I want to give some context. I was in a very bad mood going out to this service call that you guys are about to see okay, but i had to bite my tongue as frustrated as i was i'm gon na read you guys the work order and i'll pop it up on the Screen right now, too, the customer sent a work order and this is their exact wording. Our walk-in freezer is tempting at 50 degrees. We were having an issue with it, holding temp for the last two days, but i hoped that with keeping the door shut, it would go down the lowest temp it had been in the last two days is 32 degrees.

So a lot of product isn't staying frozen. All right, so they sent me that and they had the the. I don't even know what you want to call it like when i walked on site, and i i talked to the manager before i even looked at it. I said: look if your walk-in freezer goes above, like 10 degrees above the normal temperature for more than an hour, it's broken, and it's not gon na fix itself.

Call me right away what frustrated me about this one was they called me? It was like a saturday and it was an emergency. They were like. You have to stop what you're doing you know and i had to stop my dinner plans and everything to go out there to get this work order and i'm driving there really frustrated and guys. I'm human okay, you know, but i had to bite my tongue when i walked in the door.

I vented you know a little bit of frustration, just kind of like okay, it kind of sucks. You know that i'm here, but it is what it is. You know another thing to remember and of course i wasn't, you know, really upset at first and you know when i walked in the store i was. I was still polite because i don't want to scare away management and stuff, and i just you know, tried to coach them and work their way through this okay, because it was just frustrating to have to do that.

But it is what it is. If i don't do this call another person, will you know - and i want my company to be the company doing all this work? So while it is frustrating you know, just take a breath, relax, get it fixed and move on. Okay, let's go ahead and get on with the video. This video is brought to you by sportlin quality integrity and tradition, okey dokey, so we got a walk-in freezer evaporator, that's not working flip it around and it's all frozen up.

So i just had the customer remove all their product we're going to get this guy defrosted. I need to start on the roof and get the equipment shut off and everything. So all right. This is my walk-in freezer condenser up here.

The condenser also looks dirty all of them look dirty. I made a video here recently recent everything's blending into the last year and a half so um this guy right here we're gon na open this up and access the defrost clock and throw it in defrost from up here and then i'll go down there and test To make sure all the heaters are working while it's frozen up, and then i can turn it off the breaker down there when i need to defrost it all right. This is my defrost clock right here and, let's see, one and n should give me 208 volts. Correct 204.

- that tells me my defrost clock has power and then we're going to go to three and n. We should have zero volts, we're getting 10, that's kind of weird some kind of backfeed or something, and then we're going to go to four and in pouring in as our refrigeration circuit. We have 204 volts, 3 and n is our heater circuit. So i was just kind of looking at normal operation and we're good, so we're going to go ahead and click it into a really long defrost there we go now we're in a super long defrost.

It should be pumping down. Now they have an interlock contactor right here and what this does is that will not let the um defrost clock send power to the heaters if the compressor contactor is still running, so they have that interlock guy to make sure so that one's engaged we have 12 Amps of current on the heater circuit going downstairs, so that should be divided amongst all the different uh strip heaters. So the next step is we're going to go down there and investigate to actually make sure each strip heater has current or resistance or i'm sorry, yeah. Current across it because we do have power energized and that will kind of help us in our troubleshooting to tell us if it's a defrost, related issue but i'll tell you the biggest problem with this restaurant.

Is they leave the door open so we'll investigate the door? Hinges and make sure everything's working on that too. We have constant problems with them, leaving the door open so um, but yeah we're gon na leave this in defrost and go downstairs. As you can see, the self-closing hinges are no longer working on the door, so if they walk away from it, it stays open, sometimes so that's more than likely the cause of it not working fun stuff right, while i was on the roof, i disconnected the x Terminal at the defrost clock so that way it can run and heat for a very long time, while i'm disassembling everything and then when you're disassembling, you want to inspect your evaporator blades very carefully. This one has a stress, crack right here and right here, and you can tell it's been hitting something right there, so i don't have a blade with me today, we'll probably put it back on, but we'll definitely be coming back to change, blades and uh, we'll inspect The rest of them as we take them off too.

