning very often, but
when we do it's because we haveto right, and you understand,
(21:45):
you live in Michigan, so Ialways keep it kind of cooler or
not cooler, but not as cold assome people would.
You know wood like 78 and Ikeep the fan on.
That's mostly to filter the air.
I'm just trying to get the airmoving and it's just for sake of
(22:08):
of just that filtering the airand keeping the pollen and
dander down.
To be honest, I have allergies,my children have allergies, so
that's the goal there.
But I would just say to just beconsiderate of all those things
Like you were talking about.
We maintain the appliances inthe kitchen because they're in
(22:32):
front of us and we're using themdaily.
Well, your heating and coolingsystem is being used well more
often than your stove or youroven, so those need to be
maintained too.
So it just becomes part of yourregular frequency of
maintenance and cleaning wouldbe my recommendation.
George Siegal (22:52):
Yeah, and I think a lot of it's seasonal too and
understanding the part of thecountry that you're in.
So, for example, in Florida myair conditioning may be running
most of the year, but there'sthose certain months where it
doesn't quite get warm enough orcool enough for heat, and
that's where flipping that fanon can really make a difference,
because the system's notrunning if you don't activate it
, if it doesn't hit the high orlow temperature setting, does it
(23:15):
?
Jessica Wicks (23:16):
No, it won't.
It'll turn off completely.
George Siegal (23:19):
So if you want to keep that circulation going,
you can just turn your fan onand it'll filter your air and
it'll keep it, keep the aircirculating in the home, and
then the other thing would be nopets or kids and that, and then
everything would be perfect.
Jessica Wicks (23:33):
And that'd be quiet.
George Siegal (23:36):
Oh, what a world that would be.
But I don't think it's going tohappen.
Jessica Wicks (23:39):
Yeah, no luck.
George Siegal (23:41):
Jessica, thank you so much for coming on and
talking about this.
I'll have links in there forpeople to get in touch with you,
but I appreciate your time.
Jessica Wicks (23:48):
Thank you so much , George.
Thanks for having me.
George Siegal (23:51):
Almost everyone I meet has a story about
something that has happened tothem as a homeowner, and I'd
love for you to share yours.
There's a contact form in theshow notes.
Fill it out, tell me your story.
You could be a guest on anupcoming podcast.
Thank you for listening today.
I'll see you next time.
A question for all you homeowners Are you doing
the regular maintenance on yourAC system, your dryer, vent the
ducts that are running the airthrough your house?
Well, my guest today says it'ssomething that you really need
to stay on top of.
Jessica Wicks is the brandpresident of Ductz, a franchise
based in Ann Arbor, michigan.
She'll tell you what willhappen if you neglect taking
(00:26):
care of these items and what youshould look for when you're
hiring someone to come out toyour house and do the work.
I'm George Siegal, and this isHomeowners Be Aware the podcast
that teaches you everything youneed to know about being a
homeowner.
Jessica, thank you so much forjoining me today.
Jessica Wicks (00:41):
Thank you for having me, george, good to be
here.
George Siegal (00:44):
Yeah, you're in a little community that I love,
ann Arbor, michigan.
Such a beautiful place.
I appreciate you taking thetime Now.
We're talking about ducts todayand also cleaning a lot of
things around the house thatpeople might take for granted
and not do so as homeowners aspart of our regular maintenance.
How much should we really bethinking about this stuff?
Jessica Wicks (01:05):
Well, ducts.
Core services obviously includeduct cleaning, also includes
HVAC cleaning, restoration, sothere's a lot more to your
heating and cooling system, ofcourse.
Just you know, aside from theduct work, we also clean dryer
vents.
We clean the condensing unitsso the coils on your condensing
(01:26):
unit outside and we cleanexhausts so huge commercial
exhausts down to your bathexhaust, and so all of these
items need to be maintained alot of times because they're out
of sight, they're out of mindand they become part of deferred
(01:46):
maintenance, which then becomesa problem down the road.
George Siegal (01:51):
Oh, absolutely.
I think most homeowners don'tthink about those things until
they have to think about them,until there's some kind of
problem pops up.
So how much can you be ahead ofthe curve by doing regular
maintenance and staying out infront of all these things?
Jessica Wicks (02:07):
Well, we'll speak first to your HVAC unit and
system.
So your HVAC system.
Obviously you should bechanging your filters, and
everyone knows that.
Do they?
No, they don't, no, they don't.
