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<meta content="#566B78" media="(prefers-color-scheme: light)" name="theme-color"/>
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<meta content="Michael Housh" name="author"/>
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<meta content="Mhoush" name="apple-mobile-web-app-title"/>
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<title>
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mhoush: Free quotes != good
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<meta content="I found myself re-reading the
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ACCA Quality Installation Standard
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recently and it got me thinking about the industries tendency of offering free quotes. In this article, I’d like to just focus in on the
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items that are required as what I’m calling..." name="description"/>
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<meta content="Free quotes != good" name="og:title"/>
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<meta content="I found myself re-reading the
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ACCA Quality Installation Standard
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recently and it got me thinking about the industries tendency of offering free quotes. In this article, I’d like to just focus in on the
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items that are required as what I’m calling..." name="og:description"/>
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<meta content="http://localhost:3000/articles/images/2023-10-04-free-quotes-are-bad-for-the-industry.png" name="og:image"/>
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<body class="bg-page text-white pb-5 font-avenir articles">
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<li>
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<a class href="/">Home</a>
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<a class="active" href="/articles/">Articles</a>
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</li>
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<li>
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<a class href="/about/">About</a>
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</li>
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</ul>
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</nav>
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</header>
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<div class="container pt-12 lg:pt-28">
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<article class="prose">
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<h1>
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Free quotes != good
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</h1>
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<div class="-mt-6">
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<div class="text-gray gray-links text-sm">
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<span class="border-r border-gray pr-2 mr-2">October 04, 2023</span>934 words, posted in <a href="/articles/tag/hvac/">HVAC</a>
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</div>
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</div>
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<img alt="banner" src="http://localhost:3000/articles/images/2023-10-04-free-quotes-are-bad-for-the-industry.png"/>
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<p>I found myself re-reading the
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<a href="https://www.acca.org/communities/community-home/librarydocuments/viewdocument?DocumentKey=b1d2a39d-fda8-4af9-b8de-0ae579bfe24a">ACCA Quality Installation Standard</a>
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recently and it got me thinking about the industries tendency of offering free quotes. In this article, I’d like to just focus in on the
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items that are required as what I’m calling “prior to installation” items.</p>
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<h2>Prior to installation</h2>
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<ol>
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<li>Ensure ventilation calculations are performed.</li>
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<li>Building heat gain / loss calculation (Manual-J / Manual-N)
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<ol>
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<li>Room x room for new construction or duct modifications.</li>
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<li>Block load for existing (can use original if available).</li>
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</ol>
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</li>
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<li>Proper equipment capacity selection (Manual-S / Manual-CS)</li>
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<li>Properly matched systems (AHRI or CEE-AHRI)</li>
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</ol>
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<p>Let’s break the above items down to a rough estimated time to complete each of the items.</p>
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<table>
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<thead>
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<tr>
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<th>Item</th>
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<th>Time (minutes)</th>
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</tr>
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</thead>
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<tbody>
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<tr>
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<td>Ventilation calculations</td>
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<td>15</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td>Manual-J (data gathering)</td>
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<td>30</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td>Manual-J (data entry / calculation)</td>
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<td>30</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td>Manual-S</td>
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<td>15</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td>AHRI</td>
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<td>15</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td><strong>Total</strong></td>
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<td>105</td>
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</tr>
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</tbody>
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</table>
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<blockquote>
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<p><em>The above items are obviously just estimations and the person’s experience in the different areas / tools they use. Some of the items are
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probably on the low side while others are probably on the high side.</em></p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>This is 1.75 hours just to do the calculations required to meet the QI Standard. This does not include any of the time spent with the
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customer building value in you or your product recommendations.</p>
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<p>When you want to not guess at some of the calculations then a blower door test is generally required in order to understand the leakage of
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the home, which adds even more time to the estimation process. Depending on the understanding you are looking for, the blower door test can
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add 30-180 minutes. This takes the total time to 2.25-4.75 hours.</p>
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<h2>Pushing boxes</h2>
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<p>The majority of residential HVAC companies make the bulk of their income off of equipment sales, so they have to “feed the beast” by
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skipping steps in both the installation of equipment and the sales process in order to close jobs and keep the ship afloat.</p>
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<p><img src="/articles/images/2023-10-04-sinking-boat.png" alt="sinking-boat" /></p>
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<p>This has helped contribute to these industry statistics:<a href="DOE" title="2018">^1</a></p>
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<ul>
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<li><strong>Incorrect refrigerant charge in greater than 50-80% of systems.</strong></li>
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<li><strong>Improper airflow:</strong>
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<ul>
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<li><strong>70% above the rated 0.5” w.c.</strong></li>
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<li><strong>47% above 0.7” w.c.</strong></li>
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<li><strong>85% undersized / inappropriate filter.</strong></li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li><strong>70-80% of systems have at least one fault.</strong></li>
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<li><strong>90-100% if duct leakage is considered.</strong></li>
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</ul>
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<h2>Consumer responsibility</h2>
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<p>Let me be clear, I don’t think that all the blame is on the industry here. The culture today is that everyone wants things for free and
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fast. They have been conditioned by online services and box stores. Should we not cater to those that aren’t willing to do their leg work?
