TVR, Inc. keeps a machinist on staff. When a manufacturer stops making a part for a heating or refrigeration system, the Meridian contractor says its shop can make a new one from scratch. The same goes for a piece that has to fit an irregular system, or a component meant to outlast the original.
The company sells that fabrication as its own line of work, next to residential and commercial HVAC, refrigeration and building controls. On commercial refrigeration jobs, TVR describes a sequence that starts with talking to the customer and inspecting the space. The crew then fabricates custom materials to fit the new system, installs it, and adds automation controls where they are needed.
Making parts rather than ordering them goes back a long way at TVR. The company dates itself to 1994. A 2010 version of its website describes a firm that designed and installed heating, air conditioning, ventilation and refrigeration systems. The same list included specialty electrical contracting, sheet metal fabrication and building management controls. Its customers then were owners, architects, contractors and government agencies, and its projects ran from small office buildings and retail centers to business parks and university facilities. It had worked in Idaho, Montana, Washington and Oregon, with offices in Boise and Idaho Falls.
Two jobs from that period show the design-build side of the work. In a renovation of the Front 5 building in Boise, TVR installed high-efficiency rooftop package units, exposed spiral ducting and exhaust systems, and used low-VOC materials. The company called it the first LEED-certified new construction in Idaho. In Nampa, it provided design-build mechanical services on a LEED silver project for Title One and Premier Alliance. There, TVR said, a large AAON rooftop unit with a built-in heat recovery wheel and an evaporative condenser was a key part of earning the award.
The company now works from Lanark Road in Meridian, and its service map is drawn closer to home. It lists Boise, Meridian, Nampa, Caldwell, Eagle, Star, Kuna and Middleton, plus Ontario, Oregon. It handles homes as well as businesses. In existing houses and new construction, its residential installs include helping pick a unit, hauling out the old one and retrofitting furnaces for efficiency. It also designs and installs automation controls that let owners run heating and refrigeration equipment from a phone.
The detail TVR puts first about itself is who owns it. The company says it is 100 percent employee-owned through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, and it ties that ownership to the fabrication work, saying the people making the parts have a stake in how long they last.
Ownership is also how it recruits. TVR’s hiring pitch is aimed at experienced, fully licensed HVAC technicians, and it invites them to join its team of employee-owners and share in the profits. Testimonials posted alongside the openings call the work fast-paced. One says the hardest part is never knowing when things will get busy, which can make staffing difficult. Another credits a strong service manager and knowledgeable coworkers.
The job requirements show what kind of shop it is. Applicants need five or more years in the trade, a current Idaho HVAC license at the full, post-apprentice level or the equivalent, a valid driver’s license and a clean motor vehicle record. They must pass a background check for a drug-free workplace. TVR will provide OSHA 10 training to anyone who lacks the certification. The list also asks for something a parts catalog can’t supply: experience fabricating and installing sheet metal ductwork, and the ability to work from blueprints, schematics and diagrams.