Last Friday morning we received an emergency call from a school we have been servicing for about a year. They saw water on the floor next to the boiler and assumed the boiler might be leaking. I gather this complex used to be owned by a church, and due to a lack of funding and fewer parishioners, it was forced to sell. There are three buildings on the site. This time, it was the school; this would be our first time working at this building.

When we arrived, we saw the water on the floor the maintenance man had explained over the phone. We also noticed the water pouring from the rear section(s) of the hot water boiler. We touched the steel cabinet on the side of the boiler where it appeared to be burned and quickly realized it was searing hot.

We needed to delve in a little further and decided to remove the boiler jacket to get a better look at what was going on. We learned that the rear section and the second from the rear section were leaking. We also learned that the flue gases were escaping from between the cast iron sections where the sealing rope was missing. Thankfully, the rest of the boiler sections, the controls and the burner looked fine. We took a few photos of the problem areas and sent them to the executive director. We then called and explained what was going on.

The outside temperature was below freezing and was supposed to stay that way for at least the next week. Unfortunately, with the leaking sections and the flue gases escaping into the building, we were forced to shut down the boiler. We could not risk further damaging the other five boiler sections by constantly adding freshwater. More importantly, we were concerned with the health risks from the flue gases that were pouring into the building.

Ideally, we would have left all four of the system circulating to prevent frozen pipes, but this was impossible as the boiler was losing pressure faster than the fill valve could replenish it. Over the years, we have learned that circulating water tends to be less likely to freeze than standing water. We did advise the staff to leave the faucets dripping, hoping none of the domestic water lines would freeze.

By Friday afternoon, we got the quotes back from our suppliers and put together a proposal for the work at hand. We emailed the proposal to the executive director. On Friday evening, we get a call from the executive director, and she says, "That is a lot of money for a water heater, we really don’t have that kind of money laying around, we will just have to wait."

We then explained that this was not a water heater, but a boiler. We went on to explain that the boiler is the only source of heat for the entire building. By now it was starting to make sense. She had to call other members of the school and would get back to us. On Sunday night, she gave us the verbal go-ahead, and we got a signed copy of the contract as well. First thing on Monday morning, we ordered the boiler sections, along with a bunch of other items we needed for the job. The materials were to be delivered Monday after lunch.

Due to the cold snap, we had a few other customers with emergency no-heat calls that we took care of in the morning. Thankfully, all of them were relatively easy to fix and we could focus on the school in the afternoon.

We often use a demo company these days when there is a lot of heavy equipment (cast iron boilers, typically), especially when there are stairs. We called our demo guy on Friday, and he was not available until Wednesday. We only have four guys including myself, and I was not excited about removing the two old sections or delivering the two new sections up and down the 15 or so stairs by ourselves. We have done similar jobs with as little as three guys, but I have learned you need at least four.

Would these teenagers be willing to get their hands dirty? Would they be vaping or consuming some form of marijuana the entire time they were on my job as the news media would have me think?

My son (who works for me, and will take over when I retire) and I strategized over the weekend and just assumed we would be sore for a few days and hopefully no other injuries. We have used forklifts with slings, backhoes, etc. to raise and lower sections in the past. Unfortunately, you could not get a machine within 20 feet of the stairs, thanks to the "beautiful" shrubs that surrounded the entire stairwell. Oh, and it snowed early Monday morning to make things a little more complicated.

I was heading to the school when I received a call from my son. He mentioned a close family friend called and mentioned that his 20-year-old son and three of his friends were snow shoveling at a site a few miles away from our job site. The shovelers were supposed to be finished around 12 p.m. My son spoke to the snow team and learned they were interested in helping us out. I was very excited to have extra guys to help, but I had my concerns.

Would these teenagers be willing to get their hands dirty? Would they be vaping or consuming some form of marijuana the entire time they were on my job as the news media would have me think? Would they be making Tik-Tok videos for the whole world to view online while we struggled? Would they need to text their girlfriend while we were in the middle of carrying a 1,000-pound section up a flight of cement stairs? Have they ever touched a screwdriver or a wrench in their lives?

Within about 60 seconds, I got over my fears when they arrived. All of them had Carhartt work pants on (I guess Levi’s are not as popular as they were when I was in high school forty years ago). All of them were wearing work boots, one with steel toes. Every one of them looked me in the eye as they reached out to shake my hand. To put it mildly, every one of these kids gave 100% effort. It was not an ideal time to teach them about the heating business, but I gave them a few minutes on safety and how the boiler works. Much to my surprise, they all seem to understand and even asked a few good questions.

Despite what I read, hear and occasionally spew, there are, in fact, kids out there who want to work. Today I can stand upright, my knees are not too sore, and, most importantly, no one got hurt thanks to these four young adults.