How to Sell Comfort in a Green World

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New Opportunities

The melding of comfort and green thinking presents many new opportunities for HVAC contractors.

We work with an energy auditor in our area and charge our customers a flat fee to perform a Manual J calculation, an infiltration test, examine their insulation needs, and so on. Customers who are interested in both energy efficiency and comfort will see the value in this. Plus, it makes you stand out from the ranks of contractors who never mention the words “load calculation” during their sales pitch.

Look for opportunities beyond the “traditional” HVAC scope, too. For example, tankless water heaters have become an absolutely huge business for us. At a home show we did in February, our people on the tankless water heater side of our booth had no voices left at the end of the day. For the next show, we're actually doing a video to answer basic questions and putting it up on a flat screen to run on a loop.

Tankless water heaters show how comfort and energy efficiency play off each other: they're much more efficient than standard water heaters, yet a customer could take a shower 24 hours a day, seven days a week without running out of hot water.

Interest in geothermal systems is also skyrocketing. We used to have conversations with customers about geothermal systems once every couple of months; now we have two or three of those conversations every day. Why? One simple word: payback. Even in a down economy, people can realize that if they're paying almost $5 per gallon for fuel oil, that the payback on a geothermal system investment is in the range of seven to nine years.

It's very interesting to us that 95% of our geothermal replacement jobs are for customers whose homes are less than seven years old, and their current systems are working fine. They're buying geothermal just because they're looking at the return on investment and the payback, but they still care about the additional comfort they'll get with their new system. To really seal the deal, be aware of the tax credits and incentives that are available in your state for installing new, energy efficient equipment.

It's true that green and energy efficiency are at the forefront of many homeowners' minds right now, in these days of spiraling energy costs. That's fine, but when you're making the sale, don't let your customers forget another very important reason they should seek you out: you care about their comfort. The two are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they're often two sides of the same coin.

Alan Givens is president of Parrish Services, Manassas, VA. He can be reached at 703/330-5748, e-mail agivens@parrishservices.com.