HVAC Technician Stories, Kirk & Curtis Ep. 7

Kirk, Curtis, and myself going through some of the complicated situations we find ourselves in as hvac technician. 

Needing service software? Reach out to Field Pulse to get started, https://www.fieldpulse.com?lmref=g2AY7g

Get 8% off at TruTech Tools with promo HVACTIME
https://www.trutechtools.com/?ApplyPromo=hvactime

techsupport@hvactimetx.com
hvactime@hvactimetx.com

Get tech support at hvactime.shop

Transcript

 How's it going everybody? Welcome to the HVAC Time podcast. I've got two pretty awesome guests today. Uh, these are two friends of mine, Curtis and Kurt. We're gonna be having a fairly interesting, at least, I think, interesting conversation. This is actually a conversation we have whenever we just sit at a lunch and get in a restaurant, or, I mean, heck, uh, we had our, uh, uh, professors from trade school come down and this is basically the conversation we have.

Just all the crazy wild things we get into and what I guess keeps us entertained makes it interesting. How, how do you wanna look at that? Yeah, interesting. , with that being said, so we'll start with Curtis. Curtis is, well, you're what, four years into it? Can you give us a quick bio on you? Quick bio on me? I mean, I don't know.

I, uh, Came here. Like you talking about the whole ski up. I mean, I, I've, I've been, I've been working at this, uh, went through the PM program. Now I'm doing service. Uh, I mean, uh, so just slowly built into this, growing into this experience. And, uh, yeah. I mean, like I said, it's, it's a bunch of experiences. I'm not sure, you know, no bio here.

Yeah. Well, you got, you got a solid four years in now, right? And you've, you've had a, a, a buddy, what a solid year of that, of some hardcore, uh, service experience. Right. And then prior to that was very heavy kind of apprenticeship style structure, is that right? Right. Yeah. I mean, I went to the, uh, started the whole PM thing.

We started, and then when we started the PMs, it was all just kind of like trying to figure it out. So it was all putting it all together from the get go. And then, uh, after there was some structure, and then I, I played, you know, a part in that, you know, for a while until, uh, I. You know, pretty much had Delia pretty much, uh, couldn't ha I couldn't have no more fun there.

And then they moved me on to other crazy pastures and where most of these stories, uh, began to happen from, from then. There you go. All right. Uh, so Mr. Kirk, Mr. Kirk, tell us about yourself. So, I've been here at APS for, what, three years now? Uh, just like Curtis came through the PM program. Uh, instead of moving directly over to service like Curtis did, I did about a year, year and a half of supervising that PM department.

And then, uh, a couple months ago moved over to the service side. Yeah, that's, yeah. You wanna get into the story of how you got into service ? Uh, well, my, uh, I'm just kidding. My super, my supervisor got promoted and said, we need someone to fill this spot. So here you go. Take it. Absolutely. So we do have a sponsor on this podcast.

It is Filled Pulse. I've talked about 'em pretty heavily. They're a great software for helping manage your service business, whether that be in HVAC or any of the other trades. They don't tailor into just one specific, they do cover a spectrum, and they are based here to in Texas and dfw, which is fairly local to me.

So I, I appreciate that. I'd rather work with people I know that are local to me and support that side of the industry. If you do still have a fairly small shop or you're trying to develop your business and you need to really try to expand that, a great investment you can make is in a good software that's gonna help you manage that, help your field team better track what they're doing and be more autonomous on their own.

The, the more you can get your team to that state at a, as a small shop, the better off you're gonna. So go check 'em out, talk to Michael over at Phil Pulse and they'll be able to take care of you. I'll open up with our first story. Uh, my first one is kind of a, kind of a, a close call if you will, but it was, uh, so we were down chiller pit.

So outside of this building, it was a, it is a three, I think there's three story buildings and there's a single R t a a, uh, air cold chiller down in the pit. And we were down there to do some work on one of the, it was actually a circuit C, you're the third compressor. And we had already done the recovery and we thought we had the whole system completely flat.

Now, we did make a mistake here. We were checking pressure everywhere except for right at the discharge line. So there may have been a little more pressure there than we thought, but ultimately we, we thought we were being fairly rigorous and the system was, was safe. And we start backing out the, the four bolts that hold the discharge line on.

And what's crazy about it, and it's weird how gaskets work because as we're coming out with that flange, uh, the overing in there was holding the, the seal. And we actually got to the point where you could visually see the gap in between the flange and the housing. So honestly, we had no reason to think things weren't okay.

So we're going and we're going, and I've got the, uh, I had an note, a chiller apprentice with me at the time. We won't name names, and he's coming out with the, with the, uh, the bolts. And then that o-ring lets loose. And when that thing let loose, I don't know how much we had, but it was more than it should have been.

It just goes. And so the oil that was held holding into compressor housing starts flying out. Uh, we, the whole area got covered and we had, it was a massive cleanup, but what was crazy about it was he. His first reaction was to get in there and try to put the bolts back in. Now you gotta think we'd already created about a quarter inch gap on four bolts that are about an inch and eighth head.

So you, you're talking a pretty substantial, it would take you a minute to get those bolts back in there. Even if he did, I don't think that seal, that seal is going to close off it at this point. Like it's, it's already blown out. So, you know, his reaction was to fix, not run. And, and I'm, I'm actually up inside the chiller, so I was on the inside in between the coils, uh, in, in the frame.

He was on the outside leaning in and we were trying to tag team this, uh, so I ended up having to tell him, just get your blank outta here and we gotta run. And he was sitting there and he just, he, he looked confused because in his mind he's thinking, we need to fix this. What he doesn't understand, and this is just where experience comes in.

I guarantee he doesn't do this twice, but he, when you look around us, , all these space around us is qu quickly turning into fog. Now I'm very confident we didn't have liquid refrigerants still in there, but we still had enough vapor charge. And when you're dealing with, I think those are, I mean, shoot, what, two and a half inch, three inch lines.

And while the system said it didn't have any pressure, and we, we thought we had checked it far enough, you know, we, we were very confident. Obviously that was a mistake. Our confidence bit us in the butt. But, uh, maybe it's more of arrogance than confidence. But, uh, yeah, that was, that was a crazy situation.

