So, 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 hello. How are you guys doing? Hopefully, you guys are all doing pretty good um, i'm doing all right over here works. Picking up, you know getting a little bit busier every day, it's still not back to like full normal stuff, but you know everybody's been working every day, so that's a plus and starting to get to the point where i have.

You know a bunch of things that i need to work on like today. I was working in the office doing quotes and i didn't get to get everything out that i wanted to. So that is a good sign that we're picking up to the point that i can't keep up with the office work um. So, let's just hope it keeps getting better and better.

Hopefully, it's getting better for you, guys where you're at um. I want to start this off and uh. Let everybody know you know the different ways that um you guys can communicate with me uh. You know.

A lot of people will send me emails to my email, hvcr at gmail.com. There's a couple different youtube channels that i'm associated with the hvac overtime channel, the hvacr tools youtube channel, there's every one of my videos. All the information is in the show notes. Okay, so there's links to hvac overtime, hvacr tools, this channel uh discord server.

We have a discord server and i will admit that i am not very active lately in the discord server. It's just one of the things that i haven't been able to keep up with okay, but we do have a discord server. My buddy ike runs it for me um and uh. You know sometimes i'll hang out.

I shouldn't even say. Sometimes i used to hang out before the stream, but i just haven't been able to do that. Lately, i'm going to post a link to the discord server right now in this the youtube chat, okay, um feel free to join the server uh they got stuff going on. I think ike's playing doing a movie night or something like that where they're talking about a movie, you guys can definitely check that out um, but those are all different ways that you can get a hold of me.

Obviously, on facebook, all my social media platforms is at hvacr videos, so there's twitter, um facebook uh youtube um. I think i had a tick tock, but i don't post on there. I don't you know. I don't know.

I was talking to my wife, the other day about tick tock, i'm very stubborn and very old school. So it's hard for me to adopt new stuff. I mean to be honest with you. If myspace was still a thing, i'd probably still be on myspace, i'm i'm very stubborn when it comes to that kind of stuff.

So i'd love to start posting little clips and it sounds fun. You know on uh on um tick tock, but i just i don't have the time you know. I thought i was talking to my wife about it the other day and i was like maybe i could start like recording clips and let her post them for me and stuff like that. Maybe you know my wife.

This whole videos thing was never really planned. I i never expected this to turn into what it's turned into um the whole live streams. I've been doing these live streams for over two years straight same time, every single day or every single time, monday, evenings 5 p.m. Pacific and the live streams initially were a way to consolidate all the questions, because there's so many questions, you know and comments and i couldn't keep track of it.

So the live stream was originally just there to answer the questions, but the live stream has turned into its own thing too, where you know we have all these people that come on a regular you guys that are watching right now and uh. You know it's it's hard to even keep up with that, so i try all right, but if i miss your guys's questions, if i miss your communications, feel free to um, send me an email and keep send me an email until i you know respond or say: Stop sending it okay, it's okay, um trust me! If you guys saw my inbox, you would understand. Okay by the time you know i save emails, to get to the live stream and, to be honest with you, those emails are lost in a chain of emails. You know i have to go through and try to scavenge, and you know i try to get to the youtube comments too, and it's like there's so many.

So these are first world problems. They really are, and i'm thankful for my petty problems: okay, um, i'm very thankful and humbled by all of your guys's support with this youtube channel again never anticipated doing anything. I really haven't even acknowledged it, but we just passed a hundred thousand subscribers um. I don't have it up on my wall, but i used to have a stainless steel sign that my buddy rich and ike together, uh rich made it and i gave him the idea and everything.

But you know i had an hvac or a sign behind me. That said hundred thousand subscribers, i took that down, but i have my silver play button back there, but it's still so humbling because i never planned on any of this. I never planned on anybody watching my videos. You know they originally started for my own employees and then it morphed into this thing.

It's a trip so um as usual, if you guys have questions in the live stream, feel free to put them in caps lock that way, it helps me to see them again. If i don't answer them, just keep posting them until myself or the moderators tell you to stop okay, so bottom line. Thank you guys, all so much for all the support you guys have given and continue to give you guys are awesome. Okay, uh! I will say too, and i posted it on my social media platforms today - that i do have a full stock of the hats.

I was out of hats for a while the large extra large hats they are in stock. On my website hvacrvideos.com, you can check them out. We have large small shirts all that different stuff, so please check out the website, but they are available on there, okay, um so uh. The question right here says: what is the brand that i feel is the best for hvac tools equipment.

You know, i'm not gon na say one brand is better than the other every brand out. There has something, that's really good and has things that aren't the greatest. Okay, i'm a huge supporter of field piece tools, but field piece makes some stuff that either doesn't apply to the line of work or that i don't like so field piece has great tools, but they have some stuff that just doesn't work for me. Okay and that's normal, you know you don't have to be married to one single brand when it comes to equipment too um.

