In this episode of Fix It Radio, we dive into the latest developments in heating regulations across Colorado. John and guest speaker, Hunter Bodie of Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning, discuss the new ultra-low NOx regulations affecting furnaces and water heaters starting January 1st. Explore how these changes influence installation, cost, and maintenance, providing valuable insights to homeowners on potential price hikes and increased upkeep needs.
SPEAKER 03 :
Walter? Upstairs! Are you alright? In the floor behind the chair.
SPEAKER 10 :
This is America.
SPEAKER 06 :
Does everybody know what time it is? Fix It Radio!
SPEAKER 12 :
And it’s Fix It Radio, KLZ 560. Thanks for joining us today. Myself, Larry Unger, Charlie Grimes, of course, our engineer today, and Hunter Bodie joining us from Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning. Good morning, Hunter. Good morning, John. How are we? I am good. Good to hear from you. I had several people, and this is why we’re doing this today. I had several people asking, are you guys going to talk about the new regulations that involve furnaces? I think it’s just furnaces at this point, but you can tell me whether I’m right or wrong on that. But there’s new regulations coming into play in Colorado, I believe, Hunter, starting what, January 1st?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, starting January 1st, and it is for furnaces and water heaters.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay, for furnaces and water heaters both. Okay, gotcha.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yep. So, yeah, and it was a bill that was passed by a Colorado legislator, House Bill 23-1161, basically stating that now furnaces have to be what they consider ultra-low NOx, so they’re trying to reduce the emissions on all furnaces and water heaters.
SPEAKER 12 :
um that are put out okay so what does this mean for folks that are because i think there’s a misconception along these lines and i think there’s also from what you and i have even talked about that there are there are some miscon or sorry how should i say this maybe not in misconceptions but there’s some unknowns even among supply houses and so on as to how all this is going to work or or you know again clue us in on how all this is working
SPEAKER 05 :
So, basically, my understanding is in 2023, the House passed this bill, and then it didn’t go into effect until January 1st this year. Now, a lot of guys will say that the water heater thing went into effect in June or July of this year. um what happened is is during that bill they in june or july of this year they had the house had their implementation or rules and procedures set up on how they were going to do that so that’s where that june july comes from and i do know that a lot of suppliers um did kind of like as far as for water heaters did start um only purchasing low knocks as of june or july just to be ready for The January 1st cutoff.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, because it was really quick. For those of you listening, I’m reading this out of the bill right now. With certain exceptions on or after January 1st, a person shall not manufacture, distribute, sell, offer for sale, lease, or offer for lease in Colorado any new water heater or fan-type central furnace unless the emissions of the product do not exceed certain limits on emissions. And that’s what we’re talking about. So bottom line is, if you’ve got somebody telling you that you can – somehow even after first of the year, get around that. That isn’t true, Hunter, from what I’m reading.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right. So there is a little bit of a loophole there because what they’ll say is it is by the manufacturer, so it is by the distributors. From what I understand, the distributors can buy or can sell what they currently have in stock after January 1st. So any of those older, what it’s really gonna affect, the biggest effect I can see that it’s gonna have is on the lower end 80% furnaces. So anything with a metal flue, that’s where the low NOx is gonna make the biggest change. And so my understanding is from talking to the distributors and stuff, whatever they have in stock currently that they’ve already bought as of January 1, they are allowed to sell that. But the distributor is not actually allowed to buy any more equipment as far as that goes. And that is how, because specifically mechanical contractors are not state licensed, that’s how they’re going to enforce this, is through the actual distribution and sale of this. So they’re actually going above us contractors and going right to our distributors. And they’re enforcing it through our distributors and not actually the contractors or the state and local laws.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay, what does this mean for folks where they’ve been on the fence a little bit maybe about, you know, changing the furnace? They know they’re on their last leg. They’re trying to maybe, you know, continue to, you know, kind of milk that along until they absolutely have to make a change. What does it mean for folks? And what I mean by that is what’s it going to do price-wise once this new law takes effect?
SPEAKER 05 :
So not to – I mean not to sugarcoat anything. The prices will go up. Essentially what we’re doing with these furnaces is – To make a car analogy, we’re going from carbureted to fuel-injected. So we’re, they’re basically, we’re bringing in fresh air. We’re pre-mixing the, the fuel in the air and in the gap, the gas in the air to get a perfect flame, a lower Knox flame. Um, so there’s, there’s extra parts added into these furnaces. Um, so number one, the cost just up front is going to be more because they have to, they’ve added more things to these furnaces to get them to be lower, to put off lower emissions. Um, The other thing on those is the maintenance requirements on them does go up. So I know, depending on the brand, some brands have screens in their fresh air intakes now. And those have, they recommend, manuals recommend that those be cleaned once to twice a year, depending on your furnace usage. So they’re saying that some of the side effects and stuff like furnaces in laundry rooms or in attics or crawl spaces where dust is heavy, those are especially going to be affected. So that’s not saying that these furnaces are worse off or not as good as what we currently have, but they are going to require more maintenance and regular routine maintenance.
