Gauging the public's sense of climate via an HVAC company's annual services

[elagache]

Dear WeatherCat climate observers,

Since we recently upgraded our furnace and just installed central air conditioning, we opted for an annual subscription of system checkups.  These newer machines are more efficient, but have the trade-off of being more fussy.  Typically, the furnace gets checked in October and the Air Conditioner sometime in April.

Well, it was May and we hadn't received the post card to remind us to schedule this service so I called assuming somehow reminder had gotten lost.  It turned out that the company had decided to delay sending the cards because the weather was so "cold and dreary."

Out of curiosity, I quickly looked over my weather station data and it does show a modest but potentially real creep up in temperature during the late winter/early spring months.  As I mentioned, for the first time ever, we actually needed the air conditioner in April.  So it should have appeared to the general public that the climate was warming up and that they would need their air conditioner sooner.

Yet, if lots of other people had been thinking as I was, there would have been enough phone calls to coax them to start mailing those post cards.  So the late season rains and not the temperature seems to have had the strongest influence on the public's perception of temperature this year.

It is hardly a scientific study, but it does seem to suggest that the public's perception of temperature could not be captured by any sort of metric based on weather data alone.  How we experience particular weather events seems to have a greater effect on how the general public perceives climate than the day to day experience of the weather.

Cheers, Edouard

[xairbusdriver]

By "fussy" do you really mean less well-built? With many 'hardware' products, manufacturers have found that 'over-building' (making longer lasting products) are not much appreciated by most folk. Price rules!

The engineering department now is second (or third) in line for input into how well to build something. But that's just part of my cynical attitude. That behavior bit the US auto industry in the rear about 20 years ago. As we agree to more "open market deals", we may see this happen to many other hardware companies.

It's a bit surprising that the company didn't send the "reminders". Many dealers now make as much on 'servicing' as on sales/installations. OTOH, if it's a pre-paid 'service', they probably see no need to check things that usually last until just after the original warranty end date...

[elagache]

Dear X-Air and WeatherCat equipment maintainers, . . .

By "fussy" do you really mean less well-built?

According to their technicians the problem isn't reducing cost but trying to squeeze as much efficiency out of these machines as possible.  Old furnaces allowed a lot of combustion heat to be wasted.  These newer models are so effective at extracting all the heat from the natural gas that you can exhaust the fumes through a PVC pipe.  The same applies to the air conditioner.

There is a lot of pressure on the manufacturers to get higher efficiency.  It lowers energy costs for their customers, reduces the electricity and natural gas we all use, and is more environmentally friendly.  Unfortunately to achieve these levels of efficiency, the machines are more complex and therefore at a greater risk of potential failure.

It's a bit surprising that the company didn't send the "reminders". Many dealers now make as much on 'servicing' as on sales/installations.

In a way that is what surprised me the most.  This is a small family owned company which tries to take care of their employees, so keeping their guys busy is a priority no matter what the weather.  So I have to assume that they have noticed that customers really don't like to have their equipment serviced before it really feels like warm weather is coming.

As I said this is no scientific study, but considering this company had a lot of incentive not to wait, their decision to wait must reflect what their customers are telling them.

Cheers, Edouard