The 5 year barrier?

[cajunhvac75]

So it seems to be a fairly universal belief that it takes 5 years as a helper/apprentice to advance to full technician/mechanic status. Now I'm not talking about "classification"...I'm in the dirty south and we are sans union and no requirements in Louisiana whatsoever to get your HVAC state license other than paying for it and passing the state test. I'm referring to the ability to go out in the field and competently do HVAC work. Why so long? Is it because so many guys are stuck in attics pulling duct work for the first few years? Now I realize that all men are not created equally (the guy I replaced was a helper for 5 years and was never trusted to do even the most basic of tasks alone...hard working simpleton), but I'd really like to hear from some guys that were out getting it done after a year or two. I only personally know two HVAC company owners, and they BOTH went out on their own with only tech school and 2 years or less hands on experience. One of said companies (the one I currently work for) is older than I am, the other is 10+ years old and going strong with 3 trucks on the road and 5 full time employees. So what gives? Who out there among you has struck out on their own after a couple years and is still making it? Not just guys that started their own business after just a couple years, but also the guys getting paid real money working for other companies after just a year or two. How did you do it? I pay attention, ask questions, take notes (ya, the guy I work with thinks its HILARIOUS that I take notes in the field), let my tech relax and watch me do his work whenever possible, and come home and read my books and lurk on here. I'm guessing that's what you did???

[syndicated]

They say it takes 10,000 hours of experience before your really good at something.
That works out to about 5 years at 40 hours a week.

[supertek65]

i think 5 years is fair!

8 years for commercial!

after running service for five years you have seen enough different stuff that you can be pretty good!

of course when i started there were no circuit boards or ignitors?

there was still plenty to learn!

[wadeh]

I have been in this trade for 20 years and still run into stuff that makes me think, you can be a functional tech in less than 5 years yes but it literally takes years of f*****g things up and learning from your mistakes to be a seasoned competent tech. Just my.02

[viceman]

i could be wrong,but, i get the impression you have been doing this for a couple years and you think you are ready for the big bucks. Maybe you are, but i doubt it.
I have been in this trade since 86 and find myself humbled more often than i care to admit.
Trust me, you aint seen nothin yet.

[Tech Rob]

From what I've seen and experienced myself, I can tell you that in most cases, it takes 5 years just to get to the point where you're not breaking and @#$%ing up as much as you fix. I think it takes 10-15 years to be "good".

[Hiptech]

Have to agree, took me about 4 years to move from installer helper to installer, about another month or two to quit worrying about the next days install, what am I doing tomorrow? Few more months to know I knew enough to handle most problems I walked into. Few more months, to stop being cocky and realize there is always something new to learn. Now I know, as long as I am in the business, there will always be something that I do not know or have yet to learn. This is a business of change, you learn something new everyday, if you don't, maybe you should be a plumber, water always flows downhill!!

[GrizzlyB]

I think 10,000 hours is about right. I think you can get that in before the 5 year mark if youre putting a lot into it outside of work. I work at a commercial company, but when i was trying to learn i would help some local residential guys (on their side work)in the evening for free just to get some experience. I read a lot, spent some time trolling on this site, took some classes and even got my state license.

[dandyme]

experience doesn't necessarily equal ability; you have to posses a desire to be good/better.

hang out at any parts house late in the day and see for yourself.

[second opinion]

Having many years of experience at a specific trade means nothing if you do not know what is right and what is wrong. There are thousands of individuals in various professions that have not a clue what they are doing.

Yo have got to have the desire to be the best at what you do. And you must have someone with knowledge to learn this from. Unfortunately most company owners are not concerned with technicians that are technically proficient, if you can convince a customer to purchase equipment and accessories you are considered a great technician.

The sad part is if you do not have the complete knowledge base of how a piece of equipment should perform, it is impossible to give your customer the service they are paying for.

Profit in itself does not equate to knowledge.

[beenthere]

hard to learn both install and service in just a couple years. 5 years gives a good time to get a good foundation in both.

[junkhound]

Slightly different perspective as worked for big corporations.

First hvac type job was ductwork on new 707 aircraft (old guy, eh?) It was about 30 (thirty) years until I was the guy to call when all else did not work.

As far as timing -- after just 2 years had been exposed to enough that I knew it would take at least 20 years to know what others around me knew -- but aircraft ECS (environmental control system aka HVAC) is maybe somewhat more complicated than residential hvac ?

Heck, when I started doing residential in retirement for some friends, it took a couple of years on this board to learn some seemingly simple but very practical and useful details about residential systems (example - see the flare thread on mini-splits)

[coolwhip]

It took me 10 years in the trade working full time to feel confident to give it a go on my own. I would do installations in both residential and commercial when needed, service when needed, and help the boss with estimates when needed.

I learned quite a bit, but after 22 years or so I still can be humbled by the simplest things from time to time and forget things as well. I can search for a tool for 10 minutes and find it in my back pocket. Ive looked for my glasses and they were all ready on my head.

Its crazy!

[firecontrol]

When you're working for someone else you're only as good as they say you are. When you are on your own you're only as good as your customers think you are.

