 Hi there, I'm Realtor Sara Maro with Self-State ACE Realty. I'm eager to speak today on Preparity Time with Derek Shepard, general manager of Everest Mechanical. Derek not only leads this great organization's Longmont location, but he's also himself a master mechanical service provider. This means that he's certified in heating, refrigeration, cooling and ventilation. Derek's been helping homeowners find more efficient ways to heat, cool and ventilate for over 25 years, and he's been certified in full-time in the industry for even longer than that. Derek also helps train his long-standing growing team to do great work and creatively solve problems at a fair price. He's a master plumber and he's a family man. He lives and birthed with his wife three sons and has a daughter on the way. Between their Longmont, Estes Park and Arvada locations, Everest technicians serve the whole front range. We consumers tend to really take the heating and cooling systems of our homes for granted. And it's not really until the temperatures outside get extreme that we even realize how badly we need an expert like Derek to help keep our space comfortable and help keep our house feeling like a home. Hi Derek, thank you so much for being here. Hi, nice to see you Sarah. Thanks for having me. You're very welcome. So let's dive right in. Why don't you tell us a little bit about Everest Mechanical, what you do there, what you love about your job? Very good, yeah. So Everest Mechanical started in 2019. In February it came from another company that I was with that had been in business for about 30 years. And we started with about a five-man shop up in Estes Park. And within about nine months we started in Longmont. I opened up that location and we also opened up another location in Arvada. So we went from five employees, we have about 45 people now. That's a quick expansion, especially during a pandemic. Yeah, we were higher on like crazy during the pandemic. So by doing good business and taking care of your customers, great customer service, business builds, and it makes work for people. We love that, especially here in Longmont. So can you tell us a little bit, let me just start with some basics. First of all, I've been so excited to have an HVAC episode. You don't know how hard it is to come by an HVAC professional, especially a manager who's willing to come in and talk to you because these guys are so, so busy. Especially right now the season's changing, the temperatures are changing, so you're so valuable and I so appreciate your time. Why don't we just start with like what are some things that you wish us homeowners just like already knew? Like what are your most frequently asked questions? What are your most frequent issues? Is it furnace? Is it AC? You know, is it ever just a filter that you got to go and change and like, ugh, what a crazy thing to do on like a long trip? Like can you give us a sense of just what do homeowners not tend to know that you wish we all knew? Yeah, definitely. No, that's a great question. So depending on the season, whether it's cold or hot out, some of the biggest issues we see in homes are, as you mentioned, filters. The other ones are thermostats. So there's a couple things that, you know, we can look into before you'd have to call a professional out. But always make sure your furnace filters are changed out about one month, maximum three months. And the thermostats, sometimes they need batteries or sometimes they're not in heating or cooling mode. So those are a couple tips before you have to call a professional out. Okay, like those easy gets. Yeah, yeah. They're actually, it's actually a real common service call. So a lot of times we'll come out to a property and find out, you know, it's just a filter that needs to be changed or a thermostat isn't actually telling it to turn on or off. Got it, got it. So this is another kind of stupid question, but I've got to ask. So can you just talk first about, you know, heat? So there's radiator heat. There's natural gas. There's furnace boilers. Can you talk a little bit about like the few types of systems that you see in long months? Yeah, of course. Which ones better, more efficient? Like, and whether or not people ever change their method? Definitely. So, yeah, as you mentioned, there's a lot of different ways to eat your home. It's through the heat delivery system that we're going to see benefits of efficiency and comfort. We're about 5,000 feet in long month. The air molecules are kind of thin. So if we look at more of a forced air system, it's going to be a little bit less comfortable here as in it would be in sea level. Sorry, so okay, to clarify, when you say 5,000 feet, you're talking about elevation. Elevation, yeah. Which does impact the heat. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so a forced air heating system basically heats and cools air molecules to bring the temperature of your home to a comfortable rate. So if we're heating air molecules, we have less air molecules to heat. You're going to spend more energy trying to heat the air, and it's also going to be less comfortable because we don't have that insulation value to kind of hold that heat. So if we look into the most efficient heating systems there are or hot water heating systems, in-floor heating, baseboard heat. So what it does is it actually heats the objects in the room instead of the air. So your floors would be warm, your walls, granite countertops. If you have granite in your home, it's amazing if you have hot water heat because it actually heats the granite up. So if you on a cold winter day, if you're sitting there having coffee and you put your arms