It took 30 minutes for that pit to air back out enough to where you could actually see through it and go back down in there. Uh, and then it took us another probably day to clean all that up and make it all right. That was, that was a pretty crazy experience. Um, and I know he, and it's, it's interesting because if you haven't been through that kind of thing, it's you, you know, where does your mind go with that?

I mean, because I, I, he's not the first time. , I've ran into something like that. Uh, but I'm just kind of curious, you know, in y'all's mind, just trying to put yourself there. What, why, what makes you wanna stop it versus understanding Get, get out man. Uh, that does remind me of a, a story that, uh, when I first started MPMs, uh, I always wore gloves, especially when handling refrigerant mostly cuz I'm terrified of the refrigerant more than anything.

And that stems actually from, uh, experience in the classroom that I had way back, uh, like in, in your class in college back in East Texas and all. Uh, and so, uh, but I was on the, on the roof and, and somebody had blew a Schrader cor out of this unit and they have like these giant line sets and this whole roof is full of condensers and, uh, and, and, and it's really, it's really cut and loose and, uh, I have gloves on.

So they're, they're, um, the, the PM supervisor at the time, this was, this is a long time ago, this's, when I first started it. And, uh, He's, um, basically I'm, he's telling me to stop it with the gloves cause I got the gloves, you know, put my hand on it to stop it. I mean, in his mind it has to be saved, you know, in the same sense of what you're talking about.

The guy in the pit, you know, he is like, save, you know, like in my mind I'm, what is there to save, you know, it's done. Uh, anyway, I gave him the glove, uh, cause I said no, and then he tried to stop it, and of course that was completely unsuccessful and, you know, with the burns and all he got from that, you know.

So, yeah, it's a, yeah. Where does your mind go? You know, I don't know. Uh, I'm more of a just, you know, man, , it's already happened. You know, going with that, you know, being an apprentice in a new, working on a new piece of equipment, you want to kind of prove yourself a little bit. Make sure you don't, you don't break it.

But it's, it's hard in the moment to realize what was your fault and what, or what, what is fixable and what isn't. And immediately you're there to fix and do a repair. And so it, it's hard sometimes to just break that, that, that, I guess, point of safety. I guess. I, I, I really don't know how to explain it, but I know I've had a similar situation where a Schrader cord blew out and I had four or five texts just saying, just let it blow, let it, let it, let it go.

You, you, it, it's gone. You know? And I'm over there still trying to, you know, fix that, that stem and get it set. But, you know, there's, it's just a mentality. It does come with experience. Just, you just gotta lose the anxiousness of it, I guess. I guess that's true, that, that's a good point of, of having, having a desire to want to prove yourself, you know, and so you, you, uh, do just about anything to try to accomplish that.

So I guess I can, I could rationalize that, uh, I was, I guess, fortunate enough that by the time I had gotten into any of those like really serious situations, I was already fairly experienced. So, uh, my mind wasn't in that same state of reference, I guess. I dunno. It's interesting. What do y'all got? What's, uh, I know you, both of y'all have k seen some pretty interesting things, so throw it at me, what you got?

Uh, I mean, I've had one where I've evacuated, um, an entire building due to a burning smell. Um, there was no hot work being performed, um, but uh, I was replacing belts, um, on a four story on all these self-contained units, and I was replacing belts.  and, uh, I, I was leaving for the day and I got a call from one of the other senior techs who the, the engineer was really close with.

And, uh, I, I mean, he, he got pretty lit up on that, that text message and obviously trickle down effect came down to me like, what did you do? I'm like, I didn't do anything. There was no fire at all. And, uh, come to find out that we had been replacing these belts, um, and they were having tension and, and startup issues with all these belts anyways, so we had elected to go to banded belts and the, the grooves in between the poolies, uh, had actually started eating away at the bands while they were running, creating a burnt rubber smell that had perpetrated throughout the entire building.

And, uh, you know, I had to get back out there and, and figure out a way to get all this to work. And I must have spent, I don't know, another two hours out there that night realizing I had warped belts and all that stuff. And, uh, come to find out we had the wrong belts from the get-go and whoever had been logging these belts were, was wrong from the start.

And that's where I learned to always carry a, um, belt sizing tool. But yeah. Evacuated a whole building that, that night. It was great. I remember that day. That was a very bad day. . Yeah. There was multiple reasons that one had gone south, but that was cherry on top, I guess. How many buildings have you evacuated, Curtis?

We know, we know. It's, is it still on one hand or have you are young, multiple hands? I don't know. I don't think I've had to have any, uh, uh, buildings evacuated. I know, and I certainly, uh, I've certainly almost tore 'em down and I flooded them and  all manner of fun, you know. But like, uh, specifically the, uh, the one that almost tore down is, uh, I was, what was I there I think.

I had noticed that I could hear the bypass wasn't fully closing on this. Um, so it's a condenser water loop on a, on a, on a multi-story building. I don't know what you call it. A high-rise, medium rise, whatever. And uh, I think there's like 18 floors. What do you call that? I don't know. Anyway, it's a condenser water loop.

Uh, it has a, a bypass valve, so it's either in heating or cooling and it's for cooling tower versus the boiling. Anyways, three eight valve is a globe valve on a four inch copper line. And. I'm just trying to adjust it so that when it's bypassing the tower, it's not, uh, running over the tower. And, and so Uhuh, as it may, I'm not completely experienced with, with the, with the valve.

And I have it all apart. I have the actuator apart and uh, I have it down to just the stem and the wrench. And, and in my mind, in my heart, I'm like, there's something, there's something that's exciting that's gonna happen here when I do this, but I have no, no frame of reference. So I really don't know. I even tried to set up a camera cause like, I have this stinking feeling that something's cool is gonna happen anyway, guys, that goes on, uh, I, I, I gotta to move that stem and the STEM's just free from all the actuator and, and all it's gearing.

And, uh, I mostly have it all taken apart to understand it. And so I'm moving this valve and it moves and it moves and it closes when, and then it moves back to me, you know, on its own power. And so, uh, if you could imagine, I don't know if I can flow around on camera and give it, uh, it's uh,  fair justice, but it, it begins to, uh, push me in and out and it's picking up a resonance.

So, so I'm, I, I'm pretty stout and I got a hold to this thing, and it's moving me, and, uh, it's opening and closing and now real fast, like enough that it's throwing me around and I can't stop it. And it's, uh, I'm picking up and making a lot of noise and, and, and, and I look down the line, this long copper line penetrates the wall, the penthouse, and it's jumping down on its, uh, mount.

