From Burgers to Bangles to Pipes with Lori Tschohl
Lori Tschohl of Eagle Pipe and Mechanical on applying decades of operational discipline to AI adoption in HVAC and plumbing.
About This Episode
Lori Tschohl, Founder and CEO of Eagle Pipe and Mechanical, joins Mustafa on the AI in Trades Podcast to talk about building an AI-enabled HVAC and plumbing business without losing the human service customers expect.
Lori's path to the trades ran through McDonald's franchises and Pandora jewelry stores. The financial discipline, process thinking, and employee development she built in those businesses shaped how she runs Eagle Pipe and Mechanical — and how she approaches AI. The same fundamentals that worked at McDonald's, she argues, apply directly to AI adoption.
The conversation covers a lot of ground. Lori walks through her use of AI voice agents for overflow and after-hours calls, the process of connecting Claude to ServiceTitan to clean a price book with 59,000 SKUs, automating dashboards and financial analysis with QuickBooks data, and giving technicians AI tools they can use in the field. She also explains why contractors need to put pricing ranges and detailed content on their websites now, as more customers research purchases through AI rather than Google.
Her position on timing is direct. Waiting for AI to mature is expensive. Someone inside every trade business needs to start learning, testing, and helping the rest of the team move forward — and that person needs to start now.
Chapters
- 00:00 Introduction
- 00:28 From McDonald's to Eagle Pipe and Mechanical
- 02:21 Why business fundamentals transfer across industries
- 06:24 Entering the AI era in the trades
- 07:51 Why contractor pricing belongs on the website
- 09:22 Using an AI voice agent for overflow calls
- 13:21 Testing, improving, and switching AI providers
- 16:25 Connecting Claude with ServiceTitan
- 18:40 Automating dashboards and financial analysis
- 21:01 How AI supports technicians in the field
- 24:18 Helping contractors learn and adopt AI
- 25:58 How customer AI use is changing contractor marketing
- 29:40 Will AI replace jobs in the trades?
- 32:26 Where human intervention remains essential
- 34:33 The biggest short-term AI opportunity for contractors
- 36:22 Building an AI-ready team
- 37:38 Where to find Lori and Eagle Pipe and Mechanical
About the Guest
Lori Tschohl is the Founder and CEO of Eagle Pipe and Mechanical, an HVAC and plumbing company serving communities in Washington State. Before entering the trades, she built and operated McDonald's franchises and Pandora jewelry stores. She founded Eagle Pipe and Mechanical in 2015 and now applies decades of operational experience to AI adoption, customer service, and employee development.
About AI in Trades
AI in Trades is a podcast from Peaka exploring how artificial intelligence is changing home services, field service operations, contractor growth, and the future of work in the trades. Each episode features operators, technology leaders, and business owners discussing practical ways AI is showing up in the field, in the office, and across trade businesses.
