HVAC and Insulation From a Working Tech
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 in my career, I made an assumption that still bothers me when I think about it. A client’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 … Read more
Dana Sorensen · July 6, 2026
Scroll through enough HVAC forums and you’ll find two camps giving opposite advice. One says grab the densest, highest-MERV filter on the shelf because more filtration always wins. The other insists anything past MERV 8 will choke your furnace and should be avoided entirely. Neither absolute is correct, but if I had to pick which … Read more
Dana Sorensen · July 4, 2026
Picture this: a furnace filter pulled from its slot, coated so thick with gray fuzz it looks less like a filter and more like a wool blanket somebody forgot to wash for a decade. I’ve got that image saved on my phone, and I show it to almost every client who asks me why their … Read more
Dana Sorensen · July 4, 2026
My meter clocks 2,400 PPM at seven in the morning, sensor still sitting on the nightstand where I left it overnight, inside the master bedroom of a newer, tightly built townhome. Fifteen-plus years running home performance assessments, and this is one of those readings that instantly reframes a whole case. The couple living here had … Read more
Dana Sorensen · July 3, 2026
Owning a slick air quality gadget does not mean your household is protected from carbon monoxide poisoning — and that false sense of security nearly caught up with a client of mine. Picture a homeowner (we’ll call her Karen) who’d just splurged on one of those trendy smart air monitors, the kind with a polished … Read more
Dana Sorensen · July 2, 2026
No spec sheet, no installation manual, and no code book will ever spell this out for you: an alarm can be fully compliant and still fail your family completely, purely because of where it happened to get mounted. I relearned that the hard way last spring on a call where a homeowner woke to her … Read more
Dana Sorensen · June 29, 2026
Here’s the myth I spent years reinforcing without meaning to: that a portable air purifier is basically a placebo if your HVAC system already has decent filtration. I told clients this constantly. Then my own sinuses forced me to check my own advice against reality. Last spring I ran a controlled 30-day trial in my … 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 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