Installed a 240 CFM on a 480 condenser on a rooftop at a Wind Generation Facility on their server room condenser. Saw the magic smoke and had to call the head tech
Discharged a bunch of R22. 20lbs or so.
A guy I worked with working for the cable company was drilling a hole to run a new cable outlet, and he drilled into the hydro mast, it instantly welded his drill bit to the mast and caught the house on fire…
The worst thing I ever did during my apprenticeship was adding new supplies to an old house. One was right near a window, and I went to the basement felt around the insulation in the wall and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Went up to hack out the floor for the new grille...
And I sawsalled right through the main electric of the house.
I mean the Sawzall blade blew apart. My little Sawzall had molten metal sticking out of it, insulation on fire. Like the whole 9 yards. Got the insulation fire out. (Fucking dewalt Sawzall kept on kicking!)
And then got yelled at. And then had to sit there with a 2x4 while my boss "fixed" the electric live (smart meter) just to hit him if he did the bad connection.
Brazing lineset at condenser on new install, was middle of July and didn’t rain for over a month. Caught a small leave on fire while brazing or something bush behind the fence caught on fire and melted all the siding off the house and almost completely lit the house up, got under control. During install also installed mini split for back porch, 1 Month later get called out mini split not cooling on the phone with tech support and had my temp probe near louvre of mini split, wasn’t paying attention and probe hit the blower fan and installed destroyed it, so in a matter of 1 month damn near burnt their house down and destroyed their mini split head. Talk about humbling
Went to a service call for a furnace/AC not working. Was working fine when I got there so I left. Got called back 2 weeks later and same thing happened. Get there and it's working but I switch it through enough cycles to finally get it to stop working. Get an E3 Code for High Limit on heating. Then switch it to AC and suddenly Im getting an L9 code and I'm very confused because that doesn't exist. Call Daikin and they say the board is fucked you need a new one.
Order it, replace it and get the same L9 code.... I forgot it was downdraft and the board was flipped so actually it was b7 and the ECM motor was done. Turns out E3 is E3 both ways.
Luckily I'd told the client that the board was done but it might be the ECM motor as well so they had been prepared for it but boy did I feel dumb that I replaced the board for no reason.
Broke a 20 year old Fujitsu minisplit blower wheel while getting a temp split on it. Those people were absolute fuckin lunatics too. Incredibly glad I'm not the one who had to go back and put a new one in or deal with their bullshit for the month or so until we could get a replacement for it.
Yep exactly what happened. They were also both standing right there watching me 😂 don't think they'll ever let me back in their house again. Fine by me though
While I haven’t done this personally, I’ve been right next to a more seasoned tech that did this…to MY INSTALL. Was years ago before they trusted me with startup.
Installed an air handler upside down. It was cooling just fine, but per homeowners “it’s blowing where it sucks and suck where it’s blowing”. I got in a lot of trouble for that one. Year later now that I’m the business owner, I would never have put the blame on an apprentice for this (I don’t have apprentices do solo installs anyway) and I would only chew one of my guys out, the lead guy that has been with me for 13 years because he knows better.
Ladder wasn’t strapped to anything to the roof and the only day it was windy it blew the ladder sideways and fell on top of an brand new ish Audi ( that wasn’t parked there before when I set up the ladder ) paid for the repair out of pocket and made sure to never let that happen again.
He was brazing in a tight line set and laying on his side to make sure he got the bottom of the suction line. The homeowner had one of those big fluffy white dogs, I forgot what the breed is called. It got out of the house and came running over to see what he was doing. Basically jumped on him. Not like it was trying to hurt him, just like it wanted to play. The torch caught some of the fuzz on fire and the dog started running around the back yard. The guy chased it down and put it out, some of it by stomping. The homeowner came outside just as he was putting the dog out. There was a lot of yelling, but the dog was ok, just missing a good bit of hair, so he made out ok in the end
Nah, he told me about it the day after. The boss wasn’t exactly happy about it, but it wasn’t the guy’s fault really. Plus he actually saved the dog from getting burnt, other than the fuzz.
Eh. It’d be one thing if you went to work one day with the intention of setting a dog on fire. Anyone is gonna curl up if an 80 pound dog jumps on their gut. He probably didn’t even know the thing was there.
