Nick's Plumbing & Air Conditioning Live Video Transcription:
Richard Saad, I’m so, so excited. Today we have a guest Beau Jolly from Navien tankless water heaters. We’re coming to you today from the world headquarters of Nick’s Plumbing & Air Conditioning over here on Durham. As usual, John, my cohost is out of town. Yes, we actually let him go out of town this week, so this week for me is a little challenging and difficult. I’m answering a lot of questions that I usually don’t do and working late, which is good. I always work late anyway, but glad you guys are tuning in. We’ve got an exciting show today. Beau, if you guys understand or know how they are, industry somewhat works. He is the Texas rep exclusive rep for Navien. There is nobody in Houston or Texas except for him, so he travels around the state. So we are very lucky today to get him in studio. And our topic today is of course tankless water heaters.
That’s what he does. He’s been doing it for a long time. He is an absolute expert in this stuff. So if you guys have questions today, do not hesitate. We will answer them right now. So get your questions ready and if you have some cinnamon and we’ll, we’ll get it answered. So Beau, thank you for coming in today. Thanks for having me. Happy to be here. Uh, always loved coming by and seeing you guys. Uh, you, Richard, John, obviously all of these, the guys when we do the training here, at ya’lls facility. So it’s always a pleasure to be here. Glad. Glad we could come out and do this with you here and answer some questions for some of these listeners. Well, it’s exciting. I mean, you, you’ve got your weeks typically stay very busy and, and your nonexistent meaning you’re in other cities all the time and, and giving courses and updates and information, uh, to plumbing companies.
Absolutely. So, yeah, I mean, as you said, uh, you know, I cover, we cover the whole state of Texas. Uh, so at any given time I could be in Beaumont, I could be in Galveston, I could be in college station. Um, you know, today I get to be in Houston close to home. So that’s always nice when we get to keep it close. So a lot less time on the road. So. Absolutely. Well, let’s get into it. Okay, let’s, let’s talk tankless. Right? Let’s talk it. So I think the, the, the question that most viewers are going to have is why tankless?
Well, I would say the first reason when we generally talk to homeowners, contractors, home builders, engineers, whoever it is, um, you know, the first thing we talk about is the endless hot water, right? Um, you know, we have people that complain about their 40 gallon tank. I’m not being able to fill up a full size tub, um, you know, getting hot water through half of it. The other has kind of Luke warm. Um, we hear stories from people, uh, you know, when their family comes into town and, and they’re, they’re taking showers and you know, everybody’s fighting to be the first one in there, uh, so that they don’t get stuck with the cold shower. So that, I would say probably the first reason for tankless water heater is a, the never, you’re going to have 100 or 120 degree water as long as you want it to run.
So that’s number one. I would say that’s the exciting part in saying that, I want to talk from a plumbing perspective for a second. Let’s talk code. So people I think have a misunderstanding of when I put a water heater in your home, it’s going to be enough gallons to supply your whole home. Well that’s not code code is I just have to supply you with hot water. So technically you could have a five bathroom house and I could put in a 20 gallon water heater to supply your house because the state and the city views it. You have hot water, there is no requirement of how much hot water I actually give you. So people really don’t understand that, that the city is not here to tell me what size unit to put in your house. So what you’re seeing in, which is a very common theme right now and there is a lot of building going on and you’re seeing these builders put in 40 gallons of water heater on a tank, right?
And they’re doing three, four bathrooms and putting in an oversized hub that holds over a hundred gallons by itself. Now you answered this to me on how are you going to fill a tub that takes over 100 gallons with 40, not possible, not well thought. And then about 60 gallons of groundwater. Right? Exactly. So here’s what some of these builders have done. Now these builders are smart because they know those requirements as well. They know to sell your home or sell that home to you, you need at least 40 gallons. So that’s at least what they’re going to do because the home inspector isn’t in, uh, say anything because it’s none of his business anyway. But they have done now is they’re putting in to water heaters to 40 gallons or 50 gallons. So if you’re in a three or four bathroom home or a two bathroom home with an oversized tub that takes over a hundred gallons, those units can’t recover fast enough to continuously fill that tub to the 100 gallon point.
Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, you know, we talked about the tubs obviously, uh, you know, we’ve talked with your guys about when they go into houses and they have body sprays in the shower, multiple shower heads, right? So, um, you know, that’s something that we always try to go over with your guys when we’re here doing training is a proper sizing. I think that’s, that’s a big, that’s a key to what we’re doing here is we wanna make sure that when your guys get done installing this, the homeowners happy and they can run whatever they need to run as long as they need to run it and have hot water for everybody in that house. So that’s, that’s a big, big key that we try to focus on, you know, when we do the trainings here with you guys. Absolutely. And, and you know, and saying body sprays and multiple heads.
I’m one of the fortunate guys that did get flooded during Harvey, so I was kind of excited about it. I got to Redo two bathrooms which had already ridden one. I just had to Redo it again. But I actually went with multiple body sprays, handheld showerhead. It’s like a carwash now. I kinda like it. Just a moment in the back at the same time. What more can you ask for? Right. And guess what I did and I was also super excited. Um, I had another tankless manufacturer that I’ve had in my house since 08 But what navien actually offers that is different from these other companies is they have a pump system, so you can have instant hot water. Now this is a misconception of what people think. There’s a difference between instant, an endless. Okay. So if somebody puts a tank or a tank in the same location that you had a tank, it’s going to take the exact amount of time to get to that faucet or shower.
Well, with Navien there is no more wait time. You can put in a recirculating line and you can have instant hot water everywhere. So that’s what I did in my house. I was so excited. Absolutely. It’s a, it’s awesome. I mean, obviously the homeowners, we have a lot of builders on now as well that are a speck in this, into their houses. Um, you know, the, the circulation system is huge. It’s, it’s one is just the, um, you know, obviously you enjoyed having the hot water there. You don’t have to wait on it to travel from the garage all the way to the master bathroom or wherever to the kitchen or a nurse. I’ve done some for story homes. They’re putting 50 gallon tanks in the attic and there’s a bathroom on the first floor with no recirculation. So we do a lot here in the Heights, like you said, with these houses that are going straight up, three, four, five stories, um, you know, and so obviously, uh, we can cut down on the wait time, which is a nice thing as far as um, you know, being able to enjoy it.
But the other big thing it does is, you know, we looked at numbers and we found that I’m an average household of four. Um, they waste about 10,000 gallons worth of water a year waiting on hot water to get to fixtures. Right. Whether it’s the shower. I think that’s generous. I think it’s more than that. Well, and it, you know, a lot of that depends on the number of people right in the house, how the house is built as one long one story. Is it straight up and down for storage. Right. So there’s a lot of um, you know, wiggle room in that I’ve seen up to $15,000 gallons.
SORRY FOR THE INTERUPTION….
Took forever to get to the kitchen and when I read pipe that house, I was so excited. I did two recirculation lines, one of the master bath, one of the kitchen and put the and right in the middle and oh man. So, so here’s what Kinda got me too because I didn’t have a research line in my house so I had to move in with mom. Yes. I had to move in with my parents and I’m 47. It was fantastic. Thank goodness I still have parents that I could do that with because it would have been miserable if I was somewhere else for nine months while I had to Redo my own home. Thanks to Harvey, but I got so spoiled having instant hot water that I had a different manufacturer. I had a different tankless water heater at my house. I tore stuff up to get a line in just so I could put the Navien in and get that recirculation system in. And then there was nothing wrong with the tankless that I had, but it went bye bye. And I got the navy and put that one in. We’ll just because I was so. I had to have instant. Yeah, absolutely. Once you, once you experience it, it’s hard to go back. Yeah. I’m with you, mom. Spoiled me again.
