Maine-Based HVACR Cleaning Business Is a Model of Innovation

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency | Click Here To Add Your Comment Now

In this latest installment in our series of Just Venting interviews with HVAC professionals, we introduce you to Matt Jacobs, owner of Northeast Coil. Based out of Limerick, Maine, this company is, in the words of its website, “a family-owned company dedicated to optimizing HVAC/Refrigeration efficiency and improving indoor air quality.”

They’re worth your attention today because their method of approaching this crucial HVACR need is innovative, interesting, and highly relevant to the current and future shape of a business world that is defined by the convergence of efficiency, smooth operations, and environmental friendliness as chief operational values.

We spoke with Matt recently and asked him to describe what he does and how he does it. He was most enthusiastic and accommodating, and we think you’ll find him and his business as interesting as we do.

* * * * *

JUST VENTING: Thanks for talking with us today, Matt. Let’s start by getting right to the point: We focus on HVAC issues at our blog, so would you tell us specifically what you do in that capacity?

MATT JACOBS: Well, I should point out at the beginning that Northeast Coil isn’t an HVAC mechanical contractor. We strictly do the cleaning of HVAC and refrigeration coils and cooling towers. The kicker is the way we do it. We clean a lot of grocery stores, for example, and we have two trucks, and each truck can do about ten to twenty grocery stores a day. Our speed is due to the way we’re set up. Our trucks are box utility trucks.  It takes a mechanical contractor up to a day to clean one grocery store rooftop, but we can do ten in one day with a single truck. In fact, right now a lot of mechanical contractors are actually hiring us to do the cleaning for them.

JV: So what exactly is your method?

MJ: We have four high pressure reels, and each holds over 400 feet of line. All we do is bring our line up on the roof. There’s no separate piece of equipment to add chemicals to the coils. Again, that’s why we can be so fast and efficient compared to other methods.

JV: What chemicals do you use for cleaning the coils?

MJ: We use AerisGuard products. What the chemical is, is an enzyme, so it’s all “green” and environmentally safe. We don’t use any caustic or acid chemicals. Nothing we use is harsh to the environment or the staff. This product can go right down onto the ground or into a sewer or onto our hands without any danger.

JV: What about mechanical equipment?

MJ: We use all Goodway stuff. At first we just went to our local guy to buy the cleaning equipment, but with Goodway’s products we buy it now and they’re good for it, and we’re going stick with it. We use Goodway portable pressure washers, and also their two different vac packs. And then we use their cooling tower vac system.

JV: Sounds like you have a really unique thing going. What kinds of businesses are hiring you?

MJ: We do everything from small commercial businesses all the way up to huge hospitals. Hospitals are big for us. We do a lot of them throughout the Northeast. And I already mentioned the grocery stores. We do approximately 1500 of them from Florida all the way up to northern Maine. For example, we do Hannaford, a supermarket chain that reaches all the way from New York back to Maine and has 168 stores.

There’s just no limit to the applications of our stuff. We can do any manufacturing facility. For example, we do food manufacturing facilities and distribution centers. We do Cisco. We do office buildings like Unifirst. Our range is all the way from small commercial buildings to skyscrapers like the ones we do down in Boston. That’s what so great about this business.

JV: What you’re describing sounds like quite a heavy workload. I’m assuming there’s no lack of business?

MJ: Right now, at this time of year, we work seven days a week from sunup to sundown.

JV: So how did you ever get started in something like this?

MJ: For fourteen years I was a facility technician. I ended up being the head facility guy at a semiconductor plant. My background is electrical power instrumentation, but they kind of threw me into the facility role. One day I went up on our rooftop and was looking at the HVAC units and condensers, and they were unbelievably dirty. You just can’t imagine it. Pollen, dirt, everything. So I called up a mechanical contractor to ask when they would be around to clean it, and it turned out they didn’t want to do it.

