I hear many techs complain about the finicky and ineffective nature of electronic leak detection—so much so that some claim that it is a waste of time altogether. We recently located a leak inside the fins of a ductless evaporator coil—pinpointed to an exact spot—using an electronic leak detector. For demonstration purposes, we took that […]

The title says it all. It should be one of the first things you learn when you started. However, I have seen a lot of experienced techs who seldom (if ever) do it. When connecting to a tank, purge your hose by cracking the center connection at the manifold for a second. When connecting to […]

The HVAC industry uses all sorts of fancy words to classify refrigerant. As such, there are all sorts of complicated refrigerant acronyms: HFC, HCFC, CFC. Let's also not forget the mythical zeotropic, azeotropic, and near-azeotropic descriptors. Let's simplify those. (Though if you want to go back to the basics first, check out this article on […]