up on the table, it'll start absorbing the heat from your body and make you cold. The radiant heating system, that doesn't happen. Interesting. When we're building up a thermal mass inside of the house, the heat that's inside of the house that makes everything comfortable in there, a forced air heating system has a lot more trouble doing that. The benefits, though, to forced air heating is it heats quick. So if you want to shut your thermostat off during the day and let your house cool down to 60 degrees or something and then warm it up to 70 at night, you can turn on a forced air heating system and it can do that in, you know, 30 minutes or so. So that's one of the benefits of forced air is we can drop that temperature off like on a thermostat with a schedule. And while you're not there, leave it at a lower level so you don't have to spend that energy heating the home and have it warmed up by the time you get home. Where a hot water heating system, it takes either hours or days to heat a home up to that comfortable level. Gotcha. So let's take the example. Like I've seen a lot. That's very valuable information. It's interesting now. I'm kind of thinking about the air versus the items in my house being warm. But really common thing I see around Longmont are, you know, the baseboard. You're saying radiator heat. Yeah. That's baseboard heat. Yeah. Those things from the 70s that are... Yep. Now, if someone doesn't want that, first of all, is that electric, that's always electric? Great question. Almost always. There's two types of those. So there's an electric style. There's also hot water. So we would basically run hot water through that system and it would heat that way. Those heat by basically radiant and convection. So you're actually pulling cold air from the floor through the radiator and it's heating the cold air. Because, you know, if you ever wore shorts in your house and your legs get cold. Sure. So it takes that uncomfortable feeling away. Gotcha. And it also radiates to objects in the room. Interesting. So that's just one ventilation method. There can be two different heating methods that can be used through that. There is. There is. Okay. So we can either use electric or hot water. Okay. And hot water can be heated through electricity, heat transfer, or gas. Now, is that true? Sure. I'm thinking mostly about the older homes in Longmont, including my own. If there are vents in other places in the house, is it safe to assume that you can use those same two methods through a different kind of venting, like those vents that are in the ceiling or the vents that are also on the wall, maybe not the long radiator types, but just those grates? Are those very similar? That's what you would see more with forced air heating system. Something with the blower that's heating air molecules. It uses those vents to get the warm or cool air out. So you're not using hot water or electric in that case. That's more of a force here. We actually can. So we can heat air molecules with hot water as well. Okay. It looks just like a furnace, except we'll just run hot water through some coils and then that heats the air coming out. I think I follow. Now, tell me the difference between gas and electric. You said conducting of energy versus gas. Can you talk to me about could those two things also be used in a combination of methods of venting? Yeah, definitely. So the older style, if we look into the older style of baseboards that are electric, usually I think in the 70s, we were going into this lower carbon footprint kind of thing and pushing more towards electricity and getting away from gas. Got it. So from here, long mud even up into the mountains, we were seeing a lot of electric heating systems with that electric baseboard or electric radiant in the ceilings, which is just heat resistance wire that heats up. And it started getting really expensive for people to heat their homes with that because you have to generate the electricity and then you use the electricity to make the heat so you're generating heat from those. Really expensive way to heat a home, you'll have really high electrical bills with something like that. So we've started pushing more into hot water heat because now the new equipment, the new boilers, they can run up to 98% plus efficiency. So what that means is that if you use one unit of gas, you're going to use 98% of that to generate heat into that water and that goes into your home. You're only losing 2% of the money that you spent on that gas that goes up the flu, which is pretty amazing. So that is using a combination of electricity and gas, but it's way more efficient. It uses a very small amount of electricity basically to pump the water through the system. I see. So the gas is heating and then it's done. It's not heating. There isn't a lot of electricity pumping into the air. Yeah. Yeah, so that's basically generating heat into water. So then there's a third way that basically everybody's starting to look towards and it's called heat transfer. So that's kind of the newest in heating systems now is heat transfers. So heat transfer, more commonly known as a heat pump, many splits and stuff like that. So what we're basically doing is we're absorbing heat from either inside or outside and then we're taking that heat and moving it where we don't want it or do want it and squeezing the heat out. So for example, on a hot day we have excess heat inside of a home. So the system is going to absorb the heat inside of your house and it takes it outside and it squeezes it out outside, therefore cooling the house. If we look in a heating situation, even down to negative 20, negative 30 degrees, there's