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[Music]
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welcome to Ask Caleffi
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the podcast that dives into real life
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problems that plumbing and hvac
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technicians face in the field
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we're your hosts from the Caleffi tech
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support team i'm greg tubbs
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and i'm dan firkus welcome we look
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forward to sharing some stories from our
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tech
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calls and using our background and
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expertise to make your days a little
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easier
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[Music]
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hey there and thank you for tuning in to
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the first
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ever episode of the ask Caleffi podcast
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how we doing dan we're doing good yeah
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thanks thanks for joining us
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yeah we certainly appreciate it
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so in this podcast we're not going to
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get too technical
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we're actually just going to kind of
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give you the back story on
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dan and myself and Caleffi
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yeah absolutely we look forward to
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using our backgrounds as contractors
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along with the thousands of tech calls
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we take every year
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to try to provide some information to
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help make your lives a little easier
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absolutely you know we understand being
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a contractor i mean both of us are from
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the field
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absolutely you know we work for
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contractors as service technicians and
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installers
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so we understand it and we've been there
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and we know what it is to get good
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solid advice we sure do you know and
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that's what we're going to look at here
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you know what advice can we give you
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to make your lives easier so greg what
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would you say is the best advice you've
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ever received
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boy i received all sorts of good and bad
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advice but i think one of the
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good lessons i took right off the bat in
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the field
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was on a water heater change out an
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electric water heater
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a guy i was working with he uh
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told me yup i i got the i shut the
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breaker off it's all good you're good to
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go
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go ahead and clip that line and and
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we'll go well
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you know 220 volts grabbed hole with a
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brand new pair of side cutters and
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that was the end of the side cutters so
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moral of the story is
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always double check your partner's work
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it just makes your job a little bit
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easier
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yeah it'll also save your pair of side
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cutters that too
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how about you i'm sure you've uh you've
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gotten your share of advice in your day
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yeah you know i was thinking about that
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and i would say the best
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piece of advice i've ever received was
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when i was a young tech
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you know out on a service call and the
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guy was working with
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you know said to me just focus on what
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you're doing slow down
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learn from every experience and every
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tech call you're working on and don't be
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afraid to ask questions
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that's great advice i mean you need to
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be able to ask questions
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we want to be the guys that you can ask
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questions to that's what we're here for
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you know we've been there you know in
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your in your shoes
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we'd be able to i think help you out
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pretty well yeah
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i mean we talk to a lot of contractors
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throughout the day
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you know on service calls and
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troubleshooting and applications you
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know it gives us a great
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learning opportunity because we're
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learning you know we're helping you
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troubleshoot our products but we're also
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seeing the world through your eyes as we
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as we help you do that
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sure so we want to be able to teach you
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guys you know about our products and
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and have confidence in our product turn
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you'll probably just continue to buy
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more of them along the way
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absolutely and or you'll feel more
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comfortable calling us and
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and working on the product absolutely so
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let's dive into who Caleffi is yeah so
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Caleffi is a worldwide manufacturer of
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high quality components
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primarily a brass manufacturer for
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plumbing and hydronic heating
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applications
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for both residential and commercial
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markets you know it's interesting that
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the company was actually founded in 1961
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by francesco Caleffi in the province of
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navarro italy
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he began with two lathes in his garage
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wow
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you weren't even a twinkle in your
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daddy's eye and he already had two
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lathes in his garage
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starting to crank out product absolutely
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you know i mean humble beginnings
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wouldn't you say
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i would say all good things got to start
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in a garage i think it sure does
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especially you know given the size we
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are today
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yeah i mean how big are we well you know
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it
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today i mean we're 1300 plus employees
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we
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service 90 countries from 10 locations
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worldwide
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we represent the north american division
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here in milwaukee wisconsin
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we service all of north america and
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canada but interesting enough
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we're still owned by the Caleffi family i
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mean francesco's son marco runs the
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company today
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Caleffi processes a lot of brass yeah how
