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What a timely thread…..I had one of my guys call up from site at 7pm last Friday night saying he’d been there for 2 hours trying to fit the damn Hoover gasket inner retainer on a washer dryer. I went out to assist and used a similar method that I use on the other machines where the front panel won’t come off – long screwdriver through the door lock or door lock aperture. This acts as another hand to stop the retainer slipping off the top right section whilst you’re trying to work the spring over the bottom left. I was actually considering taking the drum out on this particular machine but got it done after about 30 minutes..but with bruised wrists !!! This added to my hate of Hoover Candy machines. I never recommend them and frequently write them off due to their lack of servicabiliy.
ali_g12 wrote:Replaced heat pump and module…………no dice. Must be module.
Sorry that should read ‘replaced drain pump and heatpump’
Yeah, it’s not long before you end up spending a lot of time on ‘credit control’ and then you realise you’ve got cashflow issues. I always have stragglers from 3-4 months back that I have to keep on chasing. They usually pay eventually.
Electrolux, Bosch and Whirlpool have pretty good public information for parts ID you just need to go for their respective parts sites. Even Miele offer their parts catalog. As for the other knowledge you’ll just have to build up your own database of stuff you’ve worked on, symptoms, what you did and whether that fixed it. Will take a couple of years to build that knowledge but you’ll be a better engineer for it!
Apart from that speak to other engineers on the road. Whenever I see a manufacturer engineer out and about I usaully strike up a conversation or ask about a repair I’m struggling with or have done in the past. They might even give you their details if you need help in the future.
kaibart wrote:Heat pump or power module will be faulty more likely hest pump
Thanks. I’ll let you know.
Thanks for the input, will endeavour to update the thread once I’ve replaced the pump.
As for the warranty, it’s in a commercial environment!
electrofix wrote: there is more money in commercial and dont forget over time central heating in domestic houses are going to be using heat pumps. They will need repairing
Dave
Yes, we’ll have to look into this. Was thinking of getting a heatpump in the house when we refurbish it so might be my first opportunity to heave a look into it then. I’ve noted a few of the FGAS training centres are offering ‘free’ heat pump courses.
matrixresonator wrote:This time of year is always quieter, I’ve just looked at my accounts though and for April to July I’m well up this year compared to last year.
My data shows us down about 20{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} on jobs per month May -Jun compared with same period last year. We always see seasonal patterns of lighter workloads in the summer compared with autumn/winter. I’m optimistic we’ll still be up by end of the year.
Pacifica contacted us the other day. £60 inc VAT for completed jobs with £30 inc VAT surcharge for regas/drums. Feel like I’d be working against what I’m trying to achieve if I said yes. On the other hand I’ve got staff to pay and keep busy!
electrofix wrote: problem is everbody think its a gas problem but that brings up the question why ?
if it is a gas problem then how did it leak out of a sealed system and if its leaking there is no point
Dave
Yes, these are some of the questions I’ve had for too long now. I’d at least like to become able to give a definite answer on the exact cause of the ‘systems fault’. If a leakage could be identified quickly then that would be a good skill to have. Just in the process of watching this:
[video=youtube;6KBzES-7v8o]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KBzES-7v8o[/video]
Ultimately I know that learning all these skills and getting the kit probably won’t pay off with domestic refrigeration but after a while I might be able to apply it to commercial and small a/c systems and perhaps get a return on the effort and new avenue for the business.
I’m gonna do some youtubing!
I also wanted to ask about the viability of regassing domestic fridges. I don’t know many people who are doing it so that would suggest either there’s a lack of demand or lack of skills. I suspect it’s the latter as we get plenty of people asking to re-gas their fridges.
Kentish wrote:Drain pump.
That would be my first point to look at.+1.
Without any diagnostic facility it’s difficult to know where to start with the Bosch machine without a digital display. Perhaps a Bosch engineer could tell us what they’d do?
I’d have a look at the regen valve as I seem to remember similar symptoms if that goes – E19 I think.
Give Ken’s solution a shot as they’ve got it ready to trial. My offering, although operational within my business, is still a while from being available publicly.
I’m just really looking for general pointers on what features people are looking for so I can avoid the pitfalls of making this too tailored for us to be useful to other businesses.
I see accounting support is high on the list with you. Now HMRC has gone digital everyone is on Xero, Sage or Quickbooks so it seems a must to have some sort of support for this. We’re on Xero but at the moment I just have my account ‘journal’ the sales ledger in every quarter rather than track every single invoice in Xero. I’ll have a look in to the APIs that would enable automation of this process.
kwatt wrote:Interesting as we went a totally different route.
Rapport was designed to sit in the cloud and be used anywhere on pretty much any Internet-capable device, so it could be used in the field and interact with just about any other system, hence the name. And designed from the outset so that a sole trader could use it, the notion being that if you were a sole trader with no office support you had to be able to take and log calls on a mobile device but scaleable so as it could be used by multiple call handling staff and so forth as well.
K.
It’s not platform specific and I do have IOS up and running also, it’s just we run a Windows / Android setup in my business. Some of the freelance engineers have IOS so we cater for that.
Also cloud based and offers offline functionality for the database ie. you can still use the application on your mobile device without a connection. It will synchronise the data once you get signal back. As we know, so many jobs involve going down into the cellar and it’s very frustrating if you’re trying access data or record notes or photos on the job.
Whilst doing some recent market research I also noted one of the companies we looked at working with has also released their proprietry software. However, from the looks of the website I think it may have not been successful as the links for the free trial don’t seem to be active.
I think that’s one of the biggest challenges in making a software product – is the customer going to be confident that it’s going to be supported for the next 5-10 years.
I’ll come back with some other details when I get the time.
I’ll start with the Windows desktop. Designed for a minimum two person operation with scheduler/call handler and engineer on the road although also still useful for the sole engineer who does their admin at home on a bigger screen.
I felt it was important to get as much information to hand without cluttering the views. A mix of icons, font sizes and colour coding displays the important information as clearly as possible.
Dashboard (home screen)
There are 3 customisable view columns. In the configuration below they show (from L to R) Active jobs – all open jobs, filtered view for open jobs in ‘Awaiting Parts’ status and finally view for Today’s Jobs.
From this dashboard you know how much you’ve got on, who the customer is, type of job, what status the job is and who has been involved in the job whether they’re in the office or on the road.
What other things do people like to see when they’re looking at an ‘at a glance’ overview of current jobs?
