HVAC HVAC PE Study Materials

hi all, new to the forum, but ive been trolling for a while. i just applied to take the PE in April 07 and the afternoon session i will be taking is the HVAC & Refrigeration. ive purchased the MERM, the practice problems for the ME PE a companion to the MERM and the ME PE sample exam (all the Michael R Lindburg publications). are there any other review materials and sample tests that you recommend? ive read about the NCEES practice exam and also ive read on here about "the other board" practice exam. i may be out of line here, but what is "the other board"? any help would be greatly appreciated. i have a lot of time before the test, but would like to get a jump on all of this asap.

Ok, everyone, correct me if I get anything wrong here...

There is a company called "Professional Publications, Inc." that has a website. That website has some forums set up for people to talk about taking and studying for the PE exams. They way I understand it, the forums are heavily censored so that if you post negative comments about the products that that company sells, or their review courses, those comments get removed. Since people tend to bitch about stuff when they get stressed (like when the exams are looming), a lot of posts get removed. Also, any "shoot the breeze" and "off topic" posts tend to get deleted by the moderators.

So, a few years (I think) ago, a couple of the regulars from that board got sick of having their negative (but informative) posts removed and decided to create their own forum. I believe that at least one of them actually got banned from the other forum for some reason. As a joke, any time someone types in the letters p-p-i without the dashes, this forum replaces those letters with "the other board" in quotes. That said, some people find the practice problems and exams that can be purchased on that site to be helpful. Others don't.

By the way, I'm not mech, so I have no clue what books you should buy. Sorry.

In general, I would say that since you have a lot of time, work with what you have for now. I'd set up a schedule that would allow you to be through all of the MERM practice problems by the time you're 8-10 weeks out from the exam. At that point, take a practice exam or two (don't even look at the practice exams before that time). That will help you figure out where you need extra practice and you can purchase additional materials at that time, if needed.

Btw, the NCEES practice exam is published by NCEES (you can buy it directly from them). For Civil, it has 20 breadth (morning) problems and 20 depth (afternoon) problems for EACH specialty. Some people say that the NCEES practice exams are the closest (in terms of difficulty and type of problems) to the real thing, the other practice exams that are out there are generally more difficult.

Good luck.

TX - thats what i thought, but thanks for the history lesson!

ive lurked around there a bit too searching things out. so far i have a list as follows:

MERM

Practice Problems for the Mechanical Engineering PE Exam: A Companion to the MERM

Mechanical PE Sample Examination

(i have the 3 above, but have also looked into getting the following)

6-Minute Solutions for ME PE Exam HVAC & Refrigeration Problems

NCEES - PE Sample Questions & Solutions: ME

HVAC Analysis and Design by Faye C. McQuiston

Cameron Hydaulic Data Book

Flow of Fluids Through Valves, Fittings & Pipe (tech paper 410)

Steam Tables: Thermodynamic Properties of Water Incl. Vapor, Liquid & Solid Phases with Charts by Joseph H Keenan

ASHRAE Fundamentals Handbook

ASHRAE HVAC Handbook

as you can probably tell by now i am taking the HVAC & Refrig in the afternoon session. anything i should add to the list, remove from the list?

wiggy56 said:

TX - thats what i thought, but thanks for the history lesson! ive lurked around there a bit too searching things out. so far i have a list as follows:

MERM

Practice Problems for the Mechanical Engineering PE Exam: A Companion to the MERM

Mechanical PE Sample Examination

(i have the 3 above, but have also looked into getting the following)

6-Minute Solutions for ME PE Exam HVAC & Refrigeration Problems

NCEES - PE Sample Questions & Solutions: ME

HVAC Analysis and Design by Faye C. McQuiston

Cameron Hydaulic Data Book

Flow of Fluids Through Valves, Fittings & Pipe (tech paper 410)

Steam Tables: Thermodynamic Properties of Water Incl. Vapor, Liquid & Solid Phases with Charts by Joseph H Keenan

ASHRAE Fundamentals Handbook

ASHRAE HVAC Handbook

as you can probably tell by now i am taking the HVAC & Refrig in the afternoon session. anything i should add to the list, remove from the list?

Click to expand...

From what I see, you're focused taking HVAC as your Depth. As you know, the morning session has problems from all three (MD, T&F and HVAC) sections. Don't just focus on one area because skipping any section is really NOT a good idea.

Been there! Done that!

Take a look at the Depths within the "NCEES - PE Sample Questions & Solutions: ME" and see if there are any MD problems in T&F, or T&F problems in the HVAC etc.

Just because you select a certain Depth, doesn't mean that type of problems will be the only ones you'll see.

If you're doing the exam in April '08, you have plenty of time to solve problems from those others areas and do fine.

I can't stress enough to <b>bring all 4 ASHRAE books with you</b> - you dont need to study from them, but I missed an easy question on HVAC, that would have been a simple look-up-the-answer question, I just didn't have the right book. I only took the fundamentals book, as that had everything I needed when i was studying.

It wont hurt to have a few extra books with you, tucked away in your box - and just keep the fundamentals one out for quick reference - the index in the back of each book covers all 4 books.

Other books i found helpful:

<u>Mechanical Engineering License Review</u> - this book is *great* for some topics, horrible for others. Bad thermo review, decent fluids and heat transfer, good pumps & fans, great HVAC

<u>HVAC Equations, Data, and Rules of Thumb</U> - I borrowed a coworker's book for studying / taking the exam - liked it so much i bought myself a copy after the exam

<u> Cameron Hydraulic Data</u> - I love this book for professional use, and used ti a lot on the exam - it used to be distributed by ingersoll-rand - now you have to buy a copy. new ones are around 75 - i found a used one at abesbooks.com for $15 - mine is from 1985, but hydraulics hasn't changed since then.

<u>FE supplied reference book</u> - if you still have yours from the FE this is a *great* reference. If you dont, you can download the PDF off teh website - it has a great conversions page, as well as the disciplines being broken down.

<u> Mechanical Engineering Reference Book (MERM)</u> - i hardly used this, but it was good for looking up some things during the exam.

Finally - I made two binders - one was general mechanical - i indexed everything - made copies of charts from books, steam tables, air tables, water tables, everything you use as a reference. second binder was HVAC exclusive. I worked problems, and kept them in the binders. (this depends on what your state allows).

Oh! one last thing i found very helpful, was I checked out the ASME PE study videos. These are expensive, but I found them at my university library. There are 15 hour long lecture videos, that are a great jumping-off point for studying. There is a general study of each, and then 3 in depth for each section. I *only* watched the in-depth of the HVAC, as i was crunched for time. If you can't find them at a library, try talking your company into buying a copy for future engineers to study off of. Those videos were key to my success, as i dont study well from books.

anyway - hope this helps some - good luck!