ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Photos for General Discussion Bolted Pressure Switch

We sometimes run into customers that balk at making the repairs, we just let them know in writing the critical nature of the issue. A few times they have hired others to fix the discrepancy. Can't win them all.

Sounds a lot like how most cinemas look at projector repairs.

I had one cinema, who was advised of an imminent failure of a key part (cost; $2,000); they chose to wait.

The breakdown happened with a full house (500+ people), on a Friday night, with one of the top grossing films of the year. They had to fly the part in on a charter jet, fly the tech in on another charter, refund all the paying customers, lost an additional 5 shows, and caused over $1,500 in damage to the film.

I was told by the asst. manager that it all came out to over $14,000!!

Some people never learn.

But of course, that wasn't potentially life threatening. But sadly as seen by quite a few posts here that cavalier attitude carries over into electrical equipment upkeep.

As the picture shows we do IR scanning. A few years in the fall we recorded a Class One Discrepancy (not critical put should be addressed to avoid problems) with a Main CB for an MCC, The "A" phase line side lug was loose on the circuit breaker. The customer was put on notice and a proposal for repair of all discrepancies was submitted with the detailed IR Report.

Nothing was done, I discussed the report with the facility engineer and explained how Class One Discrepancies could become Class Two and on to Class Three's. He explained how there was no money in the budget.

Well we received an emergency call Friday morning before Memorial Day, from this facility, their MCC was down. Arrived on site to find The "A" phase lug fried and the circuit breaker had thermal damage beyond repair.

I told him he was lucky as this was a 3 day week end (give us time to get parts)...NO WAY there was a law firm that had a major case due next week and they were working all week end. The MCC was for the elevators and HVAC equipment.

Had to find a CB, located one in CA. had it freighted in and had to install on Saturday. Also had to temporary the CB for the 30 some hours it took to obtain the replacement CB.

The original repair cost was $345.00 (as part of the overall proposal), the repair during an emergency exceeded $10,000.00 Dollars. Large part of this cost was the CB and temporary. There should have been some "I TOLD YOU SO MONIES".

I love it!! That's a perfect description for these kinds of situations.

Heck, I think I'll include it as a clause in some of my bids from now on.....

The issue with me is, we work almost every week end and many nights. I try to keep the holiday week ends free for me and the employees. This was avoidable and cost several workers (including me) one day of there 3 day weekend.

And the statement "Think about the OT Money", doesn't play out as we value the 3 day week ends. We get enough OT.