Stupidest Service Call you've run!!!

[akelesis]

yes your soo right about a customer buyin something and asking if you can install it for them. i personally wouldnt, how about if the part becomes defective right off the bat... !! like a Boiler Pump or a thermostat. Ive ran into so many calls where the customer says that he wants a new thermostat put in and i get there and he has the crappest tstat that you can ever buy and something of course im not fimilar with... and the kicker is that the customer agreed with the price over the phone with our tstat and installation cost.. but by the time i get there. he says i mentioned to the office that i had my own thermostat (which is never the case) so im at the customers house waiting for 1/2 hr for the conversation to end and not able to do the job so i ended up wasting almost 1 hr doing nothing and not getting paid. which gets me steamed off. that has happened a lot unfortunetly! and then when i get back to the office.. its my fault that i wasnt able to do the job? because i wasnt convincing enough my boss says? stubborn customer? not wanting to argue and make the company look bad. and of course im leaving there with a smile didnt convince the customer ? what the hell.

[mason]

Here's just a few off the top off my head.
1) get a call for t-stat problem, get there and the guy explains that he is an engineer he made sure he put on his new t-stat exactly the right way but now nothing works and he has checked all the wiring schematics and it's all perfect in the unit too... I pull a 3amp fuse out of my pocket and swap it, put the door back on and the unit fires up, he looks at me says how did you know that... Just had a feeling : ). The next fall he calls again, furnace runs for about a minute and then shuts off, when I get there I ask him if he's been messing with the unit. He says he had checked the pilot and decided it needed adjusting but that he got it dialed in perfectly... I tell him his unit needs to have the gas valve regulator dialed down, he looks at me says how do you know that, I say because your pilot doesn't have an adjustment screw. Go down and sure enough he has cranked his valve as high as it goes, turned it down and unit stopped going off on limit.
2) Many times, no heat/ac call, get there and say "see this switch on the stat that is set on off.."
3) no heat call get there and furnace is going off on limit, I pull the filter out(3m super no allergy static drop killer) and check temp rise... Perfect. Show the home owner and he asks what I'm trying to pull on him because there is no way at all the filter could cause a unit to have problems and he knows this because he is an engineer, I show him the temp rise with and without the filter he says he is not buying my tricks because he knows I'm just trying to sell him a new unit(haven't said anything about a new unit). I let him know that we could look into decreasing his total external static pressure by looking over his while system and that he might just need a little duct reworking or something to be able to use his 3m filter and he looks at me like I'm completely crazy he did pay the bill though.
4) go back on a new install for no heat, unit is locked out for failure to prove flame, check incoming gas pressure 0, check it at low regulator 0(propane), check at tank 0. Look at tank gauge and it says 50% full. Tell customer she is out of gas before I can continue she says "no your wrong we checked it's 50%" I say ma'am your gauge is broken, she says "well that's convenient to say and how can you prove that" I say it's not putting out any pressure, she says "well I don't know how your fancy tools work so I can't understand that". I say ok ma'am your tank at 50% weighs about 1000lbs you think I can move 1000lbs, she says "well no", I say come with me and push her tank off it's concrete blocks all of a sudden I went from sketchy tech to hero ! The gas company came out and wouldn't even use the tank because it had structural leaks and broken gauge.

[Blueberry120]

I was sent to a national guard light house outpost on Warwick Point in Warwick, RI. The call was for no heat. When i arrived there were 3 national guard mechanical engineers waiting for me. They were there to escort me into the facility and show me the area of the light house that was down. I walk into the room and they show me the thermostat. It was a programmable cheap one that ran on batteries. It was blank and had a big picture of a Battery taking up the whole screen. .... .... i said to myself, "that explains why our infrastructure is falling apart... these numb nuts are the ones designing everything!!!!!!!!!!!

