Old HVAC industry practices are holding us back and costing us money. But we can fix it.

Are you looking for a less cantankerous, more shareable version of this video? The condensed version on Connextras has got you covered! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hAuKtoRxJI

I like to imagine Alec is talking to an HVAC rep who's sitting tied up across from him. It makes the video so much funnier

How fitting that Alec is just about the only YouTuber who puts the long version on the main channel, rather than saying "here's a bite-size video - for the full-length, go to the second channel"

Former HVAC sales rep here. Great video! While attending a hvac training, I was giving a rather shocking Stat, less than 10% of hvac sales in 2022 had a load calculation preformed prior to the sale of a new system. I'm not innocent either, as I was never told what or how to preform one of these and became part of the problem. The more I learned in that role the more shocked I was at how much damage and headache I likely caused for homeowners. Your comments on the lack of communication between departments is actually rather accurate and something that has, as of late become a much bigger focus for the company. (who I still work for under a different position, in another trade department) so atleast at our national company things are changing and loadcalcs are becoming a much larger focus company wide. The issues of system sizing has been a regular cause of issues, callbacks, and heachaces for us and the customer.

"Maybe you think that's strange, but I think I'm strange too." ...This encapsulates part of the reason I like this channel.

One of my favourite things about heat pumps: My parents regularly used the old cliche line of parents telling their kids to close the doors / windows, "we aren't air conditioning outside". And now they aircondition the outside for half the year.

I won't bore everyone with the saga, but trying to find an actual pro HVAC installer in a major market that understood this stuff and was willing to work with me took over a year and too much of my life energy.

Whew, he almost missed the nice on 69 but stopped himself. You are quite literally the Project Farm of the electrical side of youtube. Your tests are always so indepth and well logged and you come up with creative ways of running these tests.

Michigander here, i LOVED the hard flex on midwesteners having those most common sense for the past 100 years. my house is 100yrs old and guess where my vents run??? THROUGH THE WALLS

Is this the ultimate Technology Connections video? Combining space heaters, with extension leads, with incandescent Christmas lights, with heatpumps and the latent heat of vaporization? Like a call back to every previous video.

HVAC guy here. A lot of the issues I've seen have been lack of adequate training. I've literally googled my way to competency, and that is completely unacceptable. But, they don't care as long as we figure it out eventually because the customer is footing the bill anyways. It's horrifying

I work at an engineering firm & design HVAC systems every day. You hit the nail on the head! Every time i thought “well what about x” you would say “on the other hand -“ its like you were reading my thoughts. Great video!

As a hvac tech. We do load calcs on every single sale (except mobile homes). We fit to the home but upsize the coil a half ton to dehumidify a little more. We're also trying to get into insulation to help our installs work more efficiently so this video was awesome to listen to

Am HVAC design engineer (floor plan layouts not the actual units), one of the reasons why gas furnaces are always oversized is because that 60k BTU is the smallest many manufacturers make, and they end up being the most common/cheapest because they're used on everything 5 tons and under. To get a smaller heater, you basically have to go electric or heat pump

As someone in the HVAC Trade, this video is extremely valuable to homeowners and you are empowering my own standards. Not only that, you are calling out the predatorial practices of HVAC Companies. Heat pumps are amazing tech, and I would cite this source 7 days of the week. Fantastic breakdown, thank you!

Just wanted to say it's been amazing to watch this channel grow in size, success, and technical polish, without budging a millimeter from its principles, its tone, or its sense of humor. Keep up the excellent work!

As a Canadian, I absolutely grok your midwestern rant about the placement of ducting and vents. The spaghetti octopus in the attic gave me the giggles.

I am a HVACR professional and I now train others in the HVAC industry. This is solid gold. I strive to instill in my trade that we have been constantly oversizing equipment for as long as the trade has been around. I converted to what is called a dual fuel setup about 10 years ago that is a heat pump with gas backup heat (lots of boring details as to why I went with that setup) When I bought my house it had a 120,000 btuh furnace installed. I now heat the house with a 3 ton heat pump which matches the cooling load on the home it is matched with the smallest furnace I could get that can provide airflow for the HP and has the capability to operate at 40% of its rated capacity. I live in a cold weather climate and with some minor help from the furnace on that colder than cold day once In a while it keeps my home very comfortable. Using similar thermostat technology I can track my power and gas usage and typically my furnace runs less than 15 minutes per day most days. And that runtime is almost all when the heat pump is defrosting. My area has incentives from various agencies and organizations will completely if not more hand cover the equipment cost to the contractor for the cost differences in the equipment from AC to HP units. Installation cost differences given modern thermostats is almost $0 A lot of what someone people will call out as flaws in his analysis are not reading between the lines in his data and methodology. You simply cannot give a masterclass on absolutely everything that goes into this stuff in one hour! Some details are left out. Great video Anyone who says otherwise is definitely selling something

I've been in this trade for 35 years, when I do a manual j, I find the existing heating systems are usually around 33% to big. I have lost several heating system replacements, because the customer say I'm under sizing their system. Because all the other companies said you need to go with the same size. The HVAC industry has its problems, but homeowners like bigger systems in their house. So we either conform, or we die in the wind.

HVAC guy is coming out this afternoon to discuss replacing my house's 15 year old AC/Gas Furnace combo. As a fellow midwesterner I was already planning on getting a heat pump specifically due to your previous video, but it was nice for this one to pop up today and give me a reminder.