Brendan Ballou’s book “Plunder” is an excellent read about the effects of private equity across industries, if you want to go deeper on the topic. I recently had him on my podcast talking about the effects of PE in HVAC. There are quirks in each realm but the themes are common (I guess in libraries, too).

Here’s that episode if any of you are curious: https://www.heatpumped.org/p/plunder-how-private-equity-is-r...

I'm not sure if Joseph used AI in his writing process, but I was one of the folks he interviewed for this piece and I helped proofread it (along with others). So I'd just like to chime in and say that he did put a bunch of effort into writing it, researching it, and fact checking; it's not just AI slop.

Previously shared here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44398543

Thank you for sharing this link! I try to drop the subscribe wall for things I share on HN but I don’t always remember to

This is commonly cited, but in practice it often isn't as big of a limiter as you'd think. Many homes have drastically oversized furnaces, so if the ductwork is decently sized for that furnace then the much smaller heat pump actually ends up with adequate ductwork.

Also, many heat pumps are designed to be able to operate at high static pressures, so they can push air through relatively small ducts albeit at higher fan speeds.

Or go ductless.

Cool project, but I’m curious how this is different from other open source air quality monitoring projects like AirGradient?

This is a DIY board and roughly 150 cheaper than airgradient

For sure. Was just curious as they started out with a super basic DIY setup https://www.airgradient.com/documentation/diy/ (which can be implemented without the PCB even, as another commenter in this thread suggested) so I was wondering if there was a functionality you found was missing that sparked you to create this project!

From reading their specs, my pcb uses higher spec components (esp32, scd41, sgp41), newer technology, better accuracy, more sensing capability (VOC, & N0x)

It probably doesn't even need a board, you can just wire all the sensors in a box and solder the cables. Each sensor only has 3 or 4 and so does the display.

But a board is cleaner and they're super cheap to get made in China unless you're shipping to the US I guess lol.

I've built sensor boards like these too. But more with Dallas one wire sensors to measure temperature in different locations of central heating systems.

Wires are chaotic and a point of failure

True but they do facilitate more flexible placement. I use them a lot for one off projects.

Have you tried kicad

No I usually use CircuitMaker. I like their big footprint database.

Key paragraph: "This energy savings comes with a caveat. “It is sort of a best case because the 30 percent applies to the network stack or communication part of it,” Karsten explains. “If an application primarily does that, then it will see 30 percent improvement. If the application does a lot of other things and only occasionally uses the network, then the 30 percent will shrink to a smaller value.”"

I'd suggest a submission title change to "...cut networking software power use..."

Not so sexy. But as a force multiplier that's still a lot of carbon probably.

For context, these are training materials to train new technicians on proper home insulation practices as part of DOE's Weatherization Assistance Program. They were deleted from DOE's website, and are now mirrored by Building Performance Institute at https://bpi.org/pages/wap/?trk=feed_main-feed-card-text&__re...

I run an HVAC company and some of my peers have started getting tariff price increase notices from manufacturers. Trane is 2% across the board for most equipment, for example.

Perhaps building an agent in something like gumloop that loops page by page, does AI ocr, and then exports to a Google doc? Should take like 10 minutes to set up