Author: Mike Gallagher

Don’t  laugh.  I  often  get  that  reaction  when I  tell  people  that  the  single  best  diagnostic  tool  that  we  possess  in  HVAC  is  our  ears.  But  it  is  true! Sound  contains  more  information  than  can  be  fully  understood,  and  that  isÂ...

Obviously,  some  humidifiers  don’t  work  simply  because  they  were  not  maintained  properly.  Others  don’t  work  because  they  were  applied  improperly,  or  some  installation  issues  were  never  addressed.  For  a  discussion  of  some  of  these ...

Last  summer  was  probably  the  most  humid  that  I’ve  experienced  in  SoCal  in  the  past  25  years.  I’m  not  talking  about  peak  humidity  on  the  worst  day;  that  happens  every  year,  usually  right  after  a  summer  rain  shower  (despit...

We  all  know  that  California  has  a  lot  of  competing  interests  when  it  comes  to  water  consumption.  And  recycling  of  almost  anything  (as  opposed  to  cleanliness)  is  right  up  there  next  to  Godliness,  particularly  in  the  Golden  Stat...

When  in  mechanical  cooling  mode,  air  conditioning  systems  typically  only  have  to  deal  with  the  most  minimal  outside  air  quantities  needed  to  comply  with  building  code  ventilation  requirements.  But  exceptions  exist,  and  there  are  var...

The  latest  wrinkle  in  commercial  air  conditioning  in  the  USA  is  the  VRF  (variable  refrigerant  flow)  system,  widely  introduced  here  within  the  past  decade  from  Japan  and  Korea.  VRF  takes  the  ductless  air  distribution  model  (where ...

Are the days of the Pony chiller done? New technologies have made it possible to reliably run big chillers at small loads. Unless you have a situation where the chiller needs to be on UPS power, the con’s have gotten to the point to where they usually outweigh the pro’s when it comes to the [&he...

I  often  have  people  (both  building  operations   professionals  and  consultants)  ask  me  questions  relating  to  how  to  put  together  a  controls  specification  for  which  it  will  be  relatively  easy,  after  installation,  to  verify  that  everyt...

We left off at the end of part three by stating that the extra maintenance work can be worthwhile with water cooled systems. How worthwhile? A general rule of thumb is that the typical water cooled system is 20-40% more efficient than the typical air cooled system. That is true as far as it goes, [&...

We left off at the end of part two with the issue of maintenance. Maintenance is not optional with water cooled systems; it is mandatory, and if maintenance slips then much of the equipment can be damaged in a matter of months. So what do professionals do about this? The first thing to understand is...