HVAC and Insulation From a Working Tech
Dana Sorensen · July 7, 2026
Standing on a ladder in a Draper hallway last spring, cover off, I’m looking straight into a photoelectric chamber that’s supposed to sense fire — and this particular unit had gone off three separate times that week for reasons that had nothing to do with fire: a pot of pasta water reaching a boil, a … Read more
Dana Sorensen · July 7, 2026
Why does one CO detector chirp feel like nothing at all while another sends you sprinting outside with the kids at 3 a.m.? Because the two sounds aren’t carrying the same message — and mixing them up is exactly how people end up either evacuating for nothing or ignoring something that could actually kill them. … Read more
Dana Sorensen · July 6, 2026
Early on, I made an assumption that still bothers me when I think about it. A neighbor’s kitchen had a CO alarm mounted right by the hallway, batteries fresh, unit tested and working — so I moved on without ever pulling out my own meter to check ambient levels near the furnace. Weeks later that … Read more
Dana Sorensen · June 30, 2026
There’s a photo still sitting in my phone’s camera roll that I pull up every time a homeowner insists their carbon monoxide detector “would have caught it.” It’s a cracked brass fitting on a gas line tucked behind a water heater, my combustible gas analyzer’s readout glowing right next to it, and — just out … 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 26, 2026
47 ppm and climbing — that’s what my combustion analyzer read the second I cracked open the burner compartment on Karen’s furnace, and the hairline crack running across the heat exchanger explained the rest. She’d spent the previous night fighting a headache and a queasy stomach, blaming bad takeout, before finally drifting back to sleep … Read more
Dana Sorensen · June 24, 2026
Spring thaw always does the same thing to a house: windows crack open after months sealed tight, and that first rush of fresh air has a way of exposing exactly how stagnant everything got while they were shut. I was mid-audit at a house going through that exact transition last spring — blower door test … Read more
Dana Sorensen · June 20, 2026
Late one February afternoon, I was down in my own basement doing the same furnace tune-up I run on my own system every year — nothing on my personal checklist hinted that anything was wrong. My wife mentioned, almost in passing, that the kids had been dragging all winter — headaches some mornings, tired even … Read more