Minn. utility radio commercial pushes contractor into action. (Minnesota; air conditioning and heating contractor)

Minn. utility radio commercial pushes contractor into action

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Tom Olson was driving home from work one July day, as temperature and humidity were cross-indexing on the misery grid, when he heard a radio commercial from Northern States Power Co. (NSP), a local utility, pleading with Minnesotans to save power by turning up thermostats and turning off appliances.

This was the last straw, as they say. Olson, president of Climate Makers, Inc., fired off a letter to Tom Mahoney, editor of The News and made a note to call the president of NSP about the commercials.

His point?

Obviously, no one was apt to take the long view and sweat out the heat wave, or turn off TV.

What NSP should be saying in its commercials, Olson emphasizes -- shouts, actually -- is "clean condensers, clean coils, clean filters."

He insists that the simple act of removing dirt and debris from the mechanisms of hvac equipment and appliances would accomplish the energy-saving NSP is making a futile plea for.

"I have this idea that if everyone in the U.S. cleaned the air-cooled condensers on their refrigerators and freezers all on the same night, the electric companies would scarcely know what to do with the excess electricity," Olson wrote to The News.

Olson, a 1969 graduate of the University of Minnesota, with a degree in aeronautical engineering, started his own commercial/institutional company in 1978. Ninety-five percent of Climate Makers' work is in schools.

He would start his low-cost way of conserving energy with new utility commercials -- on radio, and preferably TV -- that would tell and show people how they could save energy…