Stupidest Service Call you've run!!!

[Rcb2875]

So far its been breakers off and this am.... We have lived here for a while and there is no air coming from the registers. Ma'am i replaced your filter this is the old one. It passed air like an old piece of wood. I laughed a little inside. I also showed the homeowner where the filter was.

I had a call today condenser wasn't coming on, 24v to coil no common. So I go up to check the wiring and float switch and the pan is full of water. easy fix. Check the coil while im up there and then go put my gauges on to check the refrigerant, low suction so I go inside and it sure enough you can hear the return trying to eat the air filter which had a nice winter coat and was slightly deformed from nearly being collapsed by the blower. I ask the home owner how often she changes the filter and she replies her son usually does it when he comes down for Christmas!

[OldSchoolMech]

10. Pm last night No hot water. I am getting a blockage in the vents. I ask home owner if anything is in the pipes. She says " you mean like a birds nest" umm yea " yea we have 2 nest one in each pipe" your kidding me lady that's why it doesn't work!!

[Frostmonkey74]

A number of years ago I was sent on a call "homeowner complaint of furnace making a beeping noise"
Upon arriving at the call I heard the beeping as soon as I walked through the door. The elderly ladies "personal alarm" was going off in her bath robe pocket .. Lol felt bad for the lady so I didn't charge her..

[Roof Rat in Kc]

Got a call for a double wide mobile home no ac. No cooling in master bedroom or kitchen. Found the 12 inch flex pipe disconnected under the house and guarded by a angry raccoon. No charge but I,m not going under there. Home owner says but its so cute. go figure

[DOGBOY]

not me but my boss had a no cooling last summer people just moved in to a trailer. Called and said they have been burning up and can not stand it any longer. he gets there and they have a tiny one running around in diapers soaking wet from it being over 90 in the trailer and he looks at the t-stat heat only. looks at the indoor unit no evap coil. They bought a trailer people told them it had central air but it did not have any a/c. he felt sorry for them and did not charge them.

dogboy

[johnnyb]

firt one is a reach-in cooler call for "not working" ; found a glass rotating display at 36 or so degrees. I told them it was working and they said but it dries out the cake . ok not too funny, but I went to an apartment near Purdue University and the maintenance man was going to open the apartment with his pass key but knocked on the door very forcefully (like a sherriffs' knock) for five minutes.I was getting rather tired of waiting but we finally went in when no one answered the door.
I started to open the furnace closet door but right next to the knob was another door and another knob. For the life of me , I can't determine why but I opened the other knob instead of the furnace closet. Yep, it was the bathroom . All I saw was a female head come out of the shower looking back at me. I shut the door promptly so we left and came back about 3 hrs later. Again no answer so we went in and I opened the correct door and fixed the furnace . As we were about to leave , out comes another girl from a bedroom and walks by and says "Hi" . Now I know why he knocked so long and loud but it still does no good at a campus apartment if the tenants aren't expecting anyone.

[bsnowden]

Went on a call for system not cooling properly, found system frozen up, pulled out a packed air filter that the lady hadn't changed in three years since owning the home, let system thaw out put my gauges on it charge is good, now water is dripping down the furnace and starts to short out her control board, blower is kicking on and off so I tell the lady now she needs a new control board. She tells me NO i'll just reset it, its like a computer, so I asked her how shes going to reset it and she says like this and turns her gas valve on and off, needless to say I ran and got a new board.

[RACMT]

"My A/C is broken" It was the beginning of the season went right to the thermostat turned it from heat to cool set it to 75 and waited for it to kick on she said I always wondered what the thing was for.................................

[Jaybird-B5]

I first got into the HVAC service business as a 3rd year apprentice about 10 years ago. They put me in the 'on call' rotation and about 2 weeks later I got my first call. At the time we had a national account with an eyeglass company and one of there stores was reporting 'No Cooling'. This was a Sunday and the store was 180 miles away, so I jumped in the truck pointed it in that direction. I had 3 hours to work myself into a nervous wreck thinking about what the problem could be. By the time I got there I was ready to throw up. I went inside and asked for the manager. When the young lady came out she explained how she kept turning down the tstat temp and it just kept getting warmer. She then demonstrated by turning the temp down another degree to 70 and said "See what I mean." as the space temp ticked up another degree to 77. I flipped the door open on the bottom of the stat and slid the switch over from 'Heat' to 'Cool'. Just then we heard the RTU kick on and a moment later she replied "Huh...That's all I had to do?". I assured her that this was pretty common and that I would head to the roof and verify that everything was working properly. A few minutes later she signed my ticket for 7 hours of overtime and I headed home. Little did I know at the time, that would be the first and last of the easy calls.

