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Economy Effects HVAC Buying Habits

October 12, 2014 by HVAC Expert

Economy Issues Affect Change in Consumer Shopping Habits
By Betty Stephens

econ
American household buying habits accounts for around 70% of the U.S. economy. What consumers shop for is seperated  into two main categories.  First, they spending on  such items as food, clothing and shelter.  Second, there is more  discretionary spending.   This is on items such as entertainment or non-essentials.
The good fortune of some and mis-fortune of others have caused financial ups and downs  and a shift in the  shopping habits of Americans have led to uneven outcomes for retailers. Companies like WalMart and Mattel have continued to struggle as people  spend more cautiously in this type of uncertain economy.   Amazon has  however done well, as more consumers choose to shop on line.
Americans are very price conconscious, and will check as many as seven store or web sites for the best price before makes their  purchases.   I believe frugal is the the best word to describe the average American these days.   Internet shopping rose 10% to $46.5 billion in November and December, according to research firm Comscore.  However, sales at  retail stores rose just 2.7% to $265.9 billion, according to ShopperTrak, which tracks data at 40,000 stores in the U.S. And the number of customers in stores dropped 14.6%.

Industry exucutives are starting to say this new American frugallity may be beccoming a new reality and a new permanet way of life in America and they don’t expect to see it go away anytime soon, if ever, even as the economy shows signs of improvement.  With family budgets under pressure since the recession of 2008, consumers have headed to discount stores, switched  from name brand goods to private-label alternatives and shopped more often at discount  stores or online rather than spending on expensive fuel to drive to out-of-town hypermarkets.

Those trends have benefited discounters as well as retailers that have the widest own-label ranges and networks of smaller stores, prompting consumer goods firms to retaliate with brand promotions and smaller packaging.

“If you look at data from Millennials, who have really sort of grown up with this, price is more important to them than it was to the last generation,” WalMart U.S. Chief Executive Bill Simon told the Reuters Global Consumer and Retail Summit, referring to the generation born between 1980 and 2000.

WalMart U.S. is the largest unit of WalMart Stores Inc (WMT.N), the world’s largest retailer which benefited from trading-down during the recession, but cut its forecasts last month, citing weak results in many key markets.

The U.S. economy is expected to pick up towards the end of the year, helping cut unemployment, while Europe’s lack luster recovery looks set to continue, although wage growth will continue to lag inflation, hurting consumer purchasing power.

The Dollar Channel
Dollar store  has been on an upward trend for several years now.  They have had a big impact on the discount store market and are competing head to head with other discount stores on the routine shopping trip stop.  The  Family Dollar Stores are adding cooler space to more than 1,000 locations this year, and Dollar Tree is adding to its food and beverage assortment as well as opening a third-party pharmacy in a Florida location. Efforts like these have contributed to dollar  retailers winning over shoppers from other discount stors.  The most sizeable change  is the shift of heavy drug store  shoppers—the top one-third of spenders within the catagory -into the dollar store family of stores. This is not a big surprise, as the both dollar stores and drug stores  carry many of the same type of goods and both are well positioned, geographically, for easy-access, fill-in trips.
Changing Habits
During the last year, Americans have been making less  but larger shopping trips. Trips declined across grocery and large box stores.  You might think the decline in stock-up trips would hurt Sam’s Club and Costco type stores, however trips have actually increased by 2.1% during the past year due to a number  of factors. The club retailers are expanding the number of stores. Also, club trips are being bolstered by lower gas prices and low food inflation, which makes it easier for them to absorb bulk pricing. The dollar stores  also saw trips increase significantly during the past year, which reinforces the notion that consumers are viewing dollar stores as a “smarter” choice for affordable solutions.
While people will continue to shop, the question now is what will they purchase, when will they purchase and where will they purchase. Name brand items are taking a backseat to generic or store brand products.  Malls are beginning to show signs of weakness – a lot  more stores are closing while consumers make their way to other, more affordable  alternatives. Instead of going to one of the mall’s “anchor stores,” they are now going  to places like WalMart, Target or K-Mart to purchase the things their families “need” rather than the things their families “want.”

