August 15th, 2026
August 15th, 2026
by Dave Rowe
Embedded Files
A letter from the founder of Setpoint Refrigeration about where we came from, what we believe and the company we are working to build.
Setpoint Refrigeration is not the biggest HVAC/R company in Connecticut.
We do not have the most trucks, the largest advertising budget or an army of commissioned salespeople.
What we have is experience, resourcefulness and a genuine desire to help people.
HVAC and refrigeration systems are complicated. Nobody has every answer the moment they walk through the door. Equipment fails in unusual ways. Systems may have been installed incorrectly, modified over the years or affected by conditions that are not immediately obvious.
A good technician does not pretend to know something they do not. A good technician investigates.
We take measurements, research equipment, call manufacturers and use every resource available to us. We talk to the customer and try to understand what they actually need.
Then we provide real options and solutions that make sense for the equipment, the situation and the customer’s budget.
Sometimes the right answer is a repair. Sometimes it is replacement. Sometimes it is maintenance, an adjustment or correcting an underlying problem that has been overlooked.
We tell customers what we would do if it were our own home or business. Then we let them decide without pressure.
That is who we are.
It is also the kind of customer, technician, office employee and business partner we want to attract.
We want to build something real and valuable. Something that serves people and gives back instead of simply taking as much as possible.
To understand that vision, it helps to understand where I came from and why I started Setpoint.
I grew up in a low-income household.
My father was a man who worked with his hands and cared about people. He always told me that wealth was not measured by money. It was measured by people.
He may not have had a lot of money, but he had a lot of friends. People trusted him. They knew he would help when he could, treat them fairly and do what he said he would do.
I was raised to treat the janitor with the same respect as the CEO. A person’s job title, income or position does not determine their value.
Those lessons stayed with me.
They are part of the foundation of Setpoint Refrigeration.
I worked hard in school and was able to go to college. At the time, I thought that was what I wanted.
Then I began to understand the incredible cost and realized I needed to make a practical decision about my future.
I decided to learn a trade.
It was one of the best decisions I ever made.
I have learned more about myself, other people and the world through working in HVAC than I ever could have learned from a book alone.
The trade taught me how to think, communicate, solve problems and take responsibility. It taught me how to work with people from every type of background.
It also taught me that there is rarely someone standing behind you with every answer. Sometimes you have to slow down, look at the evidence and figure it out.
I started in the trade in the late 1990s.
There were no smartphones, GPS directions or unlimited technical information available in your pocket.
If you wanted to learn, you had to learn from someone with experience. You had to read manuals and textbooks. You had to ask questions, take notes and spend time in the field.
I did well in technical school, but technical school was not enough to prepare me for the reality of the job.
My first HVAC job was difficult to get. I submitted countless applications and résumés without getting anywhere.
Eventually, I walked into a local residential and light commercial HVAC company, introduced myself and asked for an opportunity.
They hired me.
That company was, and still is, a family company.
I was given independence and responsibility almost immediately. At the time, it was almost more than I could handle.
I came close to quitting.
I am glad I didn’t.
That experience forced me to become self-reliant and resourceful. I learned how to solve problems, multitask and communicate with customers. I learned how to make decisions when nobody was standing beside me with the answer.
Most importantly, I learned that being uncomfortable does not always mean you are in the wrong place. Sometimes it means you are growing.
I went on to work for two more companies.
I was loyal to the companies I worked for, but I also learned to recognize when it was time to make a change for my own growth.
I craved mentorship, guidance and deeper technical knowledge.
I received help from many people throughout my career, and I do not want to discount anyone who trained me or gave me an opportunity.
I just always had more questions.
I did not only want to know which part had failed. I wanted to understand why it failed. I wanted to understand what was happening inside the system and what conditions caused the problem.
A lot of my experience and knowledge was developed through my own research because I could not always find the depth of explanation I was looking for.
Eventually, I reached a point where I felt like I had plateaued. I was losing motivation and even considered leaving HVAC.
