Technician shortage means new ways must be
found to increase efficiency
By: Jack Sine
The nationwide
shortage of HVAC technicians has forced service companies to find ways to
maximize their service techs’ performance. The successful ones are using
a three-pronged approach: education, better instrumentation, and enhanced
preventive maintenance programs.
Better
education means more efficient technicians
John Shamahorn, Director of Operations at Chas Roberts Air Conditioning in
Tucson, Arizona says education certainly is key to getting the most out of
technicians and keeping them safe.
“Chas Roberts has been around since 1942,” said Shamahorn, “and
we learned early on that tech education is the base on which to build our
business. Today have 80 per cent of the Phoenix residential air conditioning
market and 43 per cent of Tucson and we achieved that on the efficiency of
our technicians. We have nearly a thousand employees, most of them techs who
we get from the local trade schools. But the education they get there is just
a start. Naturally we do on the job training, but we also enhance that with
classroom time at our facilities. Our main instructor is also our best trouble
shooter and he can teach the new techs things they wouldn’t learn elsewhere.
We also bring in experts from outside to broaden their knowledge. We have
such large market share because we meet our schedules and we meet our schedules
because we make sure we have the best trained service technicians.”
John Bevington is President of ChillCo in Louisiana. ChillCo sells and services
large tonnage chillers for the commercial and industrial markets.
“Naturally, we educate our technicians both in house and out,”
says Bevington. “But we take it a step further. We also educate our
customers. We offer a five day high intensity course that focuses on chiller
maintenance and repair from the end-user’s perspective. It’s good
for both us and them. They gain knowledge that can save them problems by learning
to properly maintain and troubleshoot their systems, and it’s good for
ChilCo because it frees up our technicians for more pressing work.”
New technology means better efficiency and greater safety
The most
successful contractors are the ones who find the best new technology for their
technicians to use. At Chas Roberts it’s instrumentation that makes
the technician’s job easier and safer.
“We monitor technology very closely,” said Shamahorn, “and
recently we identified several instruments from two companies, Fieldpiece
and INFICON, that greatly improve our techs’ performance.”
Fieldpiece is a manufacturer of hand-held instruments for installation, maintenance,
and repair of HVAC equipment.
“I first discovered them at my wholesaler’s. I told him I needed
a new meter and he held out a Fieldpiece and told me it was new on the market.
I asked him if it was rugged enough for HVAC work and he grinned at me, threw
it across the room and bounced it off the Coke machine. He went over, picked
it up and it worked fine. That was a year and a half ago and I have been using
their instruments ever since and recommending them to my technicians. We even
offer a payroll deduction plan to help them make the purchase. The Fieldpiece
instruments are extremely durable, highly accurate, and priced right. And
they’re more compact than others on the market. That makes the technician’s
work even easier.
“But that’s not all. They have also introduced a modular design
that makes the technician’s tool kit significantly more compact. It
consists of a stick meter, a data logger, an electronic handle, and separate
heads that fit into any one of the three. The heads measure ac amps, vacuum,
air velocity, dual temperature, gas/static pressure, wet bulb relative humidity,
and carbon monoxide. I’ve tested them all and they are at least as accurate
as anybody else’s. And you can fit them all into a small tool bag. They
reduce the amount that a technician has to carry by 30 to 40 per cent. No
more trips back to the truck. Plus, everything works the same way. Lose the
operator’s manual? No problem.
“And the modular design is much more convenient. Everything’s
there where you need it. The new stick meter even has a magnetic strap so
you can hang it anywhere. The people at Fieldpiece really focused on the needs
of the HVAC techs.”
But what about safety?
“I already said how rugged they are.” Said Shamahorn. “The
technicians believe in them. A while back one of our techs used a different
brand meter to check for power and it registered zero. He got pretty well
zapped. That has never happened with a Fieldpiece.”
Fieldpiece was founded in 1990 by Rey Harju as a manufacturer of digital multimeters.
“The problem with other instruments then and now,” said Harju,
“is that they’re designed for electricians and electronic technicians.