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much brass do they
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they process do you think boy i think
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they
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i had to guess you know probably maybe
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enough to build a statue of liberty
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well i think you could probably think
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just a tad bigger
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boy bigger than the statue of liberty
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okay i'm gonna go with the eiffel tower
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you're getting warmer try two eiffel
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towers wow that is a lot of statues of
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liberty
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this certainly is you can fit a lot of
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them into an eiffel tower
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let alone too yeah it's pretty
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incredible so
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what else are we known for well you know
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greg here in north america
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we got a pretty ace marketing team we
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got some pretty shrewd sales guys and a
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lot of fun-loving employees
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you know what Caleffi is really known for
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greg it's our free
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complimentary excellence in education
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like
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we do put out a lot of information we do
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i think clough you know you look at
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you know all of the products offered and
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all the manufacturers out there and i
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don't think there's any better source of
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technical information or educational
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material than what we offer
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you're right i mean that monthly coffee
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with Caleffi
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webinars i mean we've got over 130 hours
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of recorded content available just on
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our youtube channel
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absolutely not to mention our idronics
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we're just releasing
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our 28th edition of idronics it comes
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out twice a year
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that's also available through our
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website sure
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let's let's go back and talk a little
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bit about the webinar series i mean we
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get a lot of expert guest speakers
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sometimes they're even from other
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countries i mean i know we've gotten
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some of our engineers from italy
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to talk on it yes we have we've had
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guest speakers from
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you know engineering firms or even
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contractors as guest speakers
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absolutely so now going back to
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the technical journal idronics i believe
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we are on our 28th
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edition did you know that you could
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spill a cup of coffee on the cover of
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hydronics and just wipe it off with no
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problems
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yeah that i didn't know what else are we
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known for
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i mean i know we've got more material
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out there yeah well we have the Caleffi
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academy for our reps and we also have
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the Ask Caleffi blog which is what this
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uh podcast is going to be based after
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sure
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with all the questions we get a lot of
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that is reiterated
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from the tech calls it's generated from
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tech calls or emails
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yeah it is yeah there's a ton
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information on there you know and
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there's
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every day there's there's comments being
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posted and
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replies to on that blog yeah so
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the rep academy i know we do our best to
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keep our wraps up on our products
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and the more we do the better off it we
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are you know it
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it helps us and say you know you don't
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have comfortability calling into us
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we're giving our reps the tools to help
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you out in the field if you'd rather
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talk to the reps
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yeah absolutely it's like train the
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trainer absolutely
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let's talk a little bit about ourselves
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shall we sure i think we should
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want you to start by telling me a little
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bit about yourself greg
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working in the trades ran in my family
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my grandfather both grandfathers are
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actually one was a feeder
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one was a one was a fitter one was a
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sheet metal worker
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and then i have an uncle that also did
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a lot of hvac type work where he
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you know he installed boilers he did air
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conditioners everything
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whatever he could get his hands on that
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was he
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it was work yeah so i learned a lot from
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watching them
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as a kid and when it came time to it
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time to graduate high school my dad just
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kind of turned to me and said hey
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i don't see you wanting to work in a
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factory i'm not even happy in a factory
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maybe you need to get into something so
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it was either going to be
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diesel mechanics or hvac so i ended up
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going to school for hvac and
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you know got out and got a job worked
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for a plumbing and heating contractor
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and then moved on to another contractor
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after seven years and that
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that company um the work kind of started
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to dry up i moved on to
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another company where i primarily did
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service that's all i did was run for
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service
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okay working on working on all sorts of
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different equipment and
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really getting more involved with
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customer service side of things
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more hands-on with the customers so but
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there's a lot of skills to be learned
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working with
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with people yeah yeah absolutely
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and you know here i am 20 years in the
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industry
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yeah so you were you your background was
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more
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old house residential replacement
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yeah old house residential replacement
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light commercial plumbing okay yeah i
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mean water heater change outs
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there were weeks i would probably do 10
