HVAC and Insulation From a Working Tech
Dana Sorensen · June 29, 2026
$6,800. That’s the price tag a contractor slapped on an emergency furnace replacement for a homeowner last February, insisting the same day that her heat exchanger was “severely cracked” and leaking carbon monoxide. Her kids were home, she was scared, and he wanted a signature before he pulled out of the driveway. She called me … Read more
Dana Sorensen · June 29, 2026
How many smoke detectors does your house actually need to be safe? If your honest answer is “however many came with the place when I bought it,” you’re not alone — and that’s exactly the assumption that nearly cost a family outside Salt Lake City everything. Nice family, two kids, three-bedroom ranch with a finished … 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 28, 2026
Search “attic cooling fix” online and you’ll run into two opposite camps: one tells you a powered attic fan is the quickest way to pull heat out and take pressure off your AC, the other insists passive ridge-and-soffit venting is all you need and that electric fans are a waste of money. The powered-fan camp … Read more
Dana Sorensen · June 28, 2026
The season’s first real heat wave has a way of exposing every weakness your house has been hiding all year — the bedroom that never cools down, the utility bill that jumps for no obvious reason, the scratchy throat you wake up with even though the system ran non-stop overnight. If any of that sounds … Read more
Dana Sorensen · June 28, 2026
What a manufacturer’s spec sheet never mentions — and what no code inspector flags during a final walkthrough — is what happens to the air trapped inside a house once every last gap has been sealed shut. Mike, a homeowner just outside Charlotte, North Carolina, found that out the hard way last spring. He’d gone … Read more
Dana Sorensen · June 28, 2026
Six minutes on, twelve minutes off, then on again — that’s the pattern I pulled from the compressor’s runtime log on a scorching afternoon last August, sitting in a homeowner’s hallway while she waited for an explanation. Her brand-new 5-ton central air system, installed just three weeks prior and far from cheap, had her thoroughly … Read more
Dana Sorensen · June 27, 2026
Nearly every homeowner who asks whether radiant barriers actually work assumes the answer lives inside the product itself — foil that’s either legitimately reflective or a shiny gimmick. It doesn’t. After more than a decade climbing into scorching attics, I got away with answering that question with a shrug and an anecdote for far too … Read more
Dana Sorensen · June 27, 2026
My own house is the test case I keep coming back to whenever this question comes up. Two stories, four bedrooms, built in 2004, one HVAC system trying to serve both floors off a single thermostat mounted downstairs. Last August I finally walked it with a probe thermometer just to settle the argument with myself. … Read more
Dana Sorensen · June 27, 2026
Here’s the blunt truth: a maintenance visit that skips the one part actually causing your problem isn’t maintenance at all — it’s a wasted afternoon and a bill you shouldn’t have paid. That’s exactly what a homeowner learned last October when her furnace quit overnight, right as outdoor lows sank into the 30s, just six … Read more