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Is it really our fault, if they don’t care?</p>
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<h2>Liability</h2>
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<p>While it’s generally easy to shrug our shoulders and think that it’s ok to just continue on because all the competitors are doing the same
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thing. There is at least the possibility that skipping steps can come back to bite you. If things ever went to litigation and the steps
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outlined in the QI Standard are ignored, then there is high odds you would loose.</p>
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<p>No matter what you do to try and protect yourself (having customers sign-off, etc) does not adequately protect your company from litigation.
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There are stories out there where contractors were still held liable for not performing load calculations even though the consumer signed
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off on it, because it is not inline with “industry best practices.”</p>
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<h1>Summary</h1>
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<p>This has led me to the conclusion that free quotes are just bad for the industry in general. The path forward is a challenge (changing
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perception is hard). I don’t know that I have answers on what the best path forward is, to be frank, but I do know that our current <em>status
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quo</em> is subpar to say the least.</p>
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<p>Unfortunately, I don’t think the change is going to come from the industry, but that it’s going to require the consumer base to be more
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educated and demand more from the industry. There have been many organizations that have dedicated years to changing the skill levels of
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technicians in the industry, they are very well needed / don’t mistake my words here, however unless a company has faced litigation or
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facing requests on a regular basis that demand better results, then why would a company change!?!</p>
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<p>I’ve been trying (unsuccessfully) to get rid of free quotes for 5+ years in my company. We try to educate customers during maintenance
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visits and when scheduling equipment estimates, however only about 10-20% choose to go down our paid Home Performance Assessment path. Our
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installation process does follow the QI Standard for the items that pertain to the setup / commissioning of the installed equipment, however
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there is just no sustainable way for us to completely follow the items outlined in this article without charging for our time, because at
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the end of the day we still have to be competitive in our market.</p>
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<p>There are days that I can justify our actions to myself and also days that I just want to throw in the towel / not sacrifice our integrity.
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Integrity is something that I take very seriously, after all our companies tag line is <em>“Since 1954, Integrity is in the Housh!”</em></p>
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<p>As mentioned, I’m not sure what the best path forward is! I hate to not have answers, but some problems are just complex and somewhat beyond
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our control.</p>
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<p>Let me know what you think some good solutions are.</p>
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<ul>
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<li>Does your company follow the QI Standard?</li>
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<li>What are resources that you’ve found helpful in educating your customers?</li>
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</ul>
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</article>
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<div class="border-t border-light mt-8 pt-8">
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<h2 class="text-4xl font-extrabold mb-8">
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Written by
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</h2>
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<div class="flex flex-col lg:flex-row gap-8">
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<div class="flex-[0_0_120px]">
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<img class="w-[120px] h-[120px] rounded-full" src="/static/images/avatar.png"/>
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</div>
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<div class="prose">
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<h3 class="!m-0">
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Michael Housh
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</h3>
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<p class="text-gray">
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HVAC business owner with over 27 years of experience. Writes articles about HVAC,
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Programming, Home-Performance, and Building Science
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</p>
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</div>
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</div>
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</div>
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<div class="mt-16">
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<h2 class="text-4xl font-extrabold mb-8">
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More articles
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</h2>
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<section>
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<h2 class="text-2xl font-bold mb-2">
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<a class="[&:hover]:border-b border-orange" href="/articles/2025/vapor-htmx-todo-app/">Vapor + HTMX</a>
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</h2>
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<div class="text-gray gray-links text-sm mb-4">
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<span class="border-r border-gray pr-2 mr-2">January 05, 2025</span><a href="/articles/tag/general/">general</a>, <a href="/articles/tag/programming/">programming</a> and <a href="/articles/tag/software/">software</a>
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</div>
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<p>
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<a href="/articles/2025/vapor-htmx-todo-app/"><div>
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Build an example application using Vapor and HTMX.
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</div></a>
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</p>
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</section>
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<section>
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<h2 class="text-2xl font-bold mb-2">
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<a class="[&:hover]:border-b border-orange" href="/articles/2024/free-as-in-freedom/">Free As In Freedom</a>
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</h2>
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<div class="text-gray gray-links text-sm mb-4">
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<span class="border-r border-gray pr-2 mr-2">April 09, 2024</span><a href="/articles/tag/general/">general</a>, <a href="/articles/tag/open-source/">open-source</a> and <a href="/articles/tag/software/">software</a>
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</div>
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<p>
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<a href="/articles/2024/free-as-in-freedom/"><div>
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Salute to open-source software engineers
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</div></a>
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</p>
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</section>
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</div>
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<p class="prose mt-8">
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<a href="/articles/">› See all articles</a>
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<div class="site-footer container text-gray gray-links border-t border-light text-center pt-6 mt-8 text-sm">
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<p>
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Copyright © Michael Housh 2023-2025.
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</p>
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<p>
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Built in Swift using
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<a href="https://github.com/loopwerk/Saga" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Saga</a>
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(<a href="https://github.com/m-housh/mhoush.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">source</a>).
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<a href="http://localhost:3000/articles/feed.xml" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">RSS</a>
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<a href="https://github.com/m-housh" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Github</a>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb58SeURd5bObfTiL0KoliA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Youtube</a>
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<a href="mailto:michael@mhoush.com" rel="nofollow">Email</a>
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