Ah, it's time to chill out and get ready for a mediocre q, a live stream if you're old enough grab yourself your favorite adult beverage and if you're not stick with apple juice, put your feet up and relax. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the chat and now, let's queue up the intro music, so yo. What is up my friends and yes, i know i have hair. I know it freaks people out that i actually grow hair.

I'm gon na get a million emails and comments that i have hair. It's so funny uh a couple months ago. I don't know like a month ago or something the first time i took my hat off and i had hair my wife's brother even emailed me. He might be watching today, but yeah.

He messaged my wife, because everybody was freaking out because nobody yeah, i have hair. I broke the internet. No, hopefully you guys are doing well. Um been talking in the chat a little bit here, man, what a just a firestorm of work.

I i don't like it's so hard to even keep track of the days. It's just been mind numbing, just over and over and over again it's like eat, sleep repeat, you guys ever feel like the movie groundhog day, where he wakes up to sunny and share every morning on the alarm clock, bill, murray does and it's you know, eat rinse, Repeat: eat rinse, repeat like it's just like over and over same like my alarm, goes off the same time. Every day i make the same cup of coffee. I get up.

I go to bed, you know it's just like blah. It's crazy! It's mind, numbing this. This craziness right now and of course, like everybody else, every other hvac company out there i'm short staffed overworked. You know i have.

I mean it's good and bad news, but i had one of my best: customers call me and uh that i've you know worked with for 20 plus years and they they're like yeah um, we're gon na start preventative maintenances again and it's like they haven't done. Pm's. Terry, thank you so very much um for the super chat there, but that's awesome, terry um, but yeah. So it's it's good news that they're gon na start a pm program, but i service like 38 of their restaurants and it's like holy crap.

I haven't done pms for them in like 10 years. I don't even know like i don't have the staff for it like, but they they're not going to start it till after the summer. So that's a plus at least i have that to aim for, but it's nuts right now. So oh man, i don't know about cool down.

We don't have no cool down jason. It's i mean. I don't know it was a hundred today. So i guess that's kind of a cool down um.

Our average has been about 100 to 110. You know i want to clarify something too. I know not as many people watch these live streams as watch the videos, but i do not live in the coachella valley. A lot of people think that i live in the palm springs area.

Coachella valley, i don't. I just go out there every once in a while to service it. It takes me like two hours to get out there from where i'm at i'm from riverside california, so um yeah, i service, coachella valley and that's where every once in a while people see me post like pictures when it's like 123 degrees outside or something like that. But yeah it's nuts man just trying to keep up with the calls and we're way behind on uh um.

What the heck is that, oh, my wife was texting me we're way behind on service calls we're about a week to a week and a half behind on service calls right now, so we've been prioritizing walk-in, freezers, walking, coolers air conditioner calls and ice machine calls, and Then, like reaching cooler, calls kind of get the back burner because majority of the restaurants have multiple reach and coolers. They can do without one. But it's even getting to the point that, like i, went to an overtime service call over the weekend for a walk-in freezer down and uh they're like yeah. Are you here for my regions too, and they had like three regions down? I was like no like i'll see you next week.

You know i just can't even keep up, but it's a good thing to have right, because last year, during the lockdown and everything you know we were dead. So take it when you can get it. I guess is what it is, so: hey uh welcome to the live stream, everybody um for those that are new, because i know we get a lot of new viewers every single time and i invite a lot of new people to the live stream. So my name is chris: i'm an hvac service technician here in southern california and you obviously found my youtube channel.

So i make these videos just to share the little bit of knowledge that i have. Okay, i'm not the best service technician. I don't know everything i make mistakes all the time and i try to show those mistakes as much as possible to let people know that we're all human okay, we all make mistakes. The most important thing is is that if you do make a mistake, you want to try to learn from it: okay and that's what i try to do as much as possible, so um yeah, i brain fart there for a second.

But if you guys have any questions or things that you want me to cover, do me a favor, put the question in the chat and put it in caps lock. It helps me to see what's going on in there. Okay, as usual, i have a list of questions that i gathered from emails and youtube comments and then i'll definitely get to the live stream questions too. So um, let me see what we got here: uh yeah uh! No, i'm not gon na! Well, i don't know.

I don't think i want to grow a mullet. I don't think so. That's not my style. I had a mullet when i was a kid.

I got pictures of myself when i was a kid with hair down behind my back yeah. That was like a thing. My my left ear pierced all that good stuff, so all right um. So let me look through the chat here right now, just kind of seeing who's in here lots of familiar faces.

That's cool lots of new faces. So that's awesome, um well right on! Thank you for the nice words there jason johnson, okay, how much have i seen materials go up, yeah we've seen materials and wait times for parts and all kinds of stuff like that. Go up honestly guys. I see these posts in social media groups all the time with people like yes, i'm bummed out that material prices are going up.

Okay, but i see these desperate posts. What am i going to do? The prices are going too high. What do i do? What do i do? This is, what am i going to tell the customer? I mean i just mark my parts up a certain percentage, whatever i pay for them. So as the price goes up, the price gets passed on to the customer.

