Question about who walks the new guy through backflow testing

Last month a senior tech at our shop in Cleveland pulled me aside after a backflow test at a restaurant and asked why I'd opened the test cocks so fast, because the gauge needle jumped and he couldn't trust the reading. He had me run the whole assembly again, slow on the first cock, wait for the needle to settle, then open the rest. Took me two extra minutes per device at first, but now my readings come out clean and I don't get sent back to redo calls. He also pointed out I was writing down the readings before they held steady, which is where the real problem was. How do you all train newer techs on timing the test cocks, or is it just something they learn the hard way?

1 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

1 Comment

iris_mason882d ago

Learned that exact lesson the hard way on a bank job, gauge bounced all over and the inspector made me redo every device on the manifold. Now I crack the first cock slow and just watch the needle till it quits moving before I touch anything else. Writing numbers down early is the sneaky one though, I caught myself doing that for weeks before a vet called it out.

2