Southwest Flavor Ep. 158 - Luke Arenas, Jon Post

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Southwest Flavor. Happy Thursday to you. We have a great show for you today, and I've got Cowboy Tilley here, co-hosting with us. Hey, turn this up just a little bit.
Can't hear myself. There we go. Yeah, I'm here.

**Luke Arenas** (0:14)
Hey.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:16)
And our first guest is Luke Arenas from Picture Rocks Cooling, Heating & Plumbing.

**Luke Arenas** (0:20)
Good morning.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:21)
Good morning.

**Luke Arenas** (0:21)
How are you guys doing?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:22)
Good. Good. How are you doing?

**Luke Arenas** (0:23)
Doing good. Doing good working. It's the summer. Yeah, busy.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:26)
Yeah. Yeah. This is this is your time.

**Luke Arenas** (0:29)
Oh, yeah, absolutely. How my June was a lot bigger a month in May. It's a lot hotter in June than May.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:34)
Yeah. Yeah.

**Luke Arenas** (0:35)
So it's definitely a lot more busy than than the June and May. And I'm but it's good. It's busy.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:41)
Good because he's very good. Yeah, that's what keeps the trucks rolling out there.

**Luke Arenas** (0:46)
Oh, absolutely.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:47)
Yeah.

**Scott Tilley** (0:48)
Keeps dad smiling face.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:50)
It does.

**Luke Arenas** (0:50)
Yeah.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:52)
It helps allow me to be in this chair.

**Luke Arenas** (0:55)
Yeah.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:55)
Yeah.

**Scott Tilley** (0:56)
I noticed that you've kind of been, you know, you've got a little like lighter on your face. You know, you're having breakfast and dad jokes.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:06)
Yeah. All these things that the only time I get sun is when I'm on my bike.

**Scott Tilley** (1:11)
Do you work at all anymore?

**SPEAKER_1** (1:12)
I do.

**Scott Tilley** (1:13)
Do you? Does he? Does he? He'll tell you he does.
Well, I know you forgot something yesterday morning. You had to run all the way back to the house after our meeting.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:22)
No, not to the house, to the customer's house. Yeah. I met my technician over there. So yeah, I had like a probably 40 mile drive to take apart because I was on the northeast side of town. I had to go to the southwest side of town. Yeah.

**Scott Tilley** (1:36)
Are you hiring more delivery drivers?

**SPEAKER_1** (1:40)
No, no. Hopefully that's a once in a very long occasion.

**Scott Tilley** (1:44)
But you guys are hiring plumbers, I heard.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:46)
We're looking for a plumber.

**Scott Tilley** (1:49)
Yeah. What do you do specifically with Picture Rocks?

**Luke Arenas** (1:55)
I'm the project manager for the HVAC install side. So I do everything as far as going to the home, making sure everything's going according to plan. I'm talking to the customer, getting them all taken care of there too. So I'm usually the customer's first point of contact when it comes to installs and I'm helping out with that. So I do everything HVAC. I don't touch the plumbing. That's not my specialty. But we've been doing a lot of big projects lately, more like two, three day projects. So it's been a little bit different than kind of the last summers, but it's good for the guys. Keeps them focused on one thing. Fills up their week. So a lot of mini splits lately, too.
A lot of people don't even know what mini splits are, but we're doing a ton of them lately.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:30)
Well, tell us a little bit about a mini split.

**Luke Arenas** (2:32)
Well, mini splits are great. They're fully, truly zoned systems where you have an individual air handler in every single room.
So you can put every single room at different temperatures the way a lot of people like them. They're also super efficient. So you'll have people that have a family of five and a big old 2,000 square foot house, but their kids probably want it at 72 degrees when the mother-in-law wants it at 80 degrees. So you can actually truly do that in every single part of your home, which is the nice thing. And they're gonna be a good 30 to 40% more efficient than your average system too. So they have a cost to them, of course, but during the long run, 15, 20 years, you're definitely gonna get your return on your investment. They're super nice systems.
And maintenance isn't too bad on them either. All reusable filters, so it makes it pretty easy for anyone to maintenance them. So they're really nice, even in garages. Yeah. It's one thing too, a lot of people don't know you can put mini splits in your garages. You know, a lot of people have gyms, workshops, and they're just sticking it out in the heat. I mean, it's a good way to invest in your body there too. I mean, having a mini split, get some workouts in, you know, get a little workshop going. So you can always look into those too.