Knowledge, experience and being able to think and work your way through anything that you run up against comes with time. The benchmark you should be looking to achieve is when you can go out to work on something you've never seen before and can take your knowledge and experience and teach yourself the new equipment while you work on it. THEN you go home at the end of the day and dig for every bit of information on it you can find and back up your "ideas" with the facts.

Everyone here I'd guess will agree that in this industry you never stop learning. If you worked today and didn't learn something new then you weren't paying attention.

[timebuilder]

When I first started doing electro-mechanical work in the 1970s, I found that the onus was on ME to get better at what I was doing. Things that helped me:

Living on a farm for a few years in my youth
building electronic kits
being a hot rodder
working for a plumber
working for an electrician
taking a couple of semesters of formal electronics training
going back to school for more algebra
becoming a flight instructor (thinking on your feet, problem solving)

That's just a short list, but they ALL gave me an edge in diagnosing and repairing most things.

For me, the five year point of competency happened much sooner, because in reality, I had five years with most of the concepts many years ago.

The person best able to evaluate where you stand is someone you work with, who has seen what mistakes you made, and whose mistakes you may have seen, in turn.

You really have to love to find out what's wrong and make it right. If you have that inner drive, nothing can stop you in this business.

[hurtinhvac]

As a 1.5 year tech I would generally agree with the 5 year philosophy for all around competency in matters of airflow, familiarity with the extremely diverse groups of systems out there and just basic tech savvy. And safety - especially durung the heating season.

That said; I'd guess 75% of what I encounter requires only the most basic knowledge to diagnose and correct. A switch is just a switch, a board just a board...ignitors, caps, fuses, charging, etc. It's the "why" that takes time to develop, I'm finding. Why did the limit wear out and stay open? Did the H/O fess up to a badly restricted filter (9 out of 10 times there is a brand new filter by the time you get there)? Motor and cap OK? Coil? Kid's clothes laying all over multiple supply vents? Blocked return? Do I need to take a good look at the heat exchanger?

And a fair amount times it is nothing at all - just cheap parts. The board has power to it and is not passing it when it should, no short marks, water stains etc. Just a board that failed after eight, ten or twelve years. Or two months.

I was blessed and cursed with being thrust out there solo within two weeks. Rewarded with an extremely fast and growing competence; plagued by the occasional botched call and difficulty falling asleep sometimes. And just when I'm feeling good, competent and actually happy to catch a no heat instead of another boring PM; I round the corner in the basement only to be confronted with an old Mueller Climatrol low boy (oh crap...wtf!?). If it ain't got a whole mess of wires going everywhere to safeties, motors, ignitors and what all; I quickly get lost and intimidated in the simplicity of it all. God forbid a two transformer system - have to pull out my phone and look at the picture of a diagram a senior tech scrawled on a piece of cardboard. Fan/limit switch? "Dude...time for a new furnace - did you know about the the new 90% mandate coming in May"?

And then there's always the low voltage weirdness (14 volts...what the hell? I expect to see about 24 or nothing so I know which way to go).

So yeah...I have about 3 1/2 years to go...

[Joehvac25]

In five years you may find yourself able to fix the problems at hand but then you have to learn and see future problems and real safety issues. Once you start to see the whole picture your on the right track, I have 5 years in but like timebuilder said I was a certified mechanic in high school and always fixing things so it came easier.


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[jtrammel]

I think at 4-5 years you are just getting over being cocky about thinking you know everything then you realize you know nothing and start to learn something and that's what makes a good tech.

[garyed]

I don't know much about the business end of what experience companies expect but I disagree with most of the guys here.
I'll take a rookie who can think over experience any day of the week. A good thinker with a good teacher shouldn't need more than 5 months let alone 5 years to be a decent tech. What we do is not rocket science no matter how you slice it & we have a huge margin of error too. We might cause someone to be inconvenienced for a few days at worst but we're not going to kill anyone or give them a disability for life. I enjoy learning about our trade because there is so much to learn but beer can cold will still usually get the system cooling. Probably half the experienced techs out there are still charging equipment like that today without call backs. Experience is always a plus but it doesn't help when you run across something you've never experienced before. Know the basics of how the system works & how to think it through & you can fix anything.

[Chuck]

Right on, Gary.

It also depends on how much you have to do, how much you have to know, how good you have to be.

If you start at a large company, there is always the more experienced guy to ask, the boss always has someone better. In other words you always have a crutch.

Then some guys start at a small company and maybe the lead tech, the guy with all the experience leaves. Now the new guy is the only go to service tech and it is sink or swim for him. This is what happened to me. I had to learn to fix everything, and I only had 3 years before I was technically the senior service technician! I was about 7 years from being ready for that!!! No senior tech to ride along to those problem units, no senior tech to call for help! So I had to learn how to fix stuff, there was no other choice. It took a lot of studying everything I could get my hands on I would devour. Now at 7 years experience, I feel confident that I can fix anything I get called to, residential, commercial refer (but no racks yet), commercial up to 50 tons, boilers, etc.

So it entirely depends on you!!!!!!! How much can you learn, can you apply the knowledge you have to real world problems? If you are dedicated to becoming the best service tech in the world and focus on achieving that 5 years is plenty of time to become a world class technician!