And, uh, I look at the side of the building and it's like, uh, it's a brick building. So it's, it's, uh, bubbling with the, with the, um, with the, with the line with this four inch copper line that's attached to this glow valve as it is, and it's penetrating the wall. Well, it's doing that like bubbly thing that you see on the demolition videos and, uh, so this is not good.

And, and, and, and it's very loud. Anyway, so I tried to run into the building and, uh, I'm sure that whoever's seen me clear the. The line set and into the building. Probably thought I should have been in the Olympics. Uh, probably two steps across that whole roof anyway, cuz this is, this is not good. Anyway, I go into the building.

There's no disconnect for the pump. Not one, there's no, there's no, there's no lever marked disconnect for pump, uh, the pump's running at this time. What's happening is this, it's, it's, um, what's it called? Water hammer, back and forth. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Um, at this point it's, uh, separated some of the mounts from the boiler from the ground and the boiler's jumping off the ground.

Uh, maybe like an inch or something. I don't know. It's, it is just dust and stuff and it's pretty chaotic.  and, uh, I finally get to the VFD of the pump, and of course I press off and it's probably like a 32nd, 32nd ramp down on it. So all this just gets to slowly plate down in front of my eyes. It's about 15 seconds later, I get a call from the engineer.

Uh, what's going on up there? Uh, uh, I just had the emergency down on the plant. Uh, you might want have to turn off all the water source heat pumps. Uh, yeah, that was utter chaos. , utter chaos. . Yeah. I remember that day you came in to tell that story. You were Yeah.

and this ladies and gentlemen. Yes. Why? To this day, I've still tried to convince this guy to just put a GoPro on his chest. Don't even edit it. Just hit record. It could be two hours long. Just put it on online. It would be the. You, you find yourself in them pretty epic situations. Hotel it, it tru it truly is.

And I don't even know how, how much without me running around doing the pantomime situation. You can really get a grasp of how, how, how intense that situation is. And I do tend to, it does, I do tend to find myself in these pretty intense situations. I'm, I'm not exactly sure how that comes to be . Suppose it keeps me, uh, young, I don't know.

young on the edge of a heart attack. One of the two. Yeah. Yeah. One mental acuity for sure. . Yeah. I think the closest I've come to like a hard core building evacuation. Uh, this was at a previous company I was working with and what was funny about it is it was the owner's, uh, son we were working on some self contains and I forget, I think we were doing PMs actually.

And he was there, you know, training and, and getting some experience with me. It was a trained self-contained, and they've got the, the liquid line service valves right there below where the, um, uh, the filter dryers are and the blower cabinet. They're on the, on, you know, on the, I guess left side of the unit where the behind the control panel.

And so I'm in the control panel, uh, going through the electrical section, and I had him moving the gauges around and taking pressures. And we had, if I remember, we had just finished taking readings on one circuit and we were getting ready to move to the next, well, all of a sudden I just hear this, who all, and I just, you can smell it, you can smell the refrigerant.

And my mind immediately went to something just ruptured. And so I slammed the control panel door closed, and I come running around to him to see what's going on. And he's just standing there panicked, you know, and he'd never, he was still very. Early. So it's not, I'm not necessarily faulting him, uh, honestly, maybe I was putting him in a position a little too soon anyway, regardless of, of my decisions on that.

Uh, but you, Holden put going in a position they can't handle what  So yeah, he's just standing there, just staring at this, just dumbfounded. He doesn't know what to, what to do with it. And he's, and he is just, and he's got the, the high side gauge in his hand and I look over and that's exactly what's going on.

The service wrench is still on the stem, but there's just this stream of just liquid refrigerator just spewing straight out hardcore. And this target had just been running, so it was, it was under high pressure. Uh, yeah. It didn't take a few seconds after that, all the smoke alarms start going off in the building.

We start fogging the whole room. I was able to get there quick enough and, uh, I, I, I grabbed it, thankfully, uh, it hadn't started to freeze yet, cuz that, that'll be what can happen is you have something like that and if you don't get to it quick enough, that whole assembly will start to freeze. And I've snapped off, um, a liquid line service valve before because I let it freeze and I got too aggressive with it trying to see if I could break the, the stem from it of being frozen.

And I broke the stem, just not the way I wanted to break the stem. Uh, that, that was a, a fun day too. Yeah. That'll happen if you've never had that. Anyway. Uh, yeah. So I, I'll, I've able to get to the seat, but it was too late by that time. Fire alarms going off everywhere. Engineers are calling. Everybody's freaking out.

You know, all, as far as they know, it just, it was a normal day. There wasn't supposed to be, cuz all you know, a lot of those commercial buildings. The management is, uh, got given a heads up when there's gonna be any kind of fire test. So when there's a fire, uh, alarm going off, and especially when you start to get this funny smell and there's a little bit of fog coming, and the people that were on the same floor that we were on all of a sudden hear this weird noise that normally isn't there and they know that we're there working on it, you know, there's, there's a whole lot of things that goes through supervisors and management's minds of, okay, maybe this isn't a fake scenario.

And, and yeah, it about, about an hour later, uh, most of it aired out enough, we were able to reset the fire panel, uh, cuz what actually ended up holding us up on that was a lot of it got trapped in the ductwork. So we had to let the ductwork dissipate to the point where the smokes would clear and then we could get the whole system back online.

But yeah, we put the whole, I, I don't think we had a complete.  evacuation on that one. But, uh, they were in progress for sure. It was, that was a, that was a interesting day. He learned not to, he, what he, what he learned that day was make, make sure you close the valve first. Like there's no shrader in that at all.

And he even play with it a little bit. Make sure, double sure. Yeah, yeah. Makes  Exactly. How long did it take, uh, the engineers to, to understand the situation and calm down from that? Well, uh, in, in terms of understanding, thankfully we had a really good relationship with that customer. Uh, they didn't ask too many questions.

It was just a pretty simple, hey, uh, we had a mishap up here with one of the refrigerant lines. I, uh, fixed it, um, you know, just false alarm kind of thing. Uh, they rolled with it. They didn't really give us too much flack over it. Um, But it was just kind of, it was just kind of frustrating and the customer or the tenants that were in that building were also, weren't that, they weren't super touchy, thankfully.

