JOKE: How many alt.hvac "experts" does it take to screw in a light bulb

it depends on which althvac pro it is

As I said, this is targeted only at those whose only contribution to the newsgroup is hot air...

I top posted just to piss them off even more!

I know exactly what you mean. That was pretty damn funny, and spot on too!

You forgot the one about:

If you sought out opinions and recommendations of others so that you hired a "Qualified and reputable technician," it is YOUR fault if HE does crummy work. After all, YOU should not have fallen for those recommendations or HIS promises!!! Least of all, You should NOT have posted in a news group populated by professionals so that you don't make such a mistake.

I guess you should have used a Ouija board? (To those who try to be helpful, you ARE appreciated.) Unfortunately there are not enough of you in this NG. It is no wonder homeowners are willing to try to fix their own systems before calling a pro. They have little confidence in being treated fairly, and many of the "Pros" in this NG explain why that is the case. All one has to do is read how some of them sell items not needed or charge for items not delivered.

Actually all one needs to to is find a Pro, and not the lowest bidder, or the one with the biggest company ,or the biggest YP ad. Is the actual technician doing the work a certified Master (or even jorneyman)Technician?? Is he/she Nate certified?? When was the last formal training they attended?? Are they certified to use the new refrigerant(s)??

You ask these same type of questions of Doctors, Lawyers, and other "professionals", why are you not asking these types of questions of those you are trusting to work on the single most expensive appliance in your home?? Even automotive mechanics have their certificates in frames on the wall in their shop. We as HVAC technicians, are bringing our shop to you(the customer), so we don't have a shop wall for you to see all the education and training certificates. If in your ignorance, you don't ask about the technician's qualifications, certifications, and training, then thats on you, not the schmuck that shows up on your door step. In your ignorance, if you don't ask, how do you know that the guy that just showed up on your doorstep didn't "almost graduate from high school"?? (I have guys like this calling me asking for a job as a tech, I tell them to go back to school).

As far as ALT.HVAC, when you come in here and ask a question, *most* of the time, depending on the question, you will be to call a tech because we can't

You can joke all you want... but its your own ignorance that is the root cause of your dissatisfaction with the HVAC trade. If you really want to know, and see, first hand what a true professional HVAC technician does, and how they work, I'm sure that there are several owners/master technicians that would welcome you to ride along for a day....myself included.

Now its your choice.... you can put up, or shut up.

Either way, please go away

Blueman, you're right on the money about the alt.hvac forum, all those guys do is belittle everyone else. They often say that the alt.hvac forum is for "professionals", but then they do nothing but drop the "F" bomb on everyone and say you're an idiot, how professional is that? (see Paul's post above for example),

The alt.hvac forum has turned into a sandbox for these "professionals" to throw mud at unsuspecting people posting with legit questions. They really do the HVAC industry a disservice.

Which reminds me....

Agreed. The evil side of me though is thinking of making this one of my regular newsgroups and pitching a new "innocent" question every day... Should be fun to see them respond to the bait like Pavlov's dogs... Worse comes to worse, they just iggie me in which case next time I ask a real question, I won't have to wade through their waste-of-bandwidth replies.

I also really love the one about how "this is a professionals only newsgroup" -- well, duh -- this is USENET and groups unless moderated are open to everyone... Also, talking about "cheap bastards", if they want their own private sandbox to pee in, then why don't they each pitch in a dollar a month and get their own hosted site. But then again, you can't buy web hosting with food stamps and these unemployed so-called tech's probably need to save their last pennies for their weekly sunday six-pack.

That's funny stuff, blueman, and I understand what drove you to write it. Careful who you trash, though. It's not like that for an entire trade. In fact, I'd venture to say that most aren't like that, but that's not based on much more than a hunch. People on newsgroups like to know a lot of things and also like to be right when the other guy is wrong. You can read though some of the flame wars to see that. In fact, it's why I post when I do - it's just fun being the expert sometimes.

People in newsgroups, however, aren't a good sampling of the population at large. My wife wanted a digital programmable thermostat to replace the original one on her heat pump at her business. Replacing a thermostat is something I've done a million times -- couple low voltage wires and a few screws. No fuss no muss.

The next day when the HVAC guy came out to replace the inverter(?) I blew by crossing two hot wires; he couldn't have been nicer about it. "Happens all the time," he explained. "They should print warnings - you had no way to know. Next time, just call us first before altering the system. I can tell you what to watch out for over the phone." He worked quickly, only charged a modest fee above the cost of the part ($80 for the visit or something like that), and was on his way. The encounter left me feeling a bit better as I walked around putting the space heaters away.

blueman3333 wrote:

I can truly understand your point, I just don't see the necessity of all the name calling that came from a simple question by blueman. A simple "we don't care to answer that in this newsgroup" would suffice, instead some of you act like "crazies." You're about the first one to respond in a logical manner. I appreciate that.

Cheri

I agree -- no one is forced to answer any questions on USENET. Heck, every day I see plenty of questions on newsgroups that either I don't know the answer to or don't care to answer. I would have to be pretty desperately unemployed to waste my time responding to every posting that I didn't want to respond to in the first place with a tirade.

The funny thing is that if their real intention is to avoid non-pro clutter on the alt.hvac newsgroup then they have truly achieved the opposite. Here we have a thread of maybe a 100 posts (95% of them childish name calling and tirades) that surely is obscuring any true pro-to-pro conversation. Believe me, if no one had responded to my post, I wouldn't be sitting here responding to a vacuum. The signal-to-noise ratio has got to be one of the lowest on USENET and that is saying a LOT. All those "pros" must really be proud of the level of discourse here... Hmmm, makes you really envy all those "lucky" people in the HVAC profession -- NOT!

You are absolutely right -- My sarcasm is really only aimed at the bad apples who seem to disproportionately hang out in alt.hvac. I have nothing against any fine professional of any trade. In fact, I'm sure given our old house that I pay more than my fair share of service bills; however, I do like to fix the small and relatively simple things myself, saving my service dollars for the bigger jobs that I cannot or do not want to do myself. However, in the alt.hvac reality that seems to be some type of heinous crime :)

Cross post to alt.hvac removed.

Please don't start a flame war between AHR and the flex duct boys in alt.hvac by crossposting to this NG. The unwritten rule has been that they don't piss in our sandbox and we don't piss in their's. It's a given that alt.hvac is _the_ asshole of Usenet. If you have a beef with _them_, stop posting about it in AHR and take it to their worthless NG. If you want a good laugh, though, check out the posts in alt.hvac for last June, 2006 when they pissed off the wrong "homemoaner." I don't have anything good to say about them other than I do respect the fact that they don't come over here and stir things up.

No, that would be comp.lang.c, alt.hvac is the stuff that comes out of the asshole. Please try to keep it straight.

If you have a beef

Point taken... Would love to ook up the June 2006 post if it is funny. Any link or keywords to search on -- there are something like 20K posts archived in Google for June 2006 -- most seem to be spam (or maybe that is what you mean by pissing off the wrong homeowner)...

Thanks

Just out of curiousity, please explain the referenceto comp.lang.c Thanks

blueman3333 wrote

In your case, it would be prudent to take a night school course in light- bulb extraction...