Quitting the law business, becoming an HVAC technician

Many years ago I wish that I had listened to my family when they tried to discourage me from going into my old career.

I was a young, foolish kid who thought that I could be the world’s greatest lawyer.

I wanted to go get my four-year degree before I attended law school and became a professional practitioner of the law. Unfortunately, after I went through all of the trouble of obtaining my degrees and passing the bar exam… I realized that I hated being a lawyer. Everyday I was dealing with people who have broken the law and want to lie about it. I figured I could do better than this heartless career. Eventually I went back to school – this time to work with my hands instead of my shifty brain. These days I am working as a heating, cooling, and ventilation specialist at a local heating and cooling repair dealership. I’m happy to say that I appreciate being an HVAC technician more than I liked being a lawyer. I like to get in my car every day, drive from house to house, and help citizens to repair their indoor air handling devices. Sometimes I find that my old lawyer instincts slip through when I’m on the heating and cooling repair job. You would be surprised how many clients try to lie to you about their heating and cooling devices. Every day, I feel like someone is trying to tell me that they’ve had routine service repairs for their heating and cooling system when clearly the HVAC units have been neglected. I’m often having to get to the bottom of customer testimony when it comes to air quality control devices and maintenance warranties. I love being an HVAC technician, but I lost faith in humans a long time ago.

 

Central heating

I leave honest reviews online

These days that can be really difficult when you’re trying to purchase a product online.

I feel like things continually get more convenient and customer-focused when it comes to ordering your favorite items and gadgets from a website rather than a brick-and-mortar store. However, it’s hard to choose what you want to purchase because it’s difficult to know what is an honest review. Sometimes companies hire people to plant positive reviews rather than obtaining honest feedback about their goods and services. That’s why I try my best to leave an honest review every time I can. Recently, I was very happy to leave an amazing review for my favorite heating, cooling, and air quality control dealership. For many years I have been using a different HVAC repair shop which has never thrilled me. They have regularly arrived late for my routine heating and cooling inspection. The HVAC technicians have been rude and flippant about my HVAC equipment health. And I haven’t found their service charges to be especially affordable. When a new heating and cooling repair shop opened up down the street I was happy to hire them for my regular air conditioning inspection this year. I was blown away by the excellent service that I received when my new air quality control specialist arrived at my house. He was incredibly friendly and knowledgeable about indoor air handling technology. He quickly got to work and fixed my air conditioning units so it was running efficiently for the entire summer. When it came time to pay the new HVAC technician he actually applied a 20% discount to my HVAC bill. I’m pretty sure I started writing my glowing review online before the heating and cooling truck even left the driveway.
Heating equipment

The wrath of my wife; getting zone controlled HVAC

I’m the sort of person who rolls over when I need to.

I know a lot of folks who will stand their ground and argue to the death over stupid, unconsequential problems. I am not the type of human who likes to engage in verbal battles for no apparent reason. I don’t like to hold onto tension or anger if it’s unnecessary. That’s why, I let my wife call all of the shots in our house. It’s easier for me to let my opinionated wife determine how we live rather than trying to fight over things that don’t matter to me. As such, I decided it was time to call the central heating, cooling, and air quality control dealership last month so we could finally have our central air conditioning unit and furnace upgraded. For the past several years my wife has been complaining about the indoor air quality at our house. Don’t get me wrong, we have a lot of issues with our energy efficiency, temperature accuracy, and fluctuating temperatures throughout the house. I know that the HVAC system is not brand new and we have a lot of disagreements about the thermostat settings. However, recently she had been especially upset with the hot and cold temperatures throughout the house. I was so sick of hearing about her sweating or freezing that an HVAC technician had to step in. Finally, I paid to have zone controlled heating and cooling installed throughout the house. As a result, my wife is a lot more comfortable and the house is a lot more peaceful. Although her temperature is still always hot and cold.

 

air quality

HVAC school didn’t teach him manners

I have a strong word of advice for anyone who is going into the service industry.

Understand that you are expected to provide a service with a personable and pleasant personality.

