This episode of the HVAC school podcast is made possible by our great sponsors carrier and Mitsubishi. Electric cooling and heating also want to thank you II, I and their hubs smart kits, specifically their thermal hygrometers, which are the induct temperature and humidity measuring probes, their pressure probes. As well as the temperature probes that go along with the pressure probes, they are the hub six kit for all of them together the hub for kit for the pressure, probes and clamps and the hub to kit for the thermo hygrometers. They are available now and many fine retail establishments, including true tech tools, comm TR, you, tech tools, comm.

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You know that friend, who keeps interrupting your great story to adjust your facts, just slightly he's like that. Here's Brian or thanks for being here this is the HVAC school podcast, and I am Brian and today, on the podcast, oh wait! First first, I have to mention this. Podcast is the podcast that helps you remember some things that you might have forgotten along the way, maybe helps you remember some things you forgot to know in the first place, and I can assure you that for most of us this is something we didn't know in The first place, and that is how to easily and effectively Seigle leaks on aluminum, coils or pin holes on aluminum tubing or anything related to repairing aluminum. Today, in the podcast we're going to go through specifically one way that you can go about doing this and I think you're gon na like it.

So here we go. We've got Lance Robinson with solder, weld talking about how to repair leaks in aluminum alright. So today, on the podcast we have Lance Robinson. I think you are called the king of solder weld.

Is that your exact title? I don't know if I would go that far chief magistrate, yeah there you go. That's a bit of solder. Will okay, I'm very good. So Lance actually just finished up a training on aluminum coil repair and that's what I wanted to talk about today, because it's an area that I'm very interested in I've tried a lot of products over the years and have not always been real satisfied with the aluminum Repair, so let's talk about that just to start off, let's open up with, why has aluminum repair been so difficult in the past? Well, first of all, if you go back in time quite a bit, a lot of these companies, including General Electric, all, were using aluminum for a very long period of time.

If you go back into the 70s, when you saw your first air-conditioning unit built well, of course, not everybody had that, prior to the 80s, it was probably 80 % of the homes didn't even really understand what air conditioning was, and it was a luxury. If you will to give you a little bit of an idea behind this, aluminum is a strange metal, but it's extremely effective for corrosion for hindering corrosion and not allowing for some of the things that we deal with with copper as an example. If we kind of look at brazing in the HVAC world out there, high-strength brazing is very, we want to braise and we want hermetic joints that can withstand the pressure. Vibration thermal cycling.

All of these things that happen on a daily basis, while we're not paying attention. Copper's always bend the choice. The problem with it is well, of course, the good of coppers. It's got great transfer properties, its ductile on that time.

It's easy to join and we deal with brazing copper with sil, Foss and sofas has been around since the 30s. The reason that so many companies are going towards aluminum is the idea that it has some really strong potential for long lasting. We don't have to worry about corrosion issues that will deal with in galvanic and for Meharry corrosion. So, to give you a good example, let's look at it from the idea that if you put aluminum and copper up next to each other, the surface to weight ratio, a pound of aluminum yields almost probably three times the amount of parts a manufacturer can create.

Then a pound of copper they're, looking at from that standpoint, of course, yeah. So there's a lot of advantages to aluminum and, of course, we're talking to a group of people who love copper. We've cut our teeth on copper, probably quite literally in some instances, and it's what we know and when something new like aluminum comes out. It makes us a little uncomfortable, but there are some huge advantages.

It's definitely a lot lighter, which makes the equipment easier to handle. It's not as susceptible to form a carry corrosion, especially ant nest, corrosion that we've seen in evaporator coils over the years. We've had so many issues with that. I think my first exposure to an all aluminum coil was in 1986 carrier evaporator coil that I used to service back when I first started in the trade at a bank - and I remember opening it up and seeing that all white looking coil and I was like What the heck is this and it's not gon na - want to senior guys and he's like yeah, that's an all aluminum, coil and yeah.

