Whenever I post a photo of the control panel of my heat pump water heater (like the one above), I usually hear from at least one reader who has concerns about Legionnaires' disease. I care about my health, so I've…
You can't see them. You can't smell a lot of them. In fact, they're hard to access with any of your senses. But that doesn't mean your body won't respond to those tiny airborne particles that make up what scientists…
Ever been in a basement that smelled musty? Maybe the better question to ask would be if you've ever been in a basement that didn't have that smell. Far too many basements do. There could be any number of reasons…
I've taken on a whole lot of do-it-yourself (DIY) projects over the years. I built furniture (end table, bookcase, coffee table...) in high school and college. Thanks to owning a couple of old Volkswagens ('61 Beetle and '65 bus), I've…
Shortly after my wife and I bought our 1961 home in 2019, I discovered a serious problem in the basement. Where I could see it, the slab was cracked all along the edge of the exterior walls (photo above). I…
This is the fifth winter since I've been heating my house with a Mitsubishi* heat pump. And finally I got to see something I've missed every time it happened until last week. Yep. I'm talking about seeing frost on the…
My wife and I bought our 1961 house in 2019, and it came with a basement in pretty rough shape. It smelled musty. There was evidence of moisture damage. The slab was cracked along the perimeter of the exterior walls. …
Oh, the dreaded "cold blow." That's HVAC technician-speak for a forced air heating system that blows cold air on the occupants of a home. Is it really a problem? Is the supply air from a heat pump really cold? How…
Last week at the 5th annual HVAC School Symposium in Florida, I gave a talk on undersized heating and cooling systems. You know, those systems that just can't keep the house warm enough in winter or cool enough in summer. …
Bathrooms need some way of exhausting air. Mostly it's to keep the humidity down, but, depending on who lives in the house, the bathroom also can be a source of a lot of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Not all homes…