welcome to recycled idaho where two recycling industry veterans brett eckhart nick snyder explore idaho businesses and organizations that are putting in the work to keep idaho environmentally and economically viable at the same time take a listen to how these entrepreneurs business owners and operators are making things happen in the great state of idaho in this episode i get a chance to sit down with dennis fox owner of fox heating and cooling dennis has been in the hvac industry since 1985. take a listen and hear how dennis and his crew keep us cool in the summer and warm in the winter all right welcome everybody it’s nick here with recycled idaho i got my good friend dennis here how you doing dennis i’m doing awesome nick how are you i’m doing awesome man it’s we’ve known each other for a while now yeah um i’ve met you when you’re doing uh a data site is that what it was called it was called that data site yeah what we call a co-location facility for data centers yep gotcha well give our audience a real enter a quick introduction to yourself and tell them

like uh you know you’re dennis fox and go from there remind me about that yeah so yeah i’m dennis fox i have fox heating and cooling here in boise um i got into the industry back in 1985 when i figured out that computers were coming around and they really freaked me out i figured no matter how cool or how computerized the world got computer is going to stay cool so went to school got educated in that and popped out in 85 and it’s just been awesome experience since then so i’ve been in the heating and air conditioning industry one way or the other for all of those years and weird enough when i got out of school i worked for a large company called honeywell um out of state and one of the first contracts that i took care of was one of their data centers okay so i’ve always had my foot kind of in the realm of data centers along the way some way one way or the other and when we met i was actually working directly for a data center and at that point i wasn’t in the industry per

se directly and that’s when i started fox heating and cooling so the owner of the data center was a big entrepreneurial and uh fully pushing me to go it’s like yeah dennis go for it we’ll help you out whatever so i was able to work weekends evenings uh with fox heating and cooling and then do the data center which has an amazing amount of cooling right and the power oh yeah i was responsible for so still got to play quite a bit and then as things started to show that the data center probably wouldn’t make it financially i just started to ramp up fox heating and cooling and when we unplugged the data center i just ramped up and been doing fox full time since then so how long has fox heating and cooling been in business what a great question because actually this month has been my is my seventh year seventh okay yeah as official uh you know with the state of idahos registered and all of that so gosh it’s been seven years already i kind of remember when you first started to do that going into that hvac the more

traditional hvac yes exactly yeah so yeah it’s been it’s been a wild ride since then you know we’ve grown quite a bit we don’t advertise we just do word of mouth and referrals so uh keeping a good reputation going and yeah that’s important no doubt about it so you don’t find any need to advertise out there not yet you know i did advertise in one magazine that i got looped into um and i was locked into a contract with them and it really didn’t you know i got one lead out of it i think over the course of 18 months and since then you know bought another vehicle i seem to get more more advertising off the vehicle driving around yeah so we’ve grown myself oldest boy brandon uh he’s a journeyman he’s with us full time and then we have jerry who is a good friend of his since like kindergarten okay that with his whole covet thing um he got laid off and so he’s come on and he just started school in the apprenticeship this month okay cool and then my wife and my daughter-in-law help out in the

office and make things happen where it really counts that’s awesome man yeah it’s good to see you guys grow it’s good to see you i was a little worried when you told me that data site was closing its doors yeah and is that what kind of pushed you or were you already doing you were already kind of doing both well i was doing both um but really did it push you more towards like really just focusing completely oh yeah it was a total freak out mine screw yeah you don’t know how it’s going to work out in the first the first couple months i mean i was overwhelmed with how much work i had i’m thinking okay is everybody just being nice to dennis week you know what’s what’s going on here and um it just kept rolling and kept rolling and it’s it’s just been incredible it’s definitely stressful if i had hair i’d pull it out and you know you just don’t know it’s amazing to me for how long i’ve worked you know i’ve worked for other contractors most of the time in management of some sort and in the field

