Champion Comfort Experts Keep Western North Carolina Homes Running

Your home never picks a convenient time to lose air conditioning or heat, and that’s why this Hometown Hero conversation hits close to home. We’re celebrating Champion Comfort Experts of Flat Rock as a community-minded business that not only sponsors local events like the Henderson County Schools retirement dinner, but also helps Western North Carolina homeowners stay safe and comfortable when the weather turns.

We talk with Operations Manager Andrew Hein about what “one call” home service really means, from residential HVAC repair and replacement to plumbing, electrical support, and whole-home generator projects. Andrew breaks down how same-day service works when temperatures climb, why you often don’t notice a problem until you truly need the system, and what homeowners should consider when deciding between repairing an aging unit or replacing it. We also cover service across a wide mountain footprint, plus working on all brands while commonly installing Trane systems.

Then we get into the upgrades people ask about right now: mini splits for older homes without ductwork, sunrooms that overheat, garages, sheds, and backyard offices, along with indoor air quality options like filtration, UV bulbs, air purification, and humidity control. Andrew also shares a simple maintenance benchmark: a checkup about every six months, timed before peak heating and cooling seasons, and explains their 24/7 phone support and no after-hours or holiday fee approach.

If you found this helpful, subscribe for more local stories and practical homeowner insights, share the episode with a neighbor, and leave a review so more people in Hendersonville and beyond can find the show.

Transcript

Ten Years On WHKP

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The George Real Estate Group Radio broadcast is celebrating 10 years on WHKP. The George Real Estate Group is celebrating 10 years on the radio live every Thursday morning at 10.05 on WHKP 107.7 FM and AM 1450, and streaming online at WHKP.com. Each Friday morning at 8.45, the George Real Estate Group presents the Hometown Hero Award to someone in our community who goes above and beyond to make our hometown a better place to live. Here's this week's Hometown Hero

Hometown Hero Series Kickoff

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Show. It is 845, and it's time for our George Real Estate Group, Hometown Heroes series. And we gather every Friday morning to uh to feature some of the uh goodness in our community. And we love doing that for uh it's brought to you by the George Real Estate Group. The George Real Estate Group or Greg, located right here in Hendersonville. They buy, sell real estate, and you can uh jump onto their website and see all of their featured listings and get more information about contacting the George Real Estate Group located in Flat Rock, North Carolina, but they do business all around Western North Carolina in the upstate of South Carolina. If you're looking to buy or sell real estate, the George Real Estate Group, they are here to serve you and have been for many, many years. Time for uh our honoree today, and I'd love for you to welcome uh with me uh our hometown hero group this morning, which is Champion Comfort Experts of Flat Rock, and speaking on their behalf is Operations Manager Andrew Hine. Good morning, Andrew.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Good morning, Randy. Thank you for having me today. It's uh it's an honor to join

Why Champion Comfort Gets Honored

SPEAKER_02 1:58

you all out here.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Well, thank you for coming. We are uh so grateful. And uh and I'll just tell you up front, uh, I got a uh request or an email from one of our great listeners, Brad Duncan, and he and his wife, uh his wife, I think, uh, was retiring as a Henderson County teacher, and they had gone to the uh retirement dinner at Kenmuir and had seen your uh sponsorship of that retirement dinner, sent me an email and he said, I think we ought to just thank these folks for what they do. Uh he said they uh sponsored this retirement dinner for have for several years. And uh he just wanted me to say thank you, and so uh that's what we're doing here today.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Well, tell him you know, tell him thank you, you know, from us. Uh yeah, that's one of our many sponsorships that we do throughout the year. I don't know exactly how long we've done it, but uh it's one of our annual things. You know, the school board is you know an important thing to us, the Henderson County Schools. Um we we sponsor many things with them, the the Humane Society, uh Brevard College baseball team. You know, we've got quite a few in the area that really we just love to support. It's one of our big things.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

That's fantastic. Well, uh tell us about uh champion comfort uh experts, uh Andrew, and and about uh how long you guys have been around and and uh it sounds like you're really a part of the community.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

We try to be. We've been here since 2004. Uh huh. Our first location was right on right off of 7th Avenue, uh right, you

