Equipment Maintenance 101 with Trevor Vold

Joe Zuccarello: Welcome to Hey Joe! A podcast answering questions asked by our listeners. Created by pet professionals for pet professionals. And now your host, Hey Joe’s very own, Joe Zuccarello. What’s up everyone. Joe Zuccarello here, and welcome to Hey Joe. A podcast brought to you by Paragon School of Pet Grooming. Check out our site at paragonpetschool.com for lots of really cool information on a variety of programs, products, and to connect to educational resources such as webinars, podcasts, current events, special news, certifications, and lots of other helpful information to help you grow yourself, your team and of course your business. Let’s get started with this week’s episode.
Hello again everyone, this is the podcast called Hey Joe. This is a podcast where you get to listen in on real coaching calls between myself and a subject matter expert. This podcast is created with you in mind, so that you can sit in on this conversation between myself and a subject matter expert and answering questions that come from other Hey Joe podcast listeners in our audience. So thank you for all of the questions that we receive on a daily basis. If you’d like your question answered, you can do so simply by emailing us at [email protected].

Again, the whole reason behind this podcast is to bring this type of information straight to you, so you can spend less time looking for information, and more time building your business. Today’s podcast guest is Trevor Vold. Trevor is the sales manager for the Electric Cleaner company. You may or not recognize the name of the company, but I bet you recognize their title product, or one of their headliner products which is the K9 High Velocity Dryer.
So you’ve been to trade shows, you probably have met Trevor in person. But Trevor has been in this industry for quite some time. That company also creates grooming equipment for live stock and horses and dogs, cats. Really any other type of animal that is being groomed. They have a line of industrial vacuums, which might be of interest to you as well. What’s really great is Trevor has been definitely part of our industry for quite some time. He’s worked for Electric Cleaner company for 16 years, and he spends most of his time at the trade shows talking with groomers such as yourself.

So sit back, and enjoy our time with Trevor. And please feel free to stick around until the every end, because Trevor has got an awesome offer that he is making available exclusive to you, the Hey Joe listener audience. So sit back and enjoy. Here we go.

All right, today’s podcast guest is Trevor, and Trevor is with a company called the Electric Cleaning company. Trevor is somebody that I am fortunate enough to not only know, but also to run into quite frequently at the grooming trade shows. Trevor has got a bunch of information for you that I think you’re going to find very helpful, in regards to equipment maintenance in the grooming salon. And if anybody out there in the Hey Joe listener audience knows, just remember how much you spent on that equipment. And your goal, not only for that equipment, is to perform at its peak performance, but also to last as long as possible. Because most of the equipment in our industry is not cheap.

So Trevor’s going to share a lot of really great information with us. Just a quick reminder, this is the Hey Joe podcast, and our podcast does thrive on questions that we receive from our listener audience. So if you have a question that you would like answered on a future podcast, it’s really easy to submit that question. Simply email us at [email protected]. Again, this is a podcast where you get to listen in on a real conversation between myself and a subject matter expert, and to bring you a lot of the information that otherwise you might have had to go searching for yourself. So without further ado, welcome to this week’s episode. Again, we’re talking with Trevor. Hey Trevor, how are you today?

Trevor Vold: I’m doing real well, Joe. Thanks.

Joe Zuccarello: So Trevor, I did probably not so great job of really singing your praises and introducing you. You want to tell us a little bit about yourself and about your company?

Trevor Vold: Yeah. I’m actually the sales manager for Electric Cleaner company, and I’ve been with the company for 16 years. And my primary job is traveling to the trade shows, working with many of the dealers that we have that are carrying our products, and also dealing with customers. Fielding questions from them, getting feedback on our products. You know, we feel it’s important to get feedback from customers to help make our products better for them. So that’s kind of my primary job. I do a few other things here with the marketing, setting up catalogs, things like that.

Just a little bit about Electric Cleaner company, most of the people in this industry would know us for the K9 dryers. We actually do manufacture some other equipment. As far as grooming equipment for livestock. We’ve also got some vacuums that we’re using for industrial. We manufacture a blower for personal blow-off. So we’ve got several niches that we go into. And the small animal is actually our largest industry for us, so things are going great there. And that’s just a little bit.