I do not absorb any price increases whatsoever. Now, i'm on the commercial side, i know commercials a little bit different than residential, but even on residential you shouldn't be absorbing any price increases at all. Okay, you should be passing along price increases to the customer immediately. So refrigerant is going up daily, my prices for refrigerant change daily, because it's going up, i mean i can't you know not pass that on to the customer, i'm not absorbing anything so yeah it goes to the end user.

So when refrigerant prices go up, i think r22s over 800 dollars a cylinder for a 30 pound cylinder right now over 800 dollars. My cost it's you know so i mean that gets passed on to the customer. It is what it is. In fact, i went to a walk-in cooler service call.

Over the weekend i had to sell 20 pounds of r22. You know after markup that was a pretty pricey um walk-in charge. You know, but they've got new equipment. The customer doesn't want us to repair it.

They want us to install new equipment, but here's the thing i can't install the new equipment right now because i just got to keep up with service calls, so it is what it is. The last time i put gas in it was four or five months ago. So just keep doing it storm. Thank you so very much for a super for that super chat man.

That is amazing um. So he says it's been a while since he's been on the stream and that he appreciates sharing of the knowledge and still putting out quality content and he's asking any tips for diagnosing a blast. Chiller. You asked about a year ago and figured you'd ask for an update about a blast chiller.

Well, you know i haven't worked on a blast chiller in a long time, but i mean i'm not intimidated by them at all. The only tricky thing about blast chillers is that usually they have some proprietary technology. So if you guys don't understand what a blast chiller is, okay, they can range in sizes. They could be small where they can just push a card into.

They could be a giant walk-in cooler, but essentially what it is. It is a massively oversized refrigeration system that typically has a lot of airflow when it is in the blast, chiller mode. Okay, so they'll typically have like a standard operation where it operates as a normal cooler and then you'll have like turbo mode that you put it in a blast chill mode and what it's trying to do is it tries to bring large quantities of food down to Temperature, in a very short amount of time, okay, so that's why they call it a blast chiller. It will it'll be insane like how big the refrigeration equipment typically is on.

That and it'll have a lot of fan motors and it's really going to bring that temperature down fast. So when you're working on those oftentimes, they will have, depending on what manufacturer, some sort of proprietary technology control, schematic or control board different things like that. I mean if you get into the older ones, they were super basic, but it's not very often that you see those anymore. So some of the newer ones will have some super fancy like thermometer, probes and it'll have multiple probes right.

So that way, you can put it in multiple pieces of the food, usually like some sort of chicken after it's cooked or something like that. You'll insert these probes into all the different pieces of product and it will aggressively try to bring down all that product and then it'll, slowly, um slow down the refrigeration refrigeration. You know like the blast. Chiller function as the food gets closer to product temperature, but essentially what they're trying to do is bring the temperature down within a matter of minutes versus you know, six, seven hours or whatever it be.

I have a lot of customers that try to use their walk-in cooler, a walk-in freezer, which unfortunately, is not really designed for that. So i have customers that'll cook an entire. You know tray full of ribs and then they want to push them into the walk-in freezer. Right out of the oven - and it's like guys, stop that you know that's not what this is made for so as far as tips for troubleshooting the blast, freezers or blast coolers or blast chillers, whatever you want to call them um it's it's really about talking to The manufacturer, okay, it's going to be a basic refrigeration system.

It's typically going to have a condensing unit, one or two condensing units, depending on the the setup and it's going to have a site glass, a dryer and an expansion valve you're, typically not going to see a blast chiller with a capillary tube system. So obviously, you want to make sure that it's got the proper amount of refrigerant, and this is all basic stuff, but i'm just kind of covering the basics. You want to make sure it has the proper amount of refrigerant in it. You're going to need to have a clear, solid sight glass whenever the system's operating at full capacity, but really it's about leaning on the manufacturer and talking to the manufacturer and finding out what their different control strategies are.

Again, some of them have those funky circuit boards that are looking for product temperature and different things like that. So you want to definitely lean on the manufacturer when it comes to those blast chillers. Unfortunately, several of the blast chillers that i've worked on in the past were foreign made like they were from france or different places like that and yeah. It was a little tricky having to to deal with troubleshooting.

So when it comes to some of those you know yeah, you really got to use your technical skills and try to figure it out. I would really really push the customer away from buying some of that foreign made stuff that doesn't have good technical support and or good literature written in english that we can understand. You know it's kind of tricky to work on that stuff, but you know sometimes you got to do what you got to do, but i you know, and the parts typically are extremely expensive too um like special propriety, especially the ones uh, the the the one that I'm thinking of right now that i used to work on that was from france. It had like a proprietary motor that was from some european country, and it was really difficult to to change like a condenser fan motor over to an aftermarket one, because just the the mounting way - and it was just really a pain in it.

But as as far as i remember, but it's really about leaning on the manufacturer is really what it is. If you can okay and then obviously just looking at the basic refrigeration functions, making sure all the fan motors are working making sure the coils are clean, making sure the refrigerant charge is correct. If you have a refrigeration system with an expansion valve and a receiver bottom line, when that system is running free and clear of any ice or any dirty, condensers or dirty evaporators, that sight glass needs to be clear bottom line: okay, obviously, okay, now when i say This i get a lot of pushback, sometimes from people about oh well, don't push sight glasses, being clear and all that stuff, because it can be uh. You know people get confused by that.

