Winter Is Coming…How Will You Maintain?

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The winter months can be a rough time for HVAC contractors. The heat is gone, and, for many, so is the summer rush. This could mean slow works days, and possibly tight cash flow. But proactive contractors know that there is a service offering to help them get through the winter more confidently and with less worry: residential maintenance contracts, which provide a constant flow of work (and revenue stream) throughout the year.

QM Can Help
The ANSI/ACCA 4 QM (Maintenance of Residential HVAC Systems) Standard was developed to establish the minimum requirements of acceptable residential HVAC equipment maintenance. The standard is comprised of checklists for various equipment types; each checklist has inspection tasks and an associated recommended corrective action. These checklists were created by a committee made up of contractors, manufacturers, distributers and utilities, and were ultimately vetted by the industry. That was seven years ago. In December 2013, ACCA fully reviewed and updated the QM Standard.

QM Improvements
Why update the original standard? Over time, changes in the industry and comments from standard users help to identify ways to improve our standards to ensure that they continue to meet industry requirements. The QM Standard is no different. So what are the changes made during the 2013 revision? They include the following:

• A new checklist to cover steam distribution systems for those homes that use radiators.
• New inspection tasks to address the maintenance requirements of inverter-driven equipment.
• The enumeration of individual inspection tasks for easier reference.
• A new informative appendix on the importance of maintenance to equipment capacity

ACCA strives to have complete standards that meet the industry’s need, and these improvements to the standard have helped maintain the level of excellence we are known for, while continuing to be a useful tool for contractors.

Additional Tools
We know that selling maintenance contracts to your customers can sometimes be tough. To help you do that, ACCA has developed a new ComforTool (customer leave-behind) on the value of preventative maintenance agreements. ACCA members can download ComforTools and customize them with their company information, which can lend the national organization’s name to your sales pitch. Visit member.acca.org/download to find this and other ComforTools.

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Posted In: ACCA Now, Technical Tips