Arkansas HVACR NewsMagazine March 2025

News Magazine March 2025

FEATURE STORY

intentional neglect, but because so much is being thrown at the industry so quickly-- all while hiring new people and losing institutional knowledge. New SEER 2, A2L refrigerants, multiple refrigerant choice and so on. If we understood HVAC objectives at a fundamental level, 80% of the homes wouldn’t have correctable issues. Another issue with the decline of institutional knowledge is that there are companies being tempted by supposed new technology, products or methodology, when in fact it is failed idea dressed in a different package. Construction materials have improved dramatically over the last two decades, however the processes and methods for installation are not always followed. While it is not your job to build the structure, it is important to have a general understanding of air and insulation boundary alignment at the rough- in stage. If you don’t speak up the issue will continue, and the HVAC industry will be blamed. In many instances you will know more about construction than the builder, as the builder generally depends on each individual trade to get things done correctly. Those same trades suffer just as our industry does, with limited long term knowledge.

addressing the leakage or sentencing a home to a life of extended runtimes to keep up. Homes of today have the same issues we have encountered for decades. So, we evidently haven’t passed along the knowledge, or we have gaps created by all the changes. I can’t tell you how many times we are consulted on a problematic job only to hear “this ain’t my first rodeo” when suggesting changes in processes or testing. We all must be willing to learn because the industry will never stop changing. Where duct components are connected to one another and the heating / cooling system we are doing fairly well on the sealing side. Anytime we penetrate the air and or insulation boundary with that ductwork, we are not doing so well.

Our industry isn’t that old

Less than twenty percent of homes in the late 1970’s had central air conditioning in hot and humid climate zones. It wasn’t until the late 1990’s when just over half the homes in the US have central HVAC systems installed. In consumer minds, computers are cutting edge technology, but because HVAC is out of site, I t’s out of mind and somehow is not valued. This fact dismisses the fact that electronics

Envelope vs Duct Leakage

Confusion exists when it comes to identifying envelope leakage and duct leakage. The issue of envelope leakage remains a key factor to oversizing HVAC when we see test data rather than