Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the weekend warriors home improvement show, built by bar lumber. When it comes to big or small projects around the home, Tony and Cory.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Have got the know how and the.
[00:00:13] Speaker A: Answers to make your life just a bit easier. Here they are, your weekend warriors, Tony and Cory.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: You know, Tony, it's still hot outside, and I'm running my air conditioner like crazy. How about you?
[00:00:30] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, without question. As a matter of fact, if I'm being honest, I can see a. I can see a huge difference this year just compared to last year in my. My power bill.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Yeah, power bills. My electricity bill has gone up 20% in the last two years, and they're actually talking about raising our electricity another 12%, I think.
[00:00:55] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't even. I don't even know about that. But I can tell you this, it's hot, and I don't even want to think about trying to survive this heat without my air conditioner. I mean, I can't even imagine just living in it the way that it is.
[00:01:10] Speaker B: I agree.
[00:01:11] Speaker C: Am I right or am I.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: You're right. Yeah, I'm right.
[00:01:14] Speaker C: I'm in the truck. I'm blasting it. I'm at work. I'm blasting it. I'm at Home. I'm blasting it.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: I'm blasting it.
[00:01:19] Speaker C: I'm thinking about what it's going to cost me last, because I'm thinking I'll deal with that later. Right now, I don't want to be hot.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:01:30] Speaker C: And so we are fortunate enough to have a guest on the show today, Dennis Stinson from Fujitsu General America. And he has got some unique perspectives about how we can be more efficient and probably save some money during these very hot months and also probably some very cold months.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Dennis, you're the senior vice president of sales of Fujitsu General America. Welcome to the show.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: Well, thank you. That was quite the introduction, and I feel a little pressured to be able to deliver a secret message to you all today. I am delighted to be with you both, Corey and Tony, and to unpack some of this mystique that surrounds home h vac and efficiency and comfort.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Yeah. So we should probably start off Fujitsu General America. They manufacture some of the best mini splits in the world. We've talked about mini splits many times on this show. Our listeners may or may not know what they are. Right. We should probably explain what a mini split is and how that differs from a standard air conditioning unit versus a central air conditioning unit in a house. What is. What is all that? Let's talk about that.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: Well, great question. So when you look at a home comfort system, you tend to look at what the fuel source is, and you can look at, excuse me, in terms of heating, whether you're gas or oil or propane or wood or electric. And if you're electric, then you are a heat pump. So when we take a look at a mini split, it is a type of a heat pump. What differentiates it from a central air system is a central air system will have a condenser outside and evaporator inside, and then duct to distribute the hot and cold air throughout the house. What a mini split does is has a condenser outside, but then it has an evaporator potentially in each area of use. So when I sit downstairs and watch the game, I have an evaporator in that room. And when I go upstairs to go to bed, then I'll have an evaporator in that room. And, fellas, what that does for us, it allows us to zone the two properties and dial in the different levels of comfort that we're doing. So when we look at a mini split, it's a smaller split system heat pump. But what it does is put the evaporator in the area of use, as opposed to connect it to ductwork and pump it all through the house.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: People would recognize these in a room. They've become wildly popular over the last, I don't know, 1015 years. And you would see like a head unit inside the room, maybe towards the ceiling, little elongated rectangle looking thing sitting up top on the wall.
[00:04:26] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. It kind of looks like an oversized, like, food saver machine. You know, it's just sort of described that way.
[00:04:38] Speaker A: But you're not inaccurate.
[00:04:40] Speaker C: Very, very small, very, very uncombersome. It sits out of the way, you know, on the wall, up high, and does a wonderful job of regulating the temperature in the room and surrounding rooms that it's in.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: Yeah, that's probably the biggest differential that you said that in a central air system, it all runs through a forced air furnace. But in a mini split, each room would have its own unit. Right? Its own evaporator, or each amount of.
[00:05:15] Speaker C: Square footage, is that right?
[00:05:18] Speaker A: Yeah. So each condition space would have its own unit. And just to step back a little bit, by far our most popular is the wall mount product. So that's the product that would hang on a wall and distribute the air. But we make a variety of different indoor heads, if you will. So we make one that recesses into the ceiling, and it looks like a grid in the ceiling. We make one that is low against the wall. That would remind you of a radiator on the east coast. So it's a small floor console unit. And then we also make ducted. Ductless, if you will. So we make mini air handlers that you connect a small piece of ductwork with that if you want to conceal it vertically or horizontally in a wall cavity. So some people say, you know what? The nature of my house. I prefer not to have something on my wall. It's architecturally historic.