You know i really like you know one particular blank brand of refrigeration equipment, uh, russell uh. You know i like their condensing units, but they're evaporators, they're, okay, you know you know so it really depends. I'm not married to any one brand and you have to remember that if you become so brand loyal you can miss out on good stuff. So you really have to just kind of keep your eyes open and be open to other brands and other tools and the same thing like you know, um, with this new tools channel that we're doing hvacr tools.

You know we're gon na continue to do videos on there, but um it's in and i'm sure you guys have noticed, but it is not gon na be structured. Like my my youtube, this channel is structured. This channel is consistent, two videos a week boom boom boom boom boom right um, but the tools channel is not the tools. Channel is just something fun that myself and the overtime guys are doing.

We'll post videos, when we post videos but the whole point the whole idea of me making a youtube channel called hvac our tools was, it literally came from the idea of wanting to post or seeing these posts on facebook where people are like hey what pants do You guys wear what you know boots. Do you wear what whatever and it was like hey. You know, i'm in a position right, i'm super blessed and humbled to be in this position, but i'm in a position where i can buy a couple different pairs of pants. Just to try them out and that's what i did i can buy uh.

You know a testo manifold just to try it out now, i'm not bragging or gloating or anything, but i'm putting it out there. So that way you guys can benefit from that stuff too. Okay, but again i'm open. I have an open mind and you know i wore one particular pair of pants for a very long time and i just wanted to know what what else was out there.

So i put some poles out there and then went and bought a bunch of different pairs of pants same thing with the testo manifold. I was curious. I'd never owned anything testo before everybody seemed to like it, so i bought it and i tried it out uh. It's a nice manifold, but it's not my favorite.

It has good and bad things, so so does every tool and it really depends on each particular person and what they like. You know. Some people love a certain brand condensing unit whatever and so be it to each their own. You know when people like um, non-hvac people, they'll email me on a regular right.

I get emails all the time you know is my contractor. Ripping me off that kind of stuff and - and i don't mind answering them when i can - i can't get to them. You know every single second, but people will say hey. What's the best brand air conditioner to buy and it's like you know, i don't really have an opinion on.

What's the best brand there's several good brands, every brand is going to have problems so what i usually tell people - and actually just told this to my aunt and my uncle because they called me they live a little ways away from me and they're buying a new System for their house and they're like hey what brand should we buy and i'm, like you know, i'd, say i wouldn't be so concerned about what brand that you buy and i would be more concerned with finding a reputable company that you trust and then trust the Fact that they service and warranty this particular brand, because you know when it comes to ice machines, people ask me all the time. What's my favorite ice machine and okay, i can say what my favorite is, but i also understand that there's plenty other ice machines that are just as good it's just what i'm comfortable working on. I'm super comfortable working on uh, manitowoc, ice machines and hoshizaki ice machines. I'm not as comfortable working on isomatic or scotsman, but it's not that isomatic and scotsman suck.

It's just that i'm more comfortable with these other brands. So you know when it comes to people asking me what's the best brand air conditioner? Well, you know it really depends on the servicing company and what they're comfortable working on now. The question you know the the the question of the day is: how do you find a reputable service company? I can't really answer that one for you. You know you got to look for a lot of different indicators, but you know um.

Hopefully that answers your question i feel like. I went off on a tangent there a little bit but all right. Let me see what else we got in here: um, hello to everybody. I see all the highs and everything it's really cool to see that um.

You really have to ask why people keep asking about pants. Nobody asked about pants. I actually brought it up um, but yeah. That was the whole thing about the pants.

So um you wear a carhartt thong, that's pretty funny, so um and - and you know in a selfish way, making that video about pants is really a justification. For me to be able to buy several different pairs of pants and write them off as a videos, expense, and then you know be able to figure out which one i like i mean so to be honest, you know that that's the truth right there too, and I've been thinking about doing a work, boot video because i'm curious about work boots. Had i not had this platform, you know it would have been harder to use that as a business expense, because technically you're not supposed to write off work boots or pants, or anything like that as a business expense. But if you're making a video about it, you know it's a little bit different, so um, i'm i'm thankful, for you know the ability to be able to do that kind of stuff, and in fact it's you guys that watch these videos and support this channel that Make me capable of being able to do that.

So, thank you so very much. I really do appreciate you guys. Okay, all right, so i wanted to talk about something. First off there was a cool conversation going on between ike and rich in the chat in the beginning, and it wasn't so much hvac relevant, but i'm going to make it hvac relevant.

Okay and they were talking about vehicles. Ike was having some vehicle problems and rich was kind of talking about it, and you know i commented a little bit, but when it comes to our service vehicles, okay, a service vehicle is a benefit right. I know some people see them as a need, and you know they won't work for a company if they get a service vehicle. Okay, so you know we're not going to go down that path, but a service vehicle is a benefit, and you know yes, the service company is responsible for maintaining those vehicles and making sure that they're working properly, but we as service technicians do have an obligation being The people driving those service vehicles to make sure that the vehicles are operating properly, we drive them every single day.

