Christian Grzywinski is a Project Manager at Therma, California’s premier mechanical solutions provider. As part of the Therma team, Christian works to provide customer solutions for mechanical designs and constructions.
Before joining Therma, he was a Project Engineer for ACCO Engineered Systems and a Project Manager at Chris Plumbing and Allied Air Conditioning and Heating Co. Christian graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in Rhetoric before finding his career in the HVAC world.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- How Therma has adapted during the pandemic
- Christian Grzywinski explains the different services and techniques offered by Therma
- What designs and products are on the cutting edge?
- How did Christian get into the HVAC industry?
- The common problems in the HVAC space—and how Therma responds
- Christian’s advice for starting your plumbing and AC career
In this episode…
HVAC companies have become even more important in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Air quality is important not only for the comfort but for the health of a building’s occupants. And now, different methods and products are being developed to accommodate growing needs, making it a broad field.
Take Therma, for example. A company based throughout Southern California, Therma covers that broad field from plumbing services to AC repair, to sewer inspections—and more.
On this episode of Watching Paint Dry, Christian Grzywinski of Therma joins Greg Owens to offer his personal insight as a project manager. Christian discusses his own entry into the field, Therma’s specialties, and the newest innovations in the industry. He also talks about the opportunities available for up-and-coming workers in HVAC companies. Listen in to hear all of this and more!
Resources Mentioned in this episode
- Greg Owens on LinkedIn
- McCarthy Painting
- McCarthy Painting Contact No.: 415-383-2640
- McCarthy Painting Email Address: info@mccarthypainting.com
- Christian Grzywinski on LinkedIn
- Christian Grzywinski’s Email
- Therma
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by McCarthy Painting, where we serve commercial and residential clients all around the San Francisco Bay area.
We’ve been in business since 1969 and served companies such as Google, Autodesk, Abercrombie & Fitch, FICO, First Bank, SPIN, and many more.
If you have commercial facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area and need dependable painters, visit us on the web at www.mccarthypainting.com or email info@mccarthypainting.com, and you can check out our line of services and schedule a free estimate by clicking here.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:03
Welcome to the Watching Paint Dry podcast where we feature today’s top facility managers, property managers and property owners talking about the challenges and opportunities of managing hundreds of 1000s of square feet of real estate and how to beautify and improve their properties. Now, let’s get started with the show.
Greg Owens 0:32
Hello, everyone. This is Greg Owens with the Watching Paint Dry podcast where we’ve been interviewing facilities managers, project managers, building owners, property managers, and kind of continuing this series including all the different support services that help that entire industry sort of all the ins and outs of buildings, both commercial high rise to big campuses to residential at times, too. And this podcast is sponsored by my company McCarthy Painting, where we do interior and exterior painting throughout the entire San Francisco Bay Area. We do both residential and commercial on the commercial side, we’ve done projects for Autodesk Abercrombie and Fitch, h&m, Chase Bank, we just did a Chase Bank here in Noe Valley, California, and it came out beautiful, and lots of other projects just like that. To find out more about my company McCarthy Painting, you can go to the website McCarthypainting.com or email info@McCarthypainting.com. And on this podcast, they is Katrina Stevenson, who works for McCarthy Painting, and she sometimes chimes in and it has some questions, and I’m super excited to have Christian Grzywinski on podcast today with Therma and hv AC company. And we’re going to learn more about the ins and outs of heating and air conditioning, which is fortunately or unfortunately, I know a lot about this subject, because I’ve installed a few and it’s not an easy industry. And there’s a lot of math, and I’m not so good at the math side of that stuff. But welcome Christian.
Christian Grzywinski 2:17
It’s a it’s good to be here. Great. So thank you for having me
Greg Owens 2:19
today. Right? And I’m checking in like you, you’re the company you work for, like How’s everybody doing during this time, during we’re still in the middle of this pandemic? And, yeah,
Christian Grzywinski 2:31
um, you know, there’s definitely been some shifting, you know, a lot of our engineers and detailers and staff are, you know, working remotely, but you know, thankfully for technology, still able to collaborate on projects and stuff, you know, therma, I guess, we’re not just HVAC company, we’re a full on design, build mechanical contractor. And so, you know, we have our hands, also in plumbing process services, you know, quality control for some of our customers. And so, you know, we’ve been fortunate since some of our customers are in that sort of bio, you know, pharma sector that, you know, Thermo Fisher and so some of our customers are actually been involved in, you know, production of test kits and things that are kind of directly related to this pandemic. So we’ve been fortunate enough to keep ourselves busy throughout, you know, we’re going on a year now, which is crazy, or over the last year, which is crazy.
Greg Owens 3:25
I know, next month, it’ll be a full year. That’s to me next month is the full year like on St. Patty’s Day, which they do. And, yeah, that’s interesting. So that’s great that you guys have been able to continue being busy through this, at the start of this, did you have to shut down completely and be out of all buildings? Or was there projects going on that were critical.
