One of my closest friends works as an installation tech for a heating and cooling contractor in my city. He started the job while I was in college, having never gone to trade college or any form of post secondary education. At first, he appreciated the life change; he finally had disposable income beyond anything he had ever seen before, and he felt proud having a career while being on a pathway to stability and success. But love so many of us, no matter what our careers or work entails, he started to burn out after a year of physical abuse. He consistently complained about ripping out old fiberglass insulation and going completely insane seconds later at beach loft feeling all of the needle-like fibers stuck in his skin from head to toe with little to no relief. He said it was also particularally grueling to work up inside attics all of the time, which aside from being cramped spaces with the most heat in the building, they also often have rodents or spiders. A lot of the difficulty comes with creating a near-custom system each time you work on a current property. Sure, if you’re dealing with condominiums, model homes in a subdivision, or even modular mobile homes—you have building plans shared between many units and an existing system to reference. But if you find a random old loft built decades ago with a weird layout and design, troubleshooting the HVAC installation can get seriously aggravating. If you decide to put in a cut system, area of the challenge comes with finding the ideal location for the air handler. You need room for the outgoing air to reach some kind of ventilation system—be it in an attic, crawl space, or wall. Plus, you need access for the air return, or the duct for various air returns. Many small spaces necessitate putting the return at floor level which comes with the downsides of dirtier filters and suboptimal air flow. Unfortunately, in some cases, you’re forced to compromise with the best plan available.