But what's really cool now isyou can get on filter programs
(02:31):
and you can even just order yourfilter to arrive every month,
every quarter, whatever it is,as a reminder to change your
furnace filter, your air handlerfilter, depending on where you
are in the country.
So that's, honest to goodness,the one biggest maintenance
problem that we see every day.
The second one is failure toclean and maintain your dryer
(02:52):
vent.
So your clothes dryer anytypical family is doing five to
seven loads a week.
You, of course, clean the linttrap with every load, but still
things get past there.
You know how many times have wewashed on accident, you know,
kleenexes or a paper towel orsomething like that.
(03:14):
It gets past there and it getsclogged and clogs the dryer vent
.
When you get to a certain pointof contamination inside of that
dryer exhaust, you now have apotential for a fire.
So you don't want that tohappen.
Most newer dryers will cycleoff when they get too hot.
(03:36):
So if you ever notice that yourdryer is hot to the touch on
the outside.
Your clothes come out very,very hot, like you're unable to
handle them.
There's a smell, a hot smell,in your dryer.
All of these different thingsare signs that you should have
your dryer vent cleaned, and youshould have it cleaned annually
, to be honest.
George Siegal (03:57):
Now I would encourage people to Google video
of that, because if you've everseen one of those vents blown
out, the amount of things thatcome out of there is pretty
overwhelming.
But we don't really think aboutit because you go ah, it's
working, so I'm not reallyworried about it.
Jessica Wicks (04:11):
Right, right.
No, that's exactly it.
When that's cleaned, oftentimeswe'll remove at least a
five-gallon bucket for aresidential dryer, but
commercial dryers I mean it'sit's huge containment that we
have to do for for all thatdebris removed from a commercial
(04:31):
dryer.
George Siegal (04:32):
Now I want to go back to the air filters, because
I had an AC guy tell me onetime and I think they told me
this in in Home Depot, althoughI take anything they tell me
there with with a grain of saltis when you put your air
conditioning vent in or thefilter, sometimes people think,
well, I'll get the reallyhypoallergenic one that has the
highest rating, and I had an ACguy tell me that's not good
(04:54):
because it prevents airflow fromgoing through and actually
cooling your house efficiently.
So what's the right answerthere?
Jessica Wicks (05:02):
So the right answer is to use the filter that
your system was designed to use, and you should be asking your
HVAC installation company whatfilter is recommended.
For most residential units.
Your typical filter is a MERV 8.
(05:22):
Sometimes you can push it to a9.
Your typical filter is a MERV 8.
Sometimes you can push it to a9.
After COVID they weresuggesting a MERV 13, which your
heating and cooling guy wasspot on when he said when you
(05:43):
increase the filtration, you'relooking at the blower working
too hard, you're looking at apossible cracked heat exchanger,
things like that.
You're putting too muchpressure in the system and it
can't push the air as it wasintended.
George Siegal (05:54):
Well, you know, what I think confuses us
homeowners is when, especiallyif it's new construction, the
builder usually sticks a filterin there that probably cost them
a penny, that has no filtrationwhatsoever, and then you're
upgrading that yourself.
So you assume that they'restarting you with the right
thing.
But you really can't assumethat.
Jessica Wicks (06:12):
No, you can't.
You should always ask, or yoursystem always comes with a
handbook and a user handbook, soyou should look there first,
because you don't want to putyour house and put your family
in danger by increasing thefiltration when you think that
you're doing what's best foryour home Could actually be
(06:34):
posing a threat.
George Siegal (06:36):
Okay Now when I look up duct cleaning because
I've had that looked at andlooked into for my house,
because we get a lot of dust inhere and I was told there's good
things and bad things aboutdoing it, that if you don't do
it right you can really screw itup.
You can tear the the ducts thatare running through the house.
I mean, what is the?
How can you assess whetherthat's something you need and
(06:56):
will even benefit from?
Jessica Wicks (06:59):
You should always have an assessment, so an
estimate done, where yourcompany that you're hiring is
actually looking inside the unit.
It's looking inside the airhandler and they're looking
inside the ductwork too.
So they should be takingpictures for you and they'll be
able to assess do you reallyneed this or not?
(07:19):
And sometimes you don't, andthat's fine, and ducts
technicians are trained torecognize when it needs to be
done.
All of our jobs come withbefore and after pictures, so
ensuring that the customer knowsthat this was done and done
well.
Your duct cleaning should bemore than just your air ducts.
(07:40):
It should also include yourregisters.
It should include your blower,your coil, your drain pan.