SPEAKER 12 :
I’m guessing because it’s a lot like… you know, even some of the emissions we have on vehicles, diesel in particular, where we’re trying to get the knocks down on diesel. And to your point, there’s more maintenance on some of the exhaust items, I guess would be the best way to say that. I’m assuming that on this furnace end of things, it’ll be similar, or am I mistaken?
SPEAKER 05 :
No, that’s exactly right. And they’re just going to be a little bit pickier about being clean. And that is kind of where the trick is going to lie, is typically, as it stands now, 80% furnaces are essentially bulletproof i mean they they they’ll overcome a lot of the the flaws and everything else where like the high more high efficiency condensing furnaces are a lot more are more finicky and require more maintenance as well um but that’s where the the big learning curve is going to come for especially for um homeowners is that old furnace that you could set and forget um And even if it would half the time run, even if you weren’t religious about changing your filters, it is now going to require that maintenance and for sure clean filters in a clean environment where it didn’t used to before.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay. So bottom line, if you’re thinking of doing something with your furnace, you’re probably better off doing that sooner than later. Although I guess the question for you is given that we’re, you know, basically a week before the Christmas week, I know we’re a week and a half to Christmas or a little over that, but we’re getting really close to the end of the year. If somebody wanted to make a change prior to the first of the year, do you have time to do that?
SPEAKER 05 :
We could, I mean, obviously, depending on how many come in. But that is the other thing is, like I said before, the furnaces are, the distributors will be allowed to sell what they have in stock after January 1st. So it will extend a little bit further. But we can make, as it comes, we can make adjustments. There are a couple other loopholes in this that I kind of want to talk, not loopholes, but exemptions in this that I want to talk about. The one way around this is, The one thing they did put in there is that Energy Star furnaces are exempt. Okay. So you can still do Energy Star. So where that comes in handy is on the 90%, the high-efficiency furnaces, if you already have that furnace, the 96% for sure for Rheem, but a lot of the 95% get Energy Star rated. And you can check that on Energy Star’s actual website. Okay. But so those bypass that law and it’s not really bypassing since they’re so high efficiency, they’ve already kind of dropped to that low NOx level, which is why they’re allowing that to be in the inclusion as well.
SPEAKER 12 :
But that’s not a true low NOx furnace, meaning it won’t have some of the other maintenance that a true low NOx furnace would have. Am I thinking correctly?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. Right, right, exactly. I mean, it does, like I said earlier, the high efficiency furnaces and stuff like that do require more maintenance than your standard old school 80% furnace. But that being said, my bigger point on that is the price jump, if you already have a high efficiency furnace that you’re jumping and you’re moving up, the price point might not be as extreme for you at that point as it would be for our 80% customers. Okay.
SPEAKER 07 :
okay all right gotcha um okay so go ahead larry to the distributors does that mean they’re probably going to purchase more of the uh current heaters before the first of the year so they can sell them through the course of next year see i i’ve heard me i’ve heard
SPEAKER 05 :
conflicting results on that. I think it totally depends on the distributors. Some distributors are going to look at this and say, look, why wouldn’t we sell the low Knox furnace when it’s a higher price point? And just to be completely honest with you, that’s what they’re looking at. So why wouldn’t we just move to that and just sell what we have in stock?
SPEAKER 12 :
Who do you feel, and that’s a tough, tough question, because for those listening, this wasn’t just a bill for furnaces. As you know, Hunter, they wrapped in shower heads and certain lamps and hot food holding cabinets, portable electric spas, residential ventilating fans, spray sprinkler bodies, commercial ovens, air purifier. I mean, in other words, they went down the list of all sorts of things that they included in this. They just happened to throw the low-knocks furnaces into this.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. And the loan Knox thing is, and that’s the one I’ve really looked into just being a mechanical contractor. As far as that goes, I mean, the bill is, is interesting. I know as far as like California goes, they’ve had the low NOx requirement in for three or four years and they’ve already had, there’s been like instances where they’ve had to make amendments to it. So one of the big ones that I found looking in deeper into this and kind of look into California for guidance on this one is they did a lot of the, a lot of counties in Colorado made an exemption for propane furnaces or propane applications because they What we’re doing with this new combustion chamber and everything else is these furnaces naturally are going to have a lower burn temperature than what your standard furnace does now. But propane being a hotter flame is going to dirty things up a little bit more and stuff. So in my kind of looking at this, when I see that they’ve made amendments in certain municipalities in California to allow propane, it kind of tells me they’ve had issues with propane. So that would be something I would definitely take into consideration as a homeowner as well as, you know, if you are using propane for my, and I know for a lot of my Customers in rural areas, especially up in the mountains, propane is huge. So that might be definitely something that it might be worth looking into. The other thing that’s a little bit concerning about this too is the high altitude testing is there, but it’s not everyone. You know, it’s not real deep from what I can understand. There are manufacturers that said they’ve tested it, but then when I look into different testing as far as like outside of lab research or anything like that, It’s not real. It’s not real. The research isn’t there on it yet. And then again, since we’re using low, we’re mixing, we’re trying to use less oxygen, less gas. We’re mixing that. We go to elevation. We are we’re already using lower oxygen levels. And now we’re even more depleted on oxygen. You can kind of see a recipe where that could get a little a little finicky as well.