It's like they just got their delivery like yesterday, too, and they just ruined all of their ice cream. There is one two three four five six tubs of ice cream here, it's all milkshake material. So i cannot safely get this motor out with it energized because it's all encapsulated in the ice. The other motors the wires were sitting outside the ice and i was able to just pop them out.

So we got those we're going to have to go shut off. The breaker now, but you know you always want to visual inspect the unit and see down here. That's a drain line. Here, that's sagging.

It fell out of its hangers. Those do reduce the efficiency of the defrost. It's not the end of the world. I've seen coils work on much worse than that, but that does add some problems um.

So we need to get over here and check the defrost heaters. Now from the looks of it, there is only two heaters, there's one embedded in the middle of the coil. This is it five amps and then there's one down on the bottom of the coil, which i got ta get right there. I everybody find the wires for it because they're tucked in a weird place, where is the wires? Ah there they are right there.

So if we go here 5.5 and then where's the other wire at that's tucked back there, man, these things are so difficult to get to um. Let's see if i can get on this one, no, it's a pain in the butt there. We go so the other one's three amps. Why did i hit 12 amps up there? Am i missing a heater only five and three: it's only like eight nine.

At the most, when you add the small stuff in there, oh, i wonder what the dealio is here, why i was getting 12 amps. Well anyways, whatever uh, we know, the heaters are working. We're gon na go turn off the breaker. I don't have to go all the way under the roof, because i know where the breaker is down in the building, so we'll turn that off lock it out and then get this defrosted.

So i love my wand as usual. A lot of people ask me it's from lowe's it's made by orbit. You can still get them there just go to lowe's, look in the garden section um! So there's a walk-in freezer. It has a raised floor.

We don't ever want to get water. On a raised floor in a walk-in frame, you don't get water on a floor in a walk-in freezer anyway. So um but raised floors are especially a big deal because when water gets underneath it it lifts the floor and they have to replace the whole thing. So um we're just defrosting it and then, like the water level, is getting high.

So i'm going to wait for it to drain and then keep rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat kind of a thing and it actually wasn't draining. So i always bring this tool in with me that i made, and it has a little plunger on the end - blew the drain out real quick. It was slow on the other end. It wasn't backed up here or frozen here or anything so blew that out.

All right, we got it all defrosted inside here, everything's good, all the way front and back into here you got to make sure you always get these side panels, because if you don't the ice will come right back got all the way in here, everything's good. So we're going to assemble this guy clean up our hoses, let it drip dry and then go up onto the roof start it up and you know, go through the operations got it all back together and uh. It is correct. There's only two heaters: there's one in the middle of the coil and the one on the bottom uh.

You always want to inspect your limit switches, make sure none of them are swollen or popped, because they'll do that they'll, freeze and expand, don't see anything going on there. I currently turn the breaker back on, so the heaters are still running, we'll uh pop it out via the defrost termination when we go on the roof, all right, this guy's still on. So if we take the x terminal and touch it it just clicked out of defrost and the system will turn back on. Okay, so right now what's happening is the temperature controller and there you go.

It turns back on so that x terminal is there if it ever gets too warm. It terminates the defrost before the defrost is completed. Now i had disconnected that so that way i could run the heaters while i was getting everything ready at this point. I turned off power, we're going to connect the x terminal, then we're going to clean the condensers on these guys.

So we want to start by pre-rinsing kind of in a downward angle to get the big chunks off right get most of the grease. So we're not pushing it into the coil now i just recently cleaned this, so i don't think we're gon na have to take it apart, but we'll kind of evaluate it. I think i'm gon na be able to clean it just from the front the surface because, like i said a couple months ago, i ripped this thing into pieces and thoroughly cleaned it. So i doubt i'm gon na have to do that and then the same thing we'll do this one too turn off power and give it a rinse this one's actually not even bad.