Joe Zuccarello: Well I’ve got to tell you, I know you have a really, really exciting company. And if anybody knows of these brands of these high velocity dryers and such, the K9 brand of dryers is probably one of the highest regarded and best performing units in the industry. And you know, one of the things I know, Trevor, about yourself. Because your primary job is going around to the trade shows is that you get it, man. You talk to the typical Hey Joe podcast listener audience member out there, because you’re talking to these artists in the grooming field. They pride themselves on a quality output. And in order to do that, they have to have quality tools.

So I can’t wait later for you to be able to share a little bit more about your equipment and such, and why you feel like that equipment is again, some of the most superior products out there. One really great part about this is listeners of the Hey Joe podcast, Trevor has… much like a lot of my guests, has actually extended a really great discount for you. And we’re going to talk to you about that offer in just a little while. So you’re going to want to stick around till the end of the podcast to hear what it is that Trevor is taking a big slash out of the price of one of these units for you. And we’re going to give you those instructions here at the end of the podcast.

But so, Trevor, you know one of the things we talked about was… if my listener audience has ever questioned what it is that they can do in order to maintain their equipment and such. I know you’ve supplied me with some really great information. Let’s dive into that. For all of my listener audience out there, another real quick reminder. If you have not already subscribed to this podcast, you can do that. It’s very simple. You can visit our website at paragonpetschool.com, and go to the podcast page. You can subscribe from there. You can also then listen to previous recordings on the Hey Joe podcast. But also find all of Trevor’s information and Electric Cleaner company information on there as well. So again, paragonpetschool.com, visit the podcast page. And if you are at home or at the business and you’re in front of your computer or want to pull it up on a smart cellphone device or so, you can actually follow along with some of the equipment that Trevor’s going to be talking about by visiting Trevor’s website, which is electriccleaner.com. So Trevor’s website, again is electriccleaner.com.

So, paragonpetschool.com or electriccleaner.com, and you can find all of the information. So Trevor, let’s dive right into maintenance, then. So you know, as we talk about maintenance, and I know a lot of the products that you sell are dryers. Again, it’s mechanical, right? It’s machinery. So where’s the level of importance that you put, or that you feel there should be for maintaining not only dryers, but all of the equipment in the grooming environment.

Trevor Vold: Yeah, I mean there’s a lot of things that you can do, and some of them don’t seem like they’d be that big of a deal. But there’s a lot of ways for maintaining equipment, things as simple as cleaning your filter, controlling temperatures in your grooming shop. Getting humidity out of the air. Things like that that are just not only the dryers but your clippers, any electrical appliance. If you can keep a nice, neat… I don’t want to say cool environment, but somewhere around 70 degrees is great. Just any piece of electrical equipment you own is going to run more efficient in that type of an environment.

Joe Zuccarello: So what you’re saying is… and I don’t know that many people really think about the temperature. Well, I guess we think about the temperature because we’re sweating and we’re hustling and we’re busy and such. But obviously dryers themselves or other equipment add to the heat, the ambient heat inside of a grooming salon. But also in the tub room, and in the dryer rooms with humidity and such. So that’s an interesting thing that you say, because when I think about equipment, temperature control is usually for personal preference, or just to stay cool for ourselves. But what you’re saying is it’s also very important for the equipment.

Trevor Vold: It really is, and you know especially in your bathing area. These dryers out there, especially all the Force dryers, they do not have a heating element, and they’re just simply heated up by motor heat. And as the ambient air temperature raises, that’s going to make your dryers run warmer. And you just… it’s very important to… Even for motor life, for brush life in these motors. The cooler you can keep the units running, the longer they’re going to last.

The other thing with that is in the bathing rooms, if you can put a dehumidifier in there, you just would be amazed how much water that you’re pulling out of the air. And with that thick air, again, the dryer is working harder, it’s creating more heat, temperatures are going up. Reduces brush life, reduced brush life is going to reduce motor life. So it’s just one of those things. And when you start out in the morning, you’ve got a nice, cool bathing area, and the dryer’s heat up and the room starts heating up. And they just kind of feed off of each other. If you don’t help to maintain that cool environment, by mid afternoon, all of a sudden you’re running your dryer at 80 plus degree heat, and everything’s getting warmer. So yeah, it’s very important to try to keep that cool, dry and as clean as possible.