SPEAKER 12 :
Interesting.
SPEAKER 05 :
You’re fine. Keep going. Yeah, basically what’s going to be most important on these furnaces is the maintenance on these furnaces is going to be huge and installers setup and stuff is going to be crucial. Where a lot of installers and where like on a lot of these furnaces now we can just install the furnace and there’s not a lot of after stuff that goes into us working on them. It’s going to require gas pressure testing and good contractors will run a combustion analysis on the furnace after they install it to make sure the fuel usage is proper. And those are going to be critical to making sure that these furnaces don’t have problems, especially at those higher altitudes and on propane systems and different things like that.
SPEAKER 12 :
I had a question that just came in asking, do you see this affecting wood-burning stoves at some point? In other words, are they just going to outlaw those altogether, or what are your thoughts there?
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, I’ve heard a lot of information on wood-burning. They’ve been going after wood-burning stoves for a while. as long as i can remember at this point and that one’s been more done on municipalities or like local jurisdictions um so i know there’s like multiple jurisdictions that won’t even allow a wood burning stove um there’s some that have get arounds where you can do a they make a wood burning or you can convert it over to propane and i’ve heard of people doing that type of type of setup but i The ultimate goal of this bill is it’s not necessarily, and from what I can tell, is it’s not necessarily to increase efficiency or anything like that. It’s strictly on ozone and pollution.
SPEAKER 12 :
regulation is is what it boils down to and not to get off track because i know this is more for my daily program than it is here but as i look at the four ladies that were the prime sponsors yes four ladies that were prime sponsors of said bill all four far left all four to my knowledge i just went through them having absolute zero knowledge or experience in this particular area period in other words these are mostly career politicians and or people that have been involved in you know even quasi consulting media type things and so on so the bottom line this is my point with all those folks listening you had four people shape a bill that came that became law that have no concept as to how these things actually function and work shocker by the way
SPEAKER 05 :
it is i mean it is one of those things and it unfortunately it’s here it’s been voted in um yeah it is in my hope on this is that maybe people will see that the cost increase on this and it’ll actually speak to people on what we’re doing um and what’s going and we can pay more attention on it but i mean that is that’s just the that’s the world of our industry um know the nature of our industry um is people you know heating systems they’re crucially important but people really just they’re not even a thought until they break down that’s right um even you know that they’re the last thing you think about until it doesn’t work
SPEAKER 12 :
One more question before we go to break, and then we’ll keep going on this, is somebody said, how much more electricity is required for these new furnaces? I currently have only the blower motor that draws electricity. So how do these compare on that end of things, Hunter?
SPEAKER 05 :
it’s going to be very similar there are more than just the blower motor on furnaces so you have you typically will have on most except for the old um like and they’re more like a 70 furnace what we call a natural draft furnace right um most of the 80 furnaces that have been um manufactured since like the 80s i want to say have an inducer motor in them as well okay um and usually those inducer motors are really really low amp draw like The highest I typically see is like two amps.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay. And then they also, most of these other furnaces, especially the high efficiencies, I do know this, those are variable motors as well. So in some cases, you might actually all in all have less electricity use when it’s all said and done, I’m assuming, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
Exactly. I mean, it’s at worst probably going to be about the same as far as electricity usage.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay. All right. Perfect. Let’s stop there. We’ll come back. Got more to talk about. Let’s get into water heaters and some of that as well. Again, Fix It Radio, guys. You can go to fixitradio.com. If you have any questions, and some of you already have asked. I didn’t even mention the text line earlier. I apologize. 307. 200-8222-307-28222. Give me your text message question, and I’ll get that answered by Hunter just as soon as we come back. Again, Hunter’s at Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning, and you can find Hunter. Just go to our website, klzradio.com. You can find him there, by the way. But real simple, Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning. Hunter, that’s who’s with us right now. We’ll be right back. This is Fix It Radio, KLZ 560.
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SPEAKER 12 :
All right, we are back. Hunter from Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning with us. Before we continue on, Hunter, a text message came in. Ask Hunter, I have a natural gas cooking range in my kitchen. I’ve already decided I want to swap it out soon. Number one question, should I try to get that done before January 1st? Number two, does Hunter have a website that he could point the listeners to that lists the most efficient gas furnaces and also the most efficient gas cooking ranges?