We know, what's a normal sound, we know what's strange, we know what a weird vibration is. We know that when we're going down a hill and you lightly apply the brakes and the van starts to get a shimmy, you know we feel that stuff, our service managers, our dispatchers, are, you know, whoever's in charge at your company. They don't know that stuff's going on unless we as service technicians relay that information to them. So it is our responsibility as a service technician to give our companies the information they need, there's nothing worse and it's an inconvenience for us as service technicians too.

When our vehicles have downtime, okay, i'm a business owner. I have to deal with this stuff. All the time downtime is the worst thing in the world for me as a small business owner, i don't have extra vehicles, especially in these coveted times right. So if i have a service technician that his van breaks down he's out of work until his van gets back up and running okay, because we're not lumping together service technicians in these crazy times right now, there's not two people riding in vehicles because of all the Coveted crap, okay, so it's so important that we keep on top of our vehicle maintenance, just like, as we go out to these customers and we repair their equipment and we say in an ass backwards way.

We say i told you so right when we hand them a bill for a lot of money for something that could have been prevented. We have to remember that we have to maintain our own vehicles too. Now, i'm not saying as a service technician that you need to change your own oil or anything like that. I don't know the situations at your company, that's not how it works here.

We in the office have that stuff done, we'll tell the service tech to go. Take it to the dealership or something like that, but i'm just saying: if we can prevent the downtime on our vehicles, we can keep working at least that's the way that we operate at my company. I don't have extra vans sitting around to throw someone in and it's not going to work going and renting a vehicle to throw someone in a rental vehicle because they don't have all their tools and their parts and their fittings and that's just a very big inconvenience. So i would encourage all of you guys to remember to check on things right to follow up on things, and i am just as guilty i'll be honest with you.

I have a newer vehicle that has never been to the dealership or never had any major service done, and i i think i've got 24 000 miles on it. I mean i've had oil changes and stuff right, but that's pretty much it. I've rotated the tires, but i'm just as guilty as forget of forgetting to rotate my tires of forgetting to get my oil changed and that kind of stuff. I will oftentimes prioritize my own service technicians because, again as an owner, i'm thinking about them and i'm like hey.

You know what this person's van hasn't been in the shop in a while, and this person's van's been making a funny noise. I need to get that in the shop and i'll time you know tend to forget to put mine in the shop. So i'm not saying i'm perfect, but i'm saying as service technicians. We need to make sure we get that information to our offices.

Okay, now to kind of go away from the hvac talk um. I was mentioning in the chat, and this is something that we have to remember too. You know the younger generation and even my generation right, i grew up with a piece of crap. My first car was a piece of crap car and i had to check the oil i had to get or i got flats all the time on the tires.

You know it would always break down but um. Nowadays, it's so convenient for me and again this is a first world problem, but i have triple a right or that's the auto club. I don't know if any of you guys know what that is, but we have an auto club here triple a of southern california and basically it's roadside service. I pay like 100 bucks a year and don't get me wrong, i'm not trying to gloat or anything like that.

I'm just saying for me that that you know amount is convenient for me to be able to call for a tow truck at any given time. But what that has done to me is that has made me forget the importance of checking the oil in my cars. You know because we assume that these newer cars that are much more reliable, don't need to have the oil checked and don't need to have this or that done and it does okay. So i think that, as the generations change we're definitely going down the path of of getting away from, you know personally checking on our vehicles checking the oil you know doing this kind of stuff and whether that be good or bad.

I don't know, but i'm just saying you know we need to try to step back and remember to do that stuff and i have to remember as a dad. I have a daughter, that's about to drive in like a year. I have to start teaching her that stuff and it's you know it's it's things that we again, i'm thankful for my problems, but these are little things so remember make sure you maintain your vehicles. Let the office know when things have to happen, find out what the intervals are on oil changes and tire rotations and make sure you let the office staff know when your stuff needs to get done, and also you know, as an owner.

Sometimes people tell me things and it goes in one ear and out the other, because i got other things on my mind, so keep reminding me keep reminding your office staff be that employee. I swear to you if i had an employee. That was annoying me because he was constantly telling me he needed oil changes i'd be even though it annoys me. I'm thankful for that right, because i've got many other employees that i've never heard a single thing about their vehicles from you know, and i've had employees in the past that the only time they got their brakes looked at was whenever they'd pull into the shop, and I can hear metal to metal grinding and i'd have to say what the heck dude.

Oh, i didn't notice, you know, so you got to keep on top of that stuff, all right all right, let's see what else we got in here now that i went off on a rant. What do we got? Um yeah biodiesel. They said it will be fun. They said yeah, there's lots of things that people don't think about.

You know diesels get great gas mileage most of them. You know, but you know the maintenance costs are definitely up there. So all right, let me see what else we got in here. Um, all right! Uh, let me go through my list of things to talk about so um.

I wanted to kind of start out by talking about fan cycling because there's a huge. You know i released a video yesterday with fan cycle controls and just the comments are blowing up. Okay, first and foremost uh, the service call was because of a dirty condenser right and i cleaned the condenser. But after i cleaned the condenser, i noticed that the fan cycle control was not acting properly.

