In order to wrap my head around diagnostic issues, it helps me engage in thought experiments where I think of more extreme examples of an issue or situation or consider the ideal to find the “edges” of a concept. Once I find the extreme edges, I can begin to sort down to a more exact […]

We’ve all probably been in this situation before (maybe in both people’s shoes at different points of our careers): A technician is on the job with their apprentice. The technician tells the apprentice where the probes go on the service ports and exactly what the superheat and subcooling are.  The apprentice’s eyes glaze over, and […]

Even if you're not a market refrigeration tech, we all know that the primary function of refrigeration is to keep food cool. Easy, right? Even though food storage sounds pretty simple, there are a lot of things we should keep in mind when we think about food safety and quality. There’s a lot more to […]

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 […]