Tech Tips

This article was written by Michael Housh and was inspired by a discussion that took place on the HVAC School Facebook group. If you are already a member of the group, you can look at the oversized furnace discussion yourself HERE. I'd like to give a special thanks to Michael and everyone who contributed to the conversation. […]

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 […]

Time and time again, low-voltage wiring gets the better of HVAC technicians everywhere. Sure, the wires are color-coded, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy to understand. On top of that, schematics sometimes look like ancient tablets written in hieroglyphics or something. But that’s where HVAC School comes in. There is a new 3D animation video […]

A guide to the “House As A System” approach to understanding comfort, IAQ, durability, and energy consumption issues caused by building air leakage and HVAC-driven pressure imbalances in single-family homes. This article is a collaborative effort between Sam Myers of Retrotec and Genry Garcia of Comfort Dynamics, Inc. Sam and Genry will be giving a […]

You may have heard of a Western movie called True Grit. I won’t spoil it for you, but John Wayne joins Kim Darby to hunt down the man who killed Darby’s father and left with the family’s savings. (Wait, you’re telling me there’s a version with Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, and Matt Damon? I thought […]

  This article was written by my good friend, Neil Comparetto. He is one of the all-around best dudes in the industry and a guy who practices what he preaches on duct design. Thanks, Neil! These are some fundamentals for designing and installing duct systems that I’ve learned over the years. Included are links to […]

As with most other trades, HVAC/R technicians need to have a solid set of hard skills to make it in the industry. Whether we pick up those hard skills by working on cars as teenagers, learning them in a trade school, or acquiring them on the job, we’ll have to rely on our hard skills […]

I'm not sure who first started calling evaporator coil odors “dirty sock syndrome,” but I really wish they hadn't. Nowadays, every tech out there can't help but categorize every odor from the system as “dirty sock syndrome,” and customers just LOVE to hear that they have a “syndrome” named after a dirty locker room smell. […]

This article was inspired by a podcast episode about the house being the most underappreciated duct with Joe Medosch. You can listen to that podcast HERE. We probably think about sheet metal, flex duct, or the ever-controversial duct board when we think about ducts. It’s probably shiny and out of sight in most homes. But […]