So 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, so so yo, hopefully you guys are doing well. I am back in studio today um. I know that a lot of people enjoyed the the in-field live streams, but um.

Let me tell you they're, pretty stressful, especially for me after the fact, because i have such a hard time when there's audio issues like i i i really stress about poor audio quality, and i know my stuff is not amazing, but in general you know. I love the the studio feel of the live streams, but i get that you know people like to see different things, so i'll try to do more of those. You know now that i know it's an option. I'm just still trying to dial in the microphone setup.

So i've tried two different microphone setups and i'm not satisfied whatsoever with the microphone setups that i've done so we'll see we'll see how it goes, i'm still trying to figure it out. I mean i've gone as far as getting a headset, but i don't want to get a headset and when you're on bluetooth, one of the problems that you run into with audio is there's a lag. So there's like a two to three second. Well, probably, two second lag on bluetooth, so if you were looking at my face, it did, you know i'd be like a um.

What was i going to say like a bruce lee, um yeah, bruce lee, you know kung fu movie or something like that where it's dubbed you would be able to. It would just drive people crazy and you know um now. I know the audio is cool yeah, but yeah anyways. I really appreciate you guys making it in here.

So let's start this off right uh. My name is chris. I'm just an hvacr service technician! Uh! You know there's a lot of new viewers that have been coming into this channel, so i'm sure, there's gon na be some new people watching this stream. The whole point of these live streams is to answer questions uh jack.

Thank you. So very much for that. Super chat, that's awesome, but i really appreciate it um. So the whole point of these live streams is to answer questions.

Okay, this channel has grown into a monster that i never expected it to grow into and it's insane the amount of emails. I was just talking to my wife today before the stream, the amount of emails, the comments, the um facebook comments, all these different things that come through and it's like. I try to get to everything, but it's so overwhelming. So i started doing these live streams as a way to kind of consolidate the questions, but it's even gone beyond that because when i started these live streams there was like 30 people, 20 people watching.

You know - and you know it's crazy - it's just it's very humbling, but it's just insane like there's so many unanswered comments that i can't get to and i feel bad. I i try to read everyone, but i just can't get to them all. But the whole point of these streams was to be able to kind of consolidate the questions, answer them in a live format and then also answer live questions from the chat, okay, uh. So again i already covered the fact that my name is chris, i'm just an hvac service technician.

I run a small business here in southern california. We work on restaurant refrigeration, hvacr whiz. Thank you so very much for that. Super chat bud so run a small air conditioning refrigeration company that deals with mainly restaurant refrigeration out here in southern california and uh yeah.

I just make these youtube videos in general. They started out as helping my employees, but it's morphed into something totally different dion. Thank you so very much man. I really really appreciate it yeah exactly so that last live stream, dion um john.

Thank you. So very much. You guys are awesome with these super chats again. You guys don't have to do this, but they're very much appreciated, okay, um! So yeah the last live stream yeah.

I realized it made for a good good, uh service call kind of a thing you know seeing that stuff pop up, but yeah it's it's. It was fun after the fact, they're always cool to think after the fact, like hey, that one went okay, but in the midst of it you know just i i put so much time into getting ready for these streams to to be just you know, totally thrown Off balance and have to go to a call, just kind of threw me off that day so but anyways um. I really appreciate you guys. I got a whole list of questions here that i want to get to.

I have a topic that i wanted to start off with, and i just want to preface this whole stream and, in general, the whole youtube channel. Okay, i am not a perfect person. I make mistakes every single day. In fact, i make mistakes and i i admittedly show them in my videos all the time.

Uh people call me out for my mistakes. I am totally accepting of criticism. If you guys see anything in my videos that you think is incorrect, shoot me an email. Send me a comment: leave a comment on youtube: facebook.

Whatever, okay, you can find me on all the social media platforms under hvac videos um, but yeah, i'm always willing to accept criticism, but i definitely am not a perfect person. Nor will i ever be, and there is not a perfect service technician out there. So, if someone's telling you they're perfect they're full smoke - okay, it's just not true. I try to share my mistakes as much as possible, but i am human okay, um yeah and i i just you know i try to be as as open as possible with you guys right.

So you know with hvacr, especially refrigeration in general. Okay, i deal with restaurants. It is not as demanding as supermarket work, but the restaurant work is pretty unpredictable, meaning that you know i can get a service call and i have to drop everything and go take care of that service call. I typically try to give my customers a two hour response time um, so i try to be within the call within two hours.

Most of the time, i'm there within 45 minutes try to get out there and you know figure out. What's going on the way that i think about service calls, for instance, last week when i was getting ready for my live stream, i got off work early. I was sitting in my office. I was getting ready, sending emails coming up with a list of things to talk about, and i got a service call about 3 45 or something like that jack.

Thank you so very much. I really appreciate that super chat, so um yeah. I got a service call and i had to leave. It was a walk-in freezer.