We never had any issues with that coil. In fact, it was also funny because it was all aluminum coil and it had a t, -- xv. So for those of you who think that those technologies are new, those have both been around for a very long time and in many ways we're almost revisiting the past. But we've seen so many issues with for Meharry corrosion, specially in evaporator coils that it makes a lot of sense.

The manufacturers are looking at this, but I remember kind of my first exposure was trying to repair. Aluminum was a case where I had a technician. Put a screw, I mean I'm sure I tried it before in the past, but this was the first time that I really needed it to work and a technician it put a screw and I strained condenser coil and my goodness we could not get that to work. We could not get it fixed, there's a real frustration.

So, let's talk about like you, make a specific product and it's designed specifically for soldering aluminum and what makes your product different all right. So there's a lot of other aluminum type repair products on the market and, just as you said, you're gon na have problems with them. They flow out at a higher temperature. In a lot of cases, they will flow out it upwards of almost the near melting point of aluminum, and everybody is probably aware of this and I'll go ahead and say it anyway.

Aluminum melts at that eleven hundred and ninety degrees Fahrenheit, or that just a little over six hundred degrees Celsius, so it melts very easily and quickly and it doesn't give us any distinctive property telling us that it's going to melt with copper. Of course, we know when the copper is at temperature when it hits that sweet spot and it's glowing and it's changing color, that's great, but the aluminum itself. It literally. As you said, you have a screw hole in a condensing unit and you want to fill it well.

What ends up happening is most guys, they'll go out there and they make a bigger hole than what the screw did in trying to fix it and trying to fix it, and then they just pinched it off and they hope for the best, our product, the alloy Sole product is a solid core rod and it has the flux on the outside now this is the only flux in the industry that decontaminates the aluminum surface for you, so it allows you to be able to prep the aluminum without having to do what we normally Do with copper and that is clean, clean, clean and get it prepped and then prep it some more. So the flux D contaminates the aluminum surface for us and allows the bond to the aluminum rod to the parent metal, the aluminum. Now the bond flows out now. Just so we're on the same note here, the rod flows that 600 degrees and, if aluminum melts at 1190, then that gives the tech that gives all of us a really good working room or working time frame before the aluminum is going to melt on us.

This alloy saw is a solder because it's below 840 degrees for those of you out there who struggle with the differences here when you get below 840 you're dealing with a solder when you still use a different metal for the joining, then the base metal. Then it's considered to be brazing and that's above 840 and when you're joining two metals together with the same base metal, then that's where welding comes in, so we're talking about a solder here. You mentioned something which is flux and a lot of us. I think don't even really fully understand what flux is, so I'm just going to back up and very quickly help everybody get their minds around.

This flux allows the solder to bond directly to the base metal. It helps deal with and eliminate those oxides that tend to build up, because, when you're, adding heat to metal and say, copper, what we're traditionally used to. We see that carbon start to build out pretty quick. Those oxides start to build up and a lot of solder's.

Don't bond very well to those oxides, they only bond well to the base metal, and this is especially true when you're doing copper to steel or copper brass we've dealt with those sorts of base metals. You know that any oxides that get in the way there, especially with a high silver solder, it can have some real issues, but even in those cases, we're still talking about brazing, because we're talking about that higher temperature, where this is at a lower temperature and the Flux does clean the base material, but it also provides you with some really cool hints as far as when it's time to start to apply the metal. So before we go through the step-by-step process, would you mind talking about that a little bit how that flux works? How its applied and how it can give you some clues yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. The flux is really the kicker the secret weapon.

If you will the special sauce well, when we designed and created this flux, it was for the purpose of being able to allow the tech to know what the temperature of the aluminum was so they're, not trying to guess. As I said before, aluminum literally goes from 0 to 60, so you put some heat on it and if you put too much heat on it before, you even realize what's happening, that aluminum is melting. You've got a big hole with this flux. It's a powdered flux, and so what you'll do is you'll heat up the end of the rod, you'll dip it in the flux and then you'll melt, the flux onto the coil or the u-bend or the micro Channel.

