Quilt released a new video walkthrough of a home with their systems installed. I watched the video in real time and gave my thoughts.
★Another Tool in the Toolbox
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I was catching up with an old colleague of mine who works in the cooling tower business and knowing that I was in the heat pump and VRF world, he asked, “Are these heat pumps really going to take over?”
His question was both surprising and unsurprising.
Surprising in that he asked that question in the first place. Unsurprising since his livelihood was based off the hydronic side of the HVAC business.
I know the stereotypical salesperson answer would be “Of course they are!These things are more efficient, take up less space, they’re less complex. You don’t have to deal with huge chillers, cooling towers, pumps, and piping!”
My answer?
I said no.
In reality, heat pumps and VRF are just another tool in the tool box for addressing building comfort. Some applications make sense for heat pumps and VRF. Dorms, hotels, office buildings, retrofits would all make good applications for heat pumps and VRF.
But some applications make sense to go with another method, whether its simple RTUs, evap coolers, or a traditional chiller/boiler/AHU/cooling tower set up. It really depends on the application.
In today’s world, I think honesty vs. the hard sell goes further. Sometimes the hard sell is necessary to get to the finish line, but I think you get a lot closer to that line with a more nuanced approach. I think customers appreciate the honesty even if it doesn’t work in your favor. Even if you don’t get that job now, your customer will remember your honesty on future projects.
California Grid Breezes Through Heat Wave due to Renewables, Batteries
From This Is Not Cool with Peter Sinclair:
In fact, California seems to have reached a level of storage that is creating some kind of a phase-change in the grid, yielding benefits that are surprising even expert observers. More and more days where renewables supply greater-than 100 percent of California’s power – enabling exports even under these challenging conditions.
Critics have long downplayed the benefits of EVs, heat pumps, induction stoves, and heat pump water heaters. They argue that our electrical grid can’t handle all of these new cars and appliances. Which is true! But that doesn’t mean we can’t do anything about it!
This is the most frustrating thing about this argument. This mostly comes up with EVs since they have been around longer and are becoming more accessible. They say there isn’t enough charging infrastructure. To that I say, do you think all these gas stations popped up overnight?!
This news that California’s electrical grid was able to withstand these recent heat waves due to the availability of more clean energy and energy storage through batteries is our best argument against naysayers who say the grid cannot support it.
More of this please.
★Trane Mitsubishi Launches New Light Commercial Heat Pumps
Introducing the expansion of the S-Series (PUMY) outdoor unit lineup to include Hyper-Heating INVERTER® (H2i®) technology.Part of the CITY MULTI® family, the H2i® PUMY is a single-phase heat pump ideal for light commercial applications including banks, churches, schools, server rooms, retail centers and more.
I think the HVAC industry would benefit from proper marketing departments. Not sure when these launched but I saw these in an industry trade magazine. An actual physical magazine that our office received in the mail. I searched on the web for these and all I got was the block quote above which links to the engineering submittal site. No mention of the small footprint, tonnages, and ideal applications.
As far as I know, LG and Mitsubishi are the only manufacturers who make this style heat pump. I would be shouting this from the mountaintops.
★Gen Z Plumbers and Construction Workers Are Making #BlueCollar Cool
Many posts tout the wages blue-collar workers can make. Pay for new hires in construction now outstrips pay for new hires in professional services like accounting, according to ADP data. Skilled-trade influencers say they’re also trying to combat decades of stereotypes in which practitioners were seen as grease monkeys or stuck in low-end careers.
I appreciate what these folks do out in the field. No shame in earning a pretty decent living in the trades. Also grateful for my knowledge worker job in this industry.
★Nation’s 1st all-electric hospital coming to UCI Health medical campus
The all-electric Central Utility Plant is where facility operations will be monitored. That includes running the air source heat pumps. Brothman said the moderate temperature in the coastal region is key.
“Much like a traditional heat pump that is used in residential or other office buildings, these can run in forward or reverse to use the ambient outside temperature to heat or cool our heating and ventilation components in this facility,” Brothman said.
Proud to see my alma mater going all electric for its new medical center.
★Thoughts on acquisitions
Over the last few months, I’ve seen some acquisition news in the HVAC industry and I have some thoughts.
Acquisitions are not new. When a business or start up launches, the goal is either sustaining their business long term, going public, or getting acquired.
