HVACLawyer.com is free for Complainants and Lawyers alike. The purposes of this site are 3-fold:

1. Provide a listing of attorneys by state who practice in areas of Construction Law, including HVAC-related issues.
2. Provide a leads source for attorneys who are qualified in the arena of Construction Law.
3. Provide Consulting and Expert Witness to Complainants in HVAC-related cases.

Hiring a lawyer is a lot like hiring a doctor, plumber, electrician, baby sitter or HVAC expert - we want them to all be qualified to provide the services we seek. The intent of HVACLawyer is to provide a source for an attorney who deals in the more specific arena of Construction Law, in your area.

The only things that plumbing and heating have in common are the types of pipes that are used and how they connect. A whirlpool tub has no more in common than a heating oil transfer pump. Likewise, the only things that a divorce lawyer has in common with a construction lawyer is Rule of Law. Therefore, it is imperative to contract with a lawyer who intimately understands construction law in order to effectively represent complainants with HVAC issues. You wouldn't hire a podiatrist for cosmetic dentistry either.

If you are a construction lawyer seeking to create greater awareness for your competent firm, then click on the link above to register your firm for free. If you are an HVAC consumer who has been wronged in a legal sense and are in need of competent representation, then click the link to discover who the lawyers are in your state who would represent you. Bear in mind that it will take some time to populate the lawyers listing in all states in the U.S.

First of all, who would pay for a service agreement on a cell phone that costs $29? That is exactly what I paid for my cell phone, an ElCheapo Samsung from Best Buy. I bought the cheapest cell phone I could find for a couple of reasons: I’m always dropping mine and they break. Then, to get a replacement I am told that I have to renew my contract for another 2 years in order to get the low contract price. Otherwise, I have to pay full price, upwards of $400-$800 dollars for a full-function phone. The other reason I go cheap is the learning curve with a new cell phone is a constantly moving target and, frankly, I am tired of endlessly working toward my Masters degree in cell phone operation. [Heck, I don’t even text, I refuse to, as I only need to make and receive phone calls. Plus, why would anyone pay extra to text when they can dial a number, press send and do something called, uhh, speaking?] Sorry for the diversion, this article is about HVAC service contracts.

When service agreements first came out in the HVACR trade they were often called service contracts. Soon, savvy service contract salesmen learned that it was difficult to sell somebody something as legal sounding as a contract, so they changed the name to something appearing to be less legally binding. After all, who likes fine print and legalese? Before long everyone selling service contracts had adopted the new user-friendly name that glossed over the realities of being bound by a contract, which is exactly what it is. A contract is an offer, by the seller, for some kind of performance at some price that is accepted by at least one party, the buyer. Contracts can be verbal or literal. When a contract is written it is usually done so by an attorney who specializes in the industry he or she represents, and it usually takes a lawyer to understand the legalese it is written in. So if you give it a different name like agreement, it sounds less intimidating to a would-be buyer.

By now you can tell where I come down on service contracts. While I have to hand it to the innovators in the HVACR trade who came up with service agreements, I will always see them for what they are: a clever way to deceive the buyer into believing they are getting greater value than they really are. Show me a service contract and I will show you why the buyer ultimately paid more for service than they would have without the contract, that is, if they had a competent service technician work on their HVAC equipment.

One needs to ask oneself, “Why do service companies sell maintenance contracts?” The most fundamental answer is as straight as the center line on a Nevada highway: service companies make money on them, a lot of money. If they didn’t make money on them, more than with time and materials only, then they wouldn’t sell them. In fact, many companies would not be in business if it were not for their success at selling service agreements. Service agreements virtually guarantee cash flow for the company selling them and for the contract salesperson, who receives commissions on their renewal. Once the buyer is hooked it is easy to feel like he has a point person in the company that he can call anytime he has questions or issues. This is an entirely new paradigm shift from the days of business-with-a-handshake when you had a service-related issue you called the company service manager. Even the term service manager has been transformed into operations manager.

There are many more reasons that companies sell service agreements. In any field there are novices and experts and something in between. This could not be truer than in the HVAC trade. When I started working for Tenney Fuels, Inc., in 1980, I quickly realized that the customer was generally skeptical about my meager qualifications (despite that I had received a certificate for completing 400 hours of oil burner technology training in trade school), thus, preferred and requested an older, more experienced technician. This made it difficult for the dispatcher who had to schedule service calls and preventative maintenance. [Cloning technology wasn’t invented yet.] Back then Tenney didn’t offer service agreements, and on many occasions an experienced technician had to “clean up” after my mistakes and others, for which the company could not charge the customer for. So, if a technician didn’t do the job right the first time under the old business model, then there was no way of absorbing the cost of any call-backs.

Ah, but you can bet that today’s service agreements have a built in cushion for call-backs, so sellers can still be paid, usually with a “convenient payment plan.” We are a culture of the hungriest consumers on the planet, which fuels economic growth, or, as we have seen in the case of credit default swaps and derivatives, can bring the global markets to their knees. We not only consume, but we often do it without knowing the consequences that are in store for us. What’s worse is we buy too many things on credit, and along with making payments on enormously expensive HVAC service agreements, we pay interest. You bet if the buyer doesn’t pay the entire cost of the service agreement upfront, then they finance payments over the term of the agreement.