But when they finally did come out, I went up there and watched, and I couldn’t believe how they did the cleaning. The guy was using a caustic based and acid based cleaner, and it just ate up his skin. I immediately thought there had to be a better way. So I did some research and found there were no companies in the Northeast that specialized in cleaning coils. They were all mechanical contractors. They were getting big bucks to repair but not clean this type of equipment. I just couldn’t find anybody who did this business, so I went home and talked to my wife and asked if she thought it would be a good idea to invest our—and her—money in something like this, since I had some good ideas about how coil cleaning could be done better. The next person I called was my brother. I asked if he’d willing to help with this kind of business.

The rest is history. My wife Laura and I are the sole owners of the company, but my brother Jason is the backbone. He has no ownership but he helped to build it with us. He’s a mechanical engineer. If it weren’t for him and for my wife, Northeast Coil wouldn’t be here.

JV: So it’s a family affair, so to speak. How involved are you and your family in the day-to-day operations of the company?

MJ: I wanted to create a company that’s a class act, and to do that, I knew my brother and I would both have to be up there working. We both quit our jobs and started doing it, and to this day we’re both part of the crew. We have ten guys working for us with the title “Coil Cleaning Technicians,” and every day we’re right up there with them. We’re not just behind the scenes.

JV: You’ve talked about the environmentally friendly aspect of the chemicals you use. Just how important is the green angle for Northeast Coil?

MJ: We knew our business had to be environmentally friendly right from the start. When I watched that mechanical contractor cleaning the coils on the roof at the semiconductor plant, it was really a mess. Those caustic based and acid based chemicals are harmful not only to people but to coils, since they can corrode them. As we were forming Northeast Coil I knew we didn’t want to worry about our guys or the coils, so we were glad to find the AerisGuard products. We’ve had excellent results with them.

And the companies we work for care about the green angle, too. Now they don’t have to worry about sending their guys up there with harsh chemicals to do get the job done. The green angle is a positive plus for them, since they can advertise that they use us and that we use no harsh chemicals. That’s especially helpful at places like Genzyme, a pharmaceutical company we work for, where they can’t use those harsh chemicals.

JV: The possibilities sound endless. What are your future plans for the business?

MJ: One thing we don’t want to do is to get too big, because what built this business is the fact that we actually care. We do what we say we’re going to do, and we do it in professional manner. If we get too big, we won’t have that control any more, and that’s our biggest fear. We have a great rapport with our customers, and we like it that way, so that’s how we’re gonna grow.

JV: Thanks so much for sharing your story with us, Matt. We wish you and your business the best of fortune.

Tags: advice, AerisGuard products, Hospitals, HVAC professional, HVAC Refrigeration, HVACR, Matt Jacobs, Northeast Co

Beat the Heat - Tips from EPA for Saving Energy and Fighting Climate Change

Friday, June 26th, 2009
Energy Saving Tips | Click Here To Add Your Comment Now

With summer now upon us, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has published a list of tips to help homes and workplaces reduce their energy costs and carbon footprints as they seek to stay cool.

Should we be surprised that out of their list of seven tips, the first five are directly HVAC-related?

The tips include:

• Use your programmable thermostat properly.
• Run ceiling fans clockwise to create a wind-chill effect, and turn them off when leaving the room.
• Inspect your duct system for leaks and disconnections, and consider insulating ducts in unconditioned areas.
• Seal air leaks around the building. (On this one, we can’t resist pointing you to our post that advises you to check your building envelope.)
• Maintain your cooling system by regularly checking air filters, removing debris from around outdoor components, and scheduling a pre-season maintenance check by a qualified professional.

For more advice along these lines, see our previous post, “Use Your System Wisely: 10 Air Conditioning System Tips for Spring.”

Tags: air filters, energy costs, Enviromental Protection Agency, epa, reduce carbon footprint

HVAC Maintenance: Preventive Is Best

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency, HVAC Regulations and Standards | Click Here To Add Your Comment Now

So when’s the last time you visited ACCA’s website (that’s the Air Conditioning Contractors of America) and checked out their page titled “Preventive Maintenance = $avings“?

