Arkansas HVACR NewsMagazine April 2018

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Bigger is Definitely NOT Better When it Comes to Cooling (By Eugene Silberstein, M.S., CMHE, BEAP: article furnished by Esco Institute and HVAC Excellence, Howard Wise, EVP) Many of us have been raised with the mentality that more is good and bigger is better. When referring to many things in life, these ideals may have some relevance, but when dealing with others, more definitely equates to less. Maybe we want to live in a bigger house. Back in the era of the growing housing market, construction companies were building larger and larger homes and average families were snatching them up, since it was, especially before the real estate crash of 2008, a simple matter to obtain a mortgage, Quiet often, nothing more than a handshake… No tax returns, no bank account, no problem! Since the houses were being sold, the builders build more. It was indeed a vicious cycle. But larger homes have costs associated with them. Increased repair costs, increased maintenance costs, higher property and school taxes, and increased utility costs all take their toll over time. When it comes to the selection of cooling equipment, bigger is

definitely not better. So why do so many contractors insist on selling their customers oversized air conditioning equipment? Let me take you back to a conversation I had with my father back in the mid 1980s, when everybody, more or less, had a lot of money to spend. While learning this industry, I often bombarded my old man with questions about our industry in a never-ending quest for every possible answer to every possible question. It was after a meeting with a potential client, that I approached him with a question that, to this day, affects the way I teach HVAC/R. At the meeting, the client specifically asked us to provide him with an air conditioning system that would keep the house at 70°F, even on the hottest day of the year. My father was quick to respond with a confident, “Sure thing, we can do that, no problem!”. Needless to say, we were awarded the job and now we had to deliver. My question to my father was simple and to the point. “How are we going to do that?” My father’s response was even more simple, direct and to the point. “We’re going to install an air conditioning system that will be big enough to cool the whole neighborhood if the customer leaves