It was kind of fun when I first started laboring with our dad.
- He owned the local HVAC supplier & he would take myself and others to labor whenever I wasn’t in school.
It seemed natural to go to homes with some HVAC techs & help them service a gas furnace or a/c unit, or to help them do the servicing. I was only sixteen when he allowed myself and others to labor with them. I didn’t know of myself as an apprentice. I was only thinking that I was getting paid to have fun. I couldn’t know it when some of his customers started calling myself and others the teenage HVAC serviceman! Little did I think that while I was having fun, I was also learning a trade. Although I was too young to do little more than carry the tools & hand the guys some things, they were typically showing myself and others what they were doing. I had l earned about the odd tools. I knew which parts were for the gas furnace & which were for a/c. I also knew how to run the machinery to wash the HVAC duct. When a single of the guys didn’t show up for labor a single morning, I was asked to help install a ductless HVAC system. Another time, I got to help with the installation of a radiant heat system. I had typically told dad that I didn’t want to be in the family business. By the time I graduated from school,, all I had to do was take the HVAC certification test, but i had found our job long before most guys our age knew what the word meant.