 Think Tecawaii, cold green. My guest this afternoon is the illustrious Tommy Silva, not just CEO but CEO and the president of TNT tinting. What in the world is TNT tinting? That is in this case window film. When you have especially old fashioned windows that are just single pane glass, when the sun strikes that 87% of the heat that strikes that glass comes into the interior. Not good, that's the type of thing we will be discussing. Tommy's staff puts window film on the interior of those windows and reflects in varying degrees the heat right back out and as we will see you still have great visibility to the outdoors. So welcome Tommy, you and I go back longer than we would care. So why don't we start off with your introductory slide here and show you and your big family here. Yeah that's that's our staff. We started back in 1982 and I mean back at that time I had no idea it would become what it has become. We have 32 employees full-time and it's amazing we branched out you know starting off an automotive tinting back in the early 80s and started doing some residential and then the automatic transition was into commercial where there's bigger glass and energy savings capabilities when the energy rate started climbing in the 90s and 2000 so yeah so we need all those people to do cars we're the largest automotive window tint application company in the country now since 2013 and we're the top five commercial residential installers in the country right now. And let me guess you know there's been all of this talk about minimum wage people no benefits I would guess that those people are number one skilled number two they're very nicely paid and this is just a guess they have health benefits and retirement benefits. Everything 401k we just started a nice safe harbor matching program to then place them to even save even more and we'll match that yeah so it's become a real company. So this is this is the type of company we need as a nation yes to really strong yeah yeah because this is that you're creating the middle class by doing yeah we have a lot of tenured employees Sean Steinhoff was our VP of operations just made 31 years with the company our senior tech on the flat glass division that does the hotels and insulation for residential he just turned 30 years this month my administrative director Robin's been with us doing accounts receivable payable HR stuff for 27 years we've got them all the way down 25 2018 I mean we've got really long long-term employees which really help us keep our consistency and quality and I happen to know that applying that film requires some skill and patience it can be very frustrating you know especially at the level that we're at now you know doing cars homes buildings the graphics and stuff that we do our customers expect the very best because of who we are and how long we've been around is our 35th anniversary this year so we've been around 35 years and we've cultivated a customer base that expects that high level quality and you know if there's just a little spec under the film you know we'll tear it off and do it over and and they're like what do you like well it's a little spec in there and it's not good enough you know and so it's it's to that point where the perfection you know we're just keep raising the bar along with that as the materials the materials as you know have been just getting better and better and better every three to five years we get this new technology that gets introduced and we're lucky enough to be in the place in our manufacturers minds that you know they want to they want to deal with us because we're experienced and we have a good reputation and we have good customer base and whatever new products come out we get the first whack at it and we also try to get it exclusive and then you probably if I know you you measure the results oh yeah we track everything and we definitely track everything it's it's a really good marketing tool to understand what works and what doesn't work and spend more money online now before you know was yellow pages back 20 years ago so now we don't do yellow pages and now we're all over there you know web searches and Google ad words and all that hmm let's see how you begin sure a flashback memory lane that is me that is me back in 1980 for a company called at home auto glass tinny and you know I look at this and I just laugh because well for one I weighed about a hundred pounds and for two you know I have so just strict strict standards about our if you can see the last picture of our staff is uniform then we wear shoes and we have you know name tags and there's very organized shop and clean floors and back then yeah you can see that that shows that's our shop floor we're standing on there you know it's epoxy coated shop floors yeah you wouldn't eat plates you just put the food on the floor exactly you know is that clean we pressure wash it every Saturday we mop it every day it's completely air-conditioned sealed off to be dust-free like a spray booth when you paint your car so that's that's where we are now and you go back to that 1980s picture we're in slippers there's window film all over the ground I mean that was that's such a big no no in our shop now just because it does you know it looks terrible plus it's a safety hazard yeah you know water on the floor with slippery mylar you know and it's a work comp claim waiting to happen so um yeah it just it's a really I can really see how far we've come when I look at these old pictures of us you know hand cutting everything for another thing and we we don't hand cut anymore everything's computer cut you know so there's a lot of film yeah it saves in film and damage on cars I mean those blades that we use in our hands there once the tip breaks and you don't know it broke you're cutting glass you know and to buy a back window and that old Mazda 626 back then when it was new it was still you know over a thousand dollars to get a replay so it just got better and better the technology of plotters that we can cut automotive as well as thicker security films when we do homes and buildings we can use a plotter to cut security films out so that we don't have to cut with our hands yeah so it just makes things better cleaner you know the the the variances are much smaller the machine doesn't call in sick it