Contractors, distributors and other visitors to the site can personalize a form letter to and e-mail it to lawmakers. 

HARDI has started awebsite to lobby for extending residential tax credits for HVAC installations beyond 2010.

Contractors, distributors and other visitors to the site can personalize a form letter and e-mail it to lawmakers. The Heating, Airconditioning and Refrigeration Distributors International is urging its 400 distributors to sign on, and hope they will ask their contractor customers to do the same.

“Our goal is to have a page with so many HVAC company names and logos on it that the page appears to scroll forever,” said HARDI’s executive vice president and COO, Donald Frendberg. “The idea started with Riley Sales, a distributor member outside Philadelphia who had created an online petition for their employees and contractor customers to sign and send to their representatives calling for a tax credit extension. It was such a fantastic idea that we asked if we should do something similar on a national level.”

Talbot Gee, HARDI’s vice president, said the credits' impact on HVAC industry employment was substantial.

“We know from many testimonials which we’ll start to post on this new website soon that many HVAC distributor jobs were in fact saved or created by the sales boost this tax credit provided,” Gee said. “We can only imagine the positive employment impact the tax credits have had on the tens of thousands of professional contractors out there, and of course, the manufacturers of the qualifying equipment. We hope this provides the industry with a central portal for companies of all types to come together and speak as one massive and loud unified voice until we get these tax credits extended.”