It was erratically. Turning the condenser fan motors on and off now i know a lot of people are asking me: why did i go in with new fan cycle controls? Why not just put a head pressure, control valve or a headmaster? Why not put one fan cycle control and the bottom line is, is just because i didn't okay um fan cycle controls are not my favorite thing to use, but i thought it was the perfect example to show how i personally like to set up fan cycle controls. If and when i have to use them, unfortunately, with the equipment costs um or with customers buying cheaper and cheaper equipment, these days right and not wanting to spend a lot of money on it, there goes the coke knows guys um fan cycle controls are gon na, Become more and more popular right because i don't know they're cheaper, they put these little peanut controls on there. The failure rates through the roof now is the failure rate on a peanut style.

That's the little encapsulated fan cycle control is the failure rate because of a cheap control, or is it because the customers are not maintaining their equipment? The condensers are cycling on and off more that kind of stuff. Okay, uh, i'm talking in general pressure controls now right. If the, if it's going on and off on low pressure, high pressure all the time if the fan cycle switch, if the condenser is constantly dirty um, if it's having a hard time moving air through the fan, you know different things. Is that what's causing the fan cycle switches to wear out or is it just a cheap component? You know that's that's kind of an interesting question with customers these days getting away from proper preventative maintenance, we're going to start to see more and more of these failures.

So i think it's partially a mixture of both, i think some of the fan cycle controls are the little peanut pressure. Controls are just really cheaply made, but then i also think that when they're running in harsh conditions, you know with low voltage causing high amperage or high current through the switch um. You know arcing inside the switch and different things like that. I think that has a lot to do with the failure rate, i'm not going to necessarily blame it just on cheap components.

Okay, so in my situation i decided to use two fan cycle switches. Now, it's not very common that you see that, but i will say that used to be a very common thing on tecumseh condensing units. If you bought a tecumseh condensing unit that had a two fan setup, they actually came from the factory with a dual fan cycle switch and a high pressure control all on a little header in the control box, and it was very common for them to cycle. One fan at one pressure, the second fan at another pressure and then the third fan or you know whatever.

However many fans it was, so it's not very common anymore, okay, but why do we need fan cycling well, fan cycling. Is there to maintain a consistent condensing temperature right so that way we can maintain a consistent liquid pressure and temperature going to the expansion valve. If that pressure differential across the expansion valve gets too low or too high, you could have repercussions mainly too low. You can have repercussions of the valve not being able to control the superheat flooding out the evaporator different things like that.

Okay, so just like on a head pressure, control valve the head pressure control valve is simply there to maintain a proper pressure differential across the expansion valve. The fan cycle controls are there for the same reason: the fan cycle controls in my opinion. I always call them a low budget head pressure control valve because that's what they are now i don't like using fan cycle controls very much, but if i do i like to do what i did in my recent video, where you have two fan cycle controls, because One is going to cycle more than the other and yes that is going to lead to wear and tear on the fan motor and you know one side being dirty than the other. But that's the downside of fan cycling.

If you put on head pressure control valves in my opinion, they tend to make the system operate better smoother if you notice, if any of you guys ever work in refrigeration, and you run a fan cycle control system. Just like i had in my video. You have two condensers or two condenser fan motors and it's controlled off of one control. What you're going to notice is a consistent on off on off in mild temperatures like we have here in california all the time.

So that's why i went with the two uh. The two fan cycle switch setup: okay, to try to um reduce the amount of on off for both condenser fan motors, because when both are turning on and off the sight, glass will start flashing, you'll start feeding, vapor down to the the expansion valve and it just Kind of throws the entire system all out of whack, so that's just the way that i like to do it okay. Yes, i could have thrown a head pressure control valve on that system. Yes, i probably could have even eliminated the fan cycle switches altogether, but i'd like to leave them in there just in case we have some cold days, and that way, this equipment doesn't have an issue all right.

What you guys are going to start to notice too - and i haven't really talked about this very much, but we have new federal energy efficiency requirements that are going to be sweeping across the nation. They're called awef annual walk-in efficiency factor. I don't know what the acronym means, but it's awef and basically they're starting something very similar to the seer program that we have with air conditioning systems. But it's going to be kind of a energy efficiency rating factor for refrigeration equipment and it's starting with walk-ins.

It's called awef and so basically right now we're in the infancy of it. It's brand new and it's being phased out across the country slowly, but they're, starting out with some basic energy efficiency guidelines. Okay, your equipment has to do these certain things to try to maintain energy efficiency. It's got to have you know a properly matched evaporator to condensing unit.

It's got to have low electricity usage right so how i mean but think about it. How can you reduce the electricity consumption on a refrigeration equipment right because it's got to run all the time, so what they start doing is making the equipment more efficient, okay and what they're doing is they're floating the head pressure or bringing the head pressure lower on The system so, instead of maintaining a 90 degree, condensing temp right, they're gon na start maintaining a 70 degree, condensing temp they're, bringing that way down. So what you're going to start to notice is if equipment has head pressure, control valves the cut in pressure on newer, head pressure. Control valves is going to be like 120 130 150 psi, instead of the 180 that it used to be so they're.

