Scariest job?

January 1979 in Elmont, Meacham Ave about a 1/2 mile south of Hempstead Turnpike, get a no heat call. Multiple police cars in front of house, cop lets me in. Dead body in hallway covered by sheet. Neighbor found the old lady dead and called cops, they can't leave body unattended until coroner arrives and it's a busy day, going to be a while. Cop goes in basement and gets phone number from sticker on boiler and calls but doesn't tell dispatcher the situation.

Had to step over her legs to get to basement door and twice more on trips to truck.

The first time commissioning a commercial boiler. That delayed ignition can really haunt you.

• Is the oil pressure correct?
• Is the gas pressure correct?
• Is there air in the gas pipe and that is why it is taking so long?
• Is that letting fuel into the combustion chamber all that time with no ignition?

Every large boiler I commissioned gave me the willies until it just lit off smoothly. Then I would say "As expected, Perfect"

The small residential jobs were never a problem… They would puff sometimes and that was not so scary!

I do remember a time when I was called to an apartment complex by our sales department at about 11:00 AM, to assure the apartment complex owner that we were experienced on their 8 GPH boilers in the 7 buildings on campus. (i worked for a fuel dealer at the time) The salesman was trying to close a deal to sell them oil. In the corner of my eye, I noticed a couple of guys working on one of the buildings boilers. (No big deal)

Later that evening at around 11:00 PM I got a call from the salesman. "Do you remember that apartment complex we looked at this morning?" "Yes" I answered. "Well they have a boiler that was down all day and the guys working on it just asked the super 'Do you know anybody else that knows how to work on these things?' and I thought of you"

So I drove the 50 miles from my home to the apartments and met with the super. The whole trip I was thinking those guys were there for at least 11 hours. I wonder: How many times did they hit that reset button and did not get it to ignite? I also kept a red binder that had every oil burner instruction book I ever worked on as part of my tool kit.

Sadly I did not have the book for that boiler/burner combination, but I had the next size smaller and hoped that was close enough. In those instructions there were the electrode settings for the smaller burner and the larger burner looked very much the same. I set the electrodes and tested the spark. Everything was ready for lift off. (rocket launch terms use intentionally)

I told the super that he had to get everything that was combustible away from the boiler, and for about 20 feet away from the front of the boiler. I have burned off saturations before but nothing on a boiler this big, and there was no way I was going to rip out a combustion chamber at 12:45 at night. I did tell the super that the flames from the inspection door may shoot out like a blow torch as far as 15 feet. You see, to burn off a saturation you need a good clear vent and a way for the excess oil to actually burn away. So leaving the inspection door open was part of the prep work. Another thing was to be able to keep the burner blower wheel running without adding more fuel to the flame once it ignited. So there I was with a wire cutter in hand, to shut down the solenoid valve. Finally, once you get it lit, you need to open the air gate full to get as much combustion air as possible into that oil soaked chamber.

Then I lit the burner, Flames shot out the inspection opening about 5 to 6 feet (Less than I thought) and I cut the fuel and opened the air gate. The boiler was now getting hot and the tenants were going to warm up soon. It took about 6 minutes for the flames to stop shooting out the inspection port. The saturation burned for about 45 minutes before I could see that it would need the fuel back on to continue to operate. The last thing you need to see on a saturation burn off, is that when the burner stopped, the flame goes out. That took another hour for that to happen. After spending about 3 hours total on sight, the burner was safe to operate automatically.

We got the oil account and the customer was satisfied that we knew what we were doing on oil heat service. The following day I sent one of our other technicians that were more familiar with commercial boilers to make sure it was set up properly with electrode settings and air fuel adjustments with a combustion testing kit.

That was a scary Friday night.  

Technically, this wasn't a job I was on, but it happened, oh, about 40 years ago when I was in L.A. attending university. Thinking about it in the years since it happened, I still get shivers, and think this might have been the stupidest moment of my life.

I was walking down the street where there were a bunch of small shops along an older commercial avenue, on the way to the mall and minding my own business when I heard sirens approaching. I didn't think much of it but then 3 (maybe 4 - I just don't remember) cop cars came screeching around the corner behind me and racing up the street.

They came to a screeching halt on the street not 20 or 30 feet in front of me. The cops jumped out of their cars with their guns drawn. It seemed like it was an army of cops but it was probably only 4 or 5. I froze and looked around thinking "Are they after me?" I heard a shot, and guy with a gun came running out of the shop right in front of me. I had no clue what to do! It was like time slowed down and it was all happening in slow motion. The robber took off running toward me, or toward my direction down the street (away from the cops). Without even thinking I tried to tackle the robber as he was running away. He tripped and I ended up just hanging onto his legs. he was kicking me and got me in the face and shoulders once or twice but I hung on to one of his legs and was pulling on his leg as hard as I could … just like I'm pulling yours right now!!! 😎

After typing up the last story another one came to mind. While in college I worked for the local two-way radio shop. I went on a service call to the police department one night. While I was working, one of the officers came in and was acting a bit odd. I had just wrapped up the repair as he came out of a closet with a shotgun. He was waving it around asking the dispatcher if they had ever figured out how to break it open and unload it. That was right as he pointed it square at me and pulled the trigger. Turns out it was a toy gun, and unloaded, but maybe he underestimated the impact... Neither the officer or I slept for a few nights. Me from the shock of it, him from wondering if he would keep his job.