In the Family

[bks]

I was told most hvac techs have fathers that are techs. How many people on this site have hvac in there familys, if you do could you post relationship of family member just doing a little survey. Thanks bks

[dash]

None here,and only a few of the techs,I've ever known.

[arc8]

I'm all by myself, the only one.

[midhvac]

Me either, my dad flipped burgers.

Let me guess. Your dad's an hvac man and wants you to be one too?

[spotts]

3rd gen. to own this biz. I hated toilets and drains and stuff. Now we just do HVAC and drive prettier trucks.

[infwsdm]

I'm solo too.

My Dad worked for Ford and now I get to buy their vehicles at a discount:) Thanks Dad!;)

[bigbird]

All by myself, my father was an awopaho indian chief....

[Diceman]

grand dad, dad, uncle, brothers and in-laws in the biz, it's in my blood I guess.

[swat]

Total solo act. My dad wasn't round much but he was good at what ever he did and I get that from him so :).

[CityHvac]

by myself...Dad was a auto mechanic and discouraged me from following in his foot steps.

[Green Mountain]

Hey this is different. My Dad was not in the business. He worked in restuarants most of his life. Never owned one.

My Uncle Marty, my Mother's brother, was a pipefitter. He was my favorite uncle. He taught me how to solder pipe when I was 10. My grandfather so I am told was a steam fitter in Yonkers NY. I never met the man.

I have 2 sons that have Associates Degrees in HVAC. They both say that they don't want to take over the business. The younger has continued on in college and is going for his Bachelors in Mathematics. He wants to be a teacher. He is now working for the company for the summer. His older brother has been working for the company for 10 years now as an installation foreman.

Spotts could tell us better how they really feel about taking over the business. I think they feel that I will die if I don't work. So they don't want me to die. I kinda had a nice retirement in mind. :)

[rob10]

Dad, uncles, cousins, brother!! The trade has been good to us!!

[sotexkoolbreeze]

just me. daddy is a farmer. still lives on the same spot of land he was born on.

[ballvalve]

Me myself and I, all three of us are in this HVAC bit together, nobody else in the family. My Dad is a carpenter and is totally afraid of ANYTHING mechanical or electrical. How many of us tore apart our toys when we were kids? Mine got worn out from too many "repairs and minor modifications". The Old Man just shook his head when he saw some of the contraptions I would build. Best part was they would mostly always work.

[itsamine]

My pops.

[albcorb]

I started as a carpenter with my dad. My grandfather was a pipefitter, my uncle was a salesman for Carrier.

[appltech1]

I'm a loner. My dad liked to blow up stuff, for a company and i could have gone either way but i chose this one. I guess he was a loner too.

[polar ice]

Grandfather was a boiler mechanic for Kenwood mills(1st class plant operater). Kenwood Mills was a wool blanket manufacturer in Canada, used lots of steam. My dad got his refrigeration licence in 1963. He never used it thoe, drove truck instead. I took him on a call a few years back......he was amazed by the time we took to ' not let the gas go"

[rabram]

Step-father started me out helping him when I was about 11 years old.Not just hvacr,but carpentry [which I hate],electrical,plumbing and anything to turn a dime.I also know how to operate heavy equipment because of him.I enjoyed it growing up but still rebelled at the authority figure part.We get get along great now unless I ride his ass about him not pulling permits and having the proper licenses.

[NedFlanders]

My step dad(man who raised me) union plumber , bread delivery , inspector , fast food mechanic , bus driver...

Me same thing since high school.....refrigeration....I'm stickin' to one path.

[i_got_ideas]

I worked for my dad in construction for 8 years and made the leap into HVAC when my neibor who worked for a company told them I was getting burned out in construction. A couple days later my phone rang and I was offered the HVAC job, the rest is history.

[bmf]

lots of roofers in my family, an electrician, painter, plumber, i thought i would try to bring something new

to the table

[otto]

The United States Navy was my father. Started me on 400 PSI boilers

[hvac45]

Just me, dad was career air force.

[Stamas]

Left service manuals laying around where I could get my hands on them-big mistake-they were usually by the tools too.

[itsamine]

Originally posted by itsamine
My pops. My pops is on the AC side and the USN is where I did boilers 600psi superheat baby:D Main fire lit aye.

[spotts]

Originally posted by ballvalve
. How many of us tore apart our toys when we were kids? Mine got worn out from too many "repairs and minor modifications".

Boy, me too. Found speakers in Dads garage and wired 'um into my clock radio thinking I was making a sterio, made and wired a lamp with a switch at 12 just by winging it, lots of wood stuff. I remember Dad catching me using his table saw without permission! "How long you been using that?" He asked. "Quite a while" I answered. "Well, be careful"

Oh and the bikes! I made some cool mods, and some that hurt me bad! Made alot of my own toys too. Dont see that anymore.

[mattm]

Originally posted by spotts
Oh and the bikes! I made some cool mods, and some that hurt me bad! Made alot of my own toys too. Dont see that anymore.

Did you ever hack saw the forks off one set and hammer them onto your bike to make a chopper. Those were dangerous but cool.

