Uh because bert, i think you said that you're the best leak detector in the world. I think i remember, i think i remember you saying that um i remember yeah yeah, pretty sure it happened. Um and kirby was asking me about some leak, detection, uh best practices and tips. So i thought it.

You know it's a good, it's a good area to cover, and it is an area that we do make a lot of mistakes on and i think all companies do and the main reason people make mistakes with leak. Detection is okay. There we go there, we go there, we go. This is good.

I like this. Let's start there. I just want to make sure everybody's awake. I mean i'm awake because i've been up pumping iron all morning.

You know all morning pumping iron all right, so leak detector working. I know well that's one thing that i realized from this with this side view um, that it really shows the gut. You know in the video and it's it's it's it's beautiful. It is yeah yeah.

All right, sorry, you all had to see that sorry, you all had to see that all right, so they don't know if their leak detector is working or not, and you hear that a lot. So if somebody doesn't know if their leak, detector is working, what should they do next? They should test it. Okay, all right all right, so we're gon na go step, one test it. How do you test it, though, because i honestly think this is probably one of the areas that we start to you know it starts to go awry right here, because if you get to question of i don't know if my link detector's working and you think maybe I should test it and then you don't know how to test it.

You're saying uh, it's probably the evaporator. I don't know. What do you do next, i'm not sure um i mean it probably is the evaporator, but that's for another day um. So you have to test it and make sure that it's working, and how do you do that? Well, a lot of them actually come with a little tube that you can test really tinker on all right.

What's that, what's the name for that thing, calibration fluid and the actual tube is called a test. Vial a test, vial yeah and i like vial, better yeah, that's the difference between the two of them. You drink a tube. No, you! Don't you don't drink a vial.

I mean, maybe you do maybe you're always drinking vials. That's what that's, how you turn into either a super villain or a superhero. If you drink a vial anyway, so you have to test it against the test fluid and the test. Fluid is generally some type of refrigerant um.

The it used to be r11 was in the little test files that uh bacharach or whatever ge, or you know whatever yokogawa um and now i think it's it's some sort of an hfc that mimics r11, i'm not actually sure about that, but they use some sort Of refrigerant and the refrigerant that they use is a refrigerant that has a very high temperature boiling point, and so it remains a liquid and vapor in the vial, and it boils off really slowly and you can test against it now. The problem with that is is that that doesn't necessarily replicate the behavior or the test properties of the refrigerant that you're actually working on. So if you're working on you know r22 as an example, r22 is pretty easy to find, and so really any test. Vial would work fine to confirm and find r22 there's a big change.

That's occurred in air conditioning when we went from r22 to primarily r410a, because now we see more 410a systems than we do r22 today right and that happened over the last two three years where you know before, we would see a lot of r22 really over the Last two: three: four: five years: that's where we've seen this big change, and so it went from leaks being fairly easy to find to being hecka more difficult to find, and that is a technical term. Spelled two cs hecka more difficult, so it's actually better to use 410a as a test leak, but the challenge is you have to find a leak reference that is small enough to really replicate what a leak looks like, and so my suggestion would be. If you are going to test a um, a leak detector against 410a to take your tank literally crack it so that way it's barely leaking at all then shut it off. Then wait a second or two and then test at the port, because at that point you're going to have lower concentrations, it would be closer to representing reality now before anybody you know like this is literally being filmed.

That is absolutely within de minimis. That is within the the meaning of de minimis, which is you're not doing that because you, like venting refrigerant, you're, doing it because you're testing your equipment, it's the same way of you guys, have seen those little quick acid tests that you ch and it runs over. The the litmus paper - and it tells you whether you have acid those are approved by the epa as de minimis, because the intent is not venting refrigerant. The intent is doing testing and that little tiny bit that you're doing that's not going to hurt anything right.

So it's fine to do that test. Your leak detector, against that, if you do that, you you get it to where it's just leaking. You turn it off. You wait a couple seconds and you test and you're not picking up anything then something's wrong with your leak.

Detector, because that's still a pretty big leak, your leak detectors are designed to pick up leaks, most of you down to the one tenth of an ounce a year leak rate. That is a tiny, tiny leak rate. So if you're not picking that up something's wrong now, what could be wrong with your leak detector, though, if you're not picking it up, filter could be clogged. The pump might not be moving air through the assembly you may, if you're, using an h10.