I got a lot of windows. Maybe I don't want that on my wall. I prefer to have grills and registers and diffusers. Then we can put small air handlers there. But again, we go back to the idea that we're putting an evaporator in the area of use and not one evaporator in the basement to take care of the whole house, with one thermostat in the hall downstairs. So you still accomplish the task of having different rooms.
[00:06:32] Speaker B: My wife's largest complaint at her office that she works in is that they have one central air unit, and in her office is an icebox.
And because her. The person she works with in the office next to her, hers is always warm. So she cranks the ac way up, turns the temperature way down, so that my office, my wife's office turns into a refrigerator. So the office next door can get down to 75, you know? Yeah. So what you're saying is each unit.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: That's a very common thing.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: Go ahead.
[00:07:09] Speaker A: That's a very common thing. But let's also admit, fellas, that that same battle happens in our own home. We're just wise enough married men to have acquiesced many, many years ago. So when there's one thermostat in the house, we've given up that battle many years ago. Right? So think now that with a ductless split system or a mini split, that you could have one temperature in your room. You could have one temperature in the kids room. You could have a different temperature in the other kid's room and a different one downstairs when you're watching a ball game and nobody's got blankets, nobody's got the windows open. And as the controller of electricity in the house, you're not overpaying for something you don't need. So not only does it give you zoning, but it also gives you different temperatures in each room. And somebody like myself, where my kids are up and grown and off to school, I don't need to condition their rooms if they're not in it. So I condition where I sleep, and I can condition where I watch the ball game. And I don't have to condition the rest of the house because there's not anybody in it. Us and the dog.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: That's a. That is probably the best explanation for that, that I've ever heard. You have options. It is like you say, you. I have one thermostat. I have a smart home thermostat, a nest that sits in my hallway, and it's constantly turning on and off all day when we're not there, when the rooms are the room. One room's hot, one room's cold. You have the options of running each one how you see fit, but it's.
[00:08:44] Speaker C: Running all day and. And therefore charging you all day.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: Right.
[00:08:49] Speaker C: I mean, if your. If your central air furnace or whatever is running, it's costing you money.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:08:57] Speaker C: And there's not an option to. To not run it and then get home and turn it on and expect it to.
To change the. The temperature of the interior of your home in a timely fashion. You just can't. You have to run it all the time to keep it up. That's. That's a big. That's a big thing.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. The, uh, the mini split. We actually have a mini split in a bonus room that we have. It was a. An addition over our kitchen that was put in before we bought the home. And it was wildly hot up there all the time. And the ductwork just wasn't adequate. They just tacked on to the original house furnace that we had just. It was completely insufficient. So a friend of mine who owns an H vac company, he came over and installed one. And that thing is incredible, the amount of heat and cold that it puts out. It does both. And when we talk about ac, we talk about that well, but it does heat. So you have the ability to really fine tune the temperature in that specific area. And it's. It's a pretty large room up there. You know that room?
[00:10:09] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. I feel like that. So go ahead.
[00:10:15] Speaker A: So it has the capability, you're right, of doing both heating and cooling. But, you know, you live in a part of the world not all that different than I live. I live in the mid atlantic area, and it's not uncommon as we move forward now, where it is cool in the morning, where we might need something to chase the chill while we're warming up our coffee, but then in the afternoon, when we come home from work, we might need a little air to do it. So having a mini split, you're not conditioning your house. Heating the entire house in the morning for those few moments that you can get your coffee and shower and get out and then not cooling your house when you get home so you can watch the game and grab a burger and figure that out. So it works really well for the spot heating and cooling again, conditioning the space that you're standing in and not the entire envelope of your entire house.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: Right. It'd be like cooling off your entire garage just to cool down your car. You jump in your car, turn it on and it cools the car.
[00:11:11] Speaker C: Right.
[00:11:12] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a, that's a really. I really like the idea of the mini split. Like I said, I have one. Tony actually lives in a home that doesn't have any central air or any mini.
[00:11:23] Speaker C: He has space heating.
