I love these companies that are like the slow city growers that have a nice

mid-single digit sales growth with a double digit profit growth. Those are the

ones that you know you're not relying on high sales growth to drive their

business and their earnings. I'm Ricky Mulvey and that's Motley Full senior

analyst San Mateo. Deidre Woolard caught up with him to look at the

companies keeping us cool during a very hot summer. They discuss some of the

less considered tailwinds for HVAC businesses, how long-term investors can

think about these companies, and the challenges and benefits of investing in a

family-run business.

I'm really glad that you brought up this topic because it's important and it's

also it's kind of fascinating. A July was the hottest month ever recorded on

earth according to the World Meteorological Society and I was looking at some

stats about 90% of homes in the US now use air conditioning and two-thirds of

that is either central air or a heat pump. As you might guess the North East is

where we see less of that activity but I think I feel like that's changing.

What are you seeing in the air conditioning business? Because it seems like

it's something that is evolving so quickly. Yeah you know who knew like a

boring industry like this could actually be pretty fascinating once you dig

into it a little bit and you know it's something that all of us need heating,

ventilation, cooling, you know for our houses, for our cars, for other things,

and there's a lot of innovation going on in the industry as well. So just to

kind of take a step back you know the HVAC industry in the in North America is

...