March 7, 2024 • 22 mins
Engage in a captivating discussion with Casey Thaxton, the air quality expert from Comfort Pros , in our latest podcast episode. Casey's in-depth knowledge spans multiple topics from HVAC matters to business dynamics. This episode not only enlightens listeners about technical facets of air quality but also offers a glimpse into Casey's adventurous personal life and successful career in the air quality industry at large.
Comfort Pros, established between 2006 and 2008, showcases Casey's resolve to deliver exceptional HVAC services while treating his customers as family. From the discussion of thought-provoking subjects like mask effectiveness and virus transmission to the sharing of unforgettable client interactions, this interview is an engaging mix of knowledge, wit, and genuine conversation. It's an indispensable listen for those who value customer satisfaction, quality service, and authenticity.
A comprehensive overview of the HVAC business, including candid discussions about various brands and the intricacies of atmospheric humidity impacting HVAC equipment, is also discussed. Through this episode, Casey shares valuable insights that cast light on the inner workings of the HVAC industry and offers listeners a memorable and enlightening experience.
In an enthralling narrative, Casey shares his significant interaction with the president of Disney's Crowd Management and their consequential decisions during the COVID pandemic, thus magnifying the importance of HVAC consulting during unprecedented times. This episode further highlights the importance of online reviews, transparency, and opting for a licensed service provider to maintain a sound business image.
Sharing personal life lessons and the eventual impact of personal relationships on business operations, Casey reinforces the importance of learning from others and nurturing circles of influence. This episode is not just a deep dive into HVAC consultation, but a captivating journey through Casey's experiences, making it a must-listen for those interested in the field.
Join us on this exhilarating ride with Casey Thaxton, gain invaluable insights, get acquainted with useful tips, and grasp an understanding of the HVAC industry from an expert's perspective.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I and every doctor in the world knows that a mask will not protect you whatsoever
because every single wet orifice of your body can take in a virus and boom, you're screwed.
That's my specialty in the industry is I'm an air quality expert.
I've been certified my entire career.
Music.
(00:30):
Good morning, guys. Dan Wise, Wise Media Studios, Yakima Thursday Spotlight.
And our first guest this morning is Casey Thaxson with Comfort Pros.
Casey, good morning. How are you doing? How are you doing?
So Casey, tell us a little bit about Comfort Pros. Are you a local Yakima native?
Yes, I am. Okay. How long have you been in the area?
(00:51):
Oh boy. Other than my military service, let's see, 39 years. I'm 46.
So most of my life, I've spent a couple of years in Florida.
I spent some time in Memphis, Tennessee.
Where else have I been? I've been all over the country. Well,
you just got back from my neck of the woods over in Florida.
Yep. We just got a place down there in Pompano Beach.
(01:13):
My friend Tracy that I was telling you about, he and I are doing some large
commercial projects around the nation now.
The beauty of being contracted in the state of Washington as a contractor is
that you can work in all 50 states for up to six months.
Really? Yeah. And you're covered by the insurance here. Is that just Washington
thing or, I mean, maybe a few states that are inclusive to that?
There might be other states that do it, but they're, you know,
(01:33):
Florida is not very friendly to business.
I don't give a shit what anybody says, you know, they're just not.
I went down there and wanted to start my business and it's like,
nope, every time I hit a roadblock, you know?
So what I did is I just, I started talking to Tracy and other,
other people in the business down there and we just decided,
you know what, let's just do this.
And so obviously I'm keeping be my residential business going here in Yakima.
(01:57):
And we hit, we're also in Cle Elm. I'm in Cle Elm today. We're crying out loud.
We go to Cle Elm. At noon, you said, right?
Yeah. I've got a question about HVAC. Okay. But real quick before that question,
how do you like that cup of coffee?
Oh, it's not bad. It's not bad. Well, I want to give a shout out to North town
coffee house, who is one of our sponsors and they've supplied us with like more
coffee than we'll ever know what to do with.
(02:18):
And if you are looking for a good cup of coffee and you're not sure what the
difference is between like Starbucks, McDonald's, they have something called third wave coffee.
So they really know what they're doing over there. They're downtown.
There's a link in the description, go check them out. So back to my question now about HVAC,
how come every time I go on facebook it seems
like there's these posts for hvac guys and
(02:40):
it have you seen these they look like almost like scam artists
posts oh yeah i see them all the time do you have to deal with that are people
like hey let me make sure like when you want to post in facebook and they want
to know if you're legit do they make you post like your license number no proof
that you're in the state no they i do mine mine's all my personal profile casey
thaxton and i do real tips of the the day and stuff like that.
(03:02):
But whenever I see anything related to HVAC, it's usually a competitor that
I see, or it's a, it's a company advertising to me and they're typically garbage.
You know, like for example, you guys do all of my internet marketing and all that stuff.
I have Tony host everything for me and AI hears you talk about that crap on these dadgum phones.
(03:26):
And then all all of a sudden it populates in your Instagram,
your Facebook, everywhere, you know?
So I stay away from all of them.
I see them come through and I'll hit X, you know, like, I don't want to see
this ad, you know? Do you do like duck cleaning and stuff too?
No, no, no. Duck cleaning is, cause that seems to be a big con.
There seems to be a lot of, so in Florida it is absolutely necessity because
(03:48):
down there you have fiber board, right?
Fiber board is just insulation and it harbors moisture and then it turns to
mold and then you got shit in your air and you're like, and you wonder why you're sick, okay?
That's my specialty in the industry. I'm an air quality expert.
I've been certified my entire career.
So down there, it is necessary, but they don't use the same type of machines that we use up here.