I eventually joined a larger commercial HVAC/R company.
There, I worked with a technical manager whose approach aligned with my desire to learn and grow. They taught me more during my time there than I had learned during the previous 13 years of my career.
That experience reignited my passion for the trade.
I grew and excelled more there than I had anywhere else. Eventually, I became a manager and felt that I had finally earned the recognition and compensation I had worked toward for years.
My education there went far beyond technical HVAC and refrigeration work.
I learned how to train people, recruit talent, recognize potential and help technicians grow. I learned how to generate customer leads, build relationships and follow through on opportunities instead of allowing them to disappear.
I helped the company’s Connecticut operation reach a new level of growth.
I brought in technicians I had worked with in the past because I knew their abilities and believed they could contribute. Since I left, that operation and many of the people I helped bring into it have continued to achieve tremendous success.
I am genuinely happy for them.
I have always wanted to leave something better than I found it. I do not need to remain somewhere forever to be proud that I contributed to its success.
That experience showed me what the right mentorship can do. It also showed me what I was capable of contributing as a leader.
A good technician needs more than a paycheck and a set of tools. They need someone willing to answer questions, explain why, challenge them and help them become better than they were yesterday.
A growing company also needs more than sales and advertising. It needs people who can recognize talent, train employees, follow through with customers and build relationships that last.
I did not always understand the purpose of every experience while I was living through it. Some jobs were frustrating. Some lessons were difficult. Some opportunities only made sense when I looked back years later.
Each experience was a chance to grow and another stepping stone toward building Setpoint Refrigeration LLC.
Technical work taught me how to solve problems. Management taught me how to develop people. Recruiting taught me how important the right employees are. Working with customers taught me that opportunities mean nothing without communication and follow-through.
All of those lessons became part of the company I am building today.
Then life happened.
I experienced several personal losses in my family. The pandemic changed the world around us. During a time of loss and personal struggle, I felt more alone than I expected.
I stepped away from the trade and thought I might never come back.
During that period, I lost someone else who was irreplaceable. My mother.
You only ever have one mother.
Losing a parent, sibling or close family member creates a pain that never completely goes away. Losing several people within a short time can feel unbearable.
But loss is also part of life, and somehow you have to continue.
The best thing you can do is recognize that you are still here. You still have time to do something meaningful and make the people you lost proud of you.
That realization changed the direction of my career and my life.
I decided to return to HVAC, but I wanted to return differently.
I wanted to give back what I had learned. I wanted to become the teacher and mentor I had needed when I was coming up in the trade.
I became an HVAC instructor at Lincoln Tech.
Teaching was one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my career. As unlikely as it may sound after so many years in the field, I may have learned more during that time than during any other period of my career.
I overcame a fear of public speaking.
I returned to the textbooks and had time to research subjects I rarely had time to explore while working what was supposed to be a regular job, but was often closer to 6 a.m. until 10 p.m.
I studied the science behind heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration. I went deeper into thermodynamics, psychrometrics, airflow, electrical theory, system operation and diagnostics.
I also learned from educators such as Bryan Orr of HVAC School, Craig Migliaccio of AC Service Tech and Ty Branaman of Love2HVAC, along with many others who freely share their knowledge with the trade.
I began fine-tuning not only what I knew, but how to explain it to someone else.
Teaching forces you to understand a subject at a deeper level. It is not enough to know that something works. A student will ask why it works, why it failed and what would happen if one condition changed.
Those were the same kinds of questions I had been asking throughout my career.
During a period when I had felt very alone, I made new friends among the instructors and students. I became part of a community again.
One of those students works for Setpoint today and is an extremely valued part of the company.
That means more to me than I can easily explain.
As I taught, my desire to return to the field grew.
I had renewed interest, deeper knowledge and a clearer understanding of the kind of company I wanted to work for.
I also knew how much the HVAC industry had changed.
I did not want to become another number at a large company. I did not want to be measured mainly by revenue or pressured to turn every service call into a sale.
