Is Your System Working Too Hard, and Does It Matter?
Updated: Aug 7
From the Hydronix Preventive Maintenance series
It was a beautiful Sunday morning, and my dad was letting me drive to church. I was 15
and had been driving on my permit for about nine months, so obviously I was a pro. Dad, master plumber, was taking his work van: a 1987 Ford Aerostar cargo van with a custom pipe rack on top. It was ugly. It was embarrassing to be seen in it. But I was learning to drive a stick, and church wasn't too far from the house.
We pulled up to the stop sign... right by the police department, I might add. That only added to the nerves already going on, because I was struggling that morning.
It was 2000, so I was wearing a pair of platform shoes that were four inches thick at the heel and still two and a half inches thick at the toe. Flat as flat gets on the bottom. Supposed to look like cork or something, but plastic. Lots of straps. And oh yeah: they were a half size too big, because I had to have them and they didn't have my size. I don't accept being told no, even from a shoe department.
Anyways. I came to a complete stop. Felt the backwards rock of the van telling me the stop was official. Looked left, then right. Now I could go.
Except my feet had apparently forgotten how to press the gas and slowly release the clutch. We lurched forward and the van died as I stalled it the first time. No problem. I got this. Clutch in, brake, restart the van. Foot on the gas, ease out the clutch, and... damn. Did it again.
I must have done that ten times, and with every restart my dad grew more frustrated, trying to explain what to do. Of course I knew what to do. I was a pro. This van was just so old.
Dad finally had it. "It's those damn shoes!"
I stalled it two or three more times after that, sweating bullets, because we were still sitting in front of the police department. If somebody came out, would I get a ticket? I could picture it already. I throw it in park, both doors fly open, Dad and I trade seats at a stop sign right there in front of the police and the cops walk out just as we are half way there. But if I couldn't get this thing to move, what choice did we have?
Then, by some miracle, the pedals finally worked and the damn van moved. Not entirely smooth, but forward, and forward was all I was asking for. I finished the left turn and drove up the small hill to the next stop sign doing the math the whole way: if mostly flat ground took me that many tries, there was no way I was getting out onto the street from a hill that might as well have been a runaway truck ramp. Somehow that fear turned into determination, and I pulled away from the next stop sign on the first try.
We made it to church. And I did eventually learn to drive a stick shift. Wearing tennis shoes.
By the way, I'm sorry, Dad. It was the shoes.
Mechanical equipment is similar in one way: it is going to do the job it was built to do, the best it can, for as long as it can. Sometimes it is working a lot harder than you realize to get that job done. If shoes... er, a dirty filter or some other struggling component... are making it difficult to operate smoothly, that machine will still show up and do its job. Until it can't.
So, is your system working too hard? It might be obvious, like a van jerking through a left turn in front of the police department. Or it might be quiet: a run that lasts longer, a hum that got louder, a bill that crept up while the thermostat sat there saying 72 like everything is fine.
If the shoes stay on too long, it will quit like an overworked employee who hasn't had a vacation in years and just found out the new guy is getting paid more. No two weeks notice. And probably on the coldest night of the year.
So yes, it matters.
Let us come check out your system and make sure everything is running smoothly, and cleanly, and we'll check for any gaudy shoes that are making the job harder than it needs to be. Click below to request service or maintenance
or you can call or text us at (970) 930-1488 or email info@hydronixmechanical.com.
Comments