doesn't ask for raises yeah yeah so machines are amazing those plotters that we've advanced into okay well let's start with some some of your applications here and because I'm familiar with a lot of these jobs here if we could have the next slide up so that's right right around the corner it's Harbor Square Harbor Square has a lot of history yeah there's two towers and we did both of them and it took about 20 almost 22 years to get that done and every time I drove by that building we would see clear windows purple you know reflective silver reflective bronze we saw black windows there was every type of window film on the market on this building and it really degraded the value of the building when you look at it it looked like an old apartment building so we went in and we did a lot of board presentations and finally got to the point where the board agreed that for one they need the energy savings because they they didn't have individual metering in these units so it was a one bill for each tower and then they would just split up on square footage for each other yeah which is very unjust it's unjust yeah and so this helped everybody's bill be reduced I don't have the numbers with me but I know it was about I think the ROI on this building was about under two years I think it was 1.8 year ROI and just an energy savings alone and then the benefit of the aesthetic improvement I mean it looks like they replaced all the glass with expensive architectural glass and all of their property values went up you know making the building look younger and more attractive that's just a bonus let me back up a little bit and point out to our audience that Harbor Square is an iconic downtown residential unit with beautiful views of Honolulu Harbor and way back in the old oh but it's so old that the glass is just plain old it's a meal plate glass yeah right so and it would absorb or transfer a very high percentage of the Sun's oh 87% and with that film that was the Vista 28 4 mil we put the formal version on there to upgrade the glass from a kneeled plate glass you know pre-cold illegal now to meet the safety glazing cold by going with the formal thickness and then as far as the performance when it's blocking 65% of the heat that the total solar energy rejected is 65% so it's a really high amount with the absorbed and we radiated your at about 74 or so percent energy being rejected back out so it's a really high performance film lifetime warranty material and labor from the manufacturer so we haven't seen these films fail they've been we just did the Miley Skycourt it was a outrigger property for a long time we tinted it back about 21 years ago Aqua just bought that out and renovated it and our film was still on there it was kind of beat up from being 21 years old it was still performing and working but we went in and finally removed it and replace it with the same Vista win the film again and so that's about how long it'll last I mean 20 25 years now with this technology well let me back up just a minute show the Harbor Court so people were getting very very hot in this very nice building so they put up this is back in the battle days all kinds of different window films and some work some didn't work they probably peeled you mentioned purple if you some of our viewers will be around have been around long enough to remember that there were cars with these purple windows what happened it started out as a nice clear window film and it turned purple so that's what was happening with Harbor Square right so now it has a nice uniform look about it very nice and kind of a good metal gray color it's not too reflective either it's a nice nice look this gives you daytime privacy so that you can you know open your drapes and enjoy your view and not have your neighboring buildings looking right into you while you're walking around cooking dinner or whatever so it really does provide a nice look without making it look like a commercial building so let's let's move on to our next slide oh and just for our viewers the window film again rejects the Sun's heat makes the interior nice and cool you can either not air-conditioned or turn your air conditioning way way down yes as a result of this and you still have a clear view of the outdoors and coincidentally this is the Hilton Wine Village Rainbow Tower this was the first project we did with the Four Mill Vista 28 because we got wind of this project because they were about to throw away all this glass they had a bit at the time this is 15 18 years ago that they were renovating the tower and they they had to go in and replace the tracks for the sliding glass doors and the wheels because they're sitting right on the salt water so the salt content just corroded the tracks and froze the wheels up with rust so people couldn't open and close the doors very easily this is not an inexpensive no that's a really high end resort yeah so they they were looking at what the first thing they were going to do was replace the tracks and change the wheels but what happened was when they were permitting for all of their renovations they found out that if they touch the track or the wheels they have to bring the glass up to code and in this case it's not the energy code it's the safety glazing code so at that time the windows on that building were and still are a needle play glass sliding doors so if they crack they break in big shards instead of little pellets like tempered glass has to be now so we heard about them don't try the process was they're gonna get rid of all that glass and put in clear tempered glass for six million dollars not get any energy savings not get any UV protection not get any glare reduction not get any more shadow resistance the other than the tempered glass which still breaks really easily I get no rebate and no energy so they would get nothing but new glass to meet the code and spend six million dollars so we came in heard about that we presented them the Vista 28 4 mil we showed them that we did an energy analysis for them which calculates the kilowatt demand reduction based on the savings we showed them all of the fade protection benefits as well as the shadow resistance see it met the safety glazing code so they save that five or six million dollars in glass replacement and the time and labor it would