Talk with Friend and Fellow HVAC Business Owner Shaun Dover

Attention, please. The show starts in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. We pulled it together at the last second. Finally. Guys, y'all don't know this fella. This is... Sean, a fellow business owner in my area, I think we started our businesses relatively about the same time. One of the good things about bringing him on is that he has a completely different perspective about the business where I decided to keep it small. He's growing his business, so I'm going to have some questions about that coming up. Sean, can you see the comments over there on the side? Let me, hold on just a second. I got that turned off. Yeah, I see it. Okay. Well, one of the first things I ask most people, um, because of the people that watch my channel is, um, how did you get into the trades? Was that what you wanted to do when you first started out as a young man? And if not, how'd you get in the trades? So I really didn't really know what I wanted to do. I knew I was very mechanically minded, um, and had the opportunity to go to I go to work for a local heat and air company right out of school. Went to work in it, you know, started doing duct work and moved my way up and just fell in love with the industry. I was very intrigued by the wiring aspect and the refrigeration, all the troubleshooting. So that's what really drew me into it. Really? So actually you started right off the rip. You started in HVAC then. Yeah. Yeah. 28 years now. I try to imagine where I might be now if I had started right off the rip because I really didn't get into it until I was, what, 35 or something like that? Or really, seriously, anyway, until I was 35. Yeah. So. Yeah, I grew up in the industry, so. Okay. A lot of people, a lot of us, we kind of stumble into it. Like, it wasn't the plan. I mean, kids are taught they got to go to college. um get a bachelor's degree and stuff like that and that was the that's what i thought i had to do and it didn't work out that way but i'm glad it didn't work out that way yeah yeah me too but our our uh high school counselor she was you know she said you're never gonna get a job without a college degree and then when you get a college degree it's still gonna be hard to get one and um you know the heat and air industry was able i was able to uh you know always have work and it's done well for me Well, I'll tell you one thing. You develop a skill in the trades, you'll always have work. Absolutely. I've never had a problem trying to find a job. Me neither, especially once I became competent in what I was doing, at least halfway knew how to diagnose something. I never had trouble getting a job. Yeah. Never. Yeah, I was able to move. So I left my hometown doing heat and air and then moved to North Alabama. And, you know, stayed in the industry up there and then went to Florida. It was too cold in North Alabama working on heat pumps. So I went to Florida and, you know, was able to get work down there, no problem. And didn't really like Florida and moved back to Albany. That's how I landed in Albany. And then, you know, obviously stayed in the industry here too. So it's always been, I've always had multiple offers on jobs when I moved into an area. So it's never been a problem to find a job. Now in North Alabama, you said it was too cold. Were you up in the mountains? I was. Brindle Mountain, just south of Huntsville. Yeah, they had ice and snow that would come in, and they're trying to work on heat pumps, and the temperature coming out of the top of that heat pump is pretty cold, and when it's 20 degrees outside, it's really cold coming out of there. Yeah, it does get cold. Yeah, especially for a South Georgia boy, too. I ain't used to all that, so I had to come back home. Yeah. And in Florida, what was different down in Florida? I know they, I talked to some other people down there and they got lots of duct board and, um, I don't know. It seems like there's lots of air handlers over carports. Yeah. They call them dog boxes. They would build, they would do a cutout in the ceiling of the carport and hang the air handler right above it. I didn't like the setup because of the humidity would drop, you know, you would get drips of water on the car, but. It was a way to keep the ductwork in the attic, but then still have the air handler accessible. I don't know what's better, that or us being in a 150-degree attic. I wish we didn't have to go in the attic. You know, air handlers leak real bad, but then it was still hot in the garages, too, so I don't know. Wait a minute. I got some prepared questions for you. I already asked you one of them. All right. We both have gone through opening a business. Is Georgia the only place where you've opened a business? Yes. All right. I've talked about in Georgia about what we have to go through to get a license and getting three contractors or three engineers to sign off on three jobs and work for somebody else for five years. But I don't imagine it was much different when you got your license. No, it was the same. Yeah. Same thing. Yeah, you had to send out a letter to get the letters of recommendation. I mean, all that. Yeah, it ain't easy for somebody. No, it's a challenge. Some contractors