When I teach electrical basics, we do this exercise where we sit down and connect a 10-watt bulb to a power supply and through a switch. It's a SUPER SIMPLE circuit—the kind you might have learned about in a high school science class. But then I grab another 10-watt bulb and tell them to connect […]

Commissioning a system is critical anytime a technician makes any type of repair or alteration to an existing system. It’s also important if you’re working on a system you’ve never worked on before, and it’s a vital part of a new install start-up. Basically, commissioning systems is an everyday responsibility for technicians, which means everyone […]

Not if you are hungry, anyways— A true story. I have a good friend who owns an HVAC company. Not much of a Ph.D., but he is known to be honest, doesn’t pull vacuums through manifolds, and claims to almost always use American-made capacitors. We’ll call him Captain Kirk. He called me recently, quite worked […]