Something like that, you could have a kink hose. You know simple stuff like that. If you start taking these things apart, you'll find pretty quickly what commonly goes wrong, but also a lot of times it's the sensor. The sensor over time gets weaker, especially on a heated diode leak detector, which is what most of us use.

Heated diode leak detector, that's what the h10 is um. You know the testo one. What what are some leak? Textures? You all have name off some names, the? What do you have a field piece? Is it the heated diode or the um infrared heated, diode? Okay, what else? What do you got grant bubbles come on? I got, i don't know: okay, it's the h10 yeah. Okay, all right, hey alex! What do you have? The inficon stratus everybody needs to give him a big round of applause cause.

That's the reason he bought it just so he could feel fancy and because i told him too so the info, so the inficon stratus, is what type of leak detector, though it is an infrared leak, detector, and so people who are used to using a heated diode. Don't like infrared and vice versa, why you have to keep passing it exactly exactly because it's using a ambient sample to compare to, and so when it sits there long enough. It's using that as the ambient sample, and it's like, i don't - have a leak because it gets used to the concentrations of refrigerant in that area, so you have to be constantly moving it now when we say constantly moving it. I think some people get the idea that it's like this.

You know no, no we're talking like barely moving it right and that's true of all leak detection. There's no leak detection procedure, which involves you waving that thing around like a sling cyclometer, you have to be slow and deliberate with your leak, detector. So number one is you have to test your relationship? You have to make sure it's working. You have to know what kind of leak detector you have and you need to have read the manual on that leak.

Detector. If you have a leak detector and then you have not read the manual, then you don't know how that leak, detector works and the odds are it's probably not working right. For example, if you have an h10, an h10 has a heated diode adjustment on the back side and every time you replace the sensor on it, you need to dial it back to the original position. So that way, you don't overheat.

The sensor, those of you who have leak, detectors it's like it works, i put a new sensor and it works fine for you know a month and then it stops working. It's because you're overheating, the sensor. You can slowly turn up the heat on the sensor as the sensor becomes more and more weak. I guess i mean i'm using terms as if i really know how this works, and i don't all i know, is you, you turn the knob and make her hotter, but it also ruiner quicker so and that's what it says in the manual exactly exactly what it Says in the manual it was written by a groveland boy, so yeah of which i am one okay and of which bert is still one.

Yes, yes, where were we? I just can't get out of there? Okay, i know once you once you get in groveland, you just get stuck yeah all right. So what's next, what are some other reasons why people have issues with their uh with with proper leak detection you get in a hurry, impatience, that's what i was looking for. I probably spelt that wrong. You think so impatience, yeah! That's how i remembered my vocabulary awards as a child.

We we all right impatience, so you have to take your time when you're doing a leak detection. When people you know back in the day air days, we would be given a flat rate amount of time to do a leak detection. I think they gave us an hour and everybody would see how quick they could do a leak section. You know i can do it five minutes, just throw your wand in the evaporator coil and if she goes off or put it in the drain line and a proper leak detection, uh also bleep out where i said delhi, the proper leak detection requires patience, because you Have to do a leak detection on the entire system and we say the entire system.

Obviously, if you have a buried line set, you can't trace the entire buried line set, but you can look for signs as well and that would be from a process standpoint with leak detection. If you haven't visually, looked at everything you can visually look at first before you even pull your leak detector out, then i would suggest you change your process to start visually, inspecting everything visually inspect the evaporator visually inspect the feeder tubes visually inspect your service valves before You connect to them before you potentially cover up a leak. Visually inspect your around your reversing valve. If you have a heat pump around the heat mode txv, where there's always often a lot of rub outs inside there alex found one the other day bottom of the condenser coil, that's another common one, especially if it's a big leak.

So look for signs of oil in all of those areas. First, you know again be really wide in your diagnosis. Initially, look at everything you can look at and then begin to narrow into your potential leak points. So i've told this story before it was a really good lesson for me.