(04:09):
They use what's called EcoFog. It's a fogging detergent that goes in and disinfects
the fiberboard, right? Right.
Up here in Washington state, the Pacific Northwest, even down in California,
anywhere where there's no humidity or very little humidity, duct cleaning is usually just a scam.
Bottom line, unless you've got new construction where the jackasses didn't cover
up the registers in the floor or the ceiling, whatever, then you'll have debris
(04:33):
in there that needs to be cleaned out, you know?
But most of the time you can use a shop vac for that. Right.
You know, you don't have to call these Pringles power vac companies.
And some of my friends do the work and well, dear friend of mine that just retired
did it for years, but he was an honest man and he would go in and look and say,
no, you don't need this, you know?
But the problem, the pandemic in our industry is so many contractors that don't
(04:57):
do the job right, period.
Whether it's duct cleaning, installation or service, they lie to people, they rip them off.
And that's why we've got such good reviews because I refuse to do that shit.
You know, I'm going to be honest with you.
If I come in your home, you're going to know that we're family.
I'm going to treat you like you're my brother, sister, whatever, you know.
When did you establish here in Yakima with your HVAC company?
(05:21):
Comfort Pros. Comfort Pros started back in 2006, I want to say,
or 2008. I can't remember off the top of my head. It was October.
I was working for another company locally here, which I will not name who they
are because I don't talk bad about other companies, but they were doing really bad work.
And I was was a salesman for them at the time. And I was number one in the nation
(05:42):
for gross average and number 20 for closing percentage out of 1800 comfort advisors.
So I was pretty proud of that.
And when I had to have two paychecks reversed because of, uh,
of, uh, equipment happened to be ripped out because it wasn't put in right.
It just made me say, you know what? I can do better than this. So I went on my own.
(06:02):
Do you think there's a difference between talking bad about your competitor
or talking bad about a bad business? Kind of like buyer beware.
I try to stay away from it altogether because here's the deal.
We all have people work for us that are garbage and we don't know it until we know it. Right.
So it doesn't necessarily represent the company. Right. It could be the employee
that's just out doing shoddy work. Yeah. And that, that we see a lot of.
(06:26):
I know, I know every company in town has had to deal with this, including me.
You know, I've had to go back on jobs where somebody screwed up and I'm like,
look, man, I'm going to make it right. Is that okay?
This just happened last year. You know, the customer by the name of Dean,
I won't say his last name out of protection, you know, but he's,
he owns a lot of properties and he's got one up on Snoqualmie Pass that we did.
(06:48):
And the bottom line was we didn't finish the project because he was going to
add to it. He was going to put a heat pump in with it and he never got back
to it because he's a a busy guy, you know?
So he left us a crappy review because he had a problem with the Airbnb tenant.
And then I, I didn't have time to get back to him. And then when I did,
it was already too late. He'd already left us a bad review.
I got with him and I fixed it period.
(07:08):
He's one of my happiest customers now. So what's your specialty?
I know you said you're an air quality like ninja.
I'm an air quality expert. I've been certified my entire career.
But aside from that, what's your specialty with HVAC?
Well, I like to tell people I'm a Ferrari dealer. We don't put in garbage, okay?
If you and your significant other call me and ask me to come and give you an
(07:31):
estimate for doing work, I'm going to give you three different options, sometimes four,
but the one I'm going to nudge you to go with is going to be in the middle or
the top end because those pieces of equipment are going to be the most efficient,
meaning your power bill or your gas bill, whatever source you have is going
to be the lowest you've ever had.
And not only that, but the equipment is going to last the longest.
And you're going to do maintenance with me annually, or you won't have a warranty.
(07:53):
So when you say equipment, are you referring to like the main AC unit?
Yeah, like Mitsubishi, for example, Rude, Reem, Train, whatever brand we're using.
What I do try to stay away from these days is the proprietary equipment.
And what I mean by proprietary means that you have to use their parts if they
need repair, because what they do is they go obsolete after the warranty's over
(08:15):
to where you have to replace them. That's bull crap.
You know what I mean? so especially down in florida
they were really on that because down there equipment replacements
are between five and ten years most of the time so if you florida you're really
running that ac all year round water water water 30 gallons a day on average
for an average home wow isn't that something it's just nuts up here it's like
(08:38):
three our atmosphere has moisture in it no matter what we're breathing moisture
we're breathing water right now right it's just in a very very minute new to mount.
So the average moisture level, humidity level in the desert out here is about
26%. Sahara desert, 26%. Florida on average 80, sometimes over a hundred percent. Okay.
(08:58):
100% would be a day like it's raining and you walk outside and you just feel
like you're wet as soon as you walk outside.
You've had that happen. Oh yeah. You know, I got used to it.
I don't care if I actually liked it because you lose weight and you drink a
lot of water. It's weird.
And it's good for your, your skin stays moisturized here. I'm dry like a fucking alligator.
Yeah. I use the hemp's lotion nonstop. I'm not trying to promote them, but I love them.
(09:19):
I buy their lotion by the case, dude. So, but yeah, man, I'm,
I'm into the health. I'm into to the air quality.
I always have been, you have to have the proper moisture levers levels in your
home too. So here we use humidifiers instead of dehumidifiers, right?
So in this market where, you know, a three ton load would be a two ton,
2000 square foot home down in Florida, a 2000 square foot home is three and
(09:40):
a half to four because they have to get all that. Yeah. Cause they have to get
all that moisture out of the air.
So here in Yakima with what you do, do you have any memorable experiences or
memories that you've had with the clients to give like an example to somebody
of what they should expect, like a good one, I should say. Well,
I have some comical ones.