When i say you need to clear the sight glass that it's not just a walk in there put refrigerant in until the sight glass is clear and walk away. You obviously you need to use some common sense. You need to watch it watch the system operating. Are you flooding back to the compressor you know? Do we need an expansion valve adjustment that kind of stuff, so i'm assuming that people have common sense when i say to clear the sight, glass? Okay, remember that the whole point of these videos that i started making them in these live streams is i do them for my own service technicians, okay, and never do i want to take away someone's job.

So while i fully support intuitive business owners and intuitive homeowners trying to fix their own stuff - hey, that's so be it, but there's a time and place when you need to call a service technician. Okay, so i purposely leave certain parts out of my videos. I don't want to give all the information out there, okay, because i don't want to take anybody's job away, i'm assuming that majority of the people that are watching my videos have some sort of mechanical common sense and can understand the things that i leave out, because I don't want to set up a step-by-step video, showing everybody how to do the entire process. Okay, i'm totally okay with people learning how to fix their own equipment.

That then so be it. But you do have to jump through a few hoops and you got to read some manufacturer's information. Some of the stuff that i leave out might be for liability reasons like i've gotten many questions from people. Why don't you show me how to set up my torches? Why don't you show me what pressures to set it out? Why don't you show me what tip to use and all this different stuff yeah, that's a massive liability thing.

I'm not gon na give you guys a step by step. This is how you set your pressure. Gauge this is how you turn your torch on, because if i give you something incorrect, i don't want to get sued for that you know, so i do have to leave some things out, but now that i went off on a rant, i hope that i answered A little bit of your question storm, i know that you know i didn't give a total explanation there, but all right, um, storm, you're, saying a 300 probe probes. A pop on this charleston also had to install a 3 500 touch screen controller on it to get it to work.

Spendy is an understatement, exactly storm and that that is the stuff that i ran into. I've worked on some troll since too, and it's nuts how expensive they are. It really is - and it's funny too, because the ones that i worked on, i haven't worked on one in years, but it's funny how much those parts cost the circuit board and different things and then, like the user interface was so rudimentary. It was like really, they paid this much money for this crap and it's like the.

I was working on a a refrigerator today it was a dell field unit and it had a bad evaporator fan motor and i pulled out the evaporative fan motor and it was the cheapest piece of junk. It was like a little plastic axial fan motor like out of a computer like it felt like it was out of a computer and it's like wow. They really have resorted to some cheap parts and that's happening all across the board. Um and and that's another thing too, you know you see the prices of everything going up and while i'm okay with you know, because there's a supply demand and different things like that prices, it's inevitable they're going to have to go up, but some of this stuff, Like some of these, manufacturers are on crack when they want to charge this much for a part and you're like you, could literally sometimes use your brain and go get an aftermarket part.

That is the exact same part, like literally the part number on it. Like a co, i think someone posted on one of the social media groups that they needed to order a special oem contactor from the manufacturer, and they showed a picture of the contactor. It was just a mars contactor. It had a mars oem number on it and he paid hundreds of dollars for that contactor and you literally look it up and it's the exact same contactor you can buy from the supply house like like for like for 30 bucks.

You know - and it's like. Oh, my gosh, these manufacturers are getting. Some of them are getting away with highway robbery, really it's kind of crazy, so um. I wanted to start this stream out with a rant.

Okay, i see it so often that people - and i am going to do a video on this like a short or something like that, because i want to get the information out there. Okay, when it comes to working with refrigerants. Okay, bottom line do not mix refrigerants period; guys do not mix them. Okay, the only time it would be acceptable to mix refrigerants is if it's at the um, the instructions of the manufacturer.

Okay and what i mean by that, if any of you guys have ever done hospital work or scientific refrigeration work, okay, you will find that some of the ultra low refrigerators that hold vaccines and medicines and blood and different things like that, they will have proprietary mixtures Of refrigerant the manufacturer has had engineers come in there and specify you put this much of this and like five different refrigerants. Even then, i'm not a fan of mixing refrigerants. I will typically ask the manufacturer to send a pre-mixed blend to me that i don't have to mess with okay, but when it comes to working on refrigerators or air conditioners, it is never acceptable to drop refrigerant. On top of another refrigerant - and i say, drop because a lot of people get confused with the term drop-in.

Okay, the term drop-in originally started back. When we had blends that were replacing r12 and r502 okay and the term drop-in came in because what it meant was, you could replace the r12 with, let's just say 409a. That was the one that i used all the time you could replace it with 409a and 409a was considered a drop in refrigerant. That did not mean that you dropped 409 on top of r12.

That meant that you pulled out the r12 and you put 409a without making any major system modifications. Okay, even then there were some caveats to that too. Okay, so the term drop in is a little bit misleading, but it is never acceptable for you to put 407c on top of r22 or insert name of whatever flavor of r22 replacement. You want to say, you do not mix them.

