Introduction:

When it comes to businesses enjoying a surge in demand, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is definitely, pun intended, a hot industry. Consider, for instance, that the HVAC industry held steady, even as the construction sector took a heavy hit from the economic recession. During the recession, from 2009 to 2014, revenues in HVAC grew at an average rate of 2.4 percent a year, while revenues for housing construction fell to record lows, according to an article by ACHR News, which summarizes findings from IBIS World.

As the housing market bounced back, that demand continued to grow. From 2014 to 2019, the HVAC industry grew by 2.9 percent. “As more homes and commercial structures are built, and require HVAC system installations in turn, demand for industry installers and technicians will increase strongly,” ACHR reports.

But this news comes with some pressure. To grow your business, you have to keep up with constantly changing technologies. You need to find, train, and retain capable installers and technicians, and stay up to date on the latest building and environmental regulations — all while delivering efficient, high-performance solutions that your customers have come to expect. This eBook offers five steps to help your company get ahead in the HVAC industry.

Designed with owners and operators of small to mid-size HVAC businesses in mind, the steps are practical and budget-friendly — and ultimately can help you grow your bottom line.

Step one: Stay on Top of Trends in Energy Efficiency

Going green is more than a catchphrase these days. The boom in alternative energy sources, roofs boasting solar panels or gardens, and the push for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification make understanding energy efficiency and environmental impact a requirement for an HVAC business. This affects everything from building materials and power sources to refrigerant types and heat sources.

For newly constructed buildings, LEED certification is an increasingly sought-after designation. LEED-certified buildings are designed and built in ways that save natural resources, use clean renewable energy, and create a healthier environment for the occupants.

When the time comes to select and install an HVAC system in a LEED building, clients look for natural refrigerants, programmable thermostats and humidistats, and similar innovations. Other tools that are helping HVAC go green include:

• On-command hot water re-circulators 
• Thermally driven air conditioning 
• Ice-powered air conditioners 
• Dual fuel and geothermal heat pumps 
• Energy analysis software

Did you know?

HVAC systems can do a lot to curb energy use. But, did you know that something as simple as painting a shingle roof white can reduce summer roof surface temperature by as much as 80 degrees? This step alone can cut cooling bills by 10 percent or more.

Resources and tools

If you find yourself involved in a LEED project, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) can help project managers, techs, and clients understand what’s involved in green building (and heating and cooling) projects. The SBA’s website offers several resources, including guides and resources from the U.S. Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency 

EnergyStar also provides energy efficiency resources for small businesses, commercial buildings, and plants, including:

• Information about popular HVAC efficiency upgrades like Energy Star-certified equipment 
• A calculator for determining the energy savings of Energy Star AC systems, furnaces, and dehumidifiers
• An interactive tool to help benchmark your energy consumption against historical data and national averages.

Beyond government resources, there are technological tools helping companies stay on top of energy trends. Mobile apps, for instance, can make it easier to track how well an HVAC system meets energy efficiency standards or stay on top of routine tasks like maintenance. Some come in the form of detailed checklists, much like paper checklists but accessible from your smartphone or tablet and created for specific projects.

Step two: Keep Up With Evolving Compliance Regulations

Sure, you have plenty to do managing your business, from haggling with suppliers to keeping customers happy. Yet, you also have to keep up with OSHA requirements. These ever-evolving requirements can be challenging to track, so making a habit out of checking up on the latest OSHA HVAC news is a must.

From proper handling of ammonia-based refrigerants to preventing Legionnaires’ disease, HVACrelated regulations can go beyond the safety and installation standards expected in a construction or renovation project.

In addition to meeting OSHA’s general safety and health provisions, (e.g., personal protective equipment, fire prevention, scaffolding specifications), remember that HVAC professionals are required to adhere to indoor air quality standards adopted by your state. As the EPA explains, these can include:

• Ventilation 
• Air distribution and filtration 
• Moisture and humidity control

Even if you think you’re being diligent, don’t assume a regulation that has been in place for decades won’t ever change. A growing body of research on indoor air quality, energy efficiency, and environmental impact has increased the understanding of both energy use and building occupant health — and has led to new priorities and regulations that you can’t ignore.

