Petri Plumbing, Heating, Cooling & Drain Cleaning is celebrating both World Plumbing Day on March 11 and World Water Day on March 22 by reminding Americans how important plumbing is to human comfort, proper sanitation and water preservation.

Ray Bramble, along with his sons, Ryan Bramble and Bradley Bramble, are no strangers to franchising. The Brambles converted their family-owned and operated HVAC contracting business to an Aire Serv franchise — a Neighborly company — in 2009, mostly due to a lack of systems in place at the time.

BNP Media’s Plumbing Group is finally settling back in after a whirlwind of travel this past month. We’ve been racking up those frequent flier miles attending NKBA’s Kitchen & Bath Industry Show (KBIS), IMARK Plumbing, the AHR Expo and the WWETT show. While there was a ton to see at each event, for the purposes of this column, we’re going to focus on KBIS.

Many U.S. businesses across a variety of sectors have experienced new challenges over the last year — this is particularly true for those in the mechanical, engineering, and plumbing (MEP) industries. In early 2022, the MEP sector saw labor shortages and supply chain disruptions lead to increased labor and material costs, while later in the year and early into 2023, businesses are experiencing slowing demand for building and renovation. Unsurprisingly, this dynamic has culminated in constantly fluctuating profit margins for many MEP business owners.

The ultimate goal when developing your home service company’s best practices for sales and lead generation is to become the only opportunity or alternative your customers see.

Employee retention is a critical key to contractor’s business success given historically low U.S. unemployment at 3.5%, and continued difficulty in filling plumbing and HVAC positions — with only one of four positions being filled.

You may be the best technical plumber in town, but you will earn poor reviews and bad word-of-mouth if you cannot communicate well. Here are nine simple steps you can take to improve your communication skills. Almost all of them are non-verbal.

Michael Blouin will oversee the company’s heating and air division.

Since Fridley joined Pro-Tec in 2021 as controller, Pro-Tec has added a Heating, Air Conditioning and Ventilation (HVAC) division while establishing additional offices in Fort Myers, Babcock Ranch and Ave Maria.

When I first started working for Plumbing & Mechanical’s sister publication, The ACHR NEWS in 2014, I was often the only woman in the room at industry events. Those first few conferences were just a bit intimidating. In fact, it wasn’t until a HARDI annual conference that I first met other women in the industry — shout out to Colleen Keyworth, director of sales and marketing for Online-Access and immediate past president of Women in HVACR, for her immediate friendship then and for all the years since!