EP289 Building Confidence: Making HVAC Design Visual With Russ & Connor King and Spencer Rosen of KwikModel (September 2026)
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“The HVAC system is just designed to match the rate at which that home is gaining or losing heat.” — Spencer Rosen
“It’s part of their job…making sure that the piece of equipment they put in the house matches what the house needs.” — Russ King
“Don’t split hairs when your job is to shave heads.” — Connor King, quoting Russ
What if better HVAC design started not with the equipment, but with a clearer picture of the house?
In this episode of Building HVAC Science, Bill Spohn talks with Russ King, Connor King, and Spencer Rosen about the evolution of KwikModel, the growing connection between HVAC design and energy modeling, and why making buildings visual can make good design more accessible.
Russ explains why accurate load calculations remain fundamental, especially as homes transition from furnaces to heat pumps. Replacing equipment based on what was there before can perpetuate oversizing or create entirely new problems. Today, tools such as LiDAR scanning and 3D modeling make gathering building geometry dramatically easier than the tape-measure-and-sketch methods of the past.
The conversation also explores the relationship between the building envelope and HVAC. Spencer describes heating and cooling equipment as responding to the rate at which the house gains or loses heat. Change the envelope, and you change what the HVAC system needs to do. That makes load calculations, air leakage, insulation, duct design, and equipment selection parts of the same problem rather than separate disciplines.
For contractors who find all of this intimidating, the message is practical: start somewhere. Partner with a designer to perform load calculations on a few projects, compare the results with your existing rules of thumb, pursue building-science education, and build your knowledge incrementally.
The team also shares where KwikModel is headed. With Coded Energy taking over the EnergyGauge license from the University of Central Florida, development is underway on a cloud-based version of KwikModel that should remove installation barriers and create opportunities for better guidance, training, error checking, and user-driven improvements.
Ultimately, better software isn't just about faster calculations. It's about helping contractors understand the building, make better decisions, and, as Russ puts it, build confidence.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-connor-king-0b6152111/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/spencer-rosen/
Website: https://kwikmodel.com/
Contact form: https://kwikmodel.com/contact/
BPI Building Science Principles
This episode was recorded in September 2026.