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Old School Custom Trunk Duct Fabrication
Currently I am fabricating some custom transitions to marry a new heat pump system to this existing trunk duct. The customer emailed these this morning to give me an overview of what I would be hooking the new duct transitions up to. Always helpful when a customer is willing to take the time and snap a few shots of what the job looks like.
The ductwork in this house is absolutely fantastic! Yes, it's old and may be sagging in some area's after hanging for years and years. All of this is normal. Should it be changed? Maybe, but all in all it looks ok.
I have only come across a few jobs with duct where this much time and effort was placed into the fabrication and installation. The time needed is easily double, maybe even triple of what lead times would be today. Plus, the man hours into laying out the duct needed to complete the job.
The cool part is the way the duct line is laid out and how each heat run is a rectangular or square branch with multiple rounded offsets and risers. Today, all of these heat runs would be round and branching off the top of the main trunk line. And the fabrication time would be minimal because much of what you see would be standard, stock sizes that can be purchased at your local Home Depot.
However, the time and effort in the fabrication, with rounded inner throats is completely custom and just fabulous. My father and I completely appreciate the craftsmanship that went into this amount of bespoke trunk duct and fittings. Very cool.
Know The Tendencies of Your Customers
Many of our customers have done business with us for years and we appreciate every order they place here at the shop. Part of the reason they come back, besides stellar work, is the fact that I do my best to learn there tendencies and little idiosyncrasies. This does not mean I am at everybody's beck and call 24/7, but I do make an effort to give each and every customer the best service possible.
Many of our customers have done business with us for years and we appreciate every order they place here at the shop. Part of the reason they come back, besides stellar work, is the fact that I do my best to learn the tendencies and little idiosyncrasies of each. This does not mean I am at everybody's beck and call 24/7, but I do make an effort to give each and every customer the best service possible.
Everyone is different, so doing the little things is a big part of why we keep clients coming back year after year. Obviously, it's difficult to learn the tendencies of newer customers, so I would have to say this is more of a retaining tactic than anything.
Here are a few things I do to learn the tendencies of my customers.
Learning Their Ordering Style
All of our customers have learned the fabrication trade in all kinds of places, from all kinds of people. Some have been unionized, others have taught themselves and many have learned from installers on the job. This means we all posses a varied language when it comes to ordering custom sheet metal fittings. Naturally, I do my best to get them on my page, but with change comes complication, so keeping with their dialect can make things go a bit easier.
Learning different styles of how people see things in their mind has helped me become a better fabricator in the end, along with keeping a good diary of notes for each customer with specific needs. All of these things help to make sure orders are correct because mistakes slow up the job and ultimately lose the shop money.
When They Like to Pick Up Finished Orders
We don't deliver here at the shop so our customers are forced to pick their orders up and all of them work their day differently. Some like to grab things early in the morning, some late in the day. In order to keep up good relations I will leave an order outside the door for someone who may arrive before I get in for the day or after I have left. This keeps from forcing people to live on my schedule, especially the clients we have good standing accounts with. Leaving an order out would not be something I'd do for a newer customer unless they paid me first.
My father and I have done this for years and it has been helpful to many of our clients over that time. We do a lot of work for HVAC service techs whose schedule is all over the place so providing this service can help to bring future good will and business.
Specific Customization to Customer Orders
We aren't a custom sheet metal shop for nothing. The main goal of our shop is to give each customer the quality, custom work they need to get the job done right. However, there are many small things needed for each and every customer who comes through the door. Some may like a 1/2" flange on their plenums and others may not. Different kinds of connections for different kinds of trunk duct and fittings is something we try to provide for everyone. We aren't a standardized fabrication shop so making sure you know what the customer wants is key to making sure they come back in the future.
Learning the different tendencies of each customer may seem daunting at first but will payoff in the end. You want to give everyone the best experience possible whether your running a fancy boutique or a sheet metal fabrication shop like us.
Your product should speak for itself, but it doesn't hurt to make sure the person buying that product feels special as well.
Custom Duct Transitions For AC Coil
Installing a new AC coil
There are times when installing a new AC coil to existing duct work can be simple and times when the task can be difficult. Usually you can get the proper cased AC coil for the furnace you are installing and either easily transition the duct to the existing duct line or you can have a custom plenum made fitting the coil to the furnace.
Then there are times when you need to transition from your furnace to the size of the uncased AC coil and then back again to the custom size of your existing duct work. When this happens your first call should be to us, K & E Sheet Metal, because this is exactly why we exist. Custom plenums and transitions are our specialty :)
Installing a new AC coil
There are times when installing a new AC coil to existing duct work can be simple and times when the task can be difficult. Usually you can get the proper cased AC coil for the furnace you are installing and either easily transition the duct to the existing duct line or you can have a custom plenum made fitting the coil to the furnace.
Then there are times when you need to transition from your furnace to the size of the uncased AC coil and then back again to the custom size of your existing duct work. When this happens your first call should be to us, K & E Sheet Metal, because this is exactly why we exist. Custom plenums and transitions are our specialty :)
Taking measurements
Today we received an order for a plenum with transitions needing to get from one measurement, to another and then back to yet another. Below is a crude drawing of the sizes needing to be transitioned.
