CO lurks - just gotta look

Mitch_4

was a God send. He saved a family. You should be proud.

It goes to show it is worth checking on every call.

Congratulations to your tech.

Dave Yates (PAH)

Re-post ME???

Mark, Could you re-post the CO PR piece?

Weekend middle of the night no-heat call. Not a regular customer. Landlord not available. Don't normally take after hours calls for apartments when tenants call & after hours calls are normally restricted for previous customers. Our on-call mechanics are given the feeedom of discretion & this mother of five convinced our guy to go - it was after 11 PM.

Simple thermocouple replacement & he was about half way up the basement steps when he decided to check the flue. All of the combustion products were spilling into the basement. Two of the five kids sleep in the basement. Chimney completely blocked shut! Our guy asks about anyone feeling sick. She asks if she should talk to her pediatrician because these two kids have been sick for months!

Those kids were angels in waiting.

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curiousity kills

co

Nice job!!!!!

Dave_41

Priceless Tech

That tech is worth his weight in gold, if he ever needs a job have him look me up (just kidding, but just in case) we try to beat hell to get our techs to check on every vent or flue on every call but it is an easy thing to for-get, especially if the no heat call was a simple fix and at that time of night the first thought in your mind is OK, I can be back home in a half an hour. Give him my congratulations and a pat on the back, or better yet a raise. People like him are very hard to find.

m dewolfe

Good job dave! make sure that this gets into your techs next annual review!

Mark W

Very easy to forget

When I first started out, I was happy just to complete the call. HUGE blinders on all the time.

After I had the repair stuff down pat, I started looking around more.

I wish I could say I was perfect about it, I certainly wasn't. But I did try and remind myself on every service call to check the draft of all fuel burning stuff I could set my eyes on, look for a CO detector on every job, inquire about it if I didn't see one, and recommend one if the customer didn't have one.

So much poorly installed, poorly maintained stuff out there I think there really must be a higher power that looks over all of us, why else wouldn't there be a lot more people be pushing up daisies?

I had many accomplishments in my former job before they decided it "just wasn't working out" for them, but I'm most proud of the gas heating equipment inspection sheet I made up before they sent me packing. I had been begging and pleading for the better part of 8 years for a "clean & service" (their terms) sheet that had some sort of substance and revelance to what we were actually supposed to be doing as "qualified" techs. (at least that was the impression you got listening to the endless loop of b.s. you heard when you were calling there and got put on-hold).

They never once stepped up to the plate, and essentially refused to do anything about it, yet had no problem charging their customers for a "thorough and complete inspection" of their equipment, by a "knowledgable and qualified tech."

I'm sorry it took 8 years of frustation to force me to finally make up an inspection sheet that I could be comfortable with. Anyone that follows the checklist properly will not leave the basement without both checking the draft, and pulling apart smoke pipe and inspecting the chimney base even if they do have a good draft.

My parting gift to them, I suppose. Funny that they chose to rip it off from me after they fired me. If they had just asked, I could've given them a "clean" copy on disk, and they wouldn't have had to spend the time whiting out my "test" sheets. I call it a test sheet because I'm still not sure that I'm completely satisfied with what I created, but I stopped tweaking it after they let me go.

What do you all think, is this thing okay? If it suits your needs, feel free to use it, modify it, improve it.

Dave Yates (PAH)

he is

one motivated tech. He devours knowledge & I am very pleased with his progress - and - he knows that. His pay reflects that too. I've been mulling over what I can do as a special reward for this call. I should add - this is his fourth save this year on catching CO and halting its death march through customer's homes. He's not alone. Other techs in our firm have caught CO issues this year too. I'm damn proud of their ongoing efforts.

Silent heroes. Best part? We're but a few in a growing army of techs armed with the knowledge and tools to save lives. This site and others continue to grow the industry while raising the bar. Some day that bar will actually be high enough for this fat lard-butt to limbo under it without any help(G).

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Mark Hunt

Kudos Mr. Yates


And a high five for that tech!

I hope we are beginning to feel a wind of change.

All my best sir.


Mark H

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John R. Hall

Dave

How about a News' feature on your tech? Sounds like a great example for everyone to know about. Drop me a line if you and he are interested.

Weezbo

Service work is like that.

way too many times in the course of the "Work" one finds these life threatening deficits in some ones home,where it gets touch and go is when it threatens Your Life at some off hour of the night or early morning...Seemed to me that the call wouldnt have been made to anyone else so .....evidently God has a reason for You Being there. and it sure sounds like our man who responded was exactly who needed to be There.

George_10

Fate is the Hunter

or in this case Fate was beaten. Sure is a lovely story.

Mark Eatherton1

Sorry Dave...

I was asleep at the switch. Kudos to you and yours for doing the right thing. Now, if we can just get it legislated...

I too came across a mis-adjusted boiler the other day that was generating so much CO that my meter locked up. Fortunatley, none of it spilled into the room.

THe contractor who did the work is no longer in business, or I might have considered contacting him to let him know what he had done.

If you don't test, you don't know. If you test, but don't understand what you're looking at, you too don't know. Get trained, and start using it.



ME

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lchmb

awsome catch

Just a thought but a gift certificate to a nice resteraunt come's to mind! Someone that good doesn't need much but it's the little thing's that count...And a lot of praise! I have seen the tech's who can be in and out on a call and never catch anything, I have also worked with those who can sniff out an issue from 20 ft. Those are the one's who are a credit to this industry and keep people safe!!

Dave Yates (PAH)

Idea gleaned from BSA events

I'm going to have a patch designed, which stems from our many BSA events, and I'll make it available to anyone who wants to recognize a tech for saving lives through CO detection. And, a nice frameable certification wouldn't hurt. More on that later. I'd like to sell them for $1.00 more than the cost with the profits going towards CO detectors for the poor or something along those lines. It'd be nice if we could get a CO detector manufacturer to kick in with a national ad campaign for CO awareness. I'll probably need to get at least 300 patches made at a time to keep the cost low enough. Thoughts?

That way, you and I can give those who deserve an extra pat on the back something to recognize their efforts and one that they can wear on their jackets.

I'm one step ahead on the dinner out thing too(G). You read my mind.

I've got another six techs who have caught CO lurking this year & halted it in its tracks. Our investment in CO detection equipment has paid off in more ways than one. Saving lives and boosting ethical sales - doesn't get any better than that.

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lchmb

excellent idea

Just imagion the look on a customer's face when the tech explain's why he recieved the patch....:) If I were the customer I would be jumping up and down to have someone of that caliber!! Excellent idea!! That and it may get other's to follow suit just to be wearing one..As to the donation to co detectors, I am a volunteer fire fighter and my department recently offered to any resident a free smoke and co detector. I still feel your idea would be excellent in larger area's (my town has 400 for a population). An offer like that to a customer who otherwise wouldn't be able to buy one, they say action's speak louder than words and that companies name would be gold!! IMHO

Mark Hunt

Which


CO detectors would you be endorsing?

Would it be a better idea to use the money and buy low level alarms?

Mark H

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Dave Yates (PAH)

our choice

Mark,

I think a group of professionals endorsing a product would be a real feather in their cap. I'd be in favor of us coming to a conclusion as to which one best suits our customer's needs. A win/win for everyone. Best of all, the consumer gets the truth.

Your thoughts?

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Dave Yates (PAH)

No sweat

Jeff - AKA - Heatair lent me a copy. I saw a post regarding several potential corrections/alterations, but missed an opportunity to download the thread. Anything to change?

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