I’m not sure why people think that they can be waiters with a scowling look on their face. It is baffling when I encounter a mechanic who can’t make eye contact with me. And, most recently, I have been extremely put off by the manners of my local heating, cooling, and ventilation control specialist after he rudely addressed my HVAC problem last week. for quite a while now I’ve been noticing some changes with my central heating, cooling, and air quality control system. The air conditioning unit was making a lot of strange sounds. The furnace was putting out lukewarm air all winter long. And I noticed that the air purification system wasn’t removing all of the noxious odors from my indoor air. I decided to call my heating and cooling repair shop to see if a professional HVAC technician could give me a hand. That’s when they send out one of the newer members of the air quality control specialist team. When the guy arrived at my house he didn’t have much to say before he got to work inspecting the indoor air handling appliances. I didn’t mind his silence because the heating & cooling service was most important to me. When he was done with his diagnostic appointment, however, I tried to ask the guy a simple question or two. In response, he acted as if he couldn’t hear me and walked straight back to the HVAC truck. I’m sorry, but your job isn’t done until you address the person paying you.

 

furnace/heater repair

After getting respiratory disease, got rid of central HVAC

You never know when everything is going to change in your life.

I think that I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop which causes me to live very anxiously.

I’m stressed out most of the time because I think that danger is waiting around every single corner. I know that this is a problem I need to deal with. However, I wish that I could stop being proven correct. For instance, for the past 20 years I have never been a sickly human. Then, all of a sudden I started suffering from a mysterious respiratory disease. Out of the blue, I found myself coughing and sneezing all day long. It felt like my lungs and airways had started rebelling against me one day. No matter what I did, my indoor air quality seemed to be sparking a terrible respiratory sickness deep in my lungs. After I had run out of prescription allergy medications and air filtration devices I decided that the problem was larger than I could handle on my own. I called in my central heating, cooling, and ventilation control specialist and asked about airborne contaminants. After he told me how filthy central heating and cooling systems could be, even with routine maintenance appointments and regular air filter changes, I was ready to get rid of the central HVAC. I had my central air conditioning unit and furnace ripped out that very day. Now, I use small mini split ductless heating and cooling systems in every room. The maintenance is very easy and my respiratory health has finally recovered.

furnace/heater tune-up

Bee running my AC way too much these days

The whole house is getting stuffy, too, because it’s too hot to throw open the windows for a few hours to let in a little fresh air and natural ventilation.

How much longer will this summer last? I do not mean the time on the calendar designated at the summer season, that doesn’t matter at all. I mean the period of time where the humidity is in excess of 90% and the temp never drops below 85 even in the dead of night. Every summer is brutal around here, but this one has easily been the worst one I’ve ever experienced. Part of that is due to the pandemic, which just makes everything seem worse for some reason. Being trapped inside so much of the time means that the central A/C needs to pretty much stay on 24 hours a day. That’s the problem, mostly, is how high my utility bills are getting because I have to run the AC so much. Even in the dead of the night, which should be the coolest part of any day, it’s still 80 to 85 degrees outside so the air conditioning needs to stay on. The whole house is getting stuffy, too, because it’s too hot to throw open the windows for a few hours to let in a little fresh air and natural ventilation. I guess I can’t complain, this is probably the perfect time to have a pandemic, because everyone has to stay inside with cooling anyway. Still, I am tired of it, and at least if I went to work I could enjoy their air conditioning for a while and let mine rest. I don’t know how old my HVAC system is, but I know it has to be tired.

Cooling technician

Year round AC service

Around here we spend Christmas in short pants, isn’t that ridiculous? I grew up in the north, where winters are long, and to be feared.

Down here winters sometimes don’t even show up at all, and when they do they are short and mild.

I do miss the cold weather at times, but it’s a sacrifice I am willing to make for the good of my business. You see, up there my opportunities were much more limited due to the very short amount of hot humid weather. For an air conditioner repair company, the deep south is the best possible place to be. We run our air conditioners all year around down here, which means it is always peak season for me and my work crew. One of the things that has become a trademark for our company is the year-round HVAC service plan. Anyone who signs up for this gets two HVAC inspections per year, free of charge, with discounts on any work that needs done. Also, we throw in free air filters, just because people seem to really like that. Our goal is to promote the idea that with regular maintenance and check-ups, your air conditioning is strong, runs longer, and will last a lot longer. HVAC systems are expensive, no one should have to replace one any earlier than ten years, but with regular service it could last for 20! I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t like to get an extra five or ten years worth of service from their air conditioner, do you?

