Morning, my name is Jeff and I'm in the commercial department here at Lee's and I have Alan, who's also our commercial service manager between the two of us, we kind of lead the commercial effort here at Lee's Air and we were talking the other day and thought we'd sit down and talk about it a little bit.
The fact that between the two of us. Well over 60 years experience and we've watched this thing here at Lee's Air go from, well, Alan, all commercial when we started, right? We had a very small company and, uh, it was mostly commercial based, small residential, and now it's, we're the small fish in the, in the pond, but we still do a lot of big things. Yeah. A lot of good work, helping a lot of companies, uh, keep their energy bills down and maintain, uh, quality, uh, Quality comfort and indoor air quality. Yeah, so when we first started, uh, when I first started, Alan was already here and We had a, we had a book of customers that we took care of regularly and ironically still have a lot of those customers today. And we have many of them just continue to take care of them. And we've built a relationship that's built on response and thoroughness and it's really helped to, in my opinion, has helped to set the standard of stability to help the other things that we do now, which we've gotten really big in the residential, uh, Um, So there's a lot of different options. Outside the plumbing and now roofing all but it all started with that. With the reputation that we have and our commercial department in my opinion. Yeah, yeah. The, uh, the, the Lee family, that's kind of where they were there. Where the focus was, and what they really enjoyed to do doing more than the residential. But, uh, yeah. things things evolve over the years speaking of like commercial maintenance and maintaining your buildings it's like you're either gonna pay A contractor to keep your equipment running well and efficient, or you're gonna pay pg e who, who would you rather pay? Right? And you're also gonna extend the life of the equipment in the process life of the equipment. The breakdowns are gonna be, uh, less frequent and more managed. You can, we can help you budget those breakdowns, uh, to where you're not, I mean, there's always the opportunity there. Always the possibility of something major failing. That's just. Equipment we deal with in the components. You know, uh, a lot of the equipment that we use. I mean, it gets in the commercial area. It's got a lot of run time on it. Heavy hours where it just goes hard. Um, because, you know, there are people down below the roof, server rooms, people, um, processing, there's a lot in commercial that people don't even realize, uh, Residential, you're like, oh, I'm hot. Let me turn it down. You don't have that ability. It, uh, residential, you're at a commercial. You're bringing in. Not only do you have to filter the air, but you're bringing in fresh air to maintain air quality. There's, there's a balance in adjusting air flows and keeping, you know, keeping a good, uh. Good, consistent temperature. Um, we have products that you can remotely. Look at your equipment and look at your energy usage and help you control your energy costs and comfort levels as well. So we have a lot of ability to do different things. So I actually have a couple of questions for you this morning if you feel comfortable with me. So as I was thinking about this little sit down we were going to have, I want to ask you this question. It's kind of broad, but, um, In all your years in the industry, um, what do you think has changed the most? And what do you think has changed the least? Uh, the thing that's changed the most is just the, uh, inverter technology, the high, the ultra high efficiency equipment, uh, standard equipment. When I first started was basically a hundred percent on a hundred percent off. Now you have inverters that can vary the load and match. You can have a unit that's sized for, uh, You know, 10 tons, but it'll ramp down as low as, you know, three tons. So it's going to match whatever you need versus just, you know, blasting on and blasting off and shutting off. Sure. Um, the things that have changed the least is just, uh, the constant is just trying to maintain people. You know, we're here to make people, you know, if I do my job, right, your employees are happy. Your customers are happy. And you know, If you have a retail store, they're going to stay longer. If they walk in and it's hot, they're probably not going to spend a lot of time shopping. And if your employees in an office are uncomfortable, well, that's all they're going to focus on is being uncomfortable. So you're going to lose productivity. But yeah, I mean, the people that we serve are always going to be the constant. Yeah, I see it this way. We're not in the air conditioning business here at Lee's. No. We're not in the plumbing business. We're not in the roofing business. We're in the people business. We just happen to be good at those things along the way. So, and that's my, that's what I feel every morning when I get up is a desire to take care of people and all the rest of it comes along. You know, I, when I first started, I remember there was a formula. I think you've heard it before, too, that, uh, you know, our goal was to. Um, do replacement air conditioning at about 1, 500 a ton back in the day. That was, that would get you where you needed to be to keep your business moving along and now. You know, now the cost of equipment is over 2, 000 a ton just to buy it. And, but the thing that hasn't changed as when all that has, after all those things have changes, people are the same. Yeah. Um, what isn't more expensive these days? Gosh, go buy, go buy a carton of eggs or a gallon of milk. You know, it's, yeah, it's very