And when doing so, it's gon na go on in a white paste. That white paste tells us that it's bonded and adhered to the aluminum and it's beginning the process of cleaning. Now we introduce the heat to it now, whether you're using oxy acetylene. I have a lot of guys that prefer map gas and propane and at this low of the temperature Brian propane, is no problem.

You can use propane, Lou tank to be able to do this going any lower than that. Remember. We have to get to 600 degrees. Oxy acetylene has been a great tool.

You have already got it on your truck. A map. Gas torch is a great tool, just be careful when dealing in micro Channel because it puts out such a big flame with oxy. At least we can pinpoint our flame right to where we want to work and we're gon na bring the heat and start to activate the flux and, as the heat travels over the flux, in kind of a perpendicular fashion.

We're heating up the flux. And it's going to begin to prickle the aluminum begin to clean and decontaminate the aluminum and allow for a bond when that flux goes clear. The aluminum has now hit 600 degrees. So it's a perfect temperature guide and it tells us exactly when to now lay the rod in that fix or that hole or that break or, if you're bonding two tubes together you're joining them together.

This is a perfect rod for that. What do you think about welding or brazing or soldering we're kind of spoiled? And you mentioned this already we're spoiled by copper, because it gives us so much in the way visual cues guys who are out there who have done TIG welding for years or different types of joining. You know that the visual cues that you get from different processes based on the type of base metal that you're using based on type of rig that you're using, but all of us, have to have a visual cue that we use. Otherwise, you can kind of do it by feel, but even that I mean you have different thicknesses of metal.

You have different temperature being applied different distances. You can't do things blind, and so what this does is it gives you that sense of when that flux goes clear and those of you who have done dissimilar, metal joining with fluxes in the past. It's very similar to this, though, the one thing that is unique and the is a process that I haven't seen before, which is interesting. You're, almost using the rod like a brush to apply that flux on so you're eating it up.

You're dipping it into the powder, flux and you're kind of putting that on to the surface that you're joining and then just watching it. And when it goes clear, then you're ready to start applying the solder. If I understand correctly correct, remember on this, this is something very, very different than what we're all used to when we go out and we're dealing with copper, we're turning the torch on and we're turning it on high with aluminum. We want to back it off.

We want to feather out that flame. We want to make sure that we are controlling the flame, because we can get to 600 degrees very quickly. The flux acts as a helpmate. If you will, it actually tells us okay, you're at 600 degrees.

You need to back off a little bit and the flux will go clear and that hole will open up, and at that moment all we're gon na do is just lay the rod over the top of the hole or lay the rod on the u-bend and the Really cool thing about the flux is that you can do this upside down. You can be in a tight quarters, it doesn't matter, you don't have to be doing this on a work table or in an open space, the flux bonds only to the aluminum. It allows us to be able to make repairs in tight quarters, like we deal with on a daily basis, also when we lay the rod the rod itself, bonds and flows into the aluminum and allows for a perfect repair and a complete repair. Brian.

So - and this is not a temporary repair and hope that carrier's going to replace the coil for you, this is a complete repair. You're never gon na have to worry about that bond ever again, and great thing is with. It is in 25, 26 years that we've been in business and teaching and educating guys how to fix aluminum. The great thing is that this right here is something that we are on the verge of all of these manufacturers going to aluminum, both indoor and outdoor, so we're gon na see a lot more of it, and so you got to be prepared to make these repairs In the field, I think everybody kind of gets that there's still the group that says: why do I need to repair it I'll, just replace the coil, but as we move forward - and these are out in the field longer, it's gon na be a real benefit to Your customers, if you make good solid repairs, something that was very interesting.

I don't know if a lot of the guys listening in on this podcast have been to the ahr, the ASHRAE convention, but ahr in Chicago last year. I spoke at one of the events for new technology and emerging technology and something was interesting. I had a couple of the higher-ups if you will from lennox stop by. They wanted to talk to me about this and they said they're researching frantically in how to be able to make this happen, because one of the main points that all these companies all these manufacturers and all these major companies that deal from the commercial side of it They're, tired of replacing coils, in fact, they'll admit that they send out a coil in some cases that coil might be flawed.

