Heating and cooling is what we do. Every year, though, we try to do it a little bit better than the year before. What did we accomplish in 2017?
We Are Now Women-Owned Heating and Cooling
Women-owned businesses are growing in numbers every year. Construction businesses, however, aren’t keeping pace with other types of companies with just 7% being owned by women.
David White Services Heating and Cooling is proud to be women-owned as of fall 2017. Esther White-Thomas and Cara White-Stallard now are the co-owners of David White Services.
New owners, Cara and Esther, with their mom, Sandra White, one of the founders of David White Services.
Esther is a universal certified EPA technician and has worked in residential retrofit and new construction HVAC for over 20 years. Residential service is her favorite aspect of the business, especially the consistent maintenance of furnaces and air conditioners. She says, “Building relationships with people is my favorite part of heating and cooling. It’s not about furnaces and air conditioners. It’s about people being comfortable in their own spaces and the best way to make that happen is to get to know them.”
Cara’s career path has taken her towards business management and accounting. Using critical thinking to come up with solutions and processes that help get clients and customers help faster is right up her alley. What drives her is family. Her own family of six, her husband and her and their four boys, is her inspiration every day. Her home is her haven and that makes her empathetic and compassionate. She works every day to ensure that all the families in her community have their own comfortable space to call home.
How can a women-owned HVAC business help you? Inc. magazine laid out three reasons.
- Women take time to see their employees as people and not just “worker bees..
- Women are more willing to implement systems in their companies and do so effectively.
- Women are better at building deeper relationships with their customers, suppliers, and vendors.
Energy Efficiency in Heating and Cooling
Perhaps filling us with even more pride than being in a minority of women-owned heating and cooling dealers, are the steps we took toward being even more focused on green living.
We have always promoted energy efficient heating and cooling. When residential heat pumps first came to the Athens and Lancaster area, it was David White that spearheaded the work, wanting to save his customers from expensive electric bills in the winter. Heat pumps also gave them more comfort in the summer without increasing their annual electric usage. Prior to this, most homes in the 80’s in our area did not have central AC at all. Today, three-quarters of all American homes have central AC.
Your furnace and central AC account for around 50% of your home’s energy consumption. It makes sense to start purchase high efficiency equipment or those that run off renewable energy, since HVAC is your biggest energy consumer.
With new laws going into place in 2015, all heat pumps and central air units in America must be over 13 or 14 SEER, depending on where you live. We decided, however, to beat that minimum requirement and in 2017, we focused on providing our customers with heating and air conditioning that was 20 SEER and above. Over 25% of our customers opted in. They wanted to save even more energy and purchased HVAC equipment that was 20-25 SEER. How much energy does that save?
10 SEER (if your current unit is over 10 years old) compared to 23.5 SEER can save on average up to 56%. We are thrilled that our customers and communities are so committed to reducing their carbon footprint in such a meaningful way.
Renewable Energy HVAC
In addition to traditional high efficiency heating and cooling, we continued installing geothermal heat pumps. We also added solar HVAC to our renewable energy offerings.
Since the 80’s we have installed geothermal systems in southeastern Ohio.
Geothermal heat pump systems use the consistent temperature of the ground to heat and cool your home. Using a vertical loop system, we have found geothermal
systems to be very effective in keeping our customers comfortable year round, while minimizing the need for having a lot of land. There are approximately 50,000 geothermal systems installed in the United States each year and we happy to have added to that number.
In 2017 we also added solar HVAC to our renewable resources heating and cooling line. Lennox’s innovative design is the only residential solar-ready HVAC on the market today. It uses the sun’s energy to power your biggest energy consumer without the high costs of a traditional solar installation.
Voice Activated Wifi Thermostats
We’ve been installing programmable thermostats for decades. Why? Because they are the easiest way for you to save money. For each degree you lower or raise your thermostat (depending on the season) you can save 1-3% on your utility bill. Logically, you can save money without sacrificing comfort by setting your thermostat up or down when you are asleep or away from home. However, this isn’t something we want to think about. A programmable thermostat does this automatically for you, if you program it.