I one time was working on a gas furnace and it had one of those case coils that were completely mastic in place where i would have had to disassemble everything in order to get to it and so um. I just stuck my probe my leaked detection probe in the drain line and the drain t and i picked up refrigerant in there, and so i condemn the evaporator coils, just that simple, literally just beep, okay, great bad particular and uh. This old new york tech, his name was mike, i can't remember his last name, but he went out and uh no. I do remember his lesson.

Uh mike simmons. He went out and was going to replace the evaporator coil and found that it had never been disassembled, and so he pulled me aside and gave me quite the um tongue, lashing in new york ease and his point was that it wasn't. It wasn't wrong to take that shortcut. The shortcut told me that likely evaporative coil right almost assuredly evaporative coil, but still pull it apart, because it's going to have to be pulled apart anyway, and at that point you can verify whether it's a rub out something you can repair in this case.

His assertion was, it was something that could have been repaired and again i didn't know because i didn't actually pull it apart. So it's fine to take those sorts of shortcuts in order to get you in the ballpark. But that doesn't mean that you, don't then at least visually inspect everything else when it comes in terms in terms of using an electronic leak detector on the condenser, because this is what a lot of people assert. It's like, if you're going to do an electronic leak detection, do an electronic leak detection on everything.

So i'll ask it as a question: if you find an evaporator coil leak, are you also going to go outside and pass your electronic leak detector across every tube of the condenser? No, but i will visually inspect every tube absolutely, and so, when we say do a leak detection on the entire system, i'm not saying you have to pass your electronic leak detector across every tube on the entire system, because outside there's several challenges. First off is that if you have a leak on the high pressure tubing, it's going to be much more visually evident in most cases, also we're using some pretty good common sense about the types of leaks that you get and you get those sorts of formicary leaks Inside, where that evaporate, coil is exposed to a lot more indoor chemicals, and also you have moisture involved consistently, there's just a lot of factors that lead to both formicary and galvanic corrosion in our market on the inside. Now, if you were working in a coastal environment where you had a lot of stuff, that was attacking the condenser coil and that's where the majorities of your leaks were, then you might spend a little bit more time with an electronic out there. But even then, electronics struggle outside for a lot of reasons.

One of the reasons is, is that it's, where you connect and disconnect your hoses so when you're connecting and disconnecting tools to it, you're creating a little bit of a refrigerant leak which now drifts around all over the place. And you get a lot of false positives. Because of that, which is why, if you know that a system is very low on refrigerant, which often you can know that without even hooking up gauges like completely go ahead and do a really solid visual inspection first, just to ensure that you're not creating that leak. That false positive leak by connecting and disconnecting your hoses or probes now, obviously, if you are going to connect start on the suction side, always because, if you start on the suction side - and you see there's nothing in it at that point, you know that's going to Be a pretty good indication, you're, obviously completely flat at that point, but if you immediately go in and you're connecting everything and there's a lot of refrigerant spillage around the condenser.

Now that's going to interfere with an electronic, but frankly very rarely is an electronic. How you find an outdoor leak - very rarely maybe some strange cases with an accumulator on the bottom side of an accumulator or something like that, where it's something you can't get bubbles to, but really on the outside visual, then bubbles is pretty typical on the inside. It's generally going to be leak, detector and then bubbles to try to pinpoint it. If you can and you you can't always necessarily, but as much as best as you can, you want to not just say it's in the evaporative coil.

You want to say it's in this general vicinity, so, in terms of processes start with visual everything, then we know evaporative coils, pretty common, that you would go inside and do a leak detection with your vap with your uh electronic inside any anything, that's suspicious. Any signs of oil, then you'd go in with your soap bubbles, but going in with your soap bubbles also is not a matter of spraying, some soap bubbles on it. You know we're we're big blue fans around here. You don't so i guess technically, it's leak reactant.

They don't call it soap bubbles anymore. It's leak, reactant, you spray that on there um and it's not like all of a sudden. You see these gigantic bubbles. This is a common misconception.

Sometimes these things are so they call it cocooning and they're. So tiny. You actually have to give it some time and then you'll get these little kind of bubble, cocoons that will build up any commentary on that. Bert! That's true! That's all! I agree with that.