[spotts]

Originally posted by mattm

Originally posted by spotts
Oh and the bikes! I made some cool mods, and some that hurt me bad! Made alot of my own toys too. Dont see that anymore.

Did you ever hack saw the forks off one set and hammer them onto your bike to make a chopper. Those were dangerous but cool.

Oh yea, and you'd find like a 10" wheel of a little kids bike and put it out there, that and a bannana seat and a sissy bar and some of those curly handlebars! Cool man, all made out of a Schwinn Stingray frame found in the trash.

[spike]

Dad was a reporter in the White House press pool for the NY Times during WWII...


A little jealous of y'all who grew up in the trade...

[thehumid1]

I am the black "goat" of the family dads a judge, my sister and brother are lawyers. Guess I was the only one with ethics.

[Green Mountain]

Tinkering when I was a kid-- yes I remember. When transitor radios first became affordable I got one for graduating from the 8th grade.

The batteries went dead. It took 4-D cells. Anyaway I didn't have any money for new ones so I took a lamp cord and wired it to the battery terminals. Plugged it in. It worked good for about 5 seconds. Ahh, yes, my first electrical mushroom shaped cloud but not the last.

[JasonHoustonTX]

My dad was a flight instructor for the astronauts at NASA. He retired from that and got into HVAC, started a company from scratch and I worked with him since the begining and now its in my blood. I am at the wheel now and am having a blast.

[absrbrtek]

Father pushed a pencil. Got 1 son in the local going on to 4th year of aprenticeship. Have second one wanting to get in, Im trying to make that happen.

[ballvalve]

Spotts its great to hear I wasnt the only one doing bike repairs and choppers... The best one was a shock absorber bike. I did all the cutting and fitting and figuring in about 1 day and then spent the next 3 nights tring to get my dad to take me to Uncle Butch's (my favorite uncle) to get it welded. All this at the ripe old age of 12 or so.

[ozone drone]

My dad and step-dad after my father died, both worked in the steel mill (Bethlehem sparrows point plant in Baltimore)
I got into this when in the air force.

[infwsdm]

Originally posted by mattm

Originally posted by spotts
Oh and the bikes! I made some cool mods, and some that hurt me bad! Made alot of my own toys too. Dont see that anymore.

Did you ever hack saw the forks off one set and hammer them onto your bike to make a chopper. Those were dangerous but cool.

:) I remember those

[icemeister]

My father grew up on a small dairy farm in Massachusetts and went to Mass Aggie in Amherst to get educated as a dairy technician. He went to work for a couple dairies and worked his way up. Then WWII came along, he went to sign up but was rejected due to his poor eyesight. He then volunteered for civil defense work and helped out the fire dept and road crews in town because of the shortage of guys to do the work.

There was also a shortage of refrigeration men, so since he had been helped out an older fellow servicing the local dairies, markets and such he started his own refrigeration business and left the dairy. I remember him telling of driving his new Chevy pickup through a driving blizzard from NH to Atlanta to attend his first distributor meeting at Warren Refrigeration in 1951.

My oldest brother joined him in 1962 and my other brother when he got out of the Navy around 1967. When I got out of school in 1971 we all worked together for a while until Dad retired to Florida......and now I've got my own business in Florida and how I wish Pop was still here to share it with me.

[i_got_ideas]

Originally posted by infwsdm

Originally posted by mattm

Originally posted by spotts
Oh and the bikes! I made some cool mods, and some that hurt me bad! Made alot of my own toys too. Dont see that anymore.

Did you ever hack saw the forks off one set and hammer them onto your bike to make a chopper. Those were dangerous but cool.

:) I remember those

Anything I had that came apart did....sometimes had left over parts puting it back together though :D

[The Penguin]

my Dads in the business funny thing though I trained him! I got atasrted at 16 and I asked my dad what trade I should go into and he said refrigeration so I did now many years later Hes a fridgie too

[cctrol]

My dad and uncle are both in the business. My grandad owned a small grocery store, so my dad had lot's of equipment to 'learn on'. I know that he started with an ICS correspondence course in the 1960's, and trained himself from there. As technology progressed, he just kept up. He retired about 2 years ago as refrigeration supervisor of a 11 store grocery chain. He still works when he wants to with me.

[btexpress]

My Dad and Uncle had a plumbing and heating business. When I was a kid, I thought all the tools and fittings were pretty cool. He passed away before I was old enough to work there. The business got sold/given to my uncles kids who had little or no work ethic, and was disolved shortly afterwards. My son wanted to be an HVAC tech but I talked him into being an electrician. He's taking his apprenticeship aptitude test on Tuesday!

[Swampfox]

No one in my family, but my mother worked in a telephone switching office as a troubleshooter, only woman in the company to have that job, guess I got my mechanical knack from her, when i was 4 I would rather take my toys apart than play with them, so my grandfather hid the tools from me, I learned the butter knife as a flathead screwdriver trick all on my own :D I discovered electricity the hard way also

[karsthuntr]

I am service manager, cousin is install manager, my wife is dispatcher and my uncle owns the place. 13 employee's total.

I guess you can say it's in the family.