HVAC technicians face unique challenges. They need to test a wide variety
of parameters. For safety and convenience, they like our “hands free”
testing. We design our instruments specifically for HVAC service technicians.
We provide a magnet to hang the meter and alligator clips to hold thermocouples
and test leads in one place. Our accessory heads measure the parameters a
tech needs most. Our instruments are easy to carry, easy to use , and save
the HVAC technicians time on the job.”
Shamahorn agrees.
“The Fieldpiece people are extremely responsive. Their service is excellent
and you actually talk to a person. And when you make a suggestion they take
it seriously. I’ve made a few suggestions that it looks like they are
going to include in future instruments. They know that the guy in the field
knows what he needs.”
When asked what other instruments made his technician’s jobs easier,
Shamahorn replied, “INFICON. Among other things, they make a leak detector
called a D-TEK™ that is extremely accurate. It uses heated diode sensor
technology to detect chlorine and fluorine. It is more accurate than other
technologies on the market, and eliminates almost all false readings and by
eliminating false readings you make the technician significantly more efficient.”
“INFICON developed hand-held heated diode sensor technology for refrigerant
leak detection more than ten years ago,” said INFICON National Sales
Manager, Brian King, “and we’ve been refining it ever since. It
responds to the slightest trace of fluorine and chlorine and virtually nothing
else. It is noticeably more sensitive than any other technology. The only
thing the technician has to be careful about is the diode itself. Like a light
bulb, it wears out eventually. We recommend that technicians carry a spare
and check the instrument regularly. We also recommend regular maintenance
to extend the life of the instrument.”
The fact that the diode has to be replaced doesn’t bother Shamahorn.
“The accuracy and sensitivity more than make up for what is really a
very minor nuisance. Everything wears out eventually. We have our techs replace
the diodes in their instruments every 100 hours and we supply the spare diodes.”
Jeff Somers, Service Operations Manager for Monsen Engineering in New Jersey
uses the technology of a sub contractor to speed their work. Their secret
weapon is Hudson Technologies from Pearl River, New York. They offer a patented
on-site refrigerant decontamination service that is not only extremely high
speed, it can also decontaminate refrigerant on line so that no cooling time
is lost. That is particularly important to process cooling chillers because
production lines do not have to be shut down to decontaminate refrigerant.
This service eliminates excess oil, moisture, rust, and particulates.
“They actually do the work for less than we do and give us additional
profit room,” said Somers.
They also free up technicians for other work.
Preventive maintenance increases a technician’s efficiency
John Bevington of ChillCo maintains that a thorough preventive maintenance
program saves technician time by minimizing catastrophic shutdowns that require
technicians to be pulled from other jobs, thus decreasing efficiency. He says
that a proper program spots internal chiller problems before they become serious
so they can be repaired during scheduled shutdowns.
The key to a good preventive maintenance program is refrigerant and oil analysis.
“Some chiller owners have the misunderstanding that the purpose of oil
and/or refrigerant analysis is to determine whether the oil needs to be changed
or the refrigerant needs to be cleansed,” said Bevington. “While
this is a secondary benefit to performing these tests, the primary benefit
is to detect potentially harmful internal machine conditions and correct the
root causes of these conditions.”
In addition to refrigerant and oil analysis, Bevington recommends that a thorough
preventive maintenance program include:
·
Vibration analysis
· Eddy current tube analysis
· Maintaining an operating log
· Motor meggaring
So, while
we cannot see the technician shortage disappearing any time soon, we can improve
technicians’ performance by ongoing education, keeping on top of the
latest technology advances and putting them in our techs hands, and by aggressively
marketing thorough preventive maintenance programs.
Jack Sine is a freelance writer specializing in the HVAC/R market and
is based in Beacon, NY.
Fieldpiece
Instruments, Inc.
580 W. Central, Suite A
Brea, CA 92821
(714) 257-9060 FAX (714) 257-9069
fpinfo@fieldpiece.com