Yeah! Okay, because truthfully, if you've got a hisser, you've got something that you can hear, you don't need anything for that and in fact - and i think some of you are new enough - that you may even be confused about this. If you walk up to a system, you hook up to it and it's got no pressure in it or it's got. Barely any a system will have full static pressure contained in it kind of ambient pressure at ambient temperature. Even if there's one drop of liquid in it, so if you walk up to uh, you know an r410a system and you've got 50 psi on it.

That means there's nothing but vapor in there and there's barely any refrigerant in it. So at that point you can go ahead and put some nitrogen in on top of that. Now that is not what the epa says about this, so i'm going to go ahead and just caveat, but we know from a practical standpoint if you've got 40 50 psi in a r410a system. That is very, very little refrigerant and at that point pressurize it up with nitrogen and listen for leaks first and then use your soap bubbles, because you're probably going to find them that way.

Frankly, you're probably not going to need an electronic leak detector for a typical residential system in that application, residential or light commercial. What, if you walk up to it as like 10 psi, and then you add a whole bunch of nitrogen, no psi? Well, no and here's another trick is that the epa has actually specifically made an exemption for r22 as a leak detection, gas, and so this is actually one really good use for r22 and i will specifically uh. You know specifically address this. This misconception that if you put r22 in a system that had our 410 a in it that you're going to cause some major problem, it's not there's not like there's it's not like poe and mineral oil get together and immediately create this explosion.

It's not like r22. Has mineral oil mixed in with it in the tank, you can put a little bit of r22 in a system with nitrogen for leak, detection purposes and specific exemption for this with the epa for leak detection purposes, a small amount of r22, because it's all going to Get it's all going to get vented out anyway, with nitrogen when you're done. So in that case it would probably be best to put a little bit of vapor r22 in and then put the nitrogen on top of it, and that if you need to do an electronic leak detection, but the reality is you generally don't even need to do. Electronic leak detection at that point, this is where being practical is helpful.

If you walk up to a system that the pressures are that low, generally speaking, you're going to put nitrogen in it and if you're attentive you're going to find the leak, you probably won't even need an electronic leak detector. So don't waste time with that, you all hear what i'm saying here like it really depends. You got a system, that's a couple pounds low, a couple ounces low, whatever electronically detector is probably going to be necessary, and that's where you find those those small format, galvanic leaks that occur due to that corrosion versus leaks, that cause are caused by something rubbing out Or a compressor blowing a terminal or whatever the case may be right: electronic okay, so to be clear, nitrogen is not picked up by an electronic leak detector. Does anybody know why you cannot make a leak detector that will pick up nitrogen because our air is made of 60 nitrogen, so it would be going off all the time.

So that's just pretty much a non-starter nitrogen is an inert gas, meaning it's non-reactive and that's why we use it for the purpose of pressurizing a system, but that also because it's so common in our atmosphere. We can't leak detect with it other than with our ears. You could use an ultrasonic leak detector, which is specifically a leak detector that picks up the sonic frequencies of leaks, which i've never had any luck with, but there's a lot of people who swear by it. I've tried it and i'm like a kid.

This doesn't work. Maybe my ears are broke, um or maybe they're too good you know could be. That could be that they're too good yeah. Probably so, if you're gon na use an electronic leak, detector use refrigerant with it.

And if you can use r22 because the thing's so low so flat, basically flat or or flat put a little r22 in it. Because because at that point, you're going to drop it out anyway with nitrogen and that's perfectly fine - it's not gon na this idea that oh my gosh, the second you put r22 into an r410a system. It's going to cause some sort of problem. It's not now! I'm not telling you to mix the two we never field mix in an operating system, never never, never, never, but for the purpose of leak.

Detection r22's picked up much better, especially if it's diluted by all this nitrogen, it's going to be much more likely. You're going to find it if you use r22 as the leak detecting trace gas. So it's easy right. It's really easy! When you do things the right way, when you follow best practices, when you start doing the whole, i just put a little juice in here: yeah yeah, you just keep an eye on it and uh.

You know, it'll only be this and i'm out of here right. Why do we do that again? Let's, let's just be honest, why we do that ronnie? Why do we do that? Not because we're lazy, wrong answer? We do it because we're busy and we get sick of having to take so much time on every job and leak detection jobs can sometimes be a pain in the butt like we said they can take a while, sometimes, and so we want to get to the Next job, and by putting a little gas in this system at nine o'clock at night, the customer stops calling you for tonight and you get to go home and go to bed, and that is a totally reasonable emotion to have it's an emotion we've all had and Every single one of us who have done this long enough has done that exact same thing. I've probably done it a hundred times. I know maybe 103., but it's still not the right.