So i don't even think i need chemical on this one yeah it's coming right, clean i'll, make sure that i can see through it. You always got to watch out too. I know the power of this sprayer, but whatever you use, you don't want it to go through because it goes right into that motor all right. So this guy see oh yeah, we're coming right through so yeah we're gon na be good.

I'm gon na put my coil gun right there. I got some blue venom pack be careful. You can't use this because this is the brightener cleaner. This will break down the grease.

You cannot use this on micro channel coils um. You only use it on tube and fan and you've got to be careful still all right. I put my cleaner on there. It's been sitting for a few minutes.

We're gon na go ahead and give it the first rinse again just being careful, but i don't think like. I said that i'm going to need to do anything more than just the surface, i'll make sure that i can see light clearly through these coils when i'm done. Sometimes, if they're really really bad, you got to break them apart, like i did the last time i can't remember, i i'm pretty sure i made a video of it. Oh yeah, coming through nice and clean and here's the money shot.

Look at that stuff coming out there, man, this stuff works wonders. So it's all about big picture. You know more than likely the problem was just the ice, but i don't want to ignore that and i'm probably going to rinse off their acs. I know it sucks that i'm here on overtime and it's frustrating, but i'm so busy right now.

I don't have time to come back so probably going to go and rinse down their acs and knock that out too. So that way that doesn't become a service call. Next week, because even on regular time, i don't have time, i'm so crazy, busy right now, so we're gon na give it a final rinse and then uh, we'll uh inspect it make sure we can see light through it and then turn it back on, and we Can see daylight right through that condenser now, so we're good on that. So at this point um i'm gon na go ahead and fire it up and let it run for a little bit and then we'll apply service gauges here in a bit.

Let this guy bring the box down to temp for a while. It's amazing that this thing doesn't have high pressure codes. It doesn't have any at all, but look at how plugged it is it's insane so we're gon na get some of the yellow venom pack cleaner. On there, we'll probably have to do a couple coats um, they put a coil coating on this.

You know for corrosion and stuff and you're not really supposed to use chemicals on those, but if the customers aren't doing maintenances and they let the coils get this greasy, you have no other choice but to use coil cleaner. Now, of course, we're going to use the yellow venom pack, which is micro, channel safe, so we'll knock that out real quick, while this thing's coming down in time, i'm not going to spend all day on this guy, it took an entire bottle, the viper hd. I was, i said, venom pack, but i meant the viper hd cleaner, which is the same thing as the yellow venom pack. It's just the venom packs more concentrated, so um uh.

It takes multiple rinses. So i like, i said i've done it like three or four times where you put this on and then you just got to let it sit for 10-15 minutes and then you got to rinse, and i mean it's dramatically better than it was. It's still not perfect. But i'm also not going to spend all night here.

You know i just wanted to solve a problem, but you can see the stuff coming out right now. Every time you do a rant that breaks down more and more of the grease and the buildup. If this customer did a normal maintenance, you wouldn't have to do this kind of stuff, but you know it is what it is. So this is going to be my final rinse and then we'll blow it off with my blower, and then we got to probe up on the walk-in freezer all right.

The pressures do not scare me we're gon na go down and check the temperature of the evaporator. Look at the frost pattern we're running a clear sight: glass um, i'm not gon na, go like full crazy on this thing i don't have any temperature probes or anything i'm not seeing. Anything. Scary here seems like it's going to be.

Okay but like i said we're going to go down and look at the frost pattern downstairs, but i'm going to assemble this all back together. First, i also in uh change the defrost strategy and added multiple defrost throughout the day. Now this is a bit crazy, but with that door, not shutting all the way it's gon na have to defrost some more so i went with some longer defrost 45-minute defrost. In the middle of the night, mind you, it has a defrost termination, so it's only going to defrost until the coil gets so warm.

It probably won't even do the full 45. But then i put some 15 minutes throughout the day and then just normally on these things, we do four half hour defrosts, so we went a little crazy on it, but again once we fix the door hinges and get that door. Shutting we can, you know, reduce the defrost strategy back to four a day. It's been running for a good hour, or so i just put my thermometer in here, but we have a nice even frost pattern, which is a really good sign.