econgraphics from Google Images

Filed Under: How to save money! Tagged With: A/C, ac repair, advanced heating and cooling, air conditioner problems, Central Air Conditioners, cooling systems, Electric Bills, energy savings, heating, heating & air conditioning, heating & cooling, heating and air, home heating systems

Heating & Cooling A Submarine

July 29, 2014 by HVAC Expert

Heating, Cooling Submarines
By Betty Stephens

Cooling a Submarine

Heating Submarines
A submarine is mostly all metal, and metal is an excellent conductor of heat. The surface area of a submarine is large. The ocean is filled with convection currents, caused by the sub’s motion. This makes the heat transfer between submarine and ocean an active process. The temperature’s difference between the sub and the ocean is small, the total heat transfer is considerable because of the large contact area.
There is continuous production of heat, given off to the submarine air by hot engines, storage batteries, galley stove, electric lights, electric heaters, other devices, and human passengers. There is continuous production of moisture, given off to the air by evaporation from these same four main sources. The moisture production averages about 1000 pounds of water per day.
If the submarine is running on the surface, it is an easy matter to discharge this excess heat and moisture outboard. When the submarine is submerged, heat cannot be discharged outboard, and must be eliminated during recirculation of the air.
If the submarine is warmer than the ocean water, the interior heat of the vessel gradually passes through the shell into the water. The temperature of the air inside drops and, when it reaches the dew point, the water vapor in the air begins to condense on every available surface. So, the interior surfaces of a submarine are coated, with cork paint, to prevent or reduce this condensation to a minimum. The beginning of the condensation, however, depends upon the dew point, and this can be controlled by air-conditioning. Therefore, air-conditioning is just as essential for this purpose as for the comfort of the crew. It is always advisable to lower the dew point before a dive.
But, if the ocean is warmer than the submarine, there is a passage of heat from the water into the ship. However small this may be, it adds to the interior heat. The same result occurs if the loss of heat from this vessel to the ocean is less than the interior heat production. In hot summer weather, especially in tropical and subtropical regions, the air temperature in a submarine may rise to fairly high levels.
Air Conditioning the Submarine
In a submarine, there is only a few cubic feet of space available for air-conditioning equipment, and the cooling capacity is limited. The purpose of the air-conditioning system is not to cool the whole submarine. Let’s assume the air contains enough oxygen for the needs of all the occupants within the given space. A supply of oxygen compressed in cylinders is carried on board submarines to be released into the air as needed.

The submarine has room enough for air-conditioning machinery to control the dew point. Control of the dew point means control of the relative humidity, and the relative humidity is the factor of major importance.
Lowering the Dew Point.
The dew point of the air is the temperature at which that air is saturated with moisture. If the temperature of the air is then further lowered, some of the moisture must condense out.
The air in the submarine room is drawn by fans into and through the ducts to the air-conditioning evaporator. In passing over the cooling coils, its temperature drops below its dew point and part of its water vapor condenses out, inside the evaporation cabinet. The condensed water is not permitted to get back into the air, but is drained off into a tank. The air, now lower in moisture content and slightly lower in temperature also, continues its flow through the ducts and is finally blown out into the room again. This conditioned air mixes with the moisture and warmer air still in the room, resulting in an over-all condition that is drier than the original unconditioned air.
Air-conditioning in the tropics.
In hot climates, the air-conditioning system must be operated at maximum capacity. The procedure is to operate the compressors at full speed and the blowers at a speed that the temperature of the air from the discharge side of the evaporators is below the dew point. The conditions of high air temperature in the tropics are naturally adverse to effective air-conditioning, especially when the large area of open water surfaces in the bilges is considered. The plant must be run to obtain maximum comfort and protection of equipment against moisture, both of which are obtained by removing the large quantity of water vapor from the air. This condensing process is accomplished by always maintaining the temperature of the discharge air from the evaporators below the dew point.
Nuclear Submarines
The nuclear submarine, USS Sea Wolf was the only U.S. submarine to have a sodium-cooled nuclear power plant. It was commissioned in 1957, but it had leaks in its super heaters, which were bypassed. In order to standardize the reactors in the fleet, the submarine’s sodium-cooled reactor was removed starting in 1958 and replaced with a pressurized water reactor.