It's still not the right practice. So what you got to do is you got to go to the customer and say i'm estimating that the thing is two pounds low based on how much it you know it came with from the factory based on the readings i'm getting always overestimate. So that way, you can just charge them less. That works a lot better right overestimate and then you come back with the bill and it's a little less and they're happy.

So i'm going to weigh it in we're going to see how much actually goes into the system, but, along with that, refrigerant doesn't go anywhere on its own, so it has a leak, there's a leak in the system. Now i don't know why or where. At this point, so in order to find out it's just electronic leak detection which costs - what is it 89 83, which is a bargain 83, is not expensive for an electronic leak detection. In fact, now that i'm hearing that it's like wow - that's that's surprisingly cheap.

Why are we charging so little? That's fine 83 bucks to do an electronic leak detection. So you do not need to feel and that's in full stop customer says: oh, that's crazy! That's insane! My buddy beavis can come out and do it for me. Okay, then that's fine, but most customers aren't going to say that they'll just say: okay right. If that's, if you full stop that conversation, if you go that next level and say i mean - or we could just put the two pounds in and it'll, probably last for a while, we'll just see, keep an eye on it, keep an eye on.

It is the funniest thing that we all say we all say it like. What are they supposed to keep an eye on exactly like just keep an eye on the air conditioner like hey, just hold on that suction line as soon as she starts getting warmer and beer can cold call us back and i'm sure that has actually been done. So that's really not a joke! Um. Have you done that yeah? Have you, okay, okay, that makes sense, and so like we're joking about it and because i think we've all been there.

We all understand it, but that's just something that we've got ta stop doing. It doesn't benefit anybody because at the end of the day, if that customer spent several hundred dollars on refrigerant and we refrigerant's not cheap regardless of the type of refrigerant, it is they're going to be angry. If we've got to come back and we didn't tell them where the leak was when it was in the first place, they've already had somebody find the leak uh then i would just say: where did where did they say? The leak was exactly yeah yeah and then, if they want us, okay, so let's be clear about something real, quick, because we've talked about this a lot there is no rule against gas and go. It is not illegal in the united states for systems that contain less than 50 pounds for you to recharge.

So don't do the thing where you tell the customer well, the epa says i can't keep doing that. That is not true, you could. You could go back every day and recharge that system and charge the customer for it. There's no law against it.

It's just a terrible practice and it's not in their best interest. So we can refuse to do things because it's a terrible practice. It's not in their best interest. It's our job to to some degree, help the customer act in their own best interest, and so that's just as simple as saying you know continuing to recharge this.

Obviously, it's not good for the system. We know that because it keeps leaking down. So that's true, but also it's a lot of money to keep doing this. So would you like to look at your options now we're not going to replace a part based on somebody else's diagnosis? Not ever so.

Maybe that's what you're getting at? Never, never, never you don't even replace a part based on the last guy at kaylos's diagnosis ever ever ever. Okay. This is for those of you who do more parts and are maybe newer techs. This is a really big thing.

I don't care if it was bert sam travis, i don't care who it was, who diagnosed it. If you go back out before you put that evaporative coil in before you put that compressor in before you put that board in you recheck that diagnosis - and i know it's like a summer - it's busy - i don't have time for this trust me. You have time for education and there's no better education than you reconfirming a diagnosis, and i don't even care if you call that guy or text that guy and say how exactly did you diagnosis? I just want to do those steps again for my own benefit, because being a good diagnostician is one of the most rare things being a good troubleshooter is one of the most rare and important things that we have in our industry. So take that moment to do that.

It's just something we've got to do so, doesn't matter it's another company, it doesn't matter. If it's us, if it's they say it's a leaking evap. I want you going back in there. Where did you say it was exactly because i'm not getting that now as a final tip, a lot of times, especially in evaporators leaks, can be small um.