Bringing that condensing temp way down sometimes 100 psi, depending on what you're working on so they're trying to do that to reduce the energy consumption they're. Also working on some other things too. Evaporator fan motors have to be energy efficient. They have to be ecm motors.

There has to be evaporator fan staging and i shouldn't say that they have to be ecm. I don't think that the requirement says that they have to be ecm, but it just simply says it has to meet these energy requirements and, at this point in time my understanding of this and i'm not an expert. But my understanding is: the manufacturer is free to figure out how to meet that level of energy efficiency by doing whatever they want within their system. So some of them are putting micro channel condensers.

Some of them are, you know, doing ecm motors different things like that. So be prepared because this is sweeping across the country with that being said, if we bring our condensing temperatures down on our equipment, the expansion valve sizing really comes into play because our expansion valves need to have a set pressure differential across them as we stand, and Typically, when we sized our valves at 90 degree condensing temp, if we bring our condensing down to 70, our valves could now potentially be oversized and they might not be able to control the evaporator superheat correctly anymore. So when it comes to the new awef requirements, we actually have a special way of sizing the expansion valves and i am going to be doing a video kind of addressing some of this stuff. I wish i had the documentation in front of me because spoiling has some really cool cheat sheets when it comes to sizing expansion, valves for the new awef requirements and stuff.

But i don't have those in front of me so, but i do plan on making a video i'm currently working on something it's a slow project. I've been building up where i'm going to talk about equipment sizing and how the awef requirements affect certain components and how to select the expansion valves and so that'll be coming soon. Okay, so stay tuned all right, let's see what else we got going on in here now that i've been talking forever um what happens when a scroll compressor runs backwards and what can it do to cause compressor damage when a scroll compressor runs backwards? It doesn't properly move the refrigerant, it doesn't properly displace the heat, it doesn't really do anything, and so it can cause the motor inside the compressor to actually overheat and cause damage to the system. Okay, so scroll compressors are directional.

They're only meant to one and run in one direction, so you got to be very careful about that stuff. All right, so i'm going to um do i think they will switch to inverter style compressors with variable speed. I think that that is definitely one of the ways that manufacturers are gon na, be able to keep up with the energy requirements uh the energy efficiency requirements. So, yes, i do think that digital scroll compressors will soon become more and more popular and start to be out there a lot more, but with the you know, influx of all this new energy efficiency stuff, ecm fan motors inverter, driven compressors, microprocessor, controlled equipment.

We really really need to focus hard on properly conditioning the power into our buildings, and i've said this so many times. I live in the state that has a ridiculously stupid power grid: southern california, where we can't keep up with the the load demand that we have from all the people that we have living here and uh. We just have power problems consistently. Whenever there's fires they're cutting off power whenever it gets really hot, we have issues, so you know california, in general, is a place.

That was, i mean, if you think about it, it's not really meant to be lived in like southern california, because it's the desert. We live in the desert and we do everything we can to adapt to the desert climate heat wind, all this different stuff and uh. You know these are some of the ramifications. Our power grid is being taxed because we have so many people, we're piping water and all this different stuff, but that's a whole nother live stream.

That's not an hvac thing. So all right um have i encountered r54 454b or any other hfo blends. Yet any experience with them, i have not incurred uh encountered r454b. I believe that's the new one.

That carrier is going to be adopting right as like the replacement for 410a, but no, i have not worked with that. Yet all right, let's see what else we got in here um. Let me see what we have uh all right, i'm gon na get to my list of things to talk about so um. Why remove? And so in my recent video, where i installed the two fan cycle switches, i removed the liquid line service valve that was downstream from the king valve coming off the receiver, and i said it was a redundant valve and it wasn't needed and, oh my gosh, i Got blown up in the comments because so many people were stating the obvious okay, so let's explain this first off by removing that valve.

I now made it impossible to change the dryer without pumping down the refrigeration system. Okay, i do realize that i realize that people have told me that in the comments - and i appreciate all the comments - okay, but i don't have a need to change my liquid line - filter dryer without pumping the system down. The main reason why i took that service valve out of the system was because i could not access my suction service valve with a schrader core removal tool. Okay, yes, i could have unbolted the liquid line service valve and kind of bent it out of the way.

I have done that in the past, but again personally, i don't do a lot of dryer changes on my systems unless i'm working on the system, okay, so by having the redundant valve in front of the receiver's king valve, i theoretically could have closed both of those Valve recover the charge out of just the dryer section and change just the dryer, but i don't do that very often so. Yes, that is a good point that people made, but it's just not something that i have a need to do now. If you have the only time that i could really think that that would be something you might do is if you had a giant multiplex system or a supermarket style system where you've got multiple pieces of equipment. Running off.