One Number For Home Repairs

SPEAKER_02 3:28

know, right in downtown. Uh we love it. We love the people here in the community. Yeah. Uh it's really a great area. We're you know, we're not planning on going anywhere. We've been here since 2004. I think I just said that. But uh we love it here.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Fantastic. And and you guys handle all kinds of heating and cooling products.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

Yeah, definitely. Uh, you know, we're we focus on the residential side, so homeowners is our key priority. Okay. Um, you know, plumbing, heating and air, plumbing also, yeah. Plumbing, um anything plumbing in the house, uh electrical generators. Really? Yeah, we we try and uh make it one phone number to call for the homeowner. That's fantastic. Yeah, we don't want them to have to, you know, deal with seven, eight different contractors and you know, people to come out and repair their stuff. So we we try and make that easy for them.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Yeah, you know, that makes perfect sense. I mean, okay, I've decided I want a generator, a whole house generator. Do I start with uh the generator at the big box store, get somebody to haul it for me, then I gotta call the electrician, then I gotta call the gas company, and then I gotta mm-mm.

SPEAKER_02 4:31

We we say we're that one call, we handle it from start to finish. Uh, you know, we come out there and knock that thing out and you know make it to exactly what you want it to be.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Wow. Well, uh okay, let's talk uh a very hot kind of spring weather season that we just are having. It's kind of cooled off now, and thank goodness getting some rain that uh we'd so uh sorely need, but it's on a Memorial Day weekend, I know.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

But that's the perfect timing for it, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 5:00

I know, I know. But uh tell us about the typical day and and the way that uh you guys help folks out around here.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Uh one of our big things is same-day service. Uh oh, really? Yeah. For you know, if if you someone calls in and they've got a system that's not operating, you know, they're it's 70, 80 degrees in that home. Uh, you know, we do everything we can with our people to get them taken care of same day. Uh, you know, we no one wants to be uncomfortable, so we try and avoid that at all costs.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

And you've uh I'm sure seen that situation where it's temperatures getting hotter and hotter as the day goes on.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

This this week's been a busy one, you know, finally getting up in the in the midday high eighties this week. Um we're we're we're busy.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Yeah, you uh that's the first time a lot of people have turned on their unit since last year, and maybe it don't want to turn on.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Yeah, it's uh you don't you don't really know it's broken until you need it.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

It's like a sound engineer. Uh uh nobody knows he's there unless there's a mistake.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

Exactly. Uh you know, your mechanical systems in your home are something that's easily forgotten. Uh, you know, if it's not maintained or not taken care of, you know, it's it's an easy thing that can break, and uh we just want to take that stress off of people.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

What are uh some of the pitfalls, some of the downfalls, some some of the problems you see?

SPEAKER_02 6:14

Uh with the systems, yeah. I mean, it could be anything,

Same Day Service In Heat

SPEAKER_02 6:18

you know, the age of the system, you know, can determine lots of things. Um there's a handful of you know varying components that go bad pretty, pretty often, pretty regularly.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Really?

SPEAKER_02 6:27

Um, you know, those kind of things we keep with us on our trucks that way they can be fixed right then. Not have to have a return visit and overnight with no, you know, no AC and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Uh it is uh I I think I I saw actually my neighbor uh this week uh uh and I believe it was one of your trucks too, uh, installing a new AC unit in the condo next to me. And uh uh so i i are you replacing a lot of units now?

SPEAKER_02 6:55

Uh this week we've been pretty busy. Um, you know, there's there's a line that you gotta walk as a homeowner, you know, between repair and replacement. Um you know, we we make it easy for the homeowner to you know to make that decision. We give them all the info they need. Um but yeah, we've done, you know, we we do quite a bit of replacements on your systems. Um, you know, easy systems, hard change outs, you know, we're there to knock them out.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Well uh are you guys uh a brand a brand uh particular organization? I mean do you sell a certain brand of the case?

SPEAKER_02 7:24

Uh so we work on we work on all services, we're all brands. Um you know, we're there to maintain and repair all of them. Uh our main our main one that we install and sell new are train systems.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Hard to stop a train.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

I say everybody knows the train name. Uh, you know, they're great pieces of equipment, easy to work with, easy to repair. Yeah. And uh, you know, everyone knows them.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Do you uh work on home units uh all around western

Repair Or Replace Decisions

SPEAKER_01 7:50

North Carolina?