They can be formic, which means that they're, these little ant nests, that kind of sometimes seal and sometimes pop open, and there can be a couple of them in an area or across several areas. So it can be tricky and on a heat pump, especially if you really want to confirm an evaporative coil diagnosis run it in heat for 30 seconds and then shut it down and then check, because that pressurizes that evaporator to coil up quite a bit more. I mean i've seen guys unplug the blower and let it run up until the thing gets to 600 psi. I wouldn't suggest that that's the old, that's the old saying: if there ain't, if there ain't a leak, i'm gon na make a leak.

You know that's the and that's not what i'm suggesting at all, but what i am suggesting is that um don't just go, especially if you're a junior guy, especially if you don't know if your leak detector's as good as the last guys, don't just go wave your Wand in there and say: oh no, it's not leaking it's not. I mean you got to be really thorough about this. Okay. It is not our responsibility to do things for them, for free or or feel bad about the money that they've got to spend.

That's that's! Not our responsibility, they get to make value assessments based on the information we give them. But if we start feeling sorry for them monetarily, then we actually hurt them in making the best decisions. They can and that's the point because you feel oh they're in a pinch right now they don't have the money for anything but refrigerant. Okay, i understand that and they may be in that position, but it's not for us to judge.

We still tell them all the facts, because if we don't tell them all the facts, a lot of people who are in a pinch right now live their entire lives in a pinch and they're just going to be in a pinch six months from now now they Threw good money after bad right so help them make better decisions by being really clear about. What's going on another thing in terms of leakage, i don't ever want you to say it's a small leak. I don't ever want you to say that just never say it, because a customer doesn't understand what that means, and the problem is is that a small leak can easily become a big leak, that's kind of how leaks work. Generally speaking, they usually go from small to big, not from big to small, although it can happen but generally from small to big.

And so when you say it's a small leak and you charge up a system and it leaks down again in three weeks or three months or three years or six years, everybody has different value sets. I did an install for a family friend eight years ago, dennis stoltzfus eight years ago, three hours ago, three hours away from here and he's calling us up eight years later saying i think it's time for me to finally do maintenance. I'd really like you to come out and do it for me and i'm like no, i can't drive through well, i mean you installed it. People have different perceptions of time.

You know it's just people, you know like we can't be responsible for that, and so they have different perceptions of what small is or what it might last a while means, or so don't use that sort of vague language. It has a leak. Here's. How long will it last i? I really can't tell you that i've got no clue leak rates, change, most leaks, go from big to small, so it could.

It could leak out again tomorrow. Is that what i said small to big? That's what i meant to say, but look at how well you all are paying attention. You know good on you good on you all right cool, any questions about that anything to add. Yes, okay, good, how to use your judgment with the leak size and the leak that you find uh with the how much refrigerant is missing and the size of the leak you find so oftentimes.

If you are low, you know four five, six pounds. You got a really fast leak somewhere. This customer hasn't been living in summer with without air for four months as it slowly leaks out to six pounds. You know you got something: that's probably leaking out in a couple weeks, and so you could be on an older system.

That's 10 years old and you find a really small hit on the evaporator. You probably got a massive leak somewhere else. It could be in the line set, so just you're not done on that first hit. That first lead that you find and then with the linux systems that we're doing a lot of operators on we're.

Also getting a lot of hits like leaks in the condenser. On rub out points like braze factory, brace joints if they have a lot of vibration or even discharge lines, cracking so don't stop at the first leak, especially when your system's significantly low, you could have multiple leaks, very good, yeah, poetically, said yeah and again way and Way out way and way out if you're pulling a tank out of your truck you're, bringing the scale with it and saying: oh, i didn't have batteries, that's not an excuse. Have batteries you, you just keep your tools with proper batteries and have backups those of you who are new, newer and have seen senior techs, not pull off the scale with the tank. You have my permission and their permission to remind them, because we all came up through the trade with really bad habits like if you saw what kaylos was like when we first started and the stuff we did um and made lots of excuses for you would be Like you wouldn't recognize the company, it's just how it goes it we we are progressing, we're getting better and so guys who have done it a long time have really bad habits, sometimes even when they don't want to so just reminding them hey.

You want to get the scale right: hey safety, glasses right. Those are things that neither of those things are hard to do. We just have bad habits, and when you have bad habits, they're really hard to break you.