The Godfather of IAQ — John Ellis on UV Lights, Dustfree, Maintenance Calls & Mentorship

John Ellis is rarely home. When Mark found him for this episode, John had about 10 consulting projects running simultaneously — including a job in Mumbai working with a family on a VRV Daikin setup that required tracking down drawings from a third-party commercial dealer just to understand the return air layout. Domestically, Texas is keeping him particularly busy — Del Rio, San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston all active.

Beyond the IAQ consulting, John does ride-alongs that go much deeper than most contractors expect: he spends part of the day with the office team on scripting and call handling, then works with technicians on process, and then puts on a uniform and runs actual service and maintenance calls start to finish. His approach is built around his service call life cycle and maintenance call life cycle — a process framework he developed out of his years working with New Flat Rate and his own field experience running an HVAC company in California.

John's life cycle framework is built around one principle: every step sets the table for the next step. The CSR schedules the call and tells the customer the technician will call ahead. The technician gives a courtesy call — "Hey, I'm on your schedule, I can be there in 20 minutes." That call sets an expectation. Showing up in 20 minutes meets it. The pattern of set-and-fulfill repeats from the first phone call through the knock on the door through the diagnostic through the options presentation.

John also coached his technicians to run calls start to finish during ride-alongs, letting them watch the whole process play out — from greeting and fact-finding through diagnosis, options, sale, review ask, and maintenance agreement pitch. The champion model matters here too: rather than having management preach process at the team, find the one tech who genuinely buys in, executes it well, and can model it for the others. Peers respond to peers.

The maintenance agreement conversation cannot happen honestly until you know what it actually costs to put a truck in a driveway for the first 45 minutes to an hour. Most contractors do not know that number. They do not know their billable rate, their break-even point, or the margin they need to be actually profitable. Some do not understand the difference between profit and revenue.

The industry habit has been to treat maintenance as a loss leader — write off the cost under marketing or bury it in a different budget line and hope the repairs and installs make up for it. John's position: it does not matter what budget line you sweep it under, you are either profitable or you are not. A maintenance department propped up by service and install revenue is a maintenance department secretly losing money. The 1,500-maintenance-agreement valuation argument has also changed — buyers are looking at profitability per department now, not just agreement volume.

John walked through his complete maintenance call process in real time. The courtesy call comes first — the CSR has already set the expectation, the technician fulfills it by calling 20 minutes out. At the door: ask permission to come in, start greetings, immediately move to fact-finding. Where is the thermostat, the air handler, the condensing unit? How has everything been running? Any rooms too hot or too cold? Dust everywhere? High energy bills? Strange noises or smells?

The homeowner has been living with this system 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They know more about its behavior than any technician who shows up once a year. If you do not ask, they do not know to tell you. Mark interrupted to make the point that most technicians skip this step entirely — and John agreed it is the most important step in the whole process. When you describe what you are about to do, keep it to three categories: mechanical, safety, performance. Not a 20-point bullet list. That is Japanese to most homeowners and it loses them.

Before John walks to the equipment, he always asks one final question: "Mrs. Smith, if I were to find something that is of concern to me that may cause a problem in the upcoming season, what would you like me to do about it?" That question requires an answer. And the answer — usually "just go fix it" — becomes the permission structure for everything that follows. He never does anything without asking. But by asking the golden question before he starts, he does not have to interrupt the call mid-diagnosis to have an awkward permission conversation.

And he asks one more question before heading out: is anyone in the household dealing with respiratory allergies or asthma? If yes — and only if yes — he mentions that he can deploy an indoor air quality monitor as part of the visit. It is framed as a complimentary service based on EPA and National Lung Association guidelines. That one question is the ethical entry point into the IAQ conversation without any smoke or mirrors.

John's review ask process keeps three-star reviews off the table entirely. After finishing a repair: "If you enjoyed the service today, can you do me a favor? I'm going to send you a link. Can you give us a five-star review? And Mrs. Smith — if it's not going to be five stars, do me a favor: just call my boss and tell him what we can do to earn those five stars."

Willie called it out immediately — that script keeps the three-star off the table and is completely honest at the same time. You are not threatening the customer. You are genuinely inviting feedback through a channel that does not go public. The review ask has to happen before you leave. Once you drive away, the moment is gone unless the service was so exceptional they are already calling their friends. Most of the time it is not that, and that is fine — which is exactly why you ask before you leave.

The maintenance agreement pitch happens after the repair is done and the review ask is made. John's segue: "Did you know that every utility, every manufacturer, and the industry at large suggests having a professional in your home at least once or twice a year? I didn't even get a chance to tell you about our Comfy Cozy Maintenance Club." The name is deliberately warm and unthreatening.

He walks through mechanical, safety, and performance — the same three categories he described at the start of the visit. The conversation closes with a genuine offer and a genuine close on gratitude: "We know you have lots of choices for service providers. We really appreciate you choosing us." First-time customers and repeat customers who are not on a maintenance agreement both get this pitch. The frame is not sales. It is the buying experience — here is the menu, here is what makes sense for your situation, you choose.

