National HVAC Tech Day 2022!

If you are nice and cool today, thank an HVAC technician. If you are not, you had better call us. 😉

National HVAC Tech Day is a good excuse to say something we mean seriously: the people who do this work deserve more recognition than they get.

What the job actually looks like

HVAC technicians work where the equipment is, and the equipment is rarely somewhere pleasant. In July that means attics well over a hundred degrees and rooftops with no shade. In January it means crawl spaces, unheated garages, and outdoor units in freezing rain.

The days are longest exactly when the weather is worst, because that is when systems fail. Every heat wave and every cold snap means technicians working past dark and through weekends, because a family without heat cannot wait until Monday.

It is a genuinely technical trade

The stereotype of HVAC as simple manual work is badly out of date. A technician diagnosing a system today needs to understand:

• Refrigeration theory — pressures, temperatures, superheat and subcooling, and what the readings imply about what is wrong
• Electrical troubleshooting — control circuits, capacitors, contactors, relays, and increasingly communicating control boards
• Combustion — gas pressure, venting, and combustion analysis, where mistakes are safety mistakes
• Airflow — static pressure, duct sizing, and why a system that tests fine on paper still does not perform
• Building science — insulation, air sealing, and humidity, because the equipment is only half the picture

That is why NATE certification exists as an independent standard, and why EPA certification is legally required to handle refrigerant. Our technicians and installers hold both, and the training continues throughout their careers because the equipment keeps changing.

The safety part people do not see

A properly done heating inspection is a safety inspection. Cracked heat exchangers, blocked flues, and improper venting are carbon monoxide risks, and the person who finds them is a technician doing a thorough job on a call that could have been rushed.

The same is true of electrical faults found before they become fires. Most of that work is invisible to the homeowner — which is rather the point.

Thank you to our crew

To our technicians and installers: thank you. You are the reason customers keep calling us back, in some cases across three generations of their families and ours.

If you are considering the trade

It is a good career. Skilled technicians are in demand, the work cannot be outsourced or automated away, and you can build a real living without student debt. Trade school or an apprenticeship gets you started, and the learning genuinely never stops.

Buffington Brothers has been in Poplar Bluff since 1951, and we are always interested in hearing from people who want to learn this trade properly.

And if you are not nice and cool today

Call (573) 785-6768. Our NATE and EPA certified technicians serve Poplar Bluff and the surrounding Southeast Missouri and Northeast Arkansas area, with emergency service available when a summer failure cannot wait.