For example, in March 2015 the EPA announced the release of new and approved refrigerants to replace ozone-depleting substances with climate-friendly alternatives. The EPA maintains a list of approved and phased-out refrigerants as part of its Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) Program and encourages anyone in the HVAC industry to review it regularly to stay on top of the changes. Already, between 2015 and 2019, the EPA released several updates that specify safer substitutes, newly prohibited alternatives, and revised use conditions for certain refrigerants.

Likewise, in 2017 the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released a final rule to establish new energy conservation standards for central air conditioners and heat pumps. These changes relate to split-system, single-package, and space-constrained air conditioners and heat pumps. If your company installs these systems, make sure you understand the new regulations and train your team to follow the installation guidelines.

Overlooking updated regulations can cost you in delays, project restarts, penalty fees, and even the loss of business due to an irate customer. In many ways, you can’t afford to make compliance and keeping up with regulations an afterthought.

Step three: Streamline Operations and Make Your Business Efficient

Whether you manage a modest family business or have dozens of techs and installers on staff, your responsibilities involve everything from standard HVAC services to billing and business development. You have to maintain distributor and supplier relationships, maintain company equipment and vehicles, and ensure your staff is up to date on professional training and certifications. You also have to stay on top of licensing and issues relating to your insurance policies.

With so many responsibilities on your plate, operational efficiency is critical — and requires a lot more than returning phone calls or keeping track of who’s out to lunch.

Today advances in technology can help HVAC business operators take command of and coordinate diverse demands like marketing, job dispatching, OSHA compliance, and customer billing. Technology is the ingredient that sets the exceptional HVAC company apart from the merely capable.

How, exactly, does technology help? According to McKinsey & Company, “Process digitization means moving away from paper and toward online, real-time sharing of information to ensure transparency and collaboration, timely progress and risk assessment, quality control, and, eventually, better and more reliable outcomes.” More companies are equipping personnel with smartphones and tablets, using specialized mobile apps allowing employees to access client files, coordinate service calls, share data, and plan and implement marketing campaigns based on acquired business intelligence.

For HVAC companies, these tools can especially improve things like work order management and job dispatching efficiency. Improving these areas translates directly to customer satisfaction, and ultimately customer retention.

Step four: Exceed Customer Expectations

You’ve heard the cliché: the best customer is a repeat customer. You keep a customer coming back by providing a positive, value-added experience. Your sales team, techs, and installers give the first impression of your business. They meet with customers face-to-face, earning the trust it takes to close a deal, and interacting with them, sometimes on a daily basis, for installations, maintenance calls, or emergency service.

Your field staff needs to know the importance of a positive first impression. Showing up on time for scheduled appointments is a given. But even the most technically competent professionals can overlook something as basic as clean uniforms and vehicles, and crisp personal presentations.

Insist that everyone on your team has a professional appearance that matches their professional ability. Combine presentation with an ability to communicate in a clear, friendly manner to customers, and you’re bound to see customer experience ratings soar.

Go the extra mile

The key to consistent customer satisfaction is a team that shares your dedication to customer service. It’s as good for long-term business as it is for building your reputation. If a tech takes some extra time, for example, to really explain how a repair was made, he or she has the opportunity to follow up with a quick pitch about why routine maintenance would have probably saved a lot of trouble and expense. Selling a service package just makes sense right then and there — and may bring in extra billings when delivered by a courteous professional.

Put another way, a staff trained to go the extra mile is an unbeatable way to build revenue. Recent research even suggests that strong customer satisfaction is responsible for increasing revenue in many industries by as much as $1 billion. Realize your company’s true potential by making improved customer service a priority.

Beyond a verbal commitment

To reap benefits, you have to do more than just say you’re committed to customer satisfaction. You have to find out what your customers actually think of your work and team. How can you get this information? Sure, you can call customers and ask, but people are busy — and don’t usually want interruptions during the day.

A more thorough and professional approach is to conduct a customer satisfaction survey. While many HVAC companies send surveys one or two weeks after the service, the best time to get feedback from customers is when the job is fresh on their minds — right after your techs wrap up.