still heat inside of the air. So what we'll do is we'll absorb that heat from outside, take it to the unit inside and squeeze the heat out inside of the home. So we're not actually generating heat. We're moving it. We're transferring it from one place to the other. That's awesome. So the term for that, our technical term for that is refrigeration. Interesting. So you're saying back in the day, let's call it 60s, 70s, 80s, when a lot of our homes were built, gas and electricity were used to produce heat. So not only did it have to get generated, but then it had to get blown into the house somehow or blown into some piece of the house. But now we live in the desert. So we have heat and we have cool air and you're just talking about using what we've got rather than generating using gas or electricity. Obviously there's a little bit of gas and or electricity being used. But you're saying we're just trying to preserve what we've got and redistribute it. Yeah. Yeah. Instead of like you said, having to generate that. In the first place. We're making heat. We're just moving heat with the heat transfer system, which heat pump, geothermal, mini-split, those are kind of the terms that we use for the equipment that does that. Yeah. Can you talk more about those products? So is a mini-split one of those plastic things that's up on the top of a wall? Yeah. It looks like it could be an AC unit, but it's not. I'm clueless. I'm sorry. Yeah. What is that product doing? Yeah. And how are you able to hold heat? What do we mean hold heat? If it's winter, there is no heat. Yeah. Right? So refrigeration concept goes as there is heat until it is at absolute zero, which is negative 400 some degrees Fahrenheit. No. So at negative 20 degrees, it's pretty cold. There's still heat in the air. So what the mini-split does is you have that little unit inside the little plastic unit that kind of sits up on the wall. And that has two lines that go to an outdoor unit. What do you mean lines? The refrigeration lines, usually copper, and they're insulated lines. And what we transfer the heat with is inside of those copper lines, which is what we call refrigerant. So the refrigerant basically absorbs heat and then we take it and we squeeze the heat out and then it comes back and absorbs heat again. That is incredible. So it's a circular system. So just with some copper wires and this plastic thing that I can put up on my wall. Yeah. You can generate heat from the outdoors. Absorb. Yes. Absorb heat that exists already from Mother Nature. Yeah. Even though it feels to me really freezing. Yep. And then that magical plastic thing is taking that heat that Mother Nature is giving it and moving it into my room. Yeah. I'm sorry, that seems a little bit like magic to me. It is. There's always a little bit of magic in everything we do. And you're saying that same thing can happen in the summer. It's finding cool air in the heat of summer outside. It's doing some magical thing and then it's dumping cooler air into my room through a refrigeration process. As we call it, we never call it as moving cold air. We call it as absorbing heat. Sorry. No, no, not at all. I like it. Don't be sorry. I like the correction. Cool air doesn't really exist. It's basically air that is cooler than the other part of the air. So if you absorb the heat out of that air, it becomes cooler. It becomes cooler. Yeah. So you're saying, sorry, I just want to get this. You said mini-split. You said a couple of other cool new products, which are? Yeah. So there's mini-split, heat pump, and then geothermal heat pump. These are things that basically pull heat and cool, not pull. Absorb heat and cool from the outdoors. And then it can transfer. Yeah. Okay. Well, sticking with the product thing for a second. Let's say I want, let's say I just have a shed, right? There's nothing going on in there. There's no furnace. You know, this isn't just a room of my home or my home that already has an existing system. This is like a box outside. Do you need, could just getting a mini-split and poking a hole in the wall produce some sort of ventilation heat and or cooling? Or do you have to set up something much more intricate? Like do these mini-splits and pumps feed into a bigger system? Or are they kind of like a standalone self-sustaining thing? That's a good question. They pretty much take care of themselves. So if you have the indoor unit, the outdoor unit, and you basically have the insulation barrier, which is your wall, you can make this, make the inside of that unit either cooler or warmer by using one of those systems. Sorry. Say one more time. Indoor and outdoor unit. Yeah. These are just sort of stick on, they're almost like a, I mean, they're not exactly the same, but like a window air conditioner. It's just like that. These are things that are an insert. Yeah. The inside one goes outside. Yeah. And they talk to each other and do that copper conduit magic. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Good point. Sorry. I'm clearly not an expert UR, but I'm very intrigued. Can you say again, what would a pump do? Same thing as a mini-split? Yeah. So it works. It's the same concept as a mini-split. It's going to absorb heat and then it's going to squeeze heat out somewhere else. So it's basic heat transfer. It works just like a mini-split and it looks just like an outdoor air conditioner. So, heat pump, it's basically the same thing most people have in their homes around here. You see the big square outside unit with the fan on it. What that does is it's either going to squeeze the heat out in the summertime and release it outside of the home or it's going to absorb the heat and push that heat inside of the house. I see. So it is a lot like what we know as an AC unit. Those big old AC runs outside. Works the same, works the same. The only difference is it reverses the flow of refrigeration. That's the only difference between a heat pump and a standard air conditioner. Understood. So that's fascinating. Going back to this shed idea before I depart from that. Does ventilation just happen? Or do I also need to poke a hole in the wall and get a fan somehow getting fresh air in? Or does this heat transfer take care of that? You addressed the temperature issue. But what about like stale air? Isn't that part of this? That's a great question. So ventilation can either happen naturally or you can force ventilation. So if we have a cylindrical tube and we run it from one area to another, air will always flow through that tube. It has a natural air draw to it. You mean like a vacuum that happens? It's something, cylindrical tubes, air flows through them. So whenever there's a cylindrical tube, it just naturally, there's air naturally foiling through it and moving through it. So that'd be like a natural draft or something. As long as it's round. Correct. Okay. When you do something square, the air molecules will hit the outsides of that and it flows less. It can still flow through it, but not as well as a cylindrical object. If we force air through something, through a fan or a blower, that's another way to move ventilation. Not to be confused with transfer. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So if we had this shed scenario that you're talking about, we have a nice sealed up shed with insulation and everything. That will eventually run out of air inside of there. So we have another system that we call ERV, which is an energy recovery ventilation system. What that does is it takes air from the outside and it exchanges it with the air on the inside and it has a heat transfer inside of it. So it absorbs either heat or cool and warms the air coming in. So let's take, for example, it's zero degrees out and let's say the shed is 70 degrees. If we bring air directly in from the outside, it's not going to be very energy efficient because it's going to start cooling the shed. Right. So if we absorb the heat going out from the shed and transfer it into the air coming into the shed, it warms it naturally without a heat source. Whereas a mini-split would not do that. You need the ERV to do what you're describing. Correct. Yeah, because the mini-split, they are considered a ductless system. Right. So it's basically just a blower inside of that head that recirculates the air inside of that area. So it's going to pull the air into it and then push it out conditioned for the temperature that you want. So if you've got a box outside, you really need an ERV. Mini-splits are more for like, there's some other form of ventilation to keep the air inside fresh so you don't run out of air. Correct, correct. And that is starting to become a code in most municipalities is to have an ERV now because our homes that we're building are so energy efficient and so tightly sealed that we will have an oxygen deficiency inside of the home. How interesting is that? If you don't open or close doors enough. Whereas if a shed has leaks in it. If it's a leaky shed, it'll breathe. This could have the mini-split in theory versus needing the ERV because at least you're getting leaking in air. Yeah. But these new homes, they pride themselves in being a lot like Tupperware. We're not letting anything out. Nothing's coming in, including bugs and chemicals and dust. But you're saying that could potentially lead to if you're not careful and if the right ventilation systems aren't functioning properly you could run low on oxygen levels. Definitely. That's so fun. There's another thing that we run into nowadays with newer homes. When we put newer materials in homes, flooring, your paint, your drywall, any kind of sealants, any of the chemicals that we use to finish that home, you're staining on the windows. There's something that happens with that. There's still the chemical inside of it and it outgases. It's got to go somewhere. It does. And it sits in that product. That's that new home smell. New car smell. New carpet. That's outgassing from the plastics and the chemicals inside of the car. Interesting. I think they smell great. But they're not good for you. Yeah, over time you're going to need some fresh air. Yeah. So what the ERV systems do as well is they keep that from building up to a toxic level inside of your home, which a lot of them have unknown effects, so they can cause cancers, respiratory issues and other stuff. So you really want the air in your home, because our homes are a shelter. You want the air in your home to be the cleanest, freshest air that you breathe. And you want it moving. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah, stagnant air is not good for you either. Yeah. And that's kind of what these ERV systems do. Yeah. Yeah, nothing worse than coming home to chemicals, like to your point. Definitely. That's your... They say smell good. Right. Okay, I want to hit on one more thing. This is so valuable. I'm sure I could talk to you all day, but I want to ask... I want to ask about rehabs. So we've touched on it. The homes in Longmont and even this whole front-range area, they tend to be fairly old. You know, a lot of development happened in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s. They're great homes. They've got good bones. But a lot of people are renovating. And they're not just putting in kitchens and master suites, but they're... You know, we want to update some of these clunky old furnaces and big ducting systems and even some AC units. I know they just seem big and they seem expensive. And they seem like, how am I going to get this out of my house if I want to re-overhaul the whole system? So I kind of wanted to ask you, like, first of all, do people completely overhaul the whole system? And is that insanely expensive? And do you have to do a demo of all the construction? You know. And second of all, like, what are the newer... We talked about this cool, new, cutting-edge efficiency model. But like, how often are you seeing projects like this? And how hard is it to permit? And are you better off scraping the house? Like, it just seems like one of the more daunting, scary renovations. Can you talk about that? Yeah, definitely. That is a very broad question. Yeah, sorry. I like it. So, we have some of the neatest homes around here in Longmont, some of the older homes. Yeah. And I've seen so many just beautiful older homes that we've done some really cool stuff to. Usually our older systems, the HVAC systems are gigantic. We've pulled out these boilers that are as big as a room. Yeah. And to replace that with some other equipment, put this little tiny box in there. It takes care of the whole house. It's amazing. So, it's a lot more, way more efficient. It heats and cools the house so much better. And really the return on investment on a system like that, it does pay for itself. Because if we look at some of the older systems between furnaces and boilers, they're running some of them more down to 30 or 40 percent efficient. Once we got up to the 70, 80s, we were pushing about 70 to 80 percent efficiency. And we've kind of stuck to that. In the 90s, we started coming out with a little bit better equipment. And by the early 2000s, we've hit some really great efficiency markers with mechanical equipment. So, they started getting smaller and they started working better. Yeah. So, I've had throughout my career, when I used to do installs and stuff, I have a lot of customers very concerned because I'm pulling out this gigantic system and putting this little tiny box in there and they're like, that's not going to eat my home. Trust me it will. Yeah. I was more talking about the ducting, the big silver vents in the life. It's almost like this tunnel and it's got elbows and it seems to go through my whole basement. Like, do I have to rip that out? Do I want to rip that out? Can that... I know what you're talking about. To get my giant furnace out and get a little box would be a dream. But what's the impact of the rest of the stuff? Definitely. So, it all depends on what you're trying to do with that home. If you're trying to increase your ceiling heights and I mean, I'm doing a home over in a long month right now, it's got a private lake, beautiful piece of property and they wanted to put a whole HVAC system in there and they couldn't figure out what to do with it. So, they brought me in, I came and looked at the design and by the time we got done putting this big duct work in because they wanted cooling in the home and we would have had to have some pretty big duct work to do that, their ceiling height would have been almost out of code. So, I came in and I worked out a mini-split design, two outside units and I think we did about 10 or 12 different indoor units. So, basically each room would have its own unit and they were able to save all their ceiling height and reduce the cost of building substantially. So, the system pretty much paid for itself. The benefit to that is every room in that home, if you want this room at 60 degrees, it'll be 60 degrees. If you want this room at 80 degrees, it'll be 80 degrees. So, each room has its own comfort level. Another thing that does is if you have some unused rooms in your home like some guest bedrooms where nobody's actually in, you can turn it into an economy mode just to make sure it doesn't get too cold in the winter and freeze something up, but you're not using any energy to heat or condition that space at that moment. So, you're basically able to keep the temperature of the room that you want to at that comfort level. It's really nice. So, we see multiple benefits and sides to energy efficiency and money savings along the road with systems like that. The systems are expensive. There's nothing cheap about anything anymore, but sticking with older equipment and older mechanical devices during the remodel of a home, you're basically going with older technology, they will heat and cool the house, but to get those comfort levels and utility savings and saving money in a system that will eventually pay for itself, I always recommend upgrading the equipment and getting stuff more modernized that is designed to make you more comfortable in saving money in your home. So, it is possible to rip everything out. The ducting, the old, big old furnace, that all can go away. I'm sure you've done it many times. Definitely. Yeah, so we've usually pulled out pretty large, older equipment's really large. When we put in newer equipment, it's a lot smaller. So, it's always questioned as we're putting it in because I'm taking this gigantic furnace or boiler and we're putting just a little box in its place and they've really designed the equipment so much better that it doesn't have to be big and it can be efficient and make your house even more comfortable in that the big old giant scans. Right, so you get to be more comfortable in your space, you get to save money on your utilities and it is possible. It's not so invasive to rip out old ducting and then once you do it, you never have to kind of disrupt like that again. Yeah, and the