I needed to do this on my own.
I had a vision for Setpoint Refrigeration LLC and decided to make it real.
I knew HVAC and refrigeration, but I knew almost nothing about starting or running a business.
Fortunately, years of working as a service technician had made me resourceful and determined enough to try.
In service, you rarely arrive with every answer. You gather information, diagnose the problem, use the resources available to you and find a path forward.
That is how I approached building Setpoint.
The business grew faster than I could have imagined. Within six months, I realized I would need to leave teaching and pursue the company full-time.
It was a difficult decision because I loved teaching, but it was the right one.
I am incredibly thankful for the success and opportunities Setpoint has provided.
Large corporations and private equity companies are buying local contractors and competing aggressively for experienced technicians.
Growth and size are not automatically bad. There are good people, qualified technicians and responsible leaders working for companies of every size.
My concern is what happens when revenue targets and sales performance become more important than the customer, the technician and the quality of the work.
Good technicians can gradually be turned into salespeople.
Instead of concentrating on, “How do I diagnose and solve this problem?” they may be pushed to think, “How much can I sell on this call?”
Their performance may be measured by average invoice size, replacements, accessory sales and total revenue.
Those measurements can have a place in a healthy business. Every company has to generate enough revenue to pay its people, invest in training and remain available to its customers.
The problem begins when the numbers become more important than doing what is right.
A heating failure in an elderly person’s home should not primarily be treated as a sales opportunity.
A restaurant owner with a failed walk-in cooler should understand the available repair and replacement options.
A technician should be able to make an honest recommendation without worrying that the smaller sale will count against them.
People call an HVAC/R company because they need help.
Their heat is out. Their air conditioning stopped working. Their walk-in cooler is warming up. Their comfort, business, food inventory or safety may be at risk.
That trust comes with a responsibility.
The pressure to sell has affected customers, too.
Many people have been pressured, overcharged or given recommendations they did not fully understand. As a result, customers have become more skeptical, defensive and hesitant to commit.
They may seek several opinions, shop every diagnosis, postpone important work or attempt repairs themselves because they do not know who to trust.
I understand why that happens.
When people believe every service visit may become a sales pitch, they protect themselves. Unfortunately, that can create another set of problems. Necessary work gets delayed, temporary fixes become permanent and small problems turn into expensive emergencies.
Then contractors become suspicious of customers, and customers become even more suspicious of contractors.
The entire relationship becomes adversarial.
It should not be this way.
Our job is to rebuild that trust one customer and one service call at a time.
Setpoint does not employ commissioned salespeople.
When we come to your home or business, we send a technician. Often, we send the owner, who is also a technician and still works in the field.
That is an important difference.
Some companies can provide free estimates because they have dedicated salespeople and enough sales volume to absorb that cost. That business model is not automatically wrong.
It is simply not our model.
We send someone with real technical experience who can investigate the equipment, understand the property and discuss what the customer is trying to accomplish.
Our technicians do not pressure customers into buying something.
We explain the options, provide our recommendation and tell you what we would do if it were our own home or business.
We will do that even if it means recommending a smaller repair instead of a replacement. We will do it even if our honest recommendation does not produce the largest sale.
We would rather lose a job honestly than win one by misleading someone.
An experienced technician’s time has value.
If a technician or the owner spends several hours providing free estimates, those are hours we cannot spend taking care of existing customers.
We already do not have enough qualified technicians to meet the demand.
We cannot pull a skilled technician away from customers with failed heating, air conditioning or refrigeration equipment to provide unlimited free consultations.
We also cannot provide an accurate quote and an appropriate solution without spending time on it.
The right solution may require an equipment inspection, testing, measurements, load information, electrical requirements, ductwork evaluation, piping considerations, code research, equipment selection and a real conversation about what the customer wants to accomplish.
That is professional consultation.
We are not going to look at a project for five minutes and throw out a number that may have little connection to the final cost.
