Stupidest Service Call you've run!!!

[2141]

can't say ive ran and stupid calls. i have had the usual ones where the furnace switch was off b/c they thought it was the light switch.

i went to a weird customer today. we set his ladder up in the rain and he had booties(plastic bags) to put on the feet of the ladder. i just shook my head

I put booties on my ladder when its going to be on a finished floor. It looks dumb but so does messing up the floor.

[a4372302]

my heat pump up stairs doesnt heat as good as my furnace down stairs???? cracks me up every time.

[BMH_SE]

Got a call to a building with multiple mechanical rooms and call was for missing tstat. Long story short tstat was mounted on the air handler itself in this location and the other tstats where mounted on the walls in front of the other air handlers.

[jledford382]

Customer calls today and says "my em. heat is running constantly. When can you get here? My light bill is gonna be outrageous." (this is a restaurant) I told to give me 30 min. I get there and he has one of the stats that shows a flame on a call for heat. He points to the flame and says see there, it's in em. heat. I explain to him and leave.

[kenny3412]

ive got it,customer calls there brand new digital programmable thermostat honeywell4000 stat is changing program settings on its own in early morning.ok i replace stat.calls back again says he reserched stat online and finds out that when you set temp to b 70 at 8am furnace will come on earlier to bring temp to 70 at 8. he wanted heat to come on at 8 says stat too smart for him lol. has me put his old stat back up. some people kill me

[Homeowner314]

When mid eff. First came out one call I used to get a lot of was the vendor motor not coming on , it was usually a bird stuck in the wheel.(until code changes required us to install liners).

Found a pair (one male, one female) of mallards in my parents' wood boiler firebox a couple of years ago. That explained the rotten outdoor smell that spring/early summer. Never smelled anything in the basement.

[cboe]

I us to work for Lennox and had to drive about 250 miles to adjust the heat intesipator for one of oue so called dealer.

[ComfortablyNumb]

ive got it,customer calls there brand new digital programmable thermostat honeywell4000 stat is changing program settings on its own in early morning.ok i replace stat.calls back again says he reserched stat online and finds out that when you set temp to b 70 at 8am furnace will come on earlier to bring temp to 70 at 8. he wanted heat to come on at 8 says stat too smart for him lol. has me put his old stat back up. some people kill me

You can disable the Adaptive Intelligence Recovery feature on Honeywell programmable thermostats.

Just sayin'.

[AtticAce]

Wait a minute how was the breaker tested ok, if the power was off?

Hi all,

I was wondering what is the stupidest service call you've ever ran?

Let me start with mine today.

Customer call for no heat.
When arrived, furnace has no power,
checked outlet, no 120v.
Checked breaker, breaker is good.
After running around for 40 mins and multiple phone calls to different tech I ask the customer if I can use the phone cause mine was out of battery. Customer said, the phone doesn't work because her utility was shut off for non payment. DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She paid her bill, but it wouldn't go through for another two days. Advise customer that the furnace should work once she has utility on. I felt so sorry for her that I didn't even charge for the service call.

That said, my dumbest call ever was an old lady who called because she had run out of oil and after the tank was filled the heater still would not light.
I figured the oil line needed to be bled of air, but when I arrived I found the woman had a gas boiler! Yes, the gas was shut off for non payment.
I asked her about the oil tank being empty in the first place and sure enough she produced a paid receipt for 250 gallons or oil. Duh! She had converted to NG last year, her oil tank was still hooked up in the basement and was now full!

The good part about this call was the gas company would not turn the gas back on until she had the oil tank removed. Guess who got 250 gallons of free oil which they used to heat their shop and office building? Not to mention I got paid to take out the tank, and restart the gas boiler.

The old lady later said she didn't remember having the gas boiler installed. She produced a hand written receipt for $2450 for the installation of a new cast iron burner, the receipt had everything but a company name and contact info. Pretty good price for a 120k btu gas boiler install.

[Snapperhead]

Went to a no heat call . Found out of oil.

I went and got the lady 15 gallons of oil to hold her over until the oil truck came.

Ok lady I added 15 gallons of oil which will only give you heat for a day or two , but you need to call the oil company and order oil

5 days later , no heat call.

I says , "before i go out there, ask her if she ordered oil "

Lady says no she didnt have time to order oil yet

Really ????

[fitzyfitta]

I'm sure this has been already mentioned but, I hated going out on a nite call for the burner swith shut off at the top of the stairwell

[ORV]

Christmas eve just a couple days ago. Older lady been running fireplace for about 2 weeks and noticed rooms getting cold. Found furnace had no line voltage, checked breaker, opened furnace switch box. Electrician flipped the switch 180 degrees 2 weeks ago when he installed an outlet.

Sent from my KFTT using Tapatalk 2

[hurtinhvac]

Today. Humidifier leaking water. Took the tray off, noted the condition of panel and said "been awhile since it's been changed, huh?"

Blank stare. It was an old General Aire 1040...been hanging on that return for twenty years. Scrape out the rusted old, in with the shiny new.

But really...even though we didn't do regular PMs there...you'd think one of the guys would have said something or asked over the years. They swear nobody said a word about changing the water panel in over twenty years...

So they didn't.