It was a pretty chill building overall. So that made the whole scenario a lot less, uh, hectic for sure. Yeah. I know if you've got like a law office or something like that, they're not as understanding. They might have had a deposition going or something like that, so Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That particular building you're talking about, that, that, that one, did it have a separate, uh, water cooler condensers and separate air handlers?

I think I know what bill you're talking about. Did it have the pneumatic controls associated with it? Named after bank Anyway, I think I pulled the, uh, uh, a cap off there when I first started at that, that, at that place. Oh, no, no, it wasn't that. Okay. No, I, I pulled, I pulled the service valve. It was like an old Carlisle compressor with the, with the valve open off there too.

But I was able to close it down pretty fast. That's when I got to learn about same sort of setup. You know, you gotta, those things, you gotta make sure they're closed. Yep. You only learn, you only learn that lesson once. Front seated, front seated, back seated, whatever you want to call it. Just, it's gotta be closed.

Well, I mean, uh, the other one that comes off the top of my mind is one that's a little more recent that you've had a series of videos on after, after the initial diagnosis. So, uh, I remember going out to a job site to assist another tech, uh, do a repair on some, um, some Y C I V tillers. And we had finished, I think it was the economizer, uh, solenoid valve.

We were rebuilding that day. And, um, we got it all up and running by the end of that Friday. So this particular building had three Y C I V chillers on the roof. And uh, we had finished getting their seventh circuit back up and running. Their eighth one was down for some more repairs. So we leave that weekend and, uh, I think it's Sunday night I get a call, um, from the engineering.

He is, he mentions that he, he had just placed a call to the on-call tech and that their, their chiller had gone down and they're, I mean, they're, they have a server room that's also con chilled water coils handling a server room. And their server room's starting to heat up and they're not able to really maintain temp and he needs me to come out there cuz he didn't, he wasn't too familiar with the on-call tech.

And this particular building is, you know, they, they've got their, um, the guys that they wanna go to. And so he calls me and so I say, yeah, I'll, I'll head out there. And so we get out there and, uh, I believe the specific, um, call that I received was the chiller exploded. And I, I. I thought that was kind of, you know, a little bit of exaggeration there.

And, and I was like, no, it didn't explode. But, you know, trying to fu yeah. Playing off the, the importance there of this call. And so I, I get out there and I, I meet the on-call tech out there and we go up to the roof and, um, I see it's wet on the ground. It hadn't rained, but it's wet on the ground. And so the first thing I think of is, you know, it's a Y C I V chiller, so maybe it's got that, um, that that vfd, that VSD coolant line had ruptured, you know?

And so I'm like, okay, well maybe that's the problem. Maybe we'll just try to find a way. And, and so it's not a slip. I, I ate it bad. I'm like, oh, well that's probably not coolant. And then I, I feel it around and it's, it's oil, it's refrigerant oil and oh goodness, it really did explode. And so, okay, well we'll cancel this and we'll go try to turn on the other chiller.

Well, the other chiller doesn't run for whatever reason. They've got other problems. The compressor starts up and immediately shuts off. Oh, well, crap. Uh, yeah. So come to find out later that. Monday when I finally got back out there that the initial call was for the discharge line, uh, vibrating, cracking, uh, losing all of its charge spraying, refrigerant all over the place.

I think there's 240 pounds of refrigerant all launched inside of this cabinet where they've got the sound dampeners on. So it was really confined. Um, one of the compressors had, um, uh, locked up, um, on the back of that same chiller. And then the third compressor, which I think there's multiple videos on, uh, that's the one that with the discharge line started freezing up.

So, uh, that was all sorts of various diagnosis from, from small repairs to large repairs to full on compressor replacements. It was, that was a saga. And that was what, two days of just trying to get that one compressor just to. . Um, and ultimately failed basically, yeah. Two, two full days. It was a half day the first day.

Cause we spent the other half of the day kind of just getting the whole loop settled out. Cause that's part of what was happening there. Uh, yeah. Uh, the, the loop couldn't catch up because the building automation was constantly cycling the chillers back and forth because neither of the chillers could catch up.

Instead of just locking the whole system in and just telling it, stop, just stop, try to run. You know? And that was part of what the chillers were doing too, was the chillers were trying to stage up, but then these other circuits that were failing weren't necessarily locking out. Some of 'em were, but some of weren't.

And so because they weren't locking out and the building engineers kept resetting the chiller control. So every time it did lock out after it tripped so many times. , it would just, they would reset it anyway, not knowing any better. Most of the time that wasn't a problem, but for this very specific scenario, it was, and it just created this whole feedback loop.

Cycle of trip reset. Trip reset. And it, yeah. Yeah. I remember right. They went from seven circuits running on Friday down to three or four Monday morning for just various failures. And I, I couldn't believe that amount of, and it wasn't even all in the same chiller. It was two different chillers. All Yeah.

It was, things went, things went to hell pretty quickly there. Yeah. It was a rough one. That was really rough one, huh? I don't know. Just a bunch of cascading failures. That sounds terrible. Yeah. , not, not a whole life, I mean, This sounds like another one I've got going. Uh, so I'm pushing, uh, I've done several videos at the property, but I'm pushing, uh, shoot, I'm, I'm, I'm two years in on the project and it's just, it's one thing after another.

Uh, you know, to give an example, the most recent thing was the, the, the, the supplier on, uh, one of the buildings on the Aon unit. I mean, it just, you literally, you're talking inches worth of a gap all the way around half of the supplier duck. Uh, and I was actually one, Curtis, you, you had actually gone out on, uh, and had talked to the balancing people and they were the ones that were like, Hey, you know, we're trying to certify this building, but you know what your unit says you're moving and what we show you're moving aren't the same thing.

And, and yeah, that, that ended up being absolutely true. Uh, yeah. That was, so anyway, that's one of those where, What was kind of challenging about it was when we first got brought in for a second opinion, uh, they had already been working for at least a year, six months to a year prior to that with a actual consultant and, uh, consulting engineer and the installing contractors and everybody else.

And they hadn't, they never told us that though. So they had, they had pushed it to us as though, uh, they, these other people had already tried to fix it and they were basically having them take a backseat, if you will. And we were the next step to try to come in and just figure something out. So this is where, uh, I got personally involved in and NF state involved in it because of the, the complexity of the, of the problems.

