The Anatomy of a Kitchen DisasterYou can smell it before you even walk through the back door. It is not the smell of braised short ribs or fresh bread; it…
My old mentor used to scream at me until his neck veins turned purple: 'You can't heat what you can't touch!' He wasn't talking about physical contact; he was talking…
The Echo of Wasted BTUs: Why Your Sanctuary Is Bleeding MoneyI remember my old mentor, Lou, a man who had more soot in his lungs than a 1970s coal boiler.…
The Ghost in the Pews: Why Massive Spaces Refuse to Get WarmYou’ve seen it every Sunday morning. The thermostat is cranked to 74, the boiler or the furnace is screaming…
The Phantom Draft and the Mentor’s WisdomMy old mentor, a man who had more soot on his hands than skin, used to grab me by the collar when we were…
The Sound of a Ticking Time Bomb in the KitchenYou can tell a lot about a restaurant by the sound of its roof. Most people just hear the hum of…
The Airflow Manifesto: Why Your Multi-Story Office is a Thermodynamic NightmareIf you think a thermostat controls the temperature in a three-story office complex, you’ve been sold a bill of goods…
The Sound of a $50,000 DisasterThe silence in a 50,000-square-foot office complex during a February polar vortex isn’t just quiet; it’s the sound of a looming lawsuit. When the pressure…
The Myth of the 'Clean and Check': Why Your Maintenance Contract is Failing YouMy old mentor used to scream, 'You can't cool what you can't touch!' whenever I’d get lazy…
I followed a guy out to a 60,000-square-foot distribution center last February who was ready to fire his entire maintenance crew. He’d just received a $12,000 gas bill, and a…