Go for it. Okay, so once upon a time when I was working for the other company as a sales guy,
(10:03):
I go to this family's home out in Harrah and the woman answers the door in her
bra and underwear. I'm like, oh, hello.
She's like, come on in. Her husband's sitting in the living room and we just
sit there and start talking.
And they bought a $20,000 heating and air conditioning system for me about two
hours into it. Okay. I was like, this is weird.
I've never seen him since, but it was the most bizarre thing I've ever experienced in my life.
(10:28):
You might be on OnlyFans and not know it, right? Right.
Anyway okay that was funny but my most memorable experience i would say is during covid,
my former girlfriend and i should say
stepdaughter she was not mine but she called me dad since she was four she was
a competitive cheerleader long story short we went to salt lake city for a competition
they all wanted they want everybody wearing masks and i and every doctor in
(10:52):
the world knows that a mask will not protect you whatsoever because every single
wet orifice of your body can can take in a virus and boom, you're screwed, right?
So Disney owns Varsity, which owns the cheer group that we were part of.
And they saw us there, me, I was the only one doing it. Everyone else was masked up.
And so they threatened me via email and every other parent. They didn't name
(11:15):
me personally, but that's who they were talking about.
And I just responded in an email, reply all, I don't know, three,
four million people got this email.
And I just gave a biography of who I am and that I'm the doctor of air quality.
You don't know what the hell you're talking about.
That phone, if there was still a line, like the old school phones,
it was burning up to call me.
(11:37):
And it was comical. It was this woman from Disney. What was it?
Disneyland crowd management president or whatever her damn title was.
And she was really sweet.
And she calls me up and she's like, can we talk? And I said, we are.
And I said, you know, she just asked me what my background was and what we could do.
So I consulted Disney and COVID And guess what? The next day,
(11:57):
the mask mandate was gone by their parks.
I was just like, you guys are being so stupid. I said, the virus is the smallest
organism in history in the universe.
It can go right through anything, including that stupid mask.
The only way you can kill a virus is with UV lighter chemicals,
period. That's why we put them in your ductwork.
So it was comical. And the end of the conversation was, well,
(12:18):
Casey, you know, that old saying, you don't know what you don't know.
And I said, well, yeah, well, now you do.
So do something about it before you get sued. Dude, because OSHA nationwide
requires you to prove the human being is getting at least 23% oxygen if you
have to wear any apparatus on your face or maybe, maybe less than I can't remember
the exact number, but we don't do that.
When we go into a crawl space or an attic, I require my guys to wear a respirator,
(12:41):
which is a rubber mask with the little canisters on the side so that they don't
get any of those particles. Cause that shit will screw your lungs up.
So that's my most memorable time in the business.
Not a fan of COVID. It's all bullshit, dude. We all know it.
What advice can you give some homeowners in selecting an HVAC service provider?
Like what should they be looking for? Reviews online.
(13:02):
Okay. If you got, so one thing I learned recently is there's these bots that
want to give you reviews and sell them to you.
And if there's no comments in the review, it's, it's a fake review.
One of my competitors here in town has got all these reviews and they're all
garbage. And what happens is Google will eventually flag them and shut them down. Right.
So when I have, I just got a review yesterday, another five-star review from
(13:23):
a local customer that owns a wood mill here in town. I won't say who it is because
that's just not ethical.
But she left me a five-star review yesterday, and it's detailed.
It says exactly what happened.
That's what you want to look for when you hire a contractor,
whether it's HVAC or anything else for that matter, is you want to look at their
reviews and make sure that they have at least a 4.5.
I think it's 4.5 or higher or 4.2.
(13:46):
We're at a 4.9. I was at a 5 for a long time, but there's a couple of customers
that I had that we had manufacturer issues with, and they wanted to blame us,
which is one of the reasons why the high-end stuff, sometimes I don't sell that.
Because it it's not tried and true yet.
So Karen left the review and I responded to it. The Karen was a positive review.
(14:06):
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And the negative ones, I respond to those as well.
I try to allow Kirsten, my office manager to do that because I'm pissed.
Right. Who the fuck do you think you are leaving me a shitty review when I just,
I just went and did work for you for free basically.
Yeah. You know, and that happened a couple of times.
It's usually with the younger folks that think that they're entitled to everything
that that happens with, but no, we don't, we don't tolerate abuse of our employees
(14:30):
and we don't tolerate nasty stuff online because I don't participate.
I don't say negative things about other companies. I've left bad reviews before
when I was younger and I go back and I think to myself, wait a minute,
if I would have given them an opportunity to make it right, would they have done it? Right.
And if they will, then I'm going to leave them a a five-star good review.
Yeah. You know, so I, I would rather take it in that aspect.
(14:55):
So yes, if we do get a negative review, I'm reaching out to them immediately.
Just like I did with, with Dean, the customer I was talking about earlier. And you know,
We remedy the situation, we take care of it and we move forward.
And I don't know if anyone watching this knows, but in Washington state,
you have to give a one-year money back guarantee.
Basically you have to give free labor warranty for the first year. That's great.
(15:16):
So why not just do it right the first damn time? Yeah. You know?
So the one thing that I always tell people, like I was going to do a reel this
morning on my page, you need to see a startup sheet.
If you have an installation done and what you're looking for is a micron reading
number and whether they they use nitrogen or not and how much.
Because nitrogen eliminates moisture out of the lines for your refrigerant.
(15:36):
And microns tells you if they sucked all the crap out of that system before
they allowed the refrigerant to go through.