[19characterusername]

Years ago the first job I ever designed, thru wall splits in a historic coop building. I went over to do the punch list and the GC complains about poor cooling/humidity control in the bedrooms. I find almost no airflow at the diffusers. Check the unit, sounds like the fan is surging. The suction line at the condensing unit was iced up. I said, "assuming the charge is right seems like ductwork blockage." He says "Must be your design. I don't hear any fan surge, and I'm not moving the furniture to access the unit." I suggest that one of us will be inspecting the unit and running a camera through the duct work and there will be trouble for him if it's me. He moves the furniture, reaches in to the return ductwork and pulls out a 32 gallon trash bag. I'm just going to assume that was to comply with the spec of "protect open ends of sheetmetal ductwork with plastic film during construction".

A colleague of mine had something similar happen on a 10,000 cfm unit, "pulsating pressure fluctuations in a return duct causing oil canning". Plastic sheeting was waving over a massive return grille in a core and shell retail space. No one thought to remove the protective sheeting before trying to start up the unit.

[Hirschowl]

No Heat. Upon arrival, the house had no electic power. Had to explain to the homeowner that his furnace needed electricity to run. Then he was upset that I was charging him to come out...

[tstcstu]

Car dealership in Gatesville Tx I had to drive drive from Waco Tx on a Saturday for water leak. They said was from a packaged unit on the roof. I didn't even get out a ladder cause it was burning hot water, sorry sign the ticket and call a plumber.

[Mr Clean]

Had a Sunday afternoon call several years ago. New Customer, no A/c call. I happened to be out and about w/my girlfriend that day, in my truck because I was on call. Drive 15 minutes to get there. Pull up and another tech is knocking on the front door. I just sit in the truck and watch, and when he turned around and looked, i realized it was an old friend of mine from high school. We had known each other for years and often hung out at the supply houses and BS'd when it was slow.

So he turns to the lady and asks why I am there, not letting her know that we knew each other. She tells him she'd called three companies and whoever got there first got to do the work. He told her that she was paying his minimum charge for the trip he made, and that he figured I'd want the same thing. She said something to the effect of, "that other guy can take a flying leap". He told her to have a nice day, turned, and started walking to my truck. We talked about it, my girlfriend (wife now) was laughing about it. So we decide to scram just as the third technician is pulling up. We fill him in on what just went down, and he never took his van out of drive. He laughed, told us to have a nice day, let off the brake and drove away. As we got in our trucks, the lady was screaming at us from her porch.

I dunno about the third tech, don't know who he was. But my boss thought the whole thing was funny. My buddy's Dad owns his company, and they got a good laugh out of it Monday morning too.

[Shur]

1) Furnace hitting high limit. Found someone had dry fit a small brick wall inside the duct work to try and force air through specific runs. I pulled 8 bricks out of there.

2) Thanksgiving evening I'm on call. I've just finished dinner and still sitting there with my plate in front of me when I get a call about a leaking tankless water heater. I get there to find that the HO (engineer) had been reading the manual and discovered that the inlet filter should be cleaned. He opened it up and cleaned it properly but didn't notice that he had dropped the rubber washer in his dark purple bucket. 30 seconds with a flashlight was all I needed for that call. Was a 40min drive (one way) and my employer was only paying for time-in-call back then.

[ptemko]

First call today. Customer complaining about high hydro rates with new system. Get on site Air handler with 4 heating banks. 3 ton Heatpump sitting outside in the backyard off the deck. Well let's see what is going on with this new system. Call for heat 1* to get Heatpump on and working. Go outside and contactor humming. Open panel no power to unit. Go inside and ask for the electrical panel. Why he asked. I told him he had no power outside to Heatpump. Well I did turn the breaker off in the fall for the air conditioner. He looks at me and says don't tell my wife

[turkey]

Got sent out on a bad smell coming from registers. Pull in the drive way very nice house about 5000 sq feet knock on the door lady greets me but when she opens the door all I can smell is poop she tells me to go to the back door. Meets me at the back door I step in and there's dog crap everywhere she has two pocket dogs and it's to cold for the poor little things to go outside. I look around and ask if the furnace is behind the bi folds on the other side of the room she looks at me like I'm stupid um yea. Told her to have a great day and walked out she couldn't believe I wouldn't go in and look at the furnace. Guess she thought using the basement as a dog run was perfectly normal and in no way would be unsanitary or make her house smell like dog poop.

