Tech Tips

  As with most other trades, HVAC/R technicians need to have a solid set of hard skills to make it in the industry. Whether we pick up those hard skills by working on cars as teenagers, learning them in a trade school, or acquiring them on the job, we’ll have to rely on our hard […]

I'm not sure who first started calling evaporator coil odors “dirty sock syndrome,” but I really wish they hadn't. Nowadays, every tech out there can't help but categorize every odor from the system as “dirty sock syndrome,” and customers just LOVE to hear that they have a “syndrome” named after a dirty locker room smell. […]

This article was inspired by a podcast episode about the house being the most underappreciated duct with Joe Medosch. You can listen to that podcast HERE. We probably think about sheet metal, flex duct, or the ever-controversial duct board when we think about ducts. It’s probably shiny and out of sight in most homes. But […]

We may not realize it, but heat transfer inside our homes keeps the HVAC industry afloat. Without air conditioning in the summer, our buildings would remain stuffy, miserable places. That’s because heat can come from the outdoors, indoor objects (such as cooking appliances), and our bodies. So, this article will cover the three main types […]

Every year. We watch it EVERY YEAR, and it still gets to me again and again. Call me a sucker, but especially living a blue-collar life working in the trades, It's a Wonderful Life describes the way many of us live. Even more so, it captures the way we can start to feel about our […]

This article was inspired by a podcast episode featuring Jeremy Smith. Jeremy is a refrigeration mechanic and has contributed a lot of good material to HVAC School. You can listen to that podcast on floating suction and head HERE. Those of you who drive your own vans are probably all too familiar with the following […]

Proving flame is an important part of the gas firing sequence. Without proof of flame, you risk dumping unspent gas into the heat exchanger, resulting in an explosion. There are many ways to “prove flame,” but we are focusing on the flame sensing rod (flame rectification) method here. Here are the facts: Flame sensing rods, […]

Over the past year, we have been adding 3D animations to our YouTube channel. It can be difficult to film everything we do in the field, so we've found 3D animations to be a helpful tool to show how parts work and how to do certain tasks. So far, we've uploaded nine 3D animations. This […]

This article was inspired by a recent short podcast episode covering a common issue among leaders, creatives, and technicians who try new things. You can listen to that podcast HERE. Maybe you’ve had a time in your life where you felt like a pretender. You’re really not as knowledgeable as people think, and they wouldn’t […]