And it all comes down to install. Vast majority of it install and ti buildouts. They've, they've, uh, the. The base building design worked fine, but once the tenants actually started building out the space, and the other engineers that came in and tried to build on top of the original engineer's design have just utterly butchered it.

And then they've had really poor install overall. There's so many install issues that it's just led to this whole, I mean, it's legitimately a, a true saga. I mean, we're only just now a couple years into it for my part of it, getting to where we're, we're starting to see the building even somewhat function anywhere close to what it was meant to be.

Uh, and we still got, we still got quite a bit to do out there. Um, and it's one of those, you, you think, kind of going into it where, well, this probably won't be that big a deal, but once you get into it and you start diving into all the, all the nuances, well there's, there's a pretty good reason why.

They've had several teams of people, including actual engineers, or at least, uh, I say actual, I guess the way I think of that is people who have degrees in engineering. Um, the, the fact that they've all struggled this deep into it. Uh, and that was another one of those kind of, uh, humbling scenarios, at least for me because I'm sitting back now and I'm just like, you know, I kind of have a different opinion on taking on some of those projects.

I might wanna ask a few more questions next time, but what can you do? You live and learn. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they pay the invoice. So there's that. But, uh, , yeah, that's, that's the main thing there. Yeah. . Yeah. And that's actually something, uh, that I don't know, I think I see some, some guys struggle with, is. Uh, just, uh, what, what, where's the dividing line between Okay.

They, they we're here to do what we can and they pay the invoice. So we're gonna just keep going. And where do we start to draw the line of, okay, we ought, we just gotta stop here, kind of thing, you know? That's something I know, I know, that I struggle with for sure. Right. Same thing you talked about earlier.

Proud of trying to do the job. You gotta, you know, basically prove yourself to nothing. Mostly yourself. Yeah. I gotta, yeah, at that same place, probably the most challenging low voltage, short to date that I've had to try to trace down on one of those, uh, Aon units. Yeah. And that's like one of the few trophies I've kept was that one segment of, uh, whatever actuator, motor wire, I don't know what what to call it really.

But yeah, that one was, that one was like, do I, do I really want, is this, is this really the career path for me? You know, am I gonna be able to do this? I can't find the low voltage short in this air conditioner here. Yeah. Eventually I found it and eventually I found it through attrition. Then we'll have you, yeah.

Well kinda walk us through that. Cause that was the one that, it was shortened on the enthalpy wheel, right? Mm-hmm. . And so the enthalpy wheel is spinning, and if you don't know, the enthalpy will has sections to it. And so there's what, like, there's, there's four basic sections or three sections. And so it, it only for a split second, uh, of the infield P wheels rotation every several seconds, does it actually have a chance to come into contact with metal?

When it's up against the wheel. Right. Cause otherwise you're, you're touching the, I don't know that it's true desicant, but the, the fill material on the py wheel. Right. Yeah. I don't know Sure. What, wherever it is. Yeah. That one took me, that one, that one. I don't know. I mean, I just, uh, eventually had to, uh, yeah, it, it, it was, I went through the whole thing, you know, I had, I had don't even know how to begin to start because like you say, it was, uh, it was impossible to find.

And it was like the last place I finally just started, uh, chasing down every square inch of wire that was low voltage. And, uh, it was probably like the last three foot of wire that was on the very last actuator, you know, that I would've came to with on that, on that series. Cuz uh, if you look at the schematics, you know, you, you see it has, it all comes to one spot and it's not exactly clear how you're gonna isolate each, each individual area.

And when you do isolate each area, you have, you know, you know all the various boards. Nearly impossible actually. Uh, just, just isolate. And, um, you know, eventually I did get it narrowed down to a certain, all right, so this, this section of the, uh, whatever, anyway, I don't really know how to explain no more than that, but yeah, no, uh, eventually found that it just virtue of, um, physically checking the wires.

And it was at the very last, this section and, and the very last cabinet to look. And it was pressed up in between the enthalpy wheel and the cabinet, and then whatever, you know, adhesive clip that they use has just come apart. And, um, I think those, uh, aons, they're, they're pretty, they're not doing great as far as, uh, who put them together.

You've got videos on those ? Yeah, well, you know, I think about that scenario and just how literally insane that would've been because I can just, I can picture it. You've, you've got a wire. Cause I remember the picture you sent me. Uh, You've got a wire dangling in the middle of this cabinet, and for half a second every, what, five seconds, it makes shorting contact.

And that's it. You've got half a second every five seconds to physically read the short. And that's it. And I remember , I remember you, us having that phone conversation and just this, uh, you kept getting this random reading and you, and we kept catching it. And I'm just like, dude, there's something there. . I would've thought, my meaning broke.

How do you, how do you put A to B? Because it would be there and it go away. And a lot of times that could happen. It just be some weird thing in your meter, right? And, and you almost question like, is this a meter thing? And, uh, yeah, that was, uh, I, I'll get, I'll give you kudos for that. That was one heck of a troubleshoot.

Um, That would've given anybody, anybody will run for their money. . Yeah. I don't, I don't keep trophies. That's the only trophy I that I have so far. So yeah, that was, that was the one that kicked last. Pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, uh, yeah, I don't know. Immediately transition into a, another chaotic and terrible situation.

Much more so than that. You know, you gotta, uh, uh, when, when we were talking about fire already, uh, floods, flyers, floods. Yeah. Floods. Yeah. Uh, it was top of one other building and I had been, uh, I guess just going to storytime mode, I guess. Uh, yeah, I've been going on this, uh, uh, retrofitting on Aja Boiler or another, uh, high rise downtown, uh, all these new controls.

And so this is a boiler that I had spent a lot of time trying to. Get a, basically just get a wiring diagram for it so that I could, you know, reverse engineer and then, and then put the new equipment in because, you know, the more modern. Anyway, so I spent a lot of time, I guess meaning say all that. I spent a lot of time, uh, I drew out the, uh, the diagram, you know, try to make all this happen.

I was at the final end of this thing, so I spend a lot of energy. So I'm, I'm replacing the wells, the thermal wells, and, uh, on the boiler, and it's getting to the end of the day. And so there's another boiler that needs to come on. And I've had this system open, the engineer, he wants this other liter run.

