Here is a condensed version of a guest blog that appeared on The NEWS website. To read it in its entirety, go to the bit.ly link that appears at the end.
I have recently had the pleasure (and I use that term loosely) to meet a plethora of candidates looking to fill some open positions on The NEWS. Let’s just say I have a new respect for all the HVAC contractors out there who continually need to fish in a rather shallow labor pool.
November Online Poll: Some have suggested the recent violent hurricanes like Katrina and Sandy are due to climate change. Do you believe this is the case?
My column in the Nov. 12 issue of The NEWS focused on HFCs, especially low GWP HFCs as retrofits for R-22 systems. This column will focus on what I used to call “beyond HFC” refrigerants, although these days, the term might be “other than HFC” refrigerants.
The economy, the fiscal cliff, sequestration, and energy independence are just a few of the issues facing the winners of the 2012 election. But, as one of Washington’s leading pundits recently stated, “This isn’t the first critical election where the stakes are high, and it won’t be the last.”
During a recent conference, I had the pleasure of sitting in on a session led by Frank Besednjak, a trainer, teacher, coach, and consultant with decades of HVAC industry experience. Besednjak shared the thought-provoking claim that business is a lot like baseball.
These comments are concerning Joanna Turpin’s article “Regulations Burden Contractors,” Oct. 15, 2012, on the costs to small businesses to comply with government regulations.
It has been an interesting — and complicated — year when it comes to refrigerants. The year began with cutbacks in HCFC production. We had expected there to be about 90 million pounds of virgin R-22 in 2012, down a bit from 2011. But the EPA proposed at the most 80 million pounds and at the least 55 million.