Joe Zuccarello: Okay, so that makes a ton of sense. And I think that’s something that in many cases, controlling the temperature in the environment is hopefully as simple as controlling the thermostat, and allowing the thermostat to do its work. But you mention a dehumidifier, especially in that bathing area. When I think of dehumidifiers, I think of course, you’re removing potential for mold or just that odor that comes from humid air. But how does humid air… You said that it makes the dryer work harder. So school me, if you would, on how the humidity makes the dryer work harder? Or any equipment, for that matter. I guess the same thing for clippers and everything.

Trevor Vold: Right, exactly. It is. And anything that’s electrical. It creates… And there’s a couple different things that happen when that humidity goes up. It will make actually your electricity have to work slightly harder. More importantly though, it’s just the airflow that’s going through the dryers when you have a heavier air. It’s making your motors suck that air through have to work harder to just move it. So you know, basically we’re talking about humidity readings. With a good dehumidifier in there, you can get down to where your humidity’s going to run in that 10 to 15 point level. Without it, you’re going to get up in that 80 to 90 point for humidity. Again, every electrical appliance at that condition is going to work harder.

Joe Zuccarello: So if they’re working harder… I know I’ve heard some arguments in the past of oh, if I turn down my thermostat, let’s say it’s in the summertime and I need it to be cooler, and I reduce my thermostat by such and such degrees, my electric bill is going to be a lot higher, and so on and so on. But it sounds like there’s an argument to be made that it’s going to be higher even with… Let’s say they don’t turn it down to a lower temperature, that the electric bill could actually even still go up because your equipment, the motorized equipment in our salons are working harder. So it’s going to be drawing more… You’re saying it draws more electricity to work harder.

Trevor Vold: Yeah, it absolutely can make those machines have to pull a little bit of extra wattage to keep them running and sustain what they’re doing. That is a fair argument. And you know, my point to that would be that you may see a slight spike in your electric bill, but to get the longevity out of every piece of electrical equipment that you have in that grooming shop is going to offset that, definitely.

Joe Zuccarello: Well and you said just a dehumidifier can reduce. Did you say it can reduce the humidity in the air by as much as 60 to 70%?

Trevor Vold: Absolutely, yep. Yep. I’ve seen shops where they’re pulling four or five gallons of water out of that bathing room in a day. Which sounds absurd, but that’s what it said.

Joe Zuccarello: I don’t know that I ever measured the humidity level in my grooming salons that I used to operate. But I do remember that we had some of different sizes. So I had salons that were various different sizes. And in my largest salons, we had a humidifier that drained directly into a floor drain, because they shut themselves off when the bucket… The capture tank gets too full. And we found ourselves, you know, you’re busy. So you forget to change it. And before you know it, all of a sudden you’ve got this thick air, and you realize that the unit shut itself off.

So again, not that obviously your company I don’t believe has humidifiers, or dehumidifiers. But definitely something for the Hey Joe listener audience out there to consider. Because at the end of the day, again, you purchase that piece of equipment, or purchase replacement equipment more often. Such as dryers and clippers and other mechanical devices, things that have motors.

Now obviously, one of the things that we battle all the time, Trevor, is hair in the air and dust and dander and stuff. And I had a great guest on Jessica Romani on another podcast. And she was talking about all of the debris that floats around In the air, and how that can be a dangerous proposition for a groomer and pet health. But it’s also a dangerous proposition for the health of equipment.

Trevor Vold: Yeah, absolutely. And as far as our dryers, we just can’t stress enough that changing filters when they’ve got holes in them. Cleaning those filters once or twice a day for sure, at least. Especially if you’re a grooming shop. Again, they fill up with dander and hair so quickly that it doesn’t seem like it’s a huge deal. Where hey, nah, we can go a couple days. It’s very important. Just do it at least once, daily. We actually recommend maybe even twice daily.

Because basically what you do is you restrict that airflow that’s coming in through the back. And as that gets restricted more and more, all of the sudden your dryers are getting warmer and warmer. Your motors are working harder. And the other thing that we recommend is to try and get dryers up off of the floor. Use a wall mount, and get that thing up in the air. It makes things a little bit neater when you’re doing using it. You can wrap your hose around it. You can actually visually see your filters a lot easier, and you’re not picking up as much debris as you normally would if it’s on the floor.

