The Death of the Oil Burner and the Regulatory CliffListen, I've spent thirty years smelling like a diesel engine after crawling out of wet basements in the middle of a…
The Death of the Soot-Stained GiantIf you have lived in the Northeast for any length of time, you know the sound. It is a low, guttural rumble that starts in…
The Sound of Silence and the Physics of the FreezeI remember my old mentor, 'Iron' Mike, standing over a cracked boiler in a basement that smelled like wet coal and…
The Physics of the 'Sick Building' and the Airflow ManifestoMy old mentor, a grizzled tin knocker named 'Iron' Mike who had seen more rusted-out heat exchangers than I’ve had hot…
The Ghost of Airflow Past: A Lesson in Thermodynamic RealityMy old mentor, a grease-stained veteran we called 'Grizzly' Bob, used to scream at me until his face matched the color…
My old mentor used to scream, 'You can't cool what you can't touch!' This was his way of drilling the law of physics into my skull while we were crawling…
The Invisible Killer of Efficiency: Why Your HVAC Is SuffocatingI remember my first week as an apprentice, standing in a cramped crawlspace in 20-degree weather. My old mentor, a man…
The Invisible Killer in Your DuctworkMy old mentor, a man who had more refrigerant in his blood than iron, used to scream at me every time I grabbed a wrench…
The End of the All-or-Nothing Era: Why Your Single-Stage AC is a DinosaurI remember my old mentor, a man who could sniff out a burnt contactor from the driveway, used…
The Sound of a Potential Fire: When the Breaker Won't Stay SetIt’s 3:00 AM in the middle of a January cold snap, and the rhythmic 'click-thud' of a tripped circuit…