Um not gon na spend too much more time i'll come and check on my thermometer in a few minutes like i said, i just put it in here so we'll check on that. In a few minutes, i'm gon na go roll up my hoses and uh. We'll definitely be following up when we change the hinges: that's not too bad about 17 degrees. You can hear that back fan blade, i'm going to change all the fan, blades we're not going to play around with this fan blades and fan brackets for sure.

But okay, that's it! For today, uh we're gon na come back change the fan, blades and then change the hinges too. So, but that's it on this one. All right, we put new door hinges, so the door springs itself shut, does not stick anymore, which is a plus okay and we came back in and we replaced all the evaporative fan motors and fan blades, but we still have a little bit of ice. So i have it in a defrost right now we're gon na defrost that, with the water hose the rest of the way and dive into this a little bit deeper.

Now that we have some more time and we're not on overtime so um i had thrown it into a defrost and then we went to a lunch. So there's just a little bit of ice, but it's going through to the other side too. So that's why we are using our nozzle we're gon na clear it out real, quick and then then we'll troubleshoot a little bit more all right. This is very annoying, so we got ta defrost it.

Okay, put it all back together and we come up into here and top heater is not working. Now. We've had two people check this heater myself included and it's been working, but all of a sudden - it's not working. I don't know if it's just a fluke or what, but i looked, i confirmed we have voltage the bottom heater's working five amps, so you know it's working when you test current across it.

It's just a a heat strip, so they're all connected to the same place and i check from h2 to 3 and we have voltage. Let's do it again, so it's not clicking out on a limit switch or anything like that. Annoying man, h2. 3 volts.

So we've got voltage, but no current dang it. This is a frustrating one. I have changed that heater before too. This restaurant is notorious for icing it up, but it's really interesting because it was working like i said: two people have de-iced this thing and both of us have checked it and all the heaters are working and i know i was one of them and i know That i saw it and my apprentice was the other person and he saw it too wow.

That's crazy, all right! So the system's running everything looks good in here yeah we got a little frosting up, but it's even it looks fine. I don't have any issues with that. We come into here, we're looking good, it's a pretty, even frost pattern. Um, don't see any issues here and my numbers look good on measure quick too and i'll pull that up man.

This one is beyond frustrating it's one of those one of those things so uh, i'm gon na. Take all my probes off of this. I don't like how that expansion valve was feeding, but i did make some super heat adjustments, but i need to be careful because the box is still coming down in temp. Typically, you don't want to adjust it till it's within.

I like to say 10 degrees of set point we're still really high, so i adjusted it down to about what 12 degrees superheat and i'm not going to go any lower than that. We're going to pull the probes off we're gon na talk to the customer. This thing's a mess, i mean yeah, it's just a just an absolute mess, though electrical looks like crap, frustrating, um yeah, so we're gon na talk to the customer. I would really like them to let me change the evaporative coil complete.

I just hate to say that, because we just put new fan motors and fan blades on it, but i think that's gon na be the best bet, because changing that heater is a nightmare, you got ta slide it out from the side and you can't get to It because the wall's there it's pain in the butt i've done. I've actually changed that exact heater on that coil once before they frost they ice this box up so much it's a nightmare. So not only was it a frustrating call, because you know the manager waited two days or whatever it was. I think it's been longer than two days on top of that.

You saw two different trips here now we were actually there three times in between both of my video clips, because i sent someone else out there to defrost it. Once too, i've already talked to the customer and they're ordering a new evaporative coil, because i just i just told them it. It just needs to be changed. Changing out that defrost heater um, the defrost heater, is what three and a half feet four feet long and you have about 12 inches of space on the side of that evaporator coil and the defrost heater slides completely into that evaporator coil.