For convenience’s sake, we’ll quote some of the best parts: › Continue reading

Tags: ACCA, Air Conditioning Contractors of America, CEE, Consortium of Energy Efficiency, HVAC Maintenance, HVAC system, PMAs, preventive maintenance agreements

For HVAC and More, Smart Choices in a Down Market Reap Big Benefits

Monday, June 22nd, 2009
Green Buildings & Green Technology, HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency, LEED | Click Here To Add Your Comment Now

Diagram of a centrifugal chiller

Here’s a great example of how analyzing your building’s energy situation, and hiring outside professional help if necessary, can really pay off.

It comes from New Jersey & Company, New Jersey’s statewide business magazine, in an article titled “Even in a Down Market, Smart Owners Can Move Buildings in a Green Direction” (May 3, 2009). In the context of talking about the tension between the tidal pull toward green building and the seeming barrier of the dismal economic climate — “While owners have to cut operating costs during tough economic times, property managers must still identify ways where they don’t have to sacrifice sustainable programs,” write the article’s author, Eileen Carey, client solutions director for Cushman & Wakefield — the article presents an interesting mini-case study of an HVAC renovation that really worked, in all of the important senses. › Continue reading

Tags: centrifugal chillers, chillers, energy efficiency, energy efficient, Green Buildings & Green Technology, hvac, HVAC data, HVAC renovation, LEED, LEED Existing Buildings Operations & Maintenance certified, LEED standards, LEED-certified, LEEP points

Who Does What? An Overview of HVAC System Roles and Controls

Thursday, June 18th, 2009
Green Buildings & Green Technology, HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency, HVAC Regulations and Standards, LEED | 2 Comments

Reed Construction Data has published a technical overview of the types of HVAC controls that may go into the construction of a system. The point is to give a mental map of what’s involved in the respective divisions of labor between the HVAC engineer, mechanical contractor, and electrician, with each working on a different part of a given project. › Continue reading

Tags: ASHRAE, ASHRAE Standard 90, Building Automation Systems, Green Buildings & Green Technology, HVAC controls, HVAC engineer, HVAC system, LEED

The Largest Chillled Beam HVAC System in the U.S.

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency, LEED | Click Here To Add Your Comment Now

The Constitution Center in Washington, D.C.

Every industry observer is surely aware that chilled beam HVAC systems have been moving steadily into the U.S. market for the past couple of years, after a 15-year-or-so period during which they were ignored in the U.S. but popular in Europe and Australia.

These systems are fairly revolutionary. “Chilled beams are not building structural elements,” wrote mechanical engineer and LEED AP Alla Katsnelson in a 2007 FacilitiesNet article. “They are hydronic HVAC components that circulate chilled or heated water and are designed to induce room air flow to cool or heat the space. › Continue reading

Tags: chilled beam HVAC system, chilled beam systems, chilled beams, energy efficient, FacilitiesNet, HVAC system, HVAC systems, hydronic HVAC componets, LEED, LEED AP, LEED gold

Keeping a Clean HVAC System: Practical Advice for Powerful Benefits

Monday, June 15th, 2009
Energy Saving Tips, HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency, Sick Building Syndrome | 2 Comments

In this post we’ll let other people do all of the talking (with some judicious summarizing by us) as we present boiled-down, connect-the-dots versions of three articles by people who talk about the methods and benefits of HVAC system cleaning.

Notice how each writer overlaps with the others by hitting many of the same points, while also going in his/her own direction. This must mean they’re onto something. . . › Continue reading

Tags: Clean HVAC systems, coil cleaning, DOE, energy usage, epa, evaporator coils, HVAC professional, HVAC system, HVAC system cleaning, iaq, IAQ monitoring, indoor air, indoor air pollution, indoor air quality, NADCA, National Air Duct Cleaning Association, reducing energy usage, U.S. Department of Energy

The Next Frontier for Building Energy Management: Automated Continuous Commissioning

Friday, June 12th, 2009
Energy Saving Tips, Green Buildings & Green Technology, HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency | Click Here To Add Your Comment Now

Cover scan of the Continuous Commissioning Guidebook for Federal Energy Managers

We’ve talked with you before about building commissioning. In May we even devoted a whole post to the topic of retro-commissioning as a means of achieving greater energy efficiency.

