Reply to Thread

1st call I found head pressure wayyyyy high

Washed off very dirty condenser

Noticed both high and low pressures were very low now .... hmm ... must need gas

( not )

Began adding gas to bring pressures up , probly 4 pounds or so , to this Soaking wet OD coil

Few min later its going off on internal bypass and sounds like a washing machine , scared the hell outta me , i thought i broke it for sure.

First Compressor I installed by myself, never ran, finally had to call for help. The windings weren't hooked up on the inside. Turns out there was even a recall on them and S H had missed this one. First emergency call I got was a computer room I was considered to be too Green to run emergency calls, but the boss called me after not being able to contact the on call tech. The Common Dry cooler was low on fluid, with no apparent leaks. So I just added water to get them going. The boss showed up right after I reset the last unit. The on call Tech. was rear ended, on his last call, and was in the hospital for observation. I took the rest of the week and didn't get one call or very much sleep LOL

My first service call was on a Lennox G20.
No fan was the problem.
I banged around for a few minutes like I knew what was going on, then I smelled the factory smoke from the fan board.
I walked into Lennox acting like a burnt relay was the craziest thing that ever happened in the world.
The counter guy chuckled and suggested I keep that part on my truck as regular stock.
I think I've changed about 200 of them since then.

Guess I am getting old .......... nope thought about it and don't have a clue what my first call was.

I use to brag how good of memory I have. Now I am just greatful it lasted as long as it did, and hasn't gone completely

My first service call was to the house of a plumber I had known for years but hadn't seen since I had last worked with him as the lead carpenter for another contractor. He had tried to fix the unit himself before calling and once I arrived he told me everything he tried and ruled out before I got there. It was a gas pack and he couldn't get the heat on. I asked if the thermostat was set to heat, he replied it was, and he already eliminated the stat as a problem. After checking everything else for 30 minutes and scratching my head, I checked for voltage at W and found none. I jumped R to W and the unit started right up. Turned out he replaced the stat earlier in the summer and didn't program it right. I learned that day to never trust whoever was there before, they had to call someone else for a reason.

Licensed... or hack... <grin>

Seriously... OLD belt driven gas furnace... with thermocouple gas valve. Bad thermocouple. Cleaned and tightened EVERY connection in the heat circuit. HO said it worked better than it had in years...

I have scratched my head more on Train RTU's (Voyagers) than anything... however I never have worked on (or even seen) a Pulse. I would like to play with one... get the book, learn how to work with it... and master it (just because it is there)... however it appears they are almost all gone... so I may never get to.

Good thread... lots of good stories.

Change out an in warranty 90% inducer assembly (diagnosed by installers) and add a 1/2" ball valve on the gas line where they tee'd off an existing line.

Originally Posted by jmac00

Jmac's rule of switch flipping~~~~~take the cover off, bang around for a few minutes, put it back together and get a ∆T (look like you know what your doing), Declare yourself the Master of all cooling, leaving the owner in stunned amazement at your greatness

seriously, it works everytime

My boss is always after me to come up with something like a "bad connection" or some other crap when they put batteries in the stat backwards or brush something against a furnace disconnect. Or inadvertently hitting the run program function when they never use it and it defaults to the factory specs.

I've never been able to bring myself to do it. Explain to them how it works and save them an inconvenience down the road - you still get the trip/diagnostic.

Originally Posted by jnsrose

Been with company 6 years doing mainly new construction. One day boss says your going on rotation. WTF I am no service guy. First call comes from one of the main builders we work for having a party Friday night with no ac. Try to pawn the call off but no takers. Go out to the residence and I look like a deer in the headlights. Says heater is in the back closet in basement where the party was. Open the door and remove a coat to turn on light switch and voila. AC fires up. Someone hung there coat and turned off switch and I was a hero. That is of course until my next call. Another story for later.

