Ask Caleffi
Welcome to the Ask Caleffi podcast series, now featuring our powerhouse tech team! Join Cody, Ryan, Matt, and Dan as they dive into the tricky heating and plumbing challenges they tackle every day.
These field experts share real-world insights to help contractors navigate even the toughest jobs with ease. Count on the team to keep things lively, mixing professional wisdom with the entertaining, relatable stories you’ve come to love.
Ask Caleffi
#1 Do all good things start in a garage?
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Dedicated to our commitment to providing Excellence in Education, Caleffi North America is pleased to introduce the Ask Caleffi podcast series. The podcast makes its debut on Tuesday, March 2, 2021, and features our technical support wizards, Greg Tubbs and Dan Firkus. They will discuss tricky heating and plumbing problems they are tasked with solving and share insights from the field to help contractors discover the best way to work through tough jobs. Count on this dynamic duo to keep the series fun as they mingle in their own entertaining and relatable stories.
Greg, a family man, and outdoor enthusiast provide on-the-spot solutions for the field on a daily basis as part of Caleffi's technical support team. Combined with his 17 years of HVAC service and installer experience, he is ready, willing, and eager to share secrets for success to minimize the field frustration factor.
A hiker and nature-lover, Dan is an application engineer at Caleffi and is responsible for supporting and answering technical calls, e-mails, and social media inquiries. Our audience will appreciate Dan’s extensive 29-year background in the trades combined with his product and application knowledge.
4 Question Survey:
00:01
[Music]
00:04
welcome to Ask Caleffi
00:06
the podcast that dives into real life
00:08
problems that plumbing and hvac
00:10
technicians face in the field
00:12
we're your hosts from the Caleffi tech
00:14
support team i'm greg tubbs
00:16
and i'm dan firkus welcome we look
00:18
forward to sharing some stories from our
00:20
tech
00:20
calls and using our background and
00:22
expertise to make your days a little
00:24
easier
00:26
[Music]
00:29
hey there and thank you for tuning in to
00:31
the first
00:32
ever episode of the ask Caleffi podcast
00:36
how we doing dan we're doing good yeah
00:38
thanks thanks for joining us
00:40
yeah we certainly appreciate it
00:43
so in this podcast we're not going to
00:45
get too technical
00:47
we're actually just going to kind of
00:48
give you the back story on
00:50
dan and myself and Caleffi
00:54
yeah absolutely we look forward to
00:57
using our backgrounds as contractors
00:59
along with the thousands of tech calls
01:00
we take every year
01:02
to try to provide some information to
01:05
help make your lives a little easier
01:07
absolutely you know we understand being
01:10
a contractor i mean both of us are from
01:11
the field
01:12
absolutely you know we work for
01:13
contractors as service technicians and
01:16
installers
01:17
so we understand it and we've been there
01:20
and we know what it is to get good
01:23
solid advice we sure do you know and
01:26
that's what we're going to look at here
01:27
you know what advice can we give you
01:29
to make your lives easier so greg what
01:32
would you say is the best advice you've
01:34
ever received
01:34
boy i received all sorts of good and bad
01:37
advice but i think one of the
01:39
good lessons i took right off the bat in
01:42
the field
01:42
was on a water heater change out an
01:45
electric water heater
01:46
a guy i was working with he uh
01:50
told me yup i i got the i shut the
01:52
breaker off it's all good you're good to
01:54
go
01:54
go ahead and clip that line and and
01:56
we'll go well
01:57
you know 220 volts grabbed hole with a
02:00
brand new pair of side cutters and
02:02
that was the end of the side cutters so
02:04
moral of the story is
02:06
always double check your partner's work
02:08
it just makes your job a little bit
02:10
easier
02:10
yeah it'll also save your pair of side
02:12
cutters that too
02:14
how about you i'm sure you've uh you've
02:16
gotten your share of advice in your day
02:18
yeah you know i was thinking about that
02:19
and i would say the best
02:21
piece of advice i've ever received was
02:23
when i was a young tech
02:24
you know out on a service call and the
