Owner: Carl and James Adams
Shop: Adams Mobile Air
Location: Terrell, Texas
Adams Mobile Air, a group of seven mobile A/C field technicians, is owned and operated by Carl Adams and James Adams. The company, which got its start in 2010, services the greater Dallas/Fort Worth area for mobile A/C and heating service, repair and installation on heavy duty trucks and all types of equipment. "We provide the comfort of a climate-controlled cabin for operators of a variety of equipment including: excavating and mining outfits, construction and demolition equipment, cranes, dredges, over-the-road trucks and fleets, agricultural equipment, military projects, oil and natural gas extraction instruments, light rail and railroad machinery, recreational vehicles and limousines, buses, emergency and rescue vehicles, small aircraft system components and light and heavy duty trucks," says Carl Adams.
Adams Mobile Air has traded in typical shop and wall toolboxes for "a toolbox on six wheels," says Carl Adams. "We run with a 2003 F-550 equipped with two Craftsman seven-drawer toolboxes, a Miller Bobcat 225 welder, dual-tank Kohler air compressor, Victor cutting torch rig with nitrogen regulator, vice and crane."
With a total fleet of six trucks, they purchased the first two trucks with service bodies (T1 and T2) in the first year, following it up with T3 in 2011, T4 in 2013, T5 in 2014 and T6 in 2015. All toolboxes on T3, the company's longest truck, are approximately 20" deep. The front four toolboxes are 24" wide by 39" tall, the center boxes are 31-1/2" wide by 39" tall, the two drop-down boxes are 50" wide by 39" tall to hold the tools, equipment and parts needed to outfit each technician in the field. "The trucks are stocked with approximately $8,000 worth of varying A/C parts inventory and supplies. The trucks carry about $10,000 worth of tools ranging from wrenches, ratchets and sockets, drill bits to gauges, crimpers, drivers, hand tools, welders, generators, vacuum pumps, ladders and so on." He says, "The truck boxes also carry a wide range of belts, jugs of Freon and nitrogen, an assortment of compressors, hoses, fittings and small parts like O-rings, caps, tape, filters, oil, etc."
Adams says that the air compressor and welder switches they remote mounted into the side of a toolbox help avoid the time and effort it takes to physically climb in and out of the back of the truck. They also installed pneumatic cylinders on the doors to help vent heat out of the equipment storage area.
Adams adds, "These techs have got to carry just about everything they need to get the job done out in the field every day. The biggest service we offer our customers is the convenience of on-site service calls so our customers don't need to down their equipment and haul it into our shop. This helps (our customers) save time and money. For this reason, we must be prepared for just about any job we are called to do and that is why we need such big boxes to hold all the tools, equipment, parts, and supplies our techs need to get the job done for each call out to almost any job site on any given day."
Adams says everyone's favorite part of the toolbox is the crane. "We will let the pictures say the rest."
Because Adams Mobile Air specializes in A/C repair, Carl says his favorite tool is the "Atco Crimper, hands down!" He adds that being able to build hoses in the field helps save time and money.