We are not going to intentionally provide a low price to get through the door, then increase it after the customer has committed and can’t easily turn back.
We want to provide a complete scope and realistic price before the work begins.
We charge a diagnostic or consultation fee for our time and experience. If the customer moves forward with our recommended repair or upgrade, that fee can be credited toward the work.
That is honest payment for the time and knowledge required to provide a real solution.
Customers should not only ask, “How much does it cost to get someone here?”
They should also ask:
“Who is coming to my property?”
“Are they a technician or a salesperson?”
“Will they investigate the problem?”
“Will they explain my options?”
“Is the proposed scope complete?”
“Is the price realistic?”
“What quality of work and equipment am I receiving?”
“What experience and integrity are behind the price?”
The cost of the initial visit is only one part of the decision.
What matters is what you are actually buying.
A very low-priced tune-up may not cover the actual cost of sending a qualified technician in a stocked service vehicle to your property.
A service company has to cover wages, payroll taxes, insurance, vehicles, fuel, tools, training, office support and the time required to properly inspect the equipment.
If the advertised price does not cover those costs, the company has to recover the difference somewhere.
Sometimes a low introductory price is part of a reasonable marketing strategy. Other times, it creates pressure to sell repairs, accessories, memberships or replacement equipment during the visit.
The same is true of free estimates. They are not automatically dishonest, but customers should understand how the company makes money and what incentives may be influencing the person making the recommendation.
Cheap and free are not always bad.
They are also not always what they first appear to be.
Look at the scope, the experience, the workmanship and the integrity behind the price.
If there is one thing we strongly encourage customers to do, it is regular maintenance.
We recommend it to new and existing customers. Not because maintenance is where we make the most money. It isn’t.
We make less money on maintenance than on repairs and installations.
We recommend it because we know it is the right thing to do for the customer, the equipment and our ability to provide dependable service.
Maintenance gives us a chance to find problems before they turn into emergencies in the middle of a hot summer day or a cold, snowy winter night.
A weak capacitor, worn belt, dirty coil, failing electrical component, refrigerant issue or blocked drain may be manageable during a planned visit.
If it is not discovered until the equipment stops working during extreme weather, it becomes an emergency.
The customer is uncomfortable. A business may be losing money. Food inventory may be at risk. Everyone is under pressure to solve the problem immediately.
We would rather find the problem early and plan the repair at a convenient time for everyone.
We offer customized service and maintenance plans to our customers.
Depending on the equipment and how it is used, a plan may include spring and fall maintenance, along with summer and winter visits when needed.
Every home and business is different.
A residential heating and cooling system may only require two visits each year.
A restaurant, convenience store or commercial property may need more frequent service because its heating, air conditioning and refrigeration equipment operates longer and under much harder conditions.
Our maintenance customers also receive discounted service rates.
We provide those discounts as an incentive because regular maintenance saves customers money and helps us reduce emergencies.
We would rather give a loyal customer a better service rate and address problems in a planned, sensible way than make more money responding to a preventable emergency.
Emergency service is expensive for everyone.
An emergency may require us to pull a technician away from another job, rearrange the schedule, pay overtime, locate parts after hours or delay work for other customers.
One emergency can affect the entire day.
Regular maintenance allows us to plan the work, order parts ahead of time and make repairs when they are less disruptive.
It also provides steadier work during the slower parts of the year. That helps us retain qualified technicians all year, not just when every air conditioner is failing in July or every heating system is failing during a snowstorm.
Maintenance is better for the customer, better for the technician and better for our ability to provide reliable service.
We are not looking to make money on one call and be on our way.
We want loyal, long-term customers.
We want to take care of their HVAC and refrigeration equipment for years. We want them to call us whenever they need maintenance, repairs, replacements or new installations.
We want to earn enough trust that they recommend Setpoint to their friends, families and colleagues.
That relationship is worth more to us than making the largest possible profit on one service call.
We also know who we can make happy and who we probably cannot.