A liquid metal cooled nuclear reactor, liquid metal fast reactor or LMFR is an advanced type of nuclear reactor where the primary coolant is a liquid metal. Liquid metal cooled reactors were first adapted for nuclear submarine use but have also been extensively studied for power generation applications. They have safety advantages because the reactor doesn’t need to be kept under pressure, and they allow a much higher power density than traditional coolants.

Filed Under: Commercial, Commercial, Cooling, Heating Tagged With: advanced heating and cooling, Air conditioning, heating & cooling, heating & cooling a submarine, submarines

HVACR Contracting Business Magazine

July 21, 2014 by HVAC Expert

HVACR Contracting Business.com Magazine’s 70th Anniversary
By Betty Stephens

Contracting mag
In June Contracting Business.com trade magazine celebrated its 70th birthday. It was 70 years ago that Cleveland-area publisher Irving B. Hexter created this publication to serve the refrigeration industry. He called it, “The Refrigeration Industry,”

In 1949, The Refrigeration Industry’s name was changed for the first time to Commercial Refrigeration and Air Conditioning. The change reflected the growing importance of commercial air conditioning as a necessity. The change indicated the growing importance of air conditioning as it surpassed refrigeration in the market. It became the Contracting Business.com magazine in 2009. The magazine was dedicated to the men and women responsible for the systems necessary to keep food fresh on board U.S. Naval ships, military bases, and right here in the U.S.
Over the decades the magazine reported on the trends in the contracting business. The 1950s, air conditioning was used in hospitals to ease the healing of wounded soldiers from the Korean War. By the end of the 1950s air conditioning moved to centralized systems. .
By the 1980s The Department of Energy was created and began making policies that still impact the HVAC industry today. The industry went from construction boom to bust, saw the birth of the gigantic replacement market, and the computerization of business changing forever how contractors operated in the marketplace.
The magazine developed a trivia quiz to celebrate this anniversary. There are 18 questions and each question is worth 5 points. There are four BONUS questions for a total of 20 additional points. There is a total of 110 points. Keep track of your answers, then compare them to the key found at the end of the quiz. Start the quiz on the right side of the screen. Answer each question (write your answers down), click Next to see the next question.
Trivia Quiz Link:

http://contractingbusiness.com/galleries/contracting-businesscom-70th-anniversary-trivia-quiz?NL=CB-04&Issue=CB-04_20140717_CB-04_95&YM_RID=hphservices%40live.com&YM_MID=1477259&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_4_b

Filed Under: Commercial, Commercial, Cooling, Heating, Residential, Residential Tagged With: air conditing, heating & cooling, hvac, HVACR, HVACR Contracting Business Magazine

Target Hacking Attack Linked to HVAC Contractor’s Computer

February 12, 2014 by HVAC Expert

Hacking Target
By Betty Stephens

Target

The hackers who stole millions of customers’ credit and debit card numbers from Target may have used a Pittsburgh-area heating and refrigeration business as the way to get in through a back door. Experts believe the thieves gained access during the busy holiday season to about 40 million credit and debit card numbers and the personal information including names, email addresses, phone numbers and home addresses of as many as 70 million customers.
Investigators appear to be looking at that theory. It shows how vulnerable big corporations have become as they expand and connect their computer networks to other companies to increase convenience and productivity. Fazio Mechanical Services, a contractor that does business with Target, said in a statement Thursday that it was the victim of a “sophisticated cyber attack operation,” just as Target was. It said it is cooperating with the Secret Service and Target to figure out what happened.
President Ross Fazio confirmed that the U.S. Secret Service visited his company’s offices in connection with the Target investigation, Fazio Mechanical also has done refrigeration and HVAC projects for specific Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and BJ’s Wholesale Club locations in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia.
It’s not immediately clear why Target would have given an HVAC company external network access, or why that access would not be cordoned off from Target’s payment system network. But according to a cyber security expert at a large retailer stated it is common for large retail operations to have a team that routinely monitors energy consumption and temperatures in stores to save on costs and to alert store managers if temperatures in the stores fluctuate outside of an acceptable range that could prevent customers from shopping at the store.
The new details illustrate what can go wrong with the far-flung computer networks that big companies increasingly rely on. “Companies really have to look at the risks associated with that,” said Ken Stasiak, CEO of Secure State, a Cleveland firm that investigates data breaches. Stasiak said industry regulations require companies to keep corporate operations such as contracts and billing separate from consumer financial information.
Since Target disclosed the breach, banks, credit unions and other card companies have canceled and reissued cards, closed accounts and refunded credit card holders for transactions made with the stolen data. A lawsuit has been filed seeking class-action status on behalf of financial institutions nationwide that have spent time and money helping customers deal with the effects of the data breach.