Okay, if you mix the refrigerants you're setting yourself and the next guy up for a headache, understand something that a lot of these new refrigerants have hydrocarbon components added to them: okay, flammable refrigerants mixing them. You don't know. What's going on you're, potentially setting someone up for a potentially dangerous situation, and especially if you are changing the refrigerants, you need to mark it okay, so that way, the next technician knows what refrigerant is in there. What you will find is that some of these blends that are meant to replace r22 have a very similar pressure temperature relationship at certain temperatures right, so it can be hard to differentiate between r22 and 407c at certain temperatures, so that makes it even more difficult.

Okay, so don't mix refrigerants guys? Okay, if you have an r22 system that you're going to use an alternative flavor for you take out the r22 and you follow the manufacturer's installation instructions. Okay, be very careful about using some of these refrigerants that the supply houses claim work really. Well, you guys need to do your own research. I've had my own headaches with r22 replacements uh, honestly, i'm not using any right now, i'm still using r22 to this day.

Okay, but as the prices go up, i'm having to really start thinking about doing some change, overs and things like that, and that is where i'm gon na reach out to my buddy ralph over at honeywell refrigerants. Okay, i don't know if ralph's in here i'm not really paying attention to the chat right now, but he will often come in the live chat. If you guys any of you guys in the chat, have questions about uh, changing the refrigerants over and or replacements, and what to do? I want you to email, my buddy ralph over at honeywell refrigerants, and he can help you out. Okay, i have no affiliation with ralph he's, just a really cool dude that made contact with me.

You want to know. The funny thing is: is that ralph the way that ralph and i got in contact? Was he watched one of my videos and i did something that wasn't quite right? Okay, and what i mean by that was, i was using uh r404a refrigerant when there was actually a new law that had come out in california that i didn't know about. That said, i wasn't allowed to use r404 and ralph was a really nice guy. He wasn't rude about it or anything like that.

He he reached through the grapevine he got a hold of brian orr. I think, and then brian gave him my number and then ralph got a hold of me and just educated me on these new laws that passed in california that i was ignorant to. Okay, i didn't know so ralph's a really cool dude again, i have no affiliation other than just being a nice dude and helping me out whenever i had questions about refrigerants and different things like that, so reach out to my buddy ralph, the most important thing i'm Going to tell you guys is when it comes to refrigerants. You guys need to do your own research.

Do not trust the supply houses when they tell you oh yeah, that works good, just put it on r22 drop it on top and it works. Fine, don't listen to them, okay, and also don't listen to the supply houses when they say this is the best refrigerant out there. It's okay to use their opinion and keep it in one part of your brain. But you also need to do some research yourself.

Every and it's been a while since i've researched any alternative refrigerants, but everyone that i have researched. If you read the fine print, they specifically tell you that they work best with polyester oil, okay, plain and simple, so bottom line. If you're gon na do a retrofit, read the installation instructions read the manufacturer's installation instructions, google, it yourself and read what it has to say: okay, keep in mind that some of the drop-ins for r22 or insert bright, you know flavor, whatever refrigerant work better at certain Conditions and worse at other conditions, so make sure you read that information. Okay, i'm going to leave it at that and let's go ahead and get on with some more questions in here.

So, let's see what else we got in here, um, let's see uh, don't uh, replace recorder all right um, seeing what i'm missing in here uh. It doesn't look like i'm missing much, so i'm gon na go ahead and get to some more questions in here. All right, um, so uh carrier units. So i get this question all the time.

So i had a youtube question from someone and i work on a lot of carrier package units and i again i get this all the time. Why don't the manufacturers put a chase nipple in some of the electrical areas where the wires pass through the metal panels? Okay, they actually do it's hard to see on camera, but a lot of the carrier units they actually have a recessed little piece of metal. That's stamped so that way the wires can pass through it without it having a chase nipple on it, so the wires actually are protected. Now it really depends on the person, that's doing the installation of the equipment, so you need to look at it and i wish i had a picture right now, but if you look at the metal, it's not just flat metal with a hole drilled through it.

It's been stamped to where it has a rounded edge and the wires are meant to run through it, and it's kind of like a semi chase nipple on its own. You do have to pay attention because there is other places in the electrical cabinet where you need to have a chase nipple. Okay, a chase nipple would be something that would go through um, an electrical passageway and it has a rounded beveled edge to it. So that way, the wires don't rub out on sharp surfaces.

Okay, so just keep that in mind and then there's also some other fittings that you can use on the back side of a chase nipple like a plastic connector. That kind of keeps it protected too. So um, let's see premixed lenses like pfc, 1100 and pfc 550 are 12 to 1600. A jug for some cryo chillers sometimes takes more than one jug yeah.

So i've never done a lot of cryo unit. Actually, i've never done any cryo units. I've done a few ultra low ones where they had like two component refrigerants anything that had more than that. I would tell them to get a hold of someone that specializes in that stuff, but yeah when you work on the ultra low stuff and some of the medical scientific stuff, they do have some weird proprietary blends.

So it's very interesting and they'll have specific instructions on mixing the refrigerants too. Like add this refrigerant - and this refrigerant first then add that it's it's really weird so, but yeah just don't mix refrigerants bottom line, guys: okay, um, let's see uh jason johnson, says copeland doesn't approve mo 99 in any of their compressors. Unless it's a discus semi-hermetic and you bring up a good point jason, so a lot of manufacturers of these refrigerants will use deceptive marketing. Okay, they will say approve, but they won't tell you what manufacture or they'll say copeland approved.

