Opinions

Subscribe

These remarks concern technicians and North American Technician Excellence (NATE) certification.

Ah, the United States government. It does not matter how good the idea originally is, they will find a way to confuse and ruin it. The regional standards established by the Department of Energy (DOE) that are set to go into effect May 1, 2013, is one such instance.

Approach home performance certifications with caution.

The recent announcements about some folks getting caught for illegal HCFC-22 practices raises an interesting question: What impact will this have in producing better servicing procedures to keep enough of the legally obtained refrigerant available for retrofit?

Understanding condenser subcooling.

Gaming popularity has moved from the realm of the basement-dwelling teenager to the hands of young children, professionals, and grandparents across America. What does gaming have to do with the HVACR industry? Plenty.

One contractor’s response to the high cost of gasoline.

I recently had the opportunity to talk to three different generations of a family-owned HVAC business. During my interviews, I got to talk to the second-, third-, and fourth-generation family members. During my conversation with the youngest member of the family, I was particularly struck by the comments he made.

These remarks are about voting in this November’s election and how it might affect the HVAC industry.

You might hear this in the coming weeks: “iPods are on the top shelf, you can grab an iPad from the cabinet over there, and you can get a thermostat on that shelf right past the iTunes gift cards.”