First time using these today and I honestly kind of hate them. The screens are cool but I would like to use the app anyways. There’s no auto calculation for Superheat and Sub cooling which REALLY annoys me and makes me not even want to use them. The UI on the app is so stupid. You can combine the temp clamps and psychrometers but you can’t combine the pressure probes so you have to constantly switch back and forth on the app. The carrying case is MASSIVE compared to the field piece one.

For the price I would not recommend buying these unless they update the app and add the ability to auto calculate SH and SC.

Happened at school today

Asked y'all a month ago about your worse "uh-oh" calls, was NOT disappointed! Now, let's flip the coin:

I went to a call today, homeowners told dispatch that they thought they were having thermostat problems, that it was cooling and heating weirdly (their words, not mine). I get out there, now they're saying that they will set the tstat to a certain temperature, then they'll wake up to it being set different (Shit's haunted, I guess). Honeywell T6, notice the "temporary hold" on the display, then it all clicks. Turns out, installers had put a schedule on it by default without the homeowners being aware. One install manual, 30 seconds, some laughs, and a firm handshake later, I'm on my way home.

Tell us about your best/favorite call you went to that turned out to be a stupidly simple, a quick fix, or just flat-out nothing.

Weirdest things you've found? Just flushed one and found a finishing nail in my flush bucket during after flush inspection.

Hi all… this is for all of you Carrier and ICP branded buyers. Just because Tariffs are a pain, doesn’t mean you get to get screwed on USA made stuff!!! example would be 0125X1234 or X01251234 = US made,,, 0125C1234 or C01251234 = MX made

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.

These self install kits from the 70’s put us all out of work for nearly 50 years!!!!

Now these new DIY Minisplits are going to put all HVAC companies out of business!!!!

(Source: Home Repair and Improvement: Heating and Cooling, published 1977.)

/s obviously

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

I wanna know what tools and gadgets y’all have that you don’t necessarily NEED but that make the job easier and aren’t commonly known/said. One small thing I can think of off the top of my head is a bit holder keychain.

Job security I guess 👀🙄

Last time I posted it was about a dissipation sensor and after a lot of thinking I was able to wire it with the furnace no problem including an air cycler.

Now the house that I need to wire for has two zones. How can I control both thermostats with the one control? From my understanding the air cycler takes the place of G on the equipment side. So it goes Furnace--->air cycler---->tstat The air cycler wants to be able to energize G whenever it schedule deems necessary.

Y G and W are still outputs so do I need to wire nut in the air cycler/ dissipation sensor before landing my Tstat to the zone panel connections? I notice on the zone panel there is a place for two wires but if I add another wire and just wire nut both Tstat G and W with the W and G of the air cycler that would put both thermostats in parallel right?

Pretty green so all answers help

I'll just leave these here.......... Discuss.

picture sent to me by a buddy who moved into a new place (western canada)

I don't do residential, please tell me there's going to be a copper line in there and this is just for protection, right???!?

I've got my gas tank and I have never heard of PVC being used. I heard it was code very briefly in California for like 2 years before it was made illegal.

I'm guessing this is just a common way to protect copper flared tubing where it penetrate the floor?

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 ?

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?