02:26
guy was working with
02:27
you know said to me just focus on what
02:29
you're doing slow down
02:32
learn from every experience and every
02:34
tech call you're working on and don't be
02:35
afraid to ask questions
02:37
that's great advice i mean you need to
02:39
be able to ask questions
02:40
we want to be the guys that you can ask
02:42
questions to that's what we're here for
02:44
you know we've been there you know in
02:47
your in your shoes
02:48
we'd be able to i think help you out
02:50
pretty well yeah
02:51
i mean we talk to a lot of contractors
02:54
throughout the day
02:55
you know on service calls and
02:57
troubleshooting and applications you
02:59
know it gives us a great
03:00
learning opportunity because we're
03:01
learning you know we're helping you
03:03
troubleshoot our products but we're also
03:05
seeing the world through your eyes as we
03:07
as we help you do that
03:09
sure so we want to be able to teach you
03:11
guys you know about our products and
03:13
and have confidence in our product turn
03:15
you'll probably just continue to buy
03:17
more of them along the way
03:18
absolutely and or you'll feel more
03:19
comfortable calling us and
03:21
and working on the product absolutely so
03:24
let's dive into who Caleffi is yeah so
03:26
Caleffi is a worldwide manufacturer of
03:29
high quality components
03:30
primarily a brass manufacturer for
03:33
plumbing and hydronic heating
03:34
applications
03:36
for both residential and commercial
03:37
markets you know it's interesting that
03:39
the company was actually founded in 1961
03:43
by francesco Caleffi in the province of
03:46
navarro italy
03:47
he began with two lathes in his garage
03:50
wow
03:50
you weren't even a twinkle in your
03:51
daddy's eye and he already had two
03:53
lathes in his garage
03:55
starting to crank out product absolutely
03:57
you know i mean humble beginnings
03:59
wouldn't you say
04:00
i would say all good things got to start
04:02
in a garage i think it sure does
04:04
especially you know given the size we
04:05
are today
04:06
yeah i mean how big are we well you know
04:10
it
04:10
today i mean we're 1300 plus employees
04:13
we
04:14
service 90 countries from 10 locations
04:17
worldwide
04:18
we represent the north american division
04:20
here in milwaukee wisconsin
04:23
we service all of north america and
04:25
canada but interesting enough
04:27
we're still owned by the Caleffi family i
04:29
mean francesco's son marco runs the
04:32
company today
04:33
Caleffi processes a lot of brass yeah how
04:36
much brass do they
04:37
they process do you think boy i think
04:39
they
04:40
i had to guess you know probably maybe
04:42
enough to build a statue of liberty
04:45
well i think you could probably think
04:48
just a tad bigger
04:49
boy bigger than the statue of liberty
04:51
okay i'm gonna go with the eiffel tower
04:54
you're getting warmer try two eiffel
04:56
towers wow that is a lot of statues of
04:59
liberty
04:59
this certainly is you can fit a lot of
05:01
them into an eiffel tower
05:03
let alone too yeah it's pretty
05:04
incredible so
05:06
what else are we known for well you know
05:08
greg here in north america
05:10
we got a pretty ace marketing team we
05:12
got some pretty shrewd sales guys and a
05:14
lot of fun-loving employees
05:16
you know what Caleffi is really known for
05:18
greg it's our free
05:20
complimentary excellence in education
05:23
like
05:23
we do put out a lot of information we do
05:25
i think clough you know you look at
05:27
you know all of the products offered and
05:29
all the manufacturers out there and i
05:31
don't think there's any better source of
05:34
technical information or educational
05:36
material than what we offer
05:38
you're right i mean that monthly coffee
05:40
with Caleffi
05:41
webinars i mean we've got over 130 hours
05:44
of recorded content available just on
05:46
our youtube channel
05:48
absolutely not to mention our idronics
05:51
we're just releasing
05:52
our 28th edition of idronics it comes
05:54
out twice a year
05:55
that's also available through our
05:57
website sure
05:59
let's let's go back and talk a little
06:00
bit about the webinar series i mean we
06:02
get a lot of expert guest speakers
06:05
sometimes they're even from other
06:06
countries i mean i know we've gotten
06:08
some of our engineers from italy
06:09