[00:11:25] Speaker B: Space heating?
[00:11:27] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: How weird is that?
[00:11:28] Speaker A: Well, we're gonna have to fix that for you.
[00:11:31] Speaker C: You know, like the other, I feel like Corey and I have spent so much time talking about it and still don't have the understanding that I'm sure we'll have after we get off the phone with you.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Yeah. So the other. The other really cool thing about heat pumps is that they work off of a slightly different technology. And that technology is called inverter technologies. And this is where it gets kind of geeky and kind of exciting. So what we do is we take the AC current, we convert it into DC current, and that's how we drive our compressor. And we do that so we can get much greater control out of our compressor. Think of it kind of like a frequency drive, but on steroids. So it really turns down that compressor. So in layman's term, what that means is, is that our air conditioner has a cruise control in it. So when I set it at 70 degrees, it's going to cruise right up to 72 degrees and snug up to it and hold that temperature. So there's going to be very little air coming out of the unit, but it maintains at just a dead on 72 degrees. And if more people come in or the temperature rises outside, it ramps up a little bit to maintain that a traditional h vac system is all on or all off? On, all or on off. So even when you drop just a couple degrees and the air conditioner kicks on, the whole power of everything comes on. Just to change a couple of degrees. What an inverter does is snugs up and snugs down both in heating and cooling mode. So now instead of air conditioning the whole house with everything on your air conditioning, part of the house with a portion of the overall. So that's where you get into tremendous energy savings when you do that. And when you look at the efficiency ratings on it, by federal law, we're required to be 13 seer in the north and 14 seer in the south. We're as high as 33 seer, which is just nuts when you think about it. So when you look at the efficiency rating, we convert electricity to air conditioning more efficiently than anybody else.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: Wow. So would you say that the average air handler furnace central air system is closer to that? 13?
[00:13:46] Speaker A: I would tell you that the most common unit that people settle on is that 13 or 14 sear. And that's if you stuck it in, in the last seven years, that would be the federal requirement. That's the DOE requirement to do that. So 14 sear in the south because they have more cooling days, 13 seer north because we don't have as many. So that would be the baseline. I hate to say it that way, but that's the baseline. That's the minimum you can have. And unfortunately, that's what tends to sell the most, is the minimum that you can have. Now, don't get me wrong, wrong. There are upgraded systems out in the marketplace. You can get as high as 20 plus Sierra on a traditional central air system, and you can zone that. But that's involved. There's a little bit going on there. I'm a little biased with that. There's a little bit involved with getting you there. So when you look at 33 seer, it's really staggering on how efficient it is.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: Yeah, that's amazing. And it's funny, Tony and I always talk about code minimum. You know, there's always code minimum to everything. International building code. And code minimum is the worst house you can build without getting in trouble.
Really?
[00:14:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what it is. I mean, it's the standard. It's a minimum standard. And it's good. I mean, it's good. It's acceptable. It is what it is, but there is better. And fellas, nowadays, there's so many rebates and incentives out there, not from the manufacturer, but from the federal, state and local government to invest in higher efficiency piece of equipment. So, history lesson. I know, we all know this. I mean, many, many years ago, we were trying to get away dependent on foreign fuels. So we developed the national energy policy, and from that we wanted to become independent of other fuel sources. Part of that was nuclear, part of that was natural gas, part of that was electric. And really what we do, part of our tax dollars goes back into this national energy policy, so that when we are out in the market, the couple of times in our life to upgrade our h vac system, there is money for us to buy more efficient piece of equipment. So you can buy a really efficient piece of equipment, get a federal rebate, and actually have the more efficient piece of equipment costs less than the standard piece of equipment. The idea would be, is that it's more efficient, so we use less energy, we gain independence. But also from a perspective of leadership, is that it is giving the consumer more spendable income and therefore would help the economy. So there's a lot of good reasons why that would happen. Sorry about the history lesson, but there's more reasons why that would happen. But at the end of the day, the takeaway is that you can get a better piece of equipment cheaper than you can get the standard piece of equipment, if you know where to look.
[00:16:40] Speaker C: Yeah, that, that really is what it's all about. If we're talking about saving money and spending less as we are otherwise, conventionally spending more every single year as the years pass, we have to, we have to battle that. We have to counter that. And finding a less expensive, more more efficient piece of equipment is the way to get that done.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: Well, and let's talk a little bit about the equipment itself.