It might have a leak in it or the brazing process of the aluminum didn't set and you've got a pin hole. The second you install this coil: they don't want to have to replace it. It's way too costly for them, so they want you to be able to fix it, and if these warranties go up, you're gon na have to fix it anyway. So we want to be able to just make sure that everyone's prepared for this yeah and besides the fact that, if you think about this, just from a common-sense and sustainability standpoint, it does not make sense for us to be yanking out these big coils sending them.

In to be recycled, picking brand new clothes and putting it's just a terrible idea, if we can do things properly in the field, be workmen know how to do these things properly. Then it's not gon na be an issue and for those who got there, you're listening thing and like I don't know about this well think of it. This way, a lot of you are the same ones. Who will complain about new products that come out? A lot of people have talked about zoom, lock and how soom lock is taking the scale out of the trade.

I don't happen to believe that at all, but there's some people who think that well, this is going. The other direction right, we're taking something that we have the ability to now make a repair instead of just being a parts changer, and if we can do it right and we have products that do the job and it is a permanent repair. Then why not? At least pursue that and develop those skills. I think that as well on those lines is that it's important for us to provide the training, and this is something that we do.

I mean, as I know, Brian you're very well aware of we travel all over the United States to the major HVAC companies out there and some of the smaller HVAC company and single tax and we'll teach them step-by-step how to be able to repair aluminum. Even though it's not quite time for it yet they're only seeing one or two repairs a month or some of these Tech's aren't even seen a single repair. But if we can hit the colleges and get text ready as they're hitting entering the field. And we can also we'll get the texts that have been in the field for years and years and years and they don't like aluminum, but we can show them a really great product, a one and only product that flows beautifully complete repair and they're.

Not going to have problems with it like they do with all the rest of the material on the market if they can make a repair, and it's easy then they're going to, and especially if it looks good. I want to take a quick second and mention air oasis in the bipolar product. It's been a long time that I've had different companies talking to me about indoor air quality products and wanting to partner with HACC school, and I just never felt great about it up until now, and we are using air Oasis products, we're using the bipolar product and The nano product from air Oasis at Kalos I've been very happy with the way the products are built which is important. It got ta last they've got to work, they've got to do what they say.

They're gon na do they've got to be well built and I'm very comfortable with how they're made they're not only made in the US, but they also source most of the parts. From being made in the US as much as possible, John Benner is one of the owners, a guy who I've had a chance to talk to at length, and I really trust the things that he says he's, definitely not full of it: the bipolar product, what it Does is it creates bipolar ions, which means positive and negative ions. It mounts right on the side of the blower housing. So it's a very easy install and those ions go out into the air stream and they bond with small particles in the air and they especially help deactivate some of those live.

The particles that you're most concerned with again, I don't understand all of the science. I do know that we've done testing with petri dishes before and after and we've seen good results. Some people are like it does: it kill 99.9 % well, it does when it comes in direct contact with them, but keep in mind that this goes out into the air stream. It's not a magic pill.

It's not gon na fix every single problem, but it does. What it says it's gon na do, if you look on their YouTube channel, he's got a really nice video that shows what happens with smoke with Bipolar when they put a bipolar ionizer in with a smoke chamber, how quickly the smoke dissipates versus not so it's great With things like odors, it helps with that it helps with particles, it helps with VOCs all those and the bipolar is just a really nice easy product to install. It's got no moving parts, but yet, when you power it up, you can put your hand over it and you can feel the airflow in between the brushes because of the generation of the positive and negative ion. So it's kind of a neat way that you can actually feel the fact that it is working, even though you don't see any moving parts, it's great product product that I feel comfortable with.

If you ever have any concerns with the manufacturer, any of the manufacturers, anybody who's on this podcast, who I talk about, you can always reach out to me, brian, at hvac, our school comm and again, i only want to hear people who have like real understanding, not Like i like this brand better, I chose air Oasis specifically because I don't think it is a sales pitch. I think it's just good solid, well engineered product, it's not a silver bullet. That's gon na solve every problem, but it's well-made and you can find out more by going to their website, which is easy to find it's air Oasis, calm, all right. So, let's start from the top.

