A Day In The Life Of An HVAC Technician

Sam.

All right, so we're here out in Augusta, Georgia, with Hunter. Hunter, we're out at his first call. What are we doing here, Hunter?

So we're changing out a furnace control board. I came here last week, found it to be failing to where it wasn't working how it should. I got it to where they run for. Now we're back to actually fix it.

I got it. So we've kind of got it jerry rigged right now, and we're out to do the. The, like, full fix.

That's right.

All right. So the indoor unit that we've got to put that board on is in that dark, spooky looking hole, Am I correct?

That's right.

And that's the crawl space. All right. And there's no light in that crawl space, is there?

My phone.

That's perfect for shooting videos. So let's go in that dark, spooky hole and see if we can see anything at all. Here we go. How do you feel about crawl spaces? You got any fears about spider, snakes?

No, I'm good.

Brown retreat, black widow, that kind of thing. So at this point, are you, like, familiar enough that you don't need to, like, take a picture of this or anything to know where to plug everything back in?

I mean. Yeah. And if you make a mistake, you can always just follow the wires, but.

How long you been doing this?

I've been doing it for about a year and a half now.

Okay. How did you get into this?

So I was born in Minnesota.

Yeah.

I moved down here to actually go to college. It got very expensive very quick.

Sure.

So I ended up dropping out. I worked at a sporting goods store to just kind of get by.

Yeah.

And I was gonna go to a technical school for aircraft maintenance to be an aircraft mechanic. And I ended up helping the owner of the company here, and they gave me their business card to see about applying, and I ended up taking it. It's kind of just something for me.

So you just kind of ran into somebody.

Yeah.

So you didn't have. You didn't. You hadn't gone to technical school for the aircraft stuff yet. You hadn't. You didn't go to technical school for H Vac Either. You just kind of ran into somebody and they liked your attitude, I guess, and they took you on?

Yeah.

So is that common? Like, did the. A lot of the other guys here go to technical school, or did a lot of the other guys here get hired kind of like you did?

We've got one guy here that went to technical school. He actually Works as one of our installers. Other than that, everyone else just kind of started not knowing anything. And we've kind of. We have a little bit. Kind of like an apprenticeship program. It seems to be a bit easier because you can teach them how. How you want things done.

Yeah. So every company kind of wants things done a little bit different.

That's right.

So would you, like. If somebody was interested in doing something like this, would you. Would you recommend that they go to technical school? Or would you kind of recommend they just kind of apply and have a good attitude?

I'd say probably apply and be willing to learn. It's probably the best way to do it.

Yeah. Because you probably learn better on the job anyway. Like, even if you go to technical school, you. You're probably going to still be doing a lot of learning once you're on the job anyways, right?

That's right.

Are a lot of the units in this area underneath houses?

I'd say it's about 60, 40. Most of them are in attics, I feel like.

So I imagine attic. Downside, it's gonna be balls. Nasty hot.

Yeah.

Crawl space. Downside, it's gonna be spiders and snakes and spiderwebs in your face.

That's right. This one's not too bad because they have it.

This is the Rolls Royce of crawl spaces down here.

Yeah, no kidding.

If you had to pick, if they were like, hunter, we got two calls. One of them's in a crawl space, one of them's in an attic. That's all the information you have? Oh, I would say you want the attic.

Oh, yeah.

All right. It's. It's a call at 2 in the afternoon on the hottest day of summer. Same choice.

Yeah, I don't mind it too much. You just got to bring a bunch of water.

So what do you like about this job so far? I mean, you've only been doing it for a year and a half, but what do you like about it?

I like that it's. It's really something new every day. Constantly learning. There's not a day that you're not learning something.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's just. It's really good if you don't want to sit in a desk or an office. Because that was the biggest thing when I went to college is I felt like I was working towards just sitting the rest of my life. And that wasn't something that I really wanted to do, because when I went to college, I actually worked for the school district here, and I just sat at a desk and did paperwork pretty Much. And it wasn't. It wasn't fun at all. So it's kind of more. This is like my offices that the van I worked in.

