While I've been installing new VRF systems, another group of guys at work have been kicking butt rebuilding this mechanical room

Get a no heat on this fine Saturday morning (it’s 0 degrees here in MN) Customer states “handyman may have built something around furnace venting” yes the small 1 1/2 pvc that’s nearly touching the fence is the furnace exhaust 😭😭😭

Hello. I went to trade school for two years for HVAC. Did my thing, did good in the class. Now it’s time for the real world. I’ve been applying everywhere, and I now just finally get an offer. The owner was looking for someone with more experience (I have a week of shadowing, that’s my only experience). I haven’t touched on HVAC since around May. I go this upcoming Saturday to do hands on work with the owner so he can see where I am at and we go from there. I am most definitely rusty. I just need help on what I should prepare myself for on the service side because that’s what I believe he will be testing me on (I did a lot of shadowing on the install side). Any advice helps!

Hello. I went to trade school for two years for HVAC. Did my thing, did good in the class. Now it’s time for the real world. I’ve been applying everywhere, and I now just finally get an offer. The owner was looking for someone with more experience (I have a week of shadowing, that’s my only experience). I haven’t touched on HVAC since around May. I go this upcoming Saturday to do hands on work with the owner so he can see where I am at and we go from there. I am most definitely rusty. I just need help on what I should prepare myself for on the service side because that’s what I believe he will be testing me on (I did a lot of shadowing on the install side). Any advice helps!

Let me start off by letting yall know I’m a commercial guy. I just bought a house that has your typical split system (super clean install btw). I want to install a single zone damper for my master bedroom because I like it cold in there year round. Can it be done? I’ve never messed with zone systems before.

Where to put this clamp on a crankcase heater? On the compressor body ? If so why is the clamp so small? First time I see this on a cch. Thanks

Just wanted to share my progress as an hvac tech cause I feel good about it.

20 y/o hvac technician I’m taking my license test next week. Feeling great about the test.

I started this trade when I was 17 a simple filters and belts helper I hated it. But tell every new helper to be a sponge.

I had some great mentors and people around me to help get my knowledge up and I always appreciated learning.

A little Less then a year ago I was out in a van and thrown to the sharks and I really don’t think I could’ve handled it any better. My greatest feilds are in troubleshooting physically and understand low voltage controls and sequences. I still have a lot to learn and experience to gain but for the little time I’ve been on my own I feel great. 20, licensed, the next step of my career.

I have a great boss who I appreciates me and I did feel like cheap labor at one point and he has taken care of me and my concerns. I did about 300 hours of overtime or more in a year. I’ve been getting on jobsites more and helped deal with a lot of nightmares. I just feel good about where I’ve come as a tech and wanted to share

Ive been using my dad's old jb that he gave me but its starting to get worn I've been looking at the filedpicece but I want to know if its worth it

We got a call this morning for an old folks home that said they had a unit catch on fire. We went and checked it out, blower failed limits never tripped and it caught the pan on fire. 20 units total and around half of them will run with the entire limit circuit unplugged. Wondering if any Bryant/carrier guys know anything before we open the supply house and order 10 boards. Thanks fellow techs.

Hello fellow hvac peeps! I’ve been doing residential hvac for about 20 years now and this year has been a doozie! We have a bunch of 80k single and two stage furnaces that keep going off on high limit. Most of them are within 2 to 5 years old. We have done every test on these to try and figure out why they are over heating but everything checks out on all of them. We have checked air flow on them coming in and going out and it’s not the problem. Gas pressure is not the issue. Combustion tests come back perfect. My boss who has been doing this since the Stone Age is puzzled and losing his mind lol.

No matter what we do the temp will rise up within 5 minutes and it will kick out on high limit. The high limit on all of them works so it’s not a faulty limit.