[liftbear]

AC not working due to dirty filters always seems to be the stupidest I get.

[wolfstrike]

i went to one call , the complaint was no AC.
the home owner told me the AC fuses were just replaced.
the guy had plants completely covering the top of the condensor, the previous company had changed the fuses and never said a word about the plants

[jmsmars1]

Went on a no cool call this week. It was a job that I replaced the compressor sometime in January. The customer told the dispatcher it hasn't cooled right since. I get to the job and walk by the condensing unit and it is not running. The lady of the house greets me at the door and I ask her if the stat is asking for cool right now. She says she doesn't know and asks if I want to look. I go to the stat and the system is set to heat. I then spend about 15 minutes explaining how the stat works (which has been there for years) before she gets it. I write her up an invoice for the service call as dispatch told me to do and the lady gets upset, saying I am trying to take advantage of an old lady. I ask her to just sign my paperwork and her and the office can argue about the bill.

[jmsmars1]

Went on a call today, system not cooling enough (lagging about 2 degrees). System is 6 years old and never really worked well. Ask about the filter first thing and they say "oh yes we change it every month." I ask if I can see it and the guy shows me a 14x20 filter grill on the floor. I asked if it was the only one and he said yes. Pull out the filter and look inside to see 12in flex duct. This is the only return on a 3 ton package unit. 6 years of going through several companies and I am the first one to tell him he has inadequate return.

[AllStateTech]

Once had a customer swear up and down her a/c was cooling and then just stopped. Got to her house asked for the thermostats and she showed me two, took off the plate and saw only a w hooked up. Searched for more found one behind a door cycled it all came on customer said she never used that thermostat. I guess the a/ c fairy kept her cool

[Frosty_VA]

Went on a call today, system not cooling enough (lagging about 2 degrees). System is 6 years old and never really worked well. Ask about the filter first thing and they say "oh yes we change it every month." I ask if I can see it and the guy shows me a 14x20 filter grill on the floor. I asked if it was the only one and he said yes. Pull out the filter and look inside to see 12in flex duct. This is the only return on a 3 ton package unit. 6 years of going through several companies and I am the first one to tell him he has inadequate return.

I got exact the same call today, 3 ton unit, "store is OK when it is below 85 outside, but can't keep up when its hot out". They had 8 inch single return, it's been there for years, many techs did PMs and service calls!!! Sounded like an F-22. And new suspended ceiling was about 1" lower than supply air outlets, so most of cold air was coming into the space between ceiling and a roof.

Another call was on 3 month old WIC install, 2 evaps, single condenser, system w/ receiver. Both evaps are blocks of ice. No LL solenoid, and time clock @ condenser wasn't wired at all, so condenser had just 208/230/3 wires and that's it, was running 24/7/365. The same location, both 3ph AC units had legs mixed up and each of those 5 ton units have single 20x20x1 filter. Wow!

[Mr Clean]

Had a no heat call at a tanning salon one morning, regular customer, new store manager. I told him that they didn't have any heat at the store, never have, to turn on a few beds until the customers started coming in, then all he'd need was A/C the rest of the day. He didn't believe me, told me I didn't know what I was talking about. I told him to call his district manager, and even gave him the guy's cell number because he didn't have it. He called, confirmed I was correct, and apologized to me. All their old stores didn't have one btu of heat, were built that way from day one.

Was working on one of their stores all night, re-ducting the entire store. Had a carload of topless dancers pull up at 3am wanting to tan. They were insistent that they be allowed to tan anyway, they could have cared less that there were a handful of a/c guys on ladders with the ceiling opened up everywhere.. First time I ever turned away a scantily clad group of women at 3am.

