While most people are gearing up for the winter weather with warm clothes and jackets, one high school teacher is hoping to teach his students about the ins-and-outs of a homeowner’s winter lifeline, better known as the HVAC system.
According to the Free Press Standard, Matt McGraw, a certified HVAC-R contractor, is Carrollton High School’s Heating, Ventilating, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration class instructor. His goal with the class is to help his students learn everything they need to know about their possible future careers in the field. He teaches them the importance of having HVAC units serviced every year, and that it’s crucial to have your filters changed every three months. In fact, Energystar.gov says most HVAC filters must be changed every one to three months.
McGraw spoke with the Free Press Standard about the class and what he teaches.
It could be dangerous if your filter is dirty; not only for the health of the house, but the unit could overheat and be a fire hazard, McGraw said.
McGraw tells his students that it’s a good idea to check a furnace’s filter during the month of December, as it’s colder outside. McGraw’s students have learned so much from their teacher. Joshua Davala is one of the students in his class. “You want to maintain your unit so when it does get cold, it’s not dying or failing in the middle of winter because then I’ll have to fix it,” Davala said.
McGraw has been teaching the program at the school for a year, and he’s already preparing for a lab renovation to utilize more resources with his students. This renovation will include a fresh paint job and four new heating and air conditioning systems for training purposes.
McGraw says it’s important to keep updating his way of teaching, as the field changes constantly. “The HVAC industry changes every two to three years; so we’re continually updating a lot of the equipment. Now, a lot of the furnaces have wi-fi. We’ll always have a mix of new and old stuff so the students understand what they’re going to see in the workforce.”
Photo Credit: stock photo
“The HVAC industry changes every two to three years; so were continually updating a lot of the equipment. Now, a lot of the furnaces have wi-fi.” – McGraw
Want to avoid these new-fangled, self made problems?
Get back to basics. Buy a really good wood-burning stove, like any of several manufactured by the Harman company.
Wow RD….you are just flat old fashioned…….ahahahaaa.
When I built our current house, I didn’t even consider an HVAC. Put a heat pump in our previous build (first experience with one), and like to froze to death with it. You can stick a thermometer in a vent and it will read 85-90 degree air….but that is COLD in winter, having lived with some kind of stove, radiator, or forced hot air heat all my life.
Current house uses wood (got 65ac of fuel, why not ?). Started off with a BIG open fireplace that I built a water circulating pipe grate to recover heat (basically a boiler) and store in a 500gal tank in the basement. Pump from that sent hot water to basebd radiators around the house as needed. Burned a lot of wood, but heck, I was young and have a lot of wood.
About 10 years ago, switched to a wood stove insert in the fireplace, one of the newer gassifer technology stoves ….clean burning, high heat output, lot less wood used….and love it. Have one in the basement as well so when the temps dip into the teens or below, fire it up too. Have a wood cookstove in the ‘man cave’ (meat cutting room on the back of the garage), another large wood furnace in my shop, and one more free standing stove in one of our greenhouses so if temps take a fast dip in the fall, we don’t lose our late fall crops. We LOVE our wood stove. Told the wife went it comes time to ‘go to the home’, if they don’t have a wood stove, I ain’t going !
With all of them, use about 6 cords of wood a year, and keep 12-16 cords cut ahead all the time.
That said, I did put in a couple of mini-split heat pump units for the few weeks of the year we need air conditioning. Marvelously quiet, high SEER rating Mitsubishi units that zone the cooling just for the room being used rather than the typical whole house systems in most homes. The rest of the summer, we open the windows and turn on the curtain moving 4′ whole house fan, bringing in cool mountain air.
After moving to NC and realizing every homeowner is on an HVAC contract, I’ve been highly recommending becoming an HVAC professional to my nephews. The fact that we’ve had regular service twice a year for the past ten years will be in our favor when we sell our home this spring. It will also provide a good reason for why we’ve had no need to replace our system. (That, plus changing the filters every month.)
To the point of the article: I don’t know the specifics of Carrollton High School, but if it’s anything like the high school I taught construction trades at for 8 years, the results of the program are not that great….however it might appear from the outside looking inward.
What I found is most high school students don’t have the maturity to decide what they are going to do with their lives. Trying to teach HVAC (or carpentry/electrical/plumbing in my case) was simply an exercise in marking time they are required to sit SOME place during the day, and mine beat the heck out of academic classes. My best motivation tool was a threat to send them to an English class, for example…..ahahahaaaa.
Yes….in following up after graduation, a small few did work in construction related trades…..but the vast majority went on to do things not related at all to my class. I think high schools should return to the old “shop” class….teach the basics of many different areas to give a good, broad introduction to many areas of trades/crafts, but not spend too much effort in any given direction. Training in specific trades should move entirely to post secondary trade schools and community colleges. Once the student is out the door with a high school diploma in hand, the nature of ‘what to do with my life’ gets a lot more real.
Andy, You are just too plain old practical for today’s world …
That’s excellent! You don’t see many trades being taught in high school so it’s great to hear about this! Being an HVAC contractor is a great career path and I hope some of those kids may venture into the field..We sure need them!