It really boggles the mind

[Mr Chesapeake]

Not really much of a rant, but I was sent out to do a PM on a heat pump because the homeowner is selling the property and had a home inspector say the unit was in bad shape. I come across an 18 year old Ruud heat pump system which was in fairly good shape for its age, but it had a dirty evaporator coil. Mind you, the space between the air handler and water heater is about 8 inches, so I couldn't slide it out to clean it. Told the homeowner that the water heater would have to be removed, which I could do, then coil pulled out and cleaned. When I quoted the price to do job, the customer asked me to leave and called the office to complain. Thankfully I had a picture to show my supervisor. I've been doing this work for about 22 years, and rarely come across something installed so stupidly where I live. Any of you other guys out there deal with this?

Oh yeah, you really gotta bend up the filter to get it in there.

[PLUMBERHVACTECH]

yah that stuff happens allot but usually the home owner has enough common sense to know what your talking about, btw nice vibration isolator lol, and love all the green flux on the wh., but home owners like that you wouldnt want to work for anyways so not too bad

[william antley]

One of my former employers decided to get into apartment and rental property hvac repairs. The apartments were the worst with the AHU in a closet with the water heater and the washer & dryer. You had loads more space there than the units I serviced.

[knewguy]

Looks like they added the wall to the left after. I have serviced residential in the 1990's. I serviced a furnace that was installed 6'' from the foundation wall the burners facing it. The furnace was at least 30 years old. Being a greenhorn it didn't even cross my mind to recommend turning it around. I layed on my side worked on the unit. I am happy I don't do residential any more.

[AMS481]

yeah thats rough man! people like that dont want to pay top dollar to have things done, because they dont respect the knowledge and experience it takes to perform those tasks correctly. they would rather have some hack screw it all up for the next homeowners, then have them pay someone to do it right....i really dont mind leaving if they want a second opinion or think you are too high. because a lot of times you come back and fix it one way or the other.

[ldmth44]

I guess it's a good thing that the HW heater wasn't a gas unit...

[-459FZPE]

I wish I had pictures but I came across a threw the wall c/u once that was under the kitchen sink. It had a bad fan motor, The tech had to take apart the sink plumbing to get to it.

[tpa-fl]

Why would the cust. call the office to complain? Usually they just call another person in the phone book and go with the cheapest (hack) they can find.

[Mr Chesapeake]

Why would the cust. call the office to complain? Usually they just call another person in the phone book and go with the cheapest (hack) they can find.

I guess they had nothing better to do than *****. I found out later that this customer is a relative of another customer of ours, and that customer buys a crap load of fuel oil from us for his marina. I have a feeling we'll be going back to do a freebie or something at cost just to keep a fuel oil customer.

[jumpit]

You should have told him you could call the codes department in to take a look at the clearences on it.

[sdeery]

Mr Chesapeake,
If you really want to stir the pot you could have a DOT person go down to that marina. From what I understand diesel fuel is taxed differently than fuel oil. If they dip the tanks and come up with dye he could face a lot of fines. But if your boss loses a source of revenue you might wind up with the short end of the stick.

[Mr Chesapeake]

Mr Chesapeake,
If you really want to stir the pot you could have a DOT person go down to that marina. From what I understand diesel fuel is taxed differently than fuel oil. If they dip the tanks and come up with dye he could face a lot of fines. But if your boss loses a source of revenue you might wind up with the short end of the stick.

Oh no, I am not smacking that hornets' nest. The company I work for is very large and owned by Central Hudson in New York. A lot of their revenue comes from fuel oil, and they own companies from Maine to North Carolina. I like my job.

[Tiger93rsl]

There worried about the PM but it's ok to leave the romex going into the water tank without installing conduit and fittings, I bet there is't a dissconct for the water heater either.