Joe Zuccarello: Yeah, I know that we used to put some dryers even… If they came with a long enough hose, we’d put dryers up in the ceiling. In some cases about the ceiling tiles, because it just really protected the dryers. It also cut down on noise and such as well. But I always cringed when I would walk into one of my salons and the dryer would be on the floor. It’s just… what a terrible environment for the dryer, for sure.

So one of the things that you had talked to me about, and I remember this coming up from time to time, is that the harder a dryer, or any piece of machinery works. The harder that it works, the harder it is for the motor, the brushes. And you and I talked during show prep about brushes, and not slicker brushes or pin brushes or de matting brushes. But the brushes that are inside the unit that help the motor function, right? It’s a part of what makes the unit actually function. And those brushes, your equipment has brushes. But I’ve heard of some that are brushless, brushes. What’s your take on that?

Trevor Vold: So there are some brushless motors out there. The problem with a brushless motor right now is just they lack in power compared to a motor that’s going to have brushes in it. So the technology is getting better for brushless motors. The other issue that you can have with a brushless motor is, it’s electronically controlled, versus an electric brush that’s going to use electricity to spin the armature. This is going to use a computer board to actually spin the armature, versus a brush that’s arcing electricity to an armature and making it spin.

So they’re getting a lot better with the bread boards that they’re making now too, but they can be a little particular to foreign matter, which would include dog hair, dog dander.

Joe Zuccarello: We don’t have any foreign matter in a grooming salon, are you?

Trevor Vold: Right, right, right. We continue to look for the new technology, if it is coming out. And we certainly would love to get to the point where we can build this unit and keep it as durable and as strong as what we currently have today. But unfortunately at this point, the technology is just not there.

Joe Zuccarello: Well there’s pros and cons for everything. I think one thing that might scare some people away… Oh, you know what? Before we get to that, I do want to remind everybody. We are talking with Trevor Vold, who is the sales guru, if you would, sales vice president at Electric Cleaner company, you can go to their website at electriccleanercompany.com, you can always visit paragonpetschool.com for Trevor’s information as well. But this is the Hey Joe podcast, and one of the things that we’re talking about today… In fact, everything we’re talking about today is kind of centered around this whole notion of properly maintaining equipment. And I don’t know about you Trevor, but when I think about properly maintaining equipment, I start to kind of get the jitters. Because I’m not… My oldest son, he says dad, you’re just not gifted to be mechanically inclined. He says, you can do a lot of things dad, but it just doesn’t come natural to you.

Now okay, so I got to imagine that there are other people… I hope, maybe. Other people like myself out there that are also not mechanically inclined. So okay, I can change a filter on a piece of equipment, or wash out a filter. Okay, that’s kind of the no-brainer stuff. But when you start talking about brushes, like we just touched on that. So obviously the brushes, I know this. I know brushes have to be replaced after a certain period of time. But should that intimidate me? Can you talk to that point out there for our listener audience?

Trevor Vold: Yeah, absolutely. And one thing that we do is we put up videos on our website that will show you the process of A, changing motor brushes. B, going as far as to actually changing motors. And I do know where you’re coming from. I mean, we have tons of groomers out there, that they just… They’re professional groomers. They’re good at what they do, but they don’t want to even begin to tear down a dryer. So you know, for those folks that are out there, we have a list of dealers on our website that you can go and visit, and a lot of them will do repairs to our dryers, or maintenance. Anybody that’s not comfortable sending it to another dealer, they can send it back to us. We certainly will do their maintenance. We’re more than happy to do that.

There’s several other options that you would have, as far as hey, I don’t want to do this. Give us a call, shoot us an email. We can give you a direction of what we think you should do. So I mean, I totally understand the fact that people just aren’t comfortable with it. I have never groomed a dog in my life, so I wouldn’t give anybody information on grooming dogs. But you know, as far as the dryer maintenance, we certainly can help out with that.

Joe Zuccarello: Well, and to my point a little while ago, while you’ve never groomed a dog in your life, you’re at all of these trade shows, and you see and talk to groomers all day long at these trade shows. I don’t know man, you’ve got my mad respect because you do a lot more travel for a lot longer period of time doing trade shows all year long. But one thing I know I’ve seen you do, at the trade shows especially, is I know I’ve seen you talk to folks that have come up. And they have your equipment, and they’ve had it for several years. And they’re not afraid to do their own maintenance on it.