Fazio

Filed Under: Commercial, Commercial, Cooling, Heating Tagged With: Fazio HVAC, heating & cooling, Target, Target Hacking, Target hacking Attack, Target HVAC

Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA)

May 16, 2013 by HVAC Expert

Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA)

By: Betty Stephens of Quest Media

Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA)

About ACCA
ACCA is a non-profit association serving more than 60,000 professionals and 4,000 businesses in the HVAC/R community. They work to promote professional contracting, energy efficiency, and healthy, comfortable indoor living for all Americans. ACCA is the only nationwide organization of, by and for the small businesses that design, install and maintain indoor environmental and building performance systems.
ACCA is the leading source for required EPA Section 608 refrigerant handling certification, offering tests for proctors, training for technicians, and convenience for contractors. And ACCA is a strong supporter of NATE certification for technicians, the only professional certification embraced by the entire HVACR industry.
They are the leading non-profit organization serving the indoor environment and energy services contracting community. ACCA develops the ANSI standards that ensure proper, quality design and installation of indoor comfort systems. The certificate in Residential Design for Quality Installation is developed, maintained, and presented directly by ACCA.
The organization is dedicated to excellence in the heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC/R) industry. As the largest HVAC/R contractor organization, ACCA is committed to helping its members succeed. Some of the fundamental ways in which their efforts are seen, are in the technical resources and industry standards that will guarantee quality HVAC/R design, installation and maintenance.
They write the standards for the design, maintenance, installation, testing, and performance of indoor environment systems. They bring contractors together with other contractors through unique learning opportunities. They provide exclusive technical, legal, and marketing resources. Their Technical Manuals are the bedrock of air conditioning in America. ACCA procedures are required by many building codes and regional laws, and incorporated in many software programs.
Their Quality Accreditation programs are the only indoor environment industry accreditation programs built around real ANSI standards, offering peace of mind that participating contractors are following the right steps to ensure a quality installation.

HVAC/R System Design
The ACCA System Design Process is the industry standard for the proper design and installation of central HVAC systems. Their process is based on years of experience and the accurate application of specific methods, from system concept to testing the final installation.
ANSI Standards

The ACCA Educational Institute (ACCA-EI) is one of over a hundred organizations that develops standards and supports the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). ANSI approval of ACCA manuals, procedures and processes verifies that the principles of openness and due process have been followed in developing these materials, and that a consensus of those directly affected by the standards has been achieved.
ACCA’s ANSI standards activity is overseen by their Standards Task Team, which forms subcommittees as needed to oversee specific standards development.
Government Affairs 

Decisions made in Washington and in statehouses around the country affect r contracting businesses every single day. For over forty years, ACCA has fought for contractor interests, and they have never been more focused and aggressive at protecting businesses than they are today. ACCA actively tracks legislation in Washington, DC and statehouses around the country that could impact contractors.
ACCA Conference
(March 17 – 20, 2014 in Nashville, TN) The ACCA Conference is the leading educational experience and industry marketplace for contracting business owners, held in conjunction with IE3: Indoor Environment & Energy Expo.

Filed Under: Commercial, Commercial, Cooling, Heating, Residential, Residential, Tools of the Trade Explained Tagged With: ACCA, air conditioning contractors, contractors, heating, heating & cooling

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