Of that you know one liquid line, filter dryer then sure you know i might not want to evacuate the whole system and do whatever. But this is a single evaporator, walk-in cooler with a 35-40 foot line set, it's not a big deal to go ahead and pump that down. If i, if i'm ever, going to be working in the system, i would pump that down and just change the dryer out and go to town. Also on another note i mean, if i really really wanted to.

Theoretically, i could just pump the system down to 10 psi pull the dryer out real, quick before all the gas. You know just just do a hot swap on it too, not ideal, but i could do it if i wanted to all right. So it's just not something that i need to do. But yes, i was aware that i did that: okay um, what are micro channel? What are micro channel coils micro channel is just a different style of condenser coil.

It's aluminum with super tiny little openings inside of it it's much more efficient, but it has some downsides to it: a micro channel coil the easiest way. I could explain it to someone that doesn't understand exactly what it is. It looks just like a radiator in a car. The concept of micro, channel coils kind of has been with cars for a long time, with radiators um in refrigeration and air conditioning.

We've had tube and fin condenser coils for the very long time and the micro channels are actually kind of newer to refrigeration and air conditioning when you look at it as a big picture kind of a thing. So, but it's just a different style of condenser coil that has flaws, but then it's also benefit has benefits too. Okay, so um all right, let me get into what i got going on on here hold on a second i'm. Looking at my list.

Okay: this was a good question too in my recent video that i titled um with the health inspector being there did the customer truly fail the health inspection and, if they did, why were they still in the building? Okay, no, the customer did not truly fail. The health inspection, but let me tell you that the way that my customers operate most of my customers, if you ever get anything other than an a on your health report, you failed your health inspection when in actuality, you can have, i believe, as low as a C, maybe i don't know if you can get a d or not before the health department would actually shut you down. Okay, so in my customers eyes they failed their health inspection because they did not necessarily get an a okay. They got a b temporarily until monday, when the health inspector went back out there and reinspected and they were good to go okay, but so that's just how that works with them all right.

Let me see what i got going on in the chat see my wife missing anything in here um. Let me see what else we got um thanks so much for becoming a channel supporter bud. That's really awesome! Okay, um! Let me see what else have i seen a walk-in evaporator with both bad evaporator fan motors? Yes, yes, i have i've, seen walk-in condensers with two bad condenser fan motors evaporators with two bad kind evaporators. Yes, i have seen it all.

When do, i think we will see hydrocarbons in watkins brad honestly, i wouldn't be surprised within the next 10 to 20 years, if hydrocarbons aren't the most popular refrigerant, but just be ready because they'll find a reason to say: hydrocarbons need to be outlawed too. So you know, there's always going to be an evolution to uh. You know constantly try to achieve. You, know the perfect climate, sensitive refrigerant and all this different stuff.

So but yeah, i think hydrocarbons once they get past the charge. Limitations right they'll definitely become more popular because they're super efficient. They save money all around. You know with hydrocarbon r290 refrigerant we run smaller, condensers, smaller evaporators.

That means less raw materials needed to make that equipment the refrigerants much more efficient. But my question is and again i'm not trying to get all political and smart and everything, but how much work goes into making that hydrocarbon, refrigerant right, because you still have to extract it from the ground process. It find you know in whatever. So i want to know how much work goes into that versus.

But again i don't know you know you guys kind of get where i'm going with that one. So all right, let's see what else um. What else do we got going on in here uh? Why did we not start with lower condensing pressure in the first place? Uh, that's a good question, but i'm not smart enough to know the answer to that one um have i ever seen the unit that had never been maintained, um, yeah yeah. I mean i've come across it a few times.

You know air conditioning units that just you know you could tell they've, never ever been cleaned yeah. I don't have videos of them or anything, but all right. I'm gon na get to uh plot twist in 2050. We'll be told that r12 is the safest for the planet.

Yeah that would be funny. Huh did copper go up on the west coast, it's through the roof. Here, um i've heard that it's go gone up. I know refrigerant prices went up the price of r22 shot up quite high um, but i haven't really paid a lot of attention to the copper prices lately, um so but i've kind of heard from other people that it's going up.

So, let's see what else have i ever come across? An oil fired furnace, no, no or other things just get. No, i don't really do much furnace work at all. Very much all right, i'm going to get to my list of questions here. Um mike referenced.

Another video of mine asking why i would encourage the customer to replace an ac unit over just the compressor so um. I don't have the full context of mike's question because it just pops up on my channel and i don't think he was replying to anybody else. I tried to go back. It's a really old video that i was talk.

I was working on an r22 air conditioning system and i'm assuming because i didn't go back and watch the video, and this is something that happens when people ask me a question about my video, especially if it's an old video. Sometimes i have to go re-watch. The video to know what they're even talking about because there's so many videos that it's like uh, i think i know what he might be talking about, but i'll have to re-watch it to fully understand. But the way that i operate my business and i'm not saying that everybody has to operate it this way.

