emergency response

Status
Not open for further replies.

masterinbama

Senior Member
my emergency work mainly consists of pumps and controls for a small local water system. I tell all of my customers that the water system takes priority in emergency's. Most of the time it is control issues and I can handle most myself but I did have one where I had to gut a 400 HP autotransformer starter at one location to get the parts for another (we had 4 pumps at one location when only 2 were needed and one pump at a well that served 12000 people) I will tell a lucky story (if a MCC meltdown is lucky) Our city water system had a transformer and switchgear fire last week at a 39 MGD water plant luckily they had a contractor on site gearing up to do a 4 filter add and a switchgear replacement so the gear was already designed and being fabbed. It was just a matter of rushing the order.
 

romexking

Senior Member
480sparky said:
I've gotten a lot of those calls over the years. It's mostly stupid stuff, like "My microwave isn't working!" at 2AM. You really want to pay me double-time to replace your microwave breaker? It's trivial stuff like this that keeps me from advertising 24-hour service.

What's wrong with making double time and at the same time keeping a customer happy or making a new client impressed with your customer service?
 

brian john

Senior Member
Location
Leesburg, VA
We have had major repairs that went to insurance. Worked around the clock, opened supply houses, hire riggers lots of cash outlay. Then insurance company wants to negotiate. Hey were was he when I worked 36 hours straight, negotiate this.
 

frizbeedog

Senior Member
Location
Oregon
westelectric said:
.....I firmly believe that if someone wants emergency response no matter what the emergency is, what time or what day, they should pay a premium. If they dont want to pay the premium then get on the end of the list like everybody else.

Right. Everyone else has been waiting.

Where I work, the Emergency calls are usually given to someone who has put in a full day already. Early guy done gets the call, usually, depending on the type of emergency. The company has to pay the overtime to the employee and that pay has to be charged to someone.

Many times what some customers see as an emergency, when given an overtime rate, will change thier mind as to the severity of the situation.

Good customer's get priority. Calls from out of the blue....They may have to wait.
 

mdshunk

Senior Member
Location
Right here.
brian john said:
We have had major repairs that went to insurance. Worked around the clock, opened supply houses, hire riggers lots of cash outlay. Then insurance company wants to negotiate. Hey were was he when I worked 36 hours straight, negotiate this.
I've done jobs that I didn't know were insurance jobs until after the fact. If the owner hired me, the owner needs to pay me. If there's insurance involved, that's between the owner and the insurance company to fuss about. I'll give them whatever paperwork they need, but they still need to pay me, NOW.
 

brian john

Senior Member
Location
Leesburg, VA
MArc:

generally we tell the owners the bill is theirs to pay, and we expect payment in full not waiting on insurance. BUT occasionally there is one customer that does not comply.
 

Sparky555

Senior Member
mdshunk said:
I'm saying that there's just a million and one excuses, and promises never hash out once the problem is solved. I almost feel like I'm wakling on egshells when I break the news to a homeowner about high dollar unplanned expenses. I don't feel that way if they called me to look at non-emergent work.

As with any residential service, you're the hero of the day. After that the value depreciates rapidly. Without a past payment history I always collect at the end of service. I also get the contract signed before the work begins. All my past problems have been with invoicing after repairs without a contract.

Dave
 

zog

Senior Member
Location
Charlotte, NC
macmikeman said:
Guy calls me up at 11 pm several years back. Has a yogurt franchise. His freezer breaker keeps trippin. He stands to loose about 40k if the stock yogurt strain in the walk in gets above a certain temperature. It's raining real hard outside, the kind you can only experience in Hawaii and Southeast Asia. I go there. Leak in the roof dripping onto a 2" emt conduit and water getting in thru a well tightened set screw coupling above the lift out ceiling tile. I found the water to be following down the inside of the conduit onto a main breaker in the panel. I guess the rainwater picked up a good dose of electolytes while pooling up on the roof cause it caused a mini ark blast at the circuit breaker. I drove back to the shop and got a 3 pole 100a replacement breaker, go back and install it, and all is well. Except that he stiffed me on the bill. That was then, and now its paypal upfront for any emergency call out. Hard lessons learned.

Try putting 5kV vaccuum breakers on a Private jet early sunday morning to fly 2000 miles with a crew to replace bus details in switchgear and a breaker following an arc flash taking down a large plant costing $100,000 /hr to be down and get stiffed with the bill. We saved you how much by doing this?
 

emahler

Senior Member
zog said:
Try putting 5kV vaccuum breakers on a Private jet early sunday morning to fly 2000 miles with a crew to replace bus details in switchgear and a breaker following an arc flash taking down a large plant costing $100,000 /hr to be down and get stiffed with the bill. We saved you how much by doing this?

more details are needed...give the back story
 

Rockyd

Senior Member
Location
Nevada
Occupation
Retired after 40 years as an electrician.
Where I work at, there are only a couple of emergencies...


1) Did you dump the Halon?

2) Did you shut the pipeline down?

Followed by, did anyone get injured? If not, I'm sure it's nothing money can't fix!
 

zog

Senior Member
Location
Charlotte, NC
emahler said:
more details are needed...give the back story

Cant name companies, we did eventually get paid but I couldnt believe they even questioned the charges, how much do you think it costs to fire up a private jet on a whim and put a $20,000 VCB with 2 engineers and gear on it? This isnt joe plumber in his van we are talking about here.

We do this kind of stuff all of the time.
 

brian john

Senior Member
Location
Leesburg, VA
Zog:

Did the same thing with a for a firm that was in bankruptcy, demanded payment prior to starting work. Six months the lawyers are on us and want the full amount back. make a long story short 2 years later court ruled we had to give half back that with the legal fees we ended up with about 1/3 the project invoice. material was close to 1/2.
 

iwire

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Massachusetts
Brian that is just so wrong. :mad:

How long did it take for that not to bother you every morning?


I guess the lesson is don't even do business with companies in that situation, I assumed having the money upfront was enough.
 

mdshunk

Senior Member
Location
Right here.
brian john said:
Zog:

Did the same thing with a for a firm that was in bankruptcy, demanded payment prior to starting work. Six months the lawyers are on us and want the full amount back. make a long story short 2 years later court ruled we had to give half back that with the legal fees we ended up with about 1/3 the project invoice. material was close to 1/2.
Wow... thanks for that story. That's enough to make me not want to work for a company presently in bankruptcy under any circumstances. I was working for K-Mart already on a large job when they filed for bankruptcy, and it nearly sent me to the poorhouse, the nuthouse, and jail all at the same time.
 

charlie b

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Lockport, IL
Occupation
Retired Electrical Engineer
iwire said:
Brian that is just so wrong.
Regrettably, it is not wrong. A company in bankruptcy has many people to whom money is owed. Why should one get priority over all the others? If a large sum of money is paid to one party within a short time of the declaration of bankruptcy, that sum is considered to be part of the money available to all parties who are owed money, so the one that got the money has to give it back, in fairness to all the others.

So the right thing to do, as others have said, is not to do business with a person or a business in that situation. They have no money to pay you, because they have no money to pay anyone else, and you don't get "head of the line privileges." Sad, but reality.
 

brian john

Senior Member
Location
Leesburg, VA
My issue was they were going to completly shut down (when generators ran out of fuel) without the HV repairs. To make additional income and/or not lose more money they had to have this repair. That was our agreement..BUT they were not authorized to make this agreement and they knew it.


This was a long time customer, someone I had worked for and trusted.

I was ignorant of the bankruptcy laws at the time, I know better now. Had a similar situation and had to get the bankruptcy administrator to approve the expenditure.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top