Well, how about let’s, let’s talk about what makes it different on a warranty because this is a really big deal for you guys. Absolutely. I mean, you guys take warranty very seriously. We are actually a provider of the warranty services for you guys. And, and by the way, they never have problems. It’s very, very, uh, out of a year that we go and fix these tankless water heaters. Now, failure happens in life. I mean, it just does. Look at your car, look at everything else. Our bodies fail everything, so everything’s going to fail. But we have very little failures with Navien. That’s the bottom line. Yeah. So, you know, to do what happens. Well, when they do,
um, you know, we’re here to support you. That’s, that’s our big motto is um, you know, service starts here with us. Um, and so with that being said, um, you know, we stock about $70,000 worth of parts in conroe just in case something were to happen and your guys had to go out there on an emergency job on a Friday afternoon at 3:30. Um, you know, we’ve got the part here in Conroe, you can come get it from us, I can meet you somewhere. Um, so that’s a service that we offered. We want to be able to get a everybody backed up and running as soon as possible, but like you said, um, we, we, we feel like we’ve got a, the best tankless water heater out there, um, from, from many standpoints, but definitely from a, you know, a lack of issues standpoint if you will.
So, um, we’ve, we’ve found that if we have issues, a lot of that comes down to something minor with the installation. Maybe it’s a venting thing, maybe it’s a gas line thing, um, but usually it’s something small, you know, filter got some sand clogged up in it or some pipe dope in it. Um, but for the most part, um, you know, like you said, it’s got moving parts, those things that are gonna, you know, over time things happen, to parts. But, um, we, we’ve, we’ve really kind of mastered this, this whole box here in and very confident in what we’re running out there. So, but to touch on the warranty, like you said, that’s a big thing for us. So we’re the industry leader in warranty. We offer 15 year warranty on the heat exchanger, which is the heart of the unit, um, that is two and a half times the life cycle of a tank type. So tank type warranty is six years. We’re going to give you 15, um, a lot of our competitors, they’re going to give you 12, um, which again is double what the tank was, um, but it’s not quite where we get to and, and part of that is we use a different grade of material in our heat exchanger. So, um, you know, that allows us to give that extra couple of years on there. So yeah, it’s a fantastic warranty. Yeah,
I mean it’s bar none the best. There is no company that holds a candle to you guys around that now in saying that they actually really don’t have to offer a warranty, you know, why? Because we rarely ever fixed anything so. But I can tell you when I do have to go fix something on their unit, which again, is extremely rare. Uh, they are always there. I get the part in a timely fashion and I get it fixed.
Yeah. And another thing is, um, as you said, y’all are a service, a specialist for us. So you guys have come up to our office and training where this changed hearts broken down heaters. We do that at our office. We’ve done it here at your office with you guys and Y’all, y’all actually have the parts kids ride on a couple of your trucks and you’ve got one here at the shop. So, um, you know, not only have we taken the stance that we want to ensure that everything’s going to go smooth, but you guys have stepped up to the plate and said we’re going to keep the parts on us too so that if something were to happen, we can fix it right now. Right. Then walk out of here and the customer’s happy. We’ll deal with the rest of it later. So that’s the bottom line. That’s the bottom line, right? As long as the is happy, that’s, that’s the key. Not getting a phone call. Exactly. That’s another key. Exactly right. Yeah. So it’s awesome.
It’s, it’s so exciting that you are here today, you guys, he’s one of the hardest guys to ever get to talk to a because they handle the state of Texas and they are navy and for the state of Texas. So I know that Navien has done a really good job with information for Houston and in our listeners and guests and clientele. What do you guys, what’s the future plans on Navien or is there anything coming down the pipe that we should know?
So we have some new stuff coming out. Um, obviously, uh, we, we do have a new unit that’s dropping in. It’s a 380,000 btu boiler. Okay. Uh, for home heating purposes, right? Because Navien not only does water heaters, but they do boilers, they do a combi units which do the in home heating and domestic hot water. So, um, there’s a, there’s a big breadth of line there. Um, we also have a, we just came out with our Wifi, so that’s, that’s a cool new touch on that. Okay. A little bit. Let’s talk about I, I’m a gadget guy and this wifi thing to me is, is really cutting edge, great technology and, and it’s, it’s new, but what is it going to do for our clientele and what is it gonna do for us? Right? Right. So the first thing that is going to do it allows you to turn the heater on and off, turn the temperature up and down.
