25 Hours, 800 miles........(covering 4 territories sux!)

obieone

...and I didn't even leave the state of SC! Left the house at 7:30 Wednesday morning, and got home at 8:30 Thursday morning.
First stop Wed. was a quoted repair in Columbia. Parts were never ordered, and customer rescheduled due to not being in the loop:surprised:
Onto Cheraw, SC. No A/C due to loose belt, and iced up coil. Tightened the belt, thawed the coil, checked out the other units, and headed out.

Next call: Easley, SC, no A/C due to broken belt. Replaced the belt(thank God for spares on site), and started heading south.

Get home at 11:00pm....5 minutes later, the phone rings: A store in Charleston needs the reefers and and A/C's reset at 3:00 am, when the water flow is restored (water sourced components). Which gave me an hour to relax, and wolf down some cookies. Out on the road at midnite, arrive an hour early to scope out the place and find all the breakers/ resets. At the appointed hour, I reset everything, and make sure it's good to go. The reefer, a 'walk-in-cooler', runs for 45 minutes and goes into defrost. So now I have to wait for it to come out of defrost, start cooling again, and wait for it to meet the safety setpoint on the alarm panel. 1.5 hours later, the unit is back in the 'greenzone', I take a picture of the temperature, and tell the mgr. on duty he is good to go.

Call my boss at 6:00am, tell him there is still another call here, but I've been up for 24 hours, and have to leave. It'll be a lot worse if I misdiagnose something due to fatigue, than for the customer to wait an extra couple of hours.
Leave there at 6:30am, got home 2 hours later.

I have got find a job in stationary engineering. This **** is getting old, and so am I.

Drenis

Rough. How often are you on call and how long you been doing HVAC?

We do on call for a full week at a time... Fortunately, it isn't quite that active.

mrbigbluelight

obieone wrote: »

I have got find a job in stationary engineering. This **** is getting old, and so am I.

Not a bad trade. SE does have its own thorns, though. Typically start out in a rotating-shift watch position until you work your way onto days when openings come up. Pays good. Land in any larger city in the US and there will be openings for stationary engineers.
You've got the skills in refrigeration/HVAC and assume you have the associated skills in electrical/electronics/controls, etc.
I don't know if you have a background in boilers (low and/or high pressure). If you don't, there are usually stationary engineer classes provided by the local union to get those skills. They're needed to pass the Stationary Engineer license exam (written and oral).

Local 470 of the IUOE (located in Graniteville, SC) should be able to tell you more.
http://www.local470.net/index.cfm?zone=/unionactive/contact.cfm

Interesting trade and, for the most part, keeps you off of roofs in January working on RTUs.

cnh

obieone wrote: »

...and I didn't even leave the state of SC! Left the house at 7:30 Wednesday morning, and got home at 8:30 Thursday morning.
First stop Wed. was a quoted repair in Columbia. Parts were never ordered, and customer rescheduled due to not being in the loop:surprised:
Onto Cheraw, SC. No A/C due to loose belt, and iced up coil. Tightened the belt, thawed the coil, checked out the other units, and headed out.

Next call: Easley, SC, no A/C due to broken belt. Replaced the belt(thank God for spares on site), and started heading south.

Get home at 11:00pm....5 minutes later, the phone rings: A store in Charleston needs the reefers and and A/C's reset at 3:00 am, when the water flow is restored (water sourced components). Which gave me an hour to relax, and wolf down some cookies. Out on the road at midnite, arrive an hour early to scope out the place and find all the breakers/ resets. At the appointed hour, I reset everything, and make sure it's good to go. The reefer, a 'walk-in-cooler', runs for 45 minutes and goes into defrost. So now I have to wait for it to come out of defrost, start cooling again, and wait for it to meet the safety setpoint on the alarm panel. 1.5 hours later, the unit is back in the 'greenzone', I take a picture of the temperature, and tell the mgr. on duty he is good to go.

Call my boss at 6:00am, tell him there is still another call here, but I've been up for 24 hours, and have to leave. It'll be a lot worse if I misdiagnose something due to fatigue, than for the customer to wait an extra couple of hours.
Leave there at 6:30am, got home 2 hours later.

I have got find a job in stationary engineering. This **** is getting old, and so am I.

Sounds good to me. It's always, also good to NEVER have a "boss" regardless of how well meaning he might be, IMO!

cnh

obieone

mrbigbluelight wrote: »

Not a bad trade. SE does have its own thorns, though. Typically start out in a rotating-shift watch position until you work your way onto days when openings come up. Pays good. Land in any larger city in the US and there will be openings for stationary engineers.
You've got the skills in refrigeration/HVAC and assume you have the associated skills in electrical/electronics/controls, etc.
I don't know if you have a background in boilers (low and/or high pressure). If you don't, there are usually stationary engineer classes provided by the local union to get those skills. They're needed to pass the Stationary Engineer license exam (written and oral).

Local 470 of the IUOE (located in Graniteville, SC) should be able to tell you more.
http://www.local470.net/index.cfm?zone=/unionactive/contact.cfm

Interesting trade and, for the most part, keeps you off of roofs in January working on RTUs.

Ugh, oral exams. I remember those from my last command: "Draw me the MRG L/O system, component by component":mad:

mrbigbluelight

""Draw me the MRG L/O system, component by component".


Luckily, the civilian oral SE exam is a whole different ballgame, especially if you're "heavy" in HVAC/Refrigeration. That's where they usually nail people to the cross. But it's a nice crucifixion; no questioning of your manhood, parentage, or the worse insult/putdown in Navy engineering was: "What ? Are you some kind of rock ?".

BTW: the only piece of equipment onboard a ship that is leased by the Navy are the main reduction gears. That's courtesy of the USS Kitty Hawk and a paint scraper. (I wasn't there, so I didn't do it :loneranger:)

The SE thing is something to keep in mind. Doesn't hurt to work towards/get your License, even if you don't use it right away. Economy changes and your present job situation changes, there's almost always jobs available in hospitals, facilities, colleges, etc.