Because the refrigerant is oil and the atmosphere has moisture.
And we all know that oil and water don't mix.
See? So if it's done properly, your system will run for, shit,
I've seen it run for 50, 60 years, you know, with proper maintenance.
But these new ones they're so so sensitive
(15:59):
if you don't do these procedures properly it'll fail in
the first two three months period so i saw a lot
of that in florida with the company i was working for and that's why i decided i couldn't
associate with them how do you how do consultations work with you guys is there
do you guys come out is it over the phone is there a fee for it you know what
i i was thinking about starting to charge people for my time because i literally
basically like my mentor carl says you are a doctor of what you do your time
(16:24):
is my time is worth five six $600 an hour, you know?
So I was thinking about charging that, but I don't. So what,
what it looks like is you call the office, our office number is 509-833-5886.
And then we also had a Seattle number. I don't know if we still have the Seattle
location open 206-833-3391 for the Seattle market, but you just call and schedule
(16:46):
with Kirsten for me to come and give you a free estimate.
And it doesn't matter what it is. If you want a diagnostic for a repair, same thing.
A lot of times I can do it over the phone through like FaceTime, you know?
But what if it's like, you're going to go to Cle Elum today,
which is not a five minute drive, right? You're an hour out.
That's free as well. Yeah. Yeah. So my, my average drive time per day, four hours a day I drive.
(17:11):
So sounds horrible. Even in Florida, I was just one is an hour and a half,
one way to every single customer I saw.
Right. You know, so it's expensive and we do charge the customer for that.
We do. We have to. Okay. How else are we going to pay? Okay.
So you are, you are charging.
We charge in the price of the deal that we do. So every customer pays a little
portion of what we have to drive and fuel and all that kind of stuff. Right.
(17:32):
So the average cost of a system replacement up here from a two to a five ton
is between 12,000 to $30,000.
And every company charges that. If they don't, they're a shitty company. Don't use them. Okay.
The old saying, you get what you pay for is absolutely a fact.
Now don't get me wrong. There's companies locally here where I've had friends
(17:53):
and clients call me up that use those local companies.
And they're like, Casey, they did X, Y, Z. And I'm like, you call them back
and tell them, you give me your, my fucking money back immediately or come fix this.
So most of that was related to COVID because we couldn't get the stuff we needed.
But if I I couldn't get what I needed for that home to do it right.
I didn't do it. I just told the customer, sorry, six months before we can do this.
(18:14):
Where should potential clients go and check to make sure that you have the proper licensing?
Because if you go out of business and disappear, the warranty doesn't really
mean much. Absolutely. LNI.wa.gov.
Go to Labor and Industries website, go to verify contractor,
and you'll see all of our information. You'll see our insurance.
You'll see if we've ever had penalties.
(18:35):
You'll see if our taxes are current, which they are. you'll see,
I mean, you'll see everything.
And the problem is the bottom line is no company will guarantee be in business tomorrow.
None. Right. I don't care who they are. Campbell and companies,
dear friends of mine, Mike Campbell and Brian Campbell, both.
I know them very well. They're great people.
They have a wonderful business, but they could be done tomorrow.
(18:55):
What lessons have you learned along the way that have been invaluable?
Kind of like picture of the younger you getting ready to go into the HVAC business.
What are some avoidable mistakes that, that the younger you could avoid?
Don't be with the wrong woman. Don't have the wrong, don't have a business partner.
Are these life lessons or business?
(19:16):
That's all the same. Hey, a woman is a fucking contract, homie.
That's the bottom line. I don't give a shit what anybody says.
You know, it's like these brothers on online that are talking about,
Hey, let's get married, dude.
I'll rebound on my house. You can have a master just like mine.
We'll get some topless house cleaners and you can ride my Harleys and I'm going
to use your your bass boat. How's that sound?
You know, it's a real deal right now. I mean, you know, you're,
(19:38):
you're, when you go into business, whether it's with a individual,
a partnership, a marriage, whatever, or a business like mine,
you have to be the one that controls everything.
And when that happens, you have to be able to go out and do all the fricking work yourself.
So the biggest lesson I learned is I had to depend on these other people because
I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. I know how to sell it,
(19:59):
but I didn't know how to do AC pump downs.
I didn't know how to do nitrogen or refrigerant recovery.
I didn't know how to do nitrogen when I brazed. I didn't know any of that shit.
So what did I do? I threw myself in the field and forced myself to learn from
my service techs that were really good at it, you know?
And so I would, I would say, especially if you're like me, a sales guy first,
(20:20):
and then a technician second, and then a dad,
you know, all my kids are grown up now, but if you're a guy like me and you're
thinking about getting into any business, make sure that you know it really well first, you know?
And if you don't hire people that do, it's like Bill Gates said,
I don't, I'm not really a big fan of Bill Gates.
I've met him once, but he, he always said it's not him. It's not his business.
It's the people that he put in position that are smarter than him. Right.
(20:42):
You know, surround yourself around people that are, you know,
they're going to elevate you, elevate you. Yeah. And that's Tracy O'Brien.
That's, that's Carl Vandermeer, my mentor, you know, your circles got to be like like that small.
And when you rely on those people that know more than you, guess what?
Eventually it's going to rub off on you and you're going to be successful.
Well said, Casey. So Casey, for people that want to maybe get a consultation,
(21:06):
want to know more about you, you sound like you leave some daily tips on your social media.
Where's the best place for potential customers, fans, followers to come follow you and contact you?
So you can either go to my Facebook page, Casey Thaxton. It's a public but private page.
