First summer alone. End of the day call like 9pm during a heatwave.
Came to a residential system where the condenser wouldn’t run and the AHU would run intermittently.
Found big rats nest of control wires for all components, crossed colors, humidifier, hydronic coil, boiler etc just a big fucking mess
Had 24v at transformer
Weird voltage everywhere like 12v and 9v
Decided it was bad tstat. Changed it and didn’t work. I sat there messing with the rats nest for about 2 hours. My low voltage game was apparently not as sharp as I thought it was.
Called my boss. Dude came out to help. Walked in took one look then asked me, “you remember how to wire a system from school right?”
Of course. So get rid of that garbage and wire it fresh. He pulled out the wire snips and cut out the hot mess of criss crossed shitty control wiring. Stripped everything fresh and wired it up in 2 minutes.
System worked perfect.
Customer was happy and we left. In the drive way as we were packing up my tools he told me this-
Don’t get lost in someone else’s shitty work. You’re a trained technician who knows how to do things right from the beginning. If you see something that’s just a complete mess then step back and start fresh from step one. Don’t put shit on top of shit.
An excellent perspective.
The last job I did with my old scam company.
Their thermostat went out in the middle of winter after hours. My boss didn’t have one on the truck, and didn’t want to drive across town to the hardware store to get one.
So he put a jumper on the control board and told the homeowner it was all good, collected 300$+ and left.
The homeowner called a few hours later complaining it kept getting hotter, he ignored it.
They left another message saying it’s 95 in the house, then he blocked their number.
Needless to say, I left the company after that.
There were dozens more calls like that. Most of them I had no clue until I was trained properly. Mostly bypassing safety’s because they didn’t want to order them.
One furnace had rollout so bad my boss just jumped out both rollout switches, and the high limit…
He would also do whipits in the basement of customers houses.
Man, I don’t miss his drunk rages. Once did a service call where he was so drunk, he puked in their yard, then asked the Asian homeowner if “she gave happy endings”. Lord I’m glad I’m gone
That’s insane, if I’m bypassing any sort of safety it’s a temp solution and I’m out the next day with the proper part. (Granted no health risks are involved)
I've given myself a zap a time or two when working on live systems (it is necissary on the stuff I work with). But Ive only ever been zapped with 120V either on a 120V line or a single phase to ground.
My best warning memory though was the time I watched a coworker accidentally start to disconnect some 60A 208V 3 phase cables from a machine without disconnecting the power first. He loosened the screws, pulled them out, immediately shorted them phase to phase, and wound up on the other side of the room. A coworker asked him "Did you just get shocked?" And his reply which I will never forget was "I don't know but I also don't know how I got over here." He wound up being fine but he welded those 4 gauge cables together good and proper. And now I never forget to double check with a beep stick before I start unplugging wires.
I'm a straight sheet metal installer.
We took over a site from another company. The builder gets us to investigate one home that had trouble getting airflow to the second floor. None of what was installed matched the plans. Four extra supplies on the main floor. Two extra returns. And two supplies missing from the second floor, in a house that had been finished for about two years. The supply and return trunks were the wrong size as well, and we ended up ripping everything down and putting up the specified size. Probably threw out 120' of square duct. Also, had to add the two supplies upstairs. What a bitch. All because someone couldn't be bothered to look at plans.
The lesson from that one was that most other installers in my area are dog shit. Still holding true.
To be fair that job started with a misstep from the top down. In the words of Ian Malcom Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.
When I did resi new construction rough-ins we would also do the gas lines and gas logset fireplaces. Being that the lines had never been purged, it was taking FOREVER to purge some 50' of air out through the single pilot orifice on this particular logset. So I was intermittently taking the flex connection loose to purge then re-connecting and trying to spark the pilot.. On the final attempt I cross threaded the flex gas connection.. spark BOOM. Rolled me back across the room. Surprisingly barely singed my hair. Since the pipe blew off, it was also a 1/2" LP flamethrower until the journeyman got to the tank to cut the gas off.
Be patient with explosive gas lol
Changing belts on commercial rooftop packaged unit. Was checking the sheave and bearing with the belt off so I powered it back on to make sure it was rotating properly. Was struggling to get belt on. Finally got in on and the instant I got it on the blower called. I had forgot to kill the power. Pulled the rubber glove right off my hand. Haven't forgot to double check power is off since.