Like set. Like said, Tony has space heaters. He doesn't have any central air conditioning whatsoever. He's got window units for ac in the summertime. I have a more traditional central air system with a central h vac unit. I have a condenser that sits outside. This large condenser sits outside my bedroom window and it's very loud.
[00:17:32] Speaker C: And neither of us, even though both of our situations are completely different, neither of us do a good job of introducing fresh air into the home from outside, unless we're opening a window or a door.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely right. That's another. Actually, that's a question I wanted to ask you about that in a minute. But as far as the equipment goes, like in Tony's case, he doesn't have central air. How hard is it to get Tony into a mini split system that could handle his entire house?
He's a two story.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:09] Speaker B: So 2500 square foot house.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: Go ahead.
Okay, so 2500 square foot home, good size home. So probably looking at three or four bedrooms. Right. So if it were me, what I would probably do is look at either. I would look, I'd be looking at multi zone systems. I wouldn't worry about ductwork at all in the house, because now your house is finished. So running ductwork down your house now you got to box it in. Soffits the whole nine yards. Nobody's going to be happy with that. So when you install a mini split system, it goes on the outside. You're running from the outside to the inside with two copper pipes that are insulated with insulation on them. And we stick them in what we call line hide, so it looks like rain gutter on the outside of the house. You'll never notice it's there. Comes in a variety of different colors, so you would never notice it's there. Comes through a three and a half inch hole in the wall, and that's where it connects to the indoor unit. So from the outside, it looks like a piece of downspout, and the entire penetration on side of the house is a three and a half inch hole. Now, if it were me, you would have a bigger unit downstairs. I'm assuming there is some level of an open floor plan, probably a living room, kitchen, dining room, some level of connectivity there. So I'd stick a larger unit down there, sized appropriately, to take care of that area. And then what I would do is consider taking a ducted unit and sticking it upstairs in my attic. And I would run some ductwork into the kids bedrooms so that I'm catching multiple bedrooms off of one. I would stick an independent unit in my bedroom because I paid the bills, so I should be able to set whatever temperature I want. And then I would stick an independent one in my favorite kid's bedroom so that they can control it as well. So I would have three systems upstairs. I would have one system downstairs. I can put that on a single unit outside. So that would be called a quad zone system. And we make those that give you 100% heating capacity down to -15 degrees fahrenheit. So I'm not worried about the snow. That whole stuff that heat pumps don't work when they get cold. That's not true with mini splits, because the inverter technology, the way we control the refrigerant, so you'll get a tremendous amount of heat out of it. So I would do that. You'd have four little holes in your wall, tremendous amount of comfort, four thermostats, one outdoor unit. You'd be in great shape.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: That's amazing. That was actually another question that I was going to ask, was about the temperature zone in which these things operate. Because over the years, we've heard stories about heat pumps not being as efficient and only working within a certain range. Like they wouldn't work in a hot area, they wouldn't work in a cold air. But what you're saying is totally the opposite.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: Well, not all heat pumps are created equal. So we do need to understand that when we look at a traditional unitary system or a vertical draw through unit, or the unit that we're used to seeing outside, they typically don't come control the refrigerant like a mini split does. So you will see a heat pump performance goes until it hits an ambient temperature and outdoor temperature, and then it drops off, then hits another temperature, then it dives.
The vertical draw throughs tend to have a higher temperature where they start to de rate, and then a higher temperature where they drop off. Mini splits will work longer because they're inverters. They'll work longer to a colder temperature, work partial to an even colder temperature, and then drop off something insane. So normally, when you are looking at a traditional heat pump and a vertical draw through, you normally have to have some type of backup heat. Whether that is a gas furnace or backup resistant electric or space heating, you normally have to have something. It's when you go to the mini split that you can rely on that as a sole source year round home comfort system. You don't need anything else. If you buy a good one, you don't need one.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: Yeah. And that actually surprises me that you could said Tony could run his entire home on one outdoor unit. I was expecting in my mind to have several of those little units all over his house. Like one in the front or one on the side, one in the back. Yeah, they all go to one.
[00:22:28] Speaker A: Well, I do have two kids in college. I do have two kids in college. So I don't want to stop you for buying one for each room in the house, but you don't need it.