Jmac's rule of switch flipping~~~~~take the cover off, bang around for a few minutes, put it back together and get a ∆T (look like you know what your doing), Declare yourself the Master of all cooling, leaving the owner in stunned amazement at your greatness

seriously, it works everytime

Been with company 6 years doing mainly new construction. One day boss says your going on rotation. WTF I am no service guy. First call comes from one of the main builders we work for having a party Friday night with no ac. Try to pawn the call off but no takers. Go out to the residence and I look like a deer in the headlights. Says heater is in the back closet in basement where the party was. Open the door and remove a coat to turn on light switch and voila. AC fires up. Someone hung there coat and turned off switch and I was a hero. That is of course until my next call. Another story for later.

No heat, every thing sequences but no fire. I feel gas valve opening so its gotta be a problem. Told the tenant ide be back first thing in the morning. So i goto johnstone and get a very nice utube manometer. I get back and am ready to hook it up when i see a red tag on the ball valve stating "furnace wont fire" or something like that. Turn the gas on and every thing is fine. I never did find a problem and never had used the manometer in the feild since.but 6 months later im much wiser.

My first call was for a company I didn't even work for, my brother did. It was when spark ignition just came into widespread use. He called me because of a problem they were having a hard time finding, I found a bad connection on a Fenwal ignition control plug on a Heil.

Sure do,I changed a ignition control module in an Amana HTM package unit. I was 19 and scared that I was going to mess it up.

Pinchy bug stuck in contactor, causing compressor to single-phase. Only took 6 hours to find! I was da MAN that day! Saw the same thing with a spider 20 years later...took a lot less time to troubleshoot.

I cant even remember my first call from this morning?

Originally Posted by blitz

ummm you do need those metal plate cover on the pulse... it means prolly you have blocked intake/weak motor/dirty diaphragm. and u need the lennox tool kit for the pulse to work on it without pulling your hair off. you also need to pressure test those baby according to lennox manual. if it fails time to buy a new one.

Most people don't like to work on them because they don't understand them. The Lennox pulse was a great furnace.. We still have about 10 customers that have them and they love them.. The most common problem I run into is dirty diaphragm...but first big time mistake you can do is bypass a safety switch, anything happens to a family you would never be able to live with your self.

My boss sent me to replace a Heatmaker control board.Replced the control & turned on power.Unit started but wouldn't lite.Checked igniter & safeties,all we're good.I loosened the union on the gas pipe & no gas.Gas meter was locked out.The tech who condemned the control board swears the meter was on(he doesn't work for us anymore)

First service call after being on the job for 1 week. Condensate leak. Called my boss telling him we needed a plumber out here cause there was water in the A/C, and there must be a leaking water line somewhere.

Originally Posted by Scotty58

i was just looking up stuff on pulses and saw this thread. im 24 and have been working in hvac for 7 months and this is my first week of on call. haha my first call out this morning was on a lennox pulse and i had never even seen one run before. i found out just how big of a headache they are. they couldnt put the flame sensor and spark plug ina worse spot. but with the metal plate on over the inducer the unit would start and run for two seconds and kick off then retry and retry. i took the metal place off and it ran like a charm. embarassed to admit it took me forever to find that out. im going back with a guy with more experience monday to look at it again. just have the metal plate on loosely and it runs. i dont ever want to work on one of these again!

ummm you do need those metal plate cover on the pulse... it means prolly you have blocked intake/weak motor/dirty diaphragm. and u need the lennox tool kit for the pulse to work on it without pulling your hair off. you also need to pressure test those baby according to lennox manual. if it fails time to buy a new one.

And another thing: You know you've been around a long time when you're replacing equipment now that you replaced years ago - when it was new then. I remember putting in a Scotsman ice machine in this one restaurant. About 6 years later it changed owners and they wanted something else since the compressor died - so we put in a Manitowoc. Just recently I pulled that out and put in a Cornelius. They got 12 years out of the Manitowoc, too.