Equipping your techs with mobile devices and apps can make that possible, and allow you, the owner or operator, to receive feedback in real-time. For instance, this mobile customer satisfaction survey is tailor-made for the HVAC industry. It can give you valuable, timely insight on how well your team performed its job. If the service was sub-par, you want to know that sooner rather than later. With mobile surveys like this, you can see the responses before your techs even pull out of the driveway or parking lot.

Step five: Modernize Your Business

Heating and air conditioning companies have been around, well, since heating and air conditioning units. While innovations in heating and cooling have transformed the climate control and comfort industry by light-years, too many of today’s businesses operate using yesterday’s business management practices.

If you’re one of them, how can you catch up?

One of the simplest, most practical steps is to start using mobile communication and interaction. Most of your staff probably already own mobile devices like smartphones or tablets, so training will be minimal. And your team will be able to achieve what wasn’t possible before. As the company ARISTA put it in a blog post about HVAC, there are several areas where mobile technology just makes it easier to get the job done right. These include: 

1. Faster access to customer service history
2. Ability to check and cross-check parts inventory
3. Improved work-order accuracy 
4. Secure mobile payment processing 
5. Reliable monitoring of techs in the field

How can you get started? 

The transition is not as difficult or expensive as you might expect. Plenty of mobile apps are on the market to help small to mid-size business owners, but a better place to start is with mobile apps developed especially for the HVAC industry. These apps can help you streamline industry-specific tasks like load calculation, system configuration, system check-and-charge, parts lookup and ordering, and more. They also let techs take payment on the spot.

By giving your team the ability to perform these tasks at their fingertips (instead of back at the office), you’re improving you team’s accuracy, speeding up orders, and slashing turnaround time — all of which translates to the ability to serve more customers with more consistency and satisfaction.

Unlike some technologies, which are costly and cumbersome to learn and implement, mobile apps are easy and affordable to put in place. At GoCanvas, for instance, we can turn your existing paper forms into mobile apps — or you can do it yourself in a few short steps.

You don’t have to do it all at once. Just select the work orders, reports, or checklists you use most often. Then see how going paperless saves time and trouble, and puts you well on your way to a modern workplace.

Stand Out as an HVAC Leader

The five steps outlined here might sound straightforward and sensible. After all, prioritizing customer satisfaction has always been a business objective. And happy customers are the result of competent professionals who deliver standout service.

Though exceptional customer service is essential, reaching the next level in HVAC requires more. It takes:

• A commitment to compliance, and being among the first to know when regulations shift 
• Streamlining your operations and improving efficiency 
• Empowering your workforce with mobile communication, data access, and billing 
• Keeping up with the latest HVAC trends and innovations

As the owner or operator of an HVAC company, the time to move your business to the head of the pack is now. The HVAC industry has remained strong and steady, even during the economic downturn. As the economy rebounds, an industry seemingly immune to recession is bracing itself for an even more demanding workload.

There is the potential for plenty of work for today’s HVAC contractors, and lasting success for those who can stand apart with exceptional, modern service and performance. With the right combination of tools, technology, and training, your company can secure just that.

Ready to Rethink How You Work?

GoCanvas has helped a variety of businesses across multiple industries transform their safety processes and rethink their efficiency, ultimately saving them money. Why not do the same? Reach out to one of our experts today to kickstart your process revolution.

Introduction: OSHA’s Construction Safety Regulations

The construction industry tops the list when it comes to workplace injuries and fatalities, even with tightened safety regulations over the years. Workers in the transportation/material moving, construction, and extraction industries accounted for nearly half (47.4%) of fatal occupational injuries in 2020, according to the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA).

Many of these deaths resulted from what OSHA calls the “Fatal Four” construction hazards. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2021 Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries presented the following statistics on Fatal Four events across all occupations:

Falls 850	Up from 805 in 2020
Struck by object or equipment: 473	Up from 468 in 2020
Electrocution: 152	Up from 126 in 2020
Caught in/between: 143	Up from 142 in 2020

With the death toll among construction occupations stemming largely from noncompliance with safety regulations, OSHA has committed itself to minimizing these fatalities, partly by ramping up its penalty fees.