The entire unit needs to becleaned, not just the air ducts,
because as soon as youre-engage that system and turn
it back on, you've justrecontaminated the whole system
if you haven't cleaned theentire thing.
So in some cases where there'sbeen a system that's been nicely
(08:05):
maintained, the house is clean.
There are no environmentalissues as far as like uh, high
traffic volume, living on a dirtroad, lots of pollen, anything
like that.
Uh, some.
In some cases, a residentialhome just doesn't require as
many cleanings as one like mine,where I have a golden retriever
(08:26):
, and so if you have a goldenretriever, you should probably
get your dogs cleaned.
George Siegal (08:32):
Well, we have a Roomba, and if we run that every
day, we have two dogs it getsfull every day, which lets me
know there's just an incredibleamount of dust, and so what are
the signs that people could lookfor where they could go?
All right, this is something Ineed to look into because
something's not workingefficiently here.
Jessica Wicks (08:52):
Right, right, the biggest thing is to look at
your returns, wherever yourreturns are.
So you have a supply which issupplying your conditioned air,
heated or cooled air, and thenyou have a return.
So in most cases your returnsare higher up and older homes
your return could be on thefloor.
(09:12):
So a floor return is alwaysvery, very telling of what is
being sucked back into thesystem.
So whatever you're seeing atthe return register is what your
air ducts are going to looklike.
George Siegal (09:28):
So, like a lot of ours, I'm looking up at one
right now.
There's a lot of dust on thereturn.
What does that mean?
Jessica Wicks (09:34):
Yeah, that's an indicator.
You could probably use a goodduct cleaning.
But you're right, if someonecomes in and they're just using
a brush system with just thecanister and they don't have a
negative air machine and they'renot using compressed air and
agitation tools, they'reprobably doing they're doing
(09:56):
more harm than good to yoursystem.
George Siegal (09:59):
How would you know if they tore one of them?
I mean because they're allthose.
They look like aluminum foilvents.
If you look up in the attic itlooks like something that would
tear very easily.
Jessica Wicks (10:08):
Flex duct does tear easily.
There are special brushes andspecial air whips for just
cleaning flex duct, and so youdo have to be very careful and
make sure that your contractoris using the appropriate tools
for the job.
Just like any job, there arecertain tools for certain
(10:29):
surfaces, and the same is truefor air ducts.
George Siegal (10:34):
Now sometimes it's frustrating when you call
out a professional and you watchwhat they do.
And it's actually somethingpretty simple.
Like we have a Sub-Zero I thinkit's a Viking or Sub-Zero
refrigerator and so we'resupposed to get the coils
cleaned every they say every sixmonths to a year.
So the guy pulls open the vent,goes in there with a little
broom vac, cleans it out.
(10:54):
$200 later he's done.
Took him about 10 minutes.
So it looks like that'ssomething I felt comfortable
tackling myself.
I could go in there and cleanthose ducts, the ones that are
up and running through theentire house.
Not so comfortable with that.
Jessica Wicks (11:09):
Right, it's not a do-it-yourself job, absolutely
not.
George Siegal (11:13):
Yeah, but some of them are.
I mean, if you know you canactually do something.
Coils on a refrigerator, I meanthey do say to shut it off so
you don't electrocute yourself.
There are certain things that Ithink homeowners should be less
likely to dive into than others.
Like I don't think unless youreally know what you're doing, I
(11:34):
don't think anybody should messwith electrical.
But if it's a cleaning thingsometimes that's based on we're
too lazy we probably won't be asthorough as you.
You have people that aretrained to know exactly what to
do.
I mean, you know there's nogetting around.
It's better if a professionaldoes some things, but there's
some stuff we can do ourselves.
Jessica Wicks (12:09):
Absolutely.
We get hundreds of calls eachyear that they bought a kit at
one of the box stores for 40bucks and they were using the,
the rods and the brush to cleantheir system and it.
It works really well if you'redoing it well.
Um, if you reverse the drillbecause it attaches your drill,
if you reverse the drill causeit attaches your drill.
If you reverse the drill, allof the all of the, the actual
rods come apart.
(12:30):
So we get calls to come andretrieve, uh, actual rods and
brushes.
Uh, we get several of thosecalls each year.
Um, read the instructions,never reverse the drill.
And it's always good to usecompressed air of some sort.
We have special tools toactually reverse the air back
(12:54):
toward you so you can pull thedebris toward you rather than
pushing it back into the dryer.
