Icemen cometh: Triple-digit heat makes air-conditioner repairmen invaluable

Monday, Aug. 13, 2001 | 8:23 a.m.

Las Vegas doesn't owe a debt of gratitude to Bugsy Siegel and Howard Hughes as much as it does to Lewis Latimer and Willis Haviland Carrier.

Latimer, a son of former slaves, filed a patent in 1886 for an "apparatus for cooling and disinfecting."

Principles developed by Latimer were used by Carrier to invent the first air conditioner in 1901. The National Academy of Engineering ranks air conditioning as the 10th most significant engineering achievement of the 20th century.

Face it, without air conditioning Las Vegas would be just another desert. And at no time of the year more than August, when daily temperatures routinely run in the 105-110-degree range and higher, is the importance of the air conditioner more obvious.

Ron Smith, service manager for Southwest Air Conditioning Service, says there may be about 800 air-conditioner service technicians in Las Vegas.

"When I came here in 1970 I found a lot of small, Podunk air-conditioner companies, usually two-, three- or four-man shops," Smith, a native of Washington D.C., said. "There were only about four companies of any size back then."

One of them was Southwest, founded in 1967.

Southwest has a staff of 17 servicemen. This time of the year the men routinely work 10-12 hours a day trying to keep up with the calls that seem to never stop coming.

"It's up to each company how hard they want to push their men," Smith, 59, said. "We try not to push them too hard. We don't want them to become call-back zombies."

"Call-back zombies," he said, are those who work 12 hours or more per day without a break for weeks on end. They begin making careless mistakes that can cost a company business.

"The guys start burning out after three or four weeks," Smith said. "They are just too fatigued, too stressed out."

You don't have to be a call-back zombie to make $75,000-$100,000 a year as an air-conditioner serviceman in Las Vegas, Smith said.

"Hot enough for you?"

Jim Thweatt didn't crack a smile at the trite question asked by a reporter. The 56-year-old air-conditioner serviceman has heard it before, more than once.

Heat is no laughing matter, especially in Las Vegas this time of year.

Thweatt, a serviceman for Southwest, moved here from Southern California in July 1996. He remembers one of his first assignments, repairing a unit at a residence in the Blue Diamond area.

"It was 127 degrees," he said.

Yes, but it was a dry heat.

"When I touched the outdoor fan motor, I would use a towel, a thick towel, and the metal was so hot even that wasn't enough," said Thweatt, who has worked on air conditioners in Texas, California and Nevada for 22 years.

Air-conditioner servicemen, especially those who have been at it a long time, have plenty of scars from touching hot objects, such as a metal tool that may reach a temperature of 180 degrees if left in 110-degree sunlight for 15 minutes.

The wounds are similar to battle scars.

"This scar here was from touching something too hot," he said, pointing at the palm of his hand. "It's almost like touching a hot griddle on a stove. The main thing with this job is pay attention to what you're doing."

One recent morning Thweatt was out early. He likes the coolness of the morning, before the sun creeps over the mountains and begins to bake the valley.

"I like to start at six in the morning," Thweatt said.

He likes to, but most of the time he isn't able to begin until about 7 a.m. because his customers generally aren't early risers.

One reason for his beginning as early as possible is heat in attics. He said company policy dictates that he not go into an attic after 11 a.m. during the hottest days of the year.

"I've been in an attic where it was 130 to 140 degrees," he said.

Thweatt caught a break the morning he serviced an air conditioning unit in Henderson, at a home near St. Rose Dominican Hospital. The day was overcast, keeping the heat down around the century mark, where it remained until midday, and then inched its way up to 102 degrees.

On the other hand, humidity was up -- 45 percent according to a gauge Thweatt keeps in his truck. That's more than three times the norm, he said.

The Texas native says humidity is what hurts air conditioners the most in many parts of the country, where moisture in the air can be 90 percent and higher when the temperature is 90-100 degrees.

The units must work hard at overcoming the moisture in the air to produce coolness. A lot of condensation is created in the process, and condensation means rust.

Routine maintenance

However, the biggest problem with air conditioners in Las Vegas isn't rust, but dust. Dust and heat.

Coils collect dirt, which makes the motor work harder and burn out sooner. If people would simply routinely hose off the coils of their air conditioner they would add life to it, as well as lower their electricity bill.

Most residential air-conditioning units in Las Vegas are on the roof, which exposes them to the sun more hours during the day. If they were on the ground, they probably would be in the sun half as long. The units work harder in the heat to produce cool air.

Thweatt was happy that the air conditioner at the Henderson home was on the ground. He said there can be as much as 10 degrees difference between the temperature on the ground and on the roof.

He can feel the heat through his shoes.

"I take the shoes off and my feet are red," he said. "I wear thick socks to protect them from the heat."

Dark roofs absorb heat and are harder on the feet. Light-colored roofs reflect heat, which makes it harder on the body because he is engulfed by the heat.

The dangers air-conditioner servicemen must watch out for are heat stroke and heat exhaustion. Thweatt has had mild experiences with both.

"Usually it's from climbing up and down a ladder on a hot day," he said. "You go up 18 to 20 feet with bucket that weighs 60 pounds."

Or it may happen in an attic.

"Usually you get heat exhaustion in an attic," he said. "Your clothes get saturated. You're perspiring."

A person can dehydrate quickly, become ill and collapse.

"You just have to use some wisdom, there," he said. "If I'm really hot, I won't drink anything cold. That's the worse thing you can do. The rapid change in temperature, from hot to cold, can hurt you. I just chew on a piece of ice."

Thweatt knows his body and knows when it is time to give it a rest.

"Let your body calm down," he said.

Heated arguments

There is another danger Thweatt frequently faces that may be indirectly attributed to the heat -- angry customers. It's hot, they want relief and they strike out at the closest person available.

"I've had guys threaten to kill me, threaten to kick my tail, and I had nothing to do with the problem," he said.

A kind word and sympathetic ear are Thweatt's best weapons.

"I go in with the idea there is going to be a confrontation so I've got to be cool and level-headed," he said. "I've got to be calm and not let it upset me. It's nothing personal against me. I've just got to look at it from their point of view. Rule No. 1 is to pay attention and don't act like you don't care about their problem because you do care, that's your job.

"When a person gets very foul-mouthed, uses a lot of profanity," he said, "I will take it for a while. But after I've felt that I've been fair and adequate about their venting I just say, 'I need to go do some paperwork,' or something else to provide an excuse why I need to leave without saying, 'Look, I'm not going to listen to this (stuff) anymore, I'm out of here.' "

Thweatt deals more with women, who he said are are more conscientious than men,

"Men, believe it or not, usually don't care," he said. "I can tell a man he needs to wash this (unit), keep this clean and he says, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' and the lady says, 'I didn't know I was supposed to do that,' and I say, 'Well, you're not supposed to do that. I prefer him doing that,' but he doesn't want to hear it and doesn't want me telling her about it."

There is a lot of public relations work involved with servicing air conditioners.

"You have to know how to handle people. If you're a hothead, you're in the wrong business," Thweatt said.

His public-relations policy is to be honest. "This town is full of crooked service men," Thweatt said.

He said he's in the business because he loves to help people.

"I feel good when I help people," he said. "If it wasn't for that I don't think I'd want to do this job. Who wants to be out in 105-degree heat, go up into an attic where it's 130 degrees and deal with angry people? I have a lot of other talents I could use to work at a job that is a lot cooler and a lot easier."

When Thweatt finished repairing the Freon leak in the Henderson unit, he had to take his truck to Southwest's company headquarters on South Valley View Boulevard.

The vehicle's air conditioner was broken.

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