SPEAKER_02 7:51

You know, absolutely. Uh our service area uh is a pretty bit pretty large service area. Uh we cover anywhere up to Marshall, Burnsville.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Really?

SPEAKER_02 7:58

Down to the traveler's rest area.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

Brevard, Spindale, you know, poor city. We we try and cover a good area of the of the mountains.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

You must have uh quite a few service trucks out there.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Uh on the road between all three departments, you know, all three trades, uh we've got about 45 to 50 trucks on the road. Wow. So we we definitely you know, we we definitely growing and uh you know trying to cover as as much as we can.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

And uh the operations manager uh makes sure all of those places are going to the right people, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:32

Yeah, I uh part of my job is is helping lead, you know, lead the manager team, lead the leaders, and you know, making sure we can make things run as smoothly as we can uh to take care of our customers as our main priority.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Well uh Andrew, what uh what's new in the heating world that's exciting? Uh uh I hear this term, explain this one to me, uh mini splits.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

No, absolutely. Uh mini splits are a great option for older homes. Um, you know, if you don't have a dot a lot of ductwork in your house, mini splits, you know, there's that that little head on the wall, um, and that's all it is. It helps take care of it without having to tear your whole home apart to get some ductwin there.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

Uh we install a lot of them on you know, sunrooms, individual garages, you know, that that area of the home that needs a little bit more help without having to, you know, do a full system.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Uh the garage, I I hadn't thought about that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Yeah, garages is a big thing. Um, sheds. You know,

Mini Splits And Cleaner Air

SPEAKER_02 9:30

people working from home a lot more nowadays have a little office in the backyard. Uh Mini Split is a great solution for that, you know, that kind of home office shed.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Those things are whisper quiet. Oh, they are.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

You can't hear them at all.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

That's amazing. So what else is uh uh what other kinds of technology are you guys embracing and using?

SPEAKER_02 9:49

Um I think a few of the a few of the main ones that we're working on nowadays and we we love to you know to uh inform homeowners on are uh you know air purification. Oh yeah. Clean air is you know is important to everybody. Um, you know, UV bulbs, air purifiers, filtration, and things like that, uh we make a you know a big point uh to inform the homeowners about. You know, we don't no one wants to breathe dirty air.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

No, no. And it can be cleaned up. Oh absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

I say we have you know a piece of equipment that can go inside your ductwork. Um it helps clean the air, sterilize it, prevent you know bacterial growth and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

I can imagine that's a big category.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

It is, it is, especially with you know, we we live in a humid area, um, so trying to get that you know humidity out of the ductwork and you know dehumidifiers and things like that. Uh it's all part of uh healthier home.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Well, uh are you guys uh working any with solar heat and solar development?

SPEAKER_02 10:47

Uh we don't do any solar right now. We used to in the very beginning. Um it was you know a category we explored. Um we we wanted our focus to be you know in the heating and air in the beginning. In the mechanical side of things. Um we'll let the solar professionals take care of that.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

I understand. I understand. Uh what else have we not covered? How often do you recommend uh a technician look at my uh H V A C system?

SPEAKER_02 11:12

Uh so our typical maintenance is about every six months. And you know, that's a routine checkup. Come in there, you know, clean your system, check your filters, make sure there's nothing that's going to break, you know, in in the recent you know, time coming up. Um, like I said, routine maintenance is important. Uh but uh we recommend about every six months, uh kind of before that heat and before that really cold.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Yeah, so you you you're going into the each new sys season with a tuned up system.

SPEAKER_02 11:39

Exactly. I say uh spring and fall are our busy times for those maintenance uh visits.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Yeah. Well, once again, we're talking to Andrew Hine, who is the operations manager at

Maintenance Timing And 24 7 Calls

SPEAKER_01 11:50

uh Champion Comfort Experts, and uh Andrew and his company sponsored the annual Henderson County Public School Systems uh retirement dinner recently at Kinmuir, and uh we just wanted to recognize Champion Comfort Experts for their generosity and their support of the Henderson County education system. And once again, Andrew, tell us about some of the other things that you guys help with.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

Um we sponsor the Brevard baseball, the Brevard College baseball team. Yeah. Um, like I said, you said the Hendersonville School Board, Raisin County School Board. Um Wow, just lost my train of thought with those. Yeah. Uh but a few in the area that you know we put our focus into.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Well, we are grateful. We truly, truly are grateful. Uh tell us about uh getting in touch with you guys. Is there uh is there an after hours number or something that uh we can reach out to someone at three o'clock in the morning?