but you just it’s amazing how much you don’t know that you don’t know because running a business is is completely different than turning wrenches you know that’s the fun stuff yeah getting back and then figuring out do we have enough work can i how am i gonna go generate that work how am i gonna collect the money on that work how do i you know just the whole thing though what i’ve learned over all the years is i don’t focus on the money i don’t focus on the business side of it so much i focus on the customers and making sure that they’re happy they feel like they’re getting their value and we’re taking care of them and that’s the key that i’ve seen i’m sure maybe one day i’ll get burned pretty hard but it’s oh you wouldn’t really everyone does i mean but the big picture is what’s more important um you hit on two things that that hits home for our our company united medals at least the service that’s us we don’t focus we consider ourselves a customer service company we’re not a metal recycler we want to have the

best service if that translates to the bin service or making that phone call making sure hey are we taking care of you you know is this you know was this ticket done correctly there’s so many parts to the service aspect and that service is going to generate that word of mouth that you talked about yeah you know and if you do that part right that takes care of a lot of the advertising bill for you you know absolutely and it will take care of you you know and you kind of also touched on being the business owner you’re responsible for finding the work you know so i don’t sign the front of the checks like brett who helps with this podcast brett signs up front of the check and he’ll talk about that some of his social posts like there’s a lot of stress when you do the signature on the front of the check because he truly cares about all of us you know so he’s got all these other responsibilities that we don’t even know about same with probably your employees they don’t know all the battles or you’re fighting and then

there’s just so much to that now you’ve been in business seven years we’re recently going through hopefully they tell him who knows of the pandemic yeah how’s that been for a small business like yourself well you know what uh it’s interesting because no one can plan for this who would have ever thought that we would be some something like this happening so there’s no history to go back to to figure out what’s gonna happen and um so again like i was saying jerry he got laid off during that our apprentice he got laid off during the covet thing and you know we were busy so i said well heck come help us out i said i don’t i what was he doing if you don’t mind me asking no no problem he um worked in the prison he was a guard for a long time and then he was also uh driving a truck transporting people or kids for uh one of the local not daycare but um you know it’s where kids go and and have fun and go check the kids so that all died off yeah and so we’ve known jerry

since you know he was this little kid know him personally so i know his ethics his family you know he’s he’s comes from the right area as far as when i put him in front of my customers i can teach him the technical side so but anyway so he started working for us and i said well i can’t guarantee you 40 hours well he was getting overtime pretty much every week yeah and then the whole covet thing it’s just for us it seems like people started doing more and more home improvements and yeah i think they’re stuck at home they need to have the cooling they need to have their house comfortable and it just has been nothing but growth for us so we’re able to bring jerry on i think it’s been almost six months now maybe four four to six months full-time you know he’s a full-time employee benefits the whole bit and so for us looking at the growth it’s been actually really really good for us and it’s that’s good i can’t explain why but it’s been good you know and i’m i’m friends with a few other

hvac companies and i’m sorry full full disclaimer and they are all so busy and i granted when it’s 100 degrees out like it’s supposed to be 100 this saturday i think which is crazy um that’s really when like you guys get get going especially on like i would imagine well both sides residential and commercial right you just get going yeah but just came off a commercial job now with no cooling um and yeah it starts it starts ramping up and again we don’t do any new construction so there’s a lot of companies you know with the growth in boise there’s all kinds of new construction and we don’t do any we do focus purely on retrofits service you know existing clients we’ll do some uh where people are doing a remodel it’s almost new construction taking buildings down to the studs but i don’t want to get wrapped around the axle in the new construction that’s not your that’s not what you’re going for basically so that’s to talk with customers so i’m talking with contractors yeah i gotcha so all those new houses and all that i’m sure there’s contracts for certain hvac

companies to just go in there and put all those units in yeah you know how fast and how cheap can you get it exactly i was gonna say that’s probably there’s probably not a whole lot of money in that you know a lot of stress it’s so competitive yeah um going back to the data centers um those basically explain to everyone what that is what what do those what purpose do those serve so it’s interesting um when i mentioned what is called colo or co-location there’s lots of different types of data centers so ones that like hp would own or you know people owned their own data centers and occupied them but then there’s lots of need where i noticed what walked in here you got a room down the hall with a bunch of servers in it and it’s on probably the same air conditioning system or maybe have a dedicated one but it’s stressful because the businesses have to make sure that their their servers are going to run and they need to stay cool and they need clean reliable power so what do you do if you’re growing and you