John made a distinction that reframes how to think about the entire customer interaction: the difference between selling to someone and facilitating a buying experience. His Walmart example — nobody corners you in the coffee maker aisle and tries to convince you to buy the most expensive one. They lay out the options and let you choose. His restaurant example is even sharper: the waiter hands you a menu. They might mention a special. They absolutely do not try to hard sell you on the lobster. They ask what you want and go get it.

The menu model is what John applies to HVAC options. He presents five options and actually tells the customer which one is most appropriate for their situation — sometimes explicitly saying the top option is not right for them and narrowing to two or three that actually fit. That honesty is the sales move. Listening is the sales skill. When you genuinely hear what a customer tells you about their home, their budget, and their concerns, the right option presents itself and the customer picks it.

John told the story of a ride-along that illustrated something even more important than IAQ: the need to be heard. A company in Port Huron, Michigan had completed his full IEQ training. They had an acute IAQ case — a man who had worked in oil refineries, was now compromised and housebound, and felt worse inside than outside. The technician had done the intake questionnaire over the phone — with the husband only.

When John and the team sat down at the table, the wife raised her hand and asked if anyone cared how she felt. She had been dismissed from the entire intake process. She said she had thought her husband was imagining it — until she noticed she had not been able to sing at church recently. That moment changed the whole scope of the call. The questionnaire should have been sent to the household to fill out together, not rushed over the phone with one person.

The once-versus-twice-a-year question is geographically specific. In markets with communicating thermostats, smart monitoring devices like Haven IAQ, or MeasureQuick commissioning data, a contractor can keep a meaningful finger on the pulse between visits. In those markets, once a year may be defensible for some equipment types.

But in the northern states — Indiana, Michigan, Buffalo, Minnesota — you typically have dehumidification in summer, humidification in winter, and some kind of fresh air component. All of those need to be maintained and switched over seasonally. Once a year does not serve that equipment or those customers. Mark added that in Oklahoma he recommends twice a year primarily because of the volume of gas furnaces — safety matters before every heating season. Heat pumps in warmer climates largely clean themselves during defrost cycles, which changes the math somewhat. The honest answer is it depends — but twice a year is the safer default for most markets and most equipment.

When ECM motors came into residential HVAC, contractors developed a dangerous assumption: that the motor would compensate for an undersized duct system. It will ramp up to overcome a wet coil. It will ramp up within reason to compensate for a loading filter. It will not fix a fundamentally undersized return or a scatter-box distribution system. What happened as a result was predictable — fourth motor changes, multiple compressor failures, systems that should have lasted 15 years burning out in five because the ECM was fighting a duct system every single day.

John worked six years for Daikin. Their tech support data was unambiguous: the majority of warranty and support calls linked back to airflow. Not faulty parts. Airflow. Willie added that the same pattern plays out on inverter systems now — more sensitive commissioning requirements, even less tolerance for duct deficiency, and the same contractors skipping the static pressure check because they assume the equipment will figure it out.

John spent two years working with the engineers at Dustfree to develop the DF-16, a MERV 16 whole-system filtration product. He is direct about the philosophy: he did not invent the mousetrap, he built the best one. Most MERV 16 filters get their rating based on the filter alone going into a cabinet. Once installed, the seal is loose enough that air bypasses the media and the real-world efficiency drops significantly.

The DF-16 was tested to ASHRAE 52.2 MERV 16 as a complete system — filter and housing together — because that is the only test that reflects what actually happens in the field. The filter media came from Europe because no US manufacturer could meet John's five filtration method requirements. It gets pleated and framed in Texas. Sold through True Tech Tools. Real-world static pressure numbers: 0.18 on a five-ton, 0.14 on a three-ton. Three-year filter change interval in a typical household. John has had instances with a predecessor product where customers got four years. If installed correctly with tight ductwork and a tight system, John guarantees you will never need to clean the blower, the coil, the duct, or the cabinet for the life of the system.

John beat United Technologies — Carrier — for a $1.4 million pilot study contract from the South Coast Air Quality Management District on indoor air quality for schools and high-performance filtration. Before the award, he had to sit in front of a six-person panel that included a PhD in atmospheric science, legal, marketing, and others — and make the case for why they should put $1.4 million in his bank account instead of one of the biggest HVAC manufacturers in the world. He got the contract.

But when asked what his most rewarding work has been, John did not go to that moment. He went to the families. His IAQ clients in California came to him with cystic fibrosis, COPD, immunology and oncology conditions, Lyme disease, valley fever, debilitating asthma, and six lung transplant recipients. His average ticket in California was between $40,000 and $80,000 because he was fixing the whole house. He had referral relationships with UCLA Medical Center, USC Medical Center, LA Children's Hospital, and prominent immunologists and allergists in the Beverly Hills area. When a doctor prescribes John Ellis to a patient — and those patients later go off medications, reduce treatments, and gain lung function — that is what 45 years of building blocks in HVAC looks like at its fullest expression.