Well, like jason, said, one refrigerant might be approved for a certain compressor, but that's it. It doesn't mean it's approved across the board. Okay, so be very cautious about that stuff. It's interesting because and again it's been a while, since i've done some research, but i was working on a train.

Um intellipack, like a big package unit, a couple years back, probably about five years ago four years ago, and i had a customer that it had a refrigerant leak, and so i had quoted him to repair and he goes. You know what dude he goes. You are way too expensive. I had another guy come in and he said this and i said that's fine, no problem.

You can use the other guy. I said, but just be weary, because at the time train had literature trained the actual supply house, they have their own supply house right. They have literature that says warranty will be void if any alternative refrigerants. Now, to this day it may have changed, but back then their literature specifically said this compressor's warranty will be void.

If you use an alternative refrigerant, okay, they didn't want you doing anything. I found it ironic, though, at the time because trane was selling alternative refrigerants and they weren't even selling r22 anymore at the supply house at the time, or something like that they were selling alternative, refrigerants and pushing them. But yet the manufacturer's installation instructions said that it would void the warranty okay. Now you and i both know that a technician could probably figure out how to charge a system up and how would trane really know if you use the wrong refrigerant or different things like that, but it's just easier just to follow the manufacturer's instructions.

Make your life easier, okay, kair! Thank you. So very much for that super chat. Your question uh. Can a compressor also be considered a sterling engine uh? Is there an education kit for those who want to learn more about hvac um? If you want to learn more about hvac, i would encourage you to go over to my buddy brian's website.

It's hvacrschool.com okay check out his website. He also has a youtube channel called hvac school brian has a lot of beginner to intro information and videos and tech notes and different things like that. If you're interested in getting a foot in the door in hvac, that would be a good way to learn a little bit and brian does a really good job of breaking down basic components and theory and different things like that much better than i can ever do So i'd encourage you to go over there. What happens if you run an air defrost on a walk-in freezer? Would it become a bigger issue, air defrost, on a walk-in freezer? Well, let's break that one down and think about it: a walk-in freezer, the typical general product, walk-in freezer, will run to a space temperature of negative 10 degrees for most part.

Okay, if they want to keep ice cream in there, it's going to be negative, 10 degrees. All right, so, if it's at negative 10 degrees and your evaporator has a 10 degree td, that means your evaporator temperature is going to be negative. 20 degrees. Okay.

So if you tried to do an off cycle defrost on a walk-in freezer that had a negative 10 degree space temperature - let's say you shut off the refrigeration system, then you're moving air across that evaporator trying to defrost it. But the problem is: is that ice forms at 32 degrees, fahrenheit, okay, we're keeping it at negative 10 degrees, fahrenheit, so turning it off and just cycling air across it? It's not going to do a single thing because you're cycling, air, that's colder than freezing across that evaporator. That's why we will often have to use a hot gas defrost and or an electric defrost on walk-in freezers. Okay got ta, really think about it, and it's pretty basic once you break it down on a walk-in cooler that maintains a 35-degree space temperature.

The evaporator is going to get down to 25 degrees when it's running, but in the off cycle. When, when it's not calling for cooling, we can bring the temperature up to 40 degrees, which is well above 32 degrees, which is the freezing point. So we can cycle air so in a walking cooler. It is very common for us to use an off cycle defrost, meaning that it's just going to circulate air across it, but on a freezer.

The space temperature is too cold to do an off cycle defrost. So you have to do some sort of an electric and or hot gas defroster try to melt any condensation or frost, buildup and frost buildup on a freezer is inevitable. You have to have electric defrost or hot gas defrost built into it typically about four times a day, sometimes more anywhere from 28 minutes to 45 minute defrost, so yeah. Hopefully that answers your question for you all right, um, let's see what else we got in here.

Uh uh already answered that one okay cool so um. I answered this question now um. I had an interesting question from another person that is uh not an hvac technician, but he just had a genuine question and i am totally open to non-hvac technicians asking questions. I'm cool with it, let's go for it.

Send me an email, hvacr videos, gmail.com, leave a comment on a video put it in the live stream, i'm totally cool with it. So his question was: can you use dye to find leaks like they do in automotive, air conditioning? Yes, you can use dye, i don't like using dye. Dye makes a mess. Most people don't know how to properly use dye and or depending on the compressor manufacturer.

You might void a warranty if you use dye. Okay, i avoid using dye at all. I do have some in my van. It has probably been a good five years since i've used it.

I can count on my hands how many times i've used dye in my career and it always ends up in a mess, meaning that when you take off your service gauges, it sprays everywhere. It's just a nightmare, avoid diet all costs, in my opinion, okay, but who knows, i could just be a dummy. I know a lot of people use dye with great success. I just don't like it because it makes a nasty mess and it sprays crap everywhere and yeah.

I just don't like it: okay, um, so that answers that question uh chris had asked me this. Is this one? I got a lot too. Actually chris asked me why don't i install a filter on my refrigeration racks to keep all the dirt from going to the condenser and plugging it up? Okay, the size of the filter that you would have to install to pass the proper amount of air across that refrigeration rack's condenser would have to be huge, we're talking bigger than six inches, because the amount of air that flows across that condenser is pretty high. So installing filters on there they would plug up within a day no joke moving air across there.