SPEAKER 05 :
Um, so as far as cooking ranges go, it is a little bit out of my, out of my realm. I am not an appliance guy. Uh, we don’t install them like. standard cooking appliances um my understanding on gas ranges and stuff like that is that colorado has been trying to get rid of them all together right um so it is definitely it is definitely something i would move on sooner rather than later as far as language and don’t quote me on this i’m not like i said i’m not an expert on the gas range side of things but I would say move sooner rather than later, but I have not heard anything of them like absolutely doing away with them just yet. Okay.
SPEAKER 12 :
And for everybody listening really quick, I’ve got an appliance person that I’m going to try to bring on to the program here in the next few weeks that probably could answer that because, yeah, and I’m like you, Hunter, that’s not necessarily in my wheelhouse other than what you just said. I know for a fact they’re doing their very best to try to eliminate them as well.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, and that’s exactly what I’ve heard. As far as energy ratings, Energy Star is kind of the standard on how they, you know, the best, most efficient appliances. so that that is something that i would look into most inter but most in my i was talking to my wife about it the other day too and we were talking and she’s like well when you go to lowe’s and look at refrigerators and stuff most of them are energy stock um that is a department is a organization that’s ran by the epa um so they are the ones energy star does do all the high efficiency testing on all appliances across the board So typically, if you see that Energy Star rating, you’re in good company with that. And they do Energy Star’s website.
SPEAKER 12 :
does list all of that stuff okay all right so good to know okay so on to well let’s do this let’s let’s kind of go through this backwards because you and i were talking this past week and the one thing i want to make sure people understand as well and because i think what you explained to me is there’s no uh quote unquote low knox boilers for hot water systems so if you’re somebody that has hot water heat you heat your home with hot water whether that be in floor heat or even registers itself this will not affect you is that correct hunter
SPEAKER 05 :
As far as I understand, there is no information and they have intentionally left boilers out of the mix. Yeah, I don’t see those listed.
SPEAKER 12 :
I read through everything as well. Yeah, there’s nothing in there about hot water boilers. Now, heaters is different. We’re talking boilers where you’re using that to, yes, it would heat the water for… your showers and sink and so on. But it also heats the home because, as you know, they’re very sophisticated now, Hunter. And depending upon what the demand is, that heater, that boiler does whatever is needed accordingly. But you’re right. I don’t see anything listed that talks about boilers.
SPEAKER 05 :
I think they intentionally moved it. It does look like they do make ultra low NOx boilers. And then, obviously, they make Energy Star boilers, and that’s going to be more of your condensing boilers, your high-efficiency boilers and stuff like that. So, I mean, anyway, as far as efficiency goes, those high-efficiency boilers are incredible at what they do and in saving money as far as that goes. So that might be something that, while it’s not – Like a need to do it right now, something that you might want to look into in the future, especially if your boiler is getting way up there in age.
SPEAKER 12 :
OK. By the way, text message just came in asking about the very thing we’re talking about. So we have about a 90 second delay. So somebody texted right about the same time we started talking about that. So I knew that was going to come up because, you know, as you know, we’ve got a lot of folks out there, myself included, where the house is heated by the hot water, which. Just a side note, if you’ve never had one of those, you don’t know what you’re missing. I know Hunter Building, initially, they’re a lot more expensive, but Man Alive, it’s a total difference in feeling on the inside of the house, forced air versus hot water heat.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I mean, it’s way easy. I mean, to get into the weeds a little bit, it’s so much easier to transfer BTUs from water to something. We can carry so much more heat through water than we can through air. So just naturally there, the downfall of most hot water systems is On those super swing days, you can have a little bit of a lag and heat up, but the comfortability of them is going to be much higher than a forced air. You’re not going to get as much drafty or anything like that.
SPEAKER 12 :
But the system, and you know this as well as I, they’re much more expensive initially to install. Even putting boilers in later on is more money than a furnace or sometimes a little bit more expensive. maintenance and or you need a boiler tech which let’s face it hunter they’re they’re not a plethora of either so uh they have they have their own drawbacks but man alive when they when they work and work right and you’ve got everything dialed in they are they are in my opinion they’re the best but if you want air conditioning now you have two separate systems
SPEAKER 05 :
Exactly. And it does get into a money game. And like we spoke about earlier, the heating and cooling of your home is, like I said, even on new buildings is usually the last thing that gets thought about. Typically, things like cabinets and countertops take priority in the spending on a new house built and overheating systems. I hate to be that way, but that’s kind of the fact of the matter. All right.
