Schar Heating & Cooling opens Bath location

by Dan Holland

An HVAC industry staple in the Northeast Ohio business community since 1994, Schar Heating & Cooling, based in Rittman, opened a second location in April at 1969 N. Cleveland Massillon Rd., the former Garth Andrews building. Owner Gary Schar, who began the business as a one-man operation, now has a staff of nearly 40 workers between the two locations.

According to Schar, he first began receiving leads for work in the Bath area in the late 1990s.

“A local plumber gave me some leads back then that began a connection in the Bath area doing projects in and around Ira Road, Revere Road and Yellow Creek Road,” said Schar. “We’ve remained in this area with our customers, but we never had an established location here, so we felt like it was the right time to look for a location and plant ourselves a little deeper in this area and the community.”

Over the decades, the business has managed to grow mainly through referrals throughout the Akron-West and Akron-North areas.

“As a family-owned business we’ve been able to grow gradually over the years, and our base has been word-of-mouth referrals,” said Schar. “It has always been important for us to build strong customer relationships.”

The company offers a full line of HVAC products and services for residential and business needs.

“We offer full service on any heating and air conditioning system for residential,” explained Schar. “With commercial, we can go up to 25 tons of cooling; it’s mainly office buildings and light commercial. We also offer a full line of replacements; whether gas furnaces or air conditioners. Heat pumps are becoming very popular with federal tax credits available, and we also do work with geothermal [systems that extract natural heat from the Earth] in areas that lack a natural gas supply.”

The company is a Carrier factory-authorized dealer, which means it has met rigorous standards and undergone extensive training to identify and recommend system solutions specific to a home and its needs. Schar Heating & Cooling has won the Distinguished Carrier President’s Award seven times.

Schar said there has been a renewed interest in Indoor Air Quality products since the COVID-19 pandemic. The company offers a full line of IAQ products that can treat an entire home or business.

Airflow technologies are a newer trend in the HVAC industry that the company has embraced in recent times.

“We’re using Measure Tech technologies to … precisely measure and diagnose any existing issues in a duct system, as today’s equipment requires higher air flow to work properly,” said Schar. “It’s a very exciting new tool that we’re investing heavily in, and we’re using it to set ourselves apart from our competitors.”

“We do a room-by-room walk-through any time we come into a customer’s home,” he said. “We do a sizing for the A/C and furnace … rather than assuming that the existing sizes are correct.”

Schar, his wife Vicki and their sons live in the Rittman area. Their sons Ben and Luke both work for the company.

“Our main premise is building relationships with our customers rather than just doing a one-and-done sale,” Schar said. “We look for those long-term relationships, and we want to serve our communities with high-value products and services and keep coming back and providing that for many years to come.” ∞

Photo: Outside the new Bath location are (l-r) sales staff Neal Chaffin, Luke Schar, Pablo Uranga, Daren Anliker and Gary Schar. Photo submitted.