So yeah i mean it's a good concept, installing some sort of air filtration, but that would imply that the customers actually have you come out and routinely change those filters. So now we just leave no filters and i will do the same too. If i have restaurants that are not doing preventative maintenance, i will actually take the filters off of the self-contained condensers because they plug up too fast and just turn into nuisance. Service calls too.

So hopefully that answers your question for you. Let me go ahead and see what else we got in here. Um jason had asked me what's up with the cheesy music for my braising montage, you know i just like to have fun with my videos. Sometimes uh, 80s.

Music does something for me like the electronic, syntho or techno, whatever electronic music synthesizer crap. I don't know it just hits me in a spot or something like that and reminds me of some childhood thing or something like that that i like so i i just like to put music in every once in a while. I don't do it all the time. It is what it is.

It's just an expression of the way that i feel at the time that i made the video so uh. Oh this one. I got a lot. Okay in my recent video uh, i swear the cooks and their drawers.

That's what it was titled uh. I changed the compressor that was actually this. Last saturday, video started on friday and ended on saturday. It was the beginning of my marathon service called day because saturday, i think i worked 12 hours on saturday.

It was a long day. The question was when i was testing the compressor. Did i check the potential relay and actually yes i did. Unfortunately, i don't always get everything on camera when i'm diagnosing and different things like that, but it is very important if you are working on a single phase, compressor that has starting components in my situation that was going off on locked, rotor, amps, okay, it is very Important to make sure that you check the potential relay or the current relay, whichever style it has to make sure that the start capacitor is dropping out of the circuit properly, because if you don't drop the start, capacitor out and you're feeding the start winding.

All the time it will go off on locked, rotor, amp thermal overload and blow the breaker okay. So, in my situation, yes, i did and the way that you would check a potential relay is by just doing a voltage check across it. Okay, if you check the terminals, you can look at a schematic and you can test it. You can see when the capacitor is in the circuit and when it drops out, so i measured and verified that the capacitor was being fed.

So the start capacitor was sending voltage to the compressor and then it was dropping out, but the compressor still wasn't starting okay. So, yes, i did check that and i even tried to replace the start capacitor because it was reading high. For some reason there was something funky going on there, so i used one of those amrad universal start, capacitors, just a single capacitor by itself wired it into the circuit made sure that we had the proper capacitance we did and it still wouldn't start. So.

Yes, i did check that before i change the compressor so um. Let's look at the chat. How often do i get a service call way away from my service area? I dude i i don't know how to answer that question i mean it's it's hard to say. We get them sometimes.

Sometimes we don't. I mean you know i don't know, but all right uh. How often do i change my vacuum? Pump. Oil uh joe.

I change it whenever it needs to be changed. So i use the field piece. Uh vpx7 vacuum pump before that it was the vp85 and both of them have a clear reservoir that you can see the vacuum pump oil. Now i'm not talking about a little sight glass on the end of the vacuum pump.

That has a tiny little thing, because those sight glasses are super misleading. There's a couple manufacturers that use those and, if you ever have one, if you guys have one of those pumps look at what the color of the oil is in the sight, glass and then pour the oil into a cup and it'll be a totally different color. Okay, so the sight glasses are so misleading, but when you use the clear reservoirs, a field piece has a clear reservoir and then appion has a clear reservoir too. It's a lot easier to see the oil, but not only are we looking for the clarity of the oil, but we're also looking at the performance of the evacuation.

So when you're using a micron gauge, you can actually tell that hey the vacuum's stalling out. It's not pulling down anymore. Let's try changing the oil, you change the oil, then, all of a sudden, you see the micron levels start dropping again. If the oil gets saturated with enough moisture, it won't be able to drop the level of the vacuum very efficiently anymore.

Okay, so it really depends on each evacuation. I would say at a minimum. I change it every two to three uses um. By going to some of these newer style vacuum pumps, you don't have to add a whole quart of oil or anything like that.

I buy oil by the pint. Now it's tiny little containers and you just put it - won't even take a whole pint in the field piece pump: it's a tiny amount, so it's super easy to do it and change it, and it's not a big deal at all. All right, let me see what else we got in here um, it was not you jason johnson. Don't worry! I see that uh.

What's the purpose of changing vacuum pump oil so often well, i kind of just explained it uh, it's jay, leroy lacy! Is it's really about the contamination of the oil? Okay? Once the oil gets contaminated with so much moisture, it's it doesn't help in dropping of the micron levels of the system anymore. So once it gets contaminated, you change it out and then you'll find that your vacuum pump will perform better all right. How often do i get customers due to my videos? Never i've had a few people email me because of my videos and asked me to service them, but i'll be honest with you since i started youtube in 2017 i haven't taken on. I don't think i've taken on any new customers since 2017..

I i can't think that i, i don't think i have um. I haven't been able to keep up since 2017 with the workload that i have today so jose rivera. Thank you. So very much for that super chat.

You guys, you guys humble me with your guys's support and i'm so thankful for it. Okay, i have to say that every single time you guys the easiest way to support this channel is simply watch the videos from start to finish without skipping through anything. Okay. By doing that, you allow youtube to pay me.