If you have a flex hose fromyour dryer vent or as your dryer
vent, you can just, to behonest, you can go and pull that
off and just replace it,replace it with a new one, get a
(13:18):
new clamp, new foil tape, a newtransition outside.
You could certainly want to.
You know, if you're able, youcould tackle that yourself, but
you're much better off to justcall someone who knows exactly
what they're doing and exactlywhat your needs are.
George Siegal (13:35):
Now, maybe you already do this, but if not, I'm
giving you a great idea youshould really have two types of
pricing One for calling us thefirst time, and the second one
is calling us to fix somethingyou tried to do yourself.
Jessica Wicks (13:45):
Yes, yes, you're right, I like this idea, yeah.
George Siegal (13:49):
There's a lot of merit to that.
It's like, hey, if you're goingto really screw something up
and make our job more difficult,you're going to pay for for it.
I know plumbers who do that.
Yeah, no plumbers, that's a.
I interviewed a guy in yourbuilding who was great Matt
O'Rourke.
But yeah, some plumbers I theycome out there and they're doing
something that looks reallysimple because they have the
(14:11):
right tools to do it.
But what you don't realize as ahomeowner is if you take on a
project like that and mess it upespecially if it involves water
shooting through your house ora toilet backing up or things
there's things you can reallymess up that then just make the
problem worse.
Jessica Wicks (14:26):
Right, right, exactly.
George Siegal (14:28):
Yeah, no, I try to avoid doing that Now.
Women in your profession it wasinteresting to see that
originally there weren't a lot,but now you see that changing.
Are there a lot more women thatare getting involved in doing
what you do?
Jessica Wicks (14:43):
Absolutely.
It's a great field.
It's a great industry.
I really enjoy it.
But I grew up in this.
I worked for my dad's heatingand cooling company here in Ann
Arbor, michigan, and so withthat we're seeing more and more
women.
It's a great industry becausethere's a lot of movement, a lot
(15:06):
of potential for growth, so youcan move into new roles fairly
quickly.
You can relocate should yourfamily needs to relocate.
The heating and coolingindustry is booming and we'd
like to see that especially.
We were seeing a pattern aboutfour or five years ago where,
(15:26):
similar to electricians andplumbers, the trades were aging
out faster than they were beingreplaced and they're retiring
and we didn't have thereplacements for those
journeymen and HVAC technicians.
So it's definitely switched.
We're seeing a differentmindset for trade schools.
(15:49):
Rather than just assuming a newgraduate, high school graduate
is going to university and tocollege, trade school is an
option and it's an acceptableoption and we love to see it.
The industry is growing, itpays well, there's a lot of room
for growth, a lot of educationavailable and so it's amazing
(16:15):
For women, same thing and wewere seeing too here just within
our company.
There's definitely been a shift.
And just to have other women,kind of you know, beside me and
behind me, and it's beenincredible.
(16:36):
It's been a lot of fun and weall have each other's backs and
lots of business coaches, womenbusiness coaches.
We see that the women arereally.
They're really capable ofjuggling a lot, being organized,
they're reading throughfinancials very quickly.
(16:57):
They also are very empatheticwhen they're speaking to a
franchisee.
We coach franchisees after theycome through training and on
everything from sales tofinances to HR, to I need.
Where where's my growth at?
So when do I add more equipment?
When do I add more equipment?
When do I add a salesperson oranother truck?
(17:19):
And just seeing all of thosedifferent milestones where we
could consider that as a growthpoint is huge.
So we support each other,support one another and it's a
great industry to be in.
George Siegal (17:39):
Y'all just seem a lot more trustworthy than us
guys?
Jessica Wicks (17:41):
I don't know about that.
George Siegal (17:43):
You're not going to touch that one.
Yeah well, you know, I justalways feel like somebody's
trying to take me, so it's niceto see that that's really
changing.
And then when you set upfranchises for businesses around
the country, to me the biggestchallenge is those companies
finding good people and I know Ican speak for where I live in
Tampa.
(18:03):
There's a lot of knuckleheadsthat show up at your door when
you call different trades.
And to me that's the biggestchallenge in running a business
is the people.
If you're good as an organizedleader of people, you still got
to have good people as anorganized leader of people, you
still got to have good people,absolutely, absolutely.
Jessica Wicks (18:32):
So lots of training, obviously, lots of
mentoring across the franchisebrands.
We see, when we get a really,really good location, who's just
kind of hitting all the markswith their technicians and with
their sales teams, and we, we goin there and kind of make an
example, a shining example, ofthem and then we share, and
we're able to share those, uh,those success stories and what's
(18:54):
working with one another.