don't want to help you. Well, especially if they think that you could come in and take business from them. Yeah. I lost my last job. I lost because of that. Yeah. He realized I had a license, and I lost my job. And I was not planning on... Opening my business when I did, but I kind of had to make that decision, either do it now, get another job and put it off for another year or something. And I had nothing. I had no advertisements out, no yellow pages, no customer list. And I just I just jumped in. That's that's pretty much what I've done. You know, my my dad got sick with cancer and he had always been after me to get my license. I, you know, of course, came up with excuses on, you know, with the economy the way it is now at the right time. And, you know, I mean, it was it was scary. And so he come up with terminal cancer and I was like, OK, well, I'm going to get my license because I want him to see me with my license before he passes. And I was able to do that. So that was that was good. And that kind of that's what really pushed me out of the nest, if you will, to kind of get me started. Yeah, I was reading the comments. It's like one of the guys having trouble with this video running, but others are saying it's working. I hope you can get it going. I had a whole bunch of stuff I wanted to ask you. You know, one thing I struggle with, how many technicians do you have now? So we've got, including the service manager, we've got six service techs. All right. We've got a service manager, a commercial tech, and then four residential slash commercial techs. All right. One of the things that I struggle with, even with me, is the desire to spend. An hour and a half, two hours on a job, be really thorough, try to find everything. But knowing good and well, I've got something on my schedule coming up. There's always like a little bit of pressure to try and hurry. So how do you manage that with your technicians? You want them to stay on the job and do a quality job. But at the same time, they have a schedule to follow. So how do you manage that? So that is a balance. We are actually working on that because The technician, they want to go in, fix the problem, and get out. But there's other issues that if they are thorough that they'll find, and it could prevent another call or a callback or whatnot. So we are starting to getting ready to roll out some incentives to our technicians. So when they go to the house, they'll find the problem, identify the problem, but then they'll also be looking for other issues. And, you know, not that they're selling or looking for stuff to, you know, try to get the customer to spend more money, but just to do a job as far as looking for everything, because it benefits them if they find more stuff wrong. Well, for me, spending more time on the job means it prevents callbacks. And even for me, I have callbacks. For example, if I'm there because of a blower motor. It doesn't take me too long to check the capacitor outside. You know what I'm saying? Just little stuff like that. I don't want to have to come back because I was there for a blower motor, and three days later, it's got a clogged drain. Just little stuff like that. In my mind, if they go to do a blower motor or I go to do a blower motor, And I don't check the evaporator coil. And, you know, there's, I'm sure, you know, there's people that's going to say, oh, you'll be able to see it in your gauges and all that. But, you know, check and visually check the evaporator coil. And, you know, when you pull the blower motor, go ahead and clean the wheel. You know, do a thorough job. That way you know that you're taking care of the customer. You're doing a good job for them like you would want somebody to do for you. And I understand being in a hurry. But at the same time, like you roll up on a job, you maybe give yourself an hour or an hour and a half, maybe two hours. I have run across sometimes where what I think is going to be an hour and a half call turns into three and a half hours. And I start feeling stressed by the end of that call because I'm having to shuffle my schedule around and maybe call a customer, tell them I'm going to be late or something. So it's always. A balancing act for me because I want to spend all the time that I need, but there is that clock in the back of my head that's telling me I need to hurry up. Sure. Well, you being a one-man guy, just a one-man show, that could be definitely where... I've got the advantage because I have multiple techs. If one technician gets held up, then I can send another technician to that call behind him and be able to have, you know, that flexibility of being able to take care of my customers. And so we don't do a lot of advertising because we want to control how many customers we have. And, you know, that way we're not getting bombarded with calls and not be able to take care of our customers that we have now. Y'all tell me, some of the viewers, y'all comment down below if y'all are having the same troubles that Seton is having about not seeing the video, but just let me know. I think he's the only one that's having those troubles. All right, I did try to come prepared. All right, there's something that we have talked about that I want you to discuss here. We