HVAC

I work in NYC in commercial buildings. My advice to you is get every license you can get your hands on and study everything. I got into the field at 24 and got my NYC reefer license at 26. I ran into a few interviews where the age thing came up. My situation is different from a field tech where I work for the building. Not every building manger is about to start trusting a 26 year old with only a few years experience with their building. But if you know your stuff you will do fine.
I've worked along side with guys from Carrier, York, Honeywell, Johnson etc... The carrier people always seem to speak highly of the company. They are really big into safety. If you can get with them, they are a great start. Only complaint I ever heard is from the older guys about how they put GPS in the vans. Haha
Good luck with everything!

One more quick thing about this trade, you get to learn what works and what doesn't work on other people's equipment. So when it comes time to work on your own stuff you are ahead of the game.

 

haha, yeah working with stainless hoods in commercial kitchens can be a bitch , but still better than running that heavy ass dirty.greased out sprinkler pipe & their ladders, although thru technology they've been making the slow migration towards composite plastic fire sprinkler pipe , theres still miles & miles of the old cast iron shit to deal with, so along with the hooded exhaust you guys doing any grease duct as well ?? Its heavy & hard to set in place sometimes but at least it has a dedicated location (fire wall'd, fire rated) & nothing else can go in its spot, not even the sprinkler guy's pipe can be in the same occupied space...nothing in your way from other trades..

Money wise can be very lucrative, last big shop I worked at, all our work was prevailing so in the area I worked in (in this case it was Orange county/Riverside / & San Diego area ) & gotta say making 56.75 an hour day after day ,,, with some overtime no less, was pretty damned sweet, I'd gross roughly $2240.00 a week an take home about $ 1600.00 + sometimes thats a nice 6 figure income in anyones book for a construction grunt...

 

Yeah we put those in too. They are pretty heavy and are annoying to build. And I'm ready to get my certifications and all that so I can get out of this job. I hate shifts from 10:30pm till 8 am just cleanin greasy ass hoods haha

 

Anyone else in the HVAC field. I just got offered the other day a job right out of school workin for a big real estate company. Which i think is great because i will get benefits workin through the company and decent pay. I havent finished school yet, which is why i think its crazy they want to hire me as soon as im done. The only problem is ill probably be workin on my own and i wont have any real out in the field experience. What are yalls thoughts on that? Do you think i should work for a big company for a year or two and then see if that offer still stands. Or go ahead and take the job?

 

Take the job! It might be a little rough at first with no experience, but you should have learned enough in school to stay safe and diagnose things by the book. Experience just adds speed.

There's nothing stopping you from looking for another job while you're making money at the one you already have.

 

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Like joe said if you've got an offer I'd jump on it , school is great for learning the ABC's & a great platform to start, but like everything else its the "real world" on-the-job experience that'll move you along quicker & although I know you're chomping at the bit to get out on your own but your going to need a few years to get well rounded enough in the trade before going for a C-20 contractors licence, & it is competitive as hell...good luck bro'....

 

Thanks for the advice guys. im really leanin towards takin that job. im about 99% sure im gonna do it. Hopefully ill be able to get the hang of things pretty quick

 

I'm in the trade, in Canada it's a bit different it's four years of working and going to school, we do get quite a bit of diversity in our field up here but it's a great gig.

I do major commercial hvac and refrigeration, you picked a great field to work in.

 

Do you have attend trade school?

I just finished up trade school, waiting to get a letter from the state so I can go take my state exam. Then Ii will be able to pull cable and install equipment myself.

 

Theres no requirement for going to trade school to get a contractors license but I think the state of Ca. still requires a couple years of experience in the respective trade they want to contract

 

In Canada we go to school for 3 months every year for four years, the rest of the time of the year is spent working on the job.

At the end of four years of working 8-9 months and school for 2-3 months, you write a final red seal exam, which is an inter provincial and recognizes your training across Canada.