to talk on it yes we have we've had
06:12
guest speakers from
06:13
you know engineering firms or even
06:16
contractors as guest speakers
06:18
absolutely so now going back to
06:21
the technical journal idronics i believe
06:23
we are on our 28th
06:25
edition did you know that you could
06:27
spill a cup of coffee on the cover of
06:29
hydronics and just wipe it off with no
06:31
problems
06:32
yeah that i didn't know what else are we
06:34
known for
06:35
i mean i know we've got more material
06:37
out there yeah well we have the Caleffi
06:39
academy for our reps and we also have
06:41
the Ask Caleffi blog which is what this
06:43
uh podcast is going to be based after
06:46
sure
06:46
with all the questions we get a lot of
06:48
that is reiterated
06:50
from the tech calls it's generated from
06:52
tech calls or emails
06:53
yeah it is yeah there's a ton
06:55
information on there you know and
06:57
there's
06:57
every day there's there's comments being
07:00
posted and
07:01
replies to on that blog yeah so
07:04
the rep academy i know we do our best to
07:08
keep our wraps up on our products
07:10
and the more we do the better off it we
07:12
are you know it
07:13
it helps us and say you know you don't
07:15
have comfortability calling into us
07:18
we're giving our reps the tools to help
07:20
you out in the field if you'd rather
07:21
talk to the reps
07:22
yeah absolutely it's like train the
07:24
trainer absolutely
07:27
let's talk a little bit about ourselves
07:29
shall we sure i think we should
07:31
want you to start by telling me a little
07:33
bit about yourself greg
07:35
working in the trades ran in my family
07:39
my grandfather both grandfathers are
07:41
actually one was a feeder
07:42
one was a one was a fitter one was a
07:45
sheet metal worker
07:47
and then i have an uncle that also did
07:51
a lot of hvac type work where he
07:54
you know he installed boilers he did air
07:57
conditioners everything
07:58
whatever he could get his hands on that
08:00
was he
08:01
it was work yeah so i learned a lot from
08:05
watching them
08:05
as a kid and when it came time to it
08:09
time to graduate high school my dad just
08:12
kind of turned to me and said hey
08:14
i don't see you wanting to work in a
08:16
factory i'm not even happy in a factory
08:18
maybe you need to get into something so
08:20
it was either going to be
08:21
diesel mechanics or hvac so i ended up
08:25
going to school for hvac and
08:29
you know got out and got a job worked
08:30
for a plumbing and heating contractor
08:33
and then moved on to another contractor
08:35
after seven years and that
08:36
that company um the work kind of started
08:40
to dry up i moved on to
08:42
another company where i primarily did
08:44
service that's all i did was run for
08:46
service
08:46
okay working on working on all sorts of
08:49
different equipment and
08:51
really getting more involved with
08:53
customer service side of things
08:56
more hands-on with the customers so but
08:58
there's a lot of skills to be learned
09:00
working with
09:01
with people yeah yeah absolutely
09:04
and you know here i am 20 years in the
09:06
industry
09:08
yeah so you were you your background was
09:11
more
09:11
old house residential replacement
09:15
yeah old house residential replacement
09:18
light commercial plumbing okay yeah i
09:21
mean water heater change outs
09:23
there were weeks i would probably do 10
09:25
in a week okay so
09:26
yeah well it's interesting greg you know
09:28
you talked about your
09:30
following in your grandfather's
09:32
footsteps i actually my grandfather ran
09:34
his own small
09:35
you know heating company when i was a
09:37
kid and i remembered
09:38
you know riding out with him during
09:40
summer vacations i'd ride out with him
09:42
in the truck go down to the shop help
09:43
him bend metal and
09:45
that's what kind of pushed me to get
09:46
into this so
09:48
very similar to your background i
09:50
started out at
09:51
a local tech school and then from there
09:53
went to work for a contractor
09:55
where we differ a little bit though is
09:57
the contractor i went for
09:59
went to work for was more of residential
10:01
new construction
10:02
sure so you know you talked about yours
10:04
being more a replacement remodel
10:06
um it was interesting how contractors
10:08
have different niches so to speak
10:11
yeah everybody does things a little bit