expensive, unfortunately. So question number two. Um, so we've always. process of bringing in new people because we've grown a lot over the last, you know, 25 years. And we get people from a couple of different areas. We have veterans that are transitioning. We have, um, we have technicians that we bring up from the residential side into the commercial side. Once they get some experience under their belt, but we also have a constant flow of new guys that come out of school that are applying and when you we see the application, sometimes 20 people a day want to try to get get their job here fresh out of school. What are your thoughts on a guy coming right out of school and being able to be on your team? That's a bit of a difficult transition just because the complexity of. What we do and how we do it. Um, it's not impossible, but it is more difficult. Uh, person would already have to have a bit of a construction and maybe a, um, you know, construction, electrical, especially mechanical. It's not just having the head knowledge. You've got to be able to take things apart, put things back together efficiently and effectively safely. Um, So it's tough. There's, it's not impossible, but it's, it's a definitely a little bit, a little bit harder now. I'm not saying that residential is easy, right? By any stretch of the imagination, our industry, it keeps getting more and more complicated as the equipment gets more and more, um, energy efficient, sophisticated, more and more sophisticated. It's just, uh, you know, Everything's computer driven now, so not only do you have to know the refrigeration side, but now, now we're almost quasi, uh, electronics, uh, experts and programming experts. I mean, we, uh, the one thing about this industry, when you, to come back to that question of what, what's, hasn't changed, and that's the, your, your level of knowledge has to constantly evolve. You have to constantly be up, looking. Fortunately, there's a lot of stuff on the internet. When I first started, there was no internet. You know, you pretty much see to the pants, figured it out. Um, but you have to be constantly learning. There's new stuff coming out and just, and even just understanding, getting a better understanding of what you already know. Sure. So, um, that's what makes it tough for a guy coming right out of school. Yeah. It's it's very over this this business can be very overwhelming to anybody just starting So I want to go let me switch gears a little bit So when you know when you're thinking about most people think about their own home their residence, you know They got they got a driveway. I get a single story house for the most part. Maybe too Sorry, they got a unit on the roof or you're on the ground and that's Usually the extent of what most people know and that's fine. But in the commercial world Tell me about some of the differences about logistics, figuring out which unit it is, how to get on the building, who's in charge, how the, how the business relationships work and how you, how you've been able to teach your team to be successful in, in, in this arena or this part of air conditioning, which is so much different. The residential market. Yeah, it's, it's interesting. Oftentimes you go into an office and they're like, well, we're not sure that this thermostat controls this area or not. You get a lot of that, um, sometimes figuring out which unit is connected to what thermostat, uh, sometimes that'll take a few minutes to, to deal with, um, and thermostats, four thermostats controlling one unit, figure that out. Right. You know, um, It can be, uh, it's like anything else. It's, it's your troubleshooting skills. You have to go through and figure out, take the steps and the time to, to understand what, what we're working on before you really can even figure out what's wrong sometimes. That's a long question. What I've noticed is, you know, we go to a lot of our customers and new customers as well. We show up and the unit has always been in the same place on the roof since the building was built. Yet they may have changed the layout of the space below through tenant improvements, et cetera, multiple times. So you get there with an intent to immediately solve their problem. And what I was reaching for there earlier is the logistics are crazy. Sometimes even figuring out how to get on the rooftop right is, is, is trouble where to find water on a huge building. Um, you know, you pointed out the thermostat. Does that thermostat serve that area or does that thermostat serve it? And it really takes another level of. of investigation that you don't really have to have on the residential side because it's pretty easy to find the unit. I mean, just literally finding the ductwork and finding the unit commercially can be a wild ride. Absolutely. And even speaking of just the thermostat, thermostat placement is crucial to Maintaining good comfort because you have external loads on, you know, on the perimeter of the building, you have internal loads that are completely different. So, if you're trying to cool offices that are facing south with windows and your thermostats in the middle of the building, not knowing that, you know, that your sunlight, you know, Beating in, uh, in warming up that office, you're going to have people uncomfortable in their offices on the perimeter and people in the middle are perfectly comfortable. So there's, there's a lot of that kind of figuring things out. Tenant improvements are always, anytime a tenant comes in and moves walls, they, um, it's like a con, like some of your contractors that do tenant improvements, it's like, I don't think they have the ability to look up and look at the ductwork and go, Oh, That's not going to work. They just put walls up. Sure. You come in and you're like, yeah, they