In order to make the transitions and fit the AC coil, I will need to fabricate two transitions and a straight plenum, placed in the center, that will house the coil and have a door for servicing. The transitions can be entered into the computer system and cut with our new CNC plasma machine, while the straight box I will cut with tin snips.
Looking down inside the AC coil plenum at the shelf that will hold the coil
The fabrication
The bottom transition, 13 1/4 x 18 up to 17 1/4 x 19 3/4 will have a 1/2" flange on the new furnace side and S-lock on the top side that will accept the straight plenum box. Inside the plenum box will be a 24 gauge metal shelf (Picture to the right) to hold the AC coil inside the 17 1/4 x 19 3/4 box.
From the top of the AC coil box I will transition to the existing duct inside the customer's home. Basically, the old duct work leftover after tearing out the old furnace.
All being said the fabrication for this order sounds much harder than it actually is. Many times the hardest thing is translating what the customer is thinking into how my brain processes things. Once this hurdle is completed the process goes rather quick and easy. This particular order foe example ended up being two simple custom transitions with a straight AC coil box sandwiched in between.
Below is a photo of the finished plenum ready to be picked up and installed
Related Blog Posts
Air Conditioning and AC Coil Books
New YouTube Video: Cold Air Boot Cutting Process
Our newest YouTube video showing the cutting process of our custom cold air boots. Our new CNC plasma machine has sliced our cut times in half helping to quicken the assembly process here in the fabrication shop.
Bending Custom Trunk Duct With 8' Sheet Metal Break
Even though we have stepped up our game in regards to cutting sheet metal, we still kick it old school when it comes to bending all of our custom trunk duct and fittings.
Introducing Our New MultiCam 1000 Plasma Table
Introducing our new MultiCam 1000 Series CNC plasma table!! The last few months of hard work have paid off with the full installation of our new plasma table, finishing up late last week with today being the end of our first full week of production. The table is fantastic and has already saved us time with the multiple jobs that we have already completed. With the installation of our new equipment we can provide customers with faster production times and reduced prices.
Scroll down to see some more photos of the new CNC plasma table and a video of our new toy in action.
If you have any questions about your sheet metal fabrication needs or items you may need cut, please visit our contact page to send us your requests.
Small Time Logisitics
My naive assumption is that logistics was just another word for shipping. The actual definition from Merriam-Webster is as follows: 1 : the aspect of military science dealing with the procurement, maintenance, and transportation of military materiel, facilities, and personnel 2 : the handling of the details of an operation
So clearly, not shipping per se, just dealing with handling of details in a military sense.
Who cares! Something you may be telling yourself right about now. The above is a long winded and relatively interesting ( at least for me, because I was unaware ) way of getting to something I have thought about company wise for some time.
The reality, or non-reality of shipping our products around the country, the logistics if you will are completely foreign to me. Obviously, I understand that packages are shipped, but as far as making it viable for business is surely something new.
To date, we have shipped one, count them, one order to somewhere in the lower 50. That place was Kansas and the whole transaction was a great experience. The customer was willing to be patient with our maiden shipment and the headaches which could undermine the whole project.
I had the fabricated fittings strapped flat to be packed at the nearest UPS store, communication was good with the customer and the shipment went off without a hitch. I didn't want to deal with any complications of securing and packing, so I left it to professionals.
A few days later the package arrived to a thankful customer and a giant sigh of relief from the shipper.
Could this be a viable option for our business going forward, especially with new (expensive) equipment about to be up and running? Are the costs of shipping and time needed for packing worth the trouble? Would only advertising local shipping to a mile radius work better for a smaller company like ours? These are just a few of the questions I have been asking myself over the last few weeks.
To be perfectly honest, the shipping costs alone are something that could sink the whole idea. In order to ship a small supply air plenum and two small transitions, flat packed to Kansas, the total shipping cost was roughly $44 for packing, materials and shipping. That's a tough pill to swallow for customers that are used to free shipping from the likes of Amazon. Not to mention the fact that this was a small order of minimal size fabricated fittings. What would that shipping cost ring up on something a bit larger? Would we be looking at freight costs instead?
The UPS and FedEx commercials make the whole process seem so easy with their no nonsense marketing of packages flying all over the world with seemingly minimal problems. However, when you go to the websites of either the process can be very confusing. It's not just as simple as zip code and weight.
We are moving toward a non-localized world which depresses me as a very local business. Nevertheless, these are things we need to take into account as a business that builds items for customers. If we can find an economical way to get our products into the hands of people that need them, why shouldn't we try? The trick is not to inflate your greedy little head and understand the limitations of the business. There is one thing I have learned over the years in our very niche micro business. Getting too far ahead of the game can be disastrous in the long run, bogging you down and making everything seem insurmountable.
This doesn't mean stunt ambition, goals or growth of the company. These are the reasons we invested in our new CNC plasma table and why we have struggled with the possibility of adding shipping to our normal business repertoire.
The last few years have been a challenging time for our company, more positive then negative however in regards to understanding the business from multiple angles. Ideas like the one I have briefly outlined in this post are something that never happened for our company, keeping us stuck in neutral. The goals have changed, the attitude has changed and ideas are bandied about frequently around the shop.
Whether or not we decide shipping is viable for us is still up in the air. However, we have run a successful test and know it's something that can be done.
Logistically speaking.