Okay, you guys are super generous, there's other ways to support it too. You can, you can donate via super chat. Like some people have you can donate via paypal, uh, youtube channel memberships, uh. You can go to my website hvacrvideos.com and you can buy hats and shirts and different things like that, but i will continue to make these videos with or without the support.

The support is greatly appreciated. But if you don't it's okay guys, i will continue to share the little bit of knowledge that i have with you um and but but you guys just humbled me so much okay, uh i! I am a big proponent of sharing knowledge. There was a a comment recently on a somewhere on facebook from someone and he posted something along the lines of you know. He was asking a question if and i don't think he was directing it at me.

He was just asking it in general in a group, but he said you know how do you guys feel about these guys, sharing information on youtube and uh? You know i kind of started politely talking back and forth with him, and he his argument was that he paid a lot of money for his his education and he didn't find it healthy for me to give that education away for free uh, vegas hvacr guy holy Moly, thank you so very much. I believe. That's chad, vegas hvacr guy right. I believe you are chad if i remember right and thank you so very much for that super chat.

That is amazing. So this other guy that i was talking with you know he felt that because he paid so much money for his education, that it shouldn't be given away for free on youtube. You know: i'm not sharing everything. I'm gon na share my knowledge, no matter what and him and i parted ways.

You know i was fine. You know i mean i knew i wasn't gon na change his mind and he wasn't gon na change my mind and you know it's. Okay, it's okay! For us to have different opinions, but i'm gon na continue to share what little bit of knowledge that i have in hopes that maybe you guys won't make the same mistakes as i have, because i've made some really bad mistakes. I've made mistakes that if i made them today, i would lose customers.

I mean i work for myself, but if i worked for someone else, i could potentially get fired. Those are the mistakes that i made early in my career. So if i can keep someone from doing those same things that i did and maybe save them from getting fired, i'm going to do so because i just like to help anyone fix rtu carrier, train plugged metering devices, solutions, heating, pistons, replace coil, open and clean each Orifice on header, so rainbow gypsy 71 is asking about the accurate style metering, devices on train and carrier units or fixed orifice or accurate headers or whatever. You want to call them train and carrier.

Both have this style where they have a liquid line going into the evaporator with multiple. It's got a liquid header temperatures, which leads to oil breakdown. When the oil starts to break down it, will it can start to wipe crap off the walls inside the system? It can start to get dirty and as it flows through the system, it'll start to restrict its or restrict the orifices right. The fixed orifice metering devices so have i ever cleared a fixed orifice metering device successfully.

No, i have not successfully cleared a fixed orifice metering device. I have tried using nitrogen i've, tried heating up with the torch and different things like that. It has gotten better, but it has never cleared it completely. In my experience, the only way to properly and fully clear a fixed, orifice metering device - that's on a multiple header, like the accurate style, is to replace the metering device.

Okay, i have two units right now that i will be making videos about when i do it. Uh, where i'm just going to change the whole evaporator uh, because you can buy the liquid header with like the multiple places and you got to get in there and cut them and braze them in the easiest way, is just change the whole evaporator. These are five ton units they're easy, so i'm gon na be doing two of those and i'm gon na have two evaporators. So i'll do some experiments, cutting up the metering devices and playing with them, and maybe we can do some experiments about trying to clear them when it's out of the system and different things like that.

Hopefully that answers your question. If i say anything that anybody has questions about, if i'm not paying attention to the chat enough, if i'm not seeing your questions feel free to send me an email to hvacr videos, gmail.com - and i will try to get back with you - okay, all right. Let's see what else we got in here, looking for questions, remember if you have questions, make sure you put them in caps, lock so mario says what causes cylinders filling up with oil and locking up the compressor. I don't know about cylinders filling up with oil um, but i i don't know about that question, but i will say what causes um uh damaging compressors uh, i wouldn't say, is so much oil.

I've never seen a cylinder fill up with oil. Okay, i don't. I don't know the answer to that one, but i will say that liquid migration can be a problem. Uh in the off cycle, refrigerant and colder climates and stuff will tend to migrate to the compressor.

So you have to have some sort of means of mitigation to try to prevent that liquid from migrating to the compressor crank case heaters, solenoid valves in the off cycle. Different things like that proper refrigerant charge and proper piping practices will definitely help with that. But as far as cylinders filling up with oil - mario, i'm sorry - i don't have an answer to that question, but um my buddy ralph is in here right now. So i see - i don't know if you were in here earlier ralph uh, but i was talking about mixing refrigerants.

So ralph is dallas fan again. I posted his email. If you guys have any questions, refrigerant, related, uh, alternatives, r22410a404 feel free to send ralph. I just put his email in the chat right now: okay, so at the beginning of this and i'll cover it again, i wanted i went off on a little bit of rant about mixing refrigerants.

Never is it acceptable to mix refrigerants uh unless you are instructed to do so by the manufacturer. Okay, now what i mean by that is working on some refrigeration systems and ultra low systems. They might have proprietary blends of refrigerants and they might require a field mixture. That is the only exception to mixing refrigerants in the field when it comes to replacing uh r22 with 407c or insert flavor of refrigerant, you want you, never put the other replacement refrigerant.

