In 2019, the WHO started monitoring the outbreak of a new coronavirus which ultimately was named COVID-19. Coronaviruses are so named because, when viewed under a microscope, they have protrusions that resemble a crown. 

Today is March 23, 2020 and it is important to note that all numbers and data is only relevant up to that date.

On March 18, President Donald Trump signed into law the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (H.R.6201). NECA was able to work with members of Congress to address many of the concerns related to paid sick leave and paid family leave. H.R. 6201 states that the paid sick and family leave mandate is optional for businesses with less than 50 employees and makes no mandate or credit for businesses with more than 500 employees. The new provision ensures that no business will be saddled with a financial liability larger than the payroll tax credit it receives. More information is available in NECA’s full summary.

On March 20, the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division hosted a virtual town hall meeting for the opportunity to hear questions from stakeholders regarding the implementation of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. The majority of the time was spent hearing questions from stakeholders, but the DOL stated they will not be providing answers to those questions at this time. The DOL is still in the process of issuing guidance on implementation of this new law, which goes into effect on April 2.

The purpose of the town hall was to understand concerns business owners had on implementing this, such as “how does a small business with less than 50 employees demonstrate that offering leave would jeopardize their business viability to be exempt from providing paid leave?” This question was not answered, but guidance issued by the DOL in the coming days will address this question and many others that contractors have.

The DOL will continue to post guidelines as it works through the implementation process of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act on their website.

On March 23, U.S. Small Business Administration Administrator Jovita Carranza announced changes to help borrowers still paying back SBA loans from previous disasters. By making this change, deferments through Dec. 31, 2020, will be automatic. Now, borrowers of home and business disaster loans do not have to contact SBA to request deferment.

“The SBA is looking at every option and taking every action to cut red tape to make it easier for small businesses to stay in business,” Carranza said “Automatically deferring existing SBA disaster loans through the end of the year will help borrowers during this unprecedented time.

“Today’s announcement adds a list of growing actions the SBA is taking to support small businesses,” she continued. “These actions include making it easier for states and territories to request a declaration so small businesses statewide can now apply for economic injury disaster loans, and changing the terms of new economic injury loans to allow for one-year deferments. We are working around the clock to find ways to assist small businesses and today’s action is one step in this process.”

CONTRACTOR AND REP CONCERNS

• “COVID-19 has challenged our business to think outside of our normal, day-to-day operations,” said Thomas Dougherty, president of bluefrog Plumbing + Drain. “Since people are being confined to their homes, call volume has significantly increased. Serving our customers is still our top priority, but we have added new precautions in this environment. For example, we are now offering virtual diagnostic processes via Skype and FaceTime for easy-to-fix issues as well as to serve customers who want our advice while avoiding extra traffic into their home. This protects both our customers and our team.

“All of our plumbing professionals have been fitted with gloves, shoe covers and respiratory masks,” he added. “We are also making sure our employees are building confidence with all homeowners and communicating that our focus is on fixing plumbing problems while also keeping their well-being and our own team safe.”

“At the end of the day, we have a business to run and it’s our responsibility to adjust and adapt to the uncontrollable as it relates to our business,” said Eric Carter, owner of bluefrog Plumbing + Drain San Antonio. “As plumbing professionals, we have an obligation to take every precaution we can to protect our employees and customers and their family members. Their health and safety is our priority.”

• “Without a doubt, the biggest problem facing all of us right now is the uncertainty,” said Scott A. Cooper, principal at Cooper New England Sales. “As a sales organization, with events changing so fast it is challenging to sustain any kind of a plan. I am now [March 18] meeting with my outside sales people as a group regularly via video conferencing as I believe it is more important than ever that we stay connected as a team. Similarly, we are leveraging the same technology wherever possible to stay connected with our customers and our principals. As a manufacturer’s representative we feel it is imperative that we keep in close contact with all of our partners and reassure them that we are still here and ready to help them in any way we can.”