So, so what I, so what I've got going on here, this one boiler that I've gotten taken apart, I got the thermal wheels out and I have the isolation valve to the boiler closed. So the isolation valve is just, you know, limbal actuator on a valve and. The, the crank doesn't open it. And so, uh, I forget the exact setup of how this series of events took place, but, so I take the motor off the actuator.

I I take the actuator motor off the shaft, you know, I take the little nut off and I use a pipe wrench to close it. And so now I'm working on the, you know, I'm working on the boilers closed, you know, I got the whole thing open, blah, blah, blah. The guy wants to come. So I take it, I try to work the area outta the system.

I turn the pumps on, uh, to get the other boiler running flow back on the building. So I'm, in my mind, I'm, I'm running the pumps for a little bit and then I'm, I'm trying to watch for make sure there's flow. And then, uh, I turn them off and I'm just checking. And then eventually I start building pressure and I hear, uh, whistling.

And, uh, I'm like, okay, cool. We're getting the air out. Like, you know, this is, this is the idea. And then it's just like, I don't, I don't know, cuz my back is turned to the boilers, but I, but I, it is just the gus are behind me. Uh, I don't know what sparked my attention, but it's the, you know, there's the one inch hole, what it is, the well that sits in, and now this is a geyser, the boiler I was just working on is, is, is somehow the actuator has come, come alive and, uh, opened the valve and all this water is coming outta the boiler.

Uh, it's in such pressure that it, it's shooting and touching the roof, which is probably 15 foot in the air. And then it's just like a flat shot, just water on the roof. Um, I don't know. Except you're in a penthouse. You're not in an actual roof though. Right, right. I'm in a penthouse. I'm on, I'm on top of a building, you know, it's, uh, the lawyer's office is right below me on the 26th floor.

And like, this is not a good situation. Yeah, it's, yeah, I'm in the penthouse, what they call the penthouse is where all the, uh, mechanical room on the, on the roof and, uh, uh, there's water coming out here in the most fierce way. And, uh, so I look around and there's, there's valves, but not a single one has a handle and there's no handles.

Nowhere. And like I said, I, I've, I've had to take this motor off and I'm closed, opened it with the, I mean, I've said I've closed it with a pipe wrench, and so this isn't there. The, the cranks not gonna wear came. Now this is just water shooting out. Uh, at some point in all this, I, I, I catch myself running back and forth and, um, like I yell for help, but not, not like I help and it's like kind of comes out as a grumble.

And, uh, I just, I'm, I mean, truly I can, uh, uh, uh, uh, I'm coming apart and, uh, I realized that I was, if anybody else's gonna come to help, that's gonna be me, then that's why I'm there. So, eventually, uh, , uh, all, you know, that's why I collect myself out. And I'm just standing in front of this boiler and it's shooting water out still, and I'm getting soaked.

And, uh, I like, uh, there's probably four inches of water on the ground at this point. And, uh, I look down and I see the old thermal wheels is on the ground. And well, it was in a box when now it's all shattered gr scattered aout. And so I just take the, pick it up and I just into the hole and I twist it, and all the water stops, you know, like, uh, You know, of course now, now I gotta call the engineer and tell him Yeah, there's, there's flooding happening.

This is like four o'clock in the afternoon on a, on a Friday probably. Uh, now we got a five o'clock in the afternoon, whatever. You gotta, now we're, now we're spinning till dark, trying to clean up water. Calling Sara Pro. No. Yeah. Actually, actually, uh, yeah, sir, I don't know. Yeah, I think Cole Sefo probably got involved and I mean, I, the engineering was super cool about it.

He's like, yeah, yeah. You know, most of it came down to the mechanical rooms and stuff. I know. Not too much damage to the, uh, you know, lawyers that are occupying the top floor of this iris building downtown, you know, they're, anyway, it was, uh, yeah, it's just, what do you do? You know, you have no, no, no bearing, no.

You just gotta figure it out. You know, what's terrible about that story is it's, it's just as funny every single time you hear it as the first time , well, it's. It's even funnier because that exact, those valves not holding and doing what they're supposed to happen to another tech, not what, two months ago?

And the exact same scenario on the exact same building Bill twice. Yes. I'm fully aware, uh, if you turn that pump on, that, that operates that valve. Just, just, just so anybody else goes out there now they know , uh, yeah. . Yeah. Man. You and those four o'clock stories, man. Uh, number one, not, not as drastic as flooding a building, but you know, putting together units after Washington coals at four o'clock.

You know, trying to redrill holes that have all been tapped out and, you know, one of the apprentices goes straight into the coil with one of those self tapp. At four o'clock in the afternoon, that particular apprentice had a knack for, for shutting. For, for, for letting it loose at four o'clock. Now, I promise you he meant well.

I, I do. I hope, uh, I think, uh, . Yeah. He, I also watched him try to kill himself, you know, like, uh, he's holding this unit, this door. He is taking the door off. It's got to it's ceiling grid. He's got the metal door rested against his chest, onto the grid, onto the unit. You know, he's holding it, uh, as if he's taking it off and he's setting it down to rest it so that he can start working.

And all of my mind seizes his, a heater, uh, some fuses and a threat pass to his heart. And, uh, oh, I stop, stop, stop, stop. Whatcha are you doing? You know? Yeah. He he sorted it out too. That's the thing. But it sorted it out on the ceiling grid. Yeah, that's what, that's what saved him. Yeah. . That's not funny. Osha.

If you've been listening, you can turn it off now. , man. Yeah, no, no. Yeah, four o'clock though. He, he had a, anyway, anyway, yeah, I've, I've almost been, uh, electrocuted myself though. You know, it's like, um, I mean, I'm pretty sure I was electrocuted or, or, you know, some sort of crazy carpal tunnel, uh, experience that everybody seems to believe , which I'm, Hey, I'm, I'm on the, it, it happened to one other person.

I know the story you're talking about. It happened to one other person a little bit after that. I don't know if you know that. No, it did end up figuring it out. It, I forget exactly what the specific cause was, but it happened at second time and they figured out what was causing it. Anyway, go, go ahead. I mean, yeah, that was also when I first started in, and I'm a, I'm a, I'm a one of my fears of death, so I'm pretty vigilant.

