Professional Member
The right installer is the right service techs equal, especially in commercial.Originally Posted by John Markl
You feel that installers are on the same plane, as service techs?
Interesting.
You sure are cocky for a starving pilgrim.
Professional Member*
An installer and a service tech present two completely different mind sets.
Egos aside, they clearly are not equal, or the pay scales and demand would reflect this.
A service based company can survive without installers. But it won't work the other way around.
Technical incompetence is NOT a sales tool....
Professional Member
Why would anybody work it the other way around?
Service what you install, its not rocket science.
They both work together or they should at least compliment each other.
You sure are cocky for a starving pilgrim.
Professional Member*
The point being, a company with a service tech can make a go of it without and installer, whereas, a company with an installer, but no service tech can't.
Gotta have a doctor to run a doctor's office.
All the rhetoric in the world won't change the fact that a service tech in our industry has far more value and demand than an installer.
Technical incompetence is NOT a sales tool....
Professional Member*
I don't know too many companies that only service what they sell, and hang around very long.
Technical incompetence is NOT a sales tool....
Regular Guest
I can only comment on my own limited experience (only 3 or 4 years)...but I started out doing service...and love the challenges and finding solutions, and the satisfaction that it brings...but on the flip side... I just recently started working at a large company with several branches....got hired on for the resi hvac install side and absolutely love it!!!!
The seniors have juniors to help them, and the seniors are all licensed sheet metal guys....We don't get the "beer thirty" look in our eyes...probably because we work piecework...
Get to work on time, load up and go....Get to the job site, get the job done, do it right the first time around, when you are done you are done for the day!!!! That is a bonus, especially on days when you are back to the shop by 2 in the afternoon and can leave.
Then its miller time!!!!
There is the odd day when things may not go as planned, that end up being 5 to 7 pm, but they are not as common...But it is way better to be able to be home on weekends, not be on call, and usually be home early enough to pick the kids up from school and sit and have dinner together around the table at night!!!!!
No worrying about the boss wondering where you are....No gps tracking to worry about, customers generally get bored of watching an install after about 10 minutes, instead of looking over your shoulder for a 1/2 hr and trying to "help" diagnose a problem...lol
The coming a/c season may change things a bit and 5 pm quitting times might be more common, but still highly doable..
Install is for people who want to work...Service is for the lazy (that's not my opinion, just what the senior installer's tell me)
And yes the service side does make a little more money, but the trade off for me is huge!! Fortunately, by the time I get to where the kids are college age and money is more of a priority to pay for their college and stuff, I will have my time in, and be able to move over to the service side....and by that time I will be old enough and tired enough to want to have a "lazy" service job.....lol
No flames please...we all work hard for our bennies
AOP Committee/Professional Member*
The question I have is; if someone was ambitious, why would they be in Sherman Texas looking for a job? Certianly the ambitious type would go to Dallas to work.
Professional Member*
That shows how little you know about Sherman, Texas
Technical incompetence is NOT a sales tool....
AOP Committee/Professional Member*
I dont know much about sherman, you are correct. I like small towns, you cant make as much money as working out of a major city though. Been there, done that.
Professional Member
Installations take much more skill and knowledge than service in my opinion, at least on technical jobs. Also, installers can make much more than service guys. I have spent many 50-60 hour weeks installing boilers and other numerous pipefitting jobs that are in high demand because there are few people who can do the work and make it look right as well as make sure it works right when your done. I do controls, electrical, pipefitting and sheet metal and whatever else it takes, this takes a vast amount of knowledge to do it right, much more than a little troubleshooting and replacing a part, or looking at some guages and fiddling around with wires, as do most "service techs" I know who choose to do only service.
If you are talking about the basic residential installations, I agree, I was past that after a couple of years, but installer can mean alot of things
Professional Member
Like wise. If you don't know the proper way it was suppost to be installed,you can't fix it. Many problems result from improper installs.
The way technology is going someone who does installs only probably wouldn't be able to troubleshoot commercial single package units.
Ex. Trane Intellipaks.
Professional Member
Yep, with new geothermal, condensing boilers, high end residential equipment, and most complicated pipefitting and sheet metal jobs take a very smart and well trained installer. You need to be a service tech and then move on to installation to install the technical jobs, or at least tell somebody else exactly how to do each step.
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