Too grand
Feature Story
System 2000 boiler makes the difference for Lake Wynonah Municipal Authority
Hlavaty Plumb-Heat-Cool, Inc., is a 31-year-old, Marine-veteran-owned, second-generation family business. The business started simply with master plumber Frank Hlavaty and one employee, George Leib, who now owns Leib Well Drilling in Ashland, Pa. Hlavaty’s soon took on more help, including Frank’s wife, Cheryl, and son David. The business grew from the unspoken rule that you should do a job for someone as if it were your own.
After Frank’s youngest son, Tom, and his best friend, Jason Deichert, left the Marines they both decided to go to Pennsylvania College of Technology for an education in HVAC so they could eventually work at Hlavaty’s. While going to Penn Tech they were exposed to new ideas, concepts and products. With this new youthful vigor, Hlavaty’s started to share this knowledge with its customer base, but with the same meticulous efforts that the company had been founded on. With the help of several key employees like Dave’s wife, Karen, and Greg Brand (a friend of Tom’s and fellow graduate of Penn Tech) Hlavaty’s further cemented its reputation for innovative service and installation. Hlavaty’s is proud to tout that they have four Eagle Scouts, three Marines, one National Guardsman and two water rescue divers that work for the company.
During a Penn Tech green fair a few years back, a boiler call the System 2000 made by Energy Kinetics was noticed by Deichert. At first glance, the boiler appeared to be not much more than just an insulated boiler. However, after many long conversations with the Energy Kinetics representatives and about a year of deliberation, an appointment was made to bring a working System 2000 boiler to Hlavaty’s main store in Pine Grove, Pa. Many of the technicians saw the boiler for the first time and were initially skeptical of the System 2000 and its fuel-saving claims. But after the working presentation the question that everyone asked themselves was, ‘How did this boiler exist for 30 years without more attention in our area?”
From that point, Hlavaty’s began to try to educate customers in saving energy with the System 2000. The first EK in Pine Grove was installed for Arthur Pat Aungst of Aungst Excavating. Convinced by the System 2000’s performance, four of Hlavaty’s employees also installed the System 2000 boilers in their own homes and one even put one in for his mother-in-law. Every employee believed it was the best boiler option available for them and that also meant it was the best for their customers, as well.
One of Hlavaty’s Eagle Scout employees (Marlin Cockill) took great pride in offering ways to save oil. He loved informing people that keeping your old boiler running was not the way to save money and inversely wastes money and hurts the environment.
Cockill’s pride was a good thing for the Lake Wynonah Municipal Authority in Auburn, Pa. Once he saw the 25-year-old cast-iron boiler and its operation he knew they needed the System 2000. They were burning over 2,000 gallons of oil a year to heat their building. According to municipal authority manager Mike Stewart, their oil usage was so great they would even shut down the old boiler during the summer months and deal without the hot water to save oil. Cockill explained the System 2000 to the office manager Jen Hoy and Stewart. The matter was brought before the Lake Wynonah board of directors and they voted to install the System 2000.
According to the records of the Lake Wynonah Municipal Authority their oil bills dropped from 2,100 gallons to 800 gallons per year, a whopping 60-percent decrease. Can you believe that every year they didn’t replace the old boiler with the System 2000 they burned an extra 1,300 gallons of oil? The Lake Wynonah Municipal Authority considers the System 2000 to be, ‘one of the best decisions they every made” and Hlavaty’s and System 2000 are proud to have helped them make that decision.