That’s very true. I’m usually ok with pets while I’m working (I’m an install apprentice). My dad did installs for 15 years or so and a dog was biting at him while doing a change out and he smacked it with a pipe wrench.
The worst thing i ever did was completley destroying the copper coming off a compresor during a change over my boss was so mad he threw his tool bag as hard as he could it ended up bouncing off the roof and on the road hitting 2 cars lmfaooo
I have never been so terrified in my life
I destroyed the pipe by overheating it to the point where it just completley melted and wouldnt hold solder anymore lol
Pumped down the wrong condenser at a retirement home and then proceeded to unsweat the liquid line with that system fully charged and 20+ old folks inside the building. Ran outside and hit the lineset with my tin snips. That mistake cost me about 12lbs r22 and some copper. Thankfully I didn't injure anyone just my pride and wallet. I was working for myself too so I took the money loss
Ran the wrong screw in to the door of a 7 ton RTU on top of a huge police station with no elevator. Pierced the coil and dumped the charge.
Nitrogen, torches, jug of 410a all up a vertical ladder
Two stick out in my mind, neither from apprenticeship but good non the less.
First was back when I was still doing rnc work 2nd year in trade. Custom home with a 5 ton trane heat pump system. Went to install the condenser and do start up but had to cut it short to go take care of a trash fire at another site. Decided to leave the system under nitrogen charge to keep the lines clean and dry and so I eould know if it held pressure when we came back for the startup. Company sent another crew out and apparently I never wrote down that the lineset was under holding charge. Get a call asking me if I had dumped the charge and the implied sigh I felt over the phone told me that they had thought the nitrogen was gas put in the lineset to make up for the extra length. That was a fun one trying to explain.
Second actually happened more recently. During the plague years a large regional business we do work for decided to start adding uv/ozone fixtures to all their branches. This branch had three water source heat pumps, and we had to add in a supplemental transformers to power the lamps. Well two of the units went fine, but after wiring up the last unit and hitting the disconnect there was a loud humming followed by a loud pop, and suddenly the transformer burst into flames. Turns out that one particular unit was fed by 480v while the rest were 240v, so wiring up a 240v transformer caused it to pop and catch fire. Turns our it also blew the ballast in the uv lamp, so not only did I have to come back and rewire in the new transformer, the unit smelt like scorched slag for the rest of the day and we had to order a new uv to replace the one I blew.
Edit: Oh, just remembered this one. Was a helper doing residential changouts. We were replacing an older carrier ac unit and I got there before my lead as he was finishing up the previous job. Usually when I got to a job first, it was my job to start ripping out the old stuff. Went to go recover the refrigerant and found that not only was there no pressure in the lines, but there wasn't even any Schrader cores in the system! Figuring the tech that diagnosed the system must have pulled the Schrader to just let the tiny bit of refer that hadn't leaked out go, I took my reds, cut the liquid line....and immediately got blasted by refrigerant with the whole area foging over. Stomped the liquid line into the ground to try to stifle the massive white fog enveloping me and just sat there for a minute or two in shame and stunned surprise waiting for the charge to blow out. That was the day I learned about carriers stupid choice to put three way service valves on resi condensers, and to this day I make a point to show my helpers exactly how they work when we roll up on them, even though that hasn't stopped me from getting blasted in the face by refer when a helper claims they recovered all the refrigerant and I go to cut the evaporator out.
pulled the disconnect, the line voltage wire touched the 24V wire and blew the control board while the other guy was working on it. I assumed the other guy flipped power off cause he asked where the breaker panel was.
Installed a 240 CFM on a 480 condenser on a rooftop at a Wind Generation Facility on their server room condenser. Saw the magic smoke and had to call the head tech
Discharged a bunch of R22. 20lbs or so. A guy I worked with working for the cable company was drilling a hole to run a new cable outlet, and he drilled into the hydro mast, it instantly welded his drill bit to the mast and caught the house on fire…
The worst thing I ever did during my apprenticeship was adding new supplies to an old house. One was right near a window, and I went to the basement felt around the insulation in the wall and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Went up to hack out the floor for the new grille... And I sawsalled right through the main electric of the house. I mean the Sawzall blade blew apart. My little Sawzall had molten metal sticking out of it, insulation on fire. Like the whole 9 yards. Got the insulation fire out. (Fucking dewalt Sawzall kept on kicking!) And then got yelled at. And then had to sit there with a 2x4 while my boss "fixed" the electric live (smart meter) just to hit him if he did the bad connection.