[00:22:36] Speaker C: Right? Right. Yeah. That's very interesting. And as much as I've thought about this, I've owned this house. We built this house, I mean, almost 20 years ago, and we. I've thought about it a lot. I didn't ever imagine putting a unit in the attic that could service multiple rooms. That actually is genius. That thought process is genius. I never, never really considered that possibility.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: Yeah, you stick a little, grills and registers and diffusers have a common return upstairs. Everybody gets a little ac, everybody gets a little heat, everybody's happy. You have one thermostat that you control it. And you can do all that by Wi Fi. You can do all that by, you know, if you want to do a Google Nest or you want to do one of the other type of thermostats, anybody's thermostat will connect to us. We have some interface boards to make that happen, so it's not necessarily out of the box, but if you have a favorite brand of home connectivity, we can connect to that.
[00:23:40] Speaker B: I'm a big fan. I like Siri. Yeah, I have my.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: Yeah, well, there's. There's a lot to be said by sitting on the couch and yelling, make it hotter or colder. Right. So it'll do that.
[00:23:52] Speaker B: Or being halfway to the beach and saying, oh, shoot, I forgot to turn off the ac and it's pumping in the house for four days straight. I can log into my app and set it to vacation mode and save myself a little bit of money there. Yeah.
[00:24:07] Speaker A: So if you like that, then I'll go off on a tangent a little bit. If you like that, there's a fantastic app out there called if this, then that. And it is a open protocol that allows you to connect a variety of different things to it. And when you go to it, it has really a plethora of things. But what it does, it does some really cool stuff that you can say, you know, when it hits 32 degrees outside, have my sonos start.
Turn my heating on to 72 degrees. It allows you to connect all those different appliances to different types of things. When the garage open, they'll start playing the presidential march because I'm home or something like that. It's great on the different things you can do.
[00:24:54] Speaker B: I'm going to have to check that out. I like that idea because one thing that I don't care for with the smartest thermostat that I have now is in the summertime. I have to remind it that it's hot outside, and then at night, it actually gets cold. So this thing, my thermostat, it'll be pumping to 70 degrees at nighttime. We set it kind of low to sleep, but then it's 64 degrees outside and it's pumping ac into the house, and then it'll switch over to heat in the morning. I'm like, what are you doing? You know what I mean? I want to get more.
I want. I want to get more into programming it. That's. That sounds. I need to look into that. If this, then that.
That's what it's called.
[00:25:42] Speaker A: Yes. Yes.
[00:25:43] Speaker B: All right. I'm looking into it. Yep.
[00:25:45] Speaker A: Very cool app.
[00:25:47] Speaker C: So tell us what. What is. What are our options? If. If Corey and I or Corey or I had decided that we were going to move to a mini split type system, what are our options to get fresh air?
Intentionally get fresh air into the house, apart from just opening a window.
[00:26:07] Speaker A: So there are a couple up?
[00:26:09] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: So I mean, that's option number one.
Option number two is if you use one of our ceiling cassettes or one of our ducted units, then you can hook a fresh air system into that. So what that would be is fresh air vented to the outside that would come into the unit, be treated, and then dispersed throughout the house. So two of our units, Walmart units, don't have it, but the other two units do have that. I would tell you that there are some great resources out there, and a lot of your building friends will tell you about it. Panasonic makes a wonderful bathroom ventilation fan that also works as an AShRAe 15.3 that will allow you to bring in fresh air and to the house. And the bathroom is a really good place to bring in fresh air for sure. So it's a bathroom fan style, but it brings fresh air in and gives you the appropriate air changes that you need in the house. So there are very inexpensive ways of doing that and doing it by code. Right.
So I would consider doing that. A more elaborate way would be to use an ERV or an HRV. And what that does is exchange air from the inside to the outside. So air coming from the inside, inside to the outside passes its heat or cool to the air that's coming in from the outside so that you get a very minimal temperature drop so you're not dramatically changing the temperature. And then an erv exchange is the enthalpic value. So that if you live in a really humid area, and I can tell you about humidity in the mid atlantic area, what it'll do is exchange it so you're not just dumping that raw, humid air in, but then that's a considerable step up in terms of cost function. There's a lot going on there. If it were me, I take a look at, and I don't work for Panasonic. I have nothing to do with Panasonic, but they make a really fine product. I would look at that.