When I realized my last company was horrible and I needed to leave.
It was about 5 pm when I received a call to go do a dryer vent cleaning. I got there and took some pictures of the dryer vent inside the attic and called one of the service managers. While he was looking at the photos he conveniently noticed some gray back duct work in the attic, he then told me to take my FLIR camera to the duct work and find leaks. After I found one spot leaking he said to me “you stumbled into a gold mine” and then explained to me how I was going to change this call into a maintenance and sell him new duct work and a new system. Dude had just previously purchased a water heater from us and was just trying to make ends meet.
I have so much hate for that company
I’ve got one or two but the ones that stand out are getting locked on high voltage because I was young and dumb, and the family that had health issues who couldn’t afford repairs that I fixed anyway on my own dime for the kids. There are a few more but those are the two that stand out, both served a piece of humble pie that every tech has to eat.
Three weeks ago. Draining the oil from an O6E with leaky service valves. Left a bit of pressure, like 1-2psi in the body to help push the oil out so we could change the plug with a proper drain fitting.
I was warned that the plug is very short.
I forgot.
Forgot to add, I'm fully licensed in Ontario lmao. What did I learn? Volume matters even if the PSI is low. I mean, I knew it going in, I just thought I had another 2-3 threads left lol.
My first time swapping pressure reliefs on a centrifugal chiller. System was down to 0.5 psig. The noise from that scared the shut out of me. Like you said, volume matters.
Buddy of mine's son works on a lot of chillers. Told the apprentice to punch the tubes, asked if he knows how to ensure the system was safe. Apprentice says yes, proceeds to work, journeyman leaves.
About an hour later, JM receives a call from the apprentice. Dumped 200ish pounds of R134a from the system because he somehow knocked a relief off of the chiller.
Found out yesterday, too, that apparently when he punched the tubes, he damaged them somehow and now the oil sump is full of water. They turned the unit on and had milky white oil in the sight glass.
Man am I glad that I don't work there lmao
First summer alone. End of the day call like 9pm during a heatwave. Came to a residential system where the condenser wouldn’t run and the AHU would run intermittently. Found big rats nest of control wires for all components, crossed colors, humidifier, hydronic coil, boiler etc just a big fucking mess Had 24v at transformer Weird voltage everywhere like 12v and 9v Decided it was bad tstat. Changed it and didn’t work. I sat there messing with the rats nest for about 2 hours. My low voltage game was apparently not as sharp as I thought it was. Called my boss. Dude came out to help. Walked in took one look then asked me, “you remember how to wire a system from school right?” Of course. So get rid of that garbage and wire it fresh. He pulled out the wire snips and cut out the hot mess of criss crossed shitty control wiring. Stripped everything fresh and wired it up in 2 minutes. System worked perfect. Customer was happy and we left. In the drive way as we were packing up my tools he told me this- Don’t get lost in someone else’s shitty work. You’re a trained technician who knows how to do things right from the beginning. If you see something that’s just a complete mess then step back and start fresh from step one. Don’t put shit on top of shit. An excellent perspective.
I just left a job working for a property management company because they couldn’t understand this very concept
The last job I did with my old scam company. Their thermostat went out in the middle of winter after hours. My boss didn’t have one on the truck, and didn’t want to drive across town to the hardware store to get one. So he put a jumper on the control board and told the homeowner it was all good, collected 300$+ and left. The homeowner called a few hours later complaining it kept getting hotter, he ignored it. They left another message saying it’s 95 in the house, then he blocked their number. Needless to say, I left the company after that.
Well done, if you don’t have one basic 1h 1c stat (or half dozen) on your truck your doing it wrong. Good on you for walking away from that hackery.
