About Bob Hyde, The Inventor of the LPA

Bob's Story

The Hy-Save Liquid Pressure Amplifier (LPA) was first conceived in the mid 1980's out of frustration. Mr. Robert Hyde, working with one of his grocery store customers in the Portland, OR area, was attempting to solve a problem. His customer's cases were not able to hold temperature as low as the store owner wanted. The product cases simply were not getting enough liquid refrigerant to properly cool the products in them. The produce and meat were not cold enough and at times the ice cream was not hard. Bob was asked by this customer to solve this nagging problem once and for all.

Having already put many years of service into the refrigeration industry, Bob had seen just about every conceivable piece of equipment, every problem, and nearly every solution. Except for one. He knew the problem he had been asked to solve was a wide spread problem. Certainly not unique to just this particular customer.

Since Bob's philosophy in dealing with his customers was to give them the best possible service, even if that meant he made less money (after all, the more you correct problems, the less they need you) he simply had to succeed. Bob set out to find or design a solution. He knew that once he found and implemented "the fix", it would also help others. It was then that he realized that a permanent solution could actually mean more business for him and great value for his customers. At that time energy savings were not even being considered. He just needed to get good quality (solid) liquid to every case, all the time, under all conditions.

After a great deal of searching through text books, brainstorming, and a host of other unproductive ideas, Bob finally settled on the idea of a pump to get the liquid delivered to those grocery cases. Bob found from his research, another somewhat separate group within the refrigeration industry, the ammonia people, had been pumping liquid for decades. They had already figured it out. They too had been having trouble getting liquid delivered through those long pipe runs.

Bob, being a reasonable person, stopped by the local supply house and asked for a small refrigerant pump to fix his customer's problem. They didn't have anything like that available. So Bob went searching other supply houses, all to no avail. The manufacturers had nothing for a Freon application. He could get a large pump for ammonia but that was too big for his customer's application. There had to be another way. And there was.

Bob set out to design and build a prototype pump that could be used for small Freon systems commonly used in the common grocery store. The rest is now history.

Nearly 13 years and 15,000 installations later, the LPA still provides solid liquid under all conditions. Only now it is sold primarily as an energy savings device since Bob found that he could not only get good quality liquid to each and every case, but he could float head pressures to levels never before possible. That extra effort was Bob's trademark. It has kept his customers loyal to him; they know he cares about their needs and costs.

Because of that, Bob's business turned into a retrofit business. His existing customers didn't need him nearly as often to be a problem solver. Their equipment was running cooler, quieter, longer, and with fewer problems. And, their products were even lasting longer, which gave them additional cost savings.

And yes, Bob did get the credit from that one customer for doing just what they asked him to do, solve the problem, once and forever. Their cases were now cold. Bob being Bob once again gave more than he was asked. He still does that today.

If you have had a similar experience with an LPA, let Bob know, he would love to hear from you.

You can reach him through:

Hy-Save Energy Conservation Technologies
P.O. Box 631, Cazenovia, NY.

Or you can phone - (315) 655-3322.

(excerpt from www.usenergycontrols.com)