Another benefit to sellers of service agreements is if they can lock their customer into a binding contract, then the customer is less likely to leave for another company that charges a lower hourly rate, so service agreements help in customer retention. Companies that have bound the buyer can now control the buyer not unlike a cowboy hog-ties a steer. Once you are tied up, then the company knows you aren’t going anywhere anytime soon and they can schedule preventative maintenance work at their leisure. This helps smooth out the workload for the company so they are not overrun with work requests for heating system maintenance in the fall, for example – when most customers would like it done. It’s just like the tendency to wait to buy snow tires until it snows.

Service Agreement cost versus Time & Materials Cost: If it takes 3 hours to clean a very dirty oil-fired boiler at a rate of $85 per hour, and the typical parts replacement – nozzle, filter and pump strainer – sells for $35, then the total cost to the customer is $290, that is, if the cleaning, or preventative maintenance, is done by a competent technician and he has no call-backs. Whereas, a typical cost for a service contract that specifies the same service work as the time and materials rate is about $1,250. If you are the lucky owner of a Buderus oil-fired boiler, then it takes a competent oil burner technician only an hour to clean it, assuming everything was installed correctly and the initial combustion set-up was done properly. Even if you add a couple of hours for travel time, the T&M rate is far less.

What the company is selling over and above the T&M rate is the illusion of security - ‘security’ from knowing that if they have a breakdown over the winter they will not have to pay overtime rates (coercion-like). In reality, if a preventative maintenance service call is done correctly there probably won’t be any breakdowns, as any budding issues will have been addressed during the cleaning. It’s just the same as if the cell phone was made of quality materials and workmanship it would not prematurely break, therefore, would not need a service contract in the 1^st place. Rotary dial telephones of yesteryear are a perfect example - they lasted until their push-button successors made them obsolete - they simply did not fail. Today’s telephones are made as cheaply as possible, in 3^rd world countries by workplace-abused workers. Where’s the sanctity of American job security and quality anymore?

HVAC service agreements are often given names of precious metals like, platinum, gold, silver and bronze. Other variations-on-the-theme might include Premium, Preferred, Standard and basic. Naturally, everyone knows platinum is more precious than bronze and “premium” conjures up more value than “basic.” This assists in effectively pointing to the direction that the contract seller wants your purchase decision to go, in as little sales-speak as possible.

Salespeople make a commission on service agreement sales and most are dedicated to this task exclusively, and what’s more is that most of them have no technical training and experience in the trade at all. They don’t need it, as they are made to sell from a prewritten script and formulae. Their job is one of the most specialized in the trade – sell, sell, sell is their mantra, as service contract sales is often the most profitable aspect of any within a company. It actually helps to calibrate, so-to-speak, one’s moral compass if they don’t know anything about the trade. If they did have technical acumen, they might object to the financial plundering they dole out to their customers who fall for the agreement dirty tricks. Do cashiers at Best Buy know how to repair cell phones in order to sell service agreements? It’s the same in HVAC. All they need to know is how to effectively sell, and that is easier all the time in our heavily-marketed-to culture. We are bombarded by thousands of advertisements in any given day. We are, effectively, trained to listen to ads, albeit, mostly subconsciously.

It seems the majority of us believe that we need products and services that we really do not. Is this evidence of the fact that a good marketing campaign is all that is needed to sell, say, a pet rock? [Sorry, I couldn’t help but use a cliché out of a marketing text book.] As consumers we are increasingly being brainwashed into believing we need things like service agreements, when really what we need is quality in the first place – something that is going the way of the Dodo bird. Consumers don’t need service agreements, never did; HVAC companies need them to stay in business with half-trained help and uneducated customers – a scary once-was-a-phenomenon that is now main stream. I call this business judo – deflecting unwanted realities into desirable outcomes with slight-of-hand tricks, colored smoke and mirrors.

Furthermore, many of the parts that are “covered” in service contracts are typically the ones that are never going to fail during the term of the agreement. Surely, at some point in the future the part will fail, but that may be so far out into the future that the customer no longer owns the building. It’s like the aforementioned $29 cell phone. What can possibly go wrong with this phone that would warrant paying $10 for a service agreement? I’ve had my cheapo cell phone for nearly a year. The outside display is cracked because I sat on it, but a service agreement wouldn’t cover something like this, plus, I would have to mail it to an “authorized service repair facility,” not getting it back for months. Therefore, I would have to buy another phone anyway so as to not have interruption in service.

Another thing that should concern the buyer of an HVAC service agreement is the clause in the agreement that forbids them from hiring any other company to service his or her equipment, or buy fuel from anyone else - if the contract seller is a fuel company. This could be a problem if you are dissatisfied with the seller’s performance. Remember, you just may get a novice to service your equipment, but you may never notice unless something goes horribly wrong, and at that point you are desperate for a technician who is qualified. Of course you can opt out of the agreement, but you are still obligated to pay the entire cost of the contract if you cancel before the term has expired. Your freedom to move has been effectively stymied by the legal contract. Now there’s a good ole fashioned hog-tying!