We are a good fit for customers who want honest answers, quality work and solutions that make sense.
We are a good fit for people who understand that knowledge, time and skilled labor have value.
We may not be the right fit for someone whose only consideration is the lowest initial price.
We would rather be honest about that before accepting the job than take every call and disappoint people.
Our five-star Google reviews are not bought or fake.
We are not trying to manufacture a reputation.
What you see is what we earned.
This summer, some people have waited longer than we would like for us to come out and help them.
We know that waiting is frustrating, especially when heating, air conditioning or refrigeration equipment is not working.
We don’t take that lightly.
We would love to get to everyone immediately.
Our problem is not finding customers or generating leads. We have more work and opportunities than our current team can responsibly handle.
Our challenge is finding qualified people who care about the work and the customers they serve.
We could lower our standards and put another person in a truck. We could send someone into a home or business before they are ready. We could focus on running more calls instead of doing good work.
We won’t.
We want to grow, but we will never sacrifice quality to do it.
We have met experienced technicians who were attracted to our commitment to quality and our aversion to pushy sales tactics.
We have also learned how difficult it is for a small independent company to compete for experienced people against much larger companies with full-time recruiters, established benefit programs and substantial resources.
We do not blame anyone for making the employment decision they believe is best for themselves and their family.
We simply want qualified people to know that Setpoint can offer competitive compensation and something that can be harder to measure.
The opportunity to help build a company where technical ability matters, honest recommendations are respected and employees are more than numbers.
I was a technician before I was an owner. I still work in the field today.
I understand the cost of the tools, the years of education, the licensing requirements, the difficult working conditions, the late nights, the missed dinners and the sacrifices this trade can demand.
Good technicians deserve to be paid well.
We are willing to compete for the right people.
What we will not do is sacrifice quality, honesty or integrity in order to grow faster.
Caring about the work does not mean giving your entire life to the company.
Work-life balance matters immensely to us.
HVAC/R is a demanding trade. Technicians work in extreme heat and cold, on rooftops, in mechanical rooms and inside cramped equipment.
There are late nights, emergencies and busy seasons. Those things are part of the trade, but constant exhaustion and burnout should not be.
I know what it is like to work long hours, miss time with family and carry the responsibility of unfinished work home at night.
I know what this trade can take from people when there are no boundaries.
We want technicians who care about customers and take pride in their work. We also want them to have lives outside of work.
We want people to have time with their families. We want them to rest, recover and return able to think clearly and work safely.
We want them to use their vacation time, attend important family events and have interests that do not involve HVAC or refrigeration.
A burned-out technician is not good for the employee, the customer or the company.
We are not trying to build a business that uses people until they have nothing left.
We want to build careers that good people can stay in.
That requires competitive pay, benefits, training, reasonable expectations, proper staffing and respect for people’s time.
It also requires employees who communicate, follow through and care about how their actions affect the rest of the team.
Work-life balance has to work in both directions.
The company should respect the employee’s life. The employee should also respect the commitments they make to the company, their coworkers and the customers waiting for help.
Finding technicians has not been our only challenge.
We also want a dispatcher or customer service representative who works directly with our company, knows our customers and understands how we operate.
We tried an answering service offered through our CRM and service management system.
The quality did not meet our standards.
We do not want our customers speaking to someone who does not know us, does not understand our business and is simply reading from a script.
We want a real person answering the phone.
We want someone who knows our technicians, our service area, our customers and the types of work we perform.
We want someone who can recognize when a restaurant has an urgent refrigeration problem, when a heating call involves a vulnerable customer or when an existing customer needs follow-up.
We want customers to feel like they called Setpoint, not a random call center.
However, hiring office support before we have enough field capacity creates another problem. There is little sense in answering and scheduling more calls if we do not have enough qualified technicians to perform the work properly.
We have interviewed people with relevant experience who seemed like they could be a good fit. Some of those opportunities did not work out.
Hiring disappointments are difficult because we want badly to grow the right way. We want to take better care of existing customers, respond to new customers and create good jobs for people who share our values.
