All about my day.....

[ct_hvac_tech]

First call this morning was a cleaning on an oil boiler.

Get there and all is going good until I spill oil.......all over the CARPET in the boiler room. I start to clean up the oil, which surprisingly most of it comes up with a few rags, but now I have the problem of odor and stain.

I put down some odor kill powder and start grinding it into the carpet. Once I have this done, my intent was to go out to my truck and see what I had to get this sh*t out of the carpet.

The customer has some boxes laying right there, so I move them to cover the stain. Was standing there thinking about how I'm going to clean this mess up and the customer comes down and wants to know why it smell so bad of oil.

I tell her it is part of the cleaning, which normally it does smell like that even when no oil is spilled. As I'm explaining to her, she comes over and moves the boxes, and says "Yeah, well what's THIS?"

I told her as soon as I got the boiler squared away I would work on the stain. I happened to have an old bottle of resolve on my truck, which to my surprise, did a pretty good job taking the stain out. Had she never came down, she probably never would have known oil was ever spilled there.

All this time she is saying "I want that rug replaced if that stain doesn't come out!"

I got it cleaned up and she went down and looked at it, and says "There is still a dark spot there, after it dries if it still looks like that, you are replacing my rug!"

This rug was a piece of low end carpet that was like 6 feet by 9 feet that didn't even run from wall to wall!

I left there and called the office to get my next call, and the secratary says "How did the stain come out?" The custmoer had called our office before I was even in my truck!

I get my next call, another cleaning, which went good with no problems.

Next call is a no heat, new account. We deal mainly with oil, but this customer has a Trane gas unit. I lived in the midwest, I can handle gas, no problem. Find the draft inducer motor bad.

The problem with gas in connecticut us that no one person has parts for it......litterally every brand of furnace, you have to call a different place to get the parts, and it takes at least a week most of the time to get the stupid parts once you do order them. (This really pisses me off, as when I lived in Kansas, I could order a part for any friggin' unit and have it there the next day.) Anyway, usually if it is a gas unit, we decline it. The parts hassle is the only reason why.

I call all over the place, closest trane dealer is Portland, Connecticut, and the part would take 3-7 business days to get here.

Sure, I could go to the supply house and get a motor and whack off the molex plug and wire nut a retrofit in, but I'm not going to rig it like that. (If I do it, it gets done right.)

So I tell the customer she is better off calling a gas service co.

Next call is a reset problem, secratary says we were there TWICE yesterday. I get there and it is a mobile home with a miller furnace. Off on lock-out. I reset it, fire is going good and strong, but in 45 seconds it locks out. I reset it to look at the fire again. Open the inspection door, right about then the blower kicks on, and I get a back pressure so bad it would have cooked the hair on my arms if they'd been near it. Bad heat exchanger. Luckilly I found this before another company did or worse yet, the custmoer went to bed one night and never woke up.

Condemned the furnace, and got my next call. A no heat at a school bus company office 45 minutes away.

I get there, and the office guy says "Yeah it just won't run, they were in here the other day and I have no idea what they did, but the building filled with smoke so they finally decided to call you guys." This guy was new himself, said he has only worked there since August.

He shows me to the furnace, which has the front cover off and the primary control just hanging there by the wires.

A fairly new tempstar furnace with a sidewall power venter.

I turn the power on to the unit and the burner comes on. I then notice the power venter is not running....but the burner IS.........NOT GOOD!

So I am looking at the wiring, and someone decided to take the power venter completely out of the curcuit! So I go through all the wiring, and wire it all back up the way it is supposed to be, and checked all the safties.

Now to the burner. They changed their own nozzle & filter, and must have messed with the air band because it was out of adjustment. I change the nozzle & filter again and start it up.

At that point I decided I better do a smoke test to make sure it is burning ok, at which point I discovered that there was no hole in the smoke pipe. In other words, NO ONE has ever done an efficiency test. ( I checked with the office, this was our first time ever being here.)

So I did the efficiency, adjusted it all up and got it running. By this time it was right on 5 O'clock.

Tried calling in over phone & radio, could not raise anybody, they must have been all set though because no onje has called looking for me LOL

I'm on call tonight, so far have not gotten any calls since I've been home but I'm on till the morning so we shall see what the night will bring!

[gruntly]

Did oil (as well as NG & LP) for years... Basically only have a couple boilers left including a greenhouse that burns 22gph. Most stuff has been converted to gas in our area.

[Shophound]

Ah, the joys of runnin' resi and light commercial calls...and bein' on call to boot! Gotta love it.

Next time someone starts running down us in-house guys, I'll think of both this post and my own resi/light commercial days and think, "Yep, to each his own."

Notwithstanding, you sound like a thorough and competent tech, catching things others miss and possibly saving lives by being diligent. Keep it up.


And CARPET in a boiler room? Sheesh...some people. That's like putting mink fur on a toilet seat.

[ryan_the_furnace_guy]

Sounds a little bit like my day.

Got a call for an Amana furnace yesterday. Water leaking from furnace. It was a four year old condensing furnace. Show up and open up the access panels. Most of the tubing inside had corroded away and/or cracked. Water leaking into the cabinet and down onto the floor. Do a thorough visual inspection to make sure that no water came in contact with any electrical or mechanical parts. All good there. Try to contact local Amana distributor. Tech help there is absolutely retarded. Could not give me an answer if their lives depended on it. Drain tube what? Drain tube kit what? Piping in the cabinet from the inducer what? Swear to God, these people have never seen the inside of a condensing furnace! Try to call Amana, (ICP) but they won't even talk to me. Have to go through distributor. Spent two hours going through this all to find out if there was a replacement tube & clamp kit for this model, or not? Got so fed up I said screw it I will field fabricate this in using my own tubing. Only my van and shop did not have any. Ran all over town looking for the tubing, finally found some at a local auto parts store. Retrieved the tubing and returned. Spent only-God-knows-how-long trying to cut and connect this tubing so that the drains would work with my giant fingers wedged in a tiny corner of the cabinet wrapped in control wiring. Amana's little tube ports (for lack of a better term) are hard to deal with. After hours of cutting my hands on zip screws and sheet metal. Had to fashion a hillbilly bandaid out of paper towel and electrical tape, which greatly helped with my dexterity. I finally get everything all together. Also cleaned the furnace and fixed a venting issue.