Christian Grzywinski 3:47
I mean, there was definitely, I think, a week or two, where everyone’s just trying to get their bearings and kind of see what was permitted now, but once, the good thing is, you know, because a lot of our customers were able to clear out their facilities, you know, for kind of emergency repairs and things like that a lot of times, our technicians were often, you know, by themselves. And so, you know, it wasn’t socially distancing wasn’t really an issue, given that a lot of the scientists and labs were were cleared out, but, you know, there’s definitely a couple week period where everyone, you know, like, most of us was just wondering, where should we work from, you know, what’s the best way to proceed forward? How do we, you know, not get things grounded, because that’s the other thing was, you know, obviously, during this time is there’s the expectation that, you know, productions going to return, you know, the, the reason why these projects got off the ground in the first place, like those needs, didn’t disappear with the pandemic. And so, you know, just trying to make sure that not too much ground was lost, you know, and that we weren’t having to shift out, you know, scheduled dates and things like that, and just kind of trying to assess the impact this was going to cause everybody so
Greg Owens 4:57
right there’s, yeah, I mean, I remember Remember, you’re reminding me of how much confusion there was. And it was also reminding me of like, Hey, this is only going to be like three or four weeks. So we have to be this rigid, and then we’re going to be back and then No. acity. And here we are almost a year later, right? everybody’s kind of learning as we go in this thing and writing a new rulebook for how we deal with pandemics in the future possibility, right?
Christian Grzywinski 5:22
Yep. Yeah. So, you know, there’s definitely a transition period. But, you know, we were able to kind of get back on our feet pretty quickly, obviously, that, you know, there were projects that got stalled out, you know, companies had, you know, how much sense it made for them to move forward with things while they were trying to, you know, to assess what their futures looked like. And so it’s kind of, you know, two moving targets, right, our needs and their needs. And so, you know, not everything went full steam ahead, but we were able to kind of redirect, you know, I know, some other people within our company, obviously, health and safety measures became a lot more important, you know, ultraviolet, you know, means of trying to, you know, make the air cleaner. And so that was fortunate in the fact that, you know, HVDC systems are tied to the health of the occupants and the health of a building. And so we had a lot of opportunities to make buildings healthier, so to speak, and then kind of improve the air quality as well. So that became a bigger concern than usual, as you can imagine,
Greg Owens 6:20
yeah. And to actually talk to a few different people that were installing both the UVC lighting into systems, I think, right, and correct me if I get some of this wrong, but then there was another type that was cheaper than that, where it made particles bigger, so that the filters can actually and I forget, I forget which one I forget what that was called, but it was like a more efficient system from what they were saying, oh, there’s,
Christian Grzywinski 6:47
there’s different methods, ozone, and you know, there’s different ways, you know, mediate and change the air quality. And, obviously to you know, that’s part of our job, right, the fact that we’re building, you know, that we have engineers on staff to is, you know, to qualify that stuff for our customers. And you know, because these are the times where people will tout technologies is maybe having better performance than they may actually have. And, you know, our due diligence, having engineers is to, you know, to check those things, and to make sure that if we’re going to push a solution to our customers, it’s really something that’s been vetted. And it’s going to have the end effect that they’re actually looking for, regardless of what, you know, the manufacturers or vendors may claim, though,
Greg Owens 7:30
yeah, I call it marketing before reality. Yes, we see it all the time in the paint industry, something comes out and they say this paint product will last, you know, 20 years. And I’m like, Yeah, rhinoshield?
Christian Grzywinski 7:42
Yeah, yeah, there’s
Greg Owens 7:44
lots of different products that come out that have these things that I’m like, I’ve watched lots of you come and go.
Christian Grzywinski 7:50
If you keep it in a temperature controlled container, or chairs, yeah, it’ll work.
Greg Owens 7:56
Yeah, you look at the you look at this study that’s like, yeah, 20 years in your garage on a piece of concrete, it’s gonna be fine. Yeah. So for Therma Then are you guys predominantly in new construction or doing renovations? Or is it a mix of both,
Christian Grzywinski 8:13
and it’s kind of full service, you know, and that’s what’s nice, we have a very large service department, we have, you know, hv AC service technicians plumbing service, we can, you know, we have sewer Inspection Services, you know, everything related to, you know, underground work, things like that related to, you know, plumbing systems, we do do, you know, new build ground up, but a lot of our stuff is, you know, ti work tenant improvement, as they call it, where, you know, modifying an existing space to meet the new demands of the customer, sometimes, you know, that’s often trickier than starting from scratch, especially if the user groups changing because obviously, you know, the space was designed for office use and now it’s becoming an automation lab. A lot of it almost becomes putting a new system in an existing space because there might not even be existing infrastructure to support the new systems and so now we’re not just modifying their systems but we’re might be adding an entire new system that wasn’t in the building before and so you know, that’s the real tricky part is you know, right as a common base for new lines and things like that and a ceiling that might be already you know, severely impacted because you know, most people don’t take a look above t bar and if you never use I’m sure there’s people that have gone 90 years their whole life with never moving a T bar tile and no idea
Greg Owens 9:40
why don’t even wait they don’t even know what a T bar is.
Christian Grzywinski 9:43
Yes.
