Old timer at the union hall made me reconsider my valve adjustment routine

Been setting hydraulic elevator valves by ear for 12 years, never saw a problem with it. Then this guy Earl, who's been in the trade since the 70s, showed me his pressure gauge readings from three identical jobs. The difference between what I thought was 'right' and actual spec was almost 50 psi on one of them. He didn't lecture me, just handed me a spare gauge and said 'try it once and see.' After running a full bank of stops with actual numbers, I can't go back to guessing. Any of you guys still doing it old school or did you switch to gauges?

2 comments

2 Comments

marywells1mo ago

My neighbor Charlie was a pipefitter for 30 years and swore by his ears for diagnosing boiler pressure. He told me about the time he got called in to fix a system that a younger guy had been tuning by sound for months. Charlie brought out his gauges and found the pressure was running 60 psi higher than the nameplate said. The young guy was real quiet after that, and Charlie said he never saw him skip the gauges again. Sometimes it just takes one good example to change a lifelong habit.

brookep271mo ago

My own experience with a furnace tune-up back in 2014 taught me the same lesson. I had a regular client who insisted his unit was running fine because he could feel the heat coming out of the vents. I pulled out my multimeter and found the blower motor was pulling 30% more amps than it should. After I replaced the capacitor and cleaned the coils, his electric bill dropped by nearly 50 dollars that month. That's when I stopped trusting my ears and started trusting my tools.