didn't think what they were doing. So now you'd have to modify the modified ducks and move registers and things like that. So, so tell me about your process of thinking and navigating through a unit that you see is older. It's, it's got a lot of runtime on it. It's beginning to break down. That's why you're there. Yeah. Um, you, you diagnose the unit. It's got quite a few things wrong with it. You know, it's 15 to 20 years old. What type of decision making do you use to decide, okay, what's the best scenario for me to help my customer now? Do I continue to fix this unit? Do I think about budgeting for replacement? Um, are we band aiding the equipment? Does it depend on the customer? I know it's another, it's another wide question, but I'd like to, I'd like to hear how you think about this when you, when you enter into that arena. Well, I don't have a, a, a predetermined thought ever. I'm always going in with a wide open mind, looking at the bigger picture, looking at the customer type, you know, a church, A 15-year-old unit on a church is not have a lot of runtime. 'cause it's, it's like they're there Sunday, maybe Wednesday, unless it's in the office, they're not running that unit every day. So that would be more of a, we can fix that. We can keep that thing alive. Sure. Um, you're looking at major components. I'm looking at safety. Is that unit gonna be safe to run three to five years from now and you don't wanna spend. Five grand on a unit that you know that in three years, two years, that thing is just not going to be worth it. I mean, You have to look at what the customers needs are, you know, are they, do they have a lease that only lasts another six months, or they got a 10 year lease, you know, there's a lot of in the commercial world, there's a lot of factors. Variables. Yeah, that influence the. Let's keep it going. Let's repair it versus it's really good time to replace it and we help the cut. We were basically giving the customer every bit of information they need to be able to make a smart decision and we support them whichever way we can. There's times we'll tell them. Look, don't replace it. Don't don't put another penny in this thing. It's just not worth it. Right? But that's that's usually the rarity. So when it comes to the replacement side, right? Or, or preventative maintenance side, that's, that's my area. So when you get to that point where you need to talk to me about, okay, Jeff, I think we need to discuss replacement. I need you to get some budget numbers from, from our customer. Um, I've noticed on the residential side that. We've had, we've turned a corner. Everything's going all electric in the residential, residential arena, going to all electric heat pumps. And you mentioned earlier with variable speed, which is super high technology. It's interesting to me that I have been in my top of mind whenever I'm talking with someone, but the commercial world doesn't seem ready to embrace that. Um, and it's, it's, it's interesting to me because I do bring it up and I do talk to customers about it. And it's just a different world. It's surprising to me that they're not really, they're not ready for it yet. Versus residential is embracing it fully at this point. What, what are your thoughts on that? Uh, well, residentially things are a whole lot, lot different. Um, just in thinking commercial I'm old school, right? So I like the gassy, I mean, natural gas was supposed to be super efficient, super clean burning. And then they're telling us, no, it's not. So coming out with these. Ultra low Knox units, which are, um, you can say that they're, they're not, they're probably we've had problems with them. It's it. I think it's getting better. I think the manufacturers, um, you know, California, what is low Knox ultra low Knox is just a, it's getting all of the, it's getting as much of the, uh, uh, The byproducts of combustion out, the stuff that they say causes, uh, global warming or all that stuff is trying to get as much of the bad stuff that would affect the environment out of the combustion process, which is not a bad thing, but it was a bit of a rushed process. And, um, we, the, the. The industry kind of paid a price for that. It's really hurt serviceability. Yeah, but think things have improved greatly. So heat pump versus You know gas That's that's the information we have to give our customers so they can make a better decision. There's no right. There's no wrong It's just what's gonna be best for your application So you have any questions for me Why did you break me up this early in the morning? No Anyway, no, um, no, I'm, as far as questions, um, what are the things you look at when you're, when you're, when I give you the information, okay, here's the unit that needs to be replaced. Sure. What are your first thoughts? Right. So, I, I mentioned earlier, you know, residential, everybody's got a driveway and they're, they're it's usually a predetermined distance, um, Using a crane getting in and out is pretty quick on commercial. It's a huge issue We have buildings that are really big and the units were when the building was built. They never thought about Replacement so sometimes we you know, a crane can go from 500 to 25, 000 depending on how far you need to reach. So that's one of the number one things I'm looking at Also, you know, we, um, not necessarily because of low knocks, but because of lots of new reasons, it's getting harder and harder ever since the COVID shutdown to find equipment. Exactly. So on commercial, a lot of people don't realize that there's multiple voltages in residential. It's all the same. 230 volts, single phase comes right out of your electric electrical panel on your, on your house. Maybe 120 for a furnace, maybe 120. In commercial, we have multiple voltages. We