HVAC and Insulation From a Working Tech
Dana Sorensen · July 6, 2026
The first real heat wave of the season always exposes the same weak spot in a house. The rest of the rooms cool down just fine, but one bedroom stubbornly hangs onto its heat like it’s got its own microclimate — running a full 10 degrees warmer than everywhere else, no matter where the thermostat … Read more
Dana Sorensen · July 5, 2026
I spent a Saturday last summer crawling through my own attic with a flashlight, chasing down why the guest room upstairs refused to drop below 80°F no matter how hard the system ran. My house is only three years old, built with a properly sized 4-ton unit and a solid air handler, and flex duct … Read more
Dana Sorensen · July 4, 2026
Halfway up the attic ladder in a Draper two-story last spring, I already had a good guess why the homeowner below me was so frustrated. She’d handed a contractor $4,800 to redo the ductwork in her house, and six months later the upstairs bedrooms were still baking every afternoon. One look at what was actually … Read more
Dana Sorensen · June 29, 2026
Early in my career, I made the call myself: tape over mastic, because it went up fast and left a tidy-looking seam. Three years later, back in that same attic, I watched that same foil tape curl away from the collars in long strips — and that one mistake still shapes how I answer the … Read more
Dana Sorensen · June 21, 2026
Figuring out how to size ductwork correctly for a home HVAC system really comes down to one thing: keeping a trustworthy duct sizing chart CFM residential HVAC reference within arm’s reach before you ever cut pipe — and most homeowners don’t discover they need one until a room goes cold or a register starts shrieking. … Read more
Dana Sorensen · June 21, 2026
Search “why is one room in my house always hotter” and you’ll land on two competing pieces of advice: seal your ducts and pile on more insulation, or get your system a bigger return path. The first suggestion sometimes helps. The second is the one that actually solves the problem most of the time, and … Read more
Dana Sorensen · June 20, 2026
0.94 inches of water column — that’s what my manometer read on a three-year-old system in a newer subdivision last Tuesday, nearly double what that equipment was ever built to handle. The homeowner had phoned about two bedrooms that turned into ovens in summer and iceboxes in winter, no matter where she set the thermostat. … Read more
Dana Sorensen · June 19, 2026
Picture a snapshot I keep on file from a job a few weeks back: strips of gray fabric tape, curled and separated at the seams of flex duct, hanging loose in an attic like old wallpaper. That image sums up nine out of ten comfort complaints I see. The homeowner who called me was dealing … Read more
Dana Sorensen · June 19, 2026
“It’s not the equipment,” I told her, standing in a doorway with my hand still on the knob. This was a newer subdivision home last August, and the woman I was working with — I’ll call her Michelle — had spent two full years arguing with her builder about a master bedroom that ran “ten … Read more