Professor Butler

Professor Butler Husband, Father and HVAC Technician & Content Creator with 21 years HVAC experience
(8)

06/11/2026

What doesn’t Professor Butler get called for? HVAC, controls, electrical, plumbing, networking… and now apparently I’m the IT department too.

Service call today: the BMS computer won’t power on. This machine is running a vintage copy of Trane Tracer Summit (circa 2007) the kind of setup that’s been holding a building together longer than some apprentices have been alive.

Pop the cover and the problem jumps out: dead power supply. Instead of ordering parts and waiting days, I do what every commercial tech should know, check the building’s e‑waste cart. Most facilities have a room or rolling bin where old PCs go to die… and sometimes they’ve still got gold inside.

Sure enough, I find a donor tower, pull the power supply, swap it in, and the Summit workstation fires right up. Zero parts ordered. Zero downtime. Customer back online.

Sometimes the fix isn’t in the catalog, it’s in the trash pile.





06/10/2026

Yearly air balancing at a medical endoscopy facility, and one of the constant‑volume VAVs immediately stood out, there was supposed to be 729 CFM, but only pushing 593. Nothing in the system changed, so that number didn’t sit right with me.

A few years back we had issues with loose duct lining on this supply trunk, and some of that plastic made its way downstream. That memory clicked, so I popped an access panel and there it was. The hot‑water coil on the leaving side of the CVAV was 50% blocked by sheets of plastic.

Pulled the obstruction out, rechecked airflow, and boom, CFM restored.

This is exactly why you don’t just crank up a fan or bump a VAV command when airflow drops. Something changed. Something caused it. Investigate the “why” before you touch the “how.” That’s real air balancing, especially in medical environments where airflow matters.





06/10/2026

In this video I pulled up a Trane BMS system in Google Chrome and showed something most techs and facility managers still aren’t using: AI that can read your live BMS pages.

I opened Gemini, let it analyze the current BMS tab, and asked what issues it sees. It gave a solid first impression, but then I opened a second tab showing every VAV box in the building. Once I added that tab to the conversation, Gemini re‑evaluated everything and gave a completely different set of suggestions based on both pages together.

This is the future of BMS troubleshooting:
• You open the graphics
• AI reads what you’re looking at
• You add more tabs
• It cross‑references everything and points you toward issues you might’ve missed

And if you’re using Microsoft Edge, Copilot can do the same workflow.

This is how techs, operators, and facility managers get faster, sharper, and more proactive with their systems. AI isn’t here to replace anyone, it’s here to make the people who use it absolutely unstoppable.

06/08/2026

Follow‑up on the water‑source heat pump with the random breaker trips. This time I came back with the correct 80 µF capacitor and plenty of time to do the repair the right way. I relocated the capacitor to a more service‑friendly spot, cut out the overheated terminal, and cleaned up every conductor in the compartment. Fresh splices, proper wire nuts, zip‑tied routing, and no more rub‑out points waiting to happen.

This is what a small electrical issue looks like when you take the time to eliminate the root cause instead of just swapping parts. Clean wiring = predictable operation and fewer nuisance trips.






06/08/2026

Service call on an indoor water‑source heat pump where the main breaker kept tripping at random. I start digging through the air handler and immediately see multiple rub‑out points and stressed conductors. But the real jackpot shows up at the compressor capacitor, an 80 µF cap with a completely melted terminal.

With the building getting locked up for the night, I replaced the burnt connector so the unit could sit safely. I’ll be back with the correct capacitor and will clean up the rest of the wiring so this thing stops nuisance‑tripping and starts running the way it should. Real‑world troubleshooting, real‑world results.






06/07/2026

Professor Butler’s MythBusters is back in session. Today we’re busting one of HVAC’s oldest hand‑me‑down myths: “Don’t touch a hot surface igniter or the skin oil will make it fail.”
Modern igniters don’t care about skin oils, they run at 1,800°F and burn off anything instantly. The real reason not to touch them is simple: they’re fragile.
Years ago in my classroom, we tested six different service igniters. Three different people touched each one with bare hands. We powered them up every week for the entire school year… and every single igniter survived.
No documentation. No official test. Just real‑world results that prove the myth is cooked.

06/06/2026

A multimeter doesn’t measure voltage floating in space it measures difference.
Black lead = your reference. Red lead = the point you’re comparing to it.
That difference in electrical potential is what shows up on the screen.

Most techs think their meter is measuring voltage… but it’s really measuring the difference in potential between two points.
Same idea as HVAC: you’re not ‘making cold,’ you’re moving heat.
Once you reprogram your brain to see electrical potential the same way, troubleshooting becomes a completely different game.
This video breaks down how your multimeter actually thinks, why the black probe matters, and how potential difference exposes what’s really happening in a circuit

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06/04/2026

Upgrading from cardboard‑box chaos to a real jobsite setup. The Crescent SITERUNNER is now part of my everyday workflow: it’s a portable desk, blueprint table, tool caddy, and material hauler all in one. AD @‌crescent_tool

05/29/2026

In this commissioning task, I was instructed to install current sensors inside all four disconnects feeding the Trane/Mitsubishi VRF air handlers. The goal is to make sure the BMS can see a true power loss, not just a communication drop.

If any of the four heads lose power, whether someone shuts a disconnect off or something happens upstream, the system needs to generate a clean alarm so the controls team knows exactly what’s happening.

VRF fan coils pull such low amperage that most sensors won’t register them. So in this video I show how I:

• Use a current sensor on each of the four disconnects
• Build a four‑loop wrap to raise the sensed current so the device actually trips
• Land the signal on the BMS input for reliable monitoring
• Ensure any power loss triggers the correct alarm instead of a confusing comm issue

And I’ll say this straight: Is putting a low‑voltage cable inside a line‑voltage disconnect the perfect solution? Probably not. But this is what the commissioning agent is requiring, and for us to get our final payment, we have to meet their spec. So I’m installing it cleanly, safely, and professionally to satisfy the commissioning requirements.

05/27/2026

Walking into a mechanical room as an apprentice can feel impossible, like there’s no way you’ll ever learn all the chillers, boilers, pumps, VFDs, sensors, and controls staring back at you. But every call you run, every repair you make, every small win you stack becomes another step on the road of experience. One day you look around and realize you’ve become the technician you used to admire. Keep going. Keep learning. Keep showing up.

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