It that's the glorious thing.
In my mind, the most gloriousthing about being part of a
franchise network is thatcamaraderie, the ability to
support one another.
Because if you go and startBob's ducts cleaning, that's
great.
Well, it's Bob and histechnicians.
And in a franchise you have theability to reach out to one
(19:17):
another, ask questions, seewhat's working for others,
implement it and try it in yourown location.
They borrow technicians andtrucks and equipment from one
another.
Locally.
We like to ensure that theneighbors play well together,
everyone works well together,and so it works out really
(19:40):
nicely.
George Siegal (19:41):
Yeah, no, I would think so.
I would think that ifbusinesses just realize just
being honest with the customer,doing what you say you're going
to do, showing up on time,proper follow up, just there's
so many things that I think getlost because everybody right now
automatically thinks they'retoo good for what they're doing
and they should should be theboss, and they don't focus on
learning the job and being agood worker first and then
(20:02):
working your way up.
Jessica Wicks (20:04):
Right, right.
I absolutely agree with you.
George Siegal (20:08):
A lost art.
Jessica Wicks (20:09):
We're constantly speaking to it.
We're constantly trying toteach new things, explore new
avenues, new vendors, whateverthat takes to improve the hiring
process, to improve the salesexperience, the customer
experience.
It's an ongoing training, to behonest.
George Siegal (20:35):
All right.
Well, let's bring this backaround then to the homeowner.
So what advice do you have forhomeowners about how they should
focus on the different thingsthat you do and how they should
prioritize what should becomepart of regular maintenance for
them?
Jessica Wicks (21:02):
recommend homeowners in all cases.
We always have our new year'sresolution right.
You're going to lose weight,I'm going to drink more water,
and I really feel it's importantto take the home into
consideration.
What improvement am I going tomake this year?
What do I need to?
What are my goals?
We're always concerned withhealthy food, healthy water,
where things are being sourced.
(21:22):
We need to be a little moreconcerned with healthy air and
what we're breathing in keepingthe home safe, keeping the air
filtered.
You know I have conversationswith people all the time.
I live in Michigan.
We don't use the airconditioning very often, but
when we do it's because we haveto right, and you understand,
(21:45):
you live in Michigan, so Ialways keep it kind of cooler or
not cooler, but not as cold assome people would.
You know wood like 78 and Ikeep the fan on.
That's mostly to filter the air.
I'm just trying to get the airmoving and it's just for sake of
(22:08):
of just that filtering the airand keeping the pollen and
dander down.
To be honest, I have allergies,my children have allergies, so
that's the goal there.
But I would just say to just beconsiderate of all those things
Like you were talking about.
We maintain the appliances inthe kitchen because they're in
(22:32):
front of us and we're using themdaily.
Well, your heating and coolingsystem is being used well more
often than your stove or youroven, so those need to be
maintained too.
So it just becomes part of yourregular frequency of
maintenance and cleaning wouldbe my recommendation.
George Siegal (22:52):
Yeah, and I think a lot of it's seasonal too and
understanding the part of thecountry that you're in.
So, for example, in Florida myair conditioning may be running
most of the year, but there'sthose certain months where it
doesn't quite get warm enough orcool enough for heat, and
that's where flipping that fanon can really make a difference,
because the system's notrunning if you don't activate it
, if it doesn't hit the high orlow temperature setting, does it
(23:15):
?
Jessica Wicks (23:16):
No, it won't.
It'll turn off completely.
George Siegal (23:19):
So if you want to keep that circulation going,
you can just turn your fan onand it'll filter your air and
it'll keep it, keep the aircirculating in the home, and
then the other thing would be nopets or kids and that, and then
everything would be perfect.
Jessica Wicks (23:33):
And that'd be quiet.
George Siegal (23:36):
Oh, what a world that would be.
But I don't think it's going tohappen.
Jessica Wicks (23:39):
Yeah, no luck.
George Siegal (23:41):
Jessica, thank you so much for coming on and
talking about this.
I'll have links in there forpeople to get in touch with you,
but I appreciate your time.
Jessica Wicks (23:48):
Thank you so much , George.
Thanks for having me.
George Siegal (23:51):
Almost everyone I meet has a story about
something that has happened tothem as a homeowner, and I'd
love for you to share yours.
There's a contact form in theshow notes.
Fill it out, tell me your story.
You could be a guest on anupcoming podcast.
Thank you for listening today.
I'll see you next time.
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