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I've got my refrigeration and air conditioning journeyman ticket. Most of the times when I show up on site to service a rooftop, a boiler or what have you I get called a plumber a lot more than anything so I kinda gave up on it.
Now if anybody asks... I'm the plumber.

Originally posted by ozone drone
You guys have heard me praise my fairly new gig as a "Central Plant Operator".... and I went to great lengths to say we do it all in-house. But (or Butt)part of the territory is the friggin sewage ejection and sump pumps.

I never in 30 years had to work/worry about these things.
For those who don't know, in commercial buildings all the toilets when flushed are piped to a big pit in basement.
This sewage pit has a means of sensing the height of the water by either float ball floats, enclosed mercury floats or electronic level sensing rods (Warrick level sensor) and when the pit gets full, sewage ejection pumps kick on to pump the shit into the sewer system ...

It ain't a pretty sight or smell ladies and gentlemen. The museum was completely gutted 4 years ago for a complete remodel and a major addition. Money was found to add gobs of aesthetically frivilous artsy fartsy BS like an Atrium with a "vaulted candle dome" Tons upon tons of Saudi Arabian Granite for the exterior, granite floors etc. Yet they left the original 1972 Sewage Pumps!!!

I asked "What were you thinking..hand out gold plated clothespins to apply to the nose upon entry when the rusted out pumps fail and turds are floating in the basement?"

Anyway you can bet your sweet ass that yours truly AIN'T gettin my sweet ass down in those pits when the pumps fail!
I call in the contractor calvary for those things..end of story.

hey it is only human waste

The official name of our corporation is Bennington Refrigeration Inc. Sometime in the 80's we got a dba to do business as Bennington Cooling & Heating. People didn't realize that refrigeration had anything to do with air conditioning.

I realize that most companies put "heating" first but around here a lot of companies do heating and no air conditioning. So I wanted to put the cooling first.

No matter how many times I correct suppliers that it is Cooling first we still get sent stuff with Bennington Heating & Cooling. Then they correct you on the phone like you don't know the name of your company. "I have you down as 'Bennington Heating & Cooling'" Well you are WRONG.

You guys have heard me praise my fairly new gig as a "Central Plant Operator".... and I went to great lengths to say we do it all in-house. But (or Butt)part of the territory is the friggin sewage ejection and sump pumps.

I never in 30 years had to work/worry about these things.
For those who don't know, in commercial buildings all the toilets when flushed are piped to a big pit in basement.
This sewage pit has a means of sensing the height of the water by either float ball floats, enclosed mercury floats or electronic level sensing rods (Warrick level sensor) and when the pit gets full, sewage ejection pumps kick on to pump the shit into the sewer system ...

It ain't a pretty sight or smell ladies and gentlemen. The museum was completely gutted 4 years ago for a complete remodel and a major addition. Money was found to add gobs of aesthetically frivilous artsy fartsy BS like an Atrium with a "vaulted candle dome" Tons upon tons of Saudi Arabian Granite for the exterior, granite floors etc. Yet they left the original 1972 Sewage Pumps!!!

I asked "What were you thinking..hand out gold plated clothespins to apply to the nose upon entry when the rusted out pumps fail and turds are floating in the basement?"

Anyway you can bet your sweet ass that yours truly AIN'T gettin my sweet ass down in those pits when the pumps fail!
I call in the contractor calvary for those things..end of story.

And when mechanical refrigeration first came out, it was electrical contractors who were some of the first copeland and tecumseh dealers.

hey somebodies crap is somebody elses bread and butter might be mine when I get into cleaning drains next year

Originally posted by Diceman
I can barely stand to wipe my OWN ass.......

Amen. Same here.

Originally posted by Diceman
If you go back in time, like to the 30's or 40's or so, practically all service companies were involved in plumbing and heating. Heating back then was done by plumbers, much of it hot water or steam, they went hand in hand. My grandpops biz and my dads biz were called Dice Plumbing & Heating.
Then as A/C became popular, many of those same companies got into it as well.
Only later on did strictly A/C and Heating companies start springing up a lot.
I am talking mainly about the resi side of things now.
Anyway, old habits and names are hard to break.
I started out doing plumbing, and soon realized it wasn't for me.....whew........

Pretty dead on...

When forced air heat hit the market, the market was cold northern cities. They were the area of highest motivated, best able potential client-base concentrated in the smallest areas and accessible by major shipping. Guess who got the new heat first?

When a/c came along it was another circulated liquid in a coil added to the 'forced air' heating ducts, which already contained a heat exchanging surface of somekind that the plumber was (supposedly) learning to deal with as it came along. This is why so many freon based systems do not peform well on older homes. No one then, no matter how visionary, could have forseen needing 300 cfm average on most of the house's room runs on a calculated duct run for heating.

When heatpumps came along and further complicated the process of giving econonomical heating sources then refrigerant bearing components and controls as a seperate trade began to emerge.

This, IMHO, is why a knowledge of control concept and design, design principles and application of Man J and D (as a min.) and an ability to assimilate new knowledge into practice as soon as possible will always define the true modern master in residential 'comfort control systems' over the nest 10-20 years in an ever saturating market. Refrigeration is a market unto itself...

I can barely stand to wipe my OWN ass.......

hey dice why isn't plumbing for you

If you go back in time, like to the 30's or 40's or so, practically all service companies were involved in plumbing and heating. Heating back then was done by plumbers, much of it hot water or steam, they went hand in hand. My grandpops biz and my dads biz were called Dice Plumbing & Heating.
Then as A/C became popular, many of those same companies got into it as well.
Only later on did strictly A/C and Heating companies start springing up a lot.
I am talking mainly about the resi side of things now.
Anyway, old habits and names are hard to break.
I started out doing plumbing, and soon realized it wasn't for me.....whew........

well I believe that that is some people in any trade that are just mechanicaly gifted and can fix anything u put in front of them but there is alot of plumbers in my area that say plumbing and heating when if u ask them the last time they changed an hsi on a furnace they will say what happened to tc and standing pilots

I am just asking this because I got a call to day asking that since I do heating do I do plumbing since their basement ws flooded and the furnace wouldn't work

It's not so bad when they just call plumbers to fix it, it's really bad when they actually do try to fix it. Now I know there are some plumbers out there who know thier stuff and can fix anything under the sun, but thats kinda rare.

poop and furnaces make since.

NOT

I know that plumbers will run gas lines but I have no idea how toilets got mixed up with mechanical trades.

I traded Plumbing & Heating

to just the Furnace Co. name. Toilets are for pooin' in. Not for me to work on.
Furnace out? Better call a plumber! Where the hell did that come from? I hate that too! I even tried having a furnace ad under plumbing 1 year. Gotta lotta calls........ Hey my toilets stopped up!

why is HVAC ALWAYS linked with plumbing?