Now, yes, i probably could have gone ahead and went through with my in studio stream and then gone to the service call after, but i get like all bent up inside and the anxiety inside of me just kind of builds up, and it's like i just want To get out there get the call done with and get home okay, i don't like to drag things on. You know if i would have waited for the two hours that i would have done a stream for then i would have been home two hours later that night and it would have just thrown off my next day. Hvac is very unpredictable, especially when you're doing the refrigeration stuff. Okay, and it's just one of those things you have to learn to deal with.

Now we have an on-call rotation. I've been getting a lot of questions about that. We have an on-call rotation at my company um, we're short a service technician right now, because he's injured um but anyways he'll be back soon, hopefully, but so at this time. Right now we have a five-week rotation at my company, okay and i'm on four weeks.

In a row - and i get one week off okay, so i'm on call four weeks i get one week off on call four weeks. You know we were already short a service technician when the one guy got injured, so that's just how it happens and he didn't injure himself on the job he injured himself on his personal time, but he's gon na be okay, so just has to kind of do Some stuff to get back into shape, basically so, but it's very unpredictable. Okay, it's very rewarding because i i very much enjoy fixing things. I love the feeling of being able to walk away from something and be done with it and and get it done.

But at the same time, it's stressful because you just don't know when the calls are going to come in and it does make for one of those really awkward situations where, when i'm on call, i do not plan anything. For instance, my wife literally just came to me today, uh alex, thank you so very much for that super chat bud, that's really awesome and i'm not a hero by any means. Okay, um. But you know with uh my wife.

She asked me today. She says: hey, a friend of ours is having a birthday party next weekend on sunday and she was kind of curious. What i thought about going to the party - and i just told her, i'm on call i'm not planning, i'm not gon na go to the party. I'm not going to drive my work van to the party, i'm because i'm destined to get a service call.

Basically, okay, i shouldn't say i'm not going to go i'll, feel out the weekend and kind of see how it's going and then come sunday. You know - maybe i might go, but i just i don't like to plan things like that. I don't like to get my hopes up. So when i'm on sir on call, i typically don't plan a single thing.

I just stay at home, do stuff around the house, because i know that if i get my hopes up and go out to dinner or do something that i'm destined to get a call and it's going to ruin my night even more so than just you know, Feeling like crap, because i'm staying at home doing nothing and yeah that may sound horrible, but that's just the way that i roll. So i'm going to take pay attention to the chat here, real, quick and see what that have um. Does that affect me? Hiring text also, when am i going to be on hvac radio uh, actually real good point, ernesto so hvac radio uh is a couple well one of my friends, reuben uh, macias, uh, h, uh, rookie, refrigeration uh is doing a podcast with ulysses palacios. I believe.

That's how you pronounce your name, ulysses. It's called hvac radio, guys check it out on spotify on the apple store or anything like that. I listen. I think it's their third episode today and they were talking about glycol chillers.

I listened to that. That was really cool. The other two guys, forgive me, i don't personally know you guys. I know one of them's name's cameron and the other one.

Your name is is slipping my tongue right now, but i apologize but um yeah. I they had mentioned something about me going on the show. I'm really interested, i'm i'm sure. They'll call me one of these days, nate peterson! Thank you.

So very much for that super chat man. That is flipping awesome. I really appreciate it. You guys definitely don't have to do these, but um ernesto.

I don't know what you mean by uh: does that affect hiring other texts? I don't know what you mean by that one. Um give me some more context on that question. Let me see what else uh yeah exactly okay um. So let me see what else we got in here guys if you do have questions.

Do me a favor post them in the chat put them in caps, lock. Okay, that's the reason why questions are in caps lock, because then that way we know it's an actual conversation or a question for me. If i don't answer your question right away, just keep posting them until myself or one of the moderators tells you not to post it anymore. Okay, i try to get to them and if i miss you guys, questions send me an email to hvacr videos.

Gmail.Com. Okay, can i use an automotive belt on an hvac unit kevin? I have done it before. Yes, it'll get you by depending on the size of the belt. Sometimes they may be a little bit thinner a little bit thicker, but it'll get you by until you can get a proper v-belt for it.

So, let's see what else our condenser fan motors made in china electrically minded mk uh. I don't know. I know a lot of the motors that i deal with are made in mexico. I don't know how many of them are made in china, but i can pretty much guarantee you.

Majority of them are not made in the united states and that's just a sad fact of it. So there's a few motor manufacturers, but not very many, so most i would say, are made in mexico or possibly china uh kevin. Thank you so very much for that. Super chat man.

I really appreciate it. Okay, uh, let's see yeah live stream service calls. They are awesome after the fact they're a little stressful during the thing uh will i be it. Will i at some point hire enough texts to only be on call one week that is the goal daniel, but at the same time as an owner, i have to weigh out all the things right now and you know i'm looking probably to hire one service technician Right now i haven't decided if they're going to be an experienced or non-experienced.

Of course i want a higher experience, but it's been hard to find and experience tech that is in my area that wants to work. For me. I am hiring, though i possibly will consider doing an apprenticeship, but the problem with the apprenticeship. The difficult thing about me hiring an apprentice and training him.