[ptemko]

Got sent out on a bad smell coming from registers. Pull in the drive way very nice house about 5000 sq feet knock on the door lady greets me but when she opens the door all I can smell is poop she tells me to go to the back door. Meets me at the back door I step in and there's dog crap everywhere she has two pocket dogs and it's to cold for the poor little things to go outside. I look around and ask if the furnace is behind the bi folds on the other side of the room she looks at me like I'm stupid um yea. Told her to have a great day and walked out she couldn't believe I wouldn't go in and look at the furnace. Guess she thought using the basement as a dog run was perfectly normal and in no way would be unsanitary or make her house smell like dog poop.

I have walked out on many calls just for that reason. Told customer when you have it cleaned up call us back. Went to one last year dog crap all piled up beside AC unit and spilled over and buried service valves. Yea I don't think so.

[Samshawn]

THAT WAS SO FUNNY.

[chaard]

Got a call in middle of night for no A/C. I get there and find a single family 2 story home turned into a 2 family. I go to the t-stat and turn it to cool. 24v at unit. No 240v. Upstairs unit vacant. Wiring looks new. Downstairs A/C unit wired to upstairs breaker. Electric co. finally shut off power to upstairs unit after tenant moved out 2 mo. ago.

Because there was no power and door was unlocked I was roaming around with a flashlight expecting to find squatters. I was nervous. Only thing live i found were a bunch of mice eating left over dog food. Those mice sure can jump.

[smurphy]

I had a call once to come and light a pilot light. I get there and it turns out to be a electric air handler. I kindly told the homeowner that it was electric and It didn't have a pilot light or even has gas. She then started to yell at me and tell me I didn't know what I was talking about and she has had the pilot light lit in the years past. I told her I needed to make a phone call, I got in the van and left. I still remember her face as she was watching me though her window, priceless.

[pghtech]

Got a no heat call on a Saturday from a customer who's house I had been at 4 years earlier & cleaned the Goodman flame sensor. She figured it needed done again since the flame wouldn't stay on. Open up the furnace, and see a brand new vacuum switch hanging off of the tip end of a tapping screw. She told me she had just paid the big guy with all the billboards $$$ for that new vacuum switch 2 weeks earlier, cause she thought I only worked on flame sensors! Cleaned the sensor, collected my modest fee, and she was happy. She called me 2 hours later in panic cause the furnace quit working again. Before I left to go back there, she called back to tell me it mysteriously came back on and was ok. She calls me again 20 minutes later, in a panic again cause the furnace was not working. I was putting on my shoes to head back out there, and the light bulb came on-called her back and asked her what the thermostat was set at? 74; and what was the temp? 74. She argued with me that I needed to come back out, but I told her if the house got cold overnight, I would come back next day..............DUMB

[jeremyhall.tech.sc]

I had a call once to come and light a pilot light. I get there and it turns out to be a electric air handler. I kindly told the homeowner that it was electric and It didn't have a pilot light or even has gas. She then started to yell at me and tell me I didn't know what I was talking about and she has had the pilot light lit in the years past. I told her I needed to make a phone call, I got in the van and left. I still remember her face as she was watching me though her window, priceless.

[Spyder Consultants]

Had a contract with an elderly housing community...Where they live independently in little apartments.
Service call- No heat. Early fall. Lady was complaining that it was incredibly cold in their.
Show up, and she never turned the stat to "Heat"....
Or
Service call- No heat. Turned "Fan Only" on instead of "Heat"

[bmac]

Went to a rental house no heat and couldn't find anything wrong. Went back again, no problem found. Third time there, customers pissed, running perfectly. After trying to not make myself look too incompetent and explain that there just wasn't anything wrong i could see, as i walked up the stairs i turned off the light switch to the basement and heard the furnace shutoff.....

Some bonehead had wired the furnace into the basement light circuit!

[socotech]

what about when the customer has the thermostat set at 40 and thinks the unit should be supplying 40 degree supply air.

[tstcstu]

beeping noise started after a service agreement, customer was pissed until I told him that the sound was from the smoke alarm battery then he was nice trying to not get charged for the OT.