both know that when you work by yourself, you can make good money. And when you first start bringing on employees, your profit margin takes a hit. It did for me, and I'm pretty sure it did for you. And we've discussed that you had to get to a certain point where you started making more money than you did before you, when you were just going solo. Yeah, I mean, it's weird how it works because there are sweet spots. Like you may add a truck and then you see your profit margin drop. But you have to do it to be able to take care of the customers that you have and to be able to. And that's like a hurdle to get over to get to the next truck. And then when you add that next truck after the one that made your profit margin go down, you may see an increase in your profit margin. And, of course, I'm using just, you know, generic numbers. But, you know, you may have to add two or three before you see the difference. Well, the biggest I got, I had two technicians and a somewhat installed crew. I had an installer. A girl working in the office, and my profit margin never got to where it was. I mean, the amount of money I was making never got anywhere near what I made solo, working by myself. I just never got to the point where it seemed like it was worth it. Yeah, it took me probably five years to get to that point where I started seeing the amount of money, because my profit, when it was just me in a truck by myself, You know, versus once I started adding employees, it probably took me five years to really start to see that coming back. But at the same time, as I was growing the company, I was having to invest a lot of money back into the company. And I still am. I mean, it's like it never stops. But I'm also trying to grow the company to the point where I can I'm I don't have to be here, although I mean, you know, it's I enjoy it. But it's still work. And I want to be able to have a retirement at some point in time. So I want to be able to have that retirement, but still have Arctic Air going and still have that machine working for, you know, for me and for my family. My son's working with me now and my daughter-in-law. So, you know, that's something that I hope that they'll, you know, they'll be able to utilize it, make money off of and continue to grow it. You know, that's, you and I have a different strategy there. My strategy right now is to just make it enough money so I can. Just walk away from it one day instead of have it continue to run in the background. Right. Yeah. Well, with my kids, you know, that's probably got a lot to do with it is, you know, I want to be able to leave them something, you know, I mean, other than just, you know, hey, here's some cash. But if I can teach them this industry and teach them how to run, you know, to to have a successful business, then I know that they'll be they'll be good for the rest of their life. So I'm trying to give them. You know, more than just, oh, well, here's some cash that I'm leaving you to, you know, to help along. It's been a while. I'm excited. Yeah, well, that sounds really good. And, you know, I don't have kids, so I don't think like that. All right. I'm trying to read over these comments. It does look like people can hear and see us. Yeah. Okay. You and I both have hired people. And for me, I have had, when I hired people. I didn't really have the space or time to train anybody and a lot of people have asked over the years do you need to go to tech school to get a job and sometimes what I tell them is that you know it might help but it's not absolutely necessary. A lot of people never go to tech school and they turn out to be great techs so to the people getting in the trade As an employer, what would you tell them? Do they need to go to tech school, or what are you looking for? I mean, yeah, because one, it shows that you're committed to the industry, and then two, it also will help lay a base for you, because the tech schools may not teach you much, and that's sad. The tech schools in our area are not great at all. I interviewed a kid out of tech school. He was a month away from graduating, and he could not tell me superheat, subcooling, the flow of refrigerant. Or even what an accumulator was. So that was kind of disturbing. That's what we're getting in our schools now, in our tech schools. But if you're really into it, you're going to be in there. You're going to be absorbing it. You're going to be paying attention. And any education that you can get on it will help because it'll help you make you a better technician out there in the field. I was already working when I went through tech school. So Tech School did, it taught me a couple of things and I try to pass it on in my videos. The one main thing that it taught me, like I said, I was working and I was wiring up these hard start kits and I couldn't determine which side of the contactor or what wire was common start and run. I would trace the wires all the way back to the compressor. to where it's labeled CS and R and then follow them all the way back so I could wire my um start relays and one thing I learned in school was that the capacitor is always between start and run and when that sunk in my head I realized That the wire that's feeding the capacitor is always run, so I knew