City inventor makes a cover for PVC flues

By Richard Mize, Real Estate Editor
Ken Brown hasn’t invented a better mousetrap, but the E-Cap is close – for birds and rooftop squirrels. Brown’s invention is infiltrating the heating-ventilation-air conditioning industry, one HVAC contractor at a time. Once they see the E-Cap, a cap for open-air rooftop PVC ventilation pipes, or to replace unsightly makeshift covers, contractors come calling, he said. “That’s what we’d been waiting for,” said Don Treece of Don Treece Heating & Air Conditioning in Bethany. PVC flue pipes started becoming common on rooftops in the 1990s, Brown said, when 90 percent efficient central heating systems came along. The increased efficiency reduced heat output, which allowed PVC to be used for ventilation instead of metal pipes, for which covers are common. No one ever came up with a simple way to keep rain, twigs, leaves and birds and squirrels, out of PVC pipes – either exhaust or intake – until Brown, who was working for KIRA Inc., the family housing maintenance contractor at Tinker Air Force Base, invented one.

Brown quit his job at Tinker and went out on his own in August. A bout 500,000 of the roundish, white, shiny caps – marketed through wholesalers and contractors – will
sell this year, he said.
“Shiny” is important, he said, since it lets birds see themselves in the reflection –
unlike normal, dull-white PVC pipe – which scares them away. And the opening is big
enough for ventilation but too small for squirrels. Treece said the E-Cap is perfect for
homes with multiple, zoned heating systems that ventilate through a single pipe. It has
other uses, as well. He said he uses E-Caps on his own house.
“I personally pulled five – five – dead birds out of my inducer motor assembly,”
he said of the part of a heating unit that moves air and gases through a heat exchanger.
He said he got his supplier, Aces Air Conditioning Supply, 4228 Charter Ave., to start
carrying the E-Cap.
Another contractor had to deal with an unamused squirrel, Brown said.
“He responded to a service call only to find a squirrel hose nose was bleeding
because he was rubbing it on the inducer motor fan blade, in his effort to escape,” Brown
said. “He was not a happy camper.”
“The bad news is in addition to the service call, the PVC pipe had to be cut and
repaired, which could have been avoided in the first place. The good news is the squirrel,
other than being mad and suffering from minor injuries, was released at the scene.”
Treece called Brown’s invention “a blessing.” He “comes along and comes out
with this cap to keep the little varmints out of there.”
Brown has a growing folder of testimonials as to the effectiveness of the E-Cap.
Jay Clauss of Clauss H.V.A.C Inc. in Lodi, N.J., wrote that the E-Cap could have
saved the condensation pumps in a dozen townhomes. Site problems caused construction
to stall in 2002. The next winter, icy weather froze water that had entered the pumps
through exposed flue pipes, ruining the systems.
“If I had known of your product before this happened, the owners would have
saved money used to replace damaged materials on a project which was already behind
the expected date of completion,” Clauss wrote. “I would have saved the extra time (we
all know time is money) my already busy company has little of, to go back and replace
these pumps. Also I would not have had to deal with an upset property owner.”
For more information, go to www.SavePipey.com.