Moreover, sellers of HVAC contracts make the greatest profit on the agreement if the technician is in and out quickly. Too much time spent on doing the job right, like looking for things that may increase fuel consumption, or long-standing problems that the owner has become accustomed to, can put the seller in the red. So they often pressure the technician to hurry along, and just may turn a blind eye to the degree of thoroughness, or lack thereof, that the technician expends on aspects of the equipment that seriously need attention, though won’t cause a breakdown. Many companies have a checklist for the technician to adhere to, but they don’t always adhere, they only check off the boxes next to the items on the list. I’ve seen this directly, and indirectly by going in after a contract has expired and finding innumerable things that were never maintained and lead to system failure. You may be thinking that if there is a service agreement the buyer can rest assured that all the seller’s techs are equally qualified. That’s what they want you to believe and many fall for this deception. When is the last time an HVAC system owner asked to see the resume of the techs who will be working on their equipment? To deceive further still, most contract-selling companies dress their techs in uniform sporting the company trade dress - “uniform” just like in the military – creating the appearance of sameness, as in equally qualified. Outside the uniform they are the same cross sectional representation of the general public as those on a crowded city sidewalk – 49% are below average/51% are average or above.

I sincerely wish it were not so, but the HVAC service industry’s average overall level of quality and ethics have been on a steady decline for 30 years or more. Whereas, the underhanded trickery has been on and inversely tangential course upward. What were once thriving, customer-oriented and family-owned companies who valued ethics and business-with-a-handshake, fuel companies have been repackaged as “petroleum marketers,” plumbing/heating companies are increasingly adopting the flat-rate model that charge upwards of $400 per hour in hidden costs, and HVACR companies rely upon gimmicks like service agreements, all in the name of coercing buyers rather than appealing to them with forthrightness and genuine quality workmanship and materials. [See my article, Got Flat Rate? in this blog.]

So what is the alternative to being taken by a seller of valueless service agreements? The answer is as straight as that Nevada desert highway: educate yourself about who you hire and only hire ethical and competent companies. Ask for the resume/qualifications of the technicians who will be working on your equipment. Easier said than done, I know. However, with the Internet it is far easier to do research than the old days when there was only one source for information about an HVAC company - the Yellow Pages. Don’t be fooled by the words Gold, Silver and Bronze – they are just glitter. The truth lies in knowing what your HVAC equipment needs are and what competitive prices should be. Service contract prices are only competitive with other service contract prices and can never compare to an honest and experienced technician’s time and materials pricing. Find an honest and competent technician and then spread the good word around. Word-of-mouth is a great vehicle for teaching and learning, and customers gained this way are often the best ones to have, right next to informed customers.

As far as service agreements-for-electronics go, when was the last time anyone recommended one to you, or you recommended one to them? [Wink!]

With all the simple to sophisticated ides for capping the BP oil well floating around out there, I remind myself that often the best solution to a problem is the simplest one. Just like my forced hot water circulator flange invention that succeeded when numerous other attempts to solve a particular problem had failed, I believe my flange idea to cap the well in the Gulf can save the day.

My invention story about circulator flanges is relevant to the solution to capping the oil well in the Gulf of Mexico and is just as simple, almost invisible to the eye. Here are the circulator flanges that changed the problematic status quo:

http://www.hvaccomplaints.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Taco_production_sweat__iron_flanges1_resized_61010.jpg.resize.jpeg

My latest flange design is so simple I bet everybody at BP didn't even think of it. It's like not thinking about your nose on your face, but it is there. Here's the rough sketch of the flange design I think can stop the leak:

http://www.hvaccomplaints.com/wp-content/gallery/bp-flanged-valve/bop-l-shaped-guide-flanged-ball-valve-71110.jpg

Here's how the flange can stop the leak:

Remove the bolts that hold the pipe flange on top of the BOP, either by drilling them down through and out, or by cutting them off, or using a hydraulic turbine, turn the nuts from the bolts, then remove the flange/ already-cut pipe from the bottom flange above the BOP.

Then replace the removed flange with a blind flange or, preferably, a flanged valve with gasket pre-glued above water to its underside.

To prevent the oil pressure from interfering with the attachment of the new flange to the BOP, there must be 2 L-shaped guides - "angle iron" - welded tangentially (first, of course, above water) to the new flange sides, so it can be aligned with the underside of the bottom flange. The new flanged valve can then be slid over the bottom flange.

The parallel angle iron guides must extend out from the new flange far enough so the horizontal leg of the angles fit under the bottom flange and can be pushed far enough under the bottom flange before the gushing oil comes into contact with the new flange. Then the new flange can be slided forward and positioned over the flowing oil. Without the angle iron guides the oil pressure exiting the BOP top pipe will push the new flange up and away from the bottom flange.

