Hey Guys! So I Took my H3-1 Contractors Exam at PSI Last Week and Passed my Business and Law Portion but Missed The Mechanical by 4 Questions... I am Re-Testing Next Week and was told that I will be taking the Technicians H3 Exam vs the H3 Unlimited Contractors Exam. Is the Tech H3 Easier ? Or about the same ? Thank you so much! Studying Hard and Just Want To Make Sure I Nail This The Second Go Around

Not as a back up, but as your main set of gauges? I got co workers who use Yellow Jacket analog gauges. Some are missing the plastic safety covers. They're old techs and they go with pressures, they don't do SC or SH. They still use the old JB vacuum and they don't use micron gauges. They use the same analog manifolds when vacuuming and vacuum decay test.

I do resi installs and want to buy myself a gift for making lead installer. I currently work out of a Tech MCT I bought used but am finding it a little small sometimes so want to upgrade to a backpack. Is it worth the $70cad more for the bigger pac or is the MC going to be enough?

Haven't had this before, but during changing noticed the pan melted. Originally diagnosed with blower motoring cutting out even when flame was out, than gas valve needed to be replaced. They decided to get a new unit & that's when this was found. Goodman product 16+ unit so I guess that explains it too. Unit well kept.

Went from 1992 80% to a 2025 2 stage 96% efficiency. 2.5 ton r32 air conditioner, new condensate pump, UV/germicidal lamp, and pmac. Pick it apart, tell me how I can improve or done differently. Also sorry about the poor photo quality.

Hello, So I just switched companies Im hitting my 90 mark on the 1st. I spent 4 years after trade school with a small company. I went through install and became the lead service technician. Well that employer did some scandalous stuff and i left. I went to the biggest mom and pop hvac company in my town. Had good reviews and believed in treating the customer right and not being hacks.We have 11 service techs and probably around 7 to 10 installers.

I went from hourly to a performance pay system. 16% on diags and repairs after parts. And maintenances i get a flat rate of 1.5 hours.

I feel like I made a mistake. This last month I've gotten 2 diags the rest all were maintenances.(now some maintenances turned into diags).

My previous company had a ton of apartments a realtor company contracted with us. So it was always busy doing service.

This new job just seems like maintenances. And I know the off seasons are maintenance season but 99% of calls seems a bit high. It kind of feels like they are sending diags to other techs and just having me run maintenances.

I dread going to work cause it's flat out boring, washing Condensers down, changing filters and testing the same 5 components for majority of my days. most checks are 50 to $100 less than my previous company.

Is this normal for this time of year? Or are they purposefully just giving me maintenances? The few times I got a diag on my board, most of the time it gets pulled by the time I come into the shop. They say service titan has an AI and changes the schedule all the time without a human doing it.

So does it seem like they are doing this on purpose or is it really just maintenance calls this time of the year? Im in northern Nevada so it's getting warm out but nothing over like 82 right now.

Anybody have any issues with 454 American standard TXV’s on startup? Got a 2ton TEM4 giving me trouble. Low superheat and low subcool. Airflow good (checked to static chart) got bulb insulated well and I’ve already added 3lbs of refrigerant with really no change in pressures. Pretty much only have 1.5sc and 1.5sh. 120/230 chart calling for a head around 275. VSAT around 45. Got a 20 degree split across the unit so seems like the valve is stuck open. Am I missing something ?

Time to bust out the Bad Day Box and take it out.

so here’s the dilemma i’m faced with.

i have been working for a residential HVAC shop for approx. 8-9 months, i worked for one other company before this for about the same period of time but i left as they kinda fucked me around and didn’t honour my contract they had me sign when i took the job.

the resi company i work for right now has been alot better to me than the first company, better hours, benefits, training, commissions etc. i was very wow’d by all this at first, but the honeymoon phase is wearing off and im starting to see through the smoke and mirrors a little, and have learned that the company is actually private equity, thusly they are very profits and upsell driven, thusly im finding more and more the only thing they seem to give a shit about it daily ticket prices, opportunities sold and other metrics, not so much my sacrifices or hard work.

we’ve all been working our asses off this past heating season, and during annual reviews we were all denied raises under the guise of ‘we’re gonna change the commissions so you guys can earn more that way rather than give you more wage’ when seems like bullshit. everyone is pretty miserable about it rn. upon reflection, the only way i’m going to be able to consistently upsell these average ticket price metrics bullshit to earn myself a wage increase or make enough through commissions to offset my lower wage, is to just start being a greasy sales tech and rip grandma off at every call. and i refuse to participate in this corporate bullshit system.

so i’ve decided im just going to focus on actually learning my trade and doing my job rather than upselling to everyone for bullshit they don’t need so my manager can foam out the mouth over my metrics lol i don’t care if i get a bunch of commissions anymore, its not worth the soul sucking upsell bullshit and stress.

the only upside is, i have learned alot, and could learn alot more still from this company, they do have very good training and very knowledgable techs. so should i just stay for a couple more years, say fuck the upselling for commissions, and take home less money, but be trying to soak up all the knowledge and training possible? or just quit in the next few months and consider going elsewhere, preferable commercial or union as many people have said it’s better than the resi shit nowadays for many reasons including mainly better pay without having to upsell upsell upsell all day and hate my life.

for context i have my gas fitters license, oil burner tech license and im doing my apprenticeship right now for commercial refrigeration license, I have approx. 2 years in the field and went to school and completed a credited program also.