what side was run, the other side was common, and the other side on the capacitor would start. It just made everything so much easier. So I didn't learn a lot in school, but that one thing really helped me out. One thing, yeah. And see, that's why I tell people, but some people are just not, you know, especially mechanical people, some people are not wired for school. They, you know, they're going to learn more hands-on, and they're doing it, you know, You know, actually touching it, you know. actually doing the work than they can trying to read a book. So it really depends on how the person's wired. But regardless, to make it in this industry, we call it the it factor. You've got to have the it factor. If you don't have it, then you need to be doing something else. It just, if it clicks with you, but if it don't, you need to be doing something else. Well, I have seen where some people, I'll give you an example. They might be a really good installer. And, um... I had an installer that I tried to move over to technician, and he struggled. He just, he never could really get it to click, and he ended up going back to installing, and he still does real good at that. It's just like, I didn't know, I tried to get him to progress, and it just didn't click for him. Well, some installers, I mean, unfortunately, it is repetition. It's, you know, you hook up this line here, you will hook this color wire up to this wire, and they get good at that. And that's going back to the way people, some people are wired. Some people are wired to do repetitious jobs. That's just the way their brain works. But you've got to, you know, you've got to have that. If you want to be on the tech side of it, you know, you've got to be able to look at that unit and, you know, almost see an exploded version in your mind to be able, you know, to see how it works. Um, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. It's kind of hard to explain, but. Well, for me, uh, I do tell some people, you know, just keep at it because for me, I just got to the point where everything just clicked. It's like, I got to a point one day, um, I realized I wasn't looking at schematics anymore or trying to trace it. Just, I just understood how it worked and that made my job just so much easier. So, when I was younger, I had the opportunity to work, worked in install, I did commercial controls. I did work in, you know, work in the sheet metal shop, then work in service and working in all the different departments gave me an advantage, especially like commercial controls with service work, because I've always been great at low voltage. I love low voltage and, you know, open, normally open, normally close contacts. So that gave me a huge advantage because just that year during the commercial controls, I picked up so much and I was able to take that and then go over to the service side and apply it there. I worked at a large company here with us at one time, and they had a commercial controls department, but the people that worked in that department broke off and started their own business. And I kept trying to get them to start another controls department because I wanted to learn that side. And basically, what I've learned in commercial controls is what I've done and seen on the job instead of doing it in a program like that. When I did it, it was old school. It was before all the computers and all that. We run everything back to a panel, and it was old school. It wasn't like what you've got today. Well, what I saw was relays mounted to the air handler that would bring on the cooling or the fan for the school system. Do you know what I'm talking about around here? Say that again. Like for the school system around here, they would have like something like a ribby relay mounted to the air handler that they would control from a different location that would bring on the cooling and stuff like that. That was the kind of control that I saw around here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was we did high school. We did a high school over in Jeff Davis County. We took 80 units and run them all back to a panel and you could see that panel. You could see return temp, supply temp. You know, you could. Do make it go through whatever mode set the, you know, it had an indoor air sensor in the classroom. So, you know, you would be able to see what room temp was. So basically that panel was like one big thermostat and those 80 units was like a zone for each one. But commercial controls is a lot of conduit, a lot of conduit running and a lot of wire pulling too back then. So you didn't have all the wireless stuff. You know, now they accomplish all that with communicating thermostats control from a remote location. Sure. Miguel, well, thank you. You didn't have to do that, but thank you. I tried to prepare you for the end of this. This is going quicker than I thought it would. Uh-oh, I'm sorry. I ain't talking enough. I don't know. No, it's just like you go through your topics. I'll tell you what. I'll tell you something that happened to me that I almost got on video. I was working on a mini split, and, you know, you have to use those adapters because of the 5/16s. And my adapter just wouldn't push in the Schrader. So I tightened that thing