My family tries to live as holistically as possible. We make a lot of our own food and stay away from things that are heavily processed and have a lot of additives, preservatives, and common allergens. That means we like to buy snacks from independent brands that are transparent about their recipes, and one of […]

“It sounds very fancy, but it's really the HVAC of the spacecraft — controlling humidity, temperature and the whole atmosphere onboard.” — Manuel Retana, NASA Project Manager, ECLSS Artemis II  |  University of Nevada, Reno, April 2026 A NASA engineer who spent five years building the life support system on the Artemis II spacecraft name-dropped […]

There are many appliances with compression refrigeration circuits that do not have ports installed for testing, recovery, charging, and evacuation.  These can include window units, PTACs, fountains, refrigerators, and much more. This fact presents a challenge any time you suspect or know there is a refrigerant circuit issue. How can you diagnose and repair when […]

Eric Mele, Eric Kaiser, and John Oaks come on the podcast to talk about commercial PM best practices and what matters most. Drain cleaning is a critical part of the standard commercial PM. You must assess the drainage situation (pitch, length, location, etc.) to plan your cleaning strategy and arrive at the best result: the […]

In today's podcast, I talk to John Oaks about his experience as a VRF tech in the field, including branch boxes and two-pipe vs. three-pipe technology. John primarily works on the troubleshooting and service side rather than the installation and programming side of the field. Variable refrigerant flow (VRF) systems, also called VRV systems when […]