We are required to know how to work on, repair, troubleshoot, or diagnose every piece of equipment from every manufacture, in every situation. We do not call the manufacture for advise or a walk through on how to fix their equipment, it's just expected you already know how.

I think the level of training we get here is generally assumed to be more advanced than what is gotten in the US. We also have a separate trade here for ducting, or what we call "Tin Bashing". So in Canada if your an HVAC & Refrigeration tech you work on everything from chillers, to air conditioning, to installation of equipment, to ice machines.

Also the burn out story on the previous page is slighty wrong.
A burn out occurs when there is a winding to winding short in the compressor and this causes the refrigerant to heat up and break down forming acid. If this occurs, when changing the compressor you are required to install a liquid line drier as well as a suction line drier. You are supposed to come back after a month or so and remove the liquid line drier, but nobody ever does that.
Changing compressors is super easy and can be done in about four hours on most applications, the longest part of it is recovering the old refrigerant, and then purging and triple evacuating the system, pulling a vacuum to 500 microns sometimes can take over an hour.

The capacitor has nothing really to do with this, there are run and start cap's on almost all motors in this trade. I have shocked myself countless times on them, the top terminals are exposed so sometimes when reaching into a unit your arm will touch the top of them and you get a shock. It hurts like hell, but you get used to it. Shocking yourself in this job becomes pretty common sometimes, just be careful on pretty much everything over 120v, can be fatal. I work on everything from 12v control circuits all the way up to 600v 3 phase units, just be safe, verify no power and lockout your disconnect on your equipment at all times and you will never have an issue.
They should be discharged with a resistor, but honestly I always stick a screw driver across both terminals and discharge them that way.

I have never heard of a capacitor blowing up and destroying a home, that sounds like something more like a Hot Water tank that someone blocked the pressure relief on and it blew through the floor (Blocked pressure reliefs are a common thing, sometimes they are letting go and they don't seat properly, so they leak. Homeowners then go buy a plug and plug the relief...next thing you know...BOOM)

Anyways its a great trade to be in, you can eventually if your good, work wherever you want and earn lots of money.

I live in Alberta, this province runs on oil and natural gas, I was a gas plant operator for years and got laid off multiple times.
I switched to this trade because honestly, people here will always need heat in the winter, and they will also always need refrigeration for perishable items such as food.
There is always work in this field, and their always will be, as long as your good.

Best of luck man, if you have any questions hit me up!

PS. Take that job, I don't know what you guys do down there, but here no matter where you work you are working alone most of the time. Play it safe, don't be afraid to call the more experienced guys for advice and you will be fine.

PPS. Don't sweat the small stuff in this trade, it will come to you, take it slow and you will get it, it's an acquired skill that you are constantly learning more every day.

 

Have you ever thought of transport refrigeration? Thermo King, or Carrier. I have worked on Thermo King units for a long time, and depending on the area of the country you are in, if you get good at troubleshooting, you can write your own ticket. For some reason techs are hard to find. Look at all the trucks carrying refrigerated products on the road, city transit busses, ocean going containers, they all use Thermo King or Carrier units. Good luck.

 

Just wanted to give you fellas an update on what I've been doin. Last night I finished my last final for hvac. I have to apply for my certification and then ill have that. I'm workin for a company now where I am doing home remodeling and property maintenance. The 1st of January they will hire me onto the hvac side of the company starting out as a service tech. Thank god I won't be doin duct work haha. They are gonna start me at 17 an hour. Which I don't think is too bad at all.

 

Congrats, and $17 and hour is not shabby at all!

 

Thanks man. Yeah I'm definitely not gonna complain about 17 an hour startin out haha

 

Congrats bro and good luck!

 

Great field to get into. Just be careful, and lift smart- lots of compressor replacements go into tight awkward spots. Remember, your training never ends and basically starts right after school ends.
Good luck!

 

I'm thinking of going into HVAC...