[00:28:06] Speaker B: That's a good tip.
We don't deal so much with the humidity here. If it gets above 25% to 30%, everybody's freaking out in the Pacific Northwest. It's nice.
[00:28:19] Speaker C: That is a great tip. I also did not know that that was on the market. That is a great idea. An opportunity to bring fresh air into the house, into the bathroom, through the exhaust fan. That's.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: We know all about ervs and hrvs. We talk about on the show all this time. All the time. Those are great options. But, yeah, the Panasonic one, for an existing system, for existing home that doesn't have that, that probably would be a good idea.
Other than just opening the window.
[00:28:48] Speaker C: Other than that, yeah.
[00:28:49] Speaker A: Right.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: Which is also good. Yeah, it's a good system as well.
So the last thing probably I wanted to cover with you would be. Unless you have something else, would be maybe something about rebates. Are there any rebates available to get into a system?
[00:29:10] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a ton of rebates, and it's. And it's crazy. So really, the last thing, really, for us to talk about is how do I learn more? Right? So how do I learn more about product, how do I learn more about rebates? And then how do I get to connected to somebody that knows how to do this? Right. So this is the part where I recommend my website, and it's fujitsugeneral.com dot. So as a contractor, as a builder, as a consumer, you can go there and you can take a look and see what the styles look like and what the efficiency talks about. And there's some great explanation in some videos that'll walk you through it. Make sure you end up on the section that says eco rebates. And what that does is as you enter your zip code, if you don't enter your zip code, it's a little creepy. It figures out where you are and it automatically enters it for you. And once you hit it, it tells you all the pieces of equipment that qualify for a rebate where you're standing. And then it also gives the link to the utility or the federal or the state or whatever for the forms for you to be able to fill out. But I like it because I can stand there and I can say that two ton system will get a $1,500 rebate where I stand, and here's the paperwork for me to be able to do it. So it could not be easy than that to do that. And then the last connection, and the most important connection of all of it is finding a good, qualified contractor to be able to do it. So in my mind, h Vac is a learn skilled trade. And this is really not something that you do yourself. You can become really educated on it. You can understand what you want. You can do a lot of things, but in terms of actually installing it, you really should have somebody that knows what they're doing. And in reality, they have to be licensed to handle the refrigerant.
But we also have a contractor locator on there, and these are going to be people that they're only on there if they've been through a minimum level of training and have done a minimum level of installation. And these guys and girls are really, really good at what they do.
So in my mind, whenever, as a homeowner, and I realize your audience is broad, but as a homeowner, you should always know a couple of people. You should always know an h vac person before you need them. You should always know an electrician, you should always know a plumber, and you should always know somebody that can work on the outside of your house when that tree hits it. So if you're trying to find them when you have damage, that's really a terrible time to try to find somebody that's going to treat you fair when you're hanging out with your buddies watching a ball game. Hey, by the way, who do you use? Who put that ceiling fan in your house? Who fixed your roof? Were they any good? You mind shooting me that name? Find the people you want to get to before you need them, and you're going to be a much better spot.
[00:31:59] Speaker B: That's a very good tip because Tony actually say that all the time. The last thing you need you want to do is call an h vac contractor on the first 90 degree day of the summer. You don't want to do that. You got to have somebody. You got to maintain it. You gotta call them out every once in a while. Just have them look at it. And that's so, that's such a good tip. Tony and I are pretty fortunate because we have a h vac contractor that plays on our softball team. Thanks, Dan, but I'm with you there on the, on the DIY aspect of installing one of these systems. It's definitely not. Tony and I talk about a lot of things on the show that are diY, that are weekend warrior friendly. That's not one of them because like you said, you have to be a trained professional to install the refrigerant. And these things run on high voltage. They have to have wiring from the box installed. It's not something you mess with. You got to pull permits and make sure it's all done right.
[00:33:00] Speaker A: Yep. Amen.
[00:33:02] Speaker C: Yeah, this is, uh, I I have, I'm compelled now to go to the Fujitsu America website and take a look at all of the different products that are on there. I had no idea that there were other units besides wall units. I really believed that that was it.
[00:33:21] Speaker B: And I know what's really, what's really held Tony back. We've talked about this so many times. So many times, is, like you said, the ductwork, you'd have to put in a central air system. You'd have to fight somewhere to put it for one.