• “Here at AA Service, our client’s safety and comfort has always been foremost,” said Glenn Weintraub with AA Service Co. “Equally important, however, is the safety of our team members. During the current COVID-19 virus outbreak, those concerns have never been more important. We want to ensure our clients that we are doing everything possible to be able to provide service during these times, while ensuring their homes’ and our team’s safety and comfort. We are using all of the recommended PPE, keeping our distance from the customers, washing our hands and minimizing our unnecessary human contact.

“Our goal is to continue working through this unpredictable time,” he added. “[The COVID-19 pandemic] has greatly reduced our call volume and caused many customers to cancel/postpone their maintenance work. It has changed people’s attitude related to spending money. It will cause a major downturn related to discretionary purchases. ‘No heats’ will still get fixed, but old equipment that is working will likely age in place for a longer period of time.

“We are trying to remain as positive as we can,” he continued. “We are all washing our hands as much as we can. We are maintaining the social distance. We are telling our employees to be fiscally conservative. We are working in uncharted waters. We think it will get worse before it gets better. I think companies better prepare for a rough couple of months.”

• “The biggest impact has been overall uncertainty with our team and with our customers,” said Chad Peterman, president of Peterman Heating, Cooling & Plumbing in Indianapolis. “We have customers understandably cancel maintenance visits, our team has moved to working remotely when possible, etc.

“Constant communication is key,” he added. “As the leader of the company, I am sending out daily emails as to how we are handling things based on the changing circumstances. We have moved to post our stance on all social media platforms and instructed our CSR and dispatch teams to confirm and then reconfirm that no one in the house is or has been sick. We have also moved to not shaking hands when entering the home, keeping our distance from homeowners and recorded verbal authorizations for work to be complete rather than signing the iPad.”

• “Most of our members report that business is at or slightly above levels from this time last year,” said David Heimer, senior vice president of Service Nation. “The supply chain remains strong, with an interesting increase in demand for toilet-seat bidet systems.

“We support our members as we always have. We will have a small team in the office to print and mail member rebate checks at the end of the month. Our team rallied to support our members; I’m proud of their efforts.

“We moved quickly to publish immediately-useful content for our members: communications and infographics for customer communications, guidelines for a ‘clean’ service call, relevant direct mail and other marketing pieces,” he added. “We’ll continue to publish relevant pieces for our members to use. Our members are sharing best practices, internal policies, and communications that have worked well for them. Our vendor-partners have also stepped up and are working with us to provide incremental information and resources to our members, including an industry-focused virtual conference.”

Service Nation is offering webinars during its Service Nation Online Summit which is a free event on March 26th, Critical Information for ALL Residential Contractors. Also available to members is a COVID-19 update and client protocol document, as well as resource download center — including public statements, infographics, digital flyers and more — to help members effectively communicate with their customers and be a reliable resource for them during this time.

INDUSTRY REACTIONS

• “The IAPMO Group sends its best wishes to plumbers everywhere as we work in concert with the global efforts to defeat COVID 19,” said Pete DeMarco, executive vice president of advocacy, IAPMO. “We urge all plumbers to take extreme precautions while providing essential services. Remember to wear all PPE properly and to keep tools and PPE clean, and avoid sharing of tools with co-workers. By carefully following excellent workplace and personal hygiene practices, we can help contain the spread of the virus. Remember, “Plumbers protect the health of the nation planet!”

“With regard to training, professional certification and testing, we are working to extend deadlines, reschedule in-person classes and make more on-line programming available,” noted GP Russ Chaney, CEO, The IAPMO Group. “We are working diligently to remain as flexible and accommodating as the rapidly changing circumstances allow. Please give us a call or check the website if you have any questions or concerns.”

• “Our primary focus to this point has been health and safety,” said Steve Lane, communications manager, Armstrong. “Armstrong has responded to that challenge with a variety of actions. The company has asked many employees to work remotely as one step in observing the prescribed social distancing practices. We also identified some key aspects of operations that represented potential risks and implemented immediate changes.

“All persons entering Armstrong facilities are now asked to have their body temperature checked and recorded,” he continued. “Any employees with an elevated temperature or any flu or cold symptoms are asked to go home and self-isolate immediately. We’ve established new protocols for on-site service to ensure the safety of employees and customers. We also completed an extremely careful review of the recent travel history of all employees to identify any risks, and asked a number of employees to self-quarantine as a precaution. All business continues to serve our customer base as we pull together while keeping safe distance.”