I want to do it and i realize that'll help the industry, but the problem with it is is i have to commit to working with that guy 40 hours a week to give him his 40., so it just gets to be a little difficult. You know, because sometimes i need to get off early to come, do the live streams or i got ta work in the office or things like that. So then i have to put him with a less experienced tech which i'm not a super fan of. So it's just the struggles um, but then also i got to weigh out the whole covet thing.

You know everything's so unpredictable right now. Are we going to lock down again? Are we going to get busy? Are we going to stay slow? You know you got to be careful, i don't want to hire a bunch of people and then have to lay them off or something like that. Okay, so we just got to kind of be a little conservative with our hiring, but i'm definitely going to be hiring one person at least right now. So let me see what else we got in here: um, the super chats adam.

Thank you very much man. I really appreciate it, but um yeah, i i i will be there work permitting on the hvac overtime on friday, so uh this last weekend was my one weekend off uh. I ended up working on saturday. That's how it works.

I wasn't on call this last weekend, but i ended up running a call or not a call. I ended up doing a scheduled job all day saturday, so i went in it like i got to the job site at seven and then i got home at like four or four thirty, or something like that did a a leak, repair and just a whole thing. I filmed a video on it, so it'll pop up eventually but um, you know so, even when i'm not on call i'm working all the time now i did take sunday. Sunday was a family day.

We went to actually to my dad's house and uh um drove his little boat around the harbor with my family. It was a super enjoyable day, just relaxing outside it's a bummer that i don't get to do that as much as i want to. But you know it just it is what it is, and things will get better eventually. So, what's the most problematic thermostat that i've had to replace uh john deere fan, i will tell you exactly what thermostat that was so uh linux industries came out with their um.

I wouldn't even call it a thermostat. It was like a human interface for their uh dave net, i think, is what it was called. I don't know they, it was their their. I can't think of the name of it right now.

There was a name of a thermostat when the when the linux uh voyagers came out originally in the late 90s early 2000s, they have a uh, a building automation system. Basically it was their own proprietary control and it had a giant touch screen. Those things drove me nuts, because i wasn't very familiar. Someone in the chat will say what it was called, but i wasn't very familiar with um with control systems and uh.

It kind of threw me for a loop and would always confuse me. So eventually we pulled that whole system out again, it's driving me nuts, that i can't remember the name of it. You had to log into it with a computer. You had to buy a silly little chingus that you plugged into a phone jack, and you know whatever it was a pain in the butt.

But those were those things threw me for a loop basically because they were very confusing to me um, but it was basically one single human interface uh very similar to um. Was it a pro? No, it wasn't the prodigy system, but it was very similar to like a tracer system for a train or something like that and yeah. They just threw me for a loop, so those probably the most confusing thermostats that i ever had to deal with um. Let me see what else um.

Let me see what i mouse, what made me step out and decide to work for myself, uh dg so um. I started working for my father and we partnered together many years ago and we run the company together now. So i never officially like went out on my own. I kind of i grew up in a family, business and kind of took the reins and have been running with him for a while.

Now so probably not the best person uh alex you'll, move to california and be able to train. Oh, i got you man. I can't train people for free. You can't do that in california.

Have i seen lots of compressor issues on hoshizaki r290 units? No, i can't say that i've worked on any hoshizaki r290 units. I've only worked on a few, a handful of hoshizaki regions in general. I probably have three or four hoshizaki regions out there at a couple of my restaurants, but i really don't get that many service calls on them in the very beginning. I did get a lot of service calls but uh the main units that i work on right now.

I work on a lot of kairac units. A lot of dell field units, kyrak and delfield are the mains, and then i have a lot of custom units. True refrigeration units, but not very many hoshizaki units of all things, so all right, let's see what else we got in here, um dion again. Thank you very much.

I really uh appreciate no, i'm not answering any calls or anything, but i really appreciate that super chat. That's awesome but uh. What is the step bit thing called that i use to flow nitrogen. It's made by jb industries, um just look up, jb industries, nitrogen, i don't know tool or something like that and it'll probably come up.

I don't think you can find it at true tech tools, but i'm sure you can. If you look on one of my past videos, i think there's probably a link in the show, notes and stuff like that. I don't know the exact name of it right now. Um, let me see what else we got in here right now, all right, i'm gon na, go and get to my list of things uh.

Does it cool down over here in october, yeah september october is kind of the start of our fall towards the end of september, beginning of october, so we're already getting the cooler nights um, but we still have hot days. So i think next week we still have a few really hot days of about 100 and 203 degrees and that's actually not even very hot. For us, 121 was our high this summer. So we'll still have 100 a few hundred degree days next week, but we still have really cool nights before we'll.

We'll basically have a wind event that we get every year called the santa ana winds up north in northern california. They call them the diablo winds, but we'll get that wind event come down here in southern california and once that wind event passes that's when it'll start to really get cold outside and then the season just completely changes and when i say really cold guys in california. We don't know what cold is okay, so our extreme low, like the extreme low we'll ever get where i live, is about 34 degrees, but that will only happen for maybe like four days of the whole winter. Okay, our normal average winter temperatures are about 50 to 55 degrees uh and that's what we consider cold.

