Designed to force a highly partisan Congress to agree to fiscal matters or face steep cuts, the ripple effects of the sequester may be felt by some in the HVACR industry, though many acknowledge that the degree to which the cuts are felt is yet to be determined. 

These days, essentially everybody wants their building to be more efficient. But there are still barriers to achieving high efficiency and constructing a high-performance building.

There are many obstacles contractors face when working on these types of projects, including everything from educating owners to following through on building operation.

For a company that’s been in business 118 years, making upgrades isn’t an option, it’s a necessity. That’s why Butch Welsch, president of Welsch Heating & Cooling Co., St. Louis, always makes sure to stick to one key principle despite the rapidly changing times we live in: First impressions are everything.

It takes a bit of ingenuity and a healthy dose of elbow grease to transform a 30,000-square-foot abandoned Sears auto center into a 91-point LEED Platinum certified office space, but that is exactly what Bremerton, Wash.-based Rice Fergus Miller (RFM) Architecture did. 

Shipments of HVAC equipment increased marginally in 2012, reported the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI). 

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) is forecasting that single-family starts will grow 22 percent in 2013 and that single-family construction will grow another 30 percent in 2014.

As the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is implemented in phases over several years, some HVACR business owners are fearful of the program’s potentially detrimental effect on the cost of employee health care coverage. 

Heating, Air-conditioning, and Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) recently announced that while HVACR average distributor sales declined 1.8 percent in December 2012, they increased 5.6 percent for the year. 

While the number of HVAC technician jobs continues to grow exponentially, Fluke Corp. has found a considerable gap between the number of candidates needed for those jobs and those who are qualified to do them.