have taken and then filling up the landfill with all the disc broken glass is another issue and we went in and that job back then in about 17 years ago the ROI was under two years as well and they're still saving over 200,000 dollars a year in energy just for the benefit of that film being there now for our audience's benefit ROI is return on investment right if that project costs say one million he the first year savings would have been about 600,000 so the next year you're up to 1.6 million dollar savings so in less than two years you have paid for the installment yeah and it's not a million dollars but I wish it was no yeah okay yeah we need to this is so fascinating we need to speed up our slides but before that we need to take a break think take away code green Howard wig with Tommy Silva president of TNT tinting back in a moment going to the game and it's gonna be great early arriving for a little tailgate I usually drink but won't be drinking today because I'm the designated driver and that's okay it's nice to be the guy that keeps his friends in line keeps him from drinking too much so we can have a great time a little responsibility can go a long way because it's all about having fun on game day code green Tommy sova TNT tinting we were we're gonna have to look at a lot more projects I mean you and I get lost in the the fascinating details so much but before we even do that let me point out when you're referring to four mills you're referring to miller miller miller millimetres millimetres and four mills is pretty darn sick coding so that in addition to saving energy it has a lot of safety implications to it as Tommy was saying it the shatter shattering glass is no longer capable of shattering it's been held it would be it might crack but it'll stay together yeah yeah so you held together one piece and it won't fall out of the building and it'll stay intact and that way the glazer can come and take the whole piece of broken glass on the replaces that are having a gaping hole on the building for days and you everybody out there has been reading about the fact that it looks like we're gonna have another El Nino incident and we remember that terrible weather we had what was it just two years ago three years ago 15 2016 and it seemed like every other week another hurricane would come up from Mexico and we dodged every one of them but El Nino is associated with hurricanes hurricanes when they hit the glass of high rises yeah good to have some safety glass and if it's older glass it can be made into safety glass with the window film but let's start with all these slides you've got so many wonderful projects out here yeah this is when we just completed in 2015 the Hyatt Regency Waikiki really nice project two towers over a hundred thousand square feet of glass that also took about 25 years to get done because of just change of management and ownership and the corporation that bought it a couple times back they went bankrupt and it went through another owner chief engineers came and went and so we finally got it when they were just recently bought up in 2014-15 and then we were part of the big renovation that they just did every room was gutted bathrooms everything and that whole double tower and that's the time to do it when there's workmen all over the place and the places a mess that that's fine and we came right through as the last contractor following the carpet and flooring people and we were the last ones down and out yeah that's a nice project and that's a quick ROI to there all in the two years and let's look at another slide that's the before shot there yeah I can see the the difference and have you been able to measure a savings yet yeah they've been saving oh god it's been the the energy analysis we did for them showed a hundred and seventy thousand a year saving and we were over that it was over that always good to estimate concern yeah we're always about 10 15% below so 100 say 180 thousand dollars a year reduced utility bill just good news for the owners and equipment to owners and the equipment the equipment lasts longer and maintenance is lower because the machine the mechanical the mechanical you know equipment just doesn't run out yeah yeah okay let's go on to yet another slide here that's the after two if you can flip to the one that's clear go back one slide that's the before that's the modern Honolulu hotel and this gives you a good idea of what it looked like before and this is called a modern Honolulu hotel and when you look at it doesn't look too modern it kind of looks like an apartment building it looks you know like a run-of-the-mill apartment building yeah because for one thing all not all that most of the shades are down yeah you can drapery open clothes so it really doesn't look appealing to somebody's paying five to six hundred bucks a night for those rooms for when they pull up on the outside but when you look at the next slide that one will show you a really different looking building it I mean it earned its name modern when we got it completed it they were so impressed with the look of the building that it just the savings was a bonus they really really like the aesthetic absolutely I mean if you're paying top dollar for this room you want it to look good yeah I mean they didn't paint the building on the outside or anything but it looks like a totally brand-new looking building it looks and my guess is that the occupants paying a lot of dollars are now much better able to enjoy the view yeah because they don't have to pull the drapes against the interior shots coming up that shows the glare reduction and that's where the where the viewers will be sitting in their hotel rooms looking out the interior shots are pretty clear and then you see 70 to 80 percent glare reduction which is that white light that most people have to squint for yeah yeah and you know we haven't even mentioned UV ultraviolet rays yes if I remember correctly your products filter out 99.9 and UV is number one the radiant energy that damages our skin gives us skin cancer number two it fades carpets and everything now you're not going to get a whole lot of UV coming into this space when I was a story this is actually Kim Taylor Reese's home the photographer local celebrity photographer he's a long time man it's been shooting photos