ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Thursday, April 11, 1996               TAG: 9604110084
SECTION: NEIGHBORS                PAGE: E-8  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CHARLES STEBBINS STAFF WRITER

TEMP-O-MATIC IS KEEPING UP WITH THE COMPETITION

Quality work with good equipment and prompt service when it's needed are the qualities that have kept Temp-O-Matic abreast of growing competition in the heating and air-conditioning field.

"We try to do the best possible job we can do," said Temp-O-Matic owner and founder Willie Leffell. "There's a lot of competition."

There are 70 to 80 companies offering heating and air-conditioning services today, he said, but there is more business to divide among them.

And not all of it has come about through normal growth of the area.

When Leffell began the company in Vinton in 1970, fewer than 5 percent of residences in the Roanoke Valley had air conditioning, he said. Today, at least 85 percent of them have air-cooling units.

As air-conditioner equipment improved, more builders included central systems in new houses, and more owners added systems to existing houses.

Although Leffell's company still does installation and full service for residential owners, about 60 percent of his business is for commercial customers, most of whom are large companies with big, complex heating and air-conditioning systems.

"We get a lot of repeat business," he said.

Leffell began the company at 304 Virginia Ave., just over the line from Roanoke, and still operates there today.

He started out in an old service station and enlarged it five years later to keep up with a growing workload that included installing about 400 air-conditioning units a year.

He said the heating business also started growing during that time.

Because of the higher efficiency of heating units, Leffell said, a number of owners of older houses replaced old furnaces with modern heating units.

In 1978, Leffell built a larger office building that included space he could rent to other businesses. He now has four tenants occupying the building with Temp-O-Matic.

Leffell's sons are in the business with him. W.T. "Butch" Leffell Jr., is service manager, and Jeff K. Leffell is sheet metal foreman.

Leffell has not only kept abreast of developments in heating and air conditioning, but also in office equipment, saying computerizing the office about 10 years ago "helped us a lot.''

Leffell, a native of Roanoke, says heating and air conditioning is a good business for a young person to go into.

Every building has a heating unit, he said, and most of them have air-cooling units. And all need servicing from time to time.

Temp-O-Matic

304 Virginia Ave., Vinton

344-3257 or (800)797-0018

LENGTH: Medium:   58 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  STEPANIE KLEIN-DAVIS/Staff. Brothers Jeff (left) and 
          Butch Leffell help their father, Willie Leffell, run Temp-O-Matic, a
          heating and air-conditioning service in Vinton.