And from what I understand, companies right now are looking for technicians. Like, there's not that many people that becoming technicians right now. And so if you're wanting to be a technician, it's pretty easy to find a job. Is that right?

And not just that, but good technicians, too.

Yeah. So, Hunter, I had a monster energy drink this morning, and you just gave me a bottle of water, which I drank all of. So my question to you is, do.

You have a bathroom?

You travel, you know, you're in the van, you're here, you're there. Surely nature is called at some point in your journeys. Do you typically, you ask the customer to use their bathroom? Do you sneak behind the bush? Are you a Gatorade bottle in the back of the van kind of guy?

I don't like asking customers for their bathroom because I know if I were home and I had someone ask me for their bathroom or my bathroom, it would make me a little uncomfortable.

Because you don't know how stinky their butt is.

Yeah, service people kind of have a bad reputation about stinky butts.

So what would you recommend to me in this situation?

In your current situation?

My current situation. Like, do I crawl behind a bush somewhere and just do my shameful deeds?

It depends on how brave you are. If that's what you want to do, then, hey, go for it. There's a lot of bushes at this home, actually, so you probably could.

I mean, this is. So if I'm a customer, would I really rather watch this poor gremlin crawl behind a bush to do his despicable deeds versus just having them ask, hey, can I use your bathroom? Is that really better?

I think that's what plays into that. Depends on how brave you are.

What I'm asking is, what do you do? Do you find. Do you just wait for a gas station?

I try. Otherwise I'll Gatorade bottle it.

So you are a Gatorade bottle guy. If I go in the back of your van right now, be honest, how many full bottles of piss am I going to find? 0. Because you unscrew the cap a little bit and throw them at passing cars off the highway, right?

Oh, yeah.

That's what you do with your weekends.

That's when they cut me off, sicko. I think they gave us the wrong one here. Oh, no. Because there's no actual different connector. But we'll give them a call. And see what they say.

They? Who? Who we calling?

The place we get our parts from is.

This is going to be a stern phone call, right? Like we're going to let them have it. Like this is unacceptable.

No, it happens.

If you need somebody to lay down the law, just hand the phone over here.

We are closed, Hunter.

If you want him to take you serious, you've got to start the conversation off with listen.

All of our agents are currently assisting other customers. Please remain on the line and our next available agent will assist you if you would like.

Don't forget what I taught you.

Hey, it's Hunter with Bailey's. What are you doing?

Let me get you to the counter. Just one second.

Thank you.

Stan.

Can I help you? Hey, it's Hunter with Bailey's. I am looking at this board that I ordered on Friday and it's not. Either it's not the right one or we didn't get the right connections for it.

Says to use a 21.

Yeah, that's not even close to the one I have.

I think if they messed up, it's only fair that we make them explain to this kind old lady that they're gonna have to wait a little bit longer for their air conditioning to work properly.

They had it going pretty good. It's just that their fan stayed on.

Yeah, but you got to really play it up for the supply house. You gotta be like, there's. There's nothing we could do to get this thing working. She's very sick. She's got a baby. She's got a three legged dog. It's very sensitive to heat. I can hear it panting from the crawl space. She would cry, but she's too dehydrated.

So.

Hunter, we are outside of the crawl space, but the unit is not fully repaired. Is that correct?

Yeah, we got the. We got the wrong one, but we got someone bringing us the right one.

All right, well, so how. How far away is Mike?

15 minutes.

All right, let's kill 15 minutes. All right, we are done here. Got them all fixed up and we are moving on to the next one. Checking with this batch. We're good to go.

That's right.

All right, let's roll. That was real nice of them to put this thorny rose bush right here next to the unit.

I know, right? Our holly bushes.

Hunter, can you imagine living in Georgia and just not having air conditioning? I don't. I couldn't either, but I have an ex girlfriend who's apparently doing that.

Really?

She's just not using air conditioning anymore? Yeah, I was talking to her. She said she's using only fans. And it's like, it must be saving her a fortune, because she's like. She seems like she's got a lot of money all of a sudden.

