This Customer Can Wait Till March!!??

Climate Creator

I went to look at this furnace at about 2 pm yesterday. Their local oil company was out and told them he "thinks" they need a new furnace, (complaint was soot in the house) So after being told they were going to have to pay $X,000.00 for a replacement and They would be "o.k." until he had time in march!! When I removed the furnace last night and replaced it (until 12:15am Sunday) I found also a chimney tile had fallen in front of the flue pipe and was resting comfortably on the pile of soot in the chimney base. NO PROBLEM WAIT UNTIL MARCH?? What the hell is wrong with people today! If you don't have the man power outsource or hire more, and the best solution here would have been in the 25years you were servicing this unit, DO THE JOB RIGHT!! I mean it was only 4 SCREWS!! It was the first thing I did when I came in, and the customers were standing right there watching me.

Scary Huh?
They are my customer now.

Rich

Mark Hunt

Life saver


Someone could have been killed by that furnace.

This is exactly why I keep on posting the CO articles.

Too many in our industry are as ignorant about CO as the the average homeowner.

You did good!!

Mark H



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Boiler Guy

No time

My father always told me: "If you are not prepared to do a job right, DON'T mess with it! No wonder consumers are left wondering about who to trust. You found it, you fixed it! Way to go man!
Mark I have seen your posts on CO. I find them very interesting. We just had 2 situations in the last 3 days here too. I have tried to access some of the things mentioned in your posts, but am having difficulty. It might be my 'puter ... but most likely it is the technically challenged operator. Please contact me. Thanks

Climate Creator

I just can't belive that they

would leave it that way, the conditions were just right and their co detector was in a high place, because they didnt have any other "outlets" for it?!?! Their oil company said they could not be killed by an oil fired appliance.

CC

Jim Davis

Oil CO

Does oil make CO? Does it smell? Do you have to have soot when you have CO? Oil can make tens of thousands of parts of CO at zero smoke!! CO never has an odor! You can make tens of thousands of parts of CO and have no soot!! Oil people really need to wake up!!

Firedragon_4

Ramses, Cleopatra,

and the rest of the family of De Nile and the general oil industry will tell you that an oilburner CAN'T make CO. If you can't see it or smell it it can't be oil related.

The current fueloil industry has deluded itself in to believing that what Granpa and Daddy taught them about oilburners is still the truth.

The fact of the matter is that even Daddy's oilburner did make CO, but we didn't run them them at 13% CO2 at a trace of smoke and they sure in hell didn't operate through a boiler so tight a 1/8" rod won't go through them. Add to that powerventers, improper installations, failure to follow OEM guidelines and the ignorance of codes and you have a witches brew Granpa couldn't have even dreamed of.

This will get me into trouble again (so what's new??) but if the oil industry doesn't get it's collected heads together and address this problem it could be the biggest nightmare they will ever face, FACT!

MikeB34

if it burns

It has the potential to make CO.

As someone else said "FACT!"
Mike

Climate Creator

Thank You Note

I wanted to share this thank you note I got from this customer, and on top of paying the bill for the job there was $100.00 bill in the card. I wish I had more customers like these. But something tells me I might find more out there if I just stay the course.

Thanks to everyone out there who helps to continually keep me and all of us educated.

GaryDidier

Tip

Rich,
I had a similar situation with an elderly couple.The afternoon after the repairs were complete I recieved a bouquet of flowers and a thankyou note!
Gary from Granville

clammy

just plain lazy

Sorry to say but alot of guys are just plain lazy .I do oil burner service but have been a installer for years before jumping into the service suit(15 years install ) and it iseasy for me to see the general laziness of all in the field it's really sad besides on this site it's hard to really see any quality installs far and few between and as for service every oil fired unit i work on get the smoke pipe pulled down clean chimmey base vacumed and unit clean if the combustion has debris in it the burner comes off and the chamber area is clean period but most in this line of work are lazy not all ,most will maybe give it a quick brush or a soot stick down fire the noz get rid of the back draft and gone it's hard to make lazy service guys to change there ways and on another note it,s impossible to getany one to do this work any more to the general mass of up and coming there isn,t enough money it's terrible where the industry is going i'm waiting to get corrected for my comments peace

Andy_6

I just went out and did a clean and check on my friends mom's house. To my amazement she told me that I was the first person to remove the burners and clean them and check inside the heat exchanger. This coming from a 75 year old woman. Found no problems, but makes me wonder what did the other company's do when they performed clean and checks. May be this is why they charge $20 less, because they don't do the complete job! CO awareness needs constant reminders to consumers about the potential hazards and what causes CO.It would be nice to see the media do a bit more on what caused a CO problem, (details) not just pointing to the furnace. Many times it is caused by to much exhaust in the home compared to the make up air available. I have a local appliance company that is good at selling kitchen hoods with 600 to 1500 cfm and don't bother to tell customers that the hood is only half of the purchase. He does not sell make up air hoods and usually tells them to crack a window. That works great when it is 10 to 20 below zero (NOT). Every thing needs to be balanced, air out needs to match air in, or there will be problems eventually.

jim sokolovic

Yes, it's as simple as that...

Clammy and Andy. Lazy guys who don't like to get dirty and could care less about the customer or the next guy who has to correct what they left behind. Amazingly enough, though - the boss loves them because they get more jobs "done" per day, the customer loves them because they didn't get the rugs dirty, and their coworkers love them because they bought donuts this morning.

Andy_6

But I am the boss and I don't allow my techs to do this. In fact our hand book spells out that if a furnace - boiler is changed out with out completely checking the heat exchanger or flue for blockage, that tech will pay for it at there expense and the customer gets the unit free. People deserve better.

Boiler Guy

Great Concept

but do you think it is really a workable solution to the problem? No criticism ... just curiosity ?

Andy_6

I find that it does help. It does not completely eliminate the problem but like many other things, its how the problems are treated that counts. And the employees get a black and white picture that integrity is very important. With out it there is no reason to buy from the heating proffesionals verses the home improvement stores.