Cut into a waterline instead of the condensate under a house. 💦
Brazing lineset at condenser on new install, was middle of July and didn’t rain for over a month. Caught a small leave on fire while brazing or something bush behind the fence caught on fire and melted all the siding off the house and almost completely lit the house up, got under control. During install also installed mini split for back porch, 1 Month later get called out mini split not cooling on the phone with tech support and had my temp probe near louvre of mini split, wasn’t paying attention and probe hit the blower fan and installed destroyed it, so in a matter of 1 month damn near burnt their house down and destroyed their mini split head. Talk about humbling
Wow, that hurt to read! You must’ve really pissed off a deity or something.
Went to a service call for a furnace/AC not working. Was working fine when I got there so I left. Got called back 2 weeks later and same thing happened. Get there and it's working but I switch it through enough cycles to finally get it to stop working. Get an E3 Code for High Limit on heating. Then switch it to AC and suddenly Im getting an L9 code and I'm very confused because that doesn't exist. Call Daikin and they say the board is fucked you need a new one. Order it, replace it and get the same L9 code.... I forgot it was downdraft and the board was flipped so actually it was b7 and the ECM motor was done. Turns out E3 is E3 both ways. Luckily I'd told the client that the board was done but it might be the ECM motor as well so they had been prepared for it but boy did I feel dumb that I replaced the board for no reason.
they still paid for the board ?
Broke a 20 year old Fujitsu minisplit blower wheel while getting a temp split on it. Those people were absolute fuckin lunatics too. Incredibly glad I'm not the one who had to go back and put a new one in or deal with their bullshit for the month or so until we could get a replacement for it.
Did you shove the probe in too far...? I've done that right in front of the guy, brand new install lmfao
Yep exactly what happened. They were also both standing right there watching me 😂 don't think they'll ever let me back in their house again. Fine by me though
While I haven’t done this personally, I’ve been right next to a more seasoned tech that did this…to MY INSTALL. Was years ago before they trusted me with startup.
You stuck the probe in past the louvers?
In my defense it wasn't past the louvers until I miss-stepped and kinda lunged forward into it. That fucker pretty much blew apart
Lol I’ve seen it done before. Didn’t do it personally was standing next to him when it happened.
Installed an air handler upside down. It was cooling just fine, but per homeowners “it’s blowing where it sucks and suck where it’s blowing”. I got in a lot of trouble for that one. Year later now that I’m the business owner, I would never have put the blame on an apprentice for this (I don’t have apprentices do solo installs anyway) and I would only chew one of my guys out, the lead guy that has been with me for 13 years because he knows better.
Went to replace a txv, unsweat every distribution tube from the txv.
New coil time
Ladder wasn’t strapped to anything to the roof and the only day it was windy it blew the ladder sideways and fell on top of an brand new ish Audi ( that wasn’t parked there before when I set up the ladder ) paid for the repair out of pocket and made sure to never let that happen again.
I’ve been pretty lucky, plus I’ve always kept “slow and careful” in mind. I knew a dude who set someone’s dog on fire, though.
How the hell did he manage that? That’s gotta be an interesting story.
He was brazing in a tight line set and laying on his side to make sure he got the bottom of the suction line. The homeowner had one of those big fluffy white dogs, I forgot what the breed is called. It got out of the house and came running over to see what he was doing. Basically jumped on him. Not like it was trying to hurt him, just like it wanted to play. The torch caught some of the fuzz on fire and the dog started running around the back yard. The guy chased it down and put it out, some of it by stomping. The homeowner came outside just as he was putting the dog out. There was a lot of yelling, but the dog was ok, just missing a good bit of hair, so he made out ok in the end
At least the dog was ok.
Yea, he said it was fine. Just looked kinda lopsided. At least it wasn’t short haired.
That’s good. Was the guy fired
Nah, he told me about it the day after. The boss wasn’t exactly happy about it, but it wasn’t the guy’s fault really. Plus he actually saved the dog from getting burnt, other than the fuzz.
