Had a call this morning where a customer was complaining about a lot of noise coming from the furnace. Crawled up into the attic and pulled about 3-4 handfuls of insulation out of the blower. Thinking that the insulation had the fan out of balance somewhat. When I left the furnace was as quiet as it could be.
I wonder if trade schools have changed? We find that many around here teach to the test and the kids that come out of them think they know EVERYTHING but can't tell the difference between an A/C and a HP. They wanna make $20 an hour and not have to work over 30 hours a week and no crawlspaces and attics. Oy! the whining! Drives me bonkers. Maybe it isn't the schools. Maybe it's the quality of the students. I almost am at the point I don't want to hire trade school kids! Do you all hire out of high school and train, or hire college graduates? Or given up completely and hire only experienced techs?
Had a pretty busy morning with two maintenance calls and 2 service calls with A/C's not cooling. I had to go over to Johnstone supply and pick up a cheap leak detector (I can't wait until I have enough money in my tool account for a good leak detector). Anyways, had to get up in the attic and pull the coil doors off to search for a leak. This was after I put soap bubbles/ leak detector fluid on the outside welds by the AC. Leak detector started screaming near the bottom right of the coil. The coil is 13 years old and is out of warranty.
The customer has 3 options at this point:
1) Keep paying outrageous R22 freon prices and put 3-4lbs of freon in it per year.
2) Replace the R22 coli and keep the current R22 AC as well.
3) Replace the coil and the AC with new R410A refrigerants.
I never like telling anyone how to spend their money, but at this point as old as the AC unit is I advised that it may be best to change both; however, I made it clear to the customer that I would inform them of the pro's and con's to both and let them make the decision over the weekend.
That is the best you can do for your customers. Give them the facts and the figures and let them be comfortable with it. That leads to happy people who will tell ever body your soo honest.
Yes; I gave up completely. I just stopped doing almost all the work that required having employees.
Two young guys who used to work for me (and for whom I still do Extensive mentoring) have their own companies and are my go-to guys now. As I am for them. If I get too busy or dis-interested I lateral off some easy work to them. Whenever they get anything too tough (all steam, all refrigeration, and anything much beyond basic residential work ) they send it over to me. For example: I don't really like changing residential condensing units any more - so I say: Mr. HomeOwner, we're going to have to replace this unit - I'll get the residential division over here to handle it for you. They do this stuff every day.
I've said it so much that recently my guys have started saying: Wow; this looks Serious. I'll get the industrial division to send somebody over for that. There's a guy over there who knows Everything - I'll get them to send him out.
They don't work late, they don't work weekends, they don't do anything challenging unless I force them to do it. And they seem happy that way. They love selling service contracts. Whereas if I never changed another filter or cleaned a furnace for the rest of my life it would be fine with me.
The only thing that has kept me in this business all these years it that it keeps me interested and amused. I was an exotic auto mechanic, I was a welder, I built oil derricks, and I was a pipe fitter for a while. But I couldn't take it - the same thing day after day after day. Some guys love a routine - but I was apparently cut out to work like a commando. And this was the only business that I found which did it for me.
e \
PHM
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When faced with the choice between changing one's mind, and proving that there is no need to do so, most tend to get busy on the proof.
Few questions for you guys..
I have the analog gauges and am going to be switching to digitals fairly soon. Do most digital gauges double as a micron gauge as well? How about measuring nitrogen pressure?
I've seen that some techs do not like using their manifold to pull a vacuum though. So would you buy a completely separate micron gauge?
Any help would be appreciated, thanks guys!
Had a pretty tough one yesterday, luckily I'm still working with my dad so he's there helping me along the way.
Went to a house with a no A/C call, nothing would come on.. We had bad storms the night before and figured it was just a tripped break, fuse, etc. The breaker was tripped, but still got nothing once we turned it back on. After a bunch of wire checking we found that the board was bad (of course we didn't have the right one on the truck). Off to the supply house we go to pick one up, get back to the house and install the board and the unit comes on.
But now the blower sounds like it's going to explode, so we take everything out of the way to slide the blower out and inside the motor all of the insides were completely melted. So back to the supply house we got to get a motor, long story short we got it fixed after we installed the new motor. We think lighting must have hit somewhere near or on the house and just about fried everything in that furnace. Needless to say that was a pretty expensive stop for the customer.
We are having a rash of copper thefts lately. The miscreants are getting up on a two story roof to strip out the heavy pipe and distributor bundles. Second time this month. Now I am looking into putting motion sensors on the roof, and adding security lighting pointing at the building from the utility poles before I rebuild them again. First time came in at 26k in damages, and this time there is more damage.
I'm farming these repairs out because they are so labor intensive, they would eat up my crews available hours.
I am wondering at what point they are going to start charging the scrap yards with receiving stolen property! It's rather obvious that when you bring in torn up acr tubing still dripping oil that your not exactly a legitimate contractor.
Sent from my Thunderbolt
It definitely sucks to have copper stolen. I can't imagine having 26k worth of damages though. We always have a problem with copper thiefs as I live in the meth capital of the world; however, our damages usually range from $800-$2400 and the builder picks up the bill unless there are garage doors, doors and windows already installed.