In the HVAC industry, acquisitions happen but they usually don’t make the news. Tech companies such as Microsoft and Facebook, now Meta, have acquired a few companies over the years and they always make the news due to their size. See Mojang, LinkedIn, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
But large HVAC acquisitions do make the news in our little corner of the world. I remember hearing the news when Daikin acquired McQuay in the mid–2000s. Maybe because we’re all increasingly connected on the Internet, more and more acquisitions are making the news. Daikin acquiring McQuay, Goodman, Alliance Air, and many smaller firms hits my LinkedIn feed. DMG acquiring Toro Aire for their distribution network. And now Ambient, a company I’d never heard of, bought a controlling stake in DMG, DMG North, and Toro Aire.
All these acquisitions got me thinking: is further consolidation in the HVAC industry a good thing or a bad thing?
I would say yes and no.
My argument for acquisitions is that it lets the acquired company use the resources of the acquiring company. They can use it expand or build new facilities. We saw this with Alliance Air breaking ground on a new manufacturing facility just over a year after being acquired by Daikin. Companies also acquire other companies to expand their market reach. Back in 90s USACD, known as SCAD back then, acquired EB Ward to expand their operations into Northern CA. Ambient, which is an unknown in the West Coast, acquired DMG to get into the West Coast HVAC market.
My argument against acquisitions is that it reduces the number of players in a given market. Less choice means less competition and generally means higher prices for customers. Before we ended up with 3 national cellular carriers (AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile) we had numerous national and regional carriers, including Cingular, Sprint, GTE, and others.
It also can lead to stagnation. Using the same cellular example, the only differentiation would be coverage and a few differentiating features. Can you name one feature from a carrier that distinguishes it from the other?
I concede that the HVAC market is not the same as the US cellular market, but it is hard not to envision a future where only a few large companies make the same basic product with only a few differences.
At Paris Olympics, some athletes distrust an unusual cooling system
Paris has been gearing up for the Summer Olympics for some time. I did not know this about their plans.
For all the steps Paris organizers have taken to put on the greenest Olympics ever, their boldest measure — the one they’ve touted again and again — pertains to the dorms in the Athletes’ Village. The rooms don’t have air-conditioning.
That is not exactly true. They’re not using “traditional” air conditioning where there is active air cooling a space. They plan to use chilled water systems with piping in the floors to “cool” athletes’ rooms.
The bid to forgo air-conditioning was just a tiny part of the overall Paris plan to reduce the footprint of a massive event. But it is highly symbolic, as it has forced participating countries to consider whether they want to participate in a sustainability experiment — abandoning conventional, energy-intensive privileges in the name of green goals. The collective decision of some of the largest countries also raises questions about equality: Portable air-conditioning represents a cost that some delegations from poorer countries might not be able to afford, meaning athletes in the same Olympic Village might be sleeping at different temperatures.
Did Paris unknowingly give “richer” countries an advantage since they could afford giving portable air conditioners to their athletes? I’d love to see the Post follow up with an analysis after the games.
★Blond designs “attractive and desirable” heat pump system for Electric air
Electric Air is another company looking to make their mark with heat pumps in the HVAC residential market.
“Heat pumps, condensers and other home heating and cooling products tend to be fairly unconsidered in terms of their aesthetics because they’re often hidden away in a loft or basement,” Blond director James Melia told Dezeen.
“We felt that if you’re going to spend a significant amount of money making a big change to your home infrastructure it helps if the objects you’re buying are attractive and desirable.”
One way to help heat pump adoption among homeowners is to make them look nice. Quilt here in the US is trying to do the same thing.
★Don’t Believe the Biggest Myth About Heat Pumps
Matt Simon on Wired.com:
If heat pumps don’t actually work in frigid weather, no one told the Nordic nations, which endure Europe’s coldest climates, with average winter temperatures around 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees F). As of 2021, Norway had heat pumps in 60 percent of households. In 2022, Finland installed more of the appliances per capita than any other country in Europe, while Sweden has similarly gone all-in on the technology. In the United States, heat pumps are selling like hotcakes in Alaska, and last year Maine announced it had reached its goal of installing 100,000 of the devices way ahead of schedule. These places ain’t exactly perpetually sunny California. (US-wide, heat pumps now outsell gas furnaces.)
I will professionally die on this hill. I’ll go as far as to say that people who say that heat pumps don’t work in cold climates is on par with people who don’t believe in climate change, that the world is round, etc.
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