Consumers are increasingly interested in HVAC and indoor air quality (IAQ) according to the significant viewership numbers logged for a recent "Designing Spaces" cable TV home improvement episode featuring four Nortek Global HVAC residential equipment brand installations.

The 30-minute HVAC episode aired Aug. 16 and Aug. 22 on the Lifetime Television national cable TV network and documented four Nortek Global HVAC contractor/dealers’ air conditioning and heating equipment installations. It was one of the more popular "Designing Spaces" episodes with more than 350,000 viewers, according to production executives.

“Understanding how HVAC systems function can be extremely intimidating to many homeowners,” said Arash Farsi, broadcast creative director at the episode’s Deerfield, Florida-based video production company Brandstar. “Our goal was to bring combine HVAC system education with tips on how to have an intelligent conversation with an HVAC professional.”

The video was also syndicated nationally to 150 TV stations and is now continuing its hot response with visits to www.designingspaces.tv driven by social media promotions on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The popular show will air several more times on Lifetime Television throughout 2019’s fourth quarter and syndication will reach more than 86 million households.  

The following are the episode’s featured contractors, locations and equipment:

• Rusty Tensfield Heating & Cooling, Manchester, Tennessee ⁠— Frigidaire FSA1BE split-system air conditioner
• My Guy Heating and Air, Carlsbad, California ⁠— two Maytag CSA1BE split-system air conditioners
• Valley Heating & Cooling, Athens, Alabama ⁠— an Airtemp VQ7RE packaged heat pump
• Colony Heating & Air Conditioning, Cedar Rapids, Iowa ⁠— Reznor UDAP unit heater

Four Nortek Global HVAC distributors ⁠— Partners Supply, Chattanooga, Tennessee; AC Pro, Oceanside, California; R.E. Michel Co., Decatur, Alabama; and Plumb Supply Co., Cedar Rapids, Iowa ⁠— helped coordinate logistics between their contractor dealers and the show producer.    

"Designing Spaces" TV host David Leon chronicled each installation with creative storytelling using consumer-friendly descriptions, and offered homeowner tips for aftermarket HVAC maintenance and service. More than 500 hours of video were shot and edited down to 30 minutes by a 12-person production and post-production team, according to Jennifer Giordano, a Brandstar project director.

For Tensfield, who has installed Nortek brands since 2000 with his 5-year-old company and previous HVAC contractor employer, videotaping presented some unconventional moments, such as applying makeup and aesthetically wearing long pants and a long sleeve shirt in the three-hour sultry July attic scene. The typical four-hour retrofit also doubled in installation time due to additional takes and videotape set-ups. Surprisingly, he reports his Facebook page traffic is up 20 percent and website hits have increased since the taping, proving once again that consumers are interested in improving their home HVAC and IAQ environment.