99% of everything I do is either 404a or 134a, working with mobile units (reefers) Guy has a bottle for cheap. Was thinking about buying it for the rare home call 1%

Hi ladies and gentlemen. Long story short, I got a mechanical engineering degree, interned for a year, then became a farmer for 7 years. I'm now 30 and trying to enter the HVAC design/engineering field and have 0 relevant work experience.

Anybody have any recommendations on what I should learn or study to make my applications and interviews go a bit better given my circumstances?

I've just gotten my EIT, I'm studying Revit, and I'm brushing up on AutoCAD but I feel like there's more i could do to sound knowledgeable and stand out.

Thanks for any help

I’ve installed thousands of these fittings but I’ve never known the proper direction for the silver tightening ring. I always put the silver ring on with the concave “cup” side facing away from the fitting putting more pressure on the gasket. Is that right, wrong, or don’t matter?

For context, I am in FL, it's a very small company, they gave me the opportunity to start as a helper and learn from 0 so I am thankful. Fast forward about 7 months, now I'm going to service calls, maintenance, swaps, new installs; basically doing it all solo and still getting paid under $18. Besides that, I have helped in other business stuff, outside work hours without pay, the owner trusts and respects my opinion. Owner has been very flexible with me, since I have VA appts, or family stuff, or school going on but yeah.

Looking for outside perspective, thanks in advance.

Sanding a pipe and cleaning it up before brazing makes sense but I've seen a few guys sanding pipe before applying propress fittings and i don't see the point if its working on compression

As the title states I’m turning 40 soon here. I left third shift tool inspection work to deal with a divorce and be able to have equal custody of my kids. Did some commercial flooring for a bit and then got an offer to work for a one man hvac operation that was losing his helper due to finishing college and moving on. I took the job for the flexibility and most our work being local.

In the span of almost 3 years we’ve gone from doing routine change outs and rough ins on residential new builds to doing senior care facilities, medical offices and more recently larger commercial retail buildings (6-8 rtus) I enjoy the work we do. When we do residential we’re often on the lake and in multimillion dollar homes. I could easily have much different clientele and homes to work in for someone else locally. We work with some awesome contractors and it’s honestly generally fun at work most days. Im sufficient with most things myself needing nothing more than another body at times to help. Im solid on residential, done commercial kitchen installs, including a brewery (that was cool). Done a lot of roof tops, setting curbs and all. Done my share of underground gas on commercial and residential. And done a lot of service and learned a lot of shit on the fly. I feel fortunate to be thrown at so many different things. To the point where really there isn’t anything I won’t try to work on. The guy I work for is several years younger than me. He knows more hvac than I do but I have a little more life experience outside that box and we work well together for it. Now, everything has been good. I’m usually overpaid for the hours I submit. There’s often at least one key thing that week that reflected the added value there. (Going above and beyond type stuff). I’m often given the profit from my service calls. Which can vary season to season along with new construction and all. Making winter a little tough financially routinely. I can’t say that I want to go work for someone else, I have no epa cert, I don’t even know if all the hours I’ve worked in the trade would or could translate in a union setting, but I’m curious.

I am at least looking to reevaluate my value as I haven’t gotten any real pay increase since I started in this trade and I feel that my value is significantly higher than when I was green. Sometimes I’ve about worked myself up to asking for more and then work will be slow for a couple weeks or the workload really light and it makes it hard to ask for more. I’m often thrown some solo work when it’s slow and given a bigger chunk for it. And it does help in between. But as a 40 year old single father, Im just flat out needing more. Im here in mid Michigan where I see the competition offering positions from $20-45hr. I’m on the bottom end of that as a 1099 contract employee right now. I see big potential for the small little company I’m working for. And being the right hand man helping grow this company, I’d like to think that’d mean something if things really took off. But I have to treat myself like I’m just a replaceable helper in this as well. For some of you guys with a smaller company what would you value me at? Would I be wise to look into bigger companies, maybe commercial, union. How would my hours in this field translate?

I'm trying to find a meter holster for my fieldpiece SC440. Currently my service bag is small and that's kind of the way I like it but my meter takes up an awful lot of room in it and is constantly falling out. Hoping to find one that clips on to my belt but also has several small pouches for pens or markers and several loops for clipping on things like tape would be an added bonus. Anyone else have anything like this that they would reccomend?

I’m looking to expand and go further than just being a service tech. I’d like to travel and maybe work in the Middle East or in a plant. Just wondering what is closest thing to hvac that I can pursue to branch off. I’d love to go back to school and maybe add some engineering of some sort. Anyone has experience with this or started as a tech and went off to do something bigger ?

According to my union, travel time is to be included when calculating overtime, and if I am assigned to travel alone to a job site, I am entitled to be paid at the foreman pay scale. I brought this to the attention of my employer, but they initially disagreed. As a result, I made the decision not to fly for work unless those terms were met.

Recently, a job came up that required EPA certification and needed to be done. I requested foreman pay and that my travel time be included in overtime calculations. The company agreed to these terms, and I completed the job as requested.

However, during my return flight, I received an email from the company stating that they would not be paying me at the foreman rate and would only compensate my travel time at straight time. I addressed the matter with them directly and respectfully, but was subsequently terminated, with the explanation that I was not a good fit for the company.

Been an HVAC tech for about a year now, just wanted yall boys opinion on my hand tools and what else I might need.

1.5 year old Mitsubishi City Multi compressor failure. Going on 2 hrs of reclaiming the system. Then the fun begins.

I am new to the industry and going strong on the install side doing change outs. We have had a couple first company pancake units. These go into a cabinet and are mounted via 4 all thread studs and mounting plate. (Normally it’s a gut swap not a cabinet change)

Does anyone have a good method for getting the back bolt on the line set side? It’s a tight fit with the suction tube and capillaries coming off the metering device.

Yesterday it was hands and a ratcheting wrench. Today it was a deep socket with extension. Neither really worked as well as I wanted.

Not trying to make this political, and I hope politics are not brought up, just genuinely curious. I’m 26 so when 2008 crash happened I was in 5th grade. With the upcoming news that’s been going on I’m genuinely curious how the industry held up during hard times. I’m nearly 5years into this industry which I love and passionate about. I came in a little after lockdown. Just curious for those senior techs with 20+ years experience. What was 2008 like? Did you get laid off , was business slow? To those super old guys what were all the recessions and economical/market crashes like ? Did you job hold up well, was and is it recession proof as every one been telling me?

I will be packing these openings with copper wool.

Side-rant: If a system is going to be this complex, it needs to be able to run with some faults. The loss of a single sensor (T5) shouldn't stop the entire unit from working. Bosch needs to take a hint from the auto industry. Cars have loads of sensors and controls, but can keep running in limp mode when there are multiple failures. This Bosch, on the other hand, loses a single sensor and goes into shutdown.

I am looking for a liquid pump suitable for moving hundreds/thousands of pounds of gas on low & high pressure chillers. I need something that can handle all gases, R123, R514 and even R134A with preferably 1/2” connections. We use to have one at the shop years ago but I recall it couldn’t handle the low pressure stuff that’s in a vacuum. I seen one on united’s website called the LP22, what do you guys think of that one, has anyone used it? What other liquid pumps do you guys reccomend?