We get our ugg boots on our beanies, our hoodies, and we basically just survive for a month and a half, and then we have warm weather come january february. So all right uh any experience with trenton esp plus evaps. If so, how do i like them? No mark, but i i hear a lot of good things about the esp plus evaporators. I will say that trenton, the really cool thing is that they did partner with or at least they had uh ke2 therm uh.

I'm sorry brain fart for a minute, but ke2 therm, who makes the evap plus efficiency controllers and the temp plus defrost controllers. They actually uh designed the and program the boards for the esp uh trenton evaporators. So it is actually a ke2 therm um system, basically, and you can hook up to it with the ke2 therm dashboard. It's really cool setup.

I've not worked with one myself, but they do look really cool, i'm very impressed with a lot of the trenton equipment. I was recently doing some work at a stainless steel shop and they had a bunch of trenton condensing units, and i was just admiring like the quality that they took to design the systems and the usability and all that stuff, so very, very nice equipment. I'd love to start working with a little bit more, unfortunately, dealing with the chain, restaurants that i deal with, we don't get to sell equipment very often, so it is what it is, but all right, i'm going to go to my list of things to talk about Here, real quick um, let me see what we got here uh. I appreciate i see a bunch of orders coming through for shirts and stuff right now.

Uh. Thank you guys very much for the support. Okay, um. If you guys don't already know uh, you guys can purchase merch hats and shirts on hvacrvideos.com, i have all different types of shirts different colors, i should say white gray.

Black. This shirt is one of them that i'm wearing right now i'll show you guys the design on the back real quick for those that don't know so. It says big picture diagnoses on the back and then the hats they're, just a black hat um. Let me grab one real quick, so the hats are a black like um, the best way to describe them because i can see light through them, but they're, not a trucker hat they're, not mesh, but they're breathable black underbill.

So your fingers don't get them dirty flex. Fit they do not have my logo on them, they just say hvacr. I purposely did that guys because i didn't want you guys to be wearing my logo at work and possibly have a conflict of interest or anything like that, so check it out on the website. Okay, that's that's all the plugs i'm gon na give to myself.

So thanks for sticking through that, okay, let me see what else um all right. I'm gon na go ahead and get to my list so uh john had asked me: do i mainly use my phone for measure quick, great question, john, so i'm going to cover a few questions with that one right now. So a lot of people ask me all the time when i'm showing the digital software that i'm using when i'm checking out an air, conditioner or refrigeration system. I typically use the app called measure, quick um.

It is free on the app store you guys can download it from the android or apple store. It's got tons of free stuff inside there. Okay. Now i will preface that by saying i have talked to jim bergman he's the creator of that app and he owns the company and uh he's made that app completely free and he's promised that the app will stay free.

Now there is some premium versions that you do have to pay for, but understand something he has put countless countless hours and money into that app. Okay, so check it out, and do me a favor if you guys can give jim some support. Okay, within the app you guys can buy something called q bits. Qubits allows you access to the premium services within the app.

I have no affiliation with measure quick by the way, guys. Okay - and let me just preface this okay - but do me a favor if you guys, can support jim by buying some qubits okay, it's amazing that he made that app and we have access to it. It works with almost all the smart tools. Okay, it works with field piece products.

Majority of the testo products works with eye manifold products. You guys just go to measure quick, i'm sure measurequick.com, maybe or something, and you can probably find out all the stuff you can do with it. It's a great app um. Let me see uh yeah if i was a smart broadcaster ike, i probably would have transitioned to my rear cam, but i'm not very good at this whole streaming thing, so it is what it is um, let's see with my measure quick, i mainly do use a Tablet: okay, you can uh give access or you can access it from your phone, but here's the problem.

I can bring it up on my phone in fact i'll bring it up right. Now, i'm not going to show you guys a screenshot, but i mean it's popping up right now it says measure quick and then it's going to load. It's going to have it's going to ask me if i want to update and it's going to pull up a manifold set. Okay, now, i purposely don't use my phone very often for measure quick because there's nothing worse in my opinion than being connected to measure quick and you're, trying to diagnose something in a phone call or an email or a notification comes through and it just messes everything Up okay, so i use measure quick on a separate tablet.

I have a very inexpensive tablet. It's a samsung galaxy tab, a it might have cost me. 200 bucks. I put an otterbox case on it and i leave it in my tool bag.

I'm i mean don't get me wrong. 200 is a lot of money to me, but at the same time, if i lose that tablet, it's not a big deal. That's why i purposely don't buy a very expensive ipad or anything i just buy a very inexpensive one. The tab, a works, perfect, the software runs measure quick.

I have no issues whatsoever and i'm not concerned. If i lost my tablet, it would not be the end of the world. Now, if i go and buy a very, very expensive tablet, eight nine hundred dollars, then yeah, i'm gon na - be bummed out. If i damage it or lose it or something like that, so i use it on a tablet.

Um. Let me see what else. Oh, i had a really good question from someone. They said they noticed that i'm always preaching about commercial refrigeration for air conditioning technicians.

By dick words, it is a book if you guys haven't read the book go out and order it in the show notes of this video is an amazon link for that book. Um check it out. I met the gentleman that wrote the book he's a very nice. Humble dude, his name is dick wurst, it's an amazing book and it's designed for refrigeration technicians that are hvac technicians that want to become refrigeration, technicians, okay, it's a great great book, so uh ian had a i'm sorry um.

The the question was asked about that book. They said, forgive me, the person didn't give me his name, but he wrote in there hey. I read in the book that you should have on most walk-in coolers. You should have a 10 degree design td, okay, the evaporator td is the difference between the suction saturation temperature of the refrigerant in the middle of the evaporator and the box temperature.

Okay. So he says he notices that in my videos, when i'm working on refrigeration systems that i don't always have a perfect 10 degree td - and he said i don't seem to be too concerned about that. And he was kind of curious because the way that he reads it in the book is that you should have a 10 degree td. He is correct.

Okay and i've said this many times before. I believe it was jim bergman that made this comment. If you don't know what your refrigerant pressures or temperature should be before you apply your service gauges, you absolutely have no business, putting your gauges on the system. Okay, but what happens if the pressures or the saturation temperatures don't always meet, and why would something like that happen? Well, you have to understand something.

Refrigeration systems are often designed in a lab under perfect working conditions. You know 50 relative humidity, whatever it is whatever they designed it at, but you know, let's just say they designed it at 50, relative humidity, uh, 37 degree box temp, you know 27 degrees, saturation temperature, you know, but we don't always get that condition. Okay, oftentimes people have done things to the system. The expansion valves aren't adjusted correctly.

So as a technician, i kind of accept some variable numbers in there and it's just something that i've learned to deal with. Okay, it's very rare that you get a system that is operating a hundred percent to design factory conditions. The more you work in air conditioning or refrigeration you're, going to learn that here in southern california, we have an air conditioner that was designed to deliver 90 000 btus at 50 relative humidity, but guess what we don't ever run 50 relative humidity here in california. In the summertime we run about 10 to 12 relative humidity.

It's extremely dry, that's going to affect the delivered capacity of your of your equipment. Okay, so you're not always going to see those perfect numbers all right, um same thing with the design temperatures; okay, they don't typically ship a carrier or a linux package unit that was designed for 125 degree ambient temperature 130 degree ambient temperature right. You know, if you look on the weather maps, it doesn't say that it ever gets 130 degrees in some of these cities, but guess what on a roof deck it does on a roof deck it's 10 to 15 degrees hotter than it is downstairs on the street Level: okay, so when we get 120 degree ambience, sometimes it can be up to 130 degree ambient air pulling into that condenser. They weren't designed for that.

Therefore, they're not always going to deliver that exact number and those exact pressures or whatever okay same thing goes for refrigeration. So it's one of those things that you have to learn like. Okay, i'm close enough. My td's about you know 20 degrees or 15 degrees or whatever you know, everything else is performing pretty good.

I'm gon na go ahead and let it go. So that's why i don't always have the perfect pressures. It's just one of those things that you learn to deal with all right, any news on when the winter hats are going to be out so yeah. I got an email from the guy that i'm ordering the hats from today.

Uh the beanies i'd ordered uh desi. I ordered two styles of beanies and i'm gon na be honest with you one style. I absolutely don't like he sent a picture and he's sending the the actual samples to me by wednesday, but one design is not happening because it does not meet my standards, but the other design looks all right. So once i get it in my hands and i make sure it's okay, then i'll - definitely order that one design and we'll have those.

Hopefully, within a couple weeks, let's see um, let me see what else we got going on in the chat. I know i missed a lot of different things here. Um would i rather use an analog meter or a digital eric. You know i have kind of grown up on digital and i do just fine with digital, but i will say that there's some things about an analog that i would appreciate a little bit more um depending on you know.

If you get a very high quality analog meter, i would tend to trust that a little bit more than some of the cheaper low end digital meters, but for the most part in what we do - and i know eric you kind of do the same thing that I do the restaurant refrigeration, convenience, store, refrigeration and air conditioning. You know just a a decent field piece or a decent fluke, clamp meter. I do just fine with it. I like the digital ones.

I mean there's some things i mean. I shouldn't say that i never used analog when i was coming up working for my dad. We, he had a digital uh volt meter, but we actually didn't have clamp meters back then, or they weren't readily available and cheap enough. So we still had a uh, an amp clamp that was analog, and so yes, i actually did learn on an analog.

Amp clamp uh, which is very interesting um. You know, i know that they say that they're more accurate, but the scales are really hard to read. So you never saw the exact point, the decimals that you see on digital um and when i say accurate i should say more reliable. I should say so.

You know you get into a real nice digital meter and it's definitely more accurate and more reliable. But once you get to the low end ones, a lot of things start to affect it and i definitely had a lot of the cheap low end digital meters in the very beginning. But you know digital meters have come a long way and uh. I i guess i would probably say that i prefer the digital now for sure.

So all right, let me see what else we have. I been using the field piece, manometer, probes, thoughts, jason. I have a couple sets of the field piece, manometer, probes, they're, great probes. I do like them every time they come out with a new digital probe or a new digital tool.

It's it's really cool, there's some things that you have to learn to work through with the digital, because what you don't realize is the tolerances that they have and different things like that. You know same thing goes for like a a micron gauge. You know once you once you get a micro engage and you realize the nicer ones that you buy they're a lot more accurate, they're, a lot more finicky. They start to show more problems.

It's things that you have to learn to deal with when you learn to use a lot of the digital stuff, but i definitely like the field piece manometers and i would highly suggest you consider purchasing them. I have also heard equally good feedback about the testomonometers. I personally have never used any of the testo products, so i can't say anything bad about them, but i've heard a lot of people saying they like them, so food for thought. Let's see what else we got in here is.

It is a bad time of year to get hired as an apprentice with an hvac company, um greg. It's not necessarily a bad time of year. Uh, it's just it's in general. It's just a bad time right now, because the whole covid situation coming into the fall is typically in southern california.

When we slow down a wee bit um but uh, there's. Definitely still companies out there that are gon na hire you for sure so um. Let me see what else we got in here um. What am i missing all right.

Will i be making a new van update video unknown? You know it's a possibility. It's just one of those things i haven't put as a big priority, so i definitely do things differently than most people. I don't treat this like a business. I just kind of do my own thing and kind of beat to the tune of my own drum when it comes to these videos so uh, you know when i get to it i'll get to it all right.

Let me get to my list of things to talk about here. Um, oh great question, so ian had asked me, and this is a really cool question. Ian ian said: hey, you know what he goes he's having a hard time and he wanted to know. If i had any tips on how to wire up uh 115 volt 230 volt single phase systems that have starting components and what he means by that is oftentimes you'll come across a system that doesn't have a schematic, and you don't know exactly where to wire.

The the relay the start winding, you know who knows okay and that's a great question and i'm going to be completely honest with you ian okay. I don't have a lot of that stuff stored in my memory. I can't look at a compressor and say: oh yeah, the the relay goes here. You know, though, this this wire goes on this spot on the relay.

I i don't have that okay, but the really cool thing that we have now ian is these phones. These phones are really smart. You can pull up a schematic of anything you're working on. If you just do enough research, you can you can find it okay, even if you can't find the exact system you're working on, you can find the model number of the compressor and you can pull up a schematic for that compressor.

Okay, you also need to know how to find out which ones your start winding. You know and you can own those windings out and that's a really cool. I think i have a couple videos on it. I don't know if it's titled anything, but if you want to know more about starting components and finding out which one is common start and run a really best place to go check out.

Is my buddy brian's website hvacrschool.com uh, again no affiliation with brian other than just being another dude on the internet, but he has lots of great information and he has a searchable um document place or whatever, where you can find write-ups and different things like that that People have written kind of like white pages, uh i've written a few for them. I believe eric mele in here has written a few form. I know eric just did his podcast, but brian has lots of great information. So if you want a visual on how to figure out uh the the windings on a compressor which one's common start and run uh go check out, brian's website, it's really uh it'll help you out a lot.

Okay. Um. Can i recommend a set of hoses for s-man gauges, so you can get a micron, so you can use micron gauge and charge hvac j you're you're pushing my buttons right there. Okay, so um the best hoses to use for your your s-man manifold is just any quarter inch hoses.

You can find i'm not a fan of using the micron gauge in the manifold. I'm not saying that i don't ever do it, but your best bet is to buy a stand alone. Micron gauge, okay, the micro engages in the manifold does work, but it's not going to be as accurate as if you had a standalone micro engage. Okay.

The reason why is is because the placement of the micron gauge in the manifold and the fact that the manifold itself is susceptible to a lot of oil being inside of it and the oil can actually contaminate the micron gauge within the manifold. So, do i suggest that people don't ever buy the manifolds with the micron gauges in them? No, not necessarily because there's a time and place to use the micro engage in the manifold, but you want to buy a separate uh like the um appion has a micron gauge uh bluevac bluevac is my favorite micron gauge and it's a standalone micro engage okay. So if you're curious, if you want to know more information about it, feel free to send me an email to hvacrvideos gmail.com, and i can share a little bit more, let me see what else do i use compression ratio when troubleshooting? If so, how lorenzo? No not very much at all, treating burnouts cleaning. How am i treating burnouts cleaning, evacuation treatments, purging flu? I don't use any flushes myself.

I don't treat a burnout other than opening the system up purging it with nitrogen. I cut it in as many spots as possible blow out. The system try to get out any sludge and any oil, and then i'm going to put high acid liquid line, filter, dryers and suction line, filter dryers, and then i'm probably going to go back and return. And replace those dryers once or twice after the burnout, depending on how severe it is.

Okay, i've made a personal choice to not really use flushes or neutralizers, or anything like that. It's just something that i just really don't think that you should be putting things into the system that didn't come from in the system. Basically when it was designed or wasn't designed for it. But i will preface that with saying most of my career, i used acid neutralizer acid away acid scavenger, all these different things, flushes and different things, and i never actually saw a problem from any of those.

But i've just made a conscious decision to not do it anymore. Okay, hopefully that answers your question for you um. Let me see what else will i be going to the ahr expo this year? I highly highly doubt that the ahr expo is actually gon na happen. Um, if it does there's a possibility that i would go, but i'm gon na be honest with you most of the people.

I don't, i think, even if they have the expo, i think they're gon na have a hard time filling it, because everybody's very skeptical, so i'd be very surprised to see that they actually end up doing the show. I know they haven't officially canceled it, but i would be very surprised if they actually do the show have i had issues with the field - peace, probes, frank um. I don't think i really have. I've had issues with other field piece products and fieldpiece has a great great warranty department and they always take care of me with that stuff.

But i can't say that i've ever had issues with the probes, and i have quite a few probes um and no, i can't say that i have so all right. Let's see what else we got in here. Do i change a txv on a burnout system? Jason. You know that's kind of a hard thing to give a blanket answer to, but for the most part i would say yes, if i do have a severely burnt out system, i'm probably going to quote a new txv with the compressor, but that doesn't happen every single Time it really depends on how difficult it's going to be to change the txv.

How severe the burn is, is the burn you know? Is there burnt oil in the evaporator and the compressor or in the condenser or d? Is it contained to just the compressor? It really depends on each situation. Okay, um. Let me see what else if i don't use r12 rx11. What do i use to get out of oil out of a logged, evaporator um, honestly, i've never really had the need to get oil out of a logged evaporator.

I do have a system out there that i made a video on the customer still hasn't approved us, so it's still running with an oil logged evaporator. If i was to do it more than likely, i would drop the evaporator and blow it out, but i mean most of the time when you pull an evaporator, it's not really going to be worth pulling an evaporator for the most part, the customer they can get Them so cheap. Now you probably end up just replacing it so um i mean if i, if i suspect, a little bit of oil logging that i'm going to try to go ahead and correct the superheat issues, go ahead and add a suction line. P trap to the system, give it a couple days of run time and come back and monitor the oil levels again if it has like an oil sight, glass or something like that.

But i really haven't had very much experience with complete system failures because of oil log evaporators. It's very very, i think i might add it one or two times and and each time they just change the entire. You know all the equipment, basically um. Let me see what else we got going on in here.

What's my company name marvin, you know um. I even though i know you guys can see that in my videos, every once in a while and stuff like that, i really don't make my company name like completely public uh. It's not like it's a big hidden thing. Most people can probably figure out my company name, but i'd rather just kind of keep it out of the public's eye.

If i can just to eliminate unnecessary unwanted attention, if people are interested in working with me or different things like that, send me an email to hvacr videos gmail.com, and we can talk a little bit more um. Have i had any. I already answered that question. How do i troubleshoot, and i already answered that question? How do you troubleshoot an oil log, evaporator oil log evaporators, are one of the hardest things, in my opinion, to go ahead and diagnose and to be honest with you majority of the time when i've diagnosed an oil log evaporator, it's a very educated guess, because i Haven't been able to figure out anything else, that's going on something's wrong here.

I can't figure out exactly what's up, i'm not getting proper performance out of my evaporator. I have low suction gas pressure coming back. It's not a txv issue, different things like that, but the oil log evaporators have always been very difficult for me to diagnose. So it's not really something i can tell you like: hey these things mean oil logged.

No, not necessarily so i don't have to answer this, but is there any equipment that i absolutely hate to work on? Well peter? I kind of made it very, very public that i am not a fan of york package units lately because they're ridiculously stupid placement of screws and just general horrible design of their systems, but that's my personal preference. It doesn't mean that york is a horrible system. You know, i imagine that there's people out there that say that linux and carrier are the worst air conditioners too, but i work on those every day, so i know their quirks and features um and know you know what to look for and i'm very comfortable working On those systems, i think majority of the time when we as technicians say like this is the worst piece of product ever oftentimes. It's because we're unfamiliar with that product and we're just not comfortable with it.

So how can i tell if a compressor thermal lockout is bad well, hvac, j, if it doesn't reset, i mean in my situation on my live stream. Last week it took forever like two hours for that thing to reset i've never had a thermal overload. Take that long to reset on a compressor, but for the most part i mean, if you can't get it to reset, then that's what's really going to tell you if it's bad, it's thermal overloads, if they're internal, it's not really something you can fix, they're bad they're, Bad so, let's see what else we got in here um. What am i missing here? Uh? Let me see what am i missing um.

I already answered that question. I already answered that question: um. Okay, so i'm gon na get to my list of things to talk about um. Oh great question.

Scott had asked me how hard it would be for him to transf uh transfer. Basically, currently he works in refrigeration, but he works on domestic appliances, so he does like home residential, refrigerator, repair and stuff like that and he kind of wants to transition into commercial refrigeration, and he was kind of curious how difficult the transition would be. Well, i mean it's really not going to be that difficult. The troubleshooting steps that you go through on the domestic refrigerators are pretty much the same on the commercial.

It's just the commercials are bigger systems, so i work on light commercial, restaurant, refrigeration, air conditioners, different things like that. If i was to transition into supermarket refrigeration, i would probably struggle a bit, but i mean i would get the cons. I understand the concept, so it wouldn't be that hard to figure it out. So, if you're working on the domestic side - and you understand the sequence of operation, you understand the refrigeration cycle, you understand how to use a meter and to own things out to check for voltages.

You can relay that into light commercial, refrigeration or heavy commercial or even industrial, so it's just having to learn. There's different control strategies, different defrost strategies, different things like that, so um. Interestingly enough, the podcast that eric maylie was on sorry eric haven't pronouncing your last name wrong, but he just did a podcast recently with uh joe shearer and brian orr on hvac school, and they were actually talking about refrigeration. They were talking about a lot of domestic refrigeration, because that's joshua has some experience with that.

So go check out that podcast. It was very interesting and it kind of gives you an idea of the differences and the transition from the domestic stuff to the refrigeration. The light commercial stuff that eric does so it's a pretty cool podcast. I just listened to it today, um.

Let me see what else uh joe had asked me, and this was actually from last week - and this was a great question joe asked me: why do i share so much of my knowledge right? I don't necessarily have a lot of knowledge, guys. Okay, i share my mistakes for the most part, but he had asked me. You know why am i afraid of sharing that information as opposed as meaning? Am i afraid that someone's going to take my job? If i share too much of my information that i have in my head, no i'm absolutely not afraid of that. There's always going to be refrigeration work.

We are so desperate for technicians right now. You do not have to work worry about being replaced unless you just generally suck as an hvac service technician. Okay, if that's the case, then you probably don't have a lot of information to share okay, although that's arguable about myself, because i do suck at certain times but anyways, that's a whole nother thing, but no i'm not afraid to share the little bit of knowledge that I have at all because i'm going to be employed if i want to be for the rest of my life in hvac and there's always going to be a job for me, one way or another, so not worried about that at all. Let me get to the chat and see what i'm missing in here.

I know there's a lot of stuff, i miss so don't hesitate to repost. Have i done supermarket refrigeration? No, i have not done supermarket refrigeration. I have absolutely no experience in it um. Thank you very much, john.

I really appreciate it bud all right, um. Let me see what else i already answered that one have. I had accidents dealing with r290 equipment alex no i've never had an accident dealing with r290 equipment. It's really not that different.

You don't need to be afraid of r290. Yes, it is a hydrocarbon, it is a flammable refrigerant. It's unodorized propane. You cannot smell it, but it's not that big of a deal.

It really isn't just purge the system before you, don't don't make it out to be a bigger deal than it is basically before you open the system up, even if it was flat on refrigerant. You purge it with nitrogen um. Before you light your torch, you purge it with nitrogen, even if you already did it uh, that's the biggest thing: okay, try to cut out as many components as you can uh. Obviously, you got to sweat the components back in or braze them back in, but just be cautious purge with nitrogen, while you're doing so have an electronic leak detector that can sense combustible gases while you're working on it and that's pretty much.

It get a really good scale that can read in grams. Your best bet is going to be able to have a scale that reads grams and does small enough increments, that you can charge those systems. The charge limitation on r290 right now, um and the coke nose has already started, is like five point: five and a half ounces, or something like that. So i think it's five 500 grams or 400 grams or it's it's such a small amount.

So you're dealing with tiny, tiny amounts of refrigerant um. Let me see what else. What am i missing in here? Uh yeah, it's easy peasy. Just like good riddance said it's not a big deal.

Okay, we deal with the torch every day we we braze line shut. So dealing with a combustible gas just just use a little bit more brain power, just to make sure that you're, not you know, lighting the system. You know trying to unsweat a component when it's full of gas. I mean different things like that, so you don't got to sweat it too much.

So all right do i like using or working on 448a refrigerant when retrofitting from r22 miguel, so 448a refrigerant? Okay, let's let's! Let's start this off with saying: there is a bunch of different flavors of refrigerants out there, okay um, ironically enough, my buddy ralph is in here right now. If any of you guys has refrigerant related questions, ralph is actually the man to ask them. I'm gon na post his email in here right now. He works for honeywell, refrigerants okay, but in general there's so many different flavors or refrigerants out there.

First off biggest advice i can give to everybody. That's working in refrigeration is stop being fixated on a pressure number. Okay, don't worry about pressures, okay, pay attention to temperatures, saturation temperatures once you understand saturation temperatures and understand where they should be. It doesn't matter what flavor of refrigerant you have, because every different refrigerant is going to have a different pressure temperature relationship.

It's going to have a different pressure at 90 degrees than the next one or the next one. Okay. But if you understand the saturation temperatures - and you understand that on this walking cooler in a perfect world, you should have 25 degree condensing temp over ambient on the roof and 10 degree evaporator temperature under ambient downstairs. Then you don't need to be fixated on a pressure number when you, when you're trying to look for a refrigerant pressure.

You look at the temperatures. Okay, assuming that you have a solid column of liquid going to your expansion valve okay. So that's the biggest thing!.