Okay, i'm certainly not the most profitable person in the world and i'm sure that you know i'm doing a lot of things wrong. In fact, i know i'm doing a lot of business things wrong. Okay, but the way that we operate here is that i just give the customer information and i will ask them certain questions about their equipment. So, for instance, if i'm working on like like today, i sent a quote out for a reach and cooler that, in my opinion, should be replaced.

In my opinion, it should not be fixed, but i did not tell the customer that okay, because it is repairable. Now, if it'd be one thing, if it's completely not repairable, then i would tell them it's done. Okay, but this equipment was repairable. So the way that i posed it was, i went to the customer and, i said, look here's the deal.

This equipment is in really bad shape and it's going to cost approximately x number of dollars to fix it broken down as follows, and then i break it down what my original service call was: what the materials, what the labor tax and an approximate total, and then I say: is this equipment worth this much money to you question mark? How would you like me to proceed so what i've done is i put the ball in their court? I give them the information and they choose whether or not they want to fix it. Now. Do i think it's silly if the customer fixes it sure i do but guess what it's not my business and if the customer wants to fix it and let's say something else breaks tomorrow, it's not going to be my fault because i gave them all the information And said you know this equipment's in really bad shape, and i let them make that decision. Okay.

So that's how i typically approach this stuff. So in the situation that mike was asking me a question about an air conditioning compressor, you know um, you know it really depends. You know i just put the information in the customer's hands um, and you know i just let them make the decisions. I'm not the person here trying to do this and i'll.

Tell you something too, that, with most of the customers that i deal with, they buy their own equipment all right, i'm not selling them equipment right, so i let them make those decisions. If they buy it, i actually make less money if they buy the equipment, but i still give them all the information. Okay and just let them make those decisions all right. Let's see what else i got going on in here, can i explain a headmaster and the purpose of keeping your head pressure up a headmaster or a head pressure control valve? I kind of explained it a few minutes ago, but it's just there to maintain a pressure differential across the expansion valve.

Let's think about it like this, if you have an expansion valve, you have a liquid refrigerant coming into one side of the expansion valve, and then you have a vapor liquid mixture coming out the other side of the expansion valve and there's a huge pressure drop right Because you've got low pressure coming out the other side of the expansion valve and high pressure coming in one side, that is, the pressure differential as the pressure differential gets lower from the high side to the low side right. So the high side pressure drops way down. It has a harder time driving that refrigerant through the expansion valve at a certain flow rate. So, therefore, the expansion valve has a harder time controlling the flow of the refrigerant, especially a thermostatically, controlled expansion valve that relies on suction line temperature to mechanically open and close.

The valve right, so when you do not have that pressure differential things start to happen within the system that can have negative effects. Okay, so why do we use head pressure control to maintain the pressure differential across the expansion valve? That's the simplest answer. We can do that with fan cycling. We can do that with head pressure control valves.

We can do that with slowing down condenser fan motors different things like that. Okay, but the whole purpose is there to maintain that pressure. Differential from high pressure to low pressure has to be that certain pressure differential to move that refrigerant through the valve at the proper rate. So that way, the valve can then control the flow of the refrigerant, properly.

Okay think about a thermostatically controlled expansion valve as a dumb expansion valve they're dumb. They can only operate within a narrow window. Okay, if you put on an electronically controlled expansion valve an eev they're a lot smarter, they have their own flaws in other ways too, but they can control the flow of refrigerant a lot better at lower pressure differentials than a dumb thermostatically controlled expansion valve okay. Hopefully that makes sense for you, but all right.

Let me see what else um in the latest video, what a headmaster valve been an appropriate solution versus two fan, cycling switches, a headmaster valve or head pressure control valve, certainly would have been a good solution. It just was not something that i had readily available to me. I had fan cycle switches at the shop. It was just easy enough, like i said in the video, i really wasn't trying to reinvent the wheel, just throw it on there.

Okay, but yes, if i had the avail, if i had a head pressure control valve, i certainly could have put one on there um outside of the basic epa certs. What certs would i recommend any tech? I'm considering hiring have nate med gas tech, college jeremy. I'm going to answer your question and i'm going to kind of answer. Some other questions too and jonathan had asked me a question what i want in a new tech, fresh out of trade, school and jeremy.

Your question kind of segues right into that, so for me as a business owner. What do i want in a new service technician? That's knocking on my door! That's fresh out of trade school! Okay! First off! I want any and all certifications that that technician can possibly get his hands on minimum: a section: 608 epa: universal certification; okay, that's the absolute minimum! Now granted. I live in california, where you do not have to have any licensing to be a service technician other than a 608 certification, which is a federal certification to handle refrigerants okay. So you do not have to have any kind of licensing to be an hvac service tech, but you do have to have a contractor's license to be a business owner, okay, so as a service tech coming fresh out of trade school.

What i'm looking for is any certification they can get, but a certification in my eyes does not mean that tech is an amazing service tech. It just means that that tech tried hard to get these certificates and they studied hard to pass a test. Okay, so in general, as a service technician, i would like to see them have the epa 608. That's a mandatory, any kind of neat certifications.