have a business that really relies on that well there’s data centers that are called co-location facilities and it’s like a building downtown a multi-tenant building you know one big building with lots of different people in it a co-location is just that it’s a single data center with lots of tenants so other people bring their own equipment in businesses will bring their own equipment in and from a single rack to cages with racks of servers in them and the co-location facility makes sure that along with other things but the power does never goes off and is clean and reliable the cooling is directed and made sure that your equipment’s going to be cool and there’s lots of different changes in that industry as far as the the density of servers you know they’re getting smaller and smaller but they still put out the same if not more heat so trying to deal with that and then the security is crazy physical security as far as letting people in or videotaping stuff like that but then the intellectual security you know as far as the networks so and then the physical building

itself making sure that it’s ready so the customers can come in they go through rigorous security every single time they can get to their equipment work on it and but they don’t have to think about the infrastructure they focus on geeking out you know that’s how i say it yeah yeah so i don’t geek out but i can i understand what they’re needing to do um and i understand what the equipment means their equipment needs to maintain so that’s it’s a it’s a booming industry everybody says oh but it’s in the cloud why do i need a server rack somewhere well the cloud is a server rack somewhere you know and what i used to explain to people is if you think of the cloud a data center or co-location facility is the sky there’s lots of clouds in that sky and so all these servers are running and you may not know it but you know you’re when you hop on google or wherever you’re looking to the cloud you’re going to some data center somewhere and the servers are sitting there it’s not just in a magical cloud up there so

is that what you’re saying that’s exactly what i’m saying you know mind blown so i’ve had the luxury walk in that site with you the floor is one of the coolest things to me how the floors are i want to call it like a false floor almost a raised floor raised floor yeah so that are they pumping air through that floor exactly yes we introduce our conditioned air into the floor space in that particular facility and when i say conditioned um that needs to be cooled obviously but humidity is a big kicker too so here we are in idaho which is a desert yeah very dry so we would humidify the heck out of that air to make sure that you don’t get static electricity on all that equipment oh okay so we’re conditioning it each piece of equipment was able to cool it heat it uh humidify or dehumidify if needed and all that air goes down in the floor and then we’re able to direct that air right up in front of the servers and cool them and you know take care of it that way the power did you have to

switch out the power on a lot of those often is that on like a protocol where you do it x amount of months no not the power so much okay at a data center everything’s redundant so and again it’s up to the the owners of the servers to make sure that they’re powered correct correctly but we would always supply two separate sources of power from two separate what we call a pdu power distribution unit that came from you you know ups so uninterruptable power supplies yeah so if one of those systems were to crash and go down we’re still supplying full power to their equipment from a whole other source um so you don’t like basically like a backup if the power goes out yep boom you got to back up yep and if if idaho power were to blow their lines apart yeah we had generators that would instantaneously come on our ups’s would maintain power while the generators are coming up so they get triggered and then everything would come up and go and so that’s pretty common um lots of different uh aspects of how to deliver those things on the

power and on the cooling was completely redundant too i could lose half of my facility as far as the power capacity or the cooling capacity and i still had enough capacity to take care of the building at full load so the amount of infrastructure in a data center is phenomenal so yeah the amount of like working through that decommissioning of that one and they they tore all the the floor out even we helped with all that so we really got to kind of see and you guys helped like decommission all the those ups’s and all that in there all those batteries all those batteries yeah you know the just the amount from that spot like it kind of blew my mind even though we supplied some scrap bins throughout the years the amount of scrap that came out of there the amount of copper just to get that thing running was like way more than i ever expected yeah yeah that’s amazing so on the residential and the commercial on the more traditional hvac stuff is there any new challenges that are coming up any new inventions coming up that kind of a change

