The piston (fixed orifice) and TXV (thermostatic expansion valve) are the two most common metering devices in use today, with some modern systems utilizing an electronically-controlled metering device called an EEV (electronic expansion valve). It should be noted that there are other types of fixed orifice metering devices like capillary tubes, but their use is […]

This article was written by HVAC/furnace technician Benoît Mongeau. Thank you, Ben.     High efficiency (or 90%, or condensing) furnaces use a set of two heat exchangers to retrieve more heat from the combustion products than their mid-efficiency counterparts. Because of this, they generate flue gases much colder than those of a mid-efficiency or […]

Let's take a deeper dive into the magic that is gas defrost. Most techs who are familiar with heat pumps understand the basics of a gas defrost. When we apply this strategy to a larger system where we're only reversing a small part of the system, we need to add some controls and valves to […]