Some of this is gon na be redundant, but I just want to go through it in order. What are the steps in order to make a good solid bond with this product? Let's start from step, one all the way through whatever the finishes: okay, so step one. I'm a stickler like you are Brian. I, like things clean, so I end up cleaning the aluminum anyway and just like copper.

However, you are currently cleaning copper, whatever you're comfortable with with aluminum. I just like to scotch-brite it up a little bit just get it so that it's a little clean because it is dirty, there's, contaminants and so on, not necessary. However, I happen to like it. I will then, at that point grab out my alloy Saul rod and the rod itself is a solid core rod and the flux is external and it's a powdered flux.

So what we're gon na do is take our map, gas or oxy acetylene and just lightly heat up the end of the rod. We're then gon na dip it into the flux, and now we have basically a flux, covered rod. We're then gon na introduce the flux covered rod to where our pinhole is or our brake in the line and lay it on top of it and bring the heat over to melt the flux off of the rod onto the hole. Once the flux is off.

The rod move the rod and continue to heat the flux now the flux when it went on it becomes kind of that pasty, white, color and now we're at step four or five or six. At this point, however, we want to continue to heat the flux until it turns clear now. The best way to do this is, if at all possible, perpendicular to your repair so straight up and down, and the reason for that is when we normally are using a torch, we're just kind of aiming it at the copper line. And it's no problem because it transfers the heat very well, but with aluminum the straight up and down on your hole is best because we don't want to put too much heat on a different section of the aluminum, as it does want to melt.

Of course. So perpendicular flame melt the flux right into the repair. The flux will then go a clear color and the hole will open up a little bit and when that hole opens up, it's telling you that the aluminum is now at 600 degrees. This is the sweet spot.

Back your flame off just a little bit and introduce the rod to over the top of your repair. So if it's a pin hole, lay the rod on top and don't put pressure now. This is very important because, from a welding perspective from a brazing perspective, we tend to poke at the repair. We introduced the stick and we kind of poked at it and we add the rod almost in a poking manner.

What I want you to do is lay the rod lightly on top of the repair and introduce your heat source directly to the rod. What this will do is it will melt the rod into the repair and give us a perfect bond now. Here's the thing I have a lot of guys out there when they're doing this, they end up with a bird poop sitting on top of their fix. This is perfectly fine, doesn't matter what it looks like all that matters is that you have that bond and you have that fix now.

If you use the heat on that deposit, you can actually mold the deposit around a little bit, but be careful you don't add too much heat because then you're going to open up another section right around where your repair is with the heat. So just be careful on that, but keep your heat perpendicular mold the deposit right into the repair and then immediately when that rod flows immediately after remove your heat you're done and it will look beautiful and you can see lots of fixes on our YouTube channel and Lots of fixes on our Instagram and Facebook pages guys realize that it is that easy to fix aluminum. They were just scared to death of it prior to trying out the rod. The friend of the show Andrew grieves, he's been on before and a lot of you guys know him.

Aka HVAC online he's tried it. He really likes it and he does a lot of work with solder oil products. So technicians may ask ok, so it sounds like we're fixing pinholes. That sort of thing is this something that works with fittings.

Is that a thing yet, or is that not really a developed industry? Yet we already sell it to lots of the major companies out there that are using it in the fabrication process, as well as the bonding and joining process, so for fittings, no problem same principle: you're just gon na keep the heat moving, you're gon na add the Flux so that we can get the flux down into the fitting and then you're gon na lay the rod and you'll just heat the rod right around the fitting. So it's perfect works exactly the same way and can fill in some beautiful gaps. I've seen some of our Tech's out there fill in a quarter size hole in aluminum just by breaking off the rod and minding their heat, so they're breaking off the rod filling out the quarter and then introducing the heat and the flux just brings the metal. All the rod together, it's beautiful something else that goes along with that is you, don't have any slag or bb's or tear drop into the line, so even in a microchannel you're, not closing off the line which happens with almost all of the other product on the Market today, this does not, and it's beautiful when it flows, so you don't have to worry about impeding the flow of that line with this product with the alloy salt product.