in the industry yeah it’s interesting um with the department of energy last year it was actually last july there was a new ruling that came in so for residential equipment even commercial equipment but specifically they’ve increased the efficiency or the requirements of the efficiency on the electric motors so for years we’d have what’s called a psc or a permanent split capacitor motor that was the the go-to for shoot probably i don’t know how many you know 100 years maybe i don’t know when they started coming out but okay now we’re going to an ecm which is electronically commutated motor it’s a high efficiency motor and so every furnace now if you were to go have a furnace put in your house it’s going to have an ecm motor in it you don’t you may not even know it but so the the technology as far as that goes even in the in the lowest efficiency system has changed and then you take that to the higher efficiency systems like we do quite a bit of and the outdoor units have variable frequency drives on them you know everything is um variable speed so

our connector fan motors our our compressors all of that i did a a video yesterday actually just on that and you know i don’t know maybe you’re sitting at home in your backyard and you hear your neighbor’s air conditioner come on yours is sitting there and it’s like god this thing’s so stinking loud you know i’m able to stand by mine with it in between you and i and i can talk this slow and you’d still hear me i mean it’s ridiculous so they’re just incredibly quiet incredibly quiet which is again people think of comfort you’re thinking of heating or cooling gosh there’s cold or hot in here well that’s one thing that sound is another way of comfort you know so they’ve really really reduced the levels of sound on the newer equipment and then the power consumption you know we’re we’re able to do the same amount of cooling or the same amount of heating depending what you’re doing and use so much less energy so yes the the technology has changed which is driving my industry you know it’s not so much turning wrenches anymore as far as using meters or

using your computer and you know i had a i get an email overnight and i hop on my computer and i can go into my customers system and see if it’s working right and so we try to give that level of service where i’m i’m hoping i can respond to a problem with the customer before they even know they have a problem yeah that’s pretty awesome so you can jump on your computer and see your customers yeah and see their equipment yeah depending on the type of equipment that we’ve put in you know we sell carrier equipment and with their infinity line i’m able to have complete um access not you know not a security breach right i know all about that but i have access to their system that they don’t even have as far as the back side of it because it’s hooked up to their wi-fi okay and i can see how the equipment’s running i can see pressures temperature i didn’t know that existed that’s pretty awesome like so you could be like hey you know your air conditioner might be going out i need to come service it

exactly we got a problem or the newest ones out i can walk up with my phone and when i get into range bluetooth range of the outdoor unit i can start reading pressures temperatures uh fault codes so yeah it’s definitely changing our industry it’s no longer you know an old meter used to call a wiggy to see if you have you know a shake in your hand to see if you had power yeah that ain’t gonna do it anymore you know or what we used to call is the air conditioner working is it beer can cold you hold the line and if it’s cold like a beer can yep it’s running great you know that’s not that kind of you know that’s not not the way to do it anymore so um it’s kind of interesting and you guys have played a big role for me you know i bring all my scrap here you know anytime i have a piece of equipment we we bring it here make sure it’s reclaimed right we want that refrigerant in there and that’s changed a lot too you know the r22 which is the older refrigerant

yeah a lot of companies you know put the fear of god in people saying oh you got r22 you got to change that piece of equipment you know you can’t do that but i can still go buy r22 today a brand new can of it i keep it on my truck yeah so then r22 at one point was worth a good amount of money you reclaimed it you could sell it yeah you can’t sell you got to re recycle it there’s certain recyclers uh in the nation that take it back but they would pay you wouldn’t they in the past some yeah some would they still will if you have a large amount but right now i pay to get rid of it if i if i take a 50 pounder to one of my supply houses there’s usually a fee involved so you have to pay to dispose of that yeah so there’s that cost and you probably build that into your service yeah right so that r22 what are other i don’t know anything about that side but i always found it interesting that r22 at one point i know it was