I try to remain, you know, it may not sound it with my extra, uh, my insanity, but I've dealt with that my whole life. So I'm pretty vigi try to stay vigilant. Against the death and what have you. Anyway. Anyway, uh, I remember it was at this contract and, um, you know, it's like PTSD s on that place. Uh, I got nothing but bad, bad things anyway.

Bad things. Anyway, I'm climbing up, uh, , uh, I'm climbing up this ladder and I, I'm about to, it's a water source heat pump. It's above the ceiling grid. It's been built out. It's been built out. This water source heat pump sits across the wall. Uh, you know, in such a way is that it's not gonna be easy to get to.

Like most people would probably say we're not getting to it. So, but I'm mean, anyway, uh, I got somebody down there. Uh, so I move the ceiling grid. I'm cautious. I'm watching, I'm looking. Um, I go to, I wedge myself up in there, and as soon as I get wedged up in there, I see on my, on my right shoulder or whatever, there's the, the top of the wall, the wall that I, uh, you know, like there's a build out to the wall.

On my right, there's conduit. And the structure to the building and is, uh, you know, I push up on the right and then I grab on the left kind of with my shoulder. And mind you, I'm, I'm watching, I'm watching the unit. I don't wanna get hit by nothing. And then I get stuck and, uh, it, it, when, as soon as I've put my arm over this structure, and now I'm, I'm, I'm getting electrocuted.

And, uh, and I look, I can see down and the guy who, who's spotted me, uh, is just talking and he da and he's looking off in left field, probably checking out some office lady or something, I don't know. But he just won't shut up. And I, and I'm trying to yell and I'm, and it's everything I got and, and I'm like, this isn't good.

And so, uh, I start going plan B, I'm gonna kick the ladder out. And so that's the stage that I'm at. Um, When, when he notice it much detail with me before, by the way, the what? I don't think you've told it in this much detail before. No, I syn. This is my first hearing all these details. So

I don't kick this ladder out from anything. Well, well he notices is this going on? And, uh, you know, to have him tell it later that he was about to do the same thing, he was about to sweep the ladder out too. Uh, and it was at that time that I was, I, I, I'm still trying to yell and I, and I get the yell out.

And so of course what comes out is like some Gru rule, you know, nonsense, you know, cuz uh, I suppose whatever it was, gave up, the breaker, tripped, whatever it was, you know, uh, I didn't go back up in that hole ever again. Uh, I know we did PMs out there for how long and uh, I sat there and looked at that thing.

Hmm. It's not worth it, you know, and you're saying other people went out. I remember other people like went up directly behind me and they couldn't find anything. And that's just a massive tangled of web wires and old, you know, everything. So it's a no telling. There's wire that I suspect that were old light wires that were dangled from the dangling from the actual, you know, the floor above you.

And, uh, I think that they touched my head and, uh, this was, you know, I think whatever they touched my head while I, when I reached over there and pushed up with and that's what, you know, completed the circuit across me well, and it was something like that because, uh, yeah, we, we looked multiple times cuz obviously that's a major hazard.

We need to figure out what's going on there. So we, we had a couple of different people look and the, the last time. Yeah, it, it got one of the guys almost the same exact story. It was just climbing up, reaching up, grabbed the wrong thing and just, just lit him up hard. Uh, and I think it was something to do with the lighting and some of their, uh, receptacles or it was something along that, but they did end up figuring out, uh, there was a short and they got it as far as I'm aware they got it resolved.

Uh, but yeah, that, yeah. You, you haven't, you, you, when you've shared that story with me before, you've spared a couple of those details, I guess that guy's not here anymore either, so there's that, but yeah,  Interesting. Okay. Yeah. Uh, I think the, probably the most dramatic, uh, I say. I don't know, maybe that's not the best way to put it.

For sure. The one that gave me the biggest heart sync, and I was actually, it, it's perfect. You can go see this moment in a video. Uh, this was one of the, uh, it's kind of a vlog style troubleshoot video I did on A C V H E. Um, yeah, I think it was a C V H E, but the, uh, the, the, the, the MCC main tripped on this building.

So the coal was coming in because the chiller was surging and they had some other chiller issues and there was just a lot going on in this plant. And this plant serves some federal stuff. I won't be too specific to give it away, but it served some really important things. So, um, I'm up there and I just got the chiller back on.

They'd headed off until I got there. And I'm sitting there and I'm watching everything's coasting up doing this thing. It's running fine and. I'm just standing there watching this chiller, and, uh, you can, you can see it in the video. I'm just, I'm, I'm watching the readings. All of a sudden, the entire plant, we're talking three cooling towers, three chillers total.

I, uh, what a dozen pumps or just shy a dozen pumps, like all of this plus boilers. Everything goes dead silent and instantly. And I'm just standing there just, just stunned And, uh, knowing what the facility serves and, and some of the issues we've had. I'm just, I, I'm, I'm, that's the closest to legitimate panic.

I think I've probably ever felt as a, as a technician, like I've gotten into some pretty hairy ones, but I've usually been able to keep my composure as something I, I, I think I do fairly well. But this was one where it, it, it, it challenged that composure pretty hard. And I remember, you can see me in the video, they had a boiler company there because the, uh, they had some high end work trying to get done.

And so we had brought in a, a, a, I guess experts, if you will, to handle that specific piece of it cuz they were a little bit older. Boilers. And I lean over, that guy makes eye contact with me. I look at him, we both look at each other like, what did you do kind of thing. And , that's why I realized like, ok, I'm glad you do this  this something just happened and, and what made it worse is, so, okay, the chiller I'm on is on an upper deck.

So I go down to the lower deck, into the main plant where, where most everything is happening. And it's dead silent. I've never heard dead silent ever at this facility. It doesn't, it, it doesn't actually stop that way. And that's when the heart sink went from sink sunk to sunk in. Like it just, my gut hit the floor.

I'm just, so there was no God, what is going on? Was there any like bang or anything when it happened or it just like immediate from chiller sounds to pulling tower sounds to just silence not a thing. Yes, exactly what it was. It was just, everything was perfectly normal. Everything at the chiller was perfectly normal.