Preferably, the new flange will have a ball valve welded to it and the valve will have a connection (for whatever pipe attachment type, or "fitting") on the exit (top) and the valve handle will be attached to the valve stem at a 45 degree angle. This handle will have a drilled hole at its end so a cable can be attached. The cable will extend to a winch on a surface vessel above so the handle can be pulled upward, thereby closing the valve.

As the new flanged valve is guided over the top of the BOP flange it can then be turned clockwise or counter clockwise to align the bolt holes. Once the 2 flanges' bolt holes are in alignment the bolts can be inserted and nuts tightened.

While this procedure is taking place oil will spew out between the 2 flanges and obscure the view of the bolt holes, unless a flanged valve is used instead of a blind flange. The valve, therefore, can be installed in the open position so oil can go straight up and out of the way. Once the bolts are tightened the valve can be closed by winching up the handle, and there you have it, a 100% sealed pipe and no more oil leak!

I submitted this idea on June 11th, 2010 on this site:

[url]http://www.horizonedocs.com/artform.php[/url]

I was told there were 36,000 idea submissions and that it may take a while to respond to mine. Well, no pun intended, there are probably many ideas that were submitted that may stop the spill, but it could be like looking for the needle in the haystack.

The continually updated thread about the Gulf oil leak can also be seen here: [url]http://www.worldsworstoildisaster.org[/url].

With 30 years in the heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVACR) business and 22 of them in business, I write you with a request to please consider the reality of the lack of effective and universal code enforcement in New Hampshire.

In February you may have heard about the Hilton Garden Inn (in Portsmouth) carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning that sent 11 employees and guests to the hospital. At least 1 employee working in the laundry of the hotel across from the boiler room nearly died and was found unconscious on the floor. This incident occurred in a multi-million dollar building that was commissioned in 2006. In 2009, as a sales engineer for a mechanical contracting firm, I noticed several serious code violations relating to the installation of the gas-fired domestic water heaters that served the guest rooms, so I proposed a fix for some of the issues. Hilton management never accepted my proposal or my dire warnings of impending carbon monoxide poisoning of the buildings occupants. I allege that the City of Portsmouth code enforcement officials did not do their job of ensuring that the building was safe for its occupants and, therefore, is responsible for the CO poisoning. Please visit this site if you care to read my full story of the causes for the CO incident at Hilton Garden Inn: http://www.hvaccomplaints.com/forum/topic/the-hilton-garden-inn-carbon-monoxide-poisoning-why-it-happened

I can name potentially hundreds of buildings in the city of Portsmouth that have had the same neglect in code enforcement and protection of the unwitting public. As an expert witness I have seen code enforcement officials from NH towns who have allowed a myriad of flaws and potentially hazardous fossil fuel-burning appliance installations. One inspector allowed a gas furnace to be vented into a sewer pipe. Another inspector allowed a radiant floor heating system to be installed without any insulation below the concrete slab, thereby heating the earth around the outside of the building so all snow would melt and the owner experienced a $3,000 LPG bill for the month of March, then spent 6 years suing the contractor. I've seen an installer (a New Hampshire Fire Fighter) incorrectly install a wood pellet-fired furnace in the basement of a house only to emit carbon monoxide into the home nearly killing the family inside. I could go on.

There is no minimum code enforcement standard in New Hampshire and the public is suffering with their lives, their money and their time to deal with lawsuits in a state that is reducing the number of days citizens can have in Court. I was recently told that if you want to sue in Sullivan County Superior Court, then you will have to wait 6 years to get a court date. All the while, I was expert in one of the two court rooms in Sullivan Cty. Superior Court while the other room sat vacant the entire week and the judge hearing the case I was part of agreed to come out of retirement to hear the case.

In NH it has become a travesty for consumers of mechanical systems, namely heating appliances, for 3 reasons: the consumer is likely to get an installation that does not meet minimum safety codes and is almost guaranteed that a competent code enforcement official will not inspect the system for basic safety requirements, and they are likely to never get their day in court when the system fails. Meanwhile, because their system was either not designed correctly or was installed incorrectly, their fuel bills are enormous.

I know this is the Live Free or Die state and I also know that many are dying because of the lack of code enforcement. Where is the "live free" part that we are supposed to believe in? Free of code enforcement? Some of you may be thinking, "Ah, let the buyer beware, it serves them right if they're that stupid to hire such incompetence in the first place!" In my experience, most HVACR consumers are oblivious to the important details of a heating system, including a competently installed system that their lives may very well depend on, considering the alternative - an incorrectly installed system. I'll bet that maybe only 3 or 4 of you can name more than a few components in your own heating system. You and your constituents need protection from shoddy installers.

A few years ago you passed HB 1711 which became known as "Amelia's Law." This created a requirement for those installing and servicing gas-fired appliances to be licensed. While I think this law will have some positive effect, it is utterly useless if there are few qualified code enforcement officials to ensure that the installers are licensed and qualified and install gas-fired appliances in accordance with manufacturers' specifications, which usually defer to recognized codes. As it is now, New Hampshire is the Wild Wild West for those who would install and service fossil fuel appliances and fear no one, not the code enforcer, nor the Courts.