worth some money then they made some synthetic they made a new type to replace it but that didn’t really take off it or no there are there’s there’s several different um manufacturers out there that do that what i call like a drop in replacement so if i have a system that is completely flat let’s say it’s an r22 system and it had a leak in it and so i walk up and there’s no pressure it’s all gone so i can repair that leak and then when i put the refrigerant back in i don’t have to put what we call virgin r22 back in it’s pretty expensive i can put like one of them is called a new 22 nu r22 and it’s a drop in replacement i don’t need to change the oil in the system or anything with the metering devices i can just drop it in and it runs and it’s a lot less expensive and and it does it run just as well i think it loses just a tiny bit of efficiency not enough to affect the capacity of it um it’s definitely worth the money saved for that you

most people wouldn’t even notice it i would see it on my gauges and my temperatures but in the home you wouldn’t know or in the house or in the facility so are you guys busier when it’s 120 degrees or when it’s negative 20 degrees wow um it feels more busy when it’s hot okay and the reason being is you’re running hard you’re sweating you’re as soon as you get a system running and it’s starting to cool off you get you leave and the other thing too is customers i don’t care if it’s commercial or residential when their systems are down in the summertime they get really cranky and people tempers rise people get upset they’ll still appreciate it when you’re done and you’re getting going but even the initial phone call coming through you can tell they’re stressed they’re pissed off they want it done right then there yeah you need to have good customer skills um in the winter time they’re upset a little bit but they’re way more appreciative it seems like you know they’re very thankful that they get heat um they realize it’s needed it’s their their demeanor is different

in the winter versus the summer and so it feels way more hectic to me in the summer i think it’s because they can maybe bundle up a little bit you know they could bundle they can get through it a little bit rather than when it’s hot like it’s just could be almost like unbearable to even sleep you know exactly and we always focus too um we have what we call our comfort club which is our maintenance plan you know we give discounts on repairs we do priority scheduling we do maintenances throughout the years for for an easy fee we do it at our cost actually we’ve dropped it way down just to get customers in there but when we’re scheduling in the winter and in the summer we always take the very personal approach if there’s an older couple or you know depending on age so if they’re older or if they’re younger they have young kids or animals that you know need that heating or the cooling we make sure we try to respond to those uh those requests first because yeah there are times especially in the winter when it gets too

cold some of us can bundle up but the older older folks have a hard time yeah and so we try to make sure they’re taking care of a hundred percent you kind of take priority sometimes absolutely yeah that’s part of what we ask you know what what is the needs so when you’re going in there to maybe hook up a new air conditioner furnace and you try to upgrade them to like that system the systems that can inform you of a problem yeah i’m sure there’s a i’m sure that equipment costs more yeah but a it could save them most importantly anything going out you know exactly b save them money monthly you got to pay a little more up front yeah but in the long term do you think that equipment will save them money from things going down it will definitely save the money it won’t necessarily pay for itself it’ll take a long time for it to pay for it because again we’re in awesome idaho we have great uh utility rates i mean we have low cost on gas and on power so when we’re upgrading and people are going

for the nice systems they’re not necessarily going you know what’s what’s rri what’s when are we going to get it paid back well they’re looking for more what’s the best thing that i can put in my house how am i going to be the most comfortable and what do i have for peace of mind where i don’t have to worry about it you’re going to take care of a dentist you know what what’s what is that and so a lot of people don’t realize in homes and in businesses depending on the type of business the heating and air conditioning system is the most expensive system in that facility bar a new roof you know probably about the same level of a new roof or never thought of it that way yeah or if you have a plumbing system that needs to be completely replaced then you’re going to be in there so and it’s a it’s a mechanical system that runs that you know you rely on that works is hard off in the hottest part of the year and in the coldest part of the year so there’s you know maintenance that needs

to be done and and all that but when we’re upgrading and and talking about the nicer equipment um if you look at people in the cars that they buy generally you know there’s you may get a pickup truck right so are you going to go for the bottom line pickup truck most of the time they’re in the mid to the uppers yeah depending on where you’re at because they want the luxury they want to be comfortable comfortable so i try to give customers their options even though i know they may not want that super high efficient system because it’s so expensive but i like to at least let them know hey these are options and this is kind of as much pressure as you’re going to get for me you know i’ll help educate you on what might be best for you and your needs but i’m not going to try to twist your arm to sell something that i want you to buy i want to make sure that you’re getting yeah i’ll direct them and um so it’s it’s a it’s a pretty unique situation i i get kind of i don’t

