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The New Technologies session at the World Energy Engineering Congress (WEEC) provided a variety of ways to find information on emerging technologies as well as an overview of some promising new technologies.

With the Georgia World Congress Center, site of the World Energy Engineering Congress (WEEC), situated next to Centennial Olympic Park, where the 1996 Summer Olympics were held, it’s only natural that the conference’s HVAC session would show attendees how to go for the gold.

This article is part two of a two-part series on carbon monoxide (CO) safety and residential equipment and venting. In this article, we continue the discussion of CO safety and cover several additional issues not mentioned in Part I. This includes certain types of installation problems and operational defects that develop after the system has been put into service.

The trends affecting most of North America - the need to conserve energy, reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, and the predicted drop in workforce numbers - plus gains in technology itself - are combining to enhance new HVAC technologies, and to breathe new life into some not-so-new technologies.

As more electronics and wireless devices become mass produced and used in more consumer-oriented products, their benefits are being more widely used in a variety of HVAC applications, from residential troubleshooting to IAQ. More applications are also going online.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy hosted the 2007 Solar Decathlon at the National Mall, Oct. 12-20. Twenty teams, from around the world, were chosen to compete for top honors in this third bi-annual solar housing competition.

If you thought solar heating-cooling all but died with tax credits in the 1980s, you’d better think again. Renewed interest in lowering buildings’ carbon footprints, reducing energy bills, and generally reducing energy consumption has renewed the interest in technologies such as solar heating, cooling, and power production.

Variable refrigerant technology has only recently gained the attention of contractors and engineers in North America. The NEWS Editor-in-Chief, Mike Murphy, spent a morning at the North America Daikin Sales office and talked with Mike Bregenzer, general manager of Daikin AC (Americas) Inc.

It’s one of the most basic challenges faced in the HVACR industry. The 30-pound canister of refrigerant is in the service van and the mechanical equipment is on the roof of a building - with only a ladder as the means to get from Point A to Point B. “There has to be a better way,” was the comment from Nick Strickland when challenged by a contractor friend of his to carry a full cylinder of R-404A from a truck to a condensing unit.

As energy costs and regulatory demands for system efficiency increase, thermostatic expansion valves (TXVs) are replacing capillary tubes, particularly in residential air conditioning and heat pumps.