No copper thieves around here.. at least none that we've dealt with. Boss just bought a new box van not too long ago.. man that thing can fit a ton of equipment, scrap you name it. It's interesting driving on narrow hilly roads of Pittsburgh. Installs all last week, and I got to play Electrician on Thursday doing a new electrical service. I'm glad I can do both.
I had one with lightning today also.got the defrost board fan relay.
First time the copper thieves got on the roof they completely stripped out the Trane and damaged the Petras. We had the Petras repaired and was waiting for a new Trane when they hit the Petras again and this time tried for the coils.
Sent from my Thunderbolt
I am new to HVAC talk and figured it would be a great place to learn from the right sources. Currently I am taking A/C Technology classes and have about a year left. This stuff is pretty hard at times, but it helps to slow down and not over analyze it. That's pretty much all I have. Have a great day!
Please disregard this post.
Graduating with a HVACR Diploma and leaving school I thought I knew it all, well, that was not the case. Its not until you have to clime a 30 foot ladder covered in ice at 0F Ambient then trucking through 3 feet of snow on a rubber membrane flat roof for 200 feet then finally getting to the unit and realizing that at that point in my life I hoped that when I opened that door on that unit that the fault would be something easy, I remember thinking to myself, please just be something easy, please. Well it was just a broken belt and what do ya know, there was a new shiny spare below the fan staring me right in the face. From that point at the start of my career I realized the horrible feeling of intimidation that new experiences have on new tradespeople. My first Journeyman told me, "If you don't learn at least one thing a day in our trade, you will fall behind" From that lesson forward I always take initiative to learn from my mistakes, LISTON to the old pros and always have respect for people that take the time to teach.
Just checkin in from Canada, Whats the HVACR industry like in the states? I have always been curious. I feel so sheltered I'm glad I signed up here, I would like to get to know what Technicians go through in all parts of North America. Thanks
HI R:
Perhaps as you walk through threads of 2008 to present, especially savings genre on various systems, you'l see why you can not be "isolated" where you are from any location where there is process or comfort hvac-hw-heatReclaim requirements...
I bet you could be as busy as any traveler (Ive installed in 3 states in the past 4 years since starting in 1976 sales and 1980 installations and industrial design of Geo-T). I say you could be as busy, since there are so ,many loose to too tight methods and minds on the subject of mandated, needed mandated, done, and undone systems. Maybe I mean it is like a husband-wife thing: even in "Godly-relation fellowships", 40+% are undone; live-ins and outside spiritual fellowships of designation- 55% undoings are reported, and over 75% of the remaining doings staying done-together, were virgin couples...when closing a commitment.
Same as any industry: commit and be busy seeking/testing/proving improvements weighted by some local practicality. (Whew, if only I did that all the time !) But in some answer: N-amer? We are just learning why say, Triangle tube uses the IBC Boiler heat exchanger, from CANADIAN condensing technology and simple applicability... now America still needs to figure how IBC controls it best!
2000 ton Geo-loops were in CANADA before 2003 ! While I fought for at least 32 EW loops from geofields, since Energy Star ETL Lab accepted all 3rd party ratings, ABOVE AHRI, ES-ratings START THERE at 32* (0*c)
http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?...mal_heat_pumps
, CAN has successful ROI's with 28*f EW loops! And super applications with Var-Drive wilo and gfos var pumps YEARS BEFORE US-A...
[not sold to any other than job used]
[not repping any GT OEM since June 2011]
But here's my manufactured (re-spun, on my own designed spindle for PE pond-loop HX as coils) pond coil set up for PROCESS COOLING 1996-1997 and another similar(3/4" pipes instead of below 1") for a 16 ton (size 19 compared) office GT at the same plant.
1" PE ~ 420 ft coils; 7ft dia x 5 layers (like horizontal discs , when wound on spindle) ea of 6" ctr piping stacked 2" ctr apart vertically, the "discs" of coils; 6 each of a single side of a 2" T of to 6 coils for total of 12; that replaced a 25 HP "chiller" with a 3 hp Baldor on ?Gfos 8ru- and a slow staging 1.1/2hp 700 feet away:
"How ya savin' 75% over our chiller?" in closing I answered, "on a 65% performance guaranteed contract to you; and if below 65% saved, then 10% off; and if below 50%- then I remove all and you pay nothing, or decide what for what..."
ph rang 3 weeks later. And again for the GT-Offices and HW in full heat recovery in cooling , inclusive.
Saved over 84%; plus- no refrigeration tech... or service calls SINCE.
Too you'll see http://www.hvacopcost.com/ which has close to you UNDER 5000 deg days above Ohio; and Ohio has 6700 deg day pockets; and -22 to -27 pak cold 2 nights 1994/Jan... and a lot -11*f to -16*f in NE Ohio! (which in 1994 led to gas-furnace installers getting threats of legal action if they did not FREELY improve the installs; while GeoT-HP kicked in supplemental, 2nd "furnace").
So get US-A a better calculator !!!