In 2023, OSHA’s maximum penalties for serious and other-than-serious violations (with “other than serious” referring to a violation that causes injury but not death) increased from $14,502 to $15,625 per violation. The maximum penalty for willful or repeated violations (defined as those that risk employee health or safety) increased from $145,027 per violation to $156,259 per violation. In the tragic event that an employee’s life is lost, violations become criminal offenses and can carry fines of up to half a million dollars.

From electricians to pipefitters, construction workers of every stripe need to know their helmets from their high-impact boots. Most are aware of the risks and appreciate an employer who puts worker safety at the top of the priority list. It’s good for morale and productivity, and it’s the only way to shore up your profit line.

The bottom line? A safe workplace saves lives and saves money. 

This eBook walks you through the most common (and costly) hazards in the construction industry. It provides budget-friendly tips and strategies so you can manage and stay ahead of the requirements.

What You’ll Learn:

• Information about frequently cited violations
• How to prevent the most common hazards
• Methods and tools to help you comply with inefficient, budget-friendly ways

Chapter 1: Prioritize the Most Common Construction Hazards

Construction sites are full of hazards, from improperly used nail guns to dangerous materials like silica and asbestos lurking in old structures. While you can’t dismiss a single safety aspect on your site, you need to use your time wisely — and prioritize the hazards that cause the most harm. Read on for tips to help you stay on top of the Fatal Four. 

Falls

Over the past few years, fall prevention has been a top focus area of OSHA. It’s not surprising, given that falls cause more fatal and nonfatal injuries than any other safety hazard. In fact, falls from elevations composed about 13% of all fatal workplace injuries in 2021.

As a result, OSHA has launched major initiatives to raise awareness about injuries and deaths by falls — most of which are entirely preventable.

One initiative is the National Safety Stand-Down, an annual event that started in 2014. The first Safety Stand-Down reached more than 1 million construction workers, who set aside time during the work day to learn about fall hazards and prevention.

How does it work?

“Companies can conduct a Safety Stand-Down by taking a break to have a toolbox talk or another safety activity, such as conducting safety equipment inspections, developing rescue plans, or discussing job-specific hazards,” OSHA explains on its website. Employers who participate then provide feedback to an OSHA forum and earn a Certificate of Participation.

Taking part in a Stand-Down will not only help you improve your safety measures but also send the message to your workers that you care about their health and well-being. This message is crucial and can go a long way in helping your workers take extra precautions to follow safety protocols.

Want to hold your own Safety Stand-Down event? Prepare with these three sources from OSHA:

• Resources to Prepare for a Successful Stand-Down
• Stand-Down Frequently Asked Questions
• Highlights From Past National Safety Stand-Downs

Other ways to prevent falls

Of course, participating in a Stand-Down isn’t the only way to prevent falls. It’s critical to evaluate your entire workplace. When you do, pay special attention to the most common causes of fall-related injuries:

• Unprotected sides, wall openings, and floor holes
• Improper scaffold construction
• An unguarded protruding steel rebar
• Misuse of portable ladders

Create a fall-protection policy and train employees to set up and always use the proper fall-arrest and fall-protection systems. For more in-depth resources on fall prevention, OSHA has many educational and training resources to help you learn more.

Struck-By Hazards

“Struck-by hazards” aren’t always obvious. Many are hidden, making them easy to overlook. While working high on scaffolds, for instance, the risks are more obvious than while walking across the work site after a shift — a prime time for “struck-by” accidents to occur.

Three-fourths of all fatalities in this category involve heavy equipment like trucks or cranes. Other common causes of struck-by injuries include falling or flying objects and constructing masonry walls. 

When are workers at risk?

Workers are at risk anytime work is being performed overhead, whether on a scaffold or crane; anytime they’re around power tools or other equipment that can emit a flying, falling, swinging, or rolling object, such as a nail gun or chipper; and anytime they’re in the line of vehicles or traffic.

To prevent struck-by hazard injuries, adhere to what OSHA considers basic safety measures in this area:

• Wear hardhats 
• Stack materials and secure tools to prevent them from sliding, falling, or collapsing 
• Use protective measures such as toeboards and debris nets 
• Wear safety goggles, glasses, or face shields 
• Inspect your tools and all components of your equipment regularly
• Ensure that all workers have proper tool training 
• Avoid working beneath loads being moved by a crane 
• Post warning signs and set up barricades around all hazard areas 
• Do not exceed lifting capacity on cranes

In addition, familiarizing yourself with struck-by-hazard examples and protections can help you avoid common hazards in your workplace that you might not otherwise consider.

