2025

Eulogy for Alicia Hollon

May 25, 2025459 words, posted in general

Thank you all for being here today to celebrate the life of Alicia Hollon—my life partner, my best friend, and without a doubt, one of the strongest women I’ve ever known. Alicia was the heartbeat of everything I did and everything we built together....

A Case For Higher Airflow

February 22, 2025781 words, posted in HVAC, design and formulas

Why should design for higher than nominal airflow.

Vapor + HTMX

January 05, 20252155 words, posted in general, programming and software

Build an example application using Vapor and HTMX.

2024

Free As In Freedom

April 09, 20241007 words, posted in general, open-source and software

Salute to open-source software engineers

PGP Encryption Introduction

April 04, 2024840 words, posted in GnuPGP, PGP, programming and security

In this article I introduce PGP and show a use case for me, which perhaps you can use as well. What is PGP PGP stands for Pretty Good Privacy, it was first developed in 1991 by Phil Zimmermann. PGP uses cryptographic privacy and authentication and is...

UNVR as NAS

March 15, 2024634 words, posted in how-to, nas, networking and programming

In this post, I’m going to show how to setup a Samba server on a Ubiquity UNVR so that it can be used as NAS (network attached storage). Be aware that this should be done with caution and may void any warranty on your UNVR as we are using it for...

Elevating HVAC: A Skilled Trade Beyond Labor

February 27, 2024535 words, posted in HVAC

This is a guest post from my good friend, Ty Branaman. Introduction: Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) is often mistakenly categorized as a simple labor job, overshadowing the intricate skill set and technical expertise required in...

2023

Most Important Job

December 14, 2023294 words, posted in HVAC and tech-tip

This short tech tip is about something one of my good friends in the trade told me a long time ago, that has stuck with me through the years. It is a simple phrase / mindset. “The current job you’re on, is the most important job of your day”. This...

Cancel This

December 12, 2023758 words, posted in HVAC

This post is going to be hard to put into words, it’s going to seem egotistical at points, but know that my actions / feelings online are the same as they are if you met me in person. The problem with online interactions is tone and other subtleties...

Hope

October 30, 2023633 words, posted in general

This is a piggy-back article off of The Struggle article that I had recently. I was a bit of a “Debbie Downer” in that article, which is okay, I get that way sometimes. In this article I’d like to take a minute to layout some of the things that give...

Heat Recovery Chiller

October 27, 2023811 words, posted in HVAC, chiller and hydronics

This is an article that I wrote back in 2020, but I don’t believe that I published it anywhere, so I’m doing it now. I did discuss this on this episode of the HVAC School Podcast. Heat Recovery Chillers I have always had a love and passion for...

You Should Learn Markdown

October 21, 2023364 words, posted in HVAC, general and programming

This is a quick article about why you should learn markdown. What is markdown Markdown is a “mark-up” language. It allows you to write content in plain text that can be easily converted to other formats, such as html, pdf, docx, and many more. All...

The Struggle

October 18, 20231520 words, posted in article and general

This is a get stuff of my chest article. Probably going to be a mixture of ranting and whining. If that is not your cup of tea then feel free to skip this article. The struggle It has been one of those “when it rains, it pours” type of weeks. As...

Free quotes != good

October 04, 2023934 words, posted in HVAC

I found myself re-reading the ACCA Quality Installation Standard recently and it got me thinking about the industries tendency of offering free quotes. In this article, I’d like to just focus in on the items that are required as what I’m calling...

Introduction to Programming for HVAC Part-4

September 26, 20231159 words, posted in HVAC, programming and software

This article builds upon our last article, so make sure to catch up before continuing with this article. Arguments Before we start creating our program that will remove the background from images let’s go over arguments in shell scripts. Arguments...

Introduction to Programming for HVAC Part-3

September 24, 2023742 words, posted in HVAC, programming and software

In this article we will put together some of the pieces from the last 2 articles, and build our first program. If you have missed the first articles, then you can catch up here before continuing with this article. Getting Started We are going to make...

Introduction to Programming for HVAC Part-2

September 22, 2023537 words, posted in HVAC, programming and software

In this article, learn about installing a package manager. If you missed it, check out the first article in the series where we learned about using your terminal. This article builds upon that foundation. What is a Package Manager A package manager...

Introduction to Programming for HVAC Part-1

September 21, 20231650 words, posted in HVAC, programming and software

This is part one of a series of articles to help HVAC technicians (or others) get started in developing their skills to program. This can help to automate everyday tasks or just familiarize themselves with some of the tools used by programmers. Why I...

Calculate SEER Degradation by Age

September 19, 2023382 words, posted in HVAC, formulas and tech-tip

This is a quick tech-tip to learn how to calculate the degradation of SEER based on age. The degradation of SEER is due to fouling of the evaporator coil with dirt and refrigerant charge losses. It should be noted that this is not true for all...

Introducing Psychrometrics CLI

September 18, 2023538 words, posted in HVAC, psychrometrics and software

Today, I’m releasing a command line application that is built on top of my swift-psychrometrics package, that I open sourced over 2 years ago. The application consists of many calculations / conversions for psychrometric properties of an air stream....

Dehumidifier Sizing by Latent Load

September 15, 2023267 words, posted in HVAC, design, formulas and tech-tip

This is a quick article to show how to calculate the size of dehumidifier needed based on the latent load of a building. This is useful if you’ve done a load calculation and know the latent load of the structure. Formulas The formula above is used to...

Why Mini Splits Stink

September 14, 2023758 words, posted in HVAC

In this general article, I explain why I don’t generally like to use mini-splits. The Positive Sides When people say mini-splits, in general we mean “ductless” style units. These can either be high wall, floor mounted, or ceiling mounted consoles....

Pounds of Water Removed

September 08, 2023381 words, posted in HVAC, formulas, psychrometric-chart, psychrometrics and tech-tip

This is an article that shows how to calculate the pounds of water removed from an air stream, given the entering conditions (return air stream) and the outlet conditions (supply air stream). This is useful in the field when you want to calculate the...

Coil Bypass Overview

August 10, 20231010 words, posted in HVAC and design

This is the first article in a series that explores the idea of a coil bypass strategy in an HVAC system. This article introduces you to a coil bypass strategy at a high level, future posts will dive deeper into the features, benefits, as well as the...

Rss Feed

August 10, 2023166 words, posted in how-to and software

In this article I will show how to add this site’s rss feed. In particular, we will be using NetNewsWire as the rss reader. What is an RSS Feed An RSS feed will show you new posts, generally from a blog, without having to remember to check the...

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