SPEAKER 12 :
Talk to us about just water heaters in general, not boilers. Now we’re going to talk regular water heaters. So folks that have a furnace and then they’ve got to heat the water, of course, for laundry, dishes, showers, and so on. Talk to us about that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. So, I mean, water heaters fall under the same thing. It’s essentially the same exact thing. They’re different. Some of them are mixing oxygen in, and they’re making a cleaner flame. Again, Energy Star overrides that. So most of the power-vented water heaters, if your water heater has a PVC vent coming off the top of it, you’re likely in that Energy Star rating anyway. Okay. So that is something like it’s basically going to mirror the furnaces. So same thing, laundry rooms, crawl spaces. You can’t put a water heater in an attic. But any of those applications, you’re going to have – you know more you’re going to have more issues more maintenance required on those water heaters but like i said before with the furnaces especially with water heaters it definitely is worth looking into um on water heaters go into that energy star rated water heater and a lot of those you can and will see the difference in the efficiency on those higher end water heaters
SPEAKER 12 :
One other thing I noticed, and not that this is, again, more of an appliance question, but the other thing I didn’t see that was listed in there, and I’m guessing just because, again, there’s probably not much in the way of high-efficiency gas dryers, but I didn’t see anything in there on the dryer side of things listed. And I get it. That’s kind of a unique situation. Most people don’t use gas dryers. Most of them, of course, are electric, and most cities and counties would prefer you to do that. Most homes aren’t even plumbed where you can use a gas dryer. But I’ll tell you straight up, if you really want a good, nice, efficient dryer, buy a gas dryer.
SPEAKER 05 :
And, again, they’re going to fall into line with the gas ranges. Yep. The ultimate goal from what I can understand and what POLIS is trying to do here is the ultimate goal is to get completely off of gas. That’s where they want to move. They want to get away from it. Different counties are taking more extreme procedures. Denver and Boulder County… As far as I’m aware, both just trying to move to complete electrification on new installs. So most new installed homes or all new installed homes are required not to have combustion appliances. They’re going to be all electric. This becomes a little more not feasible with older homes in the area. And that’s where this kind of lines up. gets a little tricky is a lot of on the new homes it’s easier to do the electrification and different things but on these older homes where you only have 100 amp sub panel i mean you’re the car charger they’re requiring in denver and then the heating equipment would max out your your panel by itself um right so there’s there’s gonna be some there’s gonna be some thinking that has to be done on how they’re gonna do all this um as far as offsetting things it does look like excel energy And as well as Colorado tax credits and stuff, they’re starting some new programs, trying to give more rebates and stuff back on some of the heat pump equipment and stuff moving forward. And that’s kind of where I’m seeing this, too, is with the cost increase of the low-knock stuff, they’re trying to close the gap and narrow it down with the heat pump stuff and get people to move more towards the heat pump.
SPEAKER 12 :
OK, so and somebody just asked me that, by the way, how much longer in Colorado are we going to be even able to use, you know, gas in general? In other words, when are we going to go to just no gas at all? You saw some of the announcements here of late where Xcel Energy wants to start phasing it out. Truthfully, with all the infrastructure and everything we have in Colorado, I don’t see them. I see I see them going about it in this manner. I highly doubt if you have an existing house with an existing pipe coming in with natural gas and so on. I don’t see them shutting that off, Hunter, not anytime soon. They’re making money on natural gas. There’s a plethora of it. They’re pulling it out. They’re going to make money on that regardless. The infrastructure is already there. What I do see happening is as new developments… go in or as you maybe go and apply for a permit for a complete you know remodel of of an existing structure or something burns to the ground and you have to do a rebuild i can see them coming in then and saying nope nope you’re going to go all electric or we’re not going to give any permits to do this that i that’s how i see them attacking it are they going to come in and just shut your gas off um I mean, there’s a lot of rumors around that, but I don’t see that happening. I’m sorry. I think you see lots of lawsuits and other things around that, Hunter, because it would be such a detrimental financial situation for a lot of individuals. I just don’t see that happening.
SPEAKER 05 :
I agree. Essentially, that’s how they’re doing it right now. So like I talked about, Boulder and Denver counties, they already have the regulations in. That is why these rebates are so lucrative right now, too, is they’re just trying to get those people in those older homes just to jump to the rebate. Correct. jump to the heat pump for the rebate to basically eliminate that. I have heard goals. There has been talk of goals of complete electrification in Colorado by 2050. And recently, I’ve even heard them talk about moving it up to 2040. Is that feasible? Like what you just said, John, I really don’t see a pathway to get gas completely gone away. I have heard rumors of rate changes on natural gas and propane and stuff in Colorado, as well as electricity. So that’s obviously probably coming down the pike, but I don’t know that they’re actually going to be able to eliminate all of this. And like you said, there are… There are workarounds. So even in Boulder County, in Denver County with the electrification thing, if you have an older home with an existing 80% furnace, you are allowed to replace that 80% furnace with a new 80% furnace. So they realize it’s going to get real ugly in some of these apartment buildings. We can’t run new venting, you know what I mean, without redoing the entire building. So there’s a lot of stuff that I just don’t think has been thought about yet. And honestly, until we get into it and they start trying to do some of this stuff, they’re probably not going to see it.
