SPOKANE, Wash. — With summer fast approaching, air conditioning and heating companies are inundated with repair requests, but some federal changes will mean higher air conditioning costs next year, and one local family-owned business is sounding the alarm to save money down the road.
Thirty years in business means three decades of friendship, trust and success for the Glover family.
“Every time you do a job you make new friends and it becomes part of the community. I have a lot of friends,” said Dan Glover, owner of Complete Heating and Sheet Metal.
At Complete Heating and Sheet Metal, Inc., we are not focused on chasing the dollar, we are focused on chasing customer support.
“I think doing it for 30 years says it all,” Glover said, “and to be accepted has been very rewarding.”
Spokane has embraced not only the owner, Dan Glover, but the whole team – the whole family – and they operate not as a large corporation surrounded by corporate money, but in Spokane, where the individual staff live.
“It's all a family thing. It's good to have that kind of thing,” Glover said.
Dan's daughter, Sarah, joined the team full time after graduating from high school. She briefly attended business classes at Eastern Washington University, but quickly realized she learned more from hands-on work than from reading textbooks.
“My daughter has been coming to work with me since she was 4 years old, so she knows the job inside and out. It's fun to see her become interested in what I've been doing my whole life,” Glover said.
Like father, like daughter.
“It's funny because when I was in fifth grade, I wrote a paper and they asked my name, my favorite color, what I wanted to do, and I literally wrote, 'When I grow up, I want to be my dad's assistant,' so it's funny that I ended up in this exact place,” said Sarah Glover, an office worker at Complete Heating and Sheet Metal.
The team is busy year-round, but sees a surge in calls in the summer when air conditioners are turned on. But there are some federal changes coming up in 2025 that will affect the cost of installing and repairing local air conditioners. Sarah Glover says that air conditioners currently use Freon R-410A, but next year they will be switched to Freon R-24A, which is more environmentally friendly but much more expensive.
By next year, dealers will no longer carry the current type of freon, so repairing or replacing your air conditioner in 2025 instead of 2024 will mean a significant increase in costs.
“Older ones cost a lot more, so it's often much more cost-effective to replace the unit rather than repairing it and making it last as long as possible, so replacing it is better in the long run,” says Sarah Glover.
The best advice from this family is to not put off replacing your air conditioner – getting it serviced this summer could save you a ton of money.
“It's a good idea to act now so you can avoid trouble,” Glover said.
If you need air conditioning repair, call the Glover family at our main office at (509) 533-9528.
Regardless of any federal changes next year, keep in mind that as hot temperatures ease across the Inland Northwest, local demand will be very high.
“I just encourage people to plan ahead,” Glover said.