• “Aquatherm has taken several precautionary measures and has enacted a plan to ensure that we can continue all business operations (e.g. shipping, fabrication, drafting, etc.),” said Jordan Hardy, CEO, Aquatherm North America. “While there may be some delays, Aquatherm is striving to continue to meet the needs of our customers and partners the best we can. Like other companies, Aquatherm is currently limiting travel to essential travel only for the next two weeks as we continue to monitor the situation. Aquatherm has also established a protocol for those coming to visit our place of business.”

• “In most regions, as of March 20, work on commercial and residential job sites is continuing as are home repair services; these are considered essential,” said James Mullady, vice president of sales for the building solutions division of REHAU. “Our customers are in the field and we are standing by to provide technical service to them by phone, WebEx and FaceTime. For example, this week when one of our contractors was having trouble balancing a radiant floor heating system, our sales manager used FaceTime to visit the jobsite and help solve the problem.

“Things will change very quickly if city inspectors are ordered to stay at home,” he noted. “Construction will halt. We already expect projects slated to start next month to be delayed. Through the uncertainty that lies ahead, we will continue to work transparently and creativity to support our valued customers and users.”

“All signs point to physical distancing being the new normal for quite a while,” added Max Rohr, manager of REHAU Academy. “Whether our customers are on jobsite or in home offices, we have many ways to support them with digital resources and tools. Now might be a good time to catch up on training with our online recorded webinars and YouTube hands-on videos or browse our reference database to see what other companies are doing. You may also consider requesting a virtual Lunch & Learn at our REHAU Academy site. We’re eager to hear from our customers how we can help them use this time well, so they can hit the ground running smarter, faster, stronger when life returns to normal.”  

• “All Uponor employees who can work from home are doing so, as our IT contingency plans are enabling seamless connectivity to our networks,” said Bill Gray, president of Uponor North America. “New policies are in place to restrict in-person meetings, non-employee visits to our campuses and travel.

“And, our operations team is doing an outstanding job by continuing to run our manufacturing plants and distribution centers in both the U.S. and Canada,” he added. “While taking special precautions to keep employees safe through social distancing, deep cleaning and more, we are building up inventory of primary products to meet customers’ demand today and into the future.”

• “Due to the current coronavirus pandemic, many buildings are being vacated,” noted Audie Kranz, president of Utility Chemicals. “There will be problems when these buildings are reoccupied. One problem is the loss of the septic seal in the traps. This is caused by the evaporation of water. This will likely result in septic system gases, odors and vermin entering the habitable spaces of the building. You must ensure that these traps remain filled with liquid. The easiest, most effective and least costly way to do this is with an application of a trap seal. We have inventory and we are producing more to address this need caused by the pandemic.”

• “Because General is not on the Governor’s list of manufacturing companies ordered to close under the emergency orders that went into effect March 20, and because many of our customers are considered essential businesses, we made the decision to resume operations,” General Pipe National Sales Manager Dave Dunbar said.

“The fact that we manufacture machines that are sorely needed at this time and that we have been given the green light to operate means that we have to do our part to stay open and stay healthy,” he added. “To that end, many of our workers, for various reasons related to compromised health risks, will not be reporting to work during this crisis. This will limit our abilities to ship product,” Dunbar cautioned.

• Viega has a website that is constantly updated in regards to how they are handling quality assurance, supply chain, seminar centers and more. It can be found here: https://info.viega.us/covid19.

“As the situation continues to evolve, many uncertainties remain,” said Mark Brodie, senior director of marketing at Viega. “Viega will continue to pay close attention to the latest developments and the potential impact to our supply chain and overall operations. Any changes of significance will be communicated. We appreciate your understanding of this developing situation and our goal of putting safety and health first.”