SPEAKER 12 :
OK. And again, lots of text messages coming in. Some people are just like, how long can you put up with this and still live in Colorado? And folks, that’s an individual question. I cannot answer that for you. And what I will say is this is, you know, elections have consequences. So for some of you listening, no matter what side of the aisle you are on politically, and this isn’t a political show, but, you know, elections have consequences. So think hard. about the people that you are electing because there are consequences to that person that you’re electing. And you may not think about it at that time, but believe me, as we’re proving right now with this law that was actually enacted in 2023, it doesn’t take effect until 2026. They gave three years to kind of get things dialed in. But these are the things that I talk about on a daily basis. on my daily program, Rush to Reason. You know, elections have consequences, and these are the consequences of some of those things that, and I get it, Hunter, not everybody out there, including those folks in my audience, would agree with these things. Although I will tell you that I’ll bet you there’s some folks out there listening that probably voted in this particular direction and are now wondering, okay, wait a minute, what did I do? Because I voted for something now that’s going to affect my pocketbook. And yes, folks, that’s typically true. How this works. All right. Hang tight. We’re going to come right back. One call coming in. I’ve got more text messages I’ll answer in a minute. Again, Hunter Bode from Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning with us right now. We’ll be right back. Fix-It Radio, KLZ 560.
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SPEAKER 12 :
All right, I’ve got Jeff from Montana on the phone. Hang tight, though, real quick. Hunter, I got a text message that came in on water heaters. Is that something that if they’re thinking about doing it, should they do it now before the first of the year, 1-1-26?
SPEAKER 05 :
Like I said, water heaters are a little bit different. I know a lot of distributors already switched over to the low-knock stuff as far as water heaters, and that’s where the kind of rumors about June, July kind of were swirling. Be worth a shot, but I don’t know as far as… As far as a lot of those go, you know, as far as water heaters go, where they’re at. I know the distributor I use specifically has basically moved over to the Energy Star, the low NOx stuff already.
SPEAKER 12 :
All right, perfect. Okay, so there’s your answer on that. If you have anything else, text us as well, 307-282-22. Jeff, you’re up. Go ahead, sir. Hey, good morning, guys.
SPEAKER 11 :
Good morning. Morning. Good morning. So this law you’re talking about, is that strictly for Colorado? Is that nationwide? Colorado. Okay. All right.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, and you know what, Jeff, thank you for mentioning that. We should have, sorry, I should have mentioned that coming into it. We kind of assume that people know that we talk about a particular bill. It’s a Colorado bill. So, yeah, that is Colorado only. So those of you that are in Colorado, You know, Kansas, Wyoming, Nebraska, in your case, Montana. We’ve got folks down in, you know, Texas and Oklahoma and back east and all around that listen to us online. So all of you that are listening outside of Colorado, that is a Colorado law only. Although, Jeff, although, like I said earlier, elections have consequences. And when some of you are in states out there whereby you think that, you know, you’re heading a particular direction and all of a sudden you get some officials elected that want to do something like this, you’re going to be in the same boat Colorado’s in.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yep, yep. And before I get to my actual question, I just want to advise people about electricity versus gas. In our case, propane. We live on a reservation up here, and the tribes don’t want pipelines. And they have some reasons for them. I’m not going to argue with them, but it just makes it more difficult. They have to transport the propane around in trucks other than pipelines. I think that’s a loss of safety, but that’s just me. Yep. But looking at electricity, I am a, as you know, John, a spreadsheet nerd, math guy. Right. And we moved into our house in 2017. And when I looked at what was going on there, if I was using three kilowatt hours a month or a day, no month, three kilowatt hours a month, my total charge would have been 197 bucks. Okay, I was on one basic rate. There was one basic meter, no meter charges.
SPEAKER 13 :
Right, right.
SPEAKER 11 :
It was really simple. Now I have two meter charges. I have a demand charge. I have three tiers. And it just, now that $204, or $205, $204.90 has gone up to $317.20. It’s gone up 61%. Meanwhile, I just took a quick look at my propane, and it has gone up over that same period a total of 4%. I mean, it fluctuates year by year with how much is available and stuff, but over eight years, it’s gone up 4%. So I think the state of Colorado is cutting off its nose despite its face.
SPEAKER 12 :
I agree.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
Go ahead, Hunter. You’re exactly right, Jeff. And the whole thing on it, too, is the energy, when they push the electrification, they’re saying like 200% more efficient. Well, that’s and that’s always kind of been my gripe on it, and I’m not completely against heat pump technology at all, but you’re looking at 200% efficient. Well, like you said, those numbers that you just jumped from electrical to propane usage even, and natural gas, where a lot of times it’s even cheaper than propane, you’re not comparing apples to apples. We’re comparing oranges to oranges when we say 200% more efficient because we’re 200% more efficient on a more expensive energy use, which… As we add more – the fact of the matter is as we add more people onto these grids with the electricity use, the only thing that is going to happen with those is the prices are going to continue to climb.
