hvac1000,
You obviously have a passion for the heating and cooling industry that can be seen in your comments and replies. I have a lot of respect for this. Please don’t take any of this personal. For the benefit of others that might be reading this thread I will point out a few things that are not quite correct in your last reply. If you would like examples or references I can supply, but will not add at this time in what might a feeble attempt on my part to keep this as short as possible.
“Statistics do not lie ( these are provided by the manufacturer to us about the failures)”
Yes HVAC1000 is correct, manufacturers do know about their own failure rates and this is how the companies may differ. Some of the manufacturers are more proactive than others, when they see, for example, a pressure swith made in Costa Rica cause alot of nuissances or failures, they send a tech note to all their dealers. They will give those dealers a labor allowance and free part to all those serial numbers affected so we will pull our records and take care of the issue. Others will simply replace the affected part with the exact same part and hope it works untill the warranty expires. I could give plenty of examples, but I'm not going to call out any manufacturers in this post.
Ok, one reference on your statement:
How to Lie With Statistics
“Manufactures do much R+D and we are just one little university that gets paid to do research.”
Ok, from this, (correct me if my assumption is wrong,) I gather you are in the education end of the industry. In my opinion the manufactures are not paying you enough for R&D. Who picks the projects, you or the manufactures?
Can they be unbiased either way?
"Qualifications are simple. Get to a qualified school approved by the furnace manufacturer and become certified to work on there equipment."
It depends on where you live. Some counties and states are very difficult to obtain liscensing. For example around here servicemen need 5 years of being a laborer before they can even test. Of those 5 year veterans "with associate degrees in HVAC" roughly 40% fail the test the first time. Other testing agencies such as NATE are also difficult tests, even for those already liscensed. I've been doing this for over 20 years now and I still don't know it all. You think aerodynamics of flight is difficult, well so is proper duct design, static pressures, Manual J and Manual D classes. Supervisor A, supervisor B and commercial liscensing for anything over 20 ton cooling is also difficult. Sit down and figure the heat load and gain of a 6 story all glass exterior building on all 4 faces, it will rattle your brain even with 800 dollar software.
Does this insure the individual will do a good job? What type of accountability is there?
“The homebuild aircraft are very simple my brother in law has one.”
Good for your brother-in-law. Did he build it? When you say,
“aircraft are very simple”, in comparison to what, a furnace?
Again, look for companies that do training such as NATE certifications.
“The FAA only allows homebuild aircraft to fly under certain circumstances and you are not allowed to carry passengers.”
If the plane is equipped to carry passengers they most certainly may carry passengers. The aircraft is allowed to fly anywhere a production aircraft can fly, even at night. One of the only exceptions is the sport category.
The reason for the original post was the point that anyone with basic mechanical skills, given the right documentation and tools could successfully build an airplane. In my opinion this is by far more complex then any residential heating system. The fact that companies refuse to offer the information is nothing more then a poor attempt to control the market. I believe this control attempt will result in hurting the industry you care so much for and will no doubt cause a loss of jobs here in the US. We are in a global market place. Past market control tactics don’t work in this type of environment. The US had the niche in technologies, but we are loosing ground. If the US heating and cooling industry doesn’t step up and correct the lack of meeting my, as you put it,
“over expectation” I can guaranty someone in the global market will.
Don’t get me wrong on my intent to point this out. I have a great passion for the HVAC industry, maybe even as much as you. I get very upset when someone tells me that we can’t do better, it is just the way it is, it will cost to much, it won’t work, and so-on. These are nothing more then excuses and cause development work to be anything but development.
“You sound like a guy that would try and repair his air bag module in his car to save a few $$ not knowing until the wreck if it really works or not.“
Note. Find out why Piper went out of business. If my memory serves me right, some moron dissabled a safty device, clearly marked "Do Not Tamper" and crashed. Piper lost the law suit putting them out of business.
This sounds to me like you are trying to slam my intelligence. I wouldn’t do that to you or anyone else on this forum. Fact of the matter mentioned, yes, I could replace an air bag module with the right documentation and tools and I would have confidents it would work as designed.
“Every time a furnace lites there is a controlled explosion and subsequent expansion of metals.”
Fancy terminology but correct. All he is saying is the heat exchanger goes through many cycles of expansion and contraction every day. This is very hard on metals quite often becoming tempered, brittle and prone to cracking. Older furnaces used much heavier gauge heat exchanger walls less prome to crack, further away from the flame and difficult to warm up causing poor efficiencies. And by the way, they cracked also.
I’m not real sure what your point is here. It sounds like scare tactics coming from a manufacturer. I don’t by it. I’m not sure what heating systems you are referring to, but all that I’ve ever seen for residential use have a controlled burn. The term “controlled explosion” doesn’t fit in my opinion. Do a Google on the term and you will find things like “fears”, “suspicious packages”, etc.. That’s why I call it a scare tactic.
CO poisoning kills many people every year and that is caused by heating equipment most of the time. Part of that reason is because people work on there own equipment or the service man is not educated in proper repair procedures.“
True CO kills. I Have met so many people that have been sickened by their furnaces. Call your local hospital and see if anyone is enjoying thier stay in the hyperbaric champer any given winter day.(I think I spelled that correct)
Ok, maybe you can point me on the source of this data other then the manufacture, again, in my opinion, nothing more then a scare tactic.
“These steps are being takes to prevent people from hurting themselves working on equipment they have no business working on”
In whose opinion do people
“have no business working on” their purchased equipment? How is your
“record of tampering” going to stop people from working on a furnace? How is it going to
“prevent people from hurting themselves”? I think you know as well as I this won’t stop them and the truth of the matter is to save the manufacturer from, as you put it
“frivolous law suits”.
Regards,
Lastly, manufacturers try hard to keep a good reputation, some more than others. I see some models that are junk but not thier whole product line. Some manufacturers are in class lawsuits at this very moment and won't do anything to correct the problems, others have already changed out thier defective product line.
There are new devices coming down the pipe that will most certainly make equipment more dependable. Such as contacts that open and close at that point of the voltage sine wave where it is 0 volts, so that there is no heat or arching to shorten thier life. Embedded software that can truley make the furnace run at peak efficiency and make your home much more comfortable than the average low boy produced in the 60's. I live within minutes of GE, Regal Beloit, Water Furnace and United Technology and have toured all of thier facilities. I have seen ECM motors in 100% humidity controlled rooms with 50 lb. wieghts hanging off thier shafts and ran for 1000's of hours to test thier durability. These companies have to control thier failures to produce products people can afford to buy. (now everyone knows where I live LOL)
I blame consumers for many of the issues. I lose bids to so called contractors, (working out of thier garage) putting in the cheapest equipment they can buy by only a few hundred dollars. You very often get what you pay for.
The average cost of a furnace is nearly the same today as it was 10 years ago, and yes the new ones are better. The early 80 and 90% furnaces where full of bugs. This was not all the fault of the manufacturers, our government mandated these efficiency laws and the manufacturers had to comply with these laws without tripleing the cost of the equipment.
I hear all kinds of reasons why copper prices are so high, it's simple the new 13 SEER A/C's using 410A is using more, thicker gauge copper to produce. Also a government mandate.
I'll say it one more time then I'm done. Buy from a dealer that has been around for a long time. Buy equipment with the best possible warranties. Look for trucks that have the NATE or other certifications on them. Don't take the low big, get 4 and throw the lowest one out and decide from the other 3.
Happy Valentines Day give your love ones a kiss and stay warm.
Eric D