 

HVAC unit

Looking ahead to cooling on Thanksgiving

I know that Thanksgiving is still a couple months away, but I am already planning for it after what happened last year. In my family, this is a pretty important day every year. To us, Thanksgiving is about food and family, and being together, so we all gather each year and turn an entire day into a giant meal. My folks, my brothers and sisters and their families, my cousins, everyone comes in from all over the state for Thanksgiving, so last year when the climate control system crashed in the middle of it, it darn near ruined things! In this part of the country, it does not cool off in November, and we basically rely on our air conditioners to keep comfortable all the way through Christmas. Having an entire 50 person family in one house, with the oven and the stove blasting out heat, is the worst possible time for your climate control system to break down, so of course that is when it happened. This year I will not allow that to happen, so I am booking a service appointment with a local HVAC company this week, and then a second one next month. Is it overkill to have two different HVAC companies come out and do the exact same things? Not in this case it isn’t! One HVAC tech may catch something the other one missed, and if I get a clean bill of health from both of them then I will feel more comfortable. I’d rather pay two HVAC techs then have to suffer through another sweltering hot Thanksgiving.

air conditioning

AC issues on a spooky Friday the 13th

We had an all night horror movie fest the other night.

  • This is the sort of thing my friends and I used to do all the time back in high school.

That was ages ago, mind you, and we all have jobs and families and that kind of crap these days, so our movie fests are not as frequent, or as long, as they used to be. This one almost got curtailed halfway through the first movie, which was part one of a six-movie Friday the 13th marathon we had planned out due to the date. It being an actual Friday the 13th might have brought on the bad luck that shut down the air conditioner. Granted, the central AC in my apartment is pretty old, but the fact it decided to break down at that time, on that night, was kind of spooky. Thankfully Gus was there, and Gus works part time for a local HVAC dealership where he is a sales rep. He is definitely not a trained HVAC tech, but he knew more than the rest of us so he was put in charge of fixing it. He ended up calling up an HVAC tech friend of his, who stepped him through the entire process of what to do while on the phone. Whatever he did, it worked, because the AC turned back on and worked great, and we dove back into the gore and horror. The weirdest part is that other than that Friday the 13th, the AC has always worked great, both before and after.

 

fireplace

I thought that our up-to-date gas furnace would be nicer

I certainly thought that our up-to-date gas furnace would be nicer than it is.

I had to buy a up-to-date gas furnace this winter.

I knew that I was going to need a up-to-date gas furnace, so I was prepared to buy a up-to-date gas furnace. However, I wasn’t as prepared as I hoped that I would be. I didn’t beginning saving for a up-to-date gas furnace until I found out that I would have to replace our old gas furnace, plus that only gave me a few months to prepare for buying the gas furnace. I found out that I would need to replace the gas furnace at the end of last winter, plus I managed to replace the gas furnace before this winter. Thankfully, I already had some money in savings, or I would have never been able to afford to buy a up-to-date gas furnace. Still, I didn’t save up as much money as I would have liked because the gas furnace that I have now is not as nice as I thought that it would be. Now, I am thankful that I have a laboring gas furnace… My old gas furnace was good until it stopped laboring, plus I certainly like to have this gas furnace rather than not having a laboring gas furnace at all. However, I thought that getting a up-to-date gas furnace would be much better. When I thought of buying a up-to-date gas furnace, I thought that I would get a much quieter gas furnace that was so efficient plus awesome. Instead, I ended up getting a budget gas furnace. It isn’t a bad gas furnace, plus it keeps our house warm, however the gas furnace is about as efficient plus as loud as our old gas furnace, plus that gas furnace was made 15 years ago. I suppose that I should be more prepared next time, however there is nothing that I can do about this gas furnace now.

 

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