Tony, Need a Little Confidence (hand holding)

1. Is it cost justified for a manufacturing facility to have us come out and clean the filters when these large facilities will most likely have the HVAC companies out there anyway?
2. How do we - the pressure washer - market these services between the manufacturing facility and HVAC company?

1. Do they ever present resistence to changing to your filter?
2. What are your selling points?

joshuabcrutcher said:

Tony,

I have looked at your business and really think there is some opportunity for us there... I guess the struggle I have is being able to identify the filters and sizing needed.

I worked in industrial filtration - but we were working in ppm and micron level filters in pressure vessels. This was primarily filtration in air compression systems in manufacturing facilities (I don't know if you design any of those filters too). I don't know the level of filtration in HVAC systems but can truly appreciate the ability to "recycle" the filter. It would have KILLED our after-market revenue after selling both a housing, the filters, and continuing to supply the filters; but would have been able to pass significant savings on to the customer. In short, you have a great concept!

A couple of questions... It seems there is an ABUNDANCE of HVAC companies out there and they are constantly making calls (ALWAYS seeing them around town).

1. Is it cost justified for a manufacturing facility to have us come out and clean the filters when these large facilities will most likely have the HVAC companies out there anyway?

Manufacturing facilities are a tough sell. Here's what usually happens. You pitch the service. They want to buy the filters and claim they will clean them using their own staff. A year later they've cleaned them once because they forgot. Meanwhile they have unit problems and now all the sudden it's the filter's fault. So they remove the filters cursing themselves for even buying the blasted things. Now if you ever try to go back to them you are burned because they think your filters are no good. That is the tough part with manufacturing facilities.

1. How do we - the pressure washer - market these services between the manufacturing facility and HVAC company?

After the initial 6-8 months the cost of you coming to clean them will be right in the vicinity of the cost of the HVAC company simply buying, shipping, storing, placing in inventory, pulling, delivering and installing filters. HVAC companies are are biggest clients because it is less expensive to use us than do it themselves. On the other hand if you are talking about a facility out in BFE that takes an hour to drive to, you are eating up all your profits in time and can't be competitive in most of those situations.

You mentioned HVAC companies charge big $$$ every visit and to (ideally) market directly to these HVAC companies. This will save them $$$.

1. Do they ever present resistence to changing to your filter?

HVAC techs know little about filtration. If you don't believe it go join the HVAC Talk forum. They argue about everything and there is no consensus on filters. Consequently a lot of techs unfamiliar with commercial electrostatic filters will come down off the roof after a service call and tell your customer the filters are the cause of any and all of their problems. I tackle this by educating the customer up front and explaning the difference between "pleated face-loading" filters and "depth loading". This way they are more educated than the tech. It is a very simple concept and once it is explained the customer is also told to call my cell immediately if they are told by ANYONE that our filters are causing a problem. I can't tell you how many times they've called me and handed the phone over to the tech for a quick lesson and had the tech go back up on the roof and actually fix the real problem. A few times I've had to drive to the site and show with my anemometer the fact that our filter is allowing just about as much flow dirty as the pleated allows clean.

1. What are your selling points?

No throwaways, it takes more water to make a cardboard disposable filter than it takes to clean an electrostatic. Dependable timely service, etc. There's more.

I imagine we are selling your product AND our services.

I have also seen where you KINDLY say "show us a roof and we will show you what can be serviced". I appreciate that - do you have a guide for sizing and identifying filters?

I have guidelines that I've developed over the past few years and a pretty heavy stock of mistakes sitting in the warehouse. Now to be safe I have a hard and fast rule of thumb I go by based on flow.

I know you offer training and am more than willing to attend - should have caught you in SC - because I don't have a clue about cleaning coils... I am not trying to freeload - just trying to get more info before moving forward...

Feel free to give me a call anytime. I apologize for not seeing this post earlier.


Maybe a phone call would be easiest - 502-432-3209 (direct)

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