biggest, bigger thing getting away from older duct work is all the pollen's, dirt's and dust that we have in our air, that all hangs out inside of your duct work. They do have duct cleaning services, but there's a reason why they have duct cleaning services is because ducts get dirty. They absorb dust and air, they move it around your home and if you ever noticed, you know, when you're home you just get done dust in your house and then all of a sudden your furnace kicks on, there's a layer of dust everywhere. So, going to newer systems like mini splits, hot water heat boilers, they don't throw dust around your house like the old systems do, you know, those big ducting systems, they collect dust and they evenly distribute around your house. Many benefits to upgrading. So let's talk quickly about, you know, when to overhaul, if that happens. It sounds like age and just, you know, something breaking or something being ready to go, but also it sounds like just more, you know, separation of rooms, separation of duplexes. I know a lot of people have ADUs in their homes now. Have you seen a lot of, I want two separate meters. I want two separate thermostats. I want two separate everything. Is that something that's possible? Is that something that's expensive? Does it involve ripping out everything that's there and giving many splits to both units? If it's a duplex scenario, like, talk about complete overhaul. Definitely. So I've seen this scenario for quite a few years. It started as a trend up in Estes Park years ago. We were taking old motels and turning them into individual units for either overnight rentals or permanent residents for people. And basically what we do is that whole entire motel would have a single system. It would have a gas meter, water meter, an electric meter, and it would have a common system that took care of the whole building. So what we do at that point is break up the system, put an individual water meter for each one of those units, and we would get an electric unit or an electric meter for each one of those units, and we could put a system in like a mini-split. I see. And that would take care of the heating and air conditioning inside of that unit. And then at that point, it would be individualized from the other units. So per our previous conversation, you really just need electricity and water to be able to heater cool that whole place. You don't need a giant furnace in a tiny little efficiency apartment to make it work. Correct. So that's another issue that we would run into with a smaller individual unit like that, is where you put the furnace. Never mind the AC unit, the boiler, the water heater and all that stuff. So you need a pretty decent sized room to put that equipment in. So that would take up from the footprint of, say, a studio apartment. So when we put in a mini-split, it keeps everything nice and clean, and you don't have to worry about taking up any more floor area of your home to put a big mechanical room up. But that would involve, you know, someone that wants to make a single-family home into a duplex. You do have to really lose what's there and then separately meter the two, three, four units, whatever you've got. That's the best way to do it. Yeah, if you broke it up, like turning it into a single-family into a multi-family duplex, definitely each one of those would have to have its own water, gas and electric meter. So that's the one thing that helps out when you're doing a mechanical remodel like that. If you do go to a mini-split or something, you don't have to worry about running the gas lines in the home because you can do electric hot water with electric heating and cooling. And we're, at that point, we're transferring heat instead of generating it like the older electrical systems that cost people a lot of money. I love the way you so succinctly explained to me this concept of transfer. I mean, it still occurs for me as magic, but I just really appreciate that because I did not have the distinction of generating versus transferring, and it sounds like it's the wave of the future. I mean, thank God this technology is among us because we don't have room in this world for big heavy mechanicals anymore. I just so appreciate your time. I so appreciate your expertise, and thank you for teaching us way more than we've ever known about HVAC. I think you're wonderful. Tell us again how, a little bit about Everest, how do we touch with you? How do we hire someone from Everest to come and help us out with this stuff? Definitely. So, eversmechanical.com, we'll take you to our website, and real easy to navigate. It has all of our contact information and everything on there. That'll get you to us, and from that point, we'll take care of you. And I understand you guys are plumbers, you're HVAC guys, you're cooling guys, you have refrigerating professionals, and therefore, my wait time is a little bit shorter? Is that true, or has your scheduling worked? So, through the finesse of scheduling, what we've done is we have a large work pool of guys that are multi-trained. So, they really know what they're doing, they're really well trained, and one day, most of the time, you know a guy's gonna stick on construction or service. When we get light in either areas, we have enough of a working pool to transfer technicians out to make sure our customers are taken care of in their home. So, we have a large work pool to work with, and our scheduling usually happens that day, if not the next day. Awesome. A big small business. Yeah. Eversmechanicals, love you guys. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me, I appreciate it. You're welcome. That's the property.