down really good just so I could get access to the system. I had done my repair. I had to do new flares on this thing, done my repair, pulled a vacuum, recharged. And when I pulled off that adapter after recharging, somehow it backed out the Schrader that was underneath it when it came out. Oh, wow. So when I pulled it out... My charge was just blowing into the air. And you stuck your hand down in there, right? No. Well, first, I tried to put the cap back on. You know what I'm saying? At first, I just tried to. Yeah. And it was just blowing so hard, I couldn't do it. So I ran to my van, and I got my mini-split Schrader core removal tool and ran back over there and got that on and shut it off. But by that time, you know, like 60% of what I had just put in there had come out. Yeah. It's frustrating. And you can't charge the customer for it because it ain't their fault. I couldn't charge him for the first one. This is within the first year. Oh, okay. So you see my level of frustration now? And so at least you had a 5/16" Schrader core removal So that's what I tell my guys. You got to have the proper tools to be able to do the job. I just didn't have it in my bag. I had to go all the way back to my van. The whole time I can hear it in the background. But, and then I didn't realize that somebody else is doing this. I didn't realize that the Schrader had come out. All I knew is it was blowing out refrigerant. Thank you, man. I, um, I didn't know the Schrader was out. I couldn't see in there. So I put the Schrader core removal tool in there and I pushed in the pin to try to pull out the Schrader that I thought was bent or messed up or something. And the pin went all the way in. There was nothing in there. There was nothing in there, yeah. So I just tried putting in another Schrader, and it took the Schrader. And I was like, well, how did that even happen? Because I didn't pull the Schrader out. The only thing I can think of is the seal grabbed it when it was, because you pushed that seal down in there. You know how you see the seal wrinkle up on the rim? Maybe it grabbed it. I don't know. It pulled it out, and that has never happened to me before. That Schrader core removal tool is now in my bag. Yeah. Always expect the unexpected, right? It happens. And I included it in my video because, you know, sometimes my jobs look clean and all that stuff. And I want people to know stuff like that happens to everybody. You just got to deal with it. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. What's your worst shock story? Don't worry. They may have heard this. Y'all really don't have to do this. But thank you. Um, my worst shock story, you know, those, those Square D 60 amp QO disconnects. Yeah. Um, I have one of those that was all burned up and I was trying to pull the breaker out and all the plastic was burned up. So everything came out all at one time and I wasn't thinking, and I was a young tech. I tried to put my hand up there to stop it. And when I did, I made a power arc between the two legs of power on my hand. That hurt. That really hurt. You ain't done that again, have you? No. That was probably the worst one. I've been hit when I've been sweaty and it's gone across my heart and it's kind of scared me. But that one where I did it on my hand bruised me. My hand and my arm was sore. Yeah, that hurt. So I'll share mine. You remember when the 410A first came out? The leak detectors didn't pick it up well. The R-22 leak detectors didn't. It was hard to find. So I would put the unit in heat mode and disconnect the power from the blower to let it build up to over 500 PSI on the evaporator coil. And we used a Yokogawa leak detector, H10G. And I would go in there and find a leak. Well, Rheem had these capacitors mounted on the bottom of the blower. They got that crossmember. I had my arm laying on the crossmember. And it actually swelled my arm up to make contact to the capacitor. Now, that was an experience to try to get pulled out of it. It took a couple yanks, but I thought that one got me. That was probably my worst shock one ever. Yeah, that's pretty bad. That was pretty bad. Because it actually made my arm get bigger to be able to make contact. It jumped. Now, I had a capacitor hit me inside an air handler one time, Yanked my arm. back and I yanked back so hard there was like a little support member between the two panels. I completely bent it and cut my arm when I did it. It'll make you hurt yourself if it don't hurt you. Absolutely, yeah. That's what it did. Yeah, getting shocked. I try not to anymore, but it still happens. It still happens. Yeah, if you mess with electric, you're going to get shocked. It's not a matter of when or if, it's a matter of when. Have you noticed, like, they're starting to double isolate electric heat now? Yeah, that's the thing now. You might have sequencers on one side and a relay on the other. No, I hadn't. But I'm not where I'm at with Arctic Air. I'm not in the field like I used to be. So I don't get to get as hands-on with the equipment like I used to and get familiar with them. To that extent, now I've got all my guys do it, so I'm kind of losing touch a little bit because I'm not out there all the time. I don't understand exactly why they're doing that