Unfortunately, many people do not bother programming their thermostats, thereby eliminating any savings.
Wifi thermostats have solved this problem. The Lennox s30 thermostat allows you to adjust the temperature in your home in many, many ways. You can set a program. You can allow it to set a program for you by learning when you are home or not. It can link with your smart phone and adjust the temperature in your home based on the GPS in your phone, turning the temperature up as you drive home, and turning the temperature down as you drive away. You also can adjust the thermostat from anywhere with the ap.
Now, as of the summer of 2017, you can, from the comfort of your couch, simply say, “Alexa, adjust the temperature to 70 degrees” and the thermostat will adjust for you without you lifting a single finger.
We LOVE our s30 wifi thermostat and we also love our Alexa. Nothing could be easier.
Our Newly Remodelled Lancaster Fireplace Showroom
David White Services is proud to sell Mendota and Heat & Glo fireplaces and gas inserts, as well Jotul gas and wood stoves and other beautiful hearth products.
Now you can see for yourself just how much these gorgeous products can add to your own home. In 2016 we remodelled our Athens fireplace showroom. The impact of simplifying the spaces, by reducing the overwhelming amount of fireplaces and stoves and focusing on being able to step back and visualize, was huge. Not only that, but by adding comfortable seating, you now can see the variety of fires and log types from different angles.
As soon as we were finished in Athens, we knew Lancaster had to be our top priority. Lancaster, Ohio homes are some of the most beautiful in the whole state. There are currently 44 places in Fairfield County on the National Register of Historic Places!!!
In older homes, like those on the clickable list above, open hearths were how homes were heated. That heating needed constant supervision and led to cold, drafty living spaces. Today, we want convenience, comfort AND beauty. And we don’t want to lose the integrity of our gorgeous Lancaster homes and spaces.
Gas inserts and fireplaces are the way to go to accomplish all of the above. We believe our new fireplace showroom allows the residents of Fairfield County and Lancaster City to better educate themselves on what is available. If you haven’t checked it out yet, we are open from 8 am-4 pm Monday-Friday and by special appointment at other times. Call 1-800-247-6180 for details.
30 Day Kindness Challenge
Our final accomplishment from 2017 had nothing to do with HVAC or fireplaces themselves. Instead, we focused on people. We participated in a 30 day Kindness Challenge. We believe that putting people first, having family values, and caring, truly caring, about others is essential to happiness and business success. Because of that, we spent a month focusing not on ourselves, but on our community at large in both small and big ways. The 30 Day Kindness Challenge is still affecting our every day life as it helped point out all the ways we can make others smile. Just smiling makes others smile!
Running a central Ohio 5k for charity
Our list of Kindnesses we accomplished over a month
We took brownies to our hard working firefighters. Thank you to all the hard working responders!
So as 2017 ends and 2018 begins we reflect back only for a little while. It’s the future of HVAC that interests us and it is full of excitement. The innovations and changes we have seen in just the past year have impacted people’s lives in simple, yet delightful ways. We can’t wait to get started on the next year.
Heating and Cooling for You
For almost 40 years, David White Services has been delivering dependable quality service and comfort to Athens, Logan, Gallipolis, Lancaster and their surrounding areas.
Our expert team works together to bring you the very best heating and cooling for your home. From installation to annual check-ups, we work hard to make sure your heating and cooling equipment continues to function day in and out, year after year.
Our service department is open Monday-Friday from 7:00 am to 6:00 pm. We offer timely and emergency service 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Indoor air quality and comfort is our priority for your home. We’ve got the energy efficient Lennox furnaces and air conditioners and air quality products to provide it!
Planned Maintenance customers enjoy additional savings and peace of mind. Ask us how you can join!