As an HVACR system designer, service technician, installer, inventor, consultant and expert witness, I am tired of competing against those who are not so competent and are willing to cut corners to make an extra dime and putting the public at risk of monetary and bodily injury and even death. It is very difficult to try to compete within New Hampshire's lax code enforcement environment.

I invite you all to consider a minimum code enforcement standard for New Hampshire, to protect the unwitting citizenry of this state and the business climate. In the case of Hilton Garden Inn, I allege the engineers of the building were first in line to make mistakes with system design, the installers perpetuated the mistakes and the code enforcement official sealed the fate of those 11 people who nearly lost their lives in February of 2009. Please, let "the buck stop" with you! You can ensure that your position of last in line does not continue this dangerous progression. I would love to work with you in development of a bill that will ensure that everyone lives free and doesn't die because of some improperly installed appliance.

I can be reached anytime for discussions on this issue.

Sincerely,

John Rocheleau
603-545-1282
P.O. Box 29
Portsmouth, NH 03802
www.thehvacguru.com
www.hvaccomplaints.com

Okay, people, here’s the straight dope on A/C systems "needing to be topped-off.” First, air conditioning refrigerant systems are a closed loop comprised of threaded, flared, soldered or brazed and gasketed connections. The reason that refrigerant systems ‘need to be topped-off is the refrigerant, most likely R-22 (a refrigerant type that is being “phased out” due to its destructive properties for the Earth’s ozone layer) leaks out of the refrigerant system into the troposphere all around us, then rises to the upper stratosphere where it mixes with ozone.

So what’s the problem with ozone-depleting refrigerants? The chlorine atom removed from Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s) and Hydroclorofluorocarbons (HCFC’s) reacts with ozone molecules (O3) and converts them into oxygen molecules (O2). Yeah, we may have more oxygen in the stratosphere, but we end up with less O3, which protects us from ultraviolet rays from the sun, and without sufficient O3 in the stratosphere, where all as good as dead.

So, what do you think is more important to consumers of air conditioning? The answer is simple, of course, “I need A/C now!” ‘Who cares about the ozone layer, I won’t even live to see the day it dies!’

Sorry, people, this is not responsible. Just like I told my acquaintance this morning, “If you’re A/C system has a leak, I’m going to fix it, not just top it off and destroy the Earth’s ozone layer.” His response was, “Can I have 30 days to pay for your service call?” I said no, that I only give credit to a handful of dependable customers. I told him that with me he gets a master HVAC technician who is honest, and won’t sell him anything he doesn’t need and will fix his problem right, and within 4 hours. At $85/hour (my service rate), which equals $340, my acquaintance decided to go elsewhere to hire someone who will “top-off” his system. That translates into, ‘I really could care less about the ozone layer, and, yes, I know that CFCs and HCFCs can remain in the upper atmosphere for 100 years, all the while converting O3 into O2, but I am willing to keep dumping O3 into the atmosphere for as long as someone is willing to “top-off” my A/C! This is about money!’

I can’t make the buying public not destroy our world with their purchasing decisions, but I can decline on their invitation to take part in that destruction.

Buying-public, please think twice about topping-off you’re A/C and refrigerant systems and fix the leaks. Yeah, it may cost a couple hundred more, but at least you will then be able to complain about British Petroleum’s disaster to the Gulf of Mexico, and all its inhabitants and species, with a clear conscience!

To go straight to the point, the world's worst oil disaster (WWOD) that I speak of is our perpetual overconsumption of the stuff and the consequences associated with that. Like the leak in the Gulf of Mexico, running like a wide open faucet until someone finds a way to turn the handle closed, mankind’s increasing demand for petroleum based products will statistically guarantee more of the same ecological degradation in the future. That is, if we do nothing to innovate our way out of the failed system that is no longer meeting the energy requirements to safely power all of our ways of life.

Fuel demand will increase proportionally to an increase in population. It would be naive of us to think the event in the Gulf is the last oil disaster to come. Let history be the harbinger to how greater petroleum consumption will drive further ecological and atmospheric destruction in the future. We need to do something about potential disaster tomorrow, by doing something constructive about moving away from fossil fuels in a technological and policy way, today. Otherwise, there will be more failed drill rigs, leaking tankers and, possibly, terrorist destruction of transportation and storage facilities to come. News stations may benefit, but at the expense of environmental catastrophe.

You’d think after 911 we’d get it. Who’s to say that a deranged individual or group doesn’t commandeer a 10,000-gallon oil tractor-trailer truck smack into a high value target like a school, hospital, government building, police station, passenger train or even worse, a train carrying toxic and/or explosive cargo in a densely populated area? C’mon, terrorists are innovators too. Monkeys are known to innovate! Flying airplanes into buildings was a first. Frighteningly, oil transport tractor-trailers are defenseless against a terrorist attack, because no one is expecting that sort of thing, there are no safeguards in place and such attacks will not be broadcast over the Internet beforehand, just like 911. Our preexisting economic jitters could shake uncontrollably, causing havoc in global markets, once the terrorists show how innovative they can be.

