Childhood HVAC stories

[ct_hvac_tech]

Well, since a couple of us were swapping stories of how we were interested in HVAC equipment as kids in my Oct. 11 1996 thread, I thought I'd start a thread on just that.

How young were you when you started taking interest in HVAC equipment?

I have been interested in it as far back as I can remember.

As I stated, even at 6 or 7 years old, I remember when I would go to people's houses I would always look at the heat & air equipment.

I knew when I was 11 or 12 years old, what brand of condensers were by looking at them from a distance LOL

When I was 13, we moved to another town and I can remember one day while we were there driving around looking for houses making a comment that during the time we were driving around, I noticed more Rheem condensers than I have ever seen in my life. At 13! LOL!

There were, too. Rheem and the old Singer condenser units were very common all throughout the town.

The house that I lived in from birth to age 9 had an old gas arkla servel A/C system, with a Brentwood furnace. (The only house I ever saw or heard of that brand name.)

The furnace worked good but the A/C never really worked right - I remember my folks always turning it off at night because the thermostat never satisfied and it ran continuously.

Every year the gas company would come out and start the A/C. I would be right there watching the tech wash it out and inspect it.

Have seen a few of those arkla servel gas units around but never worked on one or really learned much about them.

I remember that when my mom would turn the stat to cool, the furnace would come on, and the condenser had a few minutes delay before it came on. But what was funny, is that when she shut the t-stat off, (or if it satisfied), the furnace blower would stop, but the condenser would stay running for a few minutes. Strange.

I think that is where I started getting interested in mechanical stuff.

Whenever I was out on my bike or somewhere where I saw a heat & air truck, I would always go looking for the tech and start talking to him and asking questions.

To this day, I love it when kids watch me work when I am at someone's house. It reminds me of back in the days when I was that very age watching techs and asking all kinds of questions. If they aske me how stuff works, I gladly explain it all to them, and they get a kick out of it.

Most of the time, the parents will tell the kid to "leave the man alone" LOL I have had a few where the kid will sneak down, get caught and sent upstairs, and then sneak back down again LOL

I once told my Mom that I was glad she let me watch the techs that came to our house rather than making me stay inside, because that's part of what got me interested in it, and got me where I am today.



[Edited by ct_hvac_tech on 10-15-2005 at 03:06 AM]

[James 3528]

I was interested at a very early age cause we did not have it.

[HeyBob]

My Grand Father and my Father were both in this business, it's in my blood.

As a kid during the summer I would travel with my dad, he worked for ITT Nesbitt and traveled up and down the whole east coast working on those Multizones that never seemed to work.

I really think the only reason he took me along was so I could crawl up into the hotdeck on those things and change the sensor. LOL


As for kids watching you work, much more enjoyable than a retired engineer that's trying to tell you how to do your job!

[refrtech]

In the 10th grade I decided to go to VoTech for HVAC to get out of regular school for 1/2 a day. I spent 3 years in high school in VoTech . Even as of my senior year though I did not plan on making a career from it. I was a millitary brat and always wanted to go into the Air Force. My senior year I recieved a schollarship from VoTech to go to trade school. I passed on it @ first to go to the AF. Well after taking all of my physicals and ASVAB test I found out that my "friend" @ the time was prego !!!! So I passed on the AF and took the schollarship to trade school. It has been an uphill battle ever since !!! lol

[mayguy]

I had some intrest when I was a kid when my Dad used to be in the field.. If it was a job with someone we knew, I'd go alone and watch them work. I recall them installing the Williamson Oil-Saver in both of my grand parents home.. Man, they were huge, and had to come into the basmenet in pieces.

When i was about 12,. I came across some books dad had for training from Williamson, I'd sit down and read it.

many time I've sneek down into basments of friends/neighbors/family to see what they got and check it out.

one time. I was messing with the valve on my aunt and uncle's oil boiler (They were the only one that had hot water heat) I don't recall what I did.. But they woke up the next morning to a very cold house.. Dad knew I mess around and gave me crap about it!

In High School, I went to school at the Deaf Academy and lived on campus.. On weekends, if I stayed in the dorm, I'd asked the houseparent to open the basement to go down and check out the air handler.. I seen that they used the washable filters in the system, they wee CAKED! Looks like the maint guys have not beek keeping them cleaned.. So i'd take them out and washed them.. There were 4 large Trane air handler for the boys dorm.

Since the boys dorm was newer than the other buildings on campus, we didn't have a tunnel that leads to the power plant.. If I happend to be in the power plant, I'd sneek back into the Boiler area. I'd go back of them and open the peek hole and watch the big flame roar in the boiler..


One guy was pretty nice to give me the tour of the boilers.. They had 3 of them..

Baby boiler for summer to heat hot water.
Momma boilere used most of the time in the winter and pretty much ran non stop.
Pappa boiler for real high demand if needed or if mama was down..

The boilers was changed from high pressure to low pressure around '86-87.

The boiler burned about 1,000 gallon of oil a day.

The older buildings only had the steam radaitors, where the newer school building, and boys dorm had steam to hot water air handler.

My last two years in school, the just added McQuy water chiller to 2 units in the boys dorm... That was the only building that had A/C..

Now, most building now has A/C..

[Shophound]

Most of the time, the parents will tell the kid to "leave the man alone" LOL I have had a few where the kid will sneak down, get caught and sent upstairs, and then sneak back down again LOL

I once told my Mom that I was glad she let me watch the techs that came to our house rather than making me stay inside, because that's part of what got me interested in it, and got me where I am today

Cool thread topic, CT. Wondered what inspired it??