Let's talk about what are the limits of what this can do? You talked about thermal cycling, which is increasing and decreasing temperature that it holds up well to that, but is this gon na work in a evaporator coil on a heat pump on an r410a system that could be potentially exposed to 400 psi plus? So that brings up a great point, as this is the strongest solder on the market, and I don't say that lightly. It is a 30,000 psi bond, so you are well in your range with any kind of aluminum you'll blow out another section of the line before you will even cause any stress or issue to the deposit that you just made so that aluminium fix that you just Made is now stronger in fact than the parent metal, so a 30,000 psi bond on top of that Bryan. This has been tested in all climates in very, very cold climates, all the way up into Alaska, Canada, there's some very cold climates and I'm sure we've got some Canadians listening in right now that are smiling, I'm sure we enjoy our neighbors in the North, although it In some points gets pretty cold and they love the aluminum and then, of course, you have down in Arizona and Texas and Mexico and down into Brazil the temperatures whether we're on the coast and we're dealing with the salt environment, Hawaii, very salty environment. And we see a lot of corrosion and we have to deal with that with the copper, but with the aluminum.

We don't have to worry about it and with this fix you're not going to have to worry about it. The other side of that too, that's backed up on that is something that is very important we understand is. We should clean it after we're done with the repair, not because we want it to look pretty, but just simply to take off any additional flux. That's there yeah anytime, you flux a joint that I'm aware of you always want to wipe the flux off at the end.

How do you feel about because some texts like to apply wet rags and things right after they've made a repair? How do you feel about that with your product? That's really interesting. You said that we just got done with an aluminum repair. Our aluminum coil repair training, one of the larger HVAC companies. Here in Utah they asked the same question.

They said we want to come at it with a wet rag, because the temperatures are so high with brazing copper. We want to cool it off quickly and bring the temperature down, but with this aluminum you remember your 600°, it's really not as hot as we're dealing with in a brazing scenario, but immediately it will set within 10 to 15 seconds, and so you can take a Wire brush and a little bit of water, and you can go at it right away 10 seconds 15 seconds later and you've got a bond. That is beautiful. Another thing: that's an advantage of doing low-temperature repairs is that you don't have to worry about the buildup of oxides inside the copper, like you do, while brazing.

So when we're brazing, we have to be so concerned about flowing nitrogen while we braise, so we don't contaminate, but when you're down at 600 degree range you're, not gon na, have any of those concerns as well. Exactly not that there might not be other reasons that you want to flow. You want to flow a nitrogen to make sure that you displace any refrigerant or whatever you don't at phosgene. There's some other reasons that you might want to flow, but it's not necessary.

As far as the oxide build up from a temperature standpoint, though, we wouldn't want to ever put in an application. That's gon na go over 600 degrees because then it would melt it, but in HVAC I mean really the hottest you could probably ever see on a system that had a problem even would probably be about 300 degrees in the discharge line. So you're still not even really close to that point. True, however, just understand on this.

The aluminum melts at eleven hundred ninety degrees, this deposit, once it sets, won't remelt till the aluminum melts itself. Oh interesting so you're upwards of sixteen hundred degrees that this deposit will remelt. Your aluminum line is already melted by that point. Okay, so the deposit stay so no worries about remelt.

Just the initial melting and chemical combination to the parent metal and the rod is at 600 degrees. You mentioned a k, HVAC Andrew grieves. He did for his very first try at this. He did his very first brazing on aluminum, his very first soldering on aluminum, and he said I only needed a couple of practice tries and if you look at that YouTube video, he put up it's just fantastic Brian Andrews kind of a special guy he's got a Little bit of that, like Thor god thing going on, so I'm not so sure - and I wouldn't know necessarily want to trust that too much.

