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Bob and Tim are at lunch after tuning up an oil burner. When they arrived at the job the home was cold and the oil burner was burning erratically if burning at all. They gave the system a tune-up, started the furnace, and decided to take a lunch break while the furnace heated the house. Then they were going back to do a combustion check on the furnace to make sure that it was set up for the best combustion.

As the movement to legalize marijuana continues to take hold across the country, growers are beginning to seek out equipment that will help them maximize production. Until recently, there were no cooling and drying products specifically designed to optimize growing conditions for this agricultural product. Now, new technology is being engineered that can produce the right temperature and humidity conditions to maximize productivity and minimize mold and insect problems.

In recent years, the EEOC has focused intensely on employers’ leave policies, alleging that many companies’ leave policies violate the ADA, and has filed numerous lawsuits over the past several years. In a press release following a large settlement with Verizon Wireless for $20 million, the EEOC stated, “an inflexible leave policy may deny workers with disabilities a reasonable accommodation to which they’re entitled by law — with devastating effects.”

The gas laws… We all learned about them in school and promptly forgot all about them. I really think that we need to dig our books out, dust that information off, and work to understand and apply it.

NIST’s study, entitled “Limited options for low-global warming potential [GWP] refrigerants,” focused on residential and small-commercial single-package and split air conditioning systems, but the authors said their conclusions also generally apply to room air conditioning units and other refrigeration and heat-pump systems currently using common, ozone-depleting refrigerants such as R-410A or R-22, which are still used in some developing countries today. “The takeaway is there is no perfect, easy replacement for current refrigerants,” NIST chemical engineer Mark McLinden said.

A smart grid is an integrated system of utilities, consumers, and distributed-energy resources that allows for two-way communications throughout the grid. The smart grid market is expected to surpass $400 billion worldwide by 2020. As a result, the expertise of HVAC contractors will only become more important with the ongoing development of smart homes, smart devices, and home automation systems integrated by the Internet of Things (IoT).

Bob and Tim have arrived at a customer’s house that uses fuel oil for heat. This is a “no heat” call — the customer called first thing this morning and said that the oil furnace was not coming on, and the house was cold. When they arrived, they talked to the customer, and the customer said that he had made several tries to get the furnace to operate but with no luck.

As old induction units inevitably decline in efficiency, facility owners and managers are faced with critical decisions: upgrade to more modern induction units or embark on extensive, costly renovation projects to overhaul entire HVAC systems.