Dopey Decisions

HeatingHelp

Dopey Decisions

How your customers see the world matters. It really does, and dopey decisions don’t help anyone, especially someone who is trying to sell something.

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bluegokart

Hilarious and so true!

Jamie Hall

Oh yeah! Reminds me a bit of a house my son -- who is a brilliant engineer and quite hopeless when faced with things like heating -- rented in Virginia. Forced air, of course. Actually rather well put together, as such things go in mushroom subdivisions. Upstairs and downstairs on nice separate zones. With two thermostats, no less.

Both placed in the full two story high main entry hall and staircase...

Say what?

DanHolohan

Thanks, guys. Stories are everywhere.

GroundUp

Order of operations, the plumber happened to be the first one on the job! I was taught at a young age, to always do things as if I had to service them again some day and try to look out for others as well. This would be a prime example of the opposite, and unfortunately that's more common than we like to admit.

I had a schedule meeting earlier this week with my company's engineer and one of the owners at a $13M renovation project in downtown Minneapolis, to discuss layout of the new hot and chilled water systems I'll be installing and the anticipated timeframes to complete the job. I stopped counting fan coils at 100, with plenty left to go- so needless to say this is a fairly substantial project. The blueprint showed isolation valves at the hubs (district hot and chilled water), but no more anywhere in the entire system. Thinking about future service, I mentioned adding valves at each takeoff or at least each sub-main to simplify the task of any future remodel or afterthought, perhaps even a leak, and was laughed right out of there by the man with the money. Done deal- no isolation. If I were to spend 8 measly hours, just one day, chasing a leak or draining/refilling that entire system for a repair or otherwise, my labor would cost my employer more than simply purchasing the valves upfront and being proactive about it. Call me crazy, but sometimes I feel like the almighty dollar means even more to some folks than common sense. Funny thing is, often times they're simply stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime. Not looking ahead is the epitome of a "dopey decision" IMO

DanHolohan

It would be a different story if the people doing the installation were also the people doing the service as years went by.

triggerhappy24

My God! The building I work at are nothing but this. For instance, they have a few of our gate valves for are high temp hot water about 40ft in the air. I know what your thinking. Just use a genie lift. Right? Yeah, the only problem is the pumps for those lines are underneath it, and then there are also other pipes under them. So no room for a lift, not even a boom lift from another location. I asked the boss one time what would happen if those are the only ones that we have to get too. He said, "let's hope we never have that problem". But than again if that line ever does break loose we may all be dead anyways and not have to worrie about it

rick in Alaska

DanHolohan said:

It would be a different story if the people doing the installation were also the people doing the service as years went by.

I think it should be a requirement that they have to be responsible for maintenance for at least a year!
Rick

clammy

Nice observation Mr .H ,I personally that most builders feel living space is everything so jam all the stuff any place but not hereplus they will be long gone when problems start to appear .i do a sub work and see all sorts of stuff I shake my head curse ask why and just do what they ask after a while I know what they except .It very humorous builders ask question and I say just ask the boss I don’t know and they say yeah but u been doin this forever so could you explain why this is this way and I repeat ask the owner I don’t know I’m just a worker and do what I m told don’t wanna start any problems .it seems the bigger the home the cheaper the heating and cooling system are ,some things will never change like heavy sweaters in the winter .thanks for the story peace and good luck clammy

DanHolohan

Thanks, Clammy.

brooklynfrenchie

Not sure the Target example belongs here; there's a logical reason why they move stuff around all the time. To make you have to hunt for it, scanning shelves, noticing (they hope) other items you might want to buy.