10:13
differently and mine just
10:15
that's where i ended up starting off
10:17
with uh
10:18
doing a lot of replacement and old house
10:21
stuff
10:21
yeah a lot of the remodel work well and
10:23
i started on the new side
10:25
and you know i was with them for about
10:27
eight years and actually it was my
10:29
grandfather that came to me and he said
10:31
you know
10:31
you're working for a great company you
10:33
know it's a great great skill
10:36
but you need to consider that in your
10:39
career
10:40
things are going to change industry is
10:42
going to change markets going to change
10:43
and you're kind of limiting your skill
10:46
set working with just the new
10:47
construction
10:48
so that was pretty good advice i would
10:50
say i mean it definitely has changed
10:52
it definitely has changed so within a
10:55
year i had left that company and went to
10:57
work for
10:58
another company in the area that was
10:59
more replacement remodeled
11:01
they did a lot of hydronic which is
11:03
where i was able to get into the water
11:05
side of the business
11:06
got into geothermal heating as well and
11:09
did more service work with them
11:11
so i was kind of excited to be able to
11:13
learn you know all aspects of the trade
11:16
and that gave me an opportunity from
11:17
there to go back into
11:19
another company that was new
11:20
construction and i founded uh
11:23
hydronic and geothermal division within
11:25
that company right
11:26
well and geo had kind of its niche
11:29
little time in our history too didn't it
11:31
it does yeah and it's still there i mean
11:34
with the
11:35
outreach of you know the air-to-water
11:37
heat pumps i think you're seeing a lot
11:38
more
11:39
popularity coming coming with the heat
11:42
market
11:43
sure but no so that um you know again
11:45
good advice that
11:46
you know the industry did change in my
11:49
career and i was able to adapt to that
11:51
so that's kind of
11:52
the advice i would give you know someone
11:54
going forward is keep your eye
11:56
on the market and learn everything you
11:59
can learn within your trade
12:01
absolutely so it's a little bit of my
12:03
story and then it brought me here to
12:04
Caleffi
12:05
you know you and i had worked together
12:06
in the past and there'll be no
12:08
no mystery going forward that we've
12:10
known each other a while
12:12
we certainly have you know working at
12:14
our
12:15
previous employer you know you and i
12:17
were able to help each other out and ask
12:19
each other questions
12:20
and sure we gave each other a hard time
12:22
along the way and that's part of being
12:24
in the trades man that's
12:25
bigger dues and and getting a little
12:28
grief along the way yeah
12:30
all good times yeah but at the end of
12:33
the day we were never afraid to help
12:35
each other out and i think that's
12:36
that's why we are doing what we are
12:39
doing we are
12:40
here to help people out because we enjoy
12:42
doing it
12:43
um we take a pretty big sense of pride
12:46
in in doing so
12:48
and so here we are to help you guys out
12:52
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
12:58
however you want to get a hold of us
13:00
right get ahold of us yeah right
13:01
and we're here for you yeah i think you
13:03
said it perfectly we both enjoy helping
13:05
helping other contractors in tech so
13:08
you know we look forward to being there
13:09
for you guys yeah at the end of the day
13:11
if you get good advice from us your
13:13
job's going to go a lot better
13:15
hopefully much more efficiently and
13:17
you're just going to look that much
13:18
better to your customer
13:19
so what do you want to come back and
13:20
talk about next week greg well
13:23
we have a lot of different things we
13:24
could talk about but
13:26
one thing in particular is something
13:29
that we get an awful lot of questions
13:30
about
13:31
and we make a ton of oh you must be
13:33
talking about air vents
13:35
exactly next week tune in
13:38
we're going to talk about air vents yeah
13:40
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
13:46
thank you for tuning in if you ever need
13:48
help please feel free to contact our
13:50
tech support team
13:52
anytime at techsupport.us
13:55
caleppe.com or call us during our
13:58
business hours
14:00
at 7 30 a.m to 4 30 p.m
14:03
central time at 414-238-2360
14:17
[Music]