Electrical Hazards

Working with electricity is complicated, so stories abound about electricity-related accidents on construction sites — and the enormous penalty fees and damaging lawsuits that follow.

Each year, an estimated 350 people die from an electrical-related injury. Electrical hazards on construction sites can cause shock, explosions, and traumatic injuries like burns, and electrocution. Often, electrical work takes place in elevated environments (e.g., cranes, scissor lifts, cherry pickers), so it comes with the added risk of falls.

As new technologies emerge and change how we use electricity, the job of electricians is growing more challenging. Electricians have to read and interpret mechanical drawings and electrical specifications; form and test circuits; pull wires through conduits; install fiber-optic systems; and more. The complexity of the work makes ongoing electrical training and assessment a core part of any safety program.

OSHA makes it clear that workers can’t be anywhere near an electrical circuit unless properly protected. The most common causes of electrical injury include:

• Contact with power lines 
• Lack of ground-fault protection
• Missing or discontinuous path to ground
• Improper equipment usage 
• Improper extension cord use

To avoid putting your employees at unnecessary risk, make sure they all understand the basics of how electricity works.

For a quick overview of how to prevent the most common causes of electrical injury, OSHA’s e-learning tool for construction breaks down dense information in clear ways. Also, bookmark and become a regular reader of EC&M (Electrical Construction and Maintenance), a publication that provides up-to-the-minute electricity-related news, safety guides, tips, and some fun quizzes (like this one on metal conduit grounding) to keep your skills sharp.

Each year, an estimated 350 people die from an electrical-related injury. 

Caught-In/Between Hazards

Caught-in/between hazards makes us cringe. They involve being pinned between heavy Equipment, machinery, and materials — essentially any kind of moveable or immovable object that causes employees to get pinched, squeezed, suffocated, or crushed.

You want to do everything you can to prevent caught-in/between accidents, which are among the most gruesome of construction site tragedies. They involve horrific things like trapping a body part in a machine rotator; being smothered under the soil as a result of a cave-in; getting crushed between a semi-trailer and a dock wall; or drowning in sewage that wasn’t properly diverted or controlled.

Common causes of these types of incidents include the use of improperly guarded heavy equipment, machines, or power tools. Situations, where a piece of heavy equipment has rolled over and puts an operator at risk, fall into this classification as well. Any vehicle using a rollover protective structure (ROPS)—such as earth movers, pickup trucks, and dump trucks—is typically subject to regulations specific to these kinds of hazards.

Excavation sites and trenches where soil tends to be unsteady pose high risks for caught-in/ between accidents. Excessive rain, heavy wind, or even vibration from trucks and equipment at the construction site can increase the risk at these sites by making the ground prone to shifting.

You can prevent a caught-in-between tragedy at your construction site with these tips and more from GoContractor:

• Identify the hazards on your site that present risks.
• Provide workers with the proper personal protective equipment (PPE).
• Inspect and maintain all of your equipment regularly.
• Never use equipment without ensuring that all safety guards are in place 
• Avoid loose clothing, which can get caught in equipment 
• Maintain a safe distance from machinery that you’re not operating, and stay outside of the swing radius of equipment 
• Make sure the operator can see you at all times
• Use barricades and warning signs 
• Keep a safe distance when materials are being moved overhead

Of course, preventing caught-in/between accidents varies by worksite. It’s up to you as an employer to put a solid prevention plan in place.

Chapter 2: Stay on Top of Regulations

There’s plenty to pay attention to with the Fatal Four safety hazards alone. This complete list of the most commonly violated OSHA standards includes additional areas you will need to assess and stay on top of, from machine guarding and respiratory protection to hazard communication.

Knowing and abiding by every risk relevant to your work presents a serious challenge, but the high safety stakes and legal ramifications make compliance mandatory. These tips can help you ensure compliance:

1. Utilize the Federal Register

Keep up with OSHA regulations by checking the Federal Register, which publishes standards as they are adopted, along with any corrections, insertions, deletions, and amendments. Sign up for an annual subscription through the U.S. Government Publishing Office.

