There is a big move in residential and light commercial HVAC toward measuring static pressure regularly during commissioning, service, and maintenance. Don't get me wrong… Measuring static pressure is VERY important. The challenge comes in when techs begin taking measurements without understanding where to take them, what they mean, or worse: they use measurements as […]

When I started in the field, I was a 17-year-old helper with one year of tech school under my belt. In other words, I knew nothing. As I've mentioned before, a few experienced techs took me under their wings at different stages, but the most influential was a guy named Dave Barefoot. For whatever reason, […]

We’ve all been in the unenviable position of unsweating a compressor and getting blasted in the eyes with a waft of gas that smells like burning sulfur from the pits of Hades. As we stagger back, covering our noses and holding our breaths, memories of the phrase “phosphene gas” from trade school or World War […]