Was changing a 3ton air handling unit that served the dressing room in a topless bar. Just me and a helper. At 10am the dancers start coming in to get ready for work, and told them I'd be done in about 30-45 minutes. No worries on their part, and they started getting naked, showering, and getting ready for work. It took almost two hours to finish that 30 minutes worth of work. 4 of them gave me their number before I got out of there. My helper couldn't believe how they came onto me. I informed they just wanted a regular working man like most women do, instead of the drug dealers, alcoholics, and perverts they dealt with on a daily basis.

Best one; Changed a complete system at a lady's house one day. My helper is hauling tools out to the truck as I bring the invoice in to the customer. "I'm not going to pay you", she says.

Me, "Are you unhappy with something I've done"?

"No, I'm just not going to pay you." She replies.

"Ma'am, that's not funny, here's the bill, and the amount is what we agreed upon yesterday>"

"I don't care, I'm not paying, what are you going to do about it"?

I told my helper to bring the tools back in. When she asked why, I told her we were taking the equipment back out if she wasn't going to pay for it. She claimed that since it was installed, that it was part of her house now. I informed her that it wasn't hers until i left, and I wasn;t leaving without either the money or units. We both dialed 911 at the same time. The poor cop had no idea what to do, and sympathized with me 100%. His Sargent told him to stay there while I removed the equipment. Upon hearing this, she got her checkbook out. By now my boss is on the scene, and he takes the check to the bank while myself and the officer sat outside shooting the bull.

Just recently, turned my computer on about 8pm one evening, to discover a string of heated emails between an engineer, GC, and salesman at my company. It was a hospital clean room (all I work on anymore) project that I'd just finished a couple days earlier in Baltimore. I call the engineer, who is now onsite trying to figure out what the problem is (the clean room was running 85 degrees). We had duct off the VAV's, which were fed by an RTU we had nothing to do with, they provided the VAV's and set the airflow on them prior to our installation. With a complicated duct system that recirc's the lion's share of air that is mixed with conditioned air, I asked what the discharge temp at my HEPA filters were, looking for 60 degrees or slightly less.. 65 degrees he replied. That's much higher than needed when the set-point is 68 degrees. I asked him to check the LAT at the VAV, 65 degrees. I asked him to check the EAT to the VAV, 65 degrees. I then informed him to fix HIS package unit, and MY clean room would work just fine. Never heard from them again.

Had a lot of memorable occurrences over the years. It keeps things interesting sometimes.

[chaard]

Was working on one of their stores all night, re-ducting the entire store. Had a carload of topless dancers pull up at 3am wanting to tan. They were insistent that they be allowed to tan anyway, they could have cared less that there were a handful of a/c guys on ladders with the ceiling opened up everywhere.. First time I ever turned away a scantily clad group of women at 3am.

Was changing a 3ton air handling unit that served the dressing room in a topless bar. Just me and a helper. At 10am the dancers start coming in to get ready for work, and told them I'd be done in about 30-45 minutes. No worries on their part, and they started getting naked, showering, and getting ready for work. It took almost two hours to finish that 30 minutes worth of work. 4 of them gave me their number before I got out of there. My helper couldn't believe how they came onto me. I informed they just wanted a regular working man like most women do, instead of the drug dealers, alcoholics, and perverts they dealt with on a daily basis.





Had a lot of memorable occurrences over the years. It keeps things interesting sometimes.

If those are your worst calls, I'd like to hear your best calls. Don't forget to include pics.

[RichO]

Here's mine, although I didn't technically go on this call:

Phone rings......
Me: Hello
Customer: That freezer you worked on isn't working at all. It completely stopped cooling. You need to get over here now and fix it!
Me: That's weird. Is the compressor running?
Customer: No.
Me: Is the fan up top running?
Customer: No.
Me: Is the fan inside running?
Customer: No.
Me: Does the light come on when you open the door?
Customer: No.
Me: Is it plugged in?
Customer: What do you mean is it plugged in? Of course it's plugged in!!! What do you think I'm some kind of....(brief silence).....I'll call you back.

Called the customer two days later and was told that it started working again all on it's own.

[garageink]

I've had a few no cool calls that were the furnace door not put on right.
My husband changed the filter yesterday.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4

[Artietech]

Best one was "Help! I'm going on vacation but the Ac won't shut off!!!" Only to find the fan switch set to ON...
And then there was the who NEEDED a new t-sat, even though the one he has is only six months old, he lost the cover......