Let the disaster in the Gulf be the wake-up call for us that sets the wheels in motion to wean ourselves from consumption of oil and its consequences. That which we invent to conserve and supplant petroleum has to come with far fewer, and much less devastating, possibly, irreversible, ‘unintended’ consequences. Whether with solar, wind, alternate fuels, or a combination of all of them and then some, we will not create our way to the solutions we need through innovative designs only. More specifically, designs that consume less fuel to heat buildings, cook food, transport us and fuel our machinery must be affordable to the masses for the seeds of change to root. Consumers’ purchase decisions are inevitably affected by price. With that said, we must creatively design products with affordability guiding design. Saving ourselves and fellow species through innovation will only be realized if the new products are obtainable by the masses. Then can we make a meaningful dent in our demand for petroleum and stop our destruction of the natural world.

As consumers, we can demand safer products, not just ones that make stockholders rich at the expense of every other more important consideration.

There’s another huge obstacle to overcome besides design and price: great designs only ever become great products after they’ve survived the initial gauntlet of trials and failures, from design shortfalls to the troublingly difficult money end of the development course. Every new product became one because there was funding for prototyping and patenting, financing for manufacturing, marketing and distribution. Obviously, a new product needs to sell to satisfy going concern. Interspersed within the product and market developmental stages are the battles that must be won against the foes who would enjoy the innovator’s failure. Competition and money attract greedy, ruthless, even fraudulent businessmen and government overseers, and only one who has ever experienced firsthand elements of the corrupt side of capitalism can appreciate this. As one who has been through the gauntlet, I assure you it’s real and ever present. The American Dream is the illusion that mostly comes true for the few and powerful. To the rest, American Nightmare would more accurately speak to the reality of the typical entrepreneur’s situation. This must change if we are to save ourselves in the long run. We must all see this beast for what it is and conquer it if we are to foster innovation, in all industries.

I have 3 patents on forced hot water heating system designs that assemble with virtually one tool, therefore, requiring much less skill necessary to install it. By flattening the learning curve the installation time is cut by 90%, thereby removing much of the labor cost. With my invention the installation of a radiant floor heating system can now be cost competitive with a baseboard convector system. It is common knowledge that radiant floor heating uses a 1/3 less fuel (gas, oil, wood, coal, electric, etc.) than its baseboard counterpart and is a much more comfortable means for heating buildings and their occupants. If the cost to construct my radiant heating system design is the same as a standard baseboard heating system, and it uses a 1/3 less fuel once installed, then why wouldn’t anyone buy it? The product has to be available for sale before anyone can buy it, and like me, most innovators fail to reach that very basic level of success.

Independent inventors in small businesses account for the largest sector of innovative people in this country, yet they are the most likely to be adversely affected by the potholes in the road to success. Funding through to market penetration is tantamount to success, but so is a level playing field.

Not that our government needs to provide funding to innovators directly, it really needs to protect innovators from the factors within its control that cause innovators to fall out of the game. 98% of independent inventors fail to ever make a dime from their inventions. 2% only ever go beyond breaking even and even then fewer still get rich enough to call themselves that. Obstacles to innovation need to be removed by policy for innovation to thrive. Our elected and appointed officials must protect our ability to exist in the future by supporting all innovators, not just Big Business. Surely this could bring our economy back to growth by creating jobs associated with research and development and tooling and manufacture of new products that will help save us from the brink, that otherwise awaits us all. This could be our most important industrial/technological achievement of the 21^st century; our new economic power center. We win in countless ways. People are back to work and have money to spend and, while we don’t really save our planet – our planet will be around long after we are gone, we save ourselves and innumerable other species that we will detrimentally affect through our unchecked consumption of petroleum.

We have the collective intelligence to, both, stop the leak in the Gulf and create new technologies that make us increasingly less dependent on oil. But big business and its unfair competitive advantage is strangling the life out of innovation. Oil is a toxic substance throughout its different physical stages and it needs to be replaced with safe product alternatives. Crude spewing out of the sea floor and SO₂ and CO₂ spewing into the air are equally destructive and hazardous to the survival of all species on earth. We have to change all of this before the damage cannot be undone.

From this viewpoint, our governments need to act, but I’m afraid that, first, citizens need to take charge through power of grassroots activism and political innovation in order to excommunicate the dysfunctional self-serving interests in government. I’m not sure we have that fight in us, as we may be out-gunned. We may have already sealed our fate by creating an unchangeable government bureaucracy that by design invites only the well-to-do and monetarily connected. Our democracy has been hijacked by the money that comes from Big Business. Can government even protect the environment that ensures the survival of us all, the very citizens that elect its officials? Do we really deserve the officials that we elect? Look at what they have allowed to happen in the Gulf and around the globe. We deserve better and must ascertain it.

If governments can succeed in fostering the development of the innovative processes that will save all of us, then they will have to begin by leveling the playing field to include the little guy. Somehow, we need to spin “special interest” into a special interest among officials who hold the power in their hands to save ourselves and the natural environment we live in. If we fail to affect technological and policy change and we destroy our species and natural world as we know it, then the world’s worst oil disaster will take on its final meaning.

