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Bob was called to a job that had a no cooling complaint. This was a new customer and Bob wanted it to be a good experience for the customer. It was a small stand-alone store building with a 3-ton cooling only unit. Bob determined this was a low charge problem. He installed his gauges and discovered the unit did not have any refrigerant in it.

Ongoing economic and indoor environmental concerns require HVAC innovation. New liquid desiccant air conditioning systems offer substantial energy savings and greatly improved humidity control in applications where latent loads (moisture) are very high relative to sensible loads.

Former employees occasionally seek unemployment benefits they don’t deserve, either because they are desperate, confused, or trying to cheat the system. Employers, ultimately bearing the cost of unemployment payments, must evaluate whether to challenge those unemployment claims. That question has recently become more difficult.

IKEA, the Swedish home furnishings retailer, has teamed with the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to showcase and study the advantages of a geothermal heating and cooling system currently under construction in Centennial, Colo.

Moisture in building envelopes can have serious consequences. For example, moisture in insulation reduces its insulating capability, causing heating and/or cooling losses and wasting energy. Moisture can also cause structural deterioration and foster mold growth. Thermal imaging is well suited to identifying wet spots.

In this troubleshooting situation, we have a customer who has called to say that their 12,000 Btu through-the-wall unit is “blowing cool air even though it’s set for heat.” The unit is a heat pump with a three-speed motor. It operates on 240 vac.

Thousands of commercial and industrial buildings each year are damaged by unforeseen disaster. When damage occurs, it is essential to take immediate action to stabilize the loss and mitigate damage. Doing so will maximize recovery of all contents, minimize replacement costs, preserve good IAQ, and control mold risks.

The dispatcher called Bob and sent him to a job that really sounded like a problem. There had been a hard rain and a customer had a condensing unit that had been under water that morning due to high water from a creek behind his house. The owners were on a fixed income and wanted to get the repair at the best possible price.

Smart HVAC equipment that recognizes when it is failing or has failed, or when conditions have drifted outside its optimum range, could save substantial amounts of energy if the equipment sent useful information to the building owner or contractor. This is referred to as automated fault detection and diagnostics (FDD).

It’s the bane of many managers’ jobs - the preventable accident. In order to instill a sense of responsibility in employees, employers may consider charging workers a deductible after they have had a preventable accident. However, before instituting a policy about charging deductibles, there are many things to consider.