It's my personal page, but I'm a public figure on there
(21:28):
because I have a couple thousand followers now or whatever you can either
go there hit me on the messenger if you want or you
can call me at the you can call my office at 509-833-5886 or
my cell phone 509-406-2063 but
it's it's much smarter to just call the office number the
509-833-5886 number because then
you get kirsten she's got my schedule i don't do my schedule you know
(21:50):
that's not my department and you also have what's your website comfort
pros heat and air.com and that has all your licensing information
on on there so people want to do your due diligence yeah you
just go to lni.wa.gov my my corporation
is casey's heat and air inc doing business
as comfort pros heating and air i had to relicense after a
divorce you know okay so and that's why
(22:13):
i say don't get into a fucking marriage or you know if you're in one you better
you better nurture that shit because if you if you have to get get divorced
you are fucked this is the bottom line man you're starting over oh boy this
is gonna be a fun one to edit casey thank you so much for popping in brother thanks brother.
I and every doctor in the world knows that a mask will not protect you whatsoever
because every single wet orifice of your body can take in a virus and boom, you're screwed.
That's my specialty in the industry is I'm an air quality expert.
I've been certified my entire career.
Music.
(00:30):
Good morning, guys. Dan Wise, Wise Media Studios, Yakima Thursday Spotlight.
And our first guest this morning is Casey Thaxson with Comfort Pros.
Casey, good morning. How are you doing? How are you doing?
So Casey, tell us a little bit about Comfort Pros. Are you a local Yakima native?
Yes, I am. Okay. How long have you been in the area?
(00:51):
Oh boy. Other than my military service, let's see, 39 years. I'm 46.
So most of my life, I've spent a couple of years in Florida.
I spent some time in Memphis, Tennessee.
Where else have I been? I've been all over the country. Well,
you just got back from my neck of the woods over in Florida.
Yep. We just got a place down there in Pompano Beach.
(01:13):
My friend Tracy that I was telling you about, he and I are doing some large
commercial projects around the nation now.
The beauty of being contracted in the state of Washington as a contractor is
that you can work in all 50 states for up to six months.
Really? Yeah. And you're covered by the insurance here. Is that just Washington
thing or, I mean, maybe a few states that are inclusive to that?
There might be other states that do it, but they're, you know,
(01:33):
Florida is not very friendly to business.
I don't give a shit what anybody says, you know, they're just not.
I went down there and wanted to start my business and it's like,
nope, every time I hit a roadblock, you know?
So what I did is I just, I started talking to Tracy and other,
other people in the business down there and we just decided,
you know what, let's just do this.
And so obviously I'm keeping be my residential business going here in Yakima.
(01:57):
And we hit, we're also in Cle Elm. I'm in Cle Elm today. We're crying out loud.
We go to Cle Elm. At noon, you said, right?
Yeah. I've got a question about HVAC. Okay. But real quick before that question,
how do you like that cup of coffee?
Oh, it's not bad. It's not bad. Well, I want to give a shout out to North town
coffee house, who is one of our sponsors and they've supplied us with like more
coffee than we'll ever know what to do with.
(02:18):
And if you are looking for a good cup of coffee and you're not sure what the
difference is between like Starbucks, McDonald's, they have something called third wave coffee.
So they really know what they're doing over there. They're downtown.
There's a link in the description, go check them out. So back to my question now about HVAC,
how come every time I go on facebook it seems
like there's these posts for hvac guys and
(02:40):
it have you seen these they look like almost like scam artists
posts oh yeah i see them all the time do you have to deal with that are people
like hey let me make sure like when you want to post in facebook and they want
to know if you're legit do they make you post like your license number no proof
that you're in the state no they i do mine mine's all my personal profile casey
thaxton and i do real tips of the the day and stuff like that.
(03:02):
But whenever I see anything related to HVAC, it's usually a competitor that
I see, or it's a, it's a company advertising to me and they're typically garbage.
You know, like for example, you guys do all of my internet marketing and all that stuff.
I have Tony host everything for me and AI hears you talk about that crap on these dadgum phones.
(03:26):
And then all all of a sudden it populates in your Instagram,
your Facebook, everywhere, you know?
So I stay away from all of them.
I see them come through and I'll hit X, you know, like, I don't want to see
this ad, you know? Do you do like duck cleaning and stuff too?
No, no, no. Duck cleaning is, cause that seems to be a big con.
There seems to be a lot of, so in Florida it is absolutely necessity because
(03:48):
down there you have fiber board, right?
Fiber board is just insulation and it harbors moisture and then it turns to
mold and then you got shit in your air and you're like, and you wonder why you're sick, okay?
That's my specialty in the industry. I'm an air quality expert.
I've been certified my entire career.
So down there, it is necessary, but they don't use the same type of machines that we use up here.
(04:09):
They use what's called EcoFog. It's a fogging detergent that goes in and disinfects
the fiberboard, right? Right.
Up here in Washington state, the Pacific Northwest, even down in California,
anywhere where there's no humidity or very little humidity, duct cleaning is usually just a scam.
Bottom line, unless you've got new construction where the jackasses didn't cover
up the registers in the floor or the ceiling, whatever, then you'll have debris
(04:33):
in there that needs to be cleaned out, you know?
But most of the time you can use a shop vac for that. Right.
You know, you don't have to call these Pringles power vac companies.
And some of my friends do the work and well, dear friend of mine that just retired
did it for years, but he was an honest man and he would go in and look and say,
no, you don't need this, you know?
But the problem, the pandemic in our industry is so many contractors that don't
(04:57):
do the job right, period.
Whether it's duct cleaning, installation or service, they lie to people, they rip them off.
And that's why we've got such good reviews because I refuse to do that shit.
You know, I'm going to be honest with you.
If I come in your home, you're going to know that we're family.
I'm going to treat you like you're my brother, sister, whatever, you know.
When did you establish here in Yakima with your HVAC company?
(05:21):
Comfort Pros. Comfort Pros started back in 2006, I want to say,
or 2008. I can't remember off the top of my head. It was October.
I was working for another company locally here, which I will not name who they
are because I don't talk bad about other companies, but they were doing really bad work.
And I was was a salesman for them at the time. And I was number one in the nation
(05:42):
for gross average and number 20 for closing percentage out of 1800 comfort advisors.
So I was pretty proud of that.
And when I had to have two paychecks reversed because of, uh,
of, uh, equipment happened to be ripped out because it wasn't put in right.
It just made me say, you know what? I can do better than this. So I went on my own.
(06:02):
Do you think there's a difference between talking bad about your competitor
or talking bad about a bad business? Kind of like buyer beware.
I try to stay away from it altogether because here's the deal.
We all have people work for us that are garbage and we don't know it until we know it. Right.
So it doesn't necessarily represent the company. Right. It could be the employee
that's just out doing shoddy work. Yeah. And that, that we see a lot of.
(06:26):
I know, I know every company in town has had to deal with this, including me.
You know, I've had to go back on jobs where somebody screwed up and I'm like,
look, man, I'm going to make it right. Is that okay?
This just happened last year. You know, the customer by the name of Dean,
I won't say his last name out of protection, you know, but he's,
he owns a lot of properties and he's got one up on Snoqualmie Pass that we did.
(06:48):
And the bottom line was we didn't finish the project because he was going to
add to it. He was going to put a heat pump in with it and he never got back
to it because he's a a busy guy, you know?
So he left us a crappy review because he had a problem with the Airbnb tenant.
And then I, I didn't have time to get back to him. And then when I did,
it was already too late. He'd already left us a bad review.
I got with him and I fixed it period.
(07:08):
He's one of my happiest customers now. So what's your specialty?
I know you said you're an air quality like ninja.
I'm an air quality expert. I've been certified my entire career.
But aside from that, what's your specialty with HVAC?
Well, I like to tell people I'm a Ferrari dealer. We don't put in garbage, okay?
If you and your significant other call me and ask me to come and give you an
(07:31):
estimate for doing work, I'm going to give you three different options, sometimes four,
but the one I'm going to nudge you to go with is going to be in the middle or
the top end because those pieces of equipment are going to be the most efficient,
meaning your power bill or your gas bill, whatever source you have is going
to be the lowest you've ever had.
And not only that, but the equipment is going to last the longest.
And you're going to do maintenance with me annually, or you won't have a warranty.
(07:53):
So when you say equipment, are you referring to like the main AC unit?
Yeah, like Mitsubishi, for example, Rude, Reem, Train, whatever brand we're using.
What I do try to stay away from these days is the proprietary equipment.
And what I mean by proprietary means that you have to use their parts if they
need repair, because what they do is they go obsolete after the warranty's over
(08:15):
to where you have to replace them. That's bull crap.
You know what I mean? so especially down in florida
they were really on that because down there equipment replacements
are between five and ten years most of the time so if you florida you're really
running that ac all year round water water water 30 gallons a day on average
for an average home wow isn't that something it's just nuts up here it's like
(08:38):
three our atmosphere has moisture in it no matter what we're breathing moisture
we're breathing water right now right it's just in a very very minute new to mount.
So the average moisture level, humidity level in the desert out here is about
26%. Sahara desert, 26%. Florida on average 80, sometimes over a hundred percent. Okay.
(08:58):
100% would be a day like it's raining and you walk outside and you just feel
like you're wet as soon as you walk outside.
You've had that happen. Oh yeah. You know, I got used to it.
I don't care if I actually liked it because you lose weight and you drink a
lot of water. It's weird.
And it's good for your, your skin stays moisturized here. I'm dry like a fucking alligator.
Yeah. I use the hemp's lotion nonstop. I'm not trying to promote them, but I love them.
(09:19):
I buy their lotion by the case, dude. So, but yeah, man, I'm,
I'm into the health. I'm into to the air quality.
I always have been, you have to have the proper moisture levers levels in your
home too. So here we use humidifiers instead of dehumidifiers, right?
So in this market where, you know, a three ton load would be a two ton,
2000 square foot home down in Florida, a 2000 square foot home is three and
(09:40):
a half to four because they have to get all that. Yeah. Cause they have to get
all that moisture out of the air.
So here in Yakima with what you do, do you have any memorable experiences or
memories that you've had with the clients to give like an example to somebody
of what they should expect, like a good one, I should say. Well,
I have some comical ones.
Go for it. Okay, so once upon a time when I was working for the other company as a sales guy,
(10:03):
I go to this family's home out in Harrah and the woman answers the door in her
bra and underwear. I'm like, oh, hello.
She's like, come on in. Her husband's sitting in the living room and we just
sit there and start talking.
And they bought a $20,000 heating and air conditioning system for me about two
hours into it. Okay. I was like, this is weird.
I've never seen him since, but it was the most bizarre thing I've ever experienced in my life.
(10:28):
You might be on OnlyFans and not know it, right? Right.
Anyway okay that was funny but my most memorable experience i would say is during covid,
my former girlfriend and i should say
stepdaughter she was not mine but she called me dad since she was four she was
a competitive cheerleader long story short we went to salt lake city for a competition
they all wanted they want everybody wearing masks and i and every doctor in
(10:52):
the world knows that a mask will not protect you whatsoever because every single
wet orifice of your body can can take in a virus and boom, you're screwed, right?