To track this story for the sake of one person's desire to preserve the details as they unfold, I have created a page specifically to keep track of what happens as a result of this spill, as it happens. This page can be seen at www.worldsworstoildisaster.org Your comments to the information I put on this page, which I will refer to as "WWOD", are appreciated, as is any information that you care to add or think that I should be corrected on.

This tragedy is only going to become worse and I fear will result in catastrophic consequences for the natural Gulf of Mexico (GOM) environment and all its species, for the residents of the Gulf states and for the rest of the nation on many levels. But did this tragedy have to happen?

There is suggestion that like the financial players on Wall Street who brought the global economy to its knees, lack of regulation of the oil industry ensured that this would happen, eventually. Speculation states that a $500,000 "Accoustic Control" of the "Blowout Preventer" was not installed on BP's well line to cut off the flow of oil in an emergency such as this one. Was profit put before safety and protection of the environment? Time will tell.

By John W. Rocheleau

“Mission Statement: To preserve the rule of the law and to protect the rights and liberties guaranteed by the United States and New Hampshire Constitutions, the courts will provide accessible, prompt, and efficient forums for the fair and independent administration of justice, with respect for the dignity of all we serve.” So goes the mission statement of the New Hampshire Judicial Branch of government. Accessible, prompt and efficient access to the State courts in New Hampshire may soon be a thing of the past, as Governor Lynch’s budget cuts to the NH Judicial system will help to speed to that reality.

I will be expert in a long-awaited trial that has been taking shape for nearly 5 years, in Sullivan County Superior Court, on April 21, 2010. This case arose out of claims by a home-owner that its builder and subcontractors were negligent and fraudulent in their performance of their duties to construct the house and its systems with professionalism and competency. While there were numerous problems with the house, the first that caught the new owner’s attention was the enormous propane gas bill for the months of March and April of 2005. These bills approached $2,000 a month! It turned out that the heating contractor did not effectively insulate the radiant floor heated concrete slab, resulting in the majority of heat being transferred into the ground, as evidenced by the absence of snow around the concrete foundation.

It is further alleged that the septic system, water well, modular home components, air conditioning, ducts and other details of the house construction were shoddy and defective.

The builder, United Construction, of Newport, NH has contested many of these claims and has chosen to litigate the claims in Superior Court, rather than settle the claims out of court. Like many on the defense side of legal claims, United seems to have hedged its bets that the plaintiffs would never be able to afford the long road of financial expenses that can lead to “one’s day in court.”

In reality, the plaintiff’s day in court will amount to 2 weeks of trial, but not before accruing, potentially, over a hundred thousand dollars in legal and expert fees. Fortunately, for the plaintiffs, they found a willing trial lawyer who would take the case on contingency. Regrettably, Ron Snow, of Orr & Reno, regarded as one of the best trial lawyers in the state, succumbed to pancreatic cancer in a matter of days after being diagnosed, and the case stalled. Next, the case could not get a court date because there are not enough judges in NH courts to hear all of the civil cases and the case was indefinitely postponed. It appeared that the defendants might get their wish. Finally, it was decided last week that the case could and would be scheduled for trial. Most cases are not so fortunate, however.

In fact, most cases like the plaintiff’s in my example never even get filed with clerks of court because plaintiffs can’t afford the incredible expense of fighting a worthy case. Also, many contractors’ insurance policies protect them against law suits, leaving the plaintiff financially disadvantaged. In the above example, there were 5 lawyers for the defendants at my deposition, compared to one for the plaintiffs.

“Most importantly, your generation of lawyers and judges will be called upon in many ways and in varied circumstances to decide whether state courthouses are truly open to all our people or whether they serve only the wealthy and the well to do. Current trends are disturbing. A justice system, which pulls up the gangway on the poor and middle class, is no justice system at all and will not long maintain public trust and confidence. A justice system, which is too expensive and too inefficient for too many, cannot fulfill the promises of our Constitution or the obligations of the legal profession itself.” - convocation remarks by NH Chief Justice John T. Broderick, Jr. at Syracuse University College of Law, Syracuse, New York, February 22, 2010.

Most home-owners seeking so-called justice don’t even try to seek it because of its enormous expense. In my 10-year battle with Taco, Inc. (licensee of my numerous inventions), I was forced to use a different strategy for dealing with them rather than expending a minimum of $500,000 to take them to Federal District Court. Who has that kind of money? Ultimately, my strategy won out and I forced a settlement with Taco, Inc., but not first seeking help from then Congressman “Jeb” Bradley and Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter.

It’s not just the monumental expense of fighting a legal case through to a jury verdict, of greater concern is the fact that state civil jury cases are at unprecedented threat of disappearance. Governor Lynch’s decision to cut back the number of days courts can be open is a direct threat to everyone hoping to have their day in court in New Hampshire. Soon, there will not be “accessible, prompt and efficient access to the State courts in New Hampshire”, compounding the reality that, in my personal opinion, there is only justice in our legal system for those who can afford it.

