Wrightsoft assists Air Comfort, Inc. in selling quality and comfort

Air Comfort, Inc. based in Beaumont, Texas, has been successful in residential, commercial, and industrial HVAC for 54 years. Now a $10M company with 60 employees and 41 vehicles, Air Comfort has earned a reputation for high quality and excellent service. “Our thought process is to work with our customers, not just sell them heating and air conditioning equipment,” stated Martin Edwards, Residential and Lt. Commercial Sales Manager. “We want to sell them total indoor comfort.”

Right-Sales: A Logical Choice
Air Comfort learned that achieving total indoor comfort for their customers began with accurate load calculations to properly size equipment for better results, such as constant temperatures, lower monthly expenses, and even a decreased likelihood of mold or allergic reactions. At the time, producing these calculations and explaining the results to the customer proved challenging. By 2002, the ever-increasing competitive market forced Air Comfort to find a more streamlined approach to generating accurate load calculations, and for new construction applications, duct designs. They began researching software solutions and in the end, Air Comfort chose Wrightsoft’s Right-SuiteTM because they found the program very user friendly, easy to navigate, and were impressed by the company’s dedicated full-time technical support.

Improving Their Process
Right-Suite had a dramatic affect on Air Comfort’s business, reducing the overall calculation and design time by 85% and improving their overall output within the residential and light commercial division. Working with an outside evaluation company to verify their observations and to look for additional ways to further improve their business, Edwards noted “Since we’ve added Right-Suite, we’ve seen a 20% increase in our productivity in the residential change-out market, and our sales have increased about 30%.” This substantial improvement in productivity means that with the help of Right-Suite, they are now able to produce a Manual J load calculation and when necessary, a Manual D duct design for every customer.

In the past, Edwards would manually determine a load calculation and duct design for only select homes, not every project, because the process was so time consuming. “For an average 2,000 sq. ft. house, by the time you take all the measurements and write it all down along with energy calculations and everything, you’re looking at 1 hour for the measuring and 3 hours for the actual load calculation.” Adding a duct design took about 3 more hours. At a total of 7 hours for a complete system design, each employee would only be able to get through one job a day.

“Using Right-Suite, for your basic 2,000 sq. ft. house, I can now draw my room-by-room floor plan on the screen in 30 minutes to automatically produce a Manual J load calculation.” Right-Suite’s unique Hotlink TechnologyTM seamlessly connects each module, so Edwards is able to easily produce a Manual D duct design in another 30 minutes. Because Right-Suite is a modular program, Air Comfort selected only the functionalities that they needed at the time, leaving the option open to purchase additional modules in the future. Their current Right-Suite package consists of Right-J® for ACCA-certified Manual J load calculations, Right-Draw® for drag-and-drop building description, Right-D® for ACCA-certified Manual D duct design, and Right-2LineTM Duct for CAD-quality duct design.

Separating From the Competition
Right-Suite recently gave Edwards an advantage over the competition when he bid on a $5.3M home located in Beaumont, TX. At roughly 16,000 sq. ft., this single story home boasts 30-40’ ceilings, 20’ entryways, 19’ archways, and 10’ marble fireplaces. Edwards got the job after two other contractors initially bid the home by using a simple square foot per ton estimation instead of running a load calculation. “I was hired because I was able to show them my load calculation using Right-Suite, my tonnage, and what equipment we recommended.” Edwards even consulted with Wrightsoft Technical Support on the design so that he could meet the owner’s main request of having his game room reach 65°F on a 100°F day. “Using Right-Suite gave me the ability to bid and complete this project - it is definitely the largest home I have ever designed.” In the final design, Edwards separated the house into 6 separate zones and used one Carrier Infinity system per zone, finishing the load and duct calculations and the entire system design in only 12 hours.

“Right-Suite gives us confidence and offers the homeowner proof that we can make their house comfortable and economical at the same time,” concluded Edwards. “Their satisfaction means less callbacks for us and better word-of-mouth advertising!” With Wrightsoft Right-Suite software, Air Comfort can achieve total indoor comfort for each of their customers and continue to adhere to their founding principle of offering the customer a quality service at a quality price.