So Disney owns Varsity, which owns the cheer group that we were part of.
And they saw us there, me, I was the only one doing it. Everyone else was masked up.
And so they threatened me via email and every other parent. They didn't name
(11:15):
me personally, but that's who they were talking about.
And I just responded in an email, reply all, I don't know, three,
four million people got this email.
And I just gave a biography of who I am and that I'm the doctor of air quality.
You don't know what the hell you're talking about.
That phone, if there was still a line, like the old school phones,
it was burning up to call me.
(11:37):
And it was comical. It was this woman from Disney. What was it?
Disneyland crowd management president or whatever her damn title was.
And she was really sweet.
And she calls me up and she's like, can we talk? And I said, we are.
And I said, you know, she just asked me what my background was and what we could do.
So I consulted Disney and COVID And guess what? The next day,
(11:57):
the mask mandate was gone by their parks.
I was just like, you guys are being so stupid. I said, the virus is the smallest
organism in history in the universe.
It can go right through anything, including that stupid mask.
The only way you can kill a virus is with UV lighter chemicals,
period. That's why we put them in your ductwork.
So it was comical. And the end of the conversation was, well,
(12:18):
Casey, you know, that old saying, you don't know what you don't know.
And I said, well, yeah, well, now you do.
So do something about it before you get sued. Dude, because OSHA nationwide
requires you to prove the human being is getting at least 23% oxygen if you
have to wear any apparatus on your face or maybe, maybe less than I can't remember
the exact number, but we don't do that.
When we go into a crawl space or an attic, I require my guys to wear a respirator,
(12:41):
which is a rubber mask with the little canisters on the side so that they don't
get any of those particles. Cause that shit will screw your lungs up.
So that's my most memorable time in the business.
Not a fan of COVID. It's all bullshit, dude. We all know it.
What advice can you give some homeowners in selecting an HVAC service provider?
Like what should they be looking for? Reviews online.
(13:02):
Okay. If you got, so one thing I learned recently is there's these bots that
want to give you reviews and sell them to you.
And if there's no comments in the review, it's, it's a fake review.
One of my competitors here in town has got all these reviews and they're all
garbage. And what happens is Google will eventually flag them and shut them down. Right.
So when I have, I just got a review yesterday, another five-star review from
(13:23):
a local customer that owns a wood mill here in town. I won't say who it is because
that's just not ethical.
But she left me a five-star review yesterday, and it's detailed.
It says exactly what happened.
That's what you want to look for when you hire a contractor,
whether it's HVAC or anything else for that matter, is you want to look at their
reviews and make sure that they have at least a 4.5.
I think it's 4.5 or higher or 4.2.
(13:46):
We're at a 4.9. I was at a 5 for a long time, but there's a couple of customers
that I had that we had manufacturer issues with, and they wanted to blame us,
which is one of the reasons why the high-end stuff, sometimes I don't sell that.
Because it it's not tried and true yet.
So Karen left the review and I responded to it. The Karen was a positive review.
(14:06):
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And the negative ones, I respond to those as well.
I try to allow Kirsten, my office manager to do that because I'm pissed.
Right. Who the fuck do you think you are leaving me a shitty review when I just,
I just went and did work for you for free basically.
Yeah. You know, and that happened a couple of times.
It's usually with the younger folks that think that they're entitled to everything
that that happens with, but no, we don't, we don't tolerate abuse of our employees
(14:30):
and we don't tolerate nasty stuff online because I don't participate.
I don't say negative things about other companies. I've left bad reviews before
when I was younger and I go back and I think to myself, wait a minute,
if I would have given them an opportunity to make it right, would they have done it? Right.
And if they will, then I'm going to leave them a a five-star good review.
Yeah. You know, so I, I would rather take it in that aspect.
(14:55):
So yes, if we do get a negative review, I'm reaching out to them immediately.
Just like I did with, with Dean, the customer I was talking about earlier. And you know,
We remedy the situation, we take care of it and we move forward.
And I don't know if anyone watching this knows, but in Washington state,
you have to give a one-year money back guarantee.
Basically you have to give free labor warranty for the first year. That's great.
(15:16):
So why not just do it right the first damn time? Yeah. You know?
So the one thing that I always tell people, like I was going to do a reel this
morning on my page, you need to see a startup sheet.
If you have an installation done and what you're looking for is a micron reading
number and whether they they use nitrogen or not and how much.
Because nitrogen eliminates moisture out of the lines for your refrigerant.
(15:36):
And microns tells you if they sucked all the crap out of that system before
they allowed the refrigerant to go through.
Because the refrigerant is oil and the atmosphere has moisture.
And we all know that oil and water don't mix.
See? So if it's done properly, your system will run for, shit,
I've seen it run for 50, 60 years, you know, with proper maintenance.
But these new ones they're so so sensitive
(15:59):
if you don't do these procedures properly it'll fail in
the first two three months period so i saw a lot
of that in florida with the company i was working for and that's why i decided i couldn't
associate with them how do you how do consultations work with you guys is there
do you guys come out is it over the phone is there a fee for it you know what
i i was thinking about starting to charge people for my time because i literally
basically like my mentor carl says you are a doctor of what you do your time
(16:24):
is my time is worth five six $600 an hour, you know?
So I was thinking about charging that, but I don't. So what,
what it looks like is you call the office, our office number is 509-833-5886.
And then we also had a Seattle number. I don't know if we still have the Seattle
location open 206-833-3391 for the Seattle market, but you just call and schedule
(16:46):
with Kirsten for me to come and give you a free estimate.