[00:33:33] Speaker C: Right.
[00:33:33] Speaker B: And then you'd be running ductwork and soffits all over your house just to make it work in a system like this, you don't have to. It installs right through the exterior wall.
[00:33:44] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: It's pretty amazing.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: You can be that guy and you can be that guy and just stick it in your bedroom and make the rest of the family suffer.
You could do a couple of things there.
[00:33:55] Speaker C: Yeah. I feel like as many conversations as we've had about this, I have just been unable to pull the trigger because I felt like I just didn't know enough. Like we keep doing research, we keep asking questions, we keep talking about it, but I just never come away with it, with that warm, fuzzy feeling that says, this is what you want to do, it's going to work and it's going to be great and it's going to be worth the money you spend on it. Go get it done.
[00:34:22] Speaker B: Yeah. I definitely learned a lot today. That's why we go to the source.
[00:34:25] Speaker A: And I would tell you, too, going from that resistant electric to a heat pump, there's significant savings there on the heat side, too. So you'll be comfortable both in temperature and in your it. You're going to like that.
[00:34:39] Speaker C: Just one last question. One of the last things that Corey and I talk about very, very regularly is cost versus value. We talk about projects in the home, whether it's a kitchen or a bathroom or whatever it is, sort of remodel that someone's doing. We talk about the cost out of pocket versus the value that they, the resale value that their home will appreciate when the time comes. What is your, what is your feel when it comes to spending the money that gets spent to add this kind of a system to a home that does not already have it and, and how the home's resale value would change.
And again, I'm not, I'm not quoting you. I'm just asking your opinion. How do you feel?
[00:35:26] Speaker A: I don't know. No, it's a, it's a great question. So, unfortunately, most people don't pay attention to the year warranty of their shingles. They don't pay attention to the quality of their siding. They don't pay attention to the efficiency of the heating and air conditioning system. They just don't they want to know that you have heating and you have air conditioning. So what does that really mean? There are two expenses. When you add it to a property, there's the installation cost and there's more importantly the operational cost. So the installation cost because of the efficiency side is going to warrant a rebate. So you're going to be able to buy a great piece of equipment, less expensive and get a greater value than another level of piece of equipment out there. The second is going to be the operational. I mean, you're not comfortable if you're sweating that electric bill coming every month, if you're running around telling everybody to turn it up or turn it down or leave it alone or in hiding the remotes, I mean, that's not comfortable. So you want to be able to live inside. You want to be comfortable. So your operational efficiency has got to be good. There is nothing more efficient than a mini split heat pump. Second to none. There's nothing more efficient than that. So when you take a look at it, take a look at value, if somebody understands what an h vac system is, they get it. But at the end of the day, you're not going to pay any more for it than you would for a traditional vertical draw through. You're probably going to get a rebate, may come in a couple of bucks cheaper. And every day you're going to smile when you, when you send that check off to the electric company instead of it being wet from you, crying on it, sending it to them. So it's, it's, you're going to save a lot of money with this.
[00:37:16] Speaker C: Well, that's, that is, that is great that you, that you feel strongly and confident about that in your product, Fujitsu's product. And I mean, this might just be the thing that, that takes it over the top. Yeah, takes a bit over the top for me, makes me make that decision and finally pull the trigger.
[00:37:35] Speaker B: Well, I think you should. I mean, nobody wants to go over your house during the summer for dinner.
[00:37:41] Speaker C: Yeah, we spend a lot less money on food.
[00:37:43] Speaker A: He's really hitting that hard.
[00:37:44] Speaker C: No guests? No guests will come over.
[00:37:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, Dennis, we can't thank you enough for coming on here. I mean, you're the senior vice president of sales of Fujitsu General America. Such a wealth of knowledge. We can't thank you enough for coming.
[00:37:58] Speaker A: To thank you, gentlemen. The pleasure's been all line.
[00:38:03] Speaker B: If you found this podcast interesting, if you found some good information in it, make sure you send this to a friend. If they don't have AC. Tell them Fujitsu America. That's what you need.
[00:38:13] Speaker C: Fujitsu General America.
[00:38:14] Speaker B: And thanks so much for listening. We'll catch you next time.
[00:38:17] Speaker C: Have a great week, folks.