SPEAKER 11 :
Right. And so when you limit yourself to one resource, you are boxing yourself in a corner. It’s just – And we actually had a heat pump put in, a mini-slip put in this summer, and we had a boiler just exactly a year ago put in, a new boiler. We had an old munchkin, which I like to say was a well-engineered but poorly made. I mean, the materials were like top metal in it and different things. It was tripping multiple times a day, and I never knew when I woke up if we would have heat going or not. Yeah. The lock and bar boiler we’ve got now is just amazing. I just checked it this morning. It’s running at 20%, and our propane usage has gone down. So I’m not against one or not for one or the other. We have in-floor heat, so that’s why we had to have a heat pump basically for air conditioning in the summertime. But I also use it to just kind of moderate different things in the house just to kind of keep the temperature more even and In the case that I have another boiler outage, I have an alternate source of heat, or if that goes on, I still have a boiler. So not everybody can do that, but it just gives me peace of mind. Well into my eighth decade, it gives me a certain peace of mind.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, and I’m glad you brought that up because that is the way I would recommend going. And I tell this to our customers a lot. The tax credits and rebates on those heat pumps make it very lucrative to pull the trigger on a heat pump. And then when you can set it up with a dual fuel system, when you can put that thing in combination with a gas furnace system, you’re getting the best of both worlds because those heat pumps are like a super high efficiency boiler, are crazy high efficient, and you reap those benefits in the cooling season. So where those high efficiency boilers like you just stated, yours is running at 20 well that heat pump can do the same thing um it can run at 20 of its total capacity and it can run all the way up to like 110 percent of its total capacity um so the efficiency with the variable speed motors and the inverter driven compressors and different things like that makes it well worth your worthwhile to go towards the heat pump thing but you’re absolutely right i would always leave the gas um for when those changeovers because the fact of the matter is is once that temperature drops way well below freezing um the efficiency on those heat pumps does start to take a tumble
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, I’m trying to wonder. We live in Colorado, in Colorado Springs. So I’m wondering, up around Divide and higher, you know, some of those high mountain homes putting heat pumps in, good luck with that. I hope it works out for you. But somehow I don’t think it’s going to do exactly what you thought. But my question actually was about boiler maintenance. We have, like I said, the lock and var system. How much maintenance is required on that? What sort of maintenance? Is it anything I can do myself, or should I just have a qualified person come out and do it?
SPEAKER 05 :
I would always recommend having a good contractor. Keyword being good, competent contractor working on that boiler. I mean, the big thing is… Boilers can be, I mean, if not maintained properly, can end up being a bomb. So, I mean, always making sure that your water levels are right. It sounds like you check that kind of stuff if you know that your boiler’s running at 20%. So that’s the big thing. But then, yeah, I mean, and especially lock and bar with their high efficiency boilers are a little more complicated once you get into the controls and the settings and different things like that. So having a good boiler technician look at that once a year, I would highly recommend if you don’t do once a year, at least do every couple of years. let them go that go through and make sure your relief valves are working, make sure your circulator pumps aren’t overdrawing, make sure that your zone valves are working properly and that you’re getting the most efficiency out of that boiler that you could possibly can.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah. Well, I think I am because I, we had a pretty cold November, but I had the propane guy come out later than usual because the tank and that’s gone down. I don’t have the figures for a year yet, but, uh, uh, Hopefully I’ll have those pretty soon. And, yeah, it’s just – Lock and bar makes a great boiler, so I’m sure.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. No, lock and bar makes a great boiler, so I’m sure you’re doing fine.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, and I’ve also – when you were talking about the low efficiency and heat pump, I’ve got – when we first got it, I went out there, and because we had switched it on, it wasn’t really hot yet. And I was amazed that that fan was going on around maybe once per second, maybe not even that fast. It was on, but it was just barely on. It knew how much it needed to draw. So, yeah, you’re absolutely right. They’re much better than they used to be in terms of knowing how to operate. They’ve come a long way.
SPEAKER 12 :
Jeff, I’m going to let you roll. I’ve got one more call I’m going to squeeze in here before we go to the end of the show. Let’s get John in. Go ahead, John. You’re next.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey, John. When he was talking about comparing Hunter Wise, you know, comparing gas to oil to whatever, to electricity. When I was doing billing and doing high bill complaints, the biggest thing, and you can look it up on Google, is what does it take to create a million BTUs of heat, and that’s how you compare gas to electric to coal to oil to wood. That is, it’s all math.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, right.