Greg Owens 9:46
To the rest of us
Christian Grzywinski 9:46
what exactly is that? It’s so I mean, when right when in your office building, I mean, the majority of class one multi storey office buildings, you have acoustical ceiling tile and it’s that okay, well grid pattern that you’re used to And for most people, I think they think you’re right above is the next floor. And no, there’s, hopefully there’s a decent amount of space, right for people such as, you know, contractors like therma. And you know, that’s majority of our world, you don’t see most of our work, right, most of its above that ceiling, there’s duct and piping and control wires and a whole world up there that, you know, we have to make fit. And all you see is the register and feel the air coming down. But there’s a lot that, you know, goes into getting it to that point.
Greg Owens 10:33
Oh, and then also pissed, like, it’s too hot in here. It’s too cold. And yeah, and you’re like, you know, this is a big building, and we had to retrofit this whole building in your office is like, facing south, you’re
Christian Grzywinski 10:49
like, I don’t, none of that matters.
Christian Grzywinski 10:51
I’m hot.
Christian Grzywinski 10:53
on that, you know, and that’s the other thing. It’s not just me, right. But that’s, you know, something that I don’t think a lot of people realize is, you know, as we increase computing capacity, right, especially with ABS, you know, they have HPLC. And, you know, also, I don’t even know what a lot of these things are, right? actual science specific, but these things generate a lot of heat. And, you know, you can only fit so much lab equipment into a space before, you know, you’re severely impacting what the building was designed to do, you know, and so it’s just a lot goes into a space being comfortable, you know, and I think, having not been in this industry, I think it’d be easy to take for granted, you know, all the work that really goes into making a comfortable functional space. From a mechanical perspective.
Greg Owens 11:38
Yeah, we do. We, as a painting company, we don’t do much work above the D bar line. And I have like a saying to, like most people in an office building, never looked up and never really looked down. They move through spaces, right. And they, they want it to just feel correct and not trip over anything. And they don’t have to worry about anything, and it feels comfortable. And then when it doesn’t feel comfortable, that’s when they started looking up and being like, yeah, here, we do get into it, though, sometimes we just did some projects where we had to, after a plumbing company and an hv AC came through the building and reef retrofitting a bunch of things. They had to punch holes through sheetrock walls up above that T bar. And then we would come in and patch those holes to keep fire from spreading from one part of the building to another right and go around and talk and fill. And sometimes you’re right. Sometimes it’s like a, you know, tight fit up there. And we have to give me painter to slide up in there and get behind the hbic with the caulk gun and do some caulking up and behind there right?
Christian Grzywinski 12:39
safely. Yeah,
Christian Grzywinski 12:41
yeah. For sure,
Greg Owens 12:44
yeah. And I can see how it gets super challenging in both San Jose in Oakland and San Francisco, where the some of the buildings are really old buildings. And they’re taking a building that wasn’t designed in its initial sort of design, it might have been like a welding shop, and they’re like, Hey, now we’re gonna make it high tech. Right? And you guys come in and replumb this building and put it into the AC and and put some systems in to make it comfortable for us. Right? Yep. And that’s it, that takes some serious design work. What are you seeing as the cutting edge? Or? Like, what do you see is like customers asking for when it comes to clean their air quality, both from this pandemic, and viruses, which are viruses are tiny, too. Also, I can only imagine that during the fires with all the smoke we’ve had for the last two years here in California public becomes a bigger and bigger issue is how to have clean air inside.
Christian Grzywinski 13:37
I mean, obviously, you know, the, the main source, right is filtration, you know, I mean, that’s the primary line of defense is just to prevent it from getting into the air stream, you know, and address it that way. You know, and then obviously, you know, because of our focuses much more on kind of industrial or, you know, laptop where we don’t we don’t do any, you know, residential type space. So obviously, are the human users are the people in the office buildings and that sort of stuff. And so, yeah, but, you know, like I mentioned filtrations, one way, obviously, you can, you know, we deal with companies that have they make some stuff that’s pretty nasty, you know, and so a lot of times a lot of stuffs kind of directly exhausted out of the building, you know, but that’s not necessarily fire environmental related. That’s more kind of industry specific, you know, but right, that’s just another concept that a lot of people don’t think about. It’s just to prevent it from even being introduced. Right, that’s, that’s another goal, right is don’t let it even get into the building or get into where the users are. And so so a lot of what we do right is a fume hoods. There’s a lot of work inside of building take space, you know, takes place in an already fairly regulated space, you know, a lot of times gasped at you know, gas cylinders or in cabinets or the scientists are working in hoods or there’s other types of, you know, containment change. And containment vessels. And so, you know, a lot of EHS, which is, you know, environmental hate health and safety most companies have that works just with maintaining safety of the occupied spaces. And so that’s their primary concern is really just, you know, keeping stuff contained, so that you know, having, so one of the things that our engineers, it’s called air changes per hour. So that’s a factor that engineers, our engineers are designing for a space, that’s something that they’re looking into is how many times the total volume of air in this space being changed, right. And so, you know, certain, depending on how the, you know, lab is being used, if it’s really, you know, potentially harmful stuff, they might want 20, air changes an hour versus only four or five, if it’s just for, you know, standard occupancy.