it was hard. and has been said a million times, like above-said by snoring beagle "paper tiger" can study real hard for a test, and still be a shitty technician. i've always said no certification makes you a good technician, if simply certifies that you have the knowledge and professionalism to "be" a good technician. problem is, we work for an industry that does not acknowledge, respect, or pay for professionalism and expertise. simply put.
Anyone who has read my rants here and at the other place knows how I feel about both pay and training, regardless of union or open shop. Too many bad owners have created an atmosphere of too many underpaid techs, causing good guys to leave the ranks in many cases. Guys doing this work, who only get called when the stuff is broke, and are then expected to fix the problem, in many cases, in under four hours, should be well compensated. The amount of knlwedge required to properly do our jobs is staggering. In our sector of heavey commercial, it is widely considered that it takes five years to be a joruneyman, and another five to be a craftsman. Many go to night schools, factory schools etc, on their own time just to get better at the job, but not earn more money in a lot of cases. The system is a mess. A guy can work on a million dollar mechanical room, which by the way isnt an expensive one, and the owner only cares how much his rate is. Thats BS. A MILLION DOLLAR piece of equipment, and the guy servicing it only makes fifty bucks an hour or so. Crazy. The guy who works on your phone makes nearly as much, but bills out at higher rates.
bingo that's why i'm moving on. i love this trade. but i'm sick of subsidizing my education, training, and competence. and being punished for it. in a wide majority of this field... "competence" is punished. competence is being able to find the loose wire nut... that doesn't sell parts. etc. i want to stop being an asset and start being a liability. and by that i mean be an expense no longer charged directly with generating revenue. it is a HUGE conflict of interest.
it doesnt have to be a conflict if only owners knew how to sell services correctly. my guys know that I demand we do things to the best of our ability, and treat customers as fair and honest as possible. We dont go around selling unecessary add ons or parts, but by the same token, when upgrades are needed, we can make a good case of why. As an example, right now, we have a job outside of dc. We are traveling from north of philly, which is 180 miles one way. The owner is begging me to put a service contract on his two chillers and rooftops. I have told him repeatedly that he should seek someone local, as there are surely guys as good or better to provide service, and who would also be less expensive. I charge him six hours travel for each guy, plus eight hours labor. Our labor rate is almost double the local rates. I have tried every approach, even offering to help him select a new contractor. He wont accept it. This same owner wants all new gages and thermometers on his chilled water systems. I offered to install them if he would just buy them. He gave me an order to buy and install them.
i've spent a decade doing everything i can to end up in a setting like what you've described. i'd eventually like to get into controls. hence the computer network engineering degree i'm pursuing.
I care more for collard greens with bacon then I do for some Nate certification nate is a marketing tool funny how Trane calls me to go fix their rru units because their own nate certified guys dont know anything about them even after all this time I still get calls from national accounts to go fix rru units but what the hey I charge them 125 an hour plus drive time to the different states and it is usually something simple like programming or pressure differential across the burner
Up here in VT things are pretty screwed up in regards to licensing. They don't recognize HVAC/R as a trade. To legally change/install a t'stat I need a special electrical license, to install an ice machine I need plumbers license, to work on a oil burner another license and a gas furnace yet another license. Plus EPA certification. All the state incenses require eight hours of continuing education to renew them every two years. A lot of time and a lot of money. If some NATE executive would come into Vermont an convinced these bueaucrats that they should use Nate instead of all this other bullsh!t , I would be all for the program.
I Have been doing a/c & commercial refrigeration fir approximately 34 years the company i am with wanted all of us to take the NATE exam two weeks ago i took the core with the heat pump exam so does that mean i am a better mechanic because i have 4 NATE certifications? i have had a Florida contractors license in a/c for the past 20 years i have taught a/c & refrigeration in New Jersey from 1978 to 1981 to me NATE is squat THIS TEST WAS EASY
that test should have been easy with your experience. i got six NATE certs after three years in the field. strictly resi at the time. however, you'd be surprised (or probably not) at how many techs out there DON'T know those things that you consider basic. just ask any tech support guy here like jrbenny the kinds of questions they get on that phone. i don't think NATE ever proved you were a good tech, it just proves you have the knowledge not to be a stupid tech (if you align knowledge in conjunction with drive/ethics).
notice i said "have the knowledge not to BE stupid" you can't fix the sort of stupid that comes from lack of drive and work ethic though. regardless of knowledge level.