But the story isn’t complete without a reference to the other type of commissioning that’s gaining in popularity — as much in concept as in practice, we think — which, along with retro-commissioning, seems to represent the fabled Wave of the Future.

We’re talking about Continuous Commissioning, also known as Automated Continuous Commissioning, or ACC (and yes, it’s a proper noun, because Texas A&M Energy Systems lab has trademarked the term).

DEFINING ACC

First, a definition, from the Federal Energy Management Program’s (FEMP) Continuous Commissioning Guidebook for Federal Energy Managers:

Continuous Commissioning is an ongoing process to resolve operating problems, improve comfort, optimize energy use and identify retrofits for existing commercial and institutional buildings and central plant facilities. [It] focuses on improving overall system control and operations for the building, as it is currently utilized, and on meeting existing facility needs. It goes beyond an operations and maintenance program. It does not ensure that the systems function as originally designed, but ensures that the building and systems operate optimally to meet the current requirements.

Is that clear? We think this other quote from the same federal guidebook makes it even clearer: › Continue reading

Tags: ACC, Automated Continuous Commissioning, Building Automation Systems, building commissioning, building energy management, Continuous Commissioning, energy efficiency, Federal Energy Management Program, FEMP, HVAC system, retro-commissioning, retrofits

Energy Saving Tip #6: Slay the “Energy Vampires” in Your Building

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009
Energy Saving Tips, HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency | Click Here To Add Your Comment Now

Our tip this time is inspired by a February ‘08 article at Buildings.com that offers a really useful list of hidden and overlooked energy wasters. Titled “11 Surprising Ways that Your Building Wastes Energy,” it’s written by Leah B. Garris, a senior association editor at Buildings magazine and stocked with some things you’re sure to have overlooked in your own building.

She writes, “The most obvious energy issues in your buildings — the ones having to do with efficient, effective operation of building systems — have probably been noted (and addressed). But, we’re betting that the 11 items mentioned here are things you’ve never realized could make such a big dent in your energy management program.”

So here’s the official tip: › Continue reading

Tags: buildings magazine, chiller, cooling coil, energy audit, energy management program, Energy Saving Tips, energy savings, energy vampires, HVAC systems

Maintain Your HVAC System to Head Off the High Cost of Poor IAQ

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
Energy Saving Tips, HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency, Sick Building Syndrome | 3 Comments

Summer is upon us, and that means it’s time to seal the building and crank up the air conditioner.

And that means it’s a good time to think about IAQ. Of course, any time is a good time for directing attention to this important subject, but it’s particularly pertinent during the onset of hot weather. And it’s particularly important for us here at Just Venting, since poor IAQ is so very frequently related to HVAC issues.

INDOOR AIR POLLUTION: YES, IT’S REAL

The first thing to fix firm in your mind is that indoor air pollution is a real problem, as explained in detail by Penn State researcher Melissa Beattie-Moss in a May 17 article for Central Pennsylvania’s GantDaily.com. Quoting research by William Bahnfleth, professor of architectural engineering and director of Penn State’s Indoor Environment Center, Beattie-Moss points out that while we have worked wonders as a nation in our efforts to clean up outdoor air thanks to the Clean Air Act, we have failed to put as much attention on the cleanliness of the air inside the buildings where we live and work, where federal clean air legislation doesn’t apply (even though things like ASHRAE regulations do).

“Americans,” Bahnfleth explains, “now spend on average 90 percent of their time indoors, being exposed to indoor air contaminants. The sheer exposure time amplifies the significance of any harmful substances in indoor air — but indoor concentrations of some contaminants may also be several times higher than outdoors.” These contaminents may include Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) from building materials and furniture; carbon monoxide; radon; spores and mycotoxins from mold; pesticides; allergens from pets, insects, dust mites and other sources, and tobacco smoke.