Second call today, "water leaking out of a furnace, an Amana furnace, an Amana furnace at "so-and-so's" house". My dispatcher loves to do that to me. Go back and guess what the tubing that I used is thicker than the original and because of the way that Amana shapes their condensate traps with the little tubing ports so close together, I couldn't get the tiny little 1/4" drain hose connected right. Take it all apart and try again with no luck. Grab a Carrier trap and use that one. There is more space between the little ports. Cut out a portion of the furnace cabinet so that I can sneak the hoses right out and mount the trap on the outside. Only problem now is that the long tube that runs from the factory coupling where the inducer connects to the exhaust pipe is flexible and this tube wants to pop off no matter how you clamp it. Finally get it all RIGGED TOGETHER. When I realize that the trap now is directly in the line of where the AC drain was. Oh crap. Have to completely reroute their 3/4" drains. Bare in mind, all of this (over 6 hours combined) is priced at one flat rate hour.

Thanks Amana. I know I shouldn't brand bash, but I could build a more well-thought-out furnace (in terms of serviceability) in my garage using a camp fire and fans.

[ralphtheplumber]

Originally posted by ct_hvac_tech
Get there and all is going good until I spill oil.......all over the CARPET in the boiler room.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am. This boiler can't be installed on a combustible base. I need to tear all this carpet out and dispose of it for you"

Originally posted by ct_hvac_tech
Next call is a no heat, new account. We deal mainly with oil, but this customer has a Trane gas unit. I lived in the midwest, I can handle gas, no problem. Find the draft inducer motor bad.

I just talked to a guy today with a year-old trane. Same problem.

Originally posted by ct_hvac_tech
Open the inspection door, right about then the blower kicks on, and I get a back pressure so bad it would have cooked the hair on my arms if they'd been near it. Bad heat exchanger. Luckilly I found this before another company did or worse yet, the custmoer went to bed one night and never woke up.

Nice.

Originally posted by ct_hvac_tech
I get there, and the office guy says "Yeah it just won't run, they were in here the other day and I have no idea what they did, but the building filled with smoke so they finally decided to call you guys."

Of course they did.

It's ok, man. Tomorrow will be better.

[MikeJ]

Trying to figure out where you are located.
Clicked on the red house, got Yahoo search and typed in the ryan_the_furnace_guy which gave me two links, both HVAC-Talk. Hmm I think I just went in a circle.

Just thinking outside the box which is dangerous I know.

And not second guessing but wondering about that furnace.
You were on a one hour flat fee and found you needed parts and decided to improvise. Ok. been there done that.

But, it can't be that cold where you are at and you are not an Amana dealer and therefore understandably don't have all their parts in your inventory. So why not just say, "Hey, you got problems and parts are not readily available to fix this so I will order parts and call you when they are available" You want rush shipment? Will cost a little extra but I can arrange it.

Again, you did what you had to do but I am curious about spending that much time on some engineers brainfart. One day I want to hang one just to watch them squirm and contort themselves. I might put a mirror in front of them so they can enjoy the show too.

[ryan_the_furnace_guy]

Originally posted by MikeJ
Again, you did what you had to do but I am curious about spending that much time on some engineers brainfart. One day I want to hang one just to watch them squirm and contort themselves. I might put a mirror in front of them so they can enjoy the show too.

Very good questions. These are the same questions my boss is going to have. I know it sounds like a giant cluster----. It was just one of those jobs that gets deeper and deeper as you go. You've had those right? Anyway it is getting down to almost freezing here at night. It was already 60 in this ladies house and she had a two-month old baby boy - I just couldn't bare the thought of leaving her w/o heat with such a small infant.

[doglips]

you guys are really starting to make me reconsider my career choice....wonder if its too late to change my major to septic tank cleaning

[MikeJ]

You can have my title of king of chit then.

Know what you mean ryan, been there, done that.

[Dowadudda]

Personally, if I had to deal with a customer who *****es at me like I was there child, I'd lose it. I have no idea about oil burners, but from reading here, there messy. And it's a mess to clean. The carpet next to this oil burner is a risk the homeowner takes. Eff her. How in theeeee world do you guys in residential put up with **** like that is beyond me.

Another thing I got from the first post was about the end of the day and you trying to call in and not able to get a hold of anyone. I hate shops that run that way. The way my opertion is drilled down and dialed in, it is almost impossible not to get a hold of me. I could be in Hawaii and you can still get me at 3 am local time.

I beleive the owner should always be well aware of what his men are up to and there should always be a final word from the owner to his techs at the end of the day. Or atleast a service manager or such. Judging by the size of your shop, which I am assuming is small, that owner should be more involved than he is.

Pretty obvious your not being directed what so ever, especillay on the Trane. You could easily have those parts shipped by AM. You just lost a customer. And it is not neccesarily your fault. You were not being directed. I realize it aint your "thing". All the more reason as your boss I'd a pushed you to get those parts on their way. Why? Cause your gonna learn, even if I have to come out and give you a hand. And were gonna have a new account all in one. Missed out on a learning experience and could have got paid for it as well.