let me reiterate. If the cheap owners who want to beat their guys down on pay, and who undercut the industry, would close up shop, profitability would be where it needs to be, and the real owners would have well trained men earning a nice living. There are too many subpar contractors in this market, mainly due to bad businessmen thinking they can make a fortune by undercutting their old boss. Say it isnt so, but it is. There are many, many good techs who believe that working for themself as a one man or two man shop, making the same money they made working for an owner of a "real business", is just fine. They dont compleely understand how this negatively impacts the busines in general and its a real problem. There are also many "counter guys" doing the same thing. Installs after close of business and on saturday, taking away business from the very companies that buy from them. Yes, its true, it happens a lot. Hell, the guys at united are ballsy enough to not only do it, but ask regulars for help when they have issues. There is an argument that "the people they work for wouldnt buy from a rela contractor",which is complete and udder B.S. if there were no sidejobbers who else would they buy from??? Anyway, Nate is a marketing gimmick, just like Star. Its to make folks feel comfortable by seeing your patch, just like the auto dealers did. All nate does is make you look like a car mechanic. The patches were supposed to be designed to make end user feel comfortable. The manufacturers did get behind it though, as warranty callbacks are through the roof. Why wouldnt they"?? owners wont send guys to class for free at suppliers to learn their craft, they gotta learn somehow to prevent equipment from getting a bad name. you buy a car, and if it last three eyars before it breaks you did well. you buy an hvac system priced like a car, it last eight years, needs five hundred bucks in repairs, and it is "a piece of crap". funny huh?
i couldn't agree more with EVERYTHING you just said. i've busted my ass in this trade. i put myself (on my own dollars) through trade school (2 years), and REFUSED tuition reimbursement. that is MY education. and investment in MYSELF. why would i ask another man to pay ME to better myself? i busted my ass and studied day and night for five years total before i took the NATE tests. hundreds of dollars (of my own), dozens of classes (on my own dime) aced them. i busted my ass and studied day and night to study for my contractors license. memorizing code on fridays and saturdays. buying HUNDREDS (if not thousands) of dollars of codebooks, and manuals, and study guides. i drove up to Ferris State (on my own dime and on my own time) and was the first person in AMERICA to take and pass their R410a training (before they even offered it to their own students) Cert# 0000001 and the list goes on. tens of thousands into my own tools and equipment. but to most bosses i am a parts changer who can be replaced in the blink of an eye for a fraction of the cost. and to most customers i am a thief and a highschool dropout, kidnapper, murderer, whatever...horrible person the SECOND i walk through the door, cuz DON'T YA KNOW mechanics are crooked. i've battled against the perception in this industry for over a decade and i've won over many customers, clients, and accounts. and i've been backstabbed every single step of the way.
look around at the various types of things HVAC guys are asked to know, and work on at any given time, day or night. In commercial, we are expected to be able to work on anything from wind powered controls to rooftops to things like pumps, boilers, chillers, dehumdifiers, variable frequency drives, jsut ot name a few. For this, most commericla guys bill out at less than the phone guy, the copier guy, and various other service types. Seriously, the phone guy!@!!! not to belittle the phone guy, but come on. Those other guys get training on specific systems or pieces of equipment. (If paper jams, open drawer three and take it out). HVAC guys get to be trained randomly, and it is assumed they are supermen. In fact, many guys are indeed that. give them a meter and some time and they can fix nearly anything. Nowadays, guys also cary laptops to work on certain pieces of equipment, and need to be able to use different software packages. As an example, a couple of my guys can work on turbocore, metasys, allerton to a degree, and certain manufacturers controllers. I give them a lot of credit for what they can do. Several years ago, we got to startup some of the very early fanwall systems with redundant vfd's and auto changeover on a fault. The factory didnt yet have settings to make this occur, and told us "to work with it" and see if we can get it to go. We called the drive manufacturer, who claimed it couldnt be done. We spent some time, and found a way to program the drives to make it work. it is just ASSUMED that you can figure everything out on your own, and usually they do. tell a friggen copier guy or phone guy to do something like that. Guess what though, as usual, I heard about how much it cost to make this shiet work. a few thousand dollars of labor to figure it out on a unit that was "critical care" in a hospital. This industry needs to change pricing strategies before all will be well again. letting an owner dictate that you can make "ten and five" is just plain dumb.