Everything was just as it should have been. Even my readings were fine. Just chiller shuts down, my display goes blank. I hear the cooling tower cycle down, the pumps stop just all in one instant, just dead. And I have a story. Okay, go ahead, continue. So, so I go down into the MCC electrical room and I'm looking around and, uh, Uh, it, it doesn't stand out to me, so none of my breakers, none of my stuff is tripped on the, on the main panel.

Uh, not, I'm not looking at the actual main itself. So we did eventually get an electrician out there and they were going through it. And what it ended up being, uh, I didn't, I wasn't a part of it cuz I'm not an electrician, but, uh, the, they had had the main, um, the main replaced for the MCC panel itself.

They'd had the whole main assembly replaced, or at least rebuilt to some degree, something like that. And apparently there are different trip algorithms into this little controller that they put into there. And they had the algorithm set to be a little too sensitive. It, I guess. Oh, technically falsely tripped.

I'm not sure they later it actually, I think the plant did that one more time. So after that happened, they questioned, okay, maybe it was just a false thing. They reset it. Uh, they got the MCC back online and I went through, uh, cuz to do that I shut down the whole MCC wall and it went through one by one and got everything back on.

And then, um, you know, made sure the whole plant was functioning and it turned into an entire day ordeal. It was, it was, it was, it was stressful. Anyway, um, they, uh, I wasn't there for the next one, but I remember the engineer called me, he was like, Hey, this just happened again. And through what I was told later, that's what they ended up deciding was, uh, was that algorithm they made this, uh, some whatever adjustments to it that they needed to make.

And, and sure enough, Uh, I think that has fixed it since then, but its just one of those where, uh, you've already got a chiller, you know, a surging, you've already got these issues going and something that should have never happened, you know, in your mind all of a sudden, like you. So it's just one of those where you're standing there and you don't touch anything.

You literally didn't touch a thing. All you did was just watch it and the whole thing just dies. I'm get blamed for this first part. . Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I. I was out at that same property right after the, the Snowmageddon, the, the whatever happened a couple years ago. I was out there with one of our senior techs and we were doing an assessment on the building as we did all those buildings, you know, after we came back to work from a few days off.

And, uh, one of the things we're checking, he's, uh, we're, we're, there was significant water damage, uh, in, in the bottom mechanical room of this building. And, uh, we were, you know, checking everything, oming everything out, making sure nothing was shorted or anything like that. And so we start throwing, you know, breakers to turn things back on.

And, um, I remember he, he went to go turn on the chillers, you know, from, from that, um, control cabinet. And, uh, he asked me and the, the old service supervisor to, to stand outside, you know, just in case. And, you know, we're out, we're outside and next thing we hear is just this loud, to me, it just sounded like a cannon, you know, just bang.

And everything's silent, you know, nothing, you know, and the, the, your heart just sinks cuz you know there's somebody in there that you're doing that. And thankfully we see the guy running out of the room, you know, just, you know, Pants probably three feet behind him cuz he is going so quick. But, uh, yeah, it just, it just sinks your, it just sinks because you know, you, you're working and you, you're just trying to maintain everything and, um, yeah, I think it was the same building.

Yeah, it's, it's, that's one of those perfects, uh, just kind of the title of this whole thing, you know, the things we get into. It's, it's crazy. Uh, well, I do wanna say, uh, we'll, we'll wrap this up. We've, we've got a pretty good timeframe going here. Um, that, and I got sheep to get to, but, um, be safe guys. Uh, you know, we've, We've, we've touched on some pretty crazy, pretty bad, you know, situations.

And it's really critical that we are safe. Uh, if OSHA's listening, I'm sorry, just we're, this is all in good fun. We didn't mean it, we tried, but in reality, this is something that you're gonna have to kind of learn how to manage. You know, we, we can try to be as safe as physically possible in every possible way, and there's still going to be accidents, you know, and I think, uh, something that, uh, I've learned recently, uh, one of our guys, his family is a, a close tie to like underwater welders, for example.

And they have such a extremely high mortality rate.  and he was telling me, you know, I haven't fact checked this, but you know, according to him, the reason that the, the number one cause for underwater welders deaths is their hose man up top. You know, they, he, whatever happens, he doesn't realize that he's not paying attention.

Doesn't matter. Uh, he's, the hose ends up getting kinked in some possible way, and that welder has no possible ability to get back to the surface before he just suffocates and drowns. And so it's something as simple as that, right? We're dealing with electrical Curtis. That was, that was a very serious, uh, scenario.

Um, that, that, yeah, I live with that all. I live with that, uh, constantly. Yeah, that very thing. Yeah. Yeah. That, that's, that was no bs that's no all fun and games we're at to laugh about. But yeah, that's seriously affected that everything that went forward from there. And so I think. For those of us who've lived through these things, you know, at some point we do have to just kinda look back and we, we can come together as community and share and, and try to find some kind of positive out of it.

And I think that's what, like this conversation is at the end of the day, we're, we're just, we're trying to find some kind of positive in a very, uh, negative situation that that was going on for us. But we, you really do have to be careful. Uh, it is not, it doesn't take much, but in some of these cases it's like the whole refrigerant thing.

Some of these things you're gonna have to learn, you're gonna have to live through to learn. I think the critical goal there is while you're living through it, try to make sure you live through it in the process. Uh, cuz I guess, yeah, some people don't, but, Anyway. Uh, well, I appreciate you guys coming on.

Uh, this was a good chat. I'd like to, I'd like to do more guest talks. I'd like to do more of this. This is episode seven, and, uh, you know, it's been just me yelling at a camera, the last six, or I say camera, I, I guess I've forgot the actual regular audio going, just me yelling into the void of space, if you will, uh, last six times.

So it feels nice to actually sit down and have our conversation, so appreciate it. But with that, appreciate everybody, uh, if you are looking for some tools, give true tech tools a, a look, uh, they've, they're a really good group, really good company. They'll do a lot to take care of you. And, um, you know, if you need 8% off HVAC time, promo code will take care of that for you.

And don't forget to check out Phil Pulse in the process. Uh, and just reach out to Michael or Gabe. Gabe's the CEO over there. Really solid folks. And they also have their own podcast Now, if you're ever interested, just very trades oriented. They didn't pay me to say that. I'm just, I'm throwing it out there.

I've been listening to it. Uh, this last one they had with the void. It's actually a pretty good one. I, uh, I really appreciated that. Anyway, I'll catch you on the next one. We'll see you guys.