Friday Live

Y'all going to have to let me know if y'all can hear everything okay. Fusion density. Where does that come from? Sounds like something I may have studied in my first years of engineering. Good. I'm glad you can hear me. Hello from Chicago. Abraham. Forgive me. I'm not going to say this wrong, but hello from Iran. I hope I said that right. Good. I started using a different microphone, this one right here, so I'm glad you can hear me. HVAC woman. Hello from St. Louis. Well, hello. Another one from Kentucky. Looks like we have, let me remember his name, Adrian from Reliable HVAC. No, I didn't have any kind of announcement that I was going to do a live stream. I've actually been doing a video for a tool loadout that I may post later on today. We'll see. And I'll discuss why I've been vacillating between Makita in Milwaukee on my impact, I do think I'm going to stick with the Milwaukee M12. Hello from New York, Tennessee, Washington, Pennsylvania. Somebody from Louisiana and North Carolina, I'm glad to see y'all tuning in. I've got my door wide open, it is a sunny day. This happens to be a day that nobody needs an HVAC technician because it's a windows down kind of day. I imagine it's different up north. I watch the Michigan Heating guy. He's one of my favorite guys on YouTube, and they're already getting some cold weather up there. Australia, Queensland, Cooloola Cove. Well, thank you, Paul. I imagine in Australia, if it's 2 o'clock now, it might be early in the morning over there. We got people tuning in from all over Lockport, New York. Yeah, I used to... Watch Steve Lab, but he tends to do more plumbing stuff and oil heat. We don't do a whole lot of that down here. In fact, there's almost no oil heat. The only interaction I've had with oil heat in the last couple of years is one I ripped out and put in a heat pump from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. HVAC overtime. No, I've never checked them out. 5 a.m. in Australia. Yeah, I thought it was kind of early. Heat calls here. We're still around 40 degrees. Art Walters, Albany, Georgia. So this may be somebody I know. British Columbia, Canada. Wow. I had no idea. Well, I guess I did have an idea that a lot of people from all over the world were tuning in to the videos. And that's nice. It's nice to know. And I'm going to tell you one of the reasons I started doing the videos is because I don't have any children and I don't have any employees. Or the ones that I had in the past didn't care anything about learning. I'm going to turn the TV off so maybe we have a little more bandwidth. They didn't care anything about learning. It was just like talking to a brick wall. So I started the videos to help people learn that wanted to learn. I know they're out there. They just never worked for me. Well, I did have a couple of good employees, but the vast majority were not. From Montana, Western Illinois. Well, here in Georgia, the crazy season is still upon us because we're still getting political ads all day, every day. And I just wish it would quit. Las Vegas, Nevada. Hey, guys, I do appreciate y'all tuning in. Let me know if you have any questions. I get a lot of questions in the comments sometimes, and it's hard to address the questions in that way. Well, thank you, HVAC woman. I appreciate you sharing that with me. And thank you, Jeremy. That was nice. When I gave away that Milwaukee fan, I That was also an HVAC woman that I gave that to somewhere down in Texas. And I have another one that I may be doing a giveaway on. I just got to figure out the best way to do it because doing it through YouTube, there's scammers that like to scam people and tell them they won and ask for your information. Oh, well, good luck, Luke. What kind of building, operating engineer? It sounds like something for a plant or some kind of a big project. The oldest heat pump I've ever worked on? Well, I have a partial. The oldest, the air handler is 1971, and it's still working, which means it's as old as I am. No, I don't do a lot of kitchen equipment. I may do some refrigeration. I have in the past. I haven't done any probably in the last year, but I don't do a whole lot of that. That's usually when somebody that I know asks me to take a look at something. John, my name's Curtis. If y'all don't know me, my name's Curtis, also known as the HVAC guy. I'm still young. I'll be 52 next year. I got lots of gray hair. Can y'all see that? A little 60. I hope you can afford to retire sometime soon, Paul. And he has no hair. Yeah. Yeah, I've got a lot of questions about the Makita and the M12. I'll tell you now, I prefer the M12 because of the size and weight of it. Thank you, David. That is tremendous. I could talk about billing and scheduling. Okay, I'm a one-man show. So it's C-U-R-T-I-S. I'm a one-man show, so I don't need... What is it? CME software. I don't need it. I use a Google calendar for scheduling. I can put PMs on it and have them repeat every six months. I can. Well, I do like I have to do them twice, once in the spring and once in the fall and make them repeat every year. But I put PMs on it. I use it to move things around on my schedule. I just use a Google calendar and for billing, everything's done through QuickBooks online. I've used QuickBooks online. For years, I've started out with just a QuickBooks software, and I went to online, and it's been more convenient. I can access my customers from anywhere, on my phone, on my tablet, any computer. All I have to do is go to qbo.intuit.com and log in, and I do my billing through it. I send most of my billing through email. I probably have. three or four customers that I have to send an actual invoice, but everybody else gets an email and if that doesn't get paid, they may get a paper invoice in the mail. 77 is still working. Holy mackerel. Are you working because you want to still work? I imagine that's going to be the case for me. I'm going to never be able to retire. Mini split air conditioners are becoming more popular in the US. In fact, they're making regular Ducted air conditioners that are built like mini splits that are becoming popular. Home warranty work. There are a couple home warranty, actually there's three and one of them right now I've kind of got on the back burner. I work with Old Republic. I work with American Home Shield and that's the one that's on the back burner right now and Cinch Home Services. They all pay their bills. There are, and yes, they do lowball you. I don't want you to... charge them retail price, but there are ways to make your money. I mean, sometimes you make just a little bit, but for example, if you do an install, there are ways to make your money. It's unfair for the customer, but if they're not going to pay you full price, you need to charge the customer for things like duct modifications, emergency drain pan they may may not cover electrical modifications, things like that, or disposal. You've got to find ways to make your money. But normally, if I'm just doing a motor or a contact or a capacitor, I still get close to what I would on retail. Oh, with those particular home warranties that I mentioned, they do pay. I do stay away from one because they didn't pay. And then when I sent one of their customers a bill by mistake, they threatened to take me to court. And that was Choice Home Warranty. Yes, there are some people in Georgia that have a stand-up basement, but there are not many. Around here, where I live, the groundwater level is so close to the surface that if you have a basement, you better have a sump pump in it because it's going to fill with water when it rains. Well, Daryl, just for fun, I love the work. I think that's what's going to end up happening to me. I could probably retire right now financially and be just fine, but I enjoy what I do. All right. Hold on just a second. My battery's about to run out on my...