And it doesn't matter what it is. If you want a diagnostic for a repair, same thing.
A lot of times I can do it over the phone through like FaceTime, you know?
But what if it's like, you're going to go to Cle Elum today,
which is not a five minute drive, right? You're an hour out.
That's free as well. Yeah. Yeah. So my, my average drive time per day, four hours a day I drive.
(17:11):
So sounds horrible. Even in Florida, I was just one is an hour and a half,
one way to every single customer I saw.
Right. You know, so it's expensive and we do charge the customer for that.
We do. We have to. Okay. How else are we going to pay? Okay.
So you are, you are charging.
We charge in the price of the deal that we do. So every customer pays a little
portion of what we have to drive and fuel and all that kind of stuff. Right.
(17:32):
So the average cost of a system replacement up here from a two to a five ton
is between 12,000 to $30,000.
And every company charges that. If they don't, they're a shitty company. Don't use them. Okay.
The old saying, you get what you pay for is absolutely a fact.
Now don't get me wrong. There's companies locally here where I've had friends
(17:53):
and clients call me up that use those local companies.
And they're like, Casey, they did X, Y, Z. And I'm like, you call them back
and tell them, you give me your, my fucking money back immediately or come fix this.
So most of that was related to COVID because we couldn't get the stuff we needed.
But if I I couldn't get what I needed for that home to do it right.
I didn't do it. I just told the customer, sorry, six months before we can do this.
(18:14):
Where should potential clients go and check to make sure that you have the proper licensing?
Because if you go out of business and disappear, the warranty doesn't really
mean much. Absolutely. LNI.wa.gov.
Go to Labor and Industries website, go to verify contractor,
and you'll see all of our information. You'll see our insurance.
You'll see if we've ever had penalties.
(18:35):
You'll see if our taxes are current, which they are. you'll see,
I mean, you'll see everything.
And the problem is the bottom line is no company will guarantee be in business tomorrow.
None. Right. I don't care who they are. Campbell and companies,
dear friends of mine, Mike Campbell and Brian Campbell, both.
I know them very well. They're great people.
They have a wonderful business, but they could be done tomorrow.
(18:55):
What lessons have you learned along the way that have been invaluable?
Kind of like picture of the younger you getting ready to go into the HVAC business.
What are some avoidable mistakes that, that the younger you could avoid?
Don't be with the wrong woman. Don't have the wrong, don't have a business partner.
Are these life lessons or business?
(19:16):
That's all the same. Hey, a woman is a fucking contract, homie.
That's the bottom line. I don't give a shit what anybody says.
You know, it's like these brothers on online that are talking about,
Hey, let's get married, dude.
I'll rebound on my house. You can have a master just like mine.
We'll get some topless house cleaners and you can ride my Harleys and I'm going
to use your your bass boat. How's that sound?
You know, it's a real deal right now. I mean, you know, you're,
(19:38):
you're, when you go into business, whether it's with a individual,
a partnership, a marriage, whatever, or a business like mine,
you have to be the one that controls everything.
And when that happens, you have to be able to go out and do all the fricking work yourself.
So the biggest lesson I learned is I had to depend on these other people because
I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. I know how to sell it,
(19:59):
but I didn't know how to do AC pump downs.
I didn't know how to do nitrogen or refrigerant recovery.
I didn't know how to do nitrogen when I brazed. I didn't know any of that shit.
So what did I do? I threw myself in the field and forced myself to learn from
my service techs that were really good at it, you know?
And so I would, I would say, especially if you're like me, a sales guy first,
(20:20):
and then a technician second, and then a dad,
you know, all my kids are grown up now, but if you're a guy like me and you're
thinking about getting into any business, make sure that you know it really well first, you know?
And if you don't hire people that do, it's like Bill Gates said,
I don't, I'm not really a big fan of Bill Gates.
I've met him once, but he, he always said it's not him. It's not his business.
It's the people that he put in position that are smarter than him. Right.
(20:42):
You know, surround yourself around people that are, you know,
they're going to elevate you, elevate you. Yeah. And that's Tracy O'Brien.
That's, that's Carl Vandermeer, my mentor, you know, your circles got to be like like that small.
And when you rely on those people that know more than you, guess what?
Eventually it's going to rub off on you and you're going to be successful.
Well said, Casey. So Casey, for people that want to maybe get a consultation,
(21:06):
want to know more about you, you sound like you leave some daily tips on your social media.
Where's the best place for potential customers, fans, followers to come follow you and contact you?
So you can either go to my Facebook page, Casey Thaxton. It's a public but private page.
It's my personal page, but I'm a public figure on there
(21:28):
because I have a couple thousand followers now or whatever you can either
go there hit me on the messenger if you want or you
can call me at the you can call my office at 509-833-5886 or
my cell phone 509-406-2063 but
it's it's much smarter to just call the office number the
509-833-5886 number because then
you get kirsten she's got my schedule i don't do my schedule you know
(21:50):
that's not my department and you also have what's your website comfort
pros heat and air.com and that has all your licensing information
on on there so people want to do your due diligence yeah you
just go to lni.wa.gov my my corporation
is casey's heat and air inc doing business
as comfort pros heating and air i had to relicense after a
divorce you know okay so and that's why
(22:13):
i say don't get into a fucking marriage or you know if you're in one you better
you better nurture that shit because if you if you have to get get divorced
you are fucked this is the bottom line man you're starting over oh boy this
is gonna be a fun one to edit casey thank you so much for popping in brother thanks brother.
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