2. Set up a safety steering committee

You want to involve and use your staff in your safety program as much as you can. One way is to create a “safety steering committee” made up of your employees. Consider excluding anyone in a supervisory or managerial role from joining the committee, and limit it to your hourly employees.

This gives your hourly employees a chance to voice safety-related concerns and ask for clarification on safety matters. Have them meet regularly as a group to discuss safety and contribute ideas for improving your overall safety program.

3. Get organized

Keeping up with OSHA regulations and training your employees to follow suit involves many steps and is time-consuming. Given the broad range of areas to track and protocols to implement, it’s not uncommon for something to fall through the cracks.

Treat your safety program like you treat your operations. If your construction company is small to mid-sized, print out a copy of OSHA’s Small Business Handbook. It’s full of practical, budget-friendly strategies that can help you comply without breaking the bank. It also includes handy templates and forms—such as self-inspection checklists and an action plan worksheet—to help you take a systematic, organized approach.

While the OSHA Small Business Handbook is useful in many ways, it lacks advice on what technologies and tools can streamline your approach to compliance. The forms provided in the handbook are all paper-based, and as the next part of this eBook explains, there are far more efficient and effective ways to track and manage safety.

Chapter 3: Embrace Technology to Make Compliance Easler

Today, technological innovations have emerged to help construction professionals keep up with relevant OSHA regulations more efficiently. Tech-savvy employers and workers are using specialized mobile forms on their tablets and smartphones to address and meet safety protocols. The forms are essentially mobile versions of the old paper forms used to track compliance, but they come with far greater uses.

A supervisor might, for example, use a mobile fall protection checklist to review and answer questions about guardrails and confirm that they’re in place or to find out whether personal fall arrest systems need to be in use. Similar forms exist for electrical safety considerations, rollover protective structures, and everything from cranes and conveyors to concrete.

Make a case for change

Whatever the construction job type, equipment, and work environment, there’s a good chance you’ll find a mobile form built to make OSHA compliance easier to manage—but your team may need some help making the switch. According to the 2021 JBKnowledge Construction Technology Report:

• Respondents reported spending only 1% of their annual sales volume on IT. 
• More than 90% of respondents reported using smartphones for work on a daily basis. 
• Construction companies most commonly use mobile devices in the field for daily reporting, taking photos/videos, time management, and safety management.

“Some may argue that construction is a low-margin industry so there isn’t money to invest in IT,” the report noted. “The truth of the matter is: It is a low-margin industry because of the lack of investment in innovations and IT. Many contractors see double digits in profit increase because of their investment in technology.” 

When paired with cloud-based platforms, mobile forms make it remarkably simple to collect data, control transactions, and manage business practices.

In general, the construction industry has been reluctant to embrace the benefits of IT. However, builders are now beginning to be dragged into the 21st century by the need to collaborate more closely with their more IT-savvy colleagues, the architects, and engineers responsible for the ideas behind their work.

Another positive effect of moving your business information to mobile is the serious reduction in paperwork. Consider, for example, the traditional way of managing OSHA compliance, which involves reviewing regulations, working up paper checklists, and making and circulating copies to the right people. All it takes is for one person to forget their copy of a required form, and your compliance process could be delayed by days.

Give everyone access to shared documents and checklists via their smartphones, and see how much faster and smoother the compliance process goes. Saving time means saving money — and that’s a plus in any economy.

Don’t let compliance slip

The reason for OSHA’s many compliance guidelines boils down to this: keeping your workers safe. No company wants to invite the injury or death of an employee to incur fines and penalties or be taken to court.

Don’t be intimidated by the need to keep up with regulations or the demands of creating an effective safety program. Use mobile technology to ease the burden and take your safety program to a new level.

GoCanvas offers hundreds of mobile forms created by and for construction workers and designed specifically with OSHA regulations in mind. To learn more, request a demo today.

Ready to Rethink How You Work?

GoCanvas has helped a variety of businesses across multiple industries transform their safety processes and rethink their efficiency, ultimately saving them money. Why not do the same? Reach out to one of our experts today to kickstart your process revolution.