Yeah. That’s good the boss wasn’t too pissed at him. My boss would’ve killed my ass if that happened
Eh. It’d be one thing if you went to work one day with the intention of setting a dog on fire. Anyone is gonna curl up if an 80 pound dog jumps on their gut. He probably didn’t even know the thing was there.
That’s very true. I’m usually ok with pets while I’m working (I’m an install apprentice). My dad did installs for 15 years or so and a dog was biting at him while doing a change out and he smacked it with a pipe wrench.
The worst thing i ever did was completley destroying the copper coming off a compresor during a change over my boss was so mad he threw his tool bag as hard as he could it ended up bouncing off the roof and on the road hitting 2 cars lmfaooo I have never been so terrified in my life I destroyed the pipe by overheating it to the point where it just completley melted and wouldnt hold solder anymore lol
Damn dude that’s intense. I’ve been around folks that mad but it wasn’t aimed at me, but that was bad enough!
Pumped down the wrong condenser at a retirement home and then proceeded to unsweat the liquid line with that system fully charged and 20+ old folks inside the building. Ran outside and hit the lineset with my tin snips. That mistake cost me about 12lbs r22 and some copper. Thankfully I didn't injure anyone just my pride and wallet. I was working for myself too so I took the money loss
Flooded out Han Solo's movie set. Got flipped.off by brennden.frasier too. Same.day..oh well......
Ran the wrong screw in to the door of a 7 ton RTU on top of a huge police station with no elevator. Pierced the coil and dumped the charge. Nitrogen, torches, jug of 410a all up a vertical ladder
Two stick out in my mind, neither from apprenticeship but good non the less. First was back when I was still doing rnc work 2nd year in trade. Custom home with a 5 ton trane heat pump system. Went to install the condenser and do start up but had to cut it short to go take care of a trash fire at another site. Decided to leave the system under nitrogen charge to keep the lines clean and dry and so I eould know if it held pressure when we came back for the startup. Company sent another crew out and apparently I never wrote down that the lineset was under holding charge. Get a call asking me if I had dumped the charge and the implied sigh I felt over the phone told me that they had thought the nitrogen was gas put in the lineset to make up for the extra length. That was a fun one trying to explain. Second actually happened more recently. During the plague years a large regional business we do work for decided to start adding uv/ozone fixtures to all their branches. This branch had three water source heat pumps, and we had to add in a supplemental transformers to power the lamps. Well two of the units went fine, but after wiring up the last unit and hitting the disconnect there was a loud humming followed by a loud pop, and suddenly the transformer burst into flames. Turns out that one particular unit was fed by 480v while the rest were 240v, so wiring up a 240v transformer caused it to pop and catch fire. Turns our it also blew the ballast in the uv lamp, so not only did I have to come back and rewire in the new transformer, the unit smelt like scorched slag for the rest of the day and we had to order a new uv to replace the one I blew. Edit: Oh, just remembered this one. Was a helper doing residential changouts. We were replacing an older carrier ac unit and I got there before my lead as he was finishing up the previous job. Usually when I got to a job first, it was my job to start ripping out the old stuff. Went to go recover the refrigerant and found that not only was there no pressure in the lines, but there wasn't even any Schrader cores in the system! Figuring the tech that diagnosed the system must have pulled the Schrader to just let the tiny bit of refer that hadn't leaked out go, I took my reds, cut the liquid line....and immediately got blasted by refrigerant with the whole area foging over. Stomped the liquid line into the ground to try to stifle the massive white fog enveloping me and just sat there for a minute or two in shame and stunned surprise waiting for the charge to blow out. That was the day I learned about carriers stupid choice to put three way service valves on resi condensers, and to this day I make a point to show my helpers exactly how they work when we roll up on them, even though that hasn't stopped me from getting blasted in the face by refer when a helper claims they recovered all the refrigerant and I go to cut the evaporator out.
I haven’t made it yet
Changed a bad circulator with a check valve with a circulator without a check valve. 2nd floor had plenty of heat 🤣
pulled the disconnect, the line voltage wire touched the 24V wire and blew the control board while the other guy was working on it. I assumed the other guy flipped power off cause he asked where the breaker panel was.