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 […]

First, here's a quick summary of the role of oil in the refrigerant circuit: The compressor requires oil for the lubrication of the moving parts in the compressor. We would keep 100% of the oil in the compressor if we could. However, that is generally unrealistic. So, we need to utilize oils and oil strategies […]

Tech Brandon Livingston posted about fire dampers and took some photos shown here. He gave me permission to share this here, and his original post inspired this tip. Thanks, Brandon. The picture on the left shows the situation before the damper was opened. The right image show what happened after it was opened and a […]