Still, we will not hire the wrong person out of desperation.
The person answering our phone represents Setpoint just as much as the technician entering a customer’s home or business.
They need to care, communicate and follow through.
Setpoint is not the only independent contractor facing these challenges.
There are talented technicians working alone who cannot answer every call.
There are small HVAC, refrigeration, plumbing and electrical companies with more work than they can staff.
There are experienced tradespeople who want independence but miss having knowledgeable people around them.
There are younger technicians who want to learn the trade without being turned into salespeople.
Small businesses and independent contractors should not all struggle separately while larger organizations continue consolidating the trades.
We can remain independent while helping one another.
We can share knowledge, help with larger projects, refer work, recommend people we trust and create relationships that benefit our customers.
There is room for companies that want to grow without treating every customer as a sales target.
There is room for technicians who want to diagnose problems and practice their trade instead of being judged only by how much they sell.
There is room for office employees who want to know the customers and become a real part of the company.
There is room for customers who still want to know the people they are doing business with.
I want people who join Setpoint to know who I am, where I came from and what I believe.
I want to be transparent about the company we are building and the culture we expect to protect.
I want people who care about customers, coworkers, quality, honesty and integrity.
I want people who take pride in perfecting their craft and understand that nobody ever reaches a point where there is nothing left to learn.
I want to provide the training, guidance and mentorship I often did not receive, or received much later than I needed it.
I want technicians to ask questions without feeling embarrassed.
I want them to understand why they are doing something, not simply repeat what someone showed them.
I want them to become better than I am.
I want them to receive competitive pay, benefits, respect and the work-life balance that people in this trade deserve.
I do not want to build a company that uses people until they burn out.
I want to build a company where good technicians can learn, grow, earn a living they are proud of and still have time to be present for the people who matter to them.
We want Setpoint to grow.
We want more technicians, more service vehicles and a real customer service team.
We want to respond faster, serve more customers and create good careers for people who care about the work.
We are willing to pay qualified people competitively. We want to provide good benefits, the right tools, training, support and opportunities to grow.
We also want our employees to have lives outside of work.
But growth cannot come at the expense of everything we believe in.
We will not turn technicians into salespeople.
We will not pressure customers into repairs, replacements or upgrades they do not need.
We will encourage customers to maintain their equipment because we know it saves money and prevents emergencies.
We will not use unrealistic prices simply to get through the door.
We will not provide careless ballpark estimates and increase the price after the customer is committed.
We will not buy reviews or manufacture a reputation.
We will not hire unqualified people just because customers are waiting.
We will not build a culture that burns out good employees and replaces them when they have nothing left to give.
We will not sacrifice quality, honesty, integrity or people just to become bigger.
We may not have every answer when we arrive.
But we care enough to find it.
We care enough to give customers real options.
We care enough to recommend what we would do ourselves.
We care enough to be honest, even when honesty costs us a sale.
We care enough to build a company where technicians can practice their trade, earn what they deserve and still have a life.
We care enough to build long-term relationships with customers instead of treating them as transactions.
We care enough to put people before short-term profit.
My father taught me that wealth is measured in people.
Revenue matters. Profit matters. A business cannot survive, serve its customers or take care of its employees without them.
But money is not the final measure of what we are building.
The real measure is the people who trust us, the customers who stay with us, the employees who grow with us and the reputation we earn through the work we perform every day.
We want to build something real.
Something valuable.
Something that serves and gives more than it takes.
That is Setpoint Refrigeration.
If you are a customer looking for an honest HVAC/R company, a qualified technician looking for a place where your skills matter, a customer service professional who wants to become part of a real team or an independent contractor who believes small businesses should work together, we want to hear from you.
Need service or maintenance for your stores? Contact Setpoint Refrigeration LLC today for high quality, expert services!
- Phone: (860) 375-9058
- Email: service@setpointhvacr.com
- Website: setpointhvacr.com
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