The use of R-744 (carbon dioxide/CO2) as a refrigerant in HVACR applications has been gaining attention. But it faces installation and servicing challenges for technicians familiar with fluorocarbon refrigerants.

Tools are so important these days that when Milwaukee Electric Tool Co. held its fourth annual symposium for products used in its core markets of electrical, plumbing, remodeling, and HVAC, it attracted 50 plus trade press from seven countries.

An oft-repeated comment from me in recent years is that while the air conditioning side of the HVACR industry has been dealing with 13 SEER and R-410A as its basic components, we over on the refrigeration side deal with a wide range of efficiency standards.

When it comes to small HVAC contractors drawing attention to themselves, they find putting a company name on the back of a jersey, buying ads in a hometown newspaper, and volunteering for a service project becomes a way to draw attention to the company.

Every year the National Restaurant Association (NRA) publishes Forecast, a detailed report designed to go “inside the mind of today’s consumers.”

One of the most coveted recognition systems is that of the Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE), made up of efficiency program administrators from across the United States and Canada who work together on common approaches to advancing efficiency.

FROSTlines is an enewsletter specifically for those in the refrigeration sector, the ‘R’ in HVACR.

The most recent SkillsUSA competition had among its 94 contests one dealing with Sustainability Solutions in which persons in high school and postsecondary schools demonstrated their ideas on wind, solar, and other green alternatives for generating power.

 

In the July 11 issue of The NEWS there was a Newsline story about the Environmental Protection Agency apparently conducting audits of contractors and wholesalers regarding their refrigerant record keeping.

I’m starting to run out of fingers and toes to count up all the years that I have been attending the SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference each summer in Kansas City, Mo. For the first few years I simply attended and watched. Then, for some crazy reason, in 2000 I was asked to be a judge.