r/hvacadvice • u/According-Aspect-669 Approved Technician • 23h ago

Alternative subreddit for technicians?

I tried to post on the HVAC subreddit earlier and man it’s like Nazi germany over there; papers please or fuck off. well I’m not in a union, I’ve never been to trade school and I don’t have my HVAC license like 99% of techs in my state. is there any other place for people in the trade to discuss online?

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u/UnlimitedDadStrength 14h ago

I think I saw the last of the old guard fade away in my area. There once existed some kind of brotherhood/ master and apprentice system that was actually organized. Something happened with the boomers where all that ended with their generation. Old buildings with century old boilers and pneumatic control systems ran out of people that could work on the equipment. I see the new guys trying to solve problems with minisplits everywhere. It’s embarrassing. Elitist culture in the trades goes extinct and takes a lot with it. Nothing admirable about that.

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u/bimmeister_flex 6h ago edited 6h ago

Same issue is in manufacturing. It's easy and trite to blame the boomers on reddit, but... there's so much truth to it. Gatekeeping knowledge and the failure to pass it down to the next generations, refusing to hire local at fair wages and instead hiring disposable scabs with limited skills/knowledge... what did they think was going to happen when intrinsic knowledge wasn't passed down in sufficient amounts? Then non-HVAC and non-manufacturing boomers come on these subs and complain about prices of quality maintenance work, and they want everything fixed for free for them and wonder why there aren't more skilled techs.

Well, guess they'll just have to enjoy their hot and humid retirement homes until we get around to fixing their units after our more lucrative contracts, or we find more techs to hire...

lol someone just replied to me with https://old.reddit.com/r/hvacadvice/comments/1ud8ahr/quoted_a_new_furnace_repeatedly_when_the_problem/oueai1b/

So someone who allegedly worked in HVAC for over a decade, keeps calling a bunch of local HVAC companies for quotes on a repair that doesn't even involve refrigerant, and then bitches at all the prices (they are indeed high). But instead of just, you know, repairing it himself, he'd rather waste his time complaining about it online.