I think you might be the magic in the beard, I'm not sure it's probably that you're I could be could be so some people have mentioned, and I don't know that I would necessarily try this, but I want your opinion on this. Some people have mentioned practicing on aluminum. Can what do you think about that? The aluminum can more of a swapmeet trick than anything guys laughs about to. I can braise two cans together, sure you can, because it is low-temperature.

However, the problem is that aluminum can is so thin that you literally have to have a pinpoint flame so that you're not spreading out the flame and melting the other areas of the can. But yes, I've many times have put two cans together or fill a hole in the bottom of a. Can. I'm not sure why we would need to do this, but sometimes it's just for fun.

I guess, if you're out at the dunes and you're drinking beer, and you get a hole in your, can I guess you could fix it sure there you go, make sure to always keep your alloys. All with you, and just in case you ever get a hole in your beer, can okay, maybe that's a bit of a stretch all right. So let's talk a little bit. We didn't start off with talking about solder, weld and a little bit about your company.

Tell us about Sauter well how it got started and maybe what the future looks like solder. Weld itself has actually got started years and years and years ago, in the auto industry and very big in the auto industry, for fixing aluminium lines and radiators and the off-road industry started to really take the excitement of it. Because if you're out in the middle of the desert or in the dunes or on a trail and you're in a UTV or your motorcycle, and you get a hole in your case, so you get a pinhole in a radiator in the past. You're done for or you're throwing some j-b weld on there and hoping you can limp back to the trailer so solder weld started out with the idea that listen, we can fix this and we're one of the only companies out there that has this technology.

The aluminum rod just keeps getting better and better and formulated to work with the different industries to be the most effective. So we began to then get into the auto body industry and the auto body industry started looking at our aluminum alloys, all rods and flux, and realized that with aluminium introducing itself in the auto body side of things with the new f-150s and body panels that this Low-Temperature rod was one of the only rods on the market that could actually fix a body panel or aluminum on a vehicle, and so it became very popular at the FEMA show. And of course we do. The SEMA show every year down in Las Vegas.

It's a huge huge car show. I highly recommend it and a few years back, we started looking at the HVAC industry. We had already been getting calls from refrigeration Tech's wanting to know if our products would work with this application in that application. Of course, many of you are probably very familiar with the heat absorption putty that took off and is very popular in the market.

Now it's called hot block and that really gave us if you will that footprint to show the HVAC market were the only company out there. That is training on this we're the only company that is trying to get out in front of as many HVAC companies and show them that there is a possible fix to aluminum. And it's not only about having the right product. But it's about having good technique.

And if we can teach and educate on how to do this, then guys will have no problem, taking the alloys all in flux and putting in their truck and anytime. They run into an issue where somebody backs their RV into their coil and you've got to fix it. It can be fixed right on the spot without much problem or issue without having to worry about having to come back and repair. It later there's nothing worse than having to come back six months later and having to fix the same thing that we're supposed to have fixed before so solder, weld started, taking off and getting bigger and bigger.

We started getting interest from outside of the US distributors that wanted to move the product throughout Australia, New Zealand all throughout Europe and into the Middle East, of course, and South America, and we continued to grow. But I will tell you we have a very difficult time. We're a small company we're a family-owned company and as a small company, we have a very difficult time competing Brian, as you know, with some of your major brands out there, such as your Harris and your Lucas and your Worthington. But all of our products are american-made and we do our best, our absolute best, to give you the same prices or better and solder weld.

We stand behind everything that we do and we're just trying to make our mark we're trying to give people a great american-made product that will last and will be something that they can count on from here. On out, I really like your products. I really like what you're doing with the education side. I like the fact that you are American made products and there's a lot to like about solder weld.

So we have a lot of listeners who are contractors. A lot of them are technicians, and then we also have a lot in distribution world. So for anyone who may be interested in learning more about your products or maybe seeing if they can get a training or something like that. What would be the best way for them to get in touch with solder? Weld easiest way is they can come right on to the web site at solder, wall, comm and email us at info at solder, welkom or as well? They can give us a call on our 800 number, which is 1-800 three five, six, eight, four, four nine contact us.

