Peter Powell

Chiller maintenance is becoming more vital than ever before. Better maintenance can mean valuable energy savings and better bottom-line profits. That was the thrust of a presentation titled “Raising the Bar on Chiller Maintenance” given by Kip Bagley of Mesa Energy Systems and Rod Kraft of EMCOR Services Arizona, at a webinar presented by The NEWS and Goodway Technologies.

It has been four years since my wife and I bought our most recent house. But that doesn’t stop one of the local realtors (not even the one we worked through) from sending us a bi-monthly publication about home life.

In an industry now heavily regulated with concerns about “what the Environmental Protection Agency might do next,” there is at least one aspect that is hardly regulatory and actually finds the EPA as a partner. It is called the GreenChill Advanced Refrigeration Partnership, and it has caught on with equipment suppliers, refrigerant manufacturers, and supermarket chains.

The Unified Group (TUG) is made up of contractors who help each other by sharing best practices, responding to e-mail questions of fellow members, and engaging in candid talks at meetings. One of those candid meetings took place recently under the title “Construction Group Best Practice Session.”

Sometimes energy saving doesn’t require massive overhauls in HVACR equipment. It may just be the case of adjusting the temperature.

For two technical college instructors in Georgia, there is a shift taking place within the HVACR industry when it comes to the depth and specifics of technician training. For a number of years, many said schools were successful if they offered broad brushstrokes of training. Now it is shifting to detailed training.

I don’t own a DVD of the movie North by Northwest, so I only get to see it from time to time on Turner Classic Movies .

One of the things I remembered from journalism classes is to get both sides of a story. Then there is one of those news networks that say that what it presents is “fair and balanced.” The thing is, these days, you sometimes have to go to several sources to end up with a fair and balanced perspective on two sides of a story.

When economic times get tough, budgeting dollars for a trade association membership can sometimes prove difficult. For industry trade associations and organizations, the goal in tough economic times is to show more than ever the value of the services being offered - and find creative new ways to show it.

I’m not good at math, but I know I wrote my first column for a magazine (the old RSC) published by BNP Media (then Business News Publishing) in June 1985. I’ve written a monthly column ever since.