r/HVAC

I work for a commercial/industrial outfit.

Yesterday about 20 minutes after I pulled up, next door neighbor who has consistently been a dick to me about little things comes to the door with a twelve pack of my favorite beer. HAH! His A/C stopped working and it's 106 here.

Told him to enjoy the beer.

I’ve been in the hvac for almost a decade. Started in commercial sheet metal, moved from tin banging to service after 3 years when I was still an apprentice, started doing my own calls 1.5 years into that. Within the last two years I really felt like I was figuring things out. We got a new service manager earl this year and this guys a pusher. I’ve always been great with my production, but tend to 2nd guess myself on the technical side. The guy I’ve always considered our lead tech is very knowledgeable, but is always getting caught up on little details that derail the job and burn up hours. New manager has been telling the project managers and the foreman that I’m his #1 guy. He’s putting me on the bigger and more difficult jobs. At one point he designated the guy who trained me on t&m work only after he got burned on a few. This is the guy I call every time I get stuck still, but I got the rest of the guys calling me the new lead tech.. I kinda hate it. It doesn’t seem right. Makes me wonder if the new manager doesn’t appreciate knowledge and doing things the right way… not that I’m a hack but I feel like there’s so much I still gotta learn before I would ever consider myself lead worthy. Is this something I just gotta nut up and accept?

I have mainly done light commercial and have a good amount of experience with Mitsubishi city multi. Bossman called me and asked how I feel about going out to an LG VRF at a local college. Was wondering if they have a proprietary maintenance tool or laptop interface thing like Mitsubishi maintenance tool does. Or anything else I might need to prepare for, any special tools for them I might need, anyone have any advice?

Four units. One bad evap coil temp sensor. Two leaky evap coils. And one bad compressor. And that was just today! Each only 5-7 years old.

Was chasing ghost on a residential unit for a few months. Turns out it's the condenser fan motor going into thermal intermittently. Every month or two it would hi pressure switch and lock out board till hard cycle reset. But while i was present and would run it everything looked good no issue. Cycled it a bunch during each visit all good. Capacitor good as well as running load, pressure/temps, wasn't terribly hot. Could I have checked resistance on motor windings or something? Want to know what a better technician would have done.

I am so exhausted by today’s manufacturer’s and our distributors, and at this point it’s literally all of them. I just want to know when it is ever going to get better. I’m the Service Manager for a medium sized locally owned company that services both commercial and residential. We’ve bean a Factory Authorized Dealer for Carrier for close to the last FORTY YEARS, and have major relations with Trane Commercial. Tell me why I can’t get proper tech support from Carrier!? They defer all tech support to the local distributor, who literally has ONE MAN performing tech support. Tell me why I am CONSTANTLY having to tell customers with top tier equipment that we simply can’t fix their unit because no parts are available. Tell me why I can’t get a condenser fan motor for a TWO YEAR OLD Trane Precedence RTU?!? Hell, I even have a Lennox compressor that I ordered LAST JUNE that I still don’t have because Copeland shit the bed, and I wound up going with an Arrco to get the customer running. Why does it seem that none of the distributors or even the manufacturers stock even a modicum of repair components for even the systems still covered by a standard warranty. It’s so frustrating not being able to provide a respectable level of service to our customers because we simply CANNOT get proper repair components, and then even replacement systems at this point are exorbitant to the point of hilarity. I just long for the days when a truck could stock some Rescue Motors, Capacitors, and Contactors, and be able to resolve 90% of service calls same day. It’s just frustrating. And customers just universally don’t comprehend that we are at the mercy of distributors for components and can’t magically pull them off an imaginary shelf in the back, and seem to think we get off on leaving them to be subjected to one of the hottest summers in the South. Our Heat Index has been 111 degrees F this week. I’m just curious as to if this has been a universal experience? Sorry for the long rant, but had to get it off my chest with people who should understand the feelings.