And I think you’d even mention that you’d bring some parts and service parts to the shows, and your dealers bring those service parts to the shows and such. What’s great to know about that is that if any member of the Hey Joe listener audience podcast out there… Trevor, correct me if I’m wrong. But if they try it and they get in and they feel like they’re over their head, well then they can still send off and have it repaired. Or maybe in my case, I call in somebody that is mechanically inclined, since apparently my son doesn’t think that I’m gifted with that talent. They kind of take over where I left off. But you’ve told me before that it’s not rocket science.

Trevor Vold: It really isn’t, it isn’t. And you’re exactly right. If you get it half tore apart and say, hey I just don’t feel good about this. At that point, feel free to send it in. And again, contact us. And the way our repair service works, very simple. We have a 25 dollar labor charge, and then we charge you for the cost of the part.

Joe Zuccarello: That’s very reasonable.

Trevor Vold: So depending on what… if it’s brushes or motors or whatever, and we will call you with a quote. We won’t do anything with your unit until you’ve been called. We’ll just spell it out for you that hey, this is what you need, this is what it’s going to cost. Give us the thumbs up and we’ll go ahead and get you fixed up.

Joe Zuccarello: Well, and you know what I like is that you said also, I bet during the engineering and creation and development of your products, you know that there’s going to be a certain number of people that need to or want to do the repairs themselves. So I know right now with cars that you might buy, even changing the oil anymore in a newer vehicle’s almost impossible. Because you’ve got to take pieces out of the engine, or off the engine, out of the engine bay or these extremities if you would, just even to get to an oil filter, or to the oil pan. It’s not like it used to be.

But I bet your engineers continue to drive towards simplicity and creating a piece of machine that people can maintenance themselves. So speaking of maintenance then, Trevor, what do you… If somebody came up to you, or maybe… Okay, I’ll bring you all of the Hey Joe listener audience with this question. How often should I do maintenance on equipment in my grooming salons?

Trevor Vold: So, basically, we would recommend when you… We’ll just start with a dryer, for instance. So if you bought a new dryer, my opinion to you would be, after six months, lets open up the front, and let’s just check the front set of brushes. And again, if you have any questions on that, obviously you can look at our website, you can give us a call on this. But at that six month period, you can determine that hey, I used half of the brush. So now I know that within a year, I need to get in here and change my brushes annually.

Maybe you only used a quarter of that brush. But at least it gives you a guideline of, at my current pace, with the number of dogs I’m drying in six months, this is how much brush life we typically use. And just kind of use that as a guideline. And whether you want to use a whiteboard, whether you want to write magic marker, write on the dryer that we checked front brushes on 5/7/19 as a guideline. You can put that in your computer for maintenance. But that’s one thing that we think is very important, is not only to do the maintenance on it, but record it somewhere as well. So you got a history of what you’ve done.

So moving forward, it’s going to give you a really good idea of what your timeframes are for maintenance. Because for me to sit here and tell you that okay, every year you need to change motor brushes. Well, it’s going to be different for every grooming shop out there, depending on number of hours. A lot of different variables. Somebody’s that in Texas where the heat is constant is probably going to get through motor brushes quicker than somebody in Wisconsin, that’s using it the same amount of days. Simply because of the heat factor. There’s just a lot of different variables. So if you can get yourself on a time period.

Joe Zuccarello: Yeah, I like what you said though, Trevor. Start with a baseline, right? So if you have a new piece of equipment, start with… Take it apart when it’s new and look at it, and get that baseline of where you’re starting from. And you’re right, it does depend greatly on the amount of business that a particular shop or a particular groomer has at any given time. So all of that said, even if they have existing equipment, open it up now, take a look at it, get a baseline. And then maybe a month from now, look at it again and see if it’s went down, or whether it’s brushes or holes in your filters or whatever. But I think that’s a great tip and a great recommendation. Not only on forming a baseline, but documenting that.