like being pressured right when i’m buying things i like to get educated and then maybe give me your opinion on what you think and if i trust you i’ll take that opinion into my you know into my decision making and that’s how i i try to approach it and another one that i always thought of as i envisioned a guy who just went and bought a corvette right and it’s like oh this is cool i wanted one of these forever you know i finally get my corvette it pulls up to the light traffic stop at the light and here comes another corvette right next to him so he reaches over and he rolls down the passenger window and he looks over and says hey man must be an old corvette well yeah and the other guy the other guy pushes a button and his window comes down it’s like i didn’t even know that was a reality you know i guess i am old because i’m referring to that people don’t know you just have to crank a window oh i remember yeah that’s how all the cars growing up that’s all we had

yeah it was like if the guy didn’t know that there was that option well god i would have liked to have that you know how come i didn’t know about that well my like i thought maybe i couldn’t afford it or didn’t really want it so if i can tell people about everything that’s available at least you know you may not want to get it but hey right on well that’s to your level of service you got to let them know and then you build trust you know and if you build trust just by telling the truth it’s that simple like as i grow older man i just learn like if you just tell the truth it’s going to do you some good your life is a lot easier oh it’s so like just say hey you know we offer this and this i would go with this and this is why you know not just so you can make an extra 20 bucks because you know once they learn about that then you they won’t call you again then you don’t get that word of mouth exactly you just lost a lot more

than 20 bucks exactly it’s a long game it’s always been a long game for me on a personal level and on our all our brands it’s how our philosophy and our culture is and the culture is so important and we love how your culture is i’ve always loved dealing with you cool you’re a green bay fan i’ve learned to accept it you know i got go right i’m a seattle fan over here you know i know you know was that golden tate remember that golden tate catch in the end zone yep yep that was awesome was it a touchdown or an interception i think i don’t know i’m gonna i’m gonna plead the fifth on that i think it was a touchdown okay okay i’ll take it i know i know i know but i’m fair i think you know i was not expecting that answer well hopefully we get to watch some football this year i know you know i’m not going to go down that political aspect but yeah i’ve got to oh no that’s not what this shows for okay we’re here to talk about recycling yeah and i think we’ve

talked about that we talked about your industry one more question for you yeah have you had any really weird requests that stand out or like a job that really stands out that you’d like to share a weird request um like no one no one asks you to like put an air conditioner in their dog’s dog house or anything of that nature no not necessarily um for whatever reason this one’s coming to my mind i have a customer might be even one of your customers um but he you know in our area it’s dry right so humidity and he wanted this may not sound so weird to you but it’s weird for our industry he wanted me to be able to humidify his home during the summer time and while we’re cooling where typically it’s the last thing that you want to do we dehumidify well we don’t but nationwide you dehumidify and so it was interesting trying to find a manufacturer actually the controls that would allow that to happen and i was only able i mean i did a lot of research only able to find one manufacturer that would allow that type

of control and so we made it we made it work i had to upsize as air conditioner you know to be able to handle that extra humidity during the summer time and then have that humidifier function during the during the summer time too so well we made it happen we made it happen yeah and he’s still a customer so i love it how does everyone find you how do they get a hold of fox heating in there um what we want to do is they can go to our website which is fox hvac pro dot com or this is horrible i just know my my cell phone it’s uh it’s fine 208 412-4943 most business owners would not give out their cell phones so that’s the level of service you’re providing yeah well we’re trying to get them to call the office and but it’s my ignorance that i don’t know the office oh no we’ll put it we’ll put it up for you okay we’ll find it cool so uh yeah i just know my cell phone but yeah and whenever someone’s not in the office it rolls to my cell phone

anyway that’s what it’s about well thank you for your time right on thank you cool thank you for listening to another episode of recycled idaho and as we continue the journey across this great state we look forward to bringing you more stories of people and organizations putting in the work to do the right thing so you