On top of the r22 or 404 or whatever you do not do that in the field, guys: okay, we are not engineers you're setting yourself up for failure, you're setting the next guy up for failure. That is not a good thing to do so. Do not mix refrigerants if you guys do have questions feel free to send ralph an email. He can better educate you on some of that stuff.

Okay, um! Let me see what else do i do hot side work? No, i do not don. I only do cold side work uh what causes a compressor to hit 500 psi on a train, scroll restriction or bad compressor, vegas hvacr guy 500, psi on a train scroll, i mean it depends on the outdoor ambient temperature. You know uh, i i wouldn't push a 410a system hitting 500 psi. That doesn't i mean on a really really hot day.

You know just depends uh if it was an r22 system yeah, you got some issues there. So if you have systems like and remember something, sometimes when it's really really hot, you can get jelly brain, it can get hard to remember what you're doing everything takes longer when it's really hot outside when you're working with refrigerants. If you're, if you're working on an air conditioner and it's just not making sense, okay, step back and think about it for a minute step back and stop what you're doing stop adding gas and think about it. Okay in that situation, if i'm working on an air conditioner and the pressures just don't make sense, you know what i'm gon na.

Do i'm gon na go ahead and recover the refrigerant out of the system? Okay, if it's something that i've been working on consistently and it's been my system - and i know nobody else - is working on it - i'm not gon na worry about it being mixed refrigerants. Okay, if my company's been working on it, we don't mix refrigerants. I have confidence in that if it's another company's air conditioner or your a second opinion - or this is the first time you worked on it. The first thing is investigate and think: is it possible that someone mixed refrigerants, okay, recover the refrigerant and start over pull a proper evacuation change? The dryer weigh in new virgin refrigerant and start over now, if i'm struggling with the system - and i know that i've been the only person to work on it, i will recover the refrigerant and then put the same refrigerant back in, but i'll weigh it in.

According to manufacturer's specs, okay just be very cautious about that. But if you have the slightest hunch that someone might have mixed it, there's ways that you can check to see if you have mixed refrigerants, but with some of the the r22 flavors that replace r22 or the the you know replacements. The the pressure temperature relationship is very, very close to r22, so it can be a little bit difficult to use some of the methods, but one of the ways on an air conditioner. If you want to check to see if the refrigerant is what it's supposed to be, what you can do on an air conditioner is you can turn the system off now? This can take some time.

You turn the entire system off. You turn on the indoor blower motor and you turn on the condenser fan motors with no compressors running okay and you open up all the panels to the ac and you let the same air go across the evaporator you let the same air go across the condenser. This needs to happen for about 20 minutes to a half an hour to bring the entire system temperature to the equal to the same thing. So the evaporator air needs to be, and you know the evaporator temperature needs to be the same as the condenser.

Assuming there's. No solenoid valves and different things like that, so this is really only going to work on a package unit. Okay, once you've done that, then you can put your gauges on the system and you can look at your static pressures. Your static pressures are going to be the standing pressures without the compressor running again, assuming that there's no restrictions, no solenoid valves, and then you can compare that.

Looking at the outdoor ambient temperature, the air going across the evaporator and the condenser. And if you look at a pressure chart, your pressure should be dead on with the temperature of the outdoor air. Okay, but again that doesn't always work, and you really have to use your brain when doing that to assume that there's, no solenoid valves that's not necessarily going to work on a walk-in cooler unless you really open up all the solenoid valves and it's not very practical On split systems, because how do you get the evaporator to be the exact same temperature as the condenser on a split system? Doesn't really add up? That's really only going to work on a package unit and even then it's not as practical and it can be a little difficult. That's where digital gauges will really come into play because on an analog scale, it can be hard to get down to the exact pressure.

But on a digital scale, as long as it's calibrated and working properly, you can get a lot closer, but even still with some of these replacements for r22 can be a little bit difficult because the pressure temperature relationship can be like within you know, a psi or Two, so keep that in mind all right uh. Let me see what else we got going on in here. Hopefully that answers your question. Um, i'm looking to see if i miss anything else.

Why are some poe compressors approved for r22 uh, pat you're, going to find that pretty much every replacement compressor out there now is going to be multi-refrigerant. Poe oil works fine with r22. So, there's nothing wrong with that. So if you buy a new compressor today, majority of the time it's going to come with polyester oil or poe oil in it, okay majority of the time and uh it's safe to use with r22, so long as it's rated for r22.

So keep that in mind. Okay, um, let me see what else we got going on here when i install an aftermarket condenser fan motor. Do i take steps to make it look? Oem, cyborg, sheep? Well, there's only so much you can do with an aftermarket condenser fan motor to make it look. Oem, but obviously the way you install it, you want to install it the best i don't like using aftermarket condenser fan motors.

If i can, i prefer to use an oem for a couple different reasons. The biggest is the stack on the motor. The height of the motor typically is too tall, so that puts the blade too far down in the shroud. So that way it starts to recirculate air instead of blow it out of the shroud.

So keep that in mind when you're using aftermarket, i try to use oem and i always look for an excuse to change aftermarket motors to an oem motor whenever possible.