<
https://asteriskmag.com/issues/05/lies-damned-lies-and-manometer-readings>
"“It just knows.”
The senior HVAC technician I’d been working with on a home remodel answered
with the conviction of decades of experience. I, on the other hand, was less
certain. How could a new furnace “know” that it had just been connected to a
20-year-old air conditioner (from a competing brand), somehow read that unit’s
cooling capacity, and then calibrate its own output to the precisely required
airflow? In a bid to reconcile the reading on my manometer with the tech’s
supposed savvy, I asked whether he was certain. He was, he told me, quite
positive. “Tell you what,” he said. “If I’m wrong, then there’s probably 200
air conditioners in Princeton with bad airflow. And that can’t be right.”
I began working in construction in 1991. At the time of the 2008 housing
crisis, I ran a home remodeling business with my brother. Both of us were well
studied in energy efficiency and resilient design. When the bottom fell out of
the housing market, we quickly transitioned our business into air sealing and
insulation work. The New Jersey Home Performance with Energy Star program was
slated to receive a sizable infusion of federal funding, and so while
residential remodeling might collapse, most homes in New Jersey would be
eligible to receive rebates for implementing energy-saving measures. I took
classes and became certified in heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, and
was responsible for overseeing the HVAC work we subcontracted on our projects.
I’d already had — for years leading up to the housing crash — nagging concerns
about the suboptimal HVAC performance on our projects. In spite of paying
premiums to local, supposedly expert subcontractors, the homes we worked in
were frequently plagued by problems: high humidity, lots of noise, room-to-room
temperature differences, and some full mechanical failures. HVAC training
classes were partly a way to boost revenue, but I also figured that having that
expertise would allow me to help our HVAC subcontractors make minor tweaks to
greatly improve their installations. And that’s how I found myself in a
Princeton basement reading a digital display that suggested the furnace, in
fact, didn’t know it had been connected to anything. It had to be told.
I soon came to realize that there were probably many more than 200 air
conditioners with bad airflow in Princeton."
Via Christoph S.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