Let us know that you're interested in having us come out for an aluminum, coil repair training at the company. We do it on location. All we ask is that you try and track down an old aluminum coil so that we don't have to try and ship something out or carry it on the plane, which doesn't happen and we'll be there. We'll show up and we'll train and we'll educate and we'll make sure that every tech there is up to speed and trained up on fixing, aluminum, coils and fixing all types of aluminum and then we'll also go into detail about low temp bonding, because something that Brian, You and I haven't talked about - and it's probably for another day - is copper to aluminum and dissimilar metals, and we have one of the best rods and flux on the market for dissimilar metals and low temp bonding.

So we'll talk about that and, of course, we're happy to jump into one last thing: we'd love to provide sill Foss, even though this isn't a premium product. This is something that everybody has out there and they buy it. We would love to be able to have you using american-made solder, well still Foss 15 %, but we're happy to manufacture whatever your company needs, we're doing our best to stay ahead of the market and as a small company. It proves to be a challenge, but we're doing what we can contractors out there when you're at your distributor next time.

Ask them about these solder. Web products. Ask them about alloy saw and the other products that solder weld makes and if they don't carry it ask them to carry it. That's one of the big influences you can in the marketplace.

I'm a big believer that the best products in the marketplace should be the winners and every manufacturer should be willing to compete in the arena of ideas, and I think Sutter welds making all the right moves and thank you Lance for doing what you do and I'm Excited to use more and more your products going forward at Kalos, I'm also excited to see where things go with solder. Well, thank you for doing what you do. Thank you Brian, for having me out. I appreciate it and thank you, everybody for tuning in appreciate that have a great day: hey thanks for listening this podcast and for getting all the way here to the end.

That means you're either a loyalist or you forgot to hit stop and your podcast is still playing, maybe is playing in your pocket, but either way. I appreciate you for even starting to listen to the podcast and I thank Lance for coming on. I really do like solder. Weld solder was not a sponsor.

There's no money changing hands. Some of you may think. Oh, this is he's just paying. No, absolutely not.

Actually, I just happen to think solder. Well, it's a good company they're, an up-and-coming company they're, a family-owned company they're, a US company and they're, really focusing on the HVAC industry and focusing on training and to me. That is what makes a great company that we should all get behind and support so throw your support behind solder weld shoot an email to Lance. Let him know that you heard him on the podcast and that he did a great job.

I'm sure he would appreciate that. So, if you haven't listened to the other podcasts in the blue-collar roots family, I would suggest that you go to blue-collar roots comm and take a quick look. We have the new podcast, which is the electrical coding tips podcast. If you are interested at all and knowing more about the National Electrical Code and some good electrical tips, I think that's a great one.

Building HVAC science is a really good podcast, with Bill Spohn been out for a while. The tool pros podcast with Brent Wrigley and Billy Noth is a great show that I think you'll enjoy. They just recently had a episode on hammers actually of all things, but it was actually a really good episode. I enjoyed it and then service business.

Mastery, then a little hiatus recently, while church is getting everything rolling in his own business, which you will hear. If you listen to service business mastery, it's not only giving you great tips for business, but also taking you along the way in shows you kind of church's journey growing his business from its infancy up until what he wants to create in the future, which i think Is a pretty interesting format, so you can listen all those shows by going to blue-collar roots, calm. Another thing you may not know, I don't know if you've ever read the Communist Manifesto. Most of us are red-blooded Americans we're not into that sort of thing, but actually the communist manifesto was written in all lowercase letters and that's because Karl Marx didn't like capitalism all right thanks for listening, we will talk to you next time on the HVAC school podcast.

Thanks for listening to the HVAC school podcast, you can find more great HVAC our education material and subscribe to our short daily tech tips by going to HVAC our school comm. If you enjoy the podcast, would you mind hopping on iTunes or the podcast app and leave us a review? We would really appreciate it. See you next week on the HVAC school podcast.