have multiple distances. We have very big units. You know, you're usually going to never see when you are never going to see bigger than what we call a 510 unit on a residential. If it has to be bigger than that, they'll have 2 units, whereas in commercial, you might have 1 unit that has the capability of doing 6 residential units all at once with like a 30 10 unit. So we have to look at logistics, Um, set up is the ductwork okay beneath it because it may have been changed multiple times. Um, so we're looking at airflow. We're looking at voltages. We're looking at efficiencies. We're looking at logistics. We're looking at cost. I know all of these things I've changed dramatically in the last five years. And we, I wouldn't say it's doubled, but in some cases it nears that in cost in the last five years, um, the whole game has changed. And so you really have to be on top of the market to make sure that you're providing the best quality piece of equipment at the best value for the customer. That's what I'm looking for. Right. Right. Um, We have like the whole 2020 thing, uh, the whole COVID shut down and, and we still haven't fully recovered as far as, um, I think the residential side has, the commercial equipment side is definitely a little lagging. I agree. Um, sometimes we don't have a whole lot of choice in brands of equipment. So we have like one or two choices where we used to have like four or five. Now you've got adapters that go from the old unit to the new unit. Um, There's, there's a lot more challenges in changing out commercial equipment than residential, not, not that residential isn't challenging, but there's, there can be a lot more challenges. Like you say, the crane, um, yeah, sometimes they build a building and you're like, yeah, nobody had any thought about ever having to replace this. Yeah, we, we have a lot of challenges in this industry to change, not, I mean, rooftops, yeah. Got his challenges, but you know, there's stuff below the roof, um, air handlers below the roof oftentimes. And yeah, it's, it's a lot of fun. Uh, no doubt. And one of the things we didn't touch on yet is residentially, we have a very big footprint in the Fresno Clovis area. Um, Residentially the largest footprint and plumbing as well, but on the commercial, um, we cover a lot of ground. Talk about that a little bit. Oh, gosh. Um, yeah, Bakersfield, you know, we're based in Fresno. So we, we, Bakersfield all the way up to Modesto. We have a Northern California, uh, division that, you know, Napa, uh, American Canyon. I mean, they stocked in their, their, their, uh, There's Vacaville, I'm trying to think of a lot of other Why have you developed that network? That, a lot of the stuff that's out of town, we have a large, uh, client that has a lot of different, uh, spaces, a lot of different locations, and we serve them. Uh, we go all the way to Santa Maria, we've got a few, a few accounts over in Santa Maria, and that's like a, almost a four hour drive, you know. I've made that drive. Yeah, there's times where we'll Park a guy in a motel, you know, to be able to get efficient work done, you know, do a lot of stuff, um, and then, you know, have a good night's rest rather than driving two hours up back every day, uh, but yeah, no, we will, we will travel and commercial. Well, in closing today's segment, I'd like to, um, I'd like to put you on the spot and speak to our audience and say, why would. A potential commercial customer want to choose Lee's Air and our teams to be their partner? We strive to take care of the customer. We like fast response time. When you're down, we get there as quick as we possibly can. Um, we schedule you regularly. Uh, we try to maintain a very consistent. Um, space between our maintenances. So we're, you know, we're not putting some too close together. And then others that are like, you know, very space very far apart, uh, we can help you maintain your energy costs. We keep like we talked early in the, in this podcast that If you don't take care of your equipment, you're going to already be paying somebody in higher energy bills. If you're not changing filters, if you're not keeping the coils clean. If you're not keeping the drain pans clean, you're going to get water leaks in the building. There's a lot that can be prevented if you're looking at things regularly. Just like, as you get older, you need to go to the doctor more. You and I are fighting that out. We'd always go to the doctor. Now it's like a kind of a, oh, I've got to go to the doctor again. Same difference. If you don't take care of that equipment, if you don't take care of your body, things break. Bad things happen. It's That's, that's what, whether you pay us, I mean, I would love to have your business, but if you don't use us, please use somebody. Take care of your stuff because it's, it's, you're going to pay more in the long run if you don't. You think you're saving a little bit of money? You're not. You're absolutely not. Well, thanks for your time today. Yeah, thanks for I, I didn't realize I was going to be interviewing you, but I, it just worked out though. It worked out great. So, uh, how about we do this again, do this again soon? Maybe, uh Um, if anybody out there wants to ask me and Alan questions, send a question to, um, leaser. com. Uh, visit our website or, or, um, call us at, um, 559 227 9569. You can ask for either one of us, we'll call you back personally and we'll answer those questions for you. We'll come out and visit you. Um, and perhaps, uh, partner with you on your next, uh, adventure going forward. Um, it's not going to get any, it's not going to get any easier out there. So make sure, uh, that you take a look at those things Alan was talking about that so that we, uh, we all have a good year. Thanks.
