Tech Tips

DISCLAIMER: HVAC School is NOT an official OSHA safety training resource! Although we provide safety tips in good faith, our website is not a substitute for safety training from an authorized OSHA training source. Many things may deter people from working in the HVAC industry. Perhaps surprisingly, exposure to heights could be the deal-breaker. (Not […]

You may have noticed that 3/8″ liquid lines are generally the norm in equipment 5 tons and under. We went to a job where the system had a 1/2″ liquid line, and it got me thinking about the ramifications of going larger or smaller on the liquid line. Liquid Line Basics The liquid line should […]

In residential, most techs and installers size the suction (vapor) and liquid lines to the stubs on the equipment. In larger built-up systems, sizing the piping is rarely the responsibility of the technician. But what happens if we show up to a job where the lines cannot be (reasonably) replaced because the size is different? […]

Air changes per hour (ACH/ACPH) simply describes how many times the total quantity of air in a room (or structure) is completely replaced per hour. If you have a 10'x10'x10′ room, the room contains 1000 cubic feet of air. If the supply and return to the room provide a balanced 100 CFM (cubic feet per […]

This tech tip comes from a post in the HVAC School Facebook group by Ed Janowiak. Ed is the Manager of HVAC Design Education at ACCA, a longtime friend of HVAC School, and an educator who does a lot of great work for the industry. Thanks, Ed! This past Thursday, I taught a class where […]

Fenestration is a fancy architectural term that means “openings in the outside of the building.” You will see this word a lot when you read ACCA Manual J or when you are doing a Manual J load calculation. Fenestration loads include heat losses and gains through windows, doors, skylights, etc., and they can make up […]

Photo Courtesy of Parker/Sporlan There are many brands and styles of evaporator pressure regulating valves (EPR), but none as common as the Parker/Sporlan SORIT and ORIT valves. The diagram above clearly shows some of the common applications. An EPR or “hold back” valve maintains a set suction line pressure and, therefore, coil temperature. That is […]

I hear the following phrase a lot: It's the amperage that kills you, not the voltage. While there is truth to the statement, it is sort of like saying, “It's the size of the vehicle, not the speed that kills you when it hits you.” OK, so that's a pretty bad example, but hopefully, it […]

The term “short” has become a meaningless phrase in common culture to mean “anything wrong with an electrical device.” In reality, a short circuit is a particular fault that can mean one of two things in technical lingo: 1. Any two circuits that are connecting in an undesigned manner. This issue would be the case […]