Arkansas HVACR NewsMagazine September 2023

HVACR NewsMagazine September 2023

Tech News

Liability- For obvious reasons liability is the reason for the “Ethics and Air Flow” title. In a large part the industry should have learned from past mistakes, however the majority of those in the HVAC industry were not present in the l ate 1980’s or earlier, so this message is important to hear. It is human nature to push failure aside and believe we possess new ideas that can overcome old issues. We forget the laws of physics were discovered by folks like Kepler, Pascal, Boyle, and Newton. These laws do not change and provide a foundation for others to work from.

difference in capacity. You get the economy of a heat pump in mi ld weather, but you don’t eliminate the fossil fuel. So, converting a fossil fueled home to all electric with twice the cooling hours of compared heating hours is going to be a challenge.

Most understand electricity can provide immediate torque and high rpm but there is a cost to do so. When steam locomotives required more power, they abandoned heavy steam boilers and consistent water consumption and drove the wheels electrically with diesel powered engines in the early 1900’s. The electricity pro vided by the diesel engines allowed precise control with little or gross amounts of energy. If you think about it, science prohibits complete abandon of carbon base fuels for the near future. Tractors, earthmovers, and most heavy equipment requires extreme amounts of torque that can’t be replaced by alternative power to date. Once again, we must look toward advanced power systems like hydrogen fuel cells, but these promising alternatives are decades away from being produced in numbers that alter electric consumption.

Rather than focusing on the single issue of the dollars coming our way, we in the HVAC industry must take the opportunity and the dollars to provide meaningful improvements for owners and occupant that will last the life of the home. We spend too much time chasing air leakage when proper process and application can end duct leakage. Putting an end to leakage will allow us to focus on a properly sized and applied duct systems. When the duct system is efficient, pressures are lower, and air from undesirable sources is