They can give now for a technician to get a nate certification or an rscs cm certification. Um. You know what that means. Is that technician took a test, and you know anybody can pass a test, but, more importantly, what i like about nate and the rscs cm exam is that, in order to keep that certification, you have to keep educating yourself, you don't just get assert and move on, And in all fairness, i have nate certifications and they have expired because i have not taken any continuing education classes over the last 18 months.

Therefore, my nate certifications expired. Okay, because i did not continue my education, so i'm going to have to retake the test and continue my education to maintain my future nate certifications. So i like that commitment that someone has made when they come to me with a nate cert, because it's not so much that they passed a test. It's that they're going to continue to educate themselves to maintain that innate certification.

Okay. So that's a really important thing for me now to get back a little bit more to what jonathan asked me. You know what am i looking for in a service tech, fresh out of trade school, i'm looking for a technician that is hungry to learn, i'm looking for technicians that um, you know, are open to new ideas, right that are open to new ways to do things Right, for instance, i'm a freak right and uh, i'm very particular about certain things. I don't know if i've ever mentioned this before, but anybody that's worked with me and or worked for me is gon na laugh when i say this, but i am a nut job when it comes to rolling up my water hoses.

Okay, my water hoses have to be absolutely perfect. Okay, every time i use my hoses, i take them up onto the roof. I carry two uh, i think they're 75 foot hoses, maybe 50 foots, but um and after every use i take a damp towel and i wipe down the entire hose completely dry and clean it and i drain the hose and then i roll them up into a Perfect round formation, where the hose always meets back and it has to be perfect now - why do i do that? Okay, i hate picking up my hoses and then making my shoulder dirty. I wear a beige shirt.

I hate it when they make your shoulder dirty. I hate when i take my hose, and i put it in the one specific place - that's in my van and it doesn't fit into that place, so you know something that i really watch out for with a new technician. That's working with me when i tell him hey, i'm very particular about how i roll my hoses up. You know if he doesn't roll those hoses up and show an interest in doing it.

The way that i like it, that right away is something that tells me that he's not interested in being a team player in working and trying to do things the way that we do them. Okay, now do. I expect my technicians to roll their own hoses up the exact same way as me: no okay, my guys don't roll their stuff and in fact, most of the guys that work with me um. You know they'll they'll go to roll my hose up, and i add no, it's okay i'll go ahead and do that.

Okay, just because i'm very particular right. So i'm not necessarily looking for perfection in a technician, but i'm looking for that drive to want to uh. You know try to be better and to try to you know i'm having a hard time explaining what i'm saying, but i'm hoping you guys get the concept okay, so i, but i also realize that i'm a nut job when it comes to everything same thing, goes For rolling up my uh ropes and different things like that, like i have a particular place that i put my stuff in my van and and it has to be rolled up a certain way to fit in there. You know when it comes to using a rope on the roof like again i'm a nut job.

I'm super anal. I don't like my rope laying on the roof while you're waiting, you know like the excess rope. I like it to be rolled up and hanging on top of something. So that way it doesn't sit in water and things like that.

So again, i know i'm a nut job uh phillip holy moly. Thank you so very much for that super chat. That is amazing. Okay, guys these uh like what philip just did right.

These super chats are amazing. They are absolutely not needed, but they help a lot and i really appreciate them. I'm gon na continue to do these live streams, just like i have for the last two plus years, but any little bit helps. Thank you.

So very much. Phillip, okay, really appreciate it. Man, what kind of hoses do i use so? Typically they're, the black rubber, like recycled tire, hoses uh, either made by goodyear or continental tire i usually buy them from home depot. They last me typically about a year and a half to two years for every hose set, and i take them in and out of restaurants all the time.

So do i ever work on heating stuff other than heat pumps every once in a blue moon. I do a little bit of gas heat work, but being that i live in southern california, we don't do a lot of gas heating. I mean we don't have a lot of heating issues very much. So exactly don't forget about extension cords, i'm a nut about my extension cords too same thing.

I roll them up into a perfect um. You know uh circle, i clean them. I dry them. That's just how i am okay, so kind of a nut uh.

What do i use to film and recap on the job? Super easy trail master, the easiest thing in the world. I use my phone, i film, with a samsung s10 plus i even have another phone. I bought another phone to use just for videos, a new samsung s20, whatever fancy note thing and i actually like the s10 plus the best, because the microphone has a great mic and it gives good sound and the video is amazing. So that's what i used to film now, my recaps.

I use a logitech brio camera, nothing too expensive, um and then i just use some software stream labs. I try to repurpose things, so i use the recording feature on stream labs to record my outros. There's not a lot of production that goes into my videos, guys. I have some fancy, mics and stuff like that, but yeah, it's not too crazy, the production that i use.

So if i don't answer any of your questions enough, if you want more answers like about the studio gear and stuff that i use feel free to send me an email, guys, hvacr videos, gmail.com, so all right, let me see what else we got going on in Here, john or jason had asked me a question if i thought that supermarket refrigeration and or the type of work that i do is harder which one's better jason said that he's done supermarket before.