Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Airforce Heating and Air has completely rebuilt from the ground up after a devastating fire loss in April 2019. 

“It (the building) had essentially burned all night because out here in the corporate plaza everyone is gone by 5 o’clock,” said Brandon Adams, business manager. “It wasn’t until the break of day until someone was driving westbound on Davis Road and saw a plume of smoke.” 

Everything in the building was burned to ashes, but this gave the heating and air company the ability to customize a rebuild. 

Airforce Heating and Air has served LaGrange for almost two decades and provides a variety of services, including installation, maintenance and also repair on all HVAC makes and models.

In February, the staff was able to move into the new building at the same location but had to push its grand opening to September due to the pandemic. 

“Being an air condition company, of course, we want state of the art air conditioning with a very low energy efficient model,” said President Rhett Jones. “We also included air conditioning in our shop for the staff that actually work in the actual production area.”

Jones said before the fire, there was only a heating system in the shop for technicians for the winter months. Now, it has both heating and cooling for every season. 

“We have also invested a lot into virtual reality training,” Jones said. “We also have a large conference room now. Before the fire, we had a one story here, and so we spent a little bit more to put a second story on the building. We included more offices and were able to put more warehouse space in.” 

Using virtual reality gear, HVAC training simulators give technicians a chance to practice skills via interactive methods. 

Adams said that the training simulations create a virtual workspace where technicians can inspect and repair heating and cooling systems.

He added that the simulated scenarios can be adjusted in order to practice a variety of different problems that technicians might encounter. 

It is also being updated any time a new product is released for HVAC systems.

“We always put a heavy focus on training so when we rebuilt we got the chance to rebuild in a way that that would accomplish that,” Jones said. 

Jones said they look forward to continuing to serve the area, now in a newer and more improved facility. 

“We are commercial, industrial and residential,” Jones said. “We do provide unique services like duct cleaning. We also do a lot of whole home testing, meaning we are looking at an energy footprint model as a whole. We want to help people save money on not only their light bill from the air conditioner usage, but we are worried about their home leaks and insulation.”

Airforce is located at 100 Corporate Park E Ct in LaGrange. For more information, visit airforceheatingandair.com or call (706) 661-7130.