Hammond Services is recognized nationally as “Contractor of the Month”

David Hammond and his employees at Hammond Services are recognized nationally as “Contractor of the Month” by National Comfort Institute.  

NCI is the leader in HVAC diagnostics for both air flow and combustion related topics. They provide training, equipment and consultation to HVAC contractors around the world so they can
provide more comfortable and energy efficient homes and offices.

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“Do the right thing.” David Hammond will readily tell you that those four simple words are the solid foundation the success of his company is built on. “Anyone can say it, but not everyone does it”, David says. He goes on to explain that his primary job as President is to make sure the company lives those words every day. That’s only one of the reasons that Hammond Services in Griffin, Georgia is the August NCI Member of the Month.

Hammond’s has served the southern metro area of Atlanta for over 30 years. Founded by David’s father in 1979, the company focuses exclusively on service, add-on, and retrofit sales. The company is primarily involved in HVAC work, but offers plumbing and electrical services as well. After graduating from college with a degree in civil engineering, David worked for a large national company for several years before joining the family business in 1994. He has been President of Hammond’s since 2003 and under his leadership the company has grown to nearly 40 employees. David’s philosophy is that offering the customer the very best value for their dollar is critical. “We are constantly striving to be better as a company”, he says, “and we’re always looking to learn new and better ways to do things.” Read More…

Last April he discovered one of those new things when he attended the NCI Summit in Jacksonville. According to David, “I attended the pre-Summit training session with Rob Falke, and noticed that the other people in the session were pretty sharp. And somewhere in the middle of that training the light dawned.” He could see that the NCI air testing and diagnostic methods delivered the missing pieces to the puzzle of how to really separate his company from the competition, as well as increase revenues and profit.

In May David and his operations manager, Wayne Hughes attended the NCI Fast-Track Implementation class, and the entire picture came into clear view. By June David brought in onsite training for his staff to get everyone up to speed on the new processes. At first a few of the technicians and installers were a little hesitant about some of the changes. But it didn’t take long until they began to see the benefits in the systems they were servicing and installing, like reduced static pressures, increased airflow, and higher customer satisfaction. Like David, they were impressed and excited by how some relatively minor changes in what they were already doing could have such a major impact. In fact, David was so excited that he decided to take the balancing hood and go back into the field himself. He enjoys doing the follow-up testing and diagnostics whenever a CoolMaxx report indicates a need for system improvement. In one week he sold over $14,000 in duct renovations and has been averaging between 50-70% gross margins.

“NCI is the best thing that’s happened since we started the business”, David states without hesitation. “Now we know exactly where we’re headed in the future … air diagnostics.” And in the 6 weeks or so since Hammond’s implemented the new processes, he believes they have already recouped the cost of attending the Summit, implementation training, the onsite training, as well as the cost of new tools and instruments. He has already scheduled additional onsite training in August for carbon monoxide and combustion diagnostics and testing.

One last thing that David wanted to stress is that support for change like this has to come from the owner of the company. He emphasized, “The owner needs to be the primary champion if these changes are going to work and if you expect buy-in from your employees.”

Dedicated NCI members like Hammond Services are what help keep our industry strong and vibrant! So for all they do, join us in congratulating David and the great team at Hammond’s as our Member of the Month.

Find out more about them online at www.hammondservices.com

September 2, 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Air Diagnostic Training On-Site at Hammond Office

 

NCI Instructor, Paul Weibolt

On June 18-19, 2010 Hammond Services had on-site training conducted by NCI. The training course was titled “Air Diagnostics and Balancing”. Hammond Services had 14 employees attend this course, and employees from two other contractors also attended, one from Kentucky and the other from South Carolina. The purpose of the course was to train us all in new techniques to help our customers achieve greater energy efficiency and comfort.

When a typical heating and cooling contractor quotes the efficiency of the equipment (SEER or AFUE) and leads you to believe the new equipment will automatically deliver that efficiency, think again. Typical installed equipment only operates at 55% to 70% of rated capacity. In simple terms, 14 SEER air conditioning equipment could only operate like 7 SEER equipment. This is terrible, and it is an industry-wide problem. Now, with NCI’s approach to testing and measuring, we can identify and correct this problem.

While new high efficiency heating and cooling equipment may help, the number one factor in determining system efficiency is your duct system. Heating and cooling travels through ducts that are often too restrictive, damaged, poorly maintained, or improperly designed and installed from the beginning. A certified NCI contractor can fix many of these problems and increase your system’s delivered heating and cooling efficiency.

Measuring System Static Pressures

Hammond Services, now an NCI trained and certified contractor, will evaluate your existing duct design and look for deficiencies. Most duct systems have deficiencies, and these can be corrected while installing your new equipment. We will then measure the new system’s performance to prove te new system is functioning as designed. By taking this approach, we insure that you get the comfort and energy savings you’re paying for.

Hammond Services has always followed industry guidelines for duct design, and in most cases exceeded minimum design criteria. However, we are now discovering with the use of new test instruments and diagnostic techniques, that most systems are not performing as well as we originally thought.  The average delivered  cooling and heating efficiency of systems across the country is only 57%, according to NCI’s national database. This is shocking because it demonstrates that the focus on the equipment efficiencies alone is not working. That’s why Hammond Services is now implementing newly learned best practices to measure and deliver actual delivered efficiencies of 90% or better.

Now we can measure every customer’s system efficiency, and give it a SCORE. This will identify those opportunities for the greatest improvement. This will result in greater comfort and tremendous energy savings. We are very excited about this new technology and have invested heavily to make sure that our entire company is trained and certified accordingly.

Who are good candidates for this SCORE test? Actually we are doing it on every call. But those who stand the most to gain are those who have :

  • Higher than expected utility bills
  • Rooms that are hot or cold
  • Lower than expected air flow from your ducts
  • Systems that run all the time and seem to never cut off

 Give us a call at 770-227-5325 to have your system SCORE tested. Call now and see how you can get your system tested at no cost.

June 29, 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »