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 hello, hopefully you guys are doing well out there and the interweb land out there that you guys are in it is cold, windy and rainy out here in california. Well, i guess i should define cold it's about 47 degrees, so you know we're kind of losing our minds over here freezing.

I think i turned my heater up to like 74 degrees in my house, because i'm freezing so i realize that here in california we do not know what cold is, but i do find it funny to be able to see all the people that are on here. Complaining about snow and stuff and then i'm just bitching, because it's 47 degrees and a little windy, but we've had a little rain, which is you know it's we get rain a couple times a year, but um it definitely throws us off. You know lots of accidents and stuff on the road kind of hectic kind of crazy, so um hello to everybody uh for the new people that are in here right now. You know, i don't know why i do introductions to these, but for whatever reason i get new people coming into the live stream and then ask me like during and stuff but anyways.

My name is chris and i'm an hvacr service technician here in southern california. Make youtube videos on this little youtube channel to try to just share the little bit of knowledge that i have so that's. The whole purpose of this channel started as a uh for my employees as just a training aid, and then it you know, turned into this machine that it has couple years later here we are kind of crazy, very humbling. Thank you all for all the support.

It's been awesome, a couple announcements um the hvacr tools, youtube channel uh is launched, as many of you guys already know. Hopefully, you guys are subscribed if you haven't already, please go check out that channel guys and go subscribe, help to support that channel by watching the videos and all that good stuff. You know um. We want to really get that thing off and running.

I just posted a link in the chat right now. Um just released a new video. Today we did do the testo manifold giveaway on the hvac overtime, youtube channel um. I don't remember who won, but uh we've already made contact with the person and had communication with them, so we've already verified.

Now there will be another manifold giveaway very soon, another testo manifold giveaway, because i believe joe is going to go ahead and give his manifold away too stay tuned for details, we'll probably announce it on all the different platforms that we have to try to get. The word out, of course, we're trying to draw exposure and uh awareness of the channel to try to help it to grow. Okay, we don't quite know where the hvacr tools youtube channel is going to go in the future. You know we kind of been bouncing off a bunch of different ideas, if you guys don't already know myself in the overtime crew, so joe adam bill and myself are all contributing to that channel and making videos and stuff so we're still trying to figure out the Outline as to where it's headed for right now we're just having fun with it and just going to keep posting tool review videos so we'll see how that all goes um.

If you guys have any interesting ideas, you can email me on any of my platforms, but i also or any of my email addresses hvacr videos gmail.com. We also have a specific email address for the tools channel. It's tools at hvacrvideos.com, easy enough right. So we're going to try to direct the traffic for the tool video.

So if you have ideas or anything, you want to reach out to us on the tools channel feel free to send us an email, okay, um this week, coming up on thursday sporland has another webinar, this one's going to be a little bit more geared towards. You know my aspect, i guess i could say, because they're going to be talking talking about different methods of defrost going through the three different methods of defrost, so you guys definitely want to check that out. The the moderator bot is going to be posting a link to that i'll, go ahead and post a link here, real quick um before i forget there, it is right there um kobach. Thank you very much for the for that super chat value testas.

Yes, thank you. Bud, that's really cool. I appreciate that super chat man um, so i'm gon na calm down with my impersonations right now so um, but uh yeah. That's really cool! All right.

Let's see what else we got going on in here, um cool right on as usual. If you guys have anything you want me to cover in the chat, please feel free to put it in caps, lock i'll try to get to it that way. It gets my attention it you know. Sometimes the chat goes by really fast.

If i miss your chat, just keep posting it until myself, or one of the moderators tells you to stop. If you guys miss anything, feel free to send me an email, okay, you can go from there. My email is going to be posting constantly throughout the chat. Hello to everybody, that's coming in uh jesus is asking uh what hvac system i have in my house.

I have been teasing that video forever. I have a ridiculously bad system installed in my own house. There goes the coke nose guys. I have a ridiculously bad install in my own house.

It's been there since i moved in it's way oversized. I have a four ton, for my house probably only needs a three ton: um uh, it's a arco, air or yeah arco air, which is just icp. One of their you know off brands or whatever arc wear sold through united refrigeration. In my area i don't know who sells it in your area, but uh it works.

Fine, it does what it needs to um. My furnace is massively oversized. I'm pretty sure i have a hundred thousand btu furnace in there, which is way overkill, um, but yeah. Whole nother thing isn't that how it kind of works guys is that the systems are just disastrous in our own homes or the systems go neglected in different things.

I've been thinking and thinking and thinking like it'd, be really cool. If i did one of these i've just got so much going on it's hard for me to keep up with all the little projects that i start, and you know, ideas that i have. But one of the ideas that i have is is to do um a whole from start to finish: design, install commission of my own system in my house, so maybe someday we'll we'll do something like that. We'll get some big people involved, maybe and do something cool with that.

That's been something i've kind of thought about, but it's just you know with these videos with youtube with everything i have a life right. I have my normal family. I have my normal business that takes precedent over youtube and then i have youtube and um. You know i try to focus as much time as i can, but it's just like a juggle between family life, youtube and work.

It's kind of a struggle, and sometimes i just have a brain explosion like this sunday. I was just done. I was done with everything and i just wanted to lay down and watch tv and just veg out. That's all i wanted to do.

I didn't want to think about anything i wanted to watch the stupidest shows in the world just so that way i could just be entertained and not have to think so. Sometimes i do kind of go through that manic state. Like saturday, i was kicking butt making videos going through like a manic episode and then sunday i was just the polar opposite. You know just like blah, but anyways, that's uh.

What bipolar disorder does to you. So um got a couple things i want to talk about. As usual and then we'll get to the chat too okay, so i had a couple videos this last week we actually did a bonus video on top of the two normal videos. So we had the kitchen ac is not working: okay, uh! That was an interesting one.

We had the bonus video, which was a presentation that i put together for brian orr's hvac school. They had a training symposium this last week, uh thursday through saturday, and i had put together a video so that way he could present it at the training symposium. So i went ahead and edited it just a little bit and then uh threw that up on the channel as a bonus video. Now, all four of the videos that i showed clips from are normal youtube videos.

You may recognize some of them they're some of the more interesting ones that were like the whole. The whole talk that i was trying to give was the big picture diagnoses and how you know skipping some of the simple steps in the beginning can compound and snowball and turn into a disaster. So i had a few videos that i showed that and i thought it turned out pretty good, so definitely check that out. If you haven't already and then we had the walking cooler was warm, but when i got there it was down to temp.

So the video title was the walking cooler. It was warm, but now it's down to temp um got some questions geared towards those three videos and we'll definitely get into those so um do i ever get a vacation, chad uh i could, if i wanted to, but it's kind of on me it's hard to Take a vacation, it really is um, oh right on austin, that's really cool austin's, a 16 year old tech in training in michigan. That's awesome, but um, let's see john, is asking if the shitty power grid in california is the reason we all have so much gas and not heat pumps, uh yeah. I would say that that has a lot.

No, no, i wouldn't say it's because of the power grid, because california's power grid has been taxed in the last 10 to 15 years. It's been getting worse and worse because we have so many people moving into areas and they're, not upgrading a lot of it. And then we have the high temperature issues and the high wind issues and stuff. But i honestly don't know why gas heating is so popular in california.

I guess it could be something to do with the energy costs. Ironically, california is trying to push the gas out and go electric uh there's some of the the the yuppie cities up in northern california and the san francisco area and stuff like that. Berkeley, they're really trying to impose new codes that eliminate gas-fired appliances from new builds. Basically so new uh housing, communities and stuff, like that they're they're kind of requiring in some areas, the municipalities are that the uh, the builds be done without bringing natural gas into the home.

So it's an interesting thing. I mean i kind of go between the two. You know, i guess, with the advent of solar and stuff like that, but with the solar you have to have like really serious battery backup systems to be able to run full hvac systems and all your cooking appliances and stuff, because you know firing up an electric Range firing up a heat pump man, that's really going to put a serious draw on your uh, your electricity. You know, consumption, i guess or whatever.

If i said that correctly, if you have a solar system, especially with a battery backup like that's, really going to draw down the power so um, it's just a whole new thing that we're having to deal with. So i don't know you know it's one of those things where i don't fight too much of this stuff, because i'm kind of just along for the ride. You know, there's only so much that i can influence and change when it comes to local politics and stuff. Like that and some of it it's just like wow that sucks, but what can you do? You know? I try not to stress too much about some of those things.

I have enough stress in my life with work and all that kind of stuff, so try to focus on that. Let's see what else we got in here, i'm seeing what i'm missing in here. I saw a comment: uh no alaska. I don't have a 16 by 25 filter in mine, but what i actually do have is uh.

I don't have a filter box on my furnace, so right underneath the uh, the the squirrel cage blower assembly, i have to fold a 20 by 24 inch, two inch pleated filter to get it into there and then i have like a giant c clamp that i Set on top of it so that way it doesn't suck up and bypass the filter. So i really want to make a video on it because it's kind of silly what i have to do to put a filter in my furnace. It's pretty funny, but i'm pretty sure my evaporator evaporator's clean, although crop you know. I now that i say this: i'm gon na have to go ahead and pull the evaporator and clean it because i haven't cleaned it in like nine years um, but i do keep a filter on it.

So you know knock on wood. We don't have problems uh. All right, let me see um, let's see you don't need a battery backup if the system is sized correctly cyborg, but if you're trying to go completely off grid, you definitely need a battery backup unless you're gon na pull from the grid at nighttime and feed um. You know during the day and stuff, but uh you're gon na need something when there's no sun outside.

So all right, let's see what else um yeah i mean. I guess the weather would be almost yeah yeah. Definitely we don't have very much. You know.

Extreme cold temperatures, at least in the lower climates in california. So all right so kyle had emailed me and asked me um. What's the, i think he emailed me, but he had asked me what the difference between hot gas bypass and a head pressure control valve is so we're gon na go ahead and segue a couple, different questions and kind of talk about it. Now, in all fairness, i don't deal with a lot of hot gas bypass.

Okay, but i have a general understanding of the concept of hot gas bypass and you're, typically going to see it on built up air conditioning systems on heavy commercial or heavy industrial air conditioning systems and you're also going to see it on some refrigeration systems. When you're trying to do capacity, control, okay, there's better ways to do capacity control, especially nowadays, by adding vfds to the compressor, slowing them down different stuff, like that, but hot gas bypass is one way, basically in a nutshell, they're going to take the discharge, gas and They're going to dump it into the suction line, but they're going to meter it you're, usually going to have a d superheating expansion valve or something like that. I'm not going to go crazy into the hot gas bypass systems because again i'm not super familiar with them. I have a general understanding of what they're for okay now, what's the difference between hot gas bypass and a head pressure control valve, where they're, actually two totally separate things, so hot gas bypass is capacity, control right versus a head pressure control valve is there to maintain The head pressure in the cooler ambient temperatures - okay, because the head pressure control valve is simply there to.

This - is a cheesy lac valve that i have a cutaway of right here. This is there to maintain a set pressure differential across the expansion valve, especially for thermostatic expansion valves. So that way the valve can work correctly. Expansion valves have to have a set delta p or pressure differential across the valve.

So that way the valve can maintain the evaporator superheat properly. So i had another question from someone too in here and let me cross that one off real, quick and let's go ahead and do that and let me see this other question so that way i can knock them both out william had asked. Why do we flood the condenser with a head pressure, control valve and or there's a couple other valves that will flood the condenser? But why flood the condenser, when we can just shut off a fan, motor and drive the head pressure up because remember we do condenser flooding to maintain a pressure differential, okay pressure differential means the pressure difference across the expansion valve. So you have the pressure coming out of the valve and you have the pressure going into the valve.

Okay uh, your your liquid line. Pressure going into the valve is directly affected by your condenser okay. So if the outdoor ambient drops really low, then the easiest way to explain it, your head pressure is going to drop. When your head pressure drops, you lose that driving force to push the refrigerant through the system.

So a couple different methods to control that head pressure. Okay, flooding condenser flooding using uh, head pressure, control valves, hold back valves, oroa valves, they're, all head pressure, control valves, but there's that way and then you can also do fan cycling. So william was asking why not just use fan cycling, it seems easier and while in theory it is easier because you're simply switching a motor based off of a pressure setting in the system using a fan. Cycling control.

Okay. What i find - and this is just my opinion - but what i find is head uh fan cycling - can be very violent on the system, especially if you only have one condenser fan motor. Now, if you have multiple condenser fan motors fan, cycling is probably a good method, because you can stage the fans you can shut them off. You know individually slowly to try to maintain head pressure, but especially here in california, where we have mild winters.

You know uh during the day this week. Uh today is cold, but tomorrow i think we're supposed to hit the 60s and, by the end of the week, we're supposed to be in the 70s, like 74 75 degrees, um fan cycling will happen, but what will happen? You'll notice is the condenser fan motor shuts off. Then your head pressure climbs up and 20 seconds later um the condenser fan motor turns back on and then 20 seconds later it turns off and then 20 seconds later it turns on. Well, if you pay attention the simplest way to understand how violent it is, is look at your sight, glass when that condenser fan motor is turning on and off what you're going to notice is the the the liquid in your sight, glass is going to start flashing.

It's going to drain and then fill up and then drain and then fill up and that same thing is happening you're. Actually, you can be feeding vapor down to your expansion valve in that situation. Okay, so fan cycling is a good method, but you got to be careful. Sometimes people will use fan cycling in conjunction with a head pressure control valve.

You have to be careful about that too, because you don't want them to interfere with each other. My opinion, head pressure, control or condenser flooding is much better. Obviously you know you get bigger systems. You can put vfds on the condenser fan motors, that's a pretty good way to because you can slow down the condenser fan motors.

I don't see that very often on my side of the field. So we see condenser flooding very common to see that, especially if you're working on ice machines for sure so uh. Let's go ahead and mark that one off the list and then let's go ahead and look at the chat and see what i'm missing here um. What else do we got uh? When do i reuse, recovered refrigerant or put in new refrigerant scott um? You know i tend to use.

Reuse recovered refrigerant, quite often uh. If you have any kind of fear of any contamination non-condensables in there and or acid or anything like that, then immediately, i just get rid of the refrigerant there's. No, i'm not going to chance it but yeah. I use reuse refrigerant, quite often majority of the time on the stuff that i do.

We can do pump downs where we pump this pump the refrigerant into the receiver and then do the repairs we need to do and then just evacuate the low side and put a new liquid line dryer and then go to town right start it back up. So we get away with doing pump downs quite often in what i do but yeah then i will do recoveries yeah. I would say if i had to guess probably 60 to 70 percent of the time i'm going to be reusing, recovered refrigerant. With that being said, you have to be really on top of the recovery cylinders to make sure that they're cleaned evacuated and ready to go when you put gas into them.

So in my area, when i go to the supply house to get a recovery, cylinder, there's two different types of cylinders that we get. We get a brand new cylinder and they come with caps on it, but that's it and then, if we have a cylinder that has plastic around the valves, that typically means that it's already evacuated dehydrated and it's ready to put refrigerant in. So if we get a brand new cylinder, we have to go ahead and pull an evacuation on it. Another thing that i would in uh challenge you guys to do is next time you go to the supply house or next time you have a recovery, cylinder, go ahead and open it up.

Take that valve off the top of the cylinder and look down into it with a flashlight. I bet you anything that cylinder is going to have all kinds of crap inside of it. Recovery cylinders are notoriously dirty, especially if they're they're being reused. Often so my supply house, the kind of cylinders that we get, we, we typically buy the cylinder and then we have an exchange program where we take it to the supply house and we we have them pump out the refrigerant, but they give us another cylinder and Then we just keep doing a swap back and forth, so the cylinder that i bought really i'm just putting back into the system, and then you know eventually i might get it back.

I might not, but with that being said, i found a lot of cylinders that had a lot of crap like you could just pick them up and shake them, and you can hear things inside of them and it's like yeah. I don't want that one. You know so recovery can be kind of tricky um. If you know you got to make sure you clean those cylinders before you put refrigerant that you potentially are going to reuse inside of it.

Another thing to think about too is, if you're recovering r22, that has mineral oil in it and then uh. You know that that's in a mineral oil you know system and you don't want to mix r22 that has poe in it, because you know you might have oil droplets inside there and stuff like that. So yeah, that's a whole whole nightmare on that part. Uh.

Have i seen a liquid lined solenoid valve in a strange spot, not really that i can think of right now? How is it that low ambient temperatures prevent refrigerant from efficiently condensing in the condenser? I wouldn't say that they prevent refrigerant from efficiently condensing in the condenser. It's just that um. Let's see the easiest way to explain. This is low ambient conden condenser temperatures drop the condensing temperature of the refrigerant right.

The condenser temperature inside the condenser gets a lot lower as the outdoor ambient drops and with that being said, you're not driving. That refrigerant, through the system at the proper flow rate. Okay, now this isn't the craziest technical term, but this is the easiest way that i can explain it. The expansion valve hold on especially the thermostatic expansion valve this guy right here.

It simply straps to the outlet of the evaporator suction line with this sensing bulb and the valve opens and closes depending on the temperature of the suction line. Okay um. So this valve is set to maintain the evaporator superheat, but as the pressure differential across the valve gets too low, the valve no longer can properly control the system and it can actually completely lose control of it, and you would have a really hard time. Maintaining proper superheat, which can lead to a lot of things if you have too high a superheat, you can lead to compressor, fill your problems.

If you have too low of superheat, you can lead to compressor failure problems. So we want that pressure differential across the expansion valve so that way it can properly function, and this is especially uh important on thermostatically, controlled expansion valves now on electronically controlled expansion valves, you can get away with lower pressure differentials across them. It was extremely important on older expansion valves now this is a spoiling cutaway and this is a newer style valve, so it had. This is a balanced port valve.

It does a really good job of controlling capacity at the moderately low pressure differentials across the valve, but um. So hopefully that answers your question for you, but all right, let's see what else we got in here. How do i live in cali and not speak? Spanish? You know it's just one of those things i really wish. I would have learned spanish a long time ago.

It would have helped my life tremendously so uh, let's see hvacj you're, saying that your subco vacuum gauge finally took a dump and you wanted to know if anyone has any recommendations. I think everybody in the chat here right now is going to recommend that you look into a bluevack micron gauge by accutools they're, pretty much the best out there right now they make great vacuum gauges. You have a couple different types you can, you can get. You can get the budget model, which has an amazing sensor in it.

The cool thing that i like about the vac micron gauges is they can handle positive pressure uh, which, if you're doing an evacuation properly when you're done with the evacuation. Theoretically, when you try to pull that vacuum gauge off the system before you charge it you're letting air into the system, so you really should be leaving the micro engage on there unless you have it like double um vacuum, core removal tools to where you can actually Isolate it, but you know that's a whole nother thing but yeah. I really like the blue, vac micro gauges myself, so you can check them out at truetechtools.com, uh have an offer code, big picture and there's actually usually affiliate links in the show notes of any one of my videos. That'll help me out too.

If you want to do that, if you want to pick up one of those all right, let's see what else we got going in here. Can i explain the difference between an eev and a txv um? Well, i'm going to give you the easiest explanation. This is a thermostatically, controlled expansion valve, meaning that the valve is going to be modulated based on the suction line, temperature, okay and then there's mechanical action going on. You've got a gas charge in this power head, that's pushing down on a bellows, that's opening and or closing the valve, and then you have a spring in the bottom.

That's counteracting this pressure right here on a eev or electronically controlled valve. It's literally just a motor that spins well for if it's a stepper motor style valve, it's a motor that spins to open or close, and it uses thermistors throughout the coil, and it usually has a logic board built into it. Somewhere. It has a controller or something that electronically or basically a computer.

That opens and closes the valve. Okay, i have a cutaway now this is not an eev, but this is a stepper motor driven valve right here and it's the same concept and essentially um. I don't know if the camera is going to focus on that hold on just a sec. Let's see if i can get this to focus, so no, it's not going to focus, but you see that you've got a little piston inside there.

That's driven up and down. This is a spoiling uh sma-12 and this is a valve driver. You can use this for eevs. I know you guys are gon na be able to see this right now, but it literally just drives an actuator that goes up and down.

That opens and closes the valve sorry that was horrible, horrible video quality there trying to show you guys on that thing, but all right. What else do we got in here um? What what is the wtf moment? Chapter on my videos mean uh john deere fan um yeah, i'm not gon na spell that out for you on this live stream, because i try to say somewhat clean but use your imagination uh. If someone in the chat wants to explain that to him feel free all right, can i explain i already talked about that. One already answered that question.

Let me go and get to my list right here. So rodney asked me: what tool am i using to test airflow and measure quick when i'm showing it on video so, first and foremost, when i'm working on package units first off, i tell you guys all the time. Airflow is king when it comes to um uh. When it comes to yeah, i like that the 98 deville txv equals dumb valve eev equals smart valve.

That's a good way. To put it, that's the difference right there um exactly so uh anyways. What tool am i using to test airflow when i'm working with measure? Quick, so when i'm working with measure quick, i'm using the automatically estimated airflow calculations, so measurequick has an algorithm built into it. It looks at the indoor conditions, the tonnage of the unit and it has a magical, voodoo magic way of telling you what the airflow is.

Now it's just an estimate understand that okay, so i am not physically measuring the airflow things that you could use to measure the airflow hot wire. Anemometer flow hood different things like that to actually measure the amount of air moving across the system and moving through the ductwork. Okay airflow is very difficult to measure when it comes to commercial package units, it's really really hard to measure. Okay, you know in residential there's some estimated ways that you can use manometers and um.

You know looking at the static pressure of the system and stuff like that, but that is not going to be an accurate way to measure airflow when it comes to commercial systems. Even on the residential side, that's just an estimation. So, but yes, when i'm using measure quick, i'm just using the automatically calculated estimations um, i'm making an assumption that they're somewhat correct. I'm not really like.

If someone ever asked me to physically measure the airflow of the equipment, i would not be using the measure. Quick measurement. I'd be kind of curious if we actually did put a flow hood on the vents and or traverse the duct with a hot wire anemometer, which is basically taking a series of measurements of the velocity of the air moving through and then taking the square internal square Surface of the ductwork and doing a calculation to figure out the cfm's um. If i ever did that i'd be really curious to see how accurate measure quick is so all right, let's see what else we got in here, um questions to ask an employee during an interview: okay, as as oh employer, sorry so questions for you as an employee To ask an employer, so that's a really good question.

Remember something guys all of us when we go to a job interview now, don't get cocky with this, but remember that we are interviewing the company just as much as the company is interviewing us all right now. I realize young guys first getting in the trade they just want to get their foot in the door. They'll take anything they can get. I get it, but you also need to be careful with that, but as an employee right or as an interviewee, i guess i should say what can you ask the potential employer? Okay, so, first and foremost, you want to be honest with them.

Okay, be upfront uh, the best you know, i'm not gon na, say i've hired them or i didn't, but the best employees that i've hired or the best interviewees that i've had are been people that have been honest. Now. I've hired people that have had problems. Um we've worked through them, so it's you know things that normally people wouldn't hire someone for i've taken a chance on some people and some people worked out some people.

It didn't so just be honest, that's the biggest thing! There's! Nothing worse as an employer to hire someone and then a couple weeks later you find out. You can't get them insured because they have duis on the record and they didn't disclose that to you. Then you have to let them go. You know um! So as an employee or interviewee, i guess i should say i would say first, you need to ask just the basic questions.

You know: what's the pay structure going to be like you know, what are the benefits all that stuff, but then you know you want to know what the company culture's like you want to know what the other employees are like in the company and if it, if It is possible, i'm not saying that everybody's going to let you do this, but if it is possible, if you make it through a series of interviews and they think that you're, you know a good candidate for hiring. What i would suggest you do is try to get them to let you do a ride along with a couple different people in the company, and you can kind of feel out the other people in the company too. Now some places might not want to go for that: okay, uh. The way that we do things is.

We typically do ride-alongs, where someone comes and works with me for a day or two, but that's getting even harder and harder with the kind of craziness that yeah. That's a whole nother conversation, but i love doing ride-alongs with people. So you do a in-person interview and then you schedule some time for them to come work with you for a day and then you can kind of gauge them. You know feel them out and see how things are going so, but if i was going to work for a company today, the questions that i would be asking would be about the pay structure be about the clientele they service um.

What kind of predictions they have for the coming years now, of course, they're never going to know everything, but i mean do they predict that things are going to slow down when are there slow times because everybody every company out there has slow times so or are They so busy and they work you so hard that you know you you never even can breathe. Those are things you want to worry about too. You don't want to be like going into a company and having to work 80 hours a week. You know you're not going to have a life outside of that company, so um.

If, if i didn't answer any of the questions that you were kind of hoping, i would answer feel free to send me an email to hvacr videos, gmail.com, okay, um. Let's see what else we got in here, um, okay, i don't know what that is right there. What am i missing if you aren't adding or removing gas? Is there a good reason to use a set of gauges instead of smart probes? The 98 deville i've been using smart probes a lot more lately than gauges, but when it does come to refrigeration repairs, i will typically use my gauges, especially if i know from the beginning that more than likely i'm going to be adding refrigerant, yeah i'll, probably go Ahead and put on my actual gauges versus the smart probes, if i'm doing package unit work on uh air conditioners and stuff, i tend to lean towards my smart probes and i can charge with my smart probes too. So i have no problem, but i mean if, if you're not adding or removing gas, is there a good reason? No, if you know you're not going to be adding or removing gas, then yeah smart probes will be fine, but something you need to think about here.

In california, we have really hot summers and there's times where i could be working out in the low desert out in the palm springs area, which is a ways away and uh. I can't have my phone in my pocket without it overheating, so let alone trying to run apps and software on it. It's not going to fly, i mean not even being in the sunlight just being outside. In 115 degree air.

Your phone is going to overheat, especially when you have like otterbox cases, because i have otter cases on my phone to protect it from drops and stuff that doesn't help anything with with uh. You know it overheating and stuff. So that's all stuff! You got to worry about for sure um, let's see what else we got in here. Let me go to my list.

I already answered that one that rodney had asked me um mark had asked me. Oh, this is a good question. So mark had sent me a question. He was working on a beacon system and he noticed that there's ice droplets all over the ceiling and he's asking and what he notices is that the evaporator fan motors have no delay and the evaporator fan motors immediately turn on.

When it comes out of defrost okay, so that shouldn't be the case, but there's another thing: i'm going to tell you that a lot of the times on the beacon systems and the qrc systems or the intelligence systems. Yes, the evaporator fan motor should not turn on immediately out of defrost, but they typically have something that they call drip time built into the algorithm, and you can sometimes change the drip time so out of a defrost uh, it may say drip time or it may Not but it might be built into the defrost, but essentially it's the time where it just lets the um the evaporator dry out, basically before it turns on the evaporator fan motors. But to answer your question: yes, there should be a delay from the moment that the heaters turn off till the moment that the evaporator fan motors turn on. So the system should turn on the coil, should get cold and then re-freeze anything that's potentially left on it and then turn the evaporative fan motors on uh.

So in a walk-in freezer, if you guys don't know if you walk into a walk-in freezer and you notice, the ceiling is full of droplets of ice. That typically means that there's a defrost issue. Okay, and it can be a couple things. It can be um that uh, there's no defrost termination, okay and potentially the defrost - is going way too long to the point that the ceilings start to condensate because of the the warm air coming off.

The evaporator coil and the ceiling will start to condensate and the little water droplets will start to get loose and they'll just sit there, and then the system turns back on and then they re-freeze okay. That can be an indication of too long of a defrost. Another thing that can happen if you have a lot of ice um on the fan guards and on the shelves, it could be a door being left open, but it can also be that the evaporator fan motors do not have a delay, and what can happen is. Is when the system turns back on all that uh condensation? That's on the coil, the evaporative coil.

The fans will immediately blow that condensation off of the evaporator coil out into the box, and then it will re-freeze. So hopefully i kind of answered your question. I think i kind of went off on a little bit of a tangent mark, but that should make sense a little bit. Devin had asked me what tablet that i use, and i get this question actually quite a lot.

So i've said it before in a few videos. I use a tablet at work when i'm working with smart probes and measure quick and the field piece app, and i have a couple different apps that i use it. I do not have an expensive tablet. I purposely buy a very inexpensive.

It costs like two three hundred bucks tablet: okay, it is a galaxy, a samsung galaxy tab, a i buy a wi-fi version, so it does not have any internet connectivity or anything like that, and the reason why i do that is. I fear that i'm gon na lose that tablet. One day i have a pretty good handle on my phone because it stays in my pocket and it's kind of my lifeline right. I don't like using my phone for measure quick for a couple reasons, the main being that i film my calls with my phone.

So it's a little awkward to try to film my calls, while i'm looking at my phone looking at measure quick. So i typically use a tablet, but also a tablet has a bigger screen. So it's easier to see. I like the galaxy tab, a because it's very inexpensive and if i was to lose it, it's not a big deal and it it isn't.

So, honestly, the tab - a cost - maybe 200 bucks - 300 bucks at costco. I don't buy the very fancy version it. For me. The processing power is just enough um.

If i ever need to use internet for it. I just turn on a hotspot in my phone and then go from there uh easy heat cooling. Thank you so very much for that super chat bud. That is awesome.

I really appreciate it um. So hopefully that answers your question devin and uh. Let's get to the chat right now and see what i'm missing um all right, um when you were young, you worked many different, oh okay, uh t-tech is t lech. I don't know why.

I read that t-tech, it's saying: don't work for an employer who doesn't do the work themselves. I see some truth in that: okay, meaning that you know the the boss actually gets out there and turns wrenches every once in a while. But you do need to understand something uh, as the company gets bigger and bigger, the boss needs to go into the office, because the office is a whole nother business aside from the service techs out in the field. So while i understand what you're saying you definitely want a boss, that cares and isn't afraid to get his hands dirty, but i am a service technician that runs a business, but i don't run the business alone.

Okay, my dad still works in the business uh while he doesn't really turn wrenches anymore. He hasn't for many years, occasionally he'll come out and help me out on a job tomorrow, he's going to come out on me on a walk-in, install and kind of help me out and give me some support too, but uh we split the time. If, if i didn't have my dad working in the office, i would have to be in the office because it's a full-time job billing emailing finding work dealing with all the drama crap that comes from the office, i hate working in the office. That's that's the least.

My least favorite part of the job um, so you definitely need someone and running a business is a full-time job just in the office alone. Okay and that's, we have a secretary too, and i mean we still need to be in the office quite often, and i have to spend probably one to two days a week in the office myself, even though i hate it doing emails and quotes and different stuff. Like that, so yes, you definitely want someone, that's still willing to get their hands dirty. A service manager that comes out into the field every once in a while, but the bigger the operation gets the more office staff you're going to need and there's a lot of bad that can happen in the office.

If a principal person of the business is not in there controlling things and making sure the office is running smoothly, all hell can break loose. So all right. What type of water hose do i use on my service calls and can it withstand hot water chad? So yes, and no i've had businesses that have exploded my water hoses because they have no regulators on their hot water and it just gets too darn hot. But i will use um the black rubber hoses they're 5 8 inch id inside diameter, they're made by goodyear and or continental tire.

I buy them from home depot. They tend to last the longest. For me, i usually get a couple years out of my hoses, but as a caveat, people that have worked with me know this, that i'm crazy about my hoses and my ropes and my extension cords okay. So when i'm using a hose, i'm not kidding with you every single time i take a damp towel.

I wipe down the entire hose. I dry it off. I drain the hose i roll it up. I put it away dry and put it back in my van every single time because to me, there's nothing worse than picking up your hose and having to be greasy and nasty and throwing it on your shoulder.

And then your shirt has a big stain on the top. It's just a disaster, so i'm crazy about my hoses and that's probably why they last so long, my hoses, usually last a long time. I actually had a really good question that that's going to kind of segue into um. Where is it at? I know it's in here hold on not there oh yeah, there we go.

Um was uh gerald had asked me. Why don't i just leave hoses on the roof when i'm done instead of carrying them up on the roof every single time? And he kind of mentioned, you know just put them into the price of the call put them into the price of the service contract and while gerald is absolutely correct, if you can leave hoses on a roof of a customer that you go to on a regular Basis that little bit of time that it's going to take you to take that hose, bring it up onto the roof hook it up and all that stuff. You will save a lot of time and it's going to make your job easier. Unfortunately, i try to do that as much as possible gerald, but my customers, they go up on the roof and they take the hose.

The hose disappears so um. I have a customer actually, the one that i just did a video on where i was working on. The refrigeration rack for the walking cooler and i changed the temp control yeah - that customer right there uh several the locations. I leave a hose on the roof and i come up the next time and the hose is gone.

Okay. They don't have a lot of contractors on the roof, so you know the customer goes up there and hoses off the awnings and different things like that. But my hoses always go missing so um you know. Occasionally, i will do that and i always charge the customer for the hoses, so i do not leave hoses on the job site without charging them uh.

I've learned that one don't get burned by that one, because those hoses are like 40 bucks a pop, and you can't afford to be leaving 80 dollars in hoses at each restaurant and then the next month. You come back and they're gone. That just is frustrating as all get up, so i will try to leave my hoses on the roof when i can but um yeah, i'm not a fan either. I know a lot of people like those pocket hoses and different things like that.

I have not had any good luck with pocket hoses. They all explode, they all rip when you're rolling them up trying to drain them. They get kinks in them. They all suck, in my opinion, so if you're working with cold water all day long sure a pocket hose, might be a good idea, but they're almost impossible to clean to the pocket.

Hoses are the ones that collapse down into a small little bag and you can shove them in there. I like the idea of being able to throw my hose in a bag, but it gets all dirty and nasty and where i absolutely will not tolerate pocket hoses is in a restaurant, because if i have a rubber hose and you maintain it, you know when there's Going to be a failure of that hose, you can start to see bubbles and different things. A pocket hose. You could drag it through a restaurant and you could be working on something and all of a sudden.

The thing explodes - and you don't know it. You know, and it can make the biggest mess in the world so for liability reasons. The rubber hoses are much better, especially if you're running them through a restaurant to defrost a walk-in freezer or something like that. Um, let's see vincent.

Thank you so very much for that super chat man. I appreciate that you, like the content, guys i'm gon na, say this. I've said it a million times. I do not know everything, nor will i ever know everything.

I make mistakes every single day in the very beginning of my videos, i kind of had like an imposter syndrome, kind of feeling, because i felt like i was editing out too many of my mistakes and i wasn't showing the true uh realness you know. So i really made an effort to show more of my mistakes, but the important thing is: i try to learn from my mistakes and i try to. I show them and i you know make sure that i point them out in the videos like hey. I shouldn't have done it like this or i messed up on this or hey.

Even some of you guys will reach out to me and say hey. I have a better way that you can do that or or hey. I think you screwed this one up. I'm open to all of that stuff guys if you guys have feedback or anything leave me a comment.

Send me an email, i'm always trying to grow, to be a better service technician. I think we should all try to be better at that kind of stuff. Okay, um, so android man is a screen. Name had asked me why i didn't use the testo manifold in my recent video guys um.

I think i've said it a few times and i'll say it again: i'm a field piece guy, okay. I bought the testo manifold and we we bought a bunch of them for the the hvacr tools channel, because we were all curious. I had never used testosterone in my life now, while i'm not going to get rid of my testo manifold, i'm going to keep it. I'm more inclined to be using my field piece stuff, just because i like it more okay, there's some cool features that the testo manifold had, but to be honest with you that testo manifold is going to be my backup manifold.

It's going to sit in the back of my van in case. Something happens with my field piece one. I always keep a backup manifold uh. Before that i had a field piece: s-man 460.

I think whatever the the non-joblink one and uh actually just shipped that off today to someone i just gave it away to someone that was asking about tools and stuff. I don't do that all the time, but someone had emailed me right at the right time and asked if i had any tools i was willing to sell and i was cleaning out my van that day and i figured you know what i'll send you this manifold He's a new guy coming up in the trade and what a better way to introduce him into a brand new set. Well, almost brand new field piece s: man 460., so um sent him that but yeah i'm going to keep the testo as my backup - and i still have some more videos to do with the test, though. So it's not that you're never going to see it in the videos again.

I still want to get some more video footage for the tools channel, showing different features that it has and stuff. So, just to be clear when it comes to the tools channel um, the tools channel is hvacr tools: okay, um, myself and the overtime crew are gon na, be doing videos on it. We're gon na be posting them. I just posted another one today talking about the coremax tool, i just posted a link in the channel or in the the chat so um.

You know we are gon na. We haven't figured out the exact direction of the channel, but there's gon na be some stuff that we're all gon na review, there's gon na be some stuff that only some of us are gon na review me. Personally, i really don't plan on getting rid of many of the tools that i purchased for that channel. I'm probably going to keep them and use them for demonstration purposes and different stuff, like that, and you know just kind of go with that.

So we're just going to have fun with it. We don't want it to become a job for us. We want it to be something fun, just kind of like how i treat hvac videos - it's just i don't ever want it to become something. That's a job and there's times where i felt like it started to get that way.

If you don't use the testo, would the batteries leak out chad, um yeah, i'm sure if i didn't use it forever, i would probably need to take the batteries out of it or something like that yeah. But one thing i am going to say: i'm going to give tesla some credit because of that that screen that they use on it. You know it's like a old liquid, crystal display or lcd. I guess you can call that duh, you dummy um, but it's not fancy right.

It's just it's not lcd. I don't know what it is, but whatever kind of display it's just like a cheesy display that battery lasts forever guys, i'm not kidding with you. I had left it on like overnight, i think for like two nights in the back of my van because i turned the backlight on to stay on all the time and i forgot, and i went out to my van like that night or the night two nights Later or something like that and the damn thing was still on so the batteries it does, it has a really good battery life for sure. So all right, let's see what else does the wtf moment chapter mean some new issues jump out at you, uh yeah? It's just the oh, my gosh, something you know interesting, you know wtf.

What did i find um? You know uh something weird. You know surprised me or something like that. All right, um, let's see what else we got in here, uh. What else do we have uh? Yeah testo 557 is okay for backup field piece daily driver for t leg.

You know, that's that's just my thing. I'm a fan, i'm not saying that the testos better than the field piece or the field piece is better than the testo. I prefer the field piece for myself. Other people prefer the testo there's absolutely nothing wrong with having different opinions.

Okay, i love the giant screen about the field piece. I love how big the field piece manifold is other people don't like how big it is and that's fine i just like it so i've always liked it um when i was doing a leak check the other day. I had a question on my video. I don't remember the person's name, but they had asked me when i was looking for a leak.

They were just kind of curious. If i take my leak detector - and i put it right on the leak source - and it gets just a mass blast of refrigerant into the sensor - is that going to contaminate and or ruin the sensor?.