The way things are in business, many consumers of HVACR products and services are taken advantage of before they even know it, and many never find out. I see this routinely and can spot a situation like this almost immediately when I see a new customer’s heating, cooling or refrigeration equipment for the first time. This happens often for the simple reason that the layperson does not understand the requirements of HVACR system design, installation and service. They do understand that their fuel bill shouldn’t be $2,000 a month, as in the opening example in this article, but by the time they realize it, it’s too late. It often costs more to buy justice than it does to buy a new heating or cooling system, far more.

How does one protect themselves from fraud and incompetence? “One” must become educated about their pending purchases and research the backgrounds of those who they are considering proposals from. Only then does the consumer have a chance of not getting stiffed.

I recently had a prospective customer tell me that he didn’t “need to know a dimple from a damper” when I offered to meet with him a final time to discuss a design and proposal for a new heating and cooling system that would replace the one that his previous shoddy and disreputable HVAC contractor installed in his home 12 years earlier. This home-owner was about to spend $20,000 on a new system and he could care less about the purchase considerations he was about to make, not unlike his experience 12 years prior, I suppose. His first lessons with the construction of his new house 12 years earlier didn’t enlighten him.

Sadly, too many consumers take the ostrich’s approach and bury their head in the sand when faced with educating themselves with HVACR purchase decisions and this leads to a couple of things: they get taken advantage of, then they are faced with the only option left if they are unable to settle with their adversary, to suit in a system that is likely not within their reach. It usually costs more to suit than it is usually worth. Consequently, unqualified and fraudulent HVACR contractors and service companies perpetuate their misdeeds for years, even decades to come.

There are 3 things consumers can do to protect themselves from the hooks of low-bidders and unqualified HVACR companies.

1. Educate oneself about the purchase one is about to make.
2. Don’t shop on low price alone, but on the demonstrable qualifications of the bidders in the process.
3. Be realistic about how much the true costs of HVACR systems and service are and not be deluded into thinking how much things should cost based on your own personal opinions and not reality.

If you follow those steps then you will unlikely end up choosing between living with a defective system or spending huge sums of money on its repair and/or a litigious case that may never see its day in court. Be smart, be sensible and be careful, as your adversary knows there is no stallion-riding, gun-toting "sheriff" who will protect you.

Consumers, you have to open your eyes and educate yourself about Plumbing and HVAC purchases that you need to make. Please be a wise consumer and don't become victimized by trickery and slight of hand that borders on FRAUD! The legal system is not going to be there for you when you get taken by wolves-in-sheep's-clothing. Attorneys General Consumer Advocate offices are not devised to help you and lawyers are going to charge you more than it is worth to go after the fraudulent plumber who got away with a lot of your money. Lady Justice holds 2 scales in her hand for a reason, both are piled with money from legal budgets and the bigger pile almost always wins out. There is as much so-called Justice in our system that you can afford to purchase - Justice is not free and your state's Consumer Advocate is not going to be your friend.

If you think that smooth talk is going to be a good value, then think again. The lowest price up front is always going to be the highest cost in the end when you think of life cycle cost of plumbing and HVAC products and services. If it wasn't done right in the first place it will always require more, if not perpetual, repair and most likely will consume more fuel or electricity or water or your time. What is your time worth? Time spent on frustration, worries, lost sleep, inconvenience, fighting a legal fight, call-backs, and finding the next guy to fix what the first messed up. Let's hope the next guy you get does it right, because if he doesn't, then you are at square one again my friend. When I make purchases it is from the one who seems the most honest, competent and customer service oriented, regardless of his/her price. Period! I rarely get burned, but it still happens once in a while, but that's a fact of life. (See my article "What Can Go Wrong With A Vehicle Wrap?" and look for the final chapter, coming soon.)

Please check out SeattlePlumber.com, even if it's just to get an idea of what an upstanding and professional company should look like.

Caveat Emptor! Buyer Beware!

My objectives with telling these stories are three-fold, for starters, as other objectives will surely arise. The first is to give you, the reader, an eye-opening into this vastly misunderstood field of business in America. A field that affects everyone who lives, works, plays, eats, is entertained, or travels in a space that is heated, cooled, ventilated, refrigerated, or otherwise has its climate controlled in some fashion. Homes, commercial buildings, planes, trains and automobiles are climate controlled to a greater or lesser extent.

I've worked on HVAC systems in train cars, mushroom farms, a Budweiser bottle manufacturing plant - Saint Gobain Containers http://www.sgcontainers.com/index.nsf, a Saab 9000, a new restaurant...that failed http://chefmoz.org/United_States/NH/Concord/55_Degrees1149520411.html, old restaurants like The Libray Restaurant in Portsmouth, NH http://www.libraryrestaurant.com/, the oldest family-owned general store in America - Frisbees Market http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20090423-NEWS-90423035, an antique farm house upgraded to include panel radiators for Jed Schwartz Productions http://www.jedschwartz.com/JSPhome/jsp01.html, the home of the developer of the cable modem, Rouzbeh Yassini, who demanded "museum quality" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouzbeh_Yassini, Motel 6 and so many others.

Stay tuned and look for "A Day In The Life of an "HVACer" in the post heading! Please send a comment on any story you have feelings or thoughts of any sort about.

John Rocheleau