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in a week okay so
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yeah well it's interesting greg you know
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you talked about your
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following in your grandfather's
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footsteps i actually my grandfather ran
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his own small
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you know heating company when i was a
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kid and i remembered
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you know riding out with him during
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summer vacations i'd ride out with him
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in the truck go down to the shop help
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him bend metal and
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that's what kind of pushed me to get
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into this so
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very similar to your background i
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started out at
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a local tech school and then from there
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went to work for a contractor
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where we differ a little bit though is
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the contractor i went for
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went to work for was more of residential
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new construction
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sure so you know you talked about yours
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being more a replacement remodel
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um it was interesting how contractors
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have different niches so to speak
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yeah everybody does things a little bit
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differently and mine just
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that's where i ended up starting off
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with uh
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doing a lot of replacement and old house
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stuff
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yeah a lot of the remodel work well and
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i started on the new side
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and you know i was with them for about
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eight years and actually it was my
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grandfather that came to me and he said
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you know
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you're working for a great company you
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know it's a great great skill
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but you need to consider that in your
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career
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things are going to change industry is
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going to change markets going to change
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and you're kind of limiting your skill
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set working with just the new
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construction
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so that was pretty good advice i would
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say i mean it definitely has changed
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it definitely has changed so within a
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year i had left that company and went to
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work for
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another company in the area that was
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more replacement remodeled
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they did a lot of hydronic which is
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where i was able to get into the water
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side of the business
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got into geothermal heating as well and
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did more service work with them
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so i was kind of excited to be able to
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learn you know all aspects of the trade
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and that gave me an opportunity from
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there to go back into
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another company that was new
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construction and i founded uh
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hydronic and geothermal division within
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that company right
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well and geo had kind of its niche
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little time in our history too didn't it
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it does yeah and it's still there i mean
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with the
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outreach of you know the air-to-water
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heat pumps i think you're seeing a lot
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more
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popularity coming coming with the heat
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market
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sure but no so that um you know again
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good advice that
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you know the industry did change in my
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career and i was able to adapt to that
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so that's kind of
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the advice i would give you know someone
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going forward is keep your eye
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on the market and learn everything you
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can learn within your trade
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absolutely so it's a little bit of my
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story and then it brought me here to
12:04
Caleffi
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you know you and i had worked together
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in the past and there'll be no
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no mystery going forward that we've
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known each other a while
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we certainly have you know working at
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our
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previous employer you know you and i
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were able to help each other out and ask
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each other questions
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and sure we gave each other a hard time
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along the way and that's part of being
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in the trades man that's
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bigger dues and and getting a little
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grief along the way yeah
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all good times yeah but at the end of
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the day we were never afraid to help
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each other out and i think that's
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that's why we are doing what we are
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doing we are
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here to help people out because we enjoy
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doing it
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um we take a pretty big sense of pride
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in in doing so
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and so here we are to help you guys out
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so don't hesitate to call us or you know
12:55
send us an email on the tech support
12:57
line or where
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however you want to get a hold of us
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right get ahold of us yeah right
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and we're here for you yeah i think you
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said it perfectly we both enjoy helping
13:05
helping other contractors in tech so
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you know we look forward to being there
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for you guys yeah at the end of the day
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if you get good advice from us your
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job's going to go a lot better
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hopefully much more efficiently and
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you're just going to look that much
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better to your customer
13:19
so what do you want to come back and
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talk about next week greg well
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we have a lot of different things we
13:24
could talk about but
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one thing in particular is something
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that we get an awful lot of questions
13:30
about
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and we make a ton of oh you must be
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talking about air vents
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exactly next week tune in
13:38
we're going to talk about air vents yeah
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that's a great topic i'm looking forward
13:41
to that
13:42
all right thanks for tuning in yeah
13:44
thank you
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thank you for tuning in if you ever need
13:48
help please feel free to contact our
13:50
tech support team
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anytime at techsupport.us
13:55
caleppe.com or call us during our
13:58
business hours
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at 7 30 a.m to 4 30 p.m
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central time at 414-238-2360
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