That's crazy.

I know. Now, Hunter, I'm no detective, but this metal thing under here, this. That's what you call a drain pan, right?

That's right.

And I can't help but notice that it is rusty. It's full of rust. Just kind of reach in and pull out giant flakes of. Flakes of rust, which would indicate to me that there was once some water in this pan. Am I correct in assuming that that's right. I also can't help but notice, as you take this door off, the whole unit's rusted. Not only is it rusted, but it's all kinds of mold.

Well, hang on. We can't say mold.

Well, what can we say? Because I know. Growthy. All right, fine. We are. We are no mold experts, but there is some. Some form of growth inside of this here unit.

She also said it was freezing over, which is usually gonna be either poor airflow across the unit or low refrigerant. So this could be from it freezing over. If it freezes over, this coil in here will turn into ice, and it will. When it thaws, it's so much water for this drain line that actually spills over, which could be from causing all this stuff, as well as the stress here.

How hot you reckon this attic is in there?

Getting toasty.

I'm getting a little toasty. I just want to hear you throw a number out.

Let's find out. Stick this little thermometer here.

Sure. Yeah. No sense in guessing. Let's just. Let's just measure. Cause if you don't measure, you're just guessing.

Oh, hang on. I'm seeing. 99.4, 0.6, 0.8. We're over 100. 100.

100.

Can I get 110? 102, 103. I'd say it's probably about 1:15.

115. Nick, what do you think? Where's it gonna stop?

I think around there. 120.

120, maybe.

110. 115.

Well, no, you can't have three guesses. I'm gonna say. God, what's. It's already at 106. Crap. I was gonna say 110, but that seems low now.

Yeah, it's still going up pretty fast.

This is a contest with no winners.

So right now I'm trying to get an easy access into the backside of this coil here. So that way I can send my phone in and take sure to see if it's dirty or not. Because when a unit freezes over, it could be low on refrigerant or it could be low airflow. So I want to make sure that this coal is clean before I go any further. My phone is too hot to use the flash. It's clean.

Brook115 on the way down. Yep.

You're kind of being sucked in there, aren't you? I mean, that could be why it's cruising over, too, right there. Yeah. This is being sucked in.

Yeah.

We're at 122. If this ends up being the actual problem of it, we'll see if I can't get this to sit back in there. Did your light just cut off?

Yeah, I think my phone said it's too hot.

Too much.

That's about all you get. Yeah, it's like, grayed out the button. It's like, you cannot do that anymore. I have roach privileges. My body is sweat. I can feel it dripping into my sock. You know, if it's just. It's all coming out. Yeah, that's the motion. One more time. Show them. Yeah, it's dripping from. From these parts down to here. It's really hot. We've maybe addressed an airflow issue. There was insulation that was kind of dangling and might have been blocking some airflow. But now we're checking possibility number two, which is refrigerant. So not enough. Too much. Some sort of restriction in the line. Right.

It's not going to be too much. It's either going to be hot enough or low. Low.

Yep.

That means if she goes through with the leak search, we'll go back up in the attic.

Oh, boy, I hope she. What did they decide to do?

She wants us to do the leak search.

Where are we searching for the leak hunter first?

Out here. And I will go up to me at it.

Yeah, you got a little spicy spot right there.

That's the second one. And here's oil on one more. Funny. I can actually see it bubbling. You see on that little bottom part right there? See the white foam? Yeah. A little bit here, some of that. And there it is right there.

So you just sprayed basically soap on there.

It's like dish soap and water. Yeah. Right. Well, you want to go break the bad news? I'll never forget the first time I had to present to a customer. Yeah, I had to tell him a capacitor was failed, and it was gonna be 220 bucks, I think.

Okay, that's not bad.

I know, but I, like, I stutter my way through the whole thing. And he's so nice. He's like, yeah, let's get it done.

Let's go.

Okay.

All right. I think we got what we needed. Hunter, awesome. Thank you so much for having us today.

Thank you.

It's been enlightening. It's been hot, but it's been fun. Sa.