unless they think it's wasting energy or something. But, yeah, they're double isolating them so that they don't have any electricity to them at all. It just sounds like another problem. Yeah. A short or either, you know, to prevent, you know, cause you, you know, you've seen the relays catch on fire and, and all that. So maybe that's a, that's an effort to try to stop that too. Yeah. Um, yeah. And also I think something that might prevent is if you get one of those blower relays that kind of welds itself shut, if it's double isolated, it won't bring on a heat strip. All right. It's late enough. I'll ask. Okay. I like to end the show with, um, kind of the horror stories the craziest thing you may have seen in somebody's house or sometimes it's really nice stuff that you may have seen in a really nice house and i got one of those to share but what's the craziest thing you may have seen going in somebody's house hold on i'm sorry give me just a second why sorry about that um so i don't know it all kind of blurs together after all the years um i mean i've seen One that sticks out, I went to a house on the south side one year, and it was really cold. Went there to go start up a wall heater, and it was a little bitty small, a little shotgun house. When you walked in the door, the heater was on the right, and they had a bed on the left. And they were in there, and they were smoking crack or whatever it was while I was working on the heater. And, I mean, I turned around and asked them, I was like, hey, look, y'all are going to have to put that out. Until I get done. Otherwise, I'm leaving now. Yeah, that's pretty rough. Yeah. That's pretty rough. But, I mean, you know, stripper poles, we see stripper poles. And I've been in apartments and saw where they had all their dope out. And they know people's coming and they leave everything out. It just never ceases to amaze me at what some people do. Yeah, they don't seem to care. I told the story a couple of weeks ago where. A fellow with a leg monitor yanked an AR-15 out from behind the filter. But one of the strangest things I saw, I was in this nice house. You know where Quail Pines is? Yes. Back in that neighborhood, not in Quail Pines, but in that area. I was in this nice house working, and I see this giant clear tube that takes up part of a room. And I just asked the homeowner, I'm like, what is that? He goes, oh, that's an elevator. He had an elevator in his house to get from the first floor to the second floor and vice versa. I had a lady that had one over there on the east side, and she made me walk the stairs while she rode the elevator. She was like, the stairs is over here. I'll meet you up there. Wow. Wow. And this guy's elevator, it worked on vacuum. Like those things at the bank when you send the tube over? Drive-through. Rude heck. It worked on vacuum. And he said, you can ride it if you want to. And I'm like, you know, I'm just curious. I don't want to ride it. I was just curious. Another one, strange call. I went to a call, and this has been 20-something years ago. It was here in Albany. Went to this guy's house, and it was over kind of in that area that you're talking about. But... Marlboro, I think. And the guy, it was a really nice house, brick home, very nice. Come to the, knocked on the door, you know, to let him know that I was there. And dude comes to get in a row, and he's sunburned, and he's got like a really thick gold chain on, and he's got a northern accent. Go in the house, and there's nothing in the house except a recliner in front of a TV and a little table. And, you know, it looked like he had been drunk and passed out by the pool. He was burnt so bad. And I went to go fix the air conditioner, and there was one room that had window units all in it. And he actually had servers in there. So that was a pretty strange one. So he was there babysitting those servers in the bedroom that had these window units to keep the bedroom cold. And he was, like, you know, getting passing out and getting sunburned and obviously wasn't from this area. So that was probably one of the sketchiest ones I've been to. That's kind of weird. It was very weird. That reminds me to a... First time I ever went on a call, one of the calls I went to was in a bank. Their server room was getting hot, and I had to troubleshoot like five different air conditioners for this one room that's about as big as the room that I'm in right here. And finally, I come out and said, you know, everything's working fine. And the fellow said, well, maybe it's because we just added this new rack of servers right here. And I'm like, well, you could have told me that from the start. But yeah, it was getting hot. I guess they got to add yet another air conditioner to it. Yes. Like somebody else was having trouble with seeing it on YouTube. Don't know what's going on with that. But anyway, I really do appreciate your perspective and bringing that on. I know we had a lot of trouble just getting you on the, just getting you here. We worked it out, though. Yeah. So maybe we can get that worked out. In the future, bring you back on. Absolutely. I'm going to say goodbye to everybody and end the conversation. Hang around just a little bit, Sean, and we'll go ahead and close this out.