• “In recent weeks, we’ve seen the pandemic spread of Coronavirus, or COVID-19, spur shortages in everything from hand sanitizer to packaged pasta,” said Steven Scheer, Brondell’s president. “As fears of quarantine orders hit major metropolitan areas, toilet paper continues to be the one item consistently in short supply, and as the toilet paper scarcity continues, many are looking to bidets for smarter solutions in toilet paper replacements, and demand is growing rapidly.

“Brondell has seen a dramatic spike in sales volume since this pandemic hit the US during the last couple of weeks,” he added. “Sales of all bidet products have increased exponentially with sales through some channels up more than 10 times on average, and they are expected to surge even further as big box stores and grocery chains become inundated with what are shaping up to be the ‘toilet paper wars’ of 2020.

“We’ve seen incredible demand for our bidet products in light of the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent toilet paper scarcity that it has prompted,” Scheer continued. “The transactions we’ve completed in just the last few days have dwarfed even our biggest sales holidays such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday, even during our best years. We’re not thrilled about the circumstances under which this spike in demand has evolved, but we’re happy to be able to provide the public with these toilet paper alternatives and are doing our best to make sure we’re able to fulfill as many orders as possible.”

• “The health and safety of all of our employees is our top priority and we are very proud of the proactive steps we’re taking to maintain their well-being,” said Parthiv Amin, chief sales and marketing officer, Sloan. “With that in mind, we decided to proactively suspend manufacturing operations from March 20 – April 5 to provide our plant employees with two weeks paid time off. All office employees are working remotely from home. The Sloan employees diligently working are practicing social distancing. Sloan is also providing disinfectants throughout our facilities. We realize that our products are an essential part of the recovery process, and Sloan is maintaining the ability to ship critical orders.”

“Sloan employees that voluntarily remain on-site to assist with critical orders will have continued access to our on-site Sloan Family Health Clinic where we can diagnose and treat any number of illnesses, including conducting drive-by COVID-19 testing, should any employee report exposure or symptoms,” said Graham Allen, co-president and CEO, Sloan. “Our leadership team meets daily and is delivering communications to our entire workforce via email, phone, text and posted on our operations bulletin boards. We continue to share corporate policy, information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), legislation, and other credible sources that we subscribe to.”

“Unfortunately, COVID-19 has accentuated the need for [touch-free and sensor-operated products],” said Kirk Allen, co-president and CEO, Sloan. “With healthcare operations now extending into remote locations such as convention centers, sports arenas, and school gymnasiums, those facilities can certainly benefit from touch-free restroom fixtures. While there has already been an increased demand for sensor-operated products, that transition from manual to touch-free fixtures will only continue to grow.”

• “Our goal is to maintain as close to normal operations as possible during this time of uncertainty,” said Kim Frechette, national sales manager, Americh Tubs. “As all of our products are made in the U.S. and none of our materials are procured overseas, we do not anticipate any interruption. Our priority, however, is the safety of our teams. We have taken all the recommended steps to keep everyone working, but safe.”

• “As an importer and distributor of products from Europe, and one with a showroom in NYC, this is a particularly trying time; we are in constant contact with our suppliers and our customers to keep everyone apprised of shipments and concerns about lead times,” said Bob Gifford, director of business development, Hastings Tile & Bath. “At the same time, we have closed our NYC showroom for the week to ensure the safety of our employees.”

• “As a manufacturer whose goal is customer satisfaction, we are able to comply with CDC rules for the reduction of the spread of the COVID-19,” said Mitch Altman, CEO, ThermaSol. “We have our support staff working from home, and have enacted safety precautions for our factory staff. We are doing everything we can to keep our supply chain open without sacrificing our responsibility to the public well-being.”

• “While we all pull together to tackle various unforeseen challenges, we are assisting customers in various ways since not everyone has a reliable supply chain,” said Nick Manning, president, PRIER Products. “We have purposely built redundancies into our supply chain network to mitigate the risk of prolonged delays. We are not experiencing any service delays resulting from the Coronavirus [as of March 17]. We are actively monitoring potential impact of this virus on our domestic suppliers. Our products are manufactured and stocked in Kansas City, with multiple warehouses across North America. Our goal has always been to ship orders within 8 working hours.”