So, in order to get that defrost heater, in which i i mentioned in the video i've changed before you have to bend it like, and it's just a strip heater mind: you, okay, there's just a filament running through that thing and you have to bend it and It's sketch, when you do it, so i told the customer look. This is the second time the defrost heaters have gone bad on this thing, and on top of that i wasn't too happy with the frost pattern. Now i didn't get it caught on film, but when it was first pulling down, it was fine, but as it ran longer and longer man, my superheat just wasn't dropping very well. I adjusted it.

I think i said to about 12 degrees. I didn't see the box down at negative. You know negative 10, which is our normal operating. I think the lowest i saw it was like 10 degrees or something, but you want to be very careful about adjusting superheat when you're still high in temp, by the way too, because you can adjust it really low when it's pulling down.

But then it'll wait overshoot. Once it gets closer to being set point so be very cautious about that, but but anyways i did talk the customer into replacing the entire evaporator. We haven't received it yet, of course, with all these equipment shortages and everything it's taking forever to get parts. So i've actually got two restaurants that we're having to do this exact same thing at not because of defrost heaters, but i have another coil that needs to be replaced and i'm just sending technicians out there proactively.

Every week we send someone out there to try to get ahead of the emergency saturday. Service call look even if i'm not on call. I don't want my guys to have to go out there constantly on saturdays and stuff. So that's why we're trying to prevent this, and the customer is ecstatic that we're on top of everything and trying to prevent the service, calls like they they're, okay, with it costing them money like they just want it working properly.

So um you know with these customers too. Another thing we have to remember: they're, struggling okay, they're having a hard time finding employees the day that i was here. They only had one cook working in their kitchen that they normally have five cooks: okay, because they had four people call off, and this is a thing happening at all: the restaurants all over the place like the the cooks can't or they can't keep the cooks. The cooks all bounce and go work at fast food um.

You know because they're getting paid, you know whatever i don't know. I don't know what the logic is, but i just know that they just keep losing cooks. What cooks are actually have come back to work right because you still probably have some that are on unemployment and stuff, but um it's a struggle and with that being said, the restaurants are struggling they're doing everything they can, but this kind of stuff happens. You know the ball gets dropped, they're, not doing line checks where they go and check temperatures on a regular basis.

So when they do call us they're like i got three regions down and they're all iced up - and i need you here now. You know it's happening like that and i'm not gon na say it's necessarily because the restaurants are cheap. Okay, they're just struggling right now and they're doing everything they can it's hard enough to be in business in general in california, with all the craziness that we have to go through politically and everything, but then, on top of that, you add all this crazy. You know pandemic stuff and it's just it's it's frustrating.

So, yes, i am still frustrated with the restaurants, but at the same time i kind of you know kind of understand a little bit as to what's going on and we just do our best and again it's real. You know it wouldn't be worth it for me to lose my cool and go off on a manager. While i might get a momentary um, i might get sorry my phone ringing there for a sec, but i might get a momentary uh. You know bit of satisfaction from it, but you know losing a customer because i lost my temper is not a cool thing right, so you have to remember to bite your tongue.

Do what's right, just get it fixed. You know, um, give them an invoice. That's ridiculously big, even though it doesn't matter it's. It seems like every time you make those invoices really big.

It still doesn't, doesn't help because you're still frustrated. You know that you had to ruin your dinner or whatever it is to go out there, but it is what it is guys so, hopefully uh when and if we get that evaporator we'll get some footage putting that in. But it's so important on these things too. To always double check, it's such a trip that that heater failed right, because you i saw it on video.

I had video footage that it was working and then all of a sudden - it's not you know, and it's like we've seen it two. No three times we've gone in there and tested current on that heater and it's been working fine, but then all of a sudden this one time it wasn't and it's like what the heck is going on. You know it's just really frustrating so, like i said we're. Gon na change out the whole coil, um and uh, you know the condensed unit on the roof should be good.

I'll re, i'm gon na fix all that electrical at that condensing unit too. All the stupid wires running through there we're gon na fix all that and make it look half ass decent. So i really appreciate you guys making it to the end and listen to my rambling and babbling um. Remember, if you guys have any interest in supporting the channel there's a couple different ways to do so.

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