A new professional designation program from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) will soon provide home buyers with additional assurance that the builder or remodeler they’ve chosen is authentically green.
Amid all of the chaos following Hurricane Katrina is the need for people to rebuild their homes and lives. Businesses like those in the HVAC trade must deal with the realities of rebuilding their own businesses as well as the neighborhoods in which their customers reside.
In a down economy, the business survivors are those that focus on the needs of their customers and the ability to bundle service and value into a sellable package. That’s one of the goals of Bryant dealers and their distributor in the Seattle area.
In the past, Kansas City Power & Light (KCP&L), a subsidiary of Great Plains Energy, has worked with Honeywell to implement the Energy Optimizer program. With the program’s proved success, the two companies have decided to extend the contract for 2008, continuing their energy-saving relationship.
If the California Energy Commission (CEC) had its way, thermostats in homes and buildings would be controllable by public utilities during times of extreme temperature hikes and power usage. But a public outcry to proposals in the CEC’s 2008 Building Energy Efficiency Standards regarding thermostat control forced the CEC to modify its stance.
That magical moment of midnight Dec. 31, 2009, where manufacturers will no longer be producing new equipment running on HCFC-22 - but on HFC-410A instead - may not be that magical of a moment after all. A closer reading of the EPA regulations seems to say that equipment can no longer be pre-charged with virgin R-22, but the buyer could have it charged later.
Sure, Tommy Castellano could be considered slightly biased on the subject. After all, the owner of Castellano Air Conditioning is the 2008 chair of the ACCA Program Advisory Committee. It’s only natural that he believe the multitude of workshops to be offered at this year’s ACCA Conference are going to be exceptional.
When the Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA)
polled its membership last spring, wanting to know which topics they most
wanted to hear explored at this year’s annual conference, becoming a leader was
one of the top picks. Association officials believe they have filled
that request with Steve Farber, who will be the main speaker at the opening
general session.
My Jan. 14 column in The NEWS focused on system overcharges. This column will look at an undercharge of refrigerant. In
the example to be used, we will look at a medium-temperature refrigeration
system running on HFC-134a and having a thermal expansion valve (TXV) and
liquid receiver.
Many system problems encountered by technicians are electrical in nature. Either the problem is an electrical defect, such as a defective switch or motor, or it can be traced electrically to the system problem itself, such as an open low-pressure switch as a result of a low system charge. In order to be proficient in troubleshooting a system problem, a technician must be able to efficiently troubleshoot the electrical components of a system.
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