for a very long time this is his house on in Punulu area and they had so much fading on his artwork and he doesn't have any carpets but would the wood in there was fading as well and if you can go to that next slide I think there's a couple with the interior glare with the door open you can see the film on the windows and then there's an open spot where you can see the difference between the film well that's that's a sample of pressure sensitive adhesives that go bad on some films the films that we install use CDF adhesives and they never bubble like this it's been around since 1975 the adhesive systems that we use and it has never done this and I think you're your warranty is 20 something years well it's lifetime on residential in fact it's transferable lifetime now we've never seen this happen with our brands so these these are pressure sensitive adhesives which do fail in Hawaii because of the high humidity and high heat that we have year-round so yeah when you're buying one the film look for something that has a crystalline adhesive you're called CDF adhesives any adhesive that any film that has a pressure sensitive adhesive can do this and in Hawaii usually between five to ten years wow okay if we could see the next slide and this one is the Hongla advertiser building on in Kapolei we have to put a seven mil clear security film on here because before they could open they had a bunch of very expensive presses and machinery right behind these windows and the insurance companies that wait they don't have anything to hold the hurricanes out so we put some seven mil clear with an attachment system to keep the glass in place in case of a hurricane just to keep the water out and and per probably you reduce the radiant so again it was clear so very little heat reduction but UV was blocked all the UV was blocked that's just a case study for the modern probably go by that we talked about that already there's that glare shot yeah yeah and again the whitish area that we see that's the open window that's an open window there so those sliding doors are slid back a little bit so you can see the difference between the 70% glare reduction on the Vista window film versus what it would be with no film on it with the clear glass yeah it's amazing difference and people you know they have a stigma about oh I don't want to tint my windows because I'm gonna lose my view I don't want to darken my windows it's I'm gonna lose my view but when you think about it you know without the the window film you're really straining and you're not getting the true colors that the window film can can filter out all that white light and it's kind of like putting a pair of ray bands on your your home you know and it really cleans up the view nicely plus with the glare again you're gonna want to close your drapes yeah in certain times of the day TV screens and monitors and yeah and you pay your paying top dollar for spaces like this and cutting the UV is one thing for reducing fading but this the 25% of the cause of fading is light so this is cutting out 70% of that light that causes fading okay okay and if we can move to the next slide and there's another from this is where your viewers would be sitting with their glass of wine watching the Sun riser set yeah and at a certain times of the day you can certainly open the windows up but not not when the Sun's heat is coming coming at you there yeah yeah that's nice and I think we've got a couple more slides okay this is the last of the last of the slides okay so and we've got not a whole lot of time so let's let me put it let me wear my state energy off his hat sure you are causing these big buildings to reduce their energy use which is good because that means less oil imported and the air conditioning which is not going is also going in the early evening when there's the peak demand for electricity right and when we can do something called shave that peak by doing all kinds of measures like this we can shut down more electrical power plants which is good for us all less money for oil less money going out of the state that money is staying here and it's helping to achieve our energy goal which is the finest energy goal in the nation 100% clean electrical energy by 2045 and we're already ahead of that goal you know we track this year-to-year and I suspect the large part of it is thanks to to you and all these great installations we've been hitting a lot we've done over 35 hotels just in wiki key so it's really helping a while we've done some on kawai which has the highest utility costs in the country and coin Marriott and several others out there so yeah the outer islands are more more costly to run electricity and is here which is hard to believe because ours is pretty expensive to begin with so um yeah we're doing our share we're trying hard and we keep going we just started on the Imperial wiki key this week well last week is Monday already so last week we just started the Imperial wiki key and that's another big job and let me point out from another perspective when people think energy savings they think PV photovoltaics photovoltaics photovoltaics it's all very sexy but if you want quicker payback time and a much smoother reduction of your energy use you do efficiency measures yeah insulation window tinting exhaust fans or anything you heat out before you specify the air conditioning and PV because the again we have our peak demand in the early evening what happens to the sun just goes down it goes down the PV goes away we're talking a lot about batteries but this automatically begins to save energy from the minute the sun is striking the windows yeah and the spaces do not heat up therefore you can keep your air conditioning down low yeah or even because it's cool the treatments windows yeah yeah yeah yeah we have a lot of people say they use their air conditioners like just in like August and September at night now when it's more humid and it's hard time sleeping instead of running and during the day that they used to so it's just it really is a testimony to how well it works yeah and then again people are keeping that money in their pockets and able to spend it yeah yeah okay so that on that very cheery note we close out thank you thank you Tommy Silva this is Code Green for Think Tech Away see you next time