John started at a supply house 45 years ago sweeping floors and doing shipping and receiving. The thing that bent his career in the direction it went was not one training or one job. It was mentors — personal, spiritual, and professional — and a thirst for knowledge that once activated never stopped. His mentor Jean was a respiratory pharmacist by trade who had shifted into environmental work. Because Jean held a PhD, he could talk doctor talk, and that opened doors to conversations with immunologists and oncologists that John alone could not have had. They built that bridge together.

The training piece changed everything once John found it. He took every class through NATE that was ever offered. He found NCI. He flew to San Jose for his first commercial air balance certification and came back a different contractor. He had been doing supply house product training once in a while before that. After NCI, he was doing air balances as often as some companies do service calls.

John is 67 years old and describes himself as being in legacy mode. When he was an apprentice, he ran into gatekeepers — experienced technicians who kept him on grunt work and would not let him near what they were doing because they felt threatened. He will not do that. A torchbearer shines the light for the people coming behind them and then hands the torch to them. He currently mentors 12 to 15 people personally, spiritually, and professionally.

The organizations carrying the torchbearer ethos that he named specifically: the Better HVAC Alliance, NCI, TEC, MeasureQuick, HVAC School out of Florida, and Haven IAQ. The principle is rising tides lift all ships. Mark connected this directly to why Willie started the HVAC IS LIFE group — the same premise, the same message. You have got to pass the knowledge on. Stop holding it so close that you are the only one who has it. Knowledge means nothing if it dies with you.

Mark asked the loaded question: for a contractor with two techs who wants to take IAQ seriously without getting overwhelmed, where do they start? John's framework: it has to be top-down culture first. If the owner and management do not believe in it, the techs who want to learn will burn out trying to fight the tide.

Given that buy-in exists, the training path starts with NATE, then NCI — specifically their air balance and system performance courses. HVAC School (Brian Orr's organization) is phenomenal. The Indoor Air Quality Association is worth getting involved with. For tools, the answer is not to buy everything at once. Start with a manometer — everyone should have one. Then a combustion analyzer — combustion safety is always first in any IAQ context. Then a simple carbon dioxide monitor from Airnet to start learning ventilation as a proxy. Then simple VOC readers from True Tech Tools or UEI to start understanding what those readings mean and where they come from.

NCI has published data showing that greater than 85% of all systems installed in the United States do not have enough return air. John called that inventory. Willie called it inventory every single time he walks into a Charlotte new construction home — scatter box to scatter box, no straight path, rooms that never hit setpoint, and homeowners who have just gotten used to it because they do not know what right feels like. Mark said the number feels low — in Oklahoma he has never not found an undersized return on a new construction system.

John explained the origin: he worked for the largest tract HVAC contractor in California, going up one side of a street and down the other doing 300 houses at a time. People were moving into the first house while they were still installing the last one. Low bid wins the contract. Before lunch or after lunch determines the craftsmanship. That is the baseline that contractors are inheriting today on every replacement job.

UV lights work. John endorses them — with conditions. The science runs on a three-legged stool: intensity of the UV spectrum, distance from the surface being treated, and dwell time — the amount of time a given microbial is exposed. Remove any one of those three legs and efficacy drops toward zero. He has seen UV lights installed in condensing units. He has seen them mounted on top of the A-coil pointing at the sheet metal cap. That sheet metal is the cleanest surface in the system. It does nothing.

UV treats surfaces, not air. To treat an A-coil correctly, the light needs to be 12 to 15 inches from the surface. Because air migrates to the outside of the A due to pressure difference as the coil gets wet, you need coverage on both outside faces and through the middle. His triple-safe approach: one in the center of the A and one on each outside. Four bulbs to truly follow the rulebook. But — and this is the point — if you have tight ductwork, tight filtration, and no food source reaching the coil, microbial growth loses one leg of its own three-legged stool. Keep the food out with filtration and you may not need UV at all.

Willie's standard question. John's answer had two parts. The first was personal and direct: get sober. John is 25 years sober. When he was younger he was running and gunning — hot in the field, out with friends, thinking everything was under control until it was not. He referenced the Mercy Me song "Dear Younger Me" and said if he could go back, sobriety would be the first change.

The second part was professional: discover training sooner. He was probably 10 to 12 years into his career before he found real training — not supply house product training, but NCI and NATE and the organizations that changed everything. Once he found it, he became a sponge. He could not get enough. He looks back and sees 10 to 12 years of building blocks he could have had earlier. Mark closed the loop: even at 45 years in, John is still learning. He learned something the day of this episode working on the Mumbai project. In HVAC, you are lying to yourself if you say you know everything.