Right? So if it’s in the attic, because here in Texas, right, most of them are in the attic, right? Um, so, you know, depending on the customer, they don’t really want to crawl up there and change the temperature or turn it on or off. So this is gonna allow you to turn it on, turn it off, turn it up, turn it down, you’re going to get error codes and diagnostics, which to us is going to be a big thing, right? It’s going to show the homeowner how much gas they’re using, how much water they’re using, um, you know, in, in, in what efficiency are we achieving at that point? Um, the error code side of it will be nice in the sense that there, there’s a place to add contractor, right? So when you all install one, the homeowner’s going to set up their APP and they can put on there Nick’s plumbing & Air Conditioning services as their, um, their contractor of choice.
So when this thing throws an error code, you automatically get an email, right? It emails you and an email is the homeowner and lets than know, hey, something’s not right here, which we’re throwing an error code. Um, and so you guys are able to contact the homeowner right away or they know right away that, hey, something’s going on, I need to get my water heater fixed so that they’re not getting home at 6:00 at night and finding out, hey, and I don’t have hot water, now I got to call and do an emergency call, right? Because it’s after hours. Um, so that’s, that’s some of it. Um, the other big part of it is, um, we can increase our efficiency, right? So, um, depending on how you set up the water heater to recirculate, it’s going to recirculate throughout the day when you’re there, when you’re not there with the APP.
Um, you had the ability to set a timer, right? So you want to come on at 6:30 in the morning if you have a pretty set schedule a, you get home at 6:00 at night. So you want it to come on at 5:30 in the afternoon, right? You can set these times, you can also hit a button and recirculate it now. So when you wake up, reach over, hit the button. By the time you get in there, you’ve got hot water at the shower. It’s really cool, which greatly increases the efficiency of the unit. Absolutely. If you’re not turning hot water all day on online, I do it all day. You know, why? Because your spoiled, because I can because he can’t even though nobody’s home except hey doll. But it’s going to be ready if somebody does well. Hey, if I decided to go home, it’s ready. There you go. That’s exactly right. So what, what? Uh, I mean, that is so cool. It’s really cool work. We’re selling a lot of them and I think as the, as we continue moving forward in everything in the home is going automated, right? Alexa is going to be able to control everything pretty soon. And um, so this was just a Navien was the first one out with this technology and they’re continuing to build on it and improve it. So we’ll, we’ll see some great things in the future. So yeah, that’s fantastic. Well, that concludes today. I hope you guys learned a few things, understood a few things. Uh, you can always call my office and asked me questions around it. Um, if I don’t know, something that’s rare, very rare, but if I don’t, I can call Beau and ask him that rare question and he will take a, a pickup my phone call and answer that question for me. So any last thoughts before we say goodbye? The only last thought I have is just thank you for having me out. I appreciate it. Enjoyed it. So, uh, and I’m glad you’re here. This is rare. You guys don’t understand how rare this is. I’m excited. Mr. Navien and Beau Jolly. Want me to reintroduce Beau Jolly from Navien? Did the company. I guess I didn’t do that very well at the beginning. Oh, we had a technical difficulty and who I am. Oh, okay. Okay. I’m Richard Saad Nick’s plumbing & Air Conditioning, coming from the world headquarters right here off of Durham. This is beau jolly from navien. They are the rep for Texas. They are the only rep in tech and Texas.
This guy knows everything about tankless, specifically. Navient. That’s what he does. So excited. He’s here today, guys, due to the fact that you will never see him because they handled the entire state and he stays extremely busy, so this is a very rare occasion that we have him in studio, and by the way, John is on a vacation. That’s where he’s at, making my life more difficult. Thank you guys for tuning in today. We appreciate your time. We’re always here for you at Nick’s Plumbing & Air Conditioning 713-868-9907. For any question that you have, whether we do the job or not, we are here for you. Thank you again and we’ll see you next week.
