Trane Air Conditioning-Dean Oakley, Chuck DeFrancisco & Schlage Locks, Phil Swindler-August 15, 2009-HouseTalk Show

Another good Saturday morning to you. Today we had a house full of guests and we talked about air conditioning. In the studio today was Dean Oakley from Trane, Chuck DeFrancisco from Trane, and Phil Swindler from Schlagg Locks.

Dean said there is always something new with Trane. They're still doing research and development, growing, prospering, and focusing on consumers. Trane is a company that was acquired about year ago by the Ingersoll Rand which has been around for about 100 years. They've joined an alliance with Schlage. What on earth do air conditioning and locks have to do together? Why does it make sense for these two businesses to join?

Just a point of interest. You see it every day at the grocery store. Take a look at the refrigeration system in the frozen foods - look up and you'll see the Hussmann refrigeration system. Look at Thermo King trucks driving around with grocery products - that's Trane brand. Club Car golf carts - Ingersoll Rand brands. The Ingersoll Rand brand which is the instruction brand, generators, tools and then Schlage locks. They are now considered residential solutions, whereas in the past they were residential systems. Their focus in on safety, efficiency and comfort. Now they have a joint product where Trane Heating & Air Conditioning is linked with Schlage through something they call Schlage Link.

Phil Swindler explained that Schlage Link is a home automation system that homeowner can set up himself. Very easy to set up. Put on standard door. The system connects through your internet router so that you can control lights, thermostats, cameras, locks, garage door openers and so on from away from home.

Home automation used to be pretty complex, a lot of money and setup involved. Now with the computers it has gotten easier to do all this. Trane used to heat and cool a lot of the larger homes with many air conditioners on their homes. Now the technology they have through their alignment with Ingersoll Rand has been able to bring affordability to the average consumer. Picture this: coming home from vacation in San Diego. You turned your thermostat up. It's blazing hot at your home because you turned the air conditioning up. Now you can pull up that thermostat through your phone internet and adjust the temp as you wish. This is something that's also good for latchkey kids so that you can be notified by text or email that your child has reached home, and if you want to have a live feed camera to see for real you can have that set up as well. There might be many good reasons for you to have access to the home while you're away. Schlage brings it to you at an affordable cost and very easy to set up on your own computer.

What effect does closing my doors and registers have on my a/c system? Dean Oakley said that most consumers think that if I'm not in that room, the extra empty room, I'll shut the door. Well, that duct system is designed to deliver a certain amount of air per room. When we shut down doors inside of rooms, unless there's enough return, you create a pressure imbalance in that room. That room will create enough pressure to push that air through the windows and small cracks and crevices through the home and now you have a depressurized home and you'll bring in more outside air that you did before. If you have a grill or gap above or below the door, that may be considered an appropriate return, but if there is no return back to the main part of the house, you create energy inefficiency.

Gary in Sun City asked about how Phil compares Trane and Amana air conditioning. Phil said that Gary should pull up the consumer reports as well as some other 3rd party reports that will give impartial comparisons. Trane has always been ranked in the top 3 for the past 10 years. Amana is a competitor, but obviously he favors Trane. Warren said that there are other good air conditioning brands out in the marketplace, but he has always been privileged to be associated with Trane. Trane has been an industry leader toward which others have compared themselves and their innovations. Trane has always had a great reputation for reliability, and in his opinion it pays to go with a proven leader.

Steve in Phoenix asked about setting the thermostat to run the fan always or only when the a/c kicks on, what should he do? Dean said that depending on whether he has a variable speed fan, this could make a significant difference in utility cost. If you run 24/7 that's about 10 60-watt lightbulbs. If you have a variable speed fan, it will cost only about 1 60-watt lightbulb. Advantage of running continuous is good for heating/cooling system if you have variable speed; however, the seasons affect it as well. For example, if you're in the monsoon season and run it continuous it can raise the humidity in your home.

Dustin in Phoenix said that he was told that in a couple years the requirements for a/c would change in that homeowners will have to change it out because of the refrigerant. The refrigerant won't be phased out totally for repairs for 10-20 years, and refrigerant 22 will be around for awhile for those repairs. As of January 1, 2010, heating and air conditioning manufacturers will no longer produce refrigerant 22 air conditioning systems. Government is requiring 410A, a non-ozone polluting refrigerant. However, there is still some desparity in the industry, but the laws have been put into place. Trane will be completely switching over to 410A for new product, and Dean said to weigh your options. If you're replacing, you might want to look at 410A, but 22 will be still be around for some time.

What does an inside sales leader do for Trane? Chuck DeFrancisco said that his primary role is to provide service to outside sales and territory managers as well as reach out to help dealers. It's a highly trained group of professionals able to help customer, consumer or dealer with any number of questions.

Pauline in Scottsdale asked about going on vacation for 2-4 days. Does it make sense to leave the air conditioning on or should they turn it off? Dean said that if it's in the middle of the summer, it's very important not to turn the air conditioning off. Your house can get to 100 degrees. The utility company says to turn it up a few degrees, maybe even to 85 degrees, but not off. Depending on the temp, it could take 6-8 hours to cool your house down.

We also had some special young guests here to visit the studio today. My nephew and nieces, Brendan, Courtney and Adeline were visiting from Minnesota so they had the chance to see what happens in a radio studio and even dared to say hi to their mom and dad over the radio!