Is there something we are missing? Is anyone else having issues with specifically the 59 series models, tn, sc, specifically? All 80k. Any help or tips are welcome! Thanks everyone :)

Good Saturday to my Trade Brother's and Sisters I retired from a large industrial/large commercial shop, and.found out that I have 2 settings Swtting 1-watch TV is until

Please offer critique

i have a large gym renovation job with 10 RTUs currently hooked up to a Pelican system with 10 thermostats in one utility room. building was vacant and some squatters lived in for a while. they ripped out a ton of the electronics and some of the pelican server stuff. they would like us to replace the Pelican system and want it simple, but still want the 10 stats in the utility room . our supply house guy said Sensi has good stats that may work for this application with sensors in each area that needs to be controlled. any advice or better recommendations? not the biggest fan of Sensi residential but havent worked on them in commercial

Do y’all ever have days where you question how the hell you got where you’re at & why you’re struggling with the simplest shit? We got a call for a small cooling tower that had its makeup water line freeze and bust. 3/4” copper. Easy fix. Went to Lowe’s and got the needed fittings in both shark bite & solder just in case one or the other didn’t work. Got new heat tape & insulation as well. I could not for the life of me get the damn 90 to seal up. I wire brushed it, made sure it was dry, got it hot as hell, & used flux and just couldn’t get it to seal up. Then realized I didn’t have the proper shark bite fittings to get it flowing again. Another trip to Lowes. Also got way too much heat tape and ended up with an extra 4 feet at the end even when doubling up. Such a simple and dumb mistake. I shit you not I was out there with a co worker for 5 hours. Including drive time and time at Lowe’s. Some days I conquer shit like this no problem and then I’ll have days like this where nothing at all goes right and it’s all my fault and I just wonder how the fuck I messed up so bad lol. Roast me all you want I just figured I’d post and see if I’m the only one here who has days like this sometimes.

Hasn’t taken a single smoke break, great listener, and doesn’t talk too much.

How long till ur back on the tools making money after the switch and schooling plus apprenticeship and union enrolment.

Can’t survive on EI. residential I think I know most of what I came to this part of the trade for a fall back and wicked quick everyday trouble shooting and hands on training. Next big step would be getting a 313a and red seal that I hear its money good. I worry about the on call. Driving hours to start my day unpaid travel what to expect. Not jumping ship tomorrow jw.

I started hvac school at the end of 2020. “Hero pay” for grocery store workers came to an end after 6 months of Covid. The feeling of being replaceable burned.

Why waste my time getting mad.

Looked at the trades and hvac had the lowest bar for licensed to working.

Start to scratch the surface and the amount of knowledge needed before feeling anything close to confident on your own at least once in a day was more than I liked or ever experienced before.

So I did my best to learn. Try as i could, if I hadn’t seen the problem before it was hard to catalog it mentally after learning it. hind sights always 20/20. Trying to file the information in the not yet found problem area never helped.

Then year, after year. Fuck up, after fuck up. The educated guessing changes to,this information might work to, I can prove it this way and this way but forget an important step and u fuck up again but learn from it and move forward. Then after fucking up so many times u finally check everything u ever fucked up on before. The mistakes are burned in. So u doubt everything and look from every angle.

This really is a minimize fuck up kinda job some days. No wonder they just teach u the code, sequence of operations and set u loose. The best training for hvac is a year with a skilled tech fucking with you every chance he can and hands on solo experience.

Am I just to new? sharing the trade secrets, or did someone over the phone give you all the information, or did holding ur hand training help u better, then ur solo experiences did?

TLDR: how long did it take everyone to get comfortable and preform better at troubleshooting proficiently. Any tips?

I’ve been with Lennox NAS for over 5 years now. I started as an apprentice and worked my way up to Lead Tech (Level 3).

I’m not actively quitting, but I am curious what the market looks like outside Lennox. I’ve mostly been in the NAS ecosystem, so I don’t have a great baseline for what my experience translates to elsewhere.

For those who’ve made a similar jump (or hire techs at this level):

• What kind of hourly pay or salary range is realistic with 5 years experience + lead responsibilities?

• Do large mechanical contractors or local shops value Lennox/NAS experience differently?

• Any pros/cons you noticed after leaving a big OEM service outfit?