Deburring copper tubing (often called reaming) is the practice of running a blade around the inside of tubing after you cut it to remove the burr edge from the inside. It's an important practice and should be performed whenever possible. Deburring reduces turbulence inside the lines, as burrs can cause turbulence.   HOWEVER… YOU MUST […]

This photo is of a blower door test we performed at my own house using a Retrotec blower door. You will notice the 15-passenger van outside the window, which is a dead giveaway. A blower door is used to measure the tightness of a building and is often discussed in terms of an ACH50 number. […]

Testo 557 vacuum gauge and Appion core removal tools shown I've had a change of heart. Back in the early 2000s, during the big construction boom, I did many system startups on residential units for a large company I worked for. When installers ran the line sets prior to startup, they weren't always very careful […]

 In this episode, Bryan is joined by Matthew Taylor, a supermarket refrigeration specialist whose expertise centers on CO₂ rack systems, and Andrew Greaves, Director of User Experience at NAVAC Tools, for the third installment of their series on triple-point evacuation. The conversation expands beyond water to bring CO₂ into the picture, exploring where the […]

 In this long-awaited live episode of HVAC School, host Bryan Orr reunites with three industry veterans — Jim Bergmann of measureQuick, Roman Baugh (Kalos), and Andrew Greaves of NAVAC — to tackle one of the most pressing and underaddressed challenges in modern HVAC: performing refrigerant recovery and system evacuation in extreme cold-weather conditions. The […]

Andrew Greaves joins us again from AHR 2020. This time, he discusses what mentors and role models do in our trade and why they're important. Mentors are not just the grouchy senior techs who throw hammers at apprentices. Mentors have an active role in others' professional development; they spend a lot of time with their […]