SPEAKER 03 :
And then we go back to…
SPEAKER 05 :
Huh? I’m sorry. No, we go back to, like, even the boiler comparison with waters. When you look at things that carry BTUs, you know, water is a high BTU carrier. And I’m sorry, but BTUs are way more prevalent in flame than in an electric resistance circuit. And that’s just how it’s going to work.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, yeah. We used to do like a printout in the fall, and we’d pull up all those different numbers and give them to the customer service people. So when customers did complain and say electric is cheaper, you’d say, no, it’s really not or whatever. Or why did my bill go up? Well, you got rid of your gas furnace. We had a customer that got rid of their gas, went 100% electric, and couldn’t understand why their bill tripled. Go ahead. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 05 :
no oh yeah even with i mean with with the heat pumps if you go fully electric and go to those heat strips the code requires us to put in heat strips that are sized to heat your home um and those heat strips for instance i’ve done i’ve done a house up in the up into the evergreen area and stuff where um they went fully electric and the system works great but when the temperature drops low and those heat strips have to kick in those heat strips are 13 kw heat strip so you can imagine what that does to the bill when those kick on um that’s where i’m saying use that heat pump the heat pump is great when the temperatures are mild to even slightly cold but once it drops below that freezing temperature i would highly recommend having that gas backup yeah well i gave up i i live in the middle of nowhere so propane delivery in the winter could be an issue so we have a wood pellet stove and i’m telling you that thing
SPEAKER 03 :
Saves me a bunch of money because wood pellets are not that expensive. Right. John, you have a great rest of your day.
SPEAKER 12 :
I will. John, appreciate you very much. Hunter, we’ve got a couple of minutes left. What do you want to close out with?
SPEAKER 05 :
I would just say, I mean, just keep your eyes on it. If you do have that older furnace that you’re worried about is going to take it, not going to make it through the next year or even a couple years, now is the time to look at doing that. If you’ve got that furnace that’s at that 10-year mark or middle-of-life mark, maybe start budgeting because, unfortunately, the way things go, the prices are just increasing. They’re not going down anymore. So be prepared on that. With those furnaces that are in that middle of lightening, have the maintenance, have them serviced, extend that lifespan out and that’ll help you. Hopefully that’ll help. We can get more than that 20 to 25 years out of that furnace that you need and we can keep it running for a long time so you don’t have to deal with this. But in the instance that you do have that 25 or 30 year old furnace that’s on its last leg that you’ve been limping along, I would say now is a good time to pull the trigger on that.
SPEAKER 12 :
The other thing, too, for those of you listening, Hunter and I talked about this this past couple of weeks, and that is if some of you have had folks out and you just feel like, man, I just don’t know if that estimate I got was correct, give Hunter a call. Get a second opinion. Hunter, you’ve ran into some things of late, and we’re not going to throw names around, but you’ve run into some things of late where – certain contractors are pricing things that, frankly, aren’t just needed. It’s probably because, in their case, they need the sales or whatever the case. But reality is they’re recommending things that aren’t necessarily what’s needed. And for a lot of you listening, get that second opinion. And, Hunter, you’re happy to do that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Absolutely. We do offer free second opinion. So if you get something that looks even a little bit fishy, have us come out and take a look at it. And that is something that we do pride ourselves on. We don’t pay our technicians commissions. And we will give you the honest opinion on what we think. If I’m not there to make a sale, if I think your furnace is safe to run, I will let you know that it’s safe to run.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay. And one last question. Is it possible to run geothermal without electricity? Not that I know of, because you still need some sort of an exchange unit, you know, air handling unit, I guess you could say, Hunter, to push that air, you know, through the home. And even if you’re using, you know, the geothermal and heating water and so on, at the end of the day, you still have to, you know, pump that through and flow that water, if you would, as you know, Hunter. Those of you that have hot water systems know exactly what I’m talking about.
SPEAKER 05 :
geothermal’s um expensive on install as well but most of geothermal use units use a heat pump technology right um so you still have that outdoor condenser at 240 volts and you still have to have yeah the electric fan to move the air through the house so geothermal still does require that’s right pretty good electricity to use
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay, Hunter, I will let you go. We’ll get things finished up. Again, I wasn’t planning on having you the full hour, but I’m glad you were able to spend time with us. I knew we’d have a lot of questions. I didn’t think we’d have this many questions today, but I’m glad you had time for us. And give folks your phone number if they want to get a hold of you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, my number is 303-656-5467. Give us a call, and we’ll get you taken care of.
SPEAKER 12 :
Hunter, as always, I appreciate it, and I’ll talk to you Monday.
SPEAKER 04 :
Awesome. Sounds good.
SPEAKER 12 :
All right, man. Have a great rest of your day. And again, great. As you can tell, Hunter’s just a great guy. Honest, literally, as the day is long. I’ve known him and his dad. His dad I’ve known for… Probably 40 years or more. That’s how long I’ve known his family and have great history with them. And trust me, they are as solid as the day is long. So if you ever want a second opinion on anything or just need to have them come out and do anything with your HVAC, give them a call today. FixItRadio.com is where you can go to find everything about our sponsors and what we do here on Fix It Radio. But guys, thanks for listening. This has been Fix It Radio, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 02 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