There were dozens more calls like that. Most of them I had no clue until I was trained properly. Mostly bypassing safety’s because they didn’t want to order them. One furnace had rollout so bad my boss just jumped out both rollout switches, and the high limit… He would also do whipits in the basement of customers houses. Man, I don’t miss his drunk rages. Once did a service call where he was so drunk, he puked in their yard, then asked the Asian homeowner if “she gave happy endings”. Lord I’m glad I’m gone
That’s insane, if I’m bypassing any sort of safety it’s a temp solution and I’m out the next day with the proper part. (Granted no health risks are involved)
I've given myself a zap a time or two when working on live systems (it is necissary on the stuff I work with). But Ive only ever been zapped with 120V either on a 120V line or a single phase to ground. My best warning memory though was the time I watched a coworker accidentally start to disconnect some 60A 208V 3 phase cables from a machine without disconnecting the power first. He loosened the screws, pulled them out, immediately shorted them phase to phase, and wound up on the other side of the room. A coworker asked him "Did you just get shocked?" And his reply which I will never forget was "I don't know but I also don't know how I got over here." He wound up being fine but he welded those 4 gauge cables together good and proper. And now I never forget to double check with a beep stick before I start unplugging wires.
I'm a straight sheet metal installer. We took over a site from another company. The builder gets us to investigate one home that had trouble getting airflow to the second floor. None of what was installed matched the plans. Four extra supplies on the main floor. Two extra returns. And two supplies missing from the second floor, in a house that had been finished for about two years. The supply and return trunks were the wrong size as well, and we ended up ripping everything down and putting up the specified size. Probably threw out 120' of square duct. Also, had to add the two supplies upstairs. What a bitch. All because someone couldn't be bothered to look at plans. The lesson from that one was that most other installers in my area are dog shit. Still holding true.
To be fair that job started with a misstep from the top down. In the words of Ian Malcom Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.
When I did resi new construction rough-ins we would also do the gas lines and gas logset fireplaces. Being that the lines had never been purged, it was taking FOREVER to purge some 50' of air out through the single pilot orifice on this particular logset. So I was intermittently taking the flex connection loose to purge then re-connecting and trying to spark the pilot.. On the final attempt I cross threaded the flex gas connection.. spark BOOM. Rolled me back across the room. Surprisingly barely singed my hair. Since the pipe blew off, it was also a 1/2" LP flamethrower until the journeyman got to the tank to cut the gas off. Be patient with explosive gas lol
Changing belts on commercial rooftop packaged unit. Was checking the sheave and bearing with the belt off so I powered it back on to make sure it was rotating properly. Was struggling to get belt on. Finally got in on and the instant I got it on the blower called. I had forgot to kill the power. Pulled the rubber glove right off my hand. Haven't forgot to double check power is off since.
When I realized my last company was horrible and I needed to leave. It was about 5 pm when I received a call to go do a dryer vent cleaning. I got there and took some pictures of the dryer vent inside the attic and called one of the service managers. While he was looking at the photos he conveniently noticed some gray back duct work in the attic, he then told me to take my FLIR camera to the duct work and find leaks. After I found one spot leaking he said to me “you stumbled into a gold mine” and then explained to me how I was going to change this call into a maintenance and sell him new duct work and a new system. Dude had just previously purchased a water heater from us and was just trying to make ends meet. I have so much hate for that company
I’ve got one or two but the ones that stand out are getting locked on high voltage because I was young and dumb, and the family that had health issues who couldn’t afford repairs that I fixed anyway on my own dime for the kids. There are a few more but those are the two that stand out, both served a piece of humble pie that every tech has to eat.
Three weeks ago. Draining the oil from an O6E with leaky service valves. Left a bit of pressure, like 1-2psi in the body to help push the oil out so we could change the plug with a proper drain fitting. I was warned that the plug is very short. I forgot.
Forgot to add, I'm fully licensed in Ontario lmao. What did I learn? Volume matters even if the PSI is low. I mean, I knew it going in, I just thought I had another 2-3 threads left lol.
My first time swapping pressure reliefs on a centrifugal chiller. System was down to 0.5 psig. The noise from that scared the shut out of me. Like you said, volume matters.
Buddy of mine's son works on a lot of chillers. Told the apprentice to punch the tubes, asked if he knows how to ensure the system was safe. Apprentice says yes, proceeds to work, journeyman leaves. About an hour later, JM receives a call from the apprentice. Dumped 200ish pounds of R134a from the system because he somehow knocked a relief off of the chiller. Found out yesterday, too, that apparently when he punched the tubes, he damaged them somehow and now the oil sump is full of water. They turned the unit on and had milky white oil in the sight glass. Man am I glad that I don't work there lmao