I can tell you that my folks letting me watch the tech that came to our house, and the tech himself, shares a large chunk of the reason I'm in this trade. The tech, named Wes Pardue, was up in years, worked for himself, and was patient as hell with my zillion questions. By the time I was 12 or so he had me able to understand basic refrigeration principles and electrical circuits. He would occasionally swing by the house unannounced to put a little refrigerant in (there was a slow leak he never bothered fixing because he liked to BS with my dad, who was a political cartoonist) at no cost to us, and would bring me an old gauge manifold set, an old blower motor that still ran but had too much play in the shaft or something, or some other part to study. The crowning touch was when he brought me the Modern Refrigeration and Air Conditioning book, which we had already agreed (via my parents) I'd pay partial cost for.

Years later when I was finally in a service truck running resi and light commercial, I wondered if I'd ever come across a kid as curious and interested in the trade as I was with Mr. Pardue. Never had one. Maybe California kids were just taught to snub the trades, I don't know. A few little kids would be curious now and then and watch until shooed away by their mothers, but no real abiding interest.

As for the Arkla Servel unit, the neighbors behind us had one. I remember the thing sounded strange when it ran and couldn't imagine how it worked being it didn't have a compressor. It was also troublesome for those people and they later had it ripped out and a Lennox condenser dropped in.

As for our house, it was one of the first new tract houses built with standard central a/c. Being such, it was horribly undersized and never had much balls until Pardue got in and later on tweaked it (ripped out the cap tube and put in a TXV, bumped up the comp capacity a tad, and finally stuck in a new condenser that lasted over 35 years).
It was a Lennox system, the condenser discharged air out a slanted front rather than on top. The compressor was a Westinghouse mounted on springs vs. rubber and sounded like a semi-hermetic when it ran. The compressor's terminals were actually ceramic lugs vs. what you find now on a hermetic pot. There was a Ranco differential switch (for high pressure cutout) like you'd see on a remote condenser for a walk-in cooler or freezer strapped to the commpressor. Start cap and pot relay came standard. I remember that unit so well because it was the one that kept taking a dump and the one Mr. Pardue would train me on.

What's funny about that is one time while running service in California I came across that same condenser on a rooftop. I got all nostalgic...over a stupid condenser! Like seeing a classic car from your youth or something!

[jacob perkins]

I was born in a panel wagon during an ice storm,while my dear old daddy was repairing an boiler in a ceramic factory

[RoBoTeq]

I did not give HVAC a thought till I had to find a job...QUICK!...when I was thrown out of public school system at 15.

I do recall some memories of our old boiler system though. I dried things quickly by hanging them on the boiler pipes and drifted to sleep every night serenaded by the ping,ping,ting-ting-ting---shoooooshhh of our heating system warming up the pipes.

[duc dowg]

I did not give HVAC a thought till I had to find a job...QUICK!...when I was thrown out of public school system at 15.

Robo that sounds like my story.lol

[mattm]

I was born a poor black child ... Oops wrong story.

I started out as an auto mechanic and got tired of being covered in grease all the time. A couple of my friends went through hvacr school and was doing pretty good so i did the same. That was 1987.

[ice machine undertaker]

I was born at a very early age...





Fred

[azdwight]

Neat thread.
My first taste was (9 y/o) my grandfather changing out his (working) oil furnace and me following behind and dismantling everything from it i could and being so proud of my pile of nuts screws and wires! Well until the guy he had sold it to showed to pick it up! then the impression was on my a@#.
I took a 25 year detour first as a Paratrooper then Paramedic. retired in Phx Az looking for a good career. Gotta admit i enjoy the challenges here and diagnostics almost as much as paramedicine. They just wont let me play with the sirens any more!

[Irishmist]

Also a good thread. Keeps us mindful of our roots in this industry. It does good to reflect occassionally.

My interest in HVAC began when I took a summer job after school with a cmopany that my cousin owned, and still does. Worked like a dog, and learned more than I ever expected to. Found out, that I got a feeling of personal satisfaction that I had never been able to achieve with anything else I had done.

I was fortunate at the time to be dumb enough to question everything I saw. I was doubly fortunate to be with someone who would take the time, and enjoyed giving me the explanations and teaching me.

As a kid, all I remember is the oil furnace guy coming occassionally to service our unit that seemed anyway to be about 10 ft. square in the 'utility room.' That movie "A Christmas Story" reminds me of it, when the father is always messing with the furnace! lol.

Hey Bob: you said it's in your blood. You know you gotta' have that changed out by 2010 don't you? lol

James 3258: I can remember as a kid being so hot at night in the summer, I would drag my pillow out to the front porch and plop down.

CT: I also remember taking things apart when I was a kid to see how they worked. Only thing is, I didn't have to put them together again until I got older. lol. Dad wasn't too keen on this aspect of my inquisitive mind.

Was always told to give the 'servicemen' that came to work on things a wide berth. They didn't want: a) me to distract them and run up the bill, b) me to get hurt, c) me to distract them so they got hurt, d) didn't want me hangin' around strange men. lol

"thanks...........for the memories...." Dean Martin.
"thanks...........for the mammories..." Anna Nicole Smith.



[Edited by John Lloyd on 10-16-2005 at 05:24 PM]