Burner technicians -what’s going on in this industry?
I’ve always taken care of my boiler tune ups myself- for decades. I’ve gotten older and my hands have arthritis so last year in January of 2024 I decided to sign up with an established well know oil company in the area for their automatic delivery and annual tune up which includes emergency burner 24/7 no heat situations which as I get older, I will admit is appealing to have somebody on call if I need emergency service.
Their first tune up in February 2024 it was a younger guy. I know they are learning and don’t have decades of knowledge. I get it. But he didn’t have the correct nozzles for my Riello. So he used a different one with a different firing rate and instead of setting the pump pressure to account for the different firing rate of the different nozzle with a pressure gauge he used his combustion analyzer as a best guess. This also resulted in him adjusting the air shutter.
He also installed the baffles into the boiler incorrectly and afterwards it generally was running loud and hard startup bang - so not like it used to.
So in April, I called them back and they sent out one of their “senior “ Technicians to put the correct nozzle in and set the pump pressure with the gauge and correct the baffles and air shutter.
I told the company I don’t want any more young guys working on my equipment.
So for this year‘s annual tuneup I requested they send the same senior technician out that came to fix the younger guys problems, but of course he retired and moved to Florida so they told me they would send another “senior” technician with 35 years experience.
Well, as it turns out he didn’t replace the pump strainer and didn’t do an efficiency test with the combustion analyzer. All he did was change the nozzle, looked inside to see if it needed to be vacuumed, and replaced the spin on filter.What’s worse is he lied right to my face when I asked him What the combustion numbers were. He told me it’s running great 86% efficiency.
I have an extensive home security system with cameras in the basement so I saw it all with my own eyes.
I decided not to call him on his lie because I have enough stress in my life and I didn’t wanna get into an argument with the guy so I said thank you and sent him on his way.
What’s going on with the industry? I remember the days when guys cared about their work and were thorough and did a good job. Now it seems like you get a young guy that knows nothing about nothing or a senior guy that is washed up with a bad back and tired of the trade. I’ve decided to go back to will call oil deliveries and doing my tuneups myself. I do a better job.