He continues, “Visible or not, indoor air contaminants have a tremendous effect on health, productivity, and comfort. Numerous studies have documented that students learn better and workers are more productive in environments with good air quality.”

The effects of these problems on human well being and economic activity are pronounced, and the two play directly into each other. We’re all familiar with Sick Building Syndrome (SBS), “in which building occupants experience acute health and comfort effects that appear to be linked to time spent in a building, but no specific illness or cause can be identified.” What we may not be as familiar with is the steep economic cost associated with poor IAQ; one recent study of IAQ concluded that air quality-related financial losses due to sick leave, medical treatment, and lowered productivity may reach $48 billion annually in the U.S.

So, to sum up, it’s a live issue, and we all need to keep up to date about best practices for maintaining excellent IAQ in our buildings.

A BRIEF REVIEW OF IAQ

For a review of the basic facts about IAQ, you could do worse than to visit the EPA’s subsite about the subject. That’s where you can access the EPA’s Indoor Air Quality Building Education and Assessment Model (I-BEAM), released in 2002, which the EPA describes as “a guidance tool designed for use by building professionals and others interested in indoor air quality in commercial buildings.”

You can also read what the EPA has to say about Sick Building Syndrome (SBS). In addition to identifying the possible causes of SBS (inadequate ventilation, chemical contamination from indoor or outdoor sources, and biological contaminants), the EPA offers specific recommendations for conducting building investigation procedures and solving SBS problems.

THE ROLE OF AIR FILTRATION: DON’T SKIMP!

On a more specific facility management-related note, we recommend that you read a recent post at the Facility Blog titled “Don’t Skimp on Air Filtration Even When Budgets Are Tight” (Today’s Facility Manager, June 1). In it, Gina Tsiropoulis, Market Manager for Kimberly-Clark Filtration, warns that although facility managers who are looking to reduce maintenance expenses during the present economic squeeze may consider cutting down on HVAC maintenance, and especially on filter maintenance (either by reducing the frequency of air filter change-outs or by downgrading to a lower-priced filter), this is actually very short-sighted, since

Smart fms should realize the small amount of money saved by reducing or eliminating air filter purchases or by purchasing lower priced (and lower efficiency) filters pales in comparison to the energy and operating costs that can be saved by maintaining a robust air filtration maintenance and upgrade program.

She goes on to discuss the role of air filtration in promoting and maintaining not only good IAQ but increased energy savings:

Skimping on air filtration during a tough economy has the potential to put facilities even deeper in financial trouble. It can negatively impact IAQ which can increase costs relating to worker health and productivity. It can also increase HVAC system operating and energy costs. While reducing the frequency of filter change-outs or downgrading to a lower-priced (and lower performance) filter may seem like good ways to reduce expenditures, they are not true cost-savings strategies.

THE IMPORTANCE OF OVERALL HVAC SYSTEM MAINTENANCE

So this is all just food for thought, and also impetus for action. The overarching point that you might want to take away from it is that not only proper filter maintenance but proper total maintenance of your HVAC system is necessary for the very reasons Tsiropoulis notes above. We trust you’ll pardon as we quote ourselves, from words at our own main site:

By now, most people have heard the terms “indoor air quality” and “sick building syndrome.” One of the biggest contributors to indoor air quality is the HVAC system installed in the building. The purpose of the HVAC system is to “condition” the air inside the building. Air that has been “conditioned” is clean and odor-free and is at a temperature and humidity that the majority of the building’s occupants find comfortable. . . . HVAC maintenance plays a significant role in keeping the HVAC system running at peak efficiency.

And we urge you to read the detailed article by Goodway’s Steve Spielmann about cleaning ducts and ventilation systems for purposes of heading of SBS and maintaining good IAQ.

Tags: air filtration, air filtration maintenance, building investigation procedures, commercial buildings, energy savings, epa, filter maintenance, HVAC Maintenance, HVAC system, HVAC system maintenance, iaq, indoor air contaminants, indoor air pollution, indoor air quality, poor IAQ, Sick Building Syndrome, VOCs, Volatile Organic Compounds