SPEAKER_02 12:46

Our phone service is 24-7.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

What about that?

SPEAKER_02 12:49

You call us, you know, any time of the night. We've got you know, we've got representatives there to, you know, to answer those questions and help you as much as they can and get you on the schedule for that next day.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Oh man, that's great. And that would have to be a real uh assurance at three o'clock on a 10 degree morning.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Yeah, we we want you know everybody to have, like I said, that one phone number to call.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Yeah, and uh did I uh let's see, what i is there an emergency charge, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

So we don't have any after hours, holidays, emergency charges. Really? No. We uh like I said, we want to take that stress off, so we don't want to add that that extra charge.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

So you're not gonna get hit with a hundred dollars of uh after hour service.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

Nope, no, sir.

unknown 13:32

Nope.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Well, Andrew, that's great. Uh we got a couple of minutes left here. Tell us uh again where you're located and and uh what people should be thinking about when they give you a call.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

Uh we're right here in the Flat Rock area. We've got a shop right off of Upward Road. Um you know, we're we're local to the area, we've been here for for twenty six twenty twenty-two years now. Yeah. And uh, you know, we want to be that person, that company you call when you've got the issues.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

You've got technicians who are uh tuned up on all of the equipment. It doesn't matter the brand that your heat pump is.

SPEAKER_02 14:07

No, no brand, you know, no brand is too much for us.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Oil furnaces, gas furnaces, heat pumps, the whole gamma. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

Heat pumps, gas. I mean, we're we're there to to cover them all.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Yeah, one of these uh uh my nephew just bought a house that's got these uh the circulating hot water under the hardwood floor. And wow, is that warm in the winter time?

SPEAKER_02 14:30

Yeah, those are nice. Having you know, get get rid of that cold tile and hardwood floor, especially in the bathroom.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

I bet you've seen all of that.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

We see them all the time.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Yeah. And you talked about uh installing the mini splits on a sunroom. A lot of people uh you know get a sunroom and then all of a sudden realize this place is hot.

SPEAKER_02 14:48

Yeah, it is. That's a lot of glass and a lot of sunlight coming through. Yeah, those mini splits are great to get that air cold down.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

All right, uh Andrew,

Contact Info And Closing Thanks

SPEAKER_01 14:55

give us that phone number once again.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Uh so our phone number is 828-698-5881.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

The uh George Real Estate Group of Flat Rock brings you our Henderson County Hometown Hero every Friday morning. Thank you so much to the George Real Estate Group. If you're buying or selling real estate, contact the George Real Estate Group in Flat Rock. The George Real Estate Group is located in Flat Rock, North Carolina, near Hendersonville in Henderson County. You can find them online at realestatebygreg.com. The George Real Estate Group can be reached at 828-3930134 or stop by their office at 2720 Greenville Highway, Flat Rock, North Carolina. Tune in live each week on Thursdays at 1005 a.m. on WHKP 107.7 FM and 1450 A.m. or stream online at WHKP.com or download these podcasts wherever you get your podcasts. The George Real Estate Group brings you the WHKP Hometown Hero Series every Friday morning at 8.45.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Maybe the house feels a little too big these days. The stairs a little steeper. The pace of life a little too fast. But what if your next move wasn't about letting go? It was about making space for peace, for freedom, for what matters most. At the George Real Estate Group, we understand that real estate isn't just about the house. It's about transition, timing, and trust. We've helped thousands of families in Western North Carolina make smart, thoughtful moves. Closer to nature, closer to family, closer to home. So when you're ready to write size, simplify or start cracking, we'll be here. The George Real Estate Group. Local, trusted, proven. Call us today, 828-393-0134. Find us online at real estate by Greg.com. Because your next chapter deserves to feel just right.