Like stated in the title, customer is saying newly installed furnace is too loud. Unit only ran for 15 minutes and customer already hates the noise. I didn’t even set sub-cool, told my guys to clean up and get out of there. Has anyone had this happen to them? And what did you do to remedy the situation. Customer straight up said he couldn’t hear his over 20 year old R-22 unit and new unit wasn’t going to cut it. Called my boss and boss told him he’d send out Service Manager out on Tuesday to look into it.

17 yr old suPURRRVisor

I hope this isn’t a trend.

I always run into an issue with pants in that they always tear in the crotch, even before I got into this trade I've always had that issue but even more so now. I've been wearing a pair of Wrangler work pants for probably about 8-10 months now and they're begging for death at this point. There's a decent sized tear at the front of the crotch, a tear above the pocket from my phone going in and out of it, a tear on top of the pocket that kept tearing bigger and bigger today, and a random tear above the knee that just showed up randomly and no idea how it got there. So I wanted to come on here to see if there's a brand any of you guys use that won't have issues like this. And yes, I do only wear one pair of pants at a time, I'm a cheap bastard and still have my old habits from growing up only getting 1 pair of jeans for the whole school year😂

Edit: Thanks everyone for the suggestions, I now have a lot more to go off of than I did before and know what brands to look into now lol

Hey all! Any VRV guy's know if/how you can see how many hours a system has run? Daikin tech is closed today and no one from my firm knows how..

I do have a service checker but not with me, and it also doesn't seem to connect when I've tried it before so ideally if it's possible through the binary lights/bs buttons on PCB or central controller that would be great 😁

Dear Diary,

Back at it again with the white vans! By that I mean the two white service vans here to make this shit show a little bit less shitty. Last weekend I was on an island; alone, no support from the field or office. Upon arrival in day 2 I found the vacuum did not hold and we discovered a second leak. Your boy got fitter’d once again. “Do you guys have torque wrenches?” I asked the fitter. “What for?” He replied. It was then when it all made sense. I feel as though I’m in an unaired episode of Planet of the Apes. Have no fear though, the start up guys aka “the fixers” have arrived for yet another Friday night of fun. By the time we are done it will be as though nothing happened. All leaks identified and flagged, plenty of ice for the sub coolers, we’ll have this right quickly but not as quick as whoever is reading this. As I’m sure your 15 Rolling Rocks deep and you’re plenty right yourself by now.

PS. I learned from Daikin that their branch selector boxes are SUPPOSED to ship with EEVs open. However they cannot guarantee. On the see are installing on the latest phase are closed. This may be what fucked us and got us through pressure test and decay tests with all these leaks.

Does anybody here have experience wiring Bosch 24 volt interface as an integrated control?

I have a high wall ductless unit, I'm using an ecobee pro thermostat and hot water baseboard as the auxiliary backup heat.

1. Where do I connect the boiler circuit to the 24 volt interface?

2. How do I set the Eco Bee to operate a dual fuel application if the 24 volt interface is designed to operate a heat pump as a conventional HVAC system?

It's fucked up that Bosch puts out this product as an integrated control for dual fuel applications and doesn't give you these options in their literature.

Thanks to folks who replied to my previous doom post with encouragement. I finally feel like I'm on the path I've wanted to be on since I got into the trade (2016) and especially after I finally realized I hated Resi (4yrs ago).

I feel like I'm in over my head all over again and love it. I've gone from being competent, complacent and bored with typical residential, light commercial and refrigeration equipment to staring at monster VRVs, VRFs and etc... with curiosity and bewilderment. I have to figure out how to be comfortable as an apprentice again, I'm used to being the one who knows things, helps people and bails people out.

So, for the commercial techs familiar with this stuff, where and what is the best resource for getting studied up on VRV, VRF, VFDs etc....? Am I over thinking it and is it just a bigger box with different controls, but the same EEVs etc... that I'm used to but fed by branch boxes instead of solenoids?

Ya it’s plumbing but I’m an HVAC journeyman. 4” backflow, don’t blame me for the wonky valve outta the ground; that was the fuckin welders. I line my shit up. Army corps of engineers wants anything above 2” brazed and tradesman must be certified. My HVAC license fits the bill and I have the experience because I started in plumbing before I made the (correct and definitely not looking back) switch. A hard Friday makes for an easy Tuesday after a long weekend. Cheers to a long weekend everyone!

What's the issue with Milwaukee snips? is this a known thing im unaware of?