r/maintenance

Property owners love saying “just make it low profile” like the ceiling is a magical storage unit for bad decisions. I’m not against compact equipment, honestly some of the newer pancake AHU setups tied to a heat pump make sense for multifamily housing, especially when you’re trying not to sacrifice closets or run giant chases through a unit. But if it’s ceiling-mounted and nobody thought about filter access, condensate, drain pans, service clearance, or the poor maintenance guy standing on a 6 ft ladder at 9pm while a tenant says “it’s dripping again,” then congrats, we just hid the problem higher. For 2026 builds, I kinda hope builders start asking maintenance before they pick the sleek option. Anyone running these in apartments and actually liking them after move-in season?

Can anyone tell me about working in nursing homes 300plus rooms in new brunswick Canada or in general. Pay in job ad is garbage for the industry I think. What is the room to tech ratio normally. Im assuming I can repair faster then things break.

thank me later, don't huff it.

Got an interview for night shift maintenance tech at the factory i work in, apparently I have to take a ramsay assessment. Any info on where to take free practice tests? I think im way out of my league here. I've done apartment maintenance like unclog pipes, fix roofs, change out water heaters or install a new furnace but this is a lot more than that. Really just looking for information on that ramsay assessment.

Hi everyone I am a maintenance technician at two large apartment buildings. Both have a significant mouse issue, and no matter what I or pest control do they continue to return.

Information about the buildings:
- both were built in early 2000s, so relatively new, and use steel studs. They are well and properly insulated.
- they are located between a main road at the front, and at the rear past the parking lot is a strip of forest. To either side there is swamp or forest. Past the strip of forest is a highway. I am including this information for the sake of the type of mice we face.

There are no rats here, no large mice. The ones here are tiny field mice that can enter through the smallest gap. They are fast and smart, hard to catch. My cat stills gets them though.

What I have done:
- extensive building wide hole sealing using coarse steel wool followed by pest control spray foam. Behind dishwashers, where pipes go into walls, gaps in the cabinets, toilets, literally anywhere that has a mouse sized hole.
- communicated to residents not to leave compost open under sinks, and not to leave food on the floor. As well as informing them that mice like clutter.
However this is pet friendly buildings, therefore food and water is always available at ground level, making resident oriented prevention near impossible
- gone around exterior of both buildings and sealed any holes. Although I do see some in dirt around foundation I can’t prove it’s the mice.
- our pest control contractor has come dozens of times to lay more traps and to conduct unit sweeps. They’ve only dusted on a few rare occasions.

These measures only serve to delay the rodent armies formidable advances. The foam and steel wool is but a blown bridge in which they quickly rebuild and carve through. The dust forces them to make a new entry point, better hidden than before. The resident prevention is but a propaganda measure they pay no mind to. The pest control contractor fears them, they laugh in his face and at his pathetic traps.

I asked for more aggressive measures along the lines of “how do we defeat the rodent lords once and for all” in which the pest guy told me “we have already fallen, to find their nests in the walls would be nigh impossible. All we can do is hold out and pray our new rulers are kind to those that once rallied against them”

I’m gonna send seal team snake into the walls soon. Please help anything creative, preferably cheap.

Thank you!

Hello everyone,

I’m a junior mechanical engineer seeking guidance from experienced professionals in maintenance and reliability.

Could you share insights on which types and sizes of mechanical seals are most critical to keep in stock for emergency and preventive maintenance?

Edit: Based on feedback, I’m focusing more on identifying critical pumps first and then understanding the seal requirements for those specific assets.

I’m particularly interested in understanding what is commonly required in real-world operations.

It’s a model
:RS25J500DSG/AA

Basically for reasons unknown it stopped cooling. It’s been having temperature issues for awhile now to do it not closing hard enough so multiple residents would either forget to close it for hours or often leave it cracked

So it randomly would leak water for some reason every now and then

So fairly recently and randomly it still works but just stopped cooling completely when I arrived home

Tried to just google what the solution was to diagnose it, but these fridges are so different from mine their solutions can’t apply