This podcast is a class that Bryan taught for BTrained in Birmingham, AL. He covers troubleshooting, installation, and commissioning best practices with a focus on the fundamentals.

To be a good troubleshooter, you must be able to find the problem, identify the source of the problem, fix the problem, and optimize performance based on your data, the customer’s comments, and your observations. The Five Pillars of diagnosis aren’t comprehensive diagnostic or charging criteria, but they can help you charge or diagnose a system.

Isolation diagnosis works best for electrical components; you isolate the problem area from the system and see how the system works without the suspected issue. If the system operates normally without the component in question, then we can conclude that our hypothesis about the “problem” part was correct.

Wide-narrow-wide troubleshooting is an approach that allows you to inspect the entire system, zero in on the problem, and optimize the entire system. By starting wide, going narrow, and going wide again, you can troubleshoot holistically.

Installations take place in several phases: pre-planning, planning, demo, installation, and commissioning. Many people place a lot of emphasis on the demo and installation and neglect the conversations and procedures associated with pre-planning, planning, and commissioning.

Bryan also covers:

Heuristics and mental shortcuts
Evaporation vs. boiling
Rules of thumb
Head pressure, suction pressure, and compression ratio
Energy transfer fundamentals
What superheat and subcooling really indicate
Restrictions and temperature drop
Delta T
“Redneck” compressor test
Testing circuits
Useful measurements and test instrumentation
Causes of compressor failure
Measuring airflow
Low vs. high static pressure
Bringing tribal knowledge to building design
Ductless systems, ventilating dehumidification, and sensible heat ratio
Manual J, attics, and combustion air
Radiant barriers and heat transfer
Supply relative humidity
Dehumidifier configuration and system design
Bad envelopes
Vented attics
Duct upgrades
Total effective length and turning vanes
Evacuation

Learn more about BTrained at https://btrained.net/ or on the BTrained YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnlDsWHT68gVwPrYYO5vhrw.

If you have an iPhone, subscribe to the podcast HERE, and if you have an Android phone, subscribe HERE.

Check out our handy calculators HERE.

32: Alan Weiss - Thrive Like A Millionaire