HVAC Reference
Troubleshooting skills depend to a degree on knowledge of the basic principles of science that explain how equipment operates. But more than anything else, troubleshooting skill comes with knowing how stuff works and how stuff breaks…knowing what equipment is supposed to do, what it takes to make it do it and what’s wrong when it doesn’t do it. Most, if not all, service people acquire the bulk of that knowledge through experience. There are only two ways to acquire knowledge from experience: you either run service calls for some number of years or you find someone who has already run service calls for several years and get him to tell you what he knows. Finding that someone isn’t always a simple matter.
When I first started in the business, I didn’t know anybody to ask for help…or at least not anyone who would be willing to share their wisdom with me. So I had to learn it all the hard way: trial and error, with the emphasis on error. Yeah, I’ve made a lot of mistakes and misdiagnoses. That’s the best way to learn, but it is slow…too slow for today’s fast pace service industry. If you’re working for yourself, you can’t afford to spend the day looking for the problem, rather than correcting the problem. If you’re working a job, most employers can’t afford to have you spending the day looking…So, you don’t have many options to explore.
Whatever issues you might be struggling through today are the same issues I struggled through 25 years ago…and I know most of the questions you have and most of the answers. I don’t know all answers, but I know enough that I spend my days fixing instead of looking. I can tell you what to expect to find on 95% of the service calls, how to recognize the symptoms of the problem and where to look for the cause of the problem.
I made the DVD’s with all the questions in mind…they aren’t just about troubleshooting. You have to understand what heat pumps and furnaces are supposed to do, before you can begin to understand the failures. So, each DVD begins with some practical explanation of equipment operation…in service person language, simple and easy to understand. The failures you can expect to see are taken from my own experiences…there are no hypothetical situations.If you look at some of the posts on this blog and the previews linked to the DVD descriptions, you’ll see illustrations taken directly from the videos. It’s all real world situations with real equipment and components.
I’m not so arrogant to think or suggest, a beginner can become a world class service man after watching 6 hours of video, but after some 2 years of steady sales and positive feedback, I’m convinced the DVD’s are a good product and confident you’ll find them worth far more than the current price, or for that matter double or triple the current price.
Next to learning service through your personal experiences, the second best method is the opportunity to spend time with a more experienced tech, which is not always possible, and certainly not possible for a long enough time. Then, your only option is some kind of training tool like those sold here. And, if it turns out you disagree with what I’m saying, all you have to do is let me know by phone or email. I’ll send you a return mailer and refund your money.
Wayne