And I’m a big fan. I write on my furnace, yes this unmechanically not inclined person can change air filters on my furnace. And I do just what you recommended. I have a sharpie that… I have a piece of Velcro, a little OCD I guess, maybe. I have a piece of Velcro with my Sharpie marker stuck to the furnace, and when I put the new filter in, I write that on the filter. So I write it right on the side of the filter what the date was that I put that in.

So again, it’s just these little tips. I mean, grooming is hard enough, right? It’s a hard enough job then to also have to add equipment maintenance onto that. So especially hard enough job to add equipment failure on top of that. Because then you’re out of luck, right? Now you’re trying to figure out how do you maneuver your grooming day and satisfy your customers with now something that broke, and something that failed because you didn’t have proper maintenance.

So grooming salon, the grooming business and the grooming salon environment are both harsh on any equipment. Just a real quick reminder to all of our audience out there. You are listening to the Hey Joe podcast. I’ve got Trevor with me from Electric Cleaner company. You can find out his information and all of the product assortment at electriccleanercompany.com. And again, if you have not already subscribed to this podcast, please do. You can find out all of Trevor’s information and Paragon’s information by going to paragonpetschool.com.

So as we’re talking about the equipment now Trevor, so what about your dryers have your customers raving about you? Because again, I see it every trade show. I know people, personally that have used your dryers for a long time. What are they raving about? What sets you apart?

Trevor Vold: Well, I think the biggest thing, and you briefly touched on it as well. The grooming environment is… It’s very hard on equipment, and there’s a lot of steps to help maintaining it. But it’s the durability of our units. If you do maintain it, and if you do keep your filters clean, it’s going to be a product that not only is going to perform better than anything that’s out there, it’s going to last. So you’re not banging your head on, oh, the dryer’s down again. It’s the longevity of the units.

We do like to pride ourself on our customer service. We go out of our way, or try to go out of our way to help our customers. But again, I just think it’s performance. But number one, it’s the durability of the units. They’ll just last you a long time if you take care of them. So I think that’s what sets us apart.

And the fact that we do get out to the trade shows, and we do get out in front of people. I think that that also gives people a good feeling. I know that when I buy products, I like to buy things that company’s are… they’re out in the forefront, and they’re not hiding in the shadows or any of that. So I think those things are very important, and I really think that’s what makes our company successful. So-

Joe Zuccarello: Well, and I can give a certain personal testimony to your products as well. I have seen your products used in the Paragon School of Pet Grooming by students. And if you’ve ever watched or worked with students in grooming, they don’t necessarily have all of the… They’re not as polished and respectable approach to equipment when they’re learning grooming. So all of that is part of the education process. And I can tell you that if there’s a group of people that beat up equipment, it’s students. And I know that your company’s always been just awesome with warranty, with repairs, with replacement parts. Just handholding our staff through the process of fixing our own stuff, or getting our stuff fixed.

So I would echo loudly your pride on your customer service, because we have been benefactors at Paragon, firsthand. So I agree about that. So let’s get to what Trevor, your offer for the Hey Joe listener audience out there. We have an exclusive deal for you out there. A K9 dryer is in your future, and you’ve been holding off on purchasing one yet, or this podcast has convinced you that you absolutely need one. Or if you need a second one, or a third one. If you want to expand your equipment arsenal by including one of these dryers, or another one of these dryers. Trevor and Electric Cleaning company has made an exclusive offer available to all of the Hey Joe podcast listeners, and that is 10% the K9 family of dryer products.

So that’s a big savings. It far in exceeds what you would pay in shipping and tax and such. Very excited, Trevor thanks for providing that discount, providing an offer to the listener audience. I know that they will definitely benefit by that. And I’m sure a number of them are going to be taking us up on that as soon as they finish with this podcast.

Just a quick reminder, the Hey Joe listener audience and the podcast thrives on questions that we receive from our listener audience. If you have a question or something you want us to seek out a subject matter expert to answer for you, you’re probably not alone. If you have that question, many other people might. It’s really easy, though for you to submit those questions to us. Simply do so by emailing us at [email protected].

Trevor, thank you so much for your time today. I wish you and your company the very best.

Trevor Vold: All righty, I appreciate it. Joe, thanks for having us on and if you ever want us back, we’ll be more than willing. So thank you.

Joe Zuccarello: Well I’ll hold you to that, my friend. Take care.

Trevor Vold: All right, thank you, sir.