And the unit is pumping down, I can actually hear it getting ready to shut off right now, waiting for the low-pressure control to kick it out, though, that hasn't happened. Yet you might have a low pressure control failing too yep low pressure control failing, but I can hear a pumping down, so they hey, they need a low pressure control to go figure. This video is brought to you by sport'ln quality, integrity and tradition right. Today's call is on a walk-in cooler, it's a produce, walkin and they're, saying that it's temping hi when I got here this morning, it's at 40-something degrees looks like a weird frost pattern up there in the top.

Before I jumped up there, I just opened up this expansion valve section, because I put my low-pressure probe down here and looks like we got a nice like I said there was some frost on the other side, we got a nice little ball of ice here. My guess is: is that we're gon na be low on charge, but we're still going to go ahead and go upstairs see the unit operating because it's not the entire coil iced up. It's just like the beginning part right in here, that's frosted. I guarantee it's gon na be low uncharged, so this little guy is my walking cooler and the site glass is flashing, so we're gon na go and open this up.

Take all the covers off looks like I see a bunch of oil in here, so our leak might be up here. Love to see you can see. This is all oil. What looks to be there's a big ol fat ugly like well right here, someone! It's pretty warm outside too it's a hundred and one in the shade trying to stay out of the direct sunlight with the thermometer.

So you get an accurate reading. I mean with the Sun beating down on this condenser, though from right up there they're down here. It's probably pretty hot in front of the condenser, I'm just kind of like brushing off the stuff inside here and this condenser fan motor is going down. I can it's, making a god-awful berry noise and there's no high pressure control on this unit.

There's only a high temperature, oh no, there is one it's tucked down there. I didn't see it, but there's a high temperature safety device and the high pressure controls. Oh okay, but yeah a month everything we're probably enough to change the condenser fan motor to very carefully. I was able to get to the condenser family label and it's kind of falling off, so you got to be careful, but it looks like it's allowed to run point five amps, so I want to see what it does.

It's not too bad. Actually, it's a weird sound though the blade looking funky is the shutter speed of the camera. You know: there's oil all over this compressor such a line, though alright, what I'm gon na do because the condenser is dirty also, so I'm gon na grab a water hose. We're gon na clean the condenser and we'll clean off all this oil, and then we can hopefully find this refrigerant leak.

We're gon na weigh this cylinder before we take it up. So that way, I don't got to drag the scale on the roof with me. Okay, so we're gon na call it 30 pounds just write it on the cylinder. Then, when I come down, I just weigh it, and I know how much I use it and it's one less thing I have to take onto the roof with me.

Okay, I did a quick rinse. What we're gon na do is I'm gon na spray, a degreaser on this condenser. It is a microchannel. You got ta, make sure you use the rough upper chemicals.

So all I do to spray the degreaser on there as I get it wet so that the cleaner has a surface to slide down. Okay and I'm using the Viper HD cleaner by refrigeration technologies. It's a microchannel, safe, cleaner. All I did was take a bottle of there, so bubbles that I was done with and use the bottle.

So that's why I took the label off, but yeah the fiber HD cleaner is a really great aluminum, safe, condenser coil, cleaner, I'm just gon na spray. Some of it on there let it sit this thing's not plugged like with grease but there's quite a bit like even after I rinse that there's quite a bit of stuff on there. I'm gon na try to get some sprays from the inside out and then obviously we're gon na try to clean it from the inside out as best as possible. Real quick.

It was easy enough and then try as hard as you can to rinse it from the inside out blast that stuff that way, you're not getting it in the fan motor see the foaming stuff coming out the other side. It's not horrible, but you know you'd be surprised how dirty a microchannel can get, even though you can see through it. It still has quite a bit of dirt and stuff in there. So I'm gon na finish cleaning this off.

Also, what I did was I sprayed a little bit of that degreaser all over the oily lines over here and I'll, just kind of rinse it off again. It's a metal safe, so it's not gon na hurt anything and it might help to wash some of that grease off. So that way, we can maybe find this refrigerant leak when we're all done all right, very important when you're working on these micro channel condensers, especially like on these. Your package units over here you've got to Pat these condensers down or blow them out with compressed air or something after you clean them, because the water will actually get stuck in the micro Channel and it'll cause you to trip high head pressure.

I know that's hard to believe because on an old tube and Finn, you rarely have that problem, but because of the little openings you know, the water just comes out like there's tons of water coming out of this thing. So just give it a couple: towels try to release some of the water. I mean there's tongue. I don't know if that's coming across on the camera knob, but there's tons of water coming out hands getting soaked so that or grab some compressed air.

That's another good thing to do all right, so the leak testing is wherever it is. It's super tiny because I'm not picking it up so the next step - and I know it's here because there's covered in oil up here - is we're going to go ahead and take all the caps off and then we'll see if we have slow leaking valves or freighters Or whatever it's for the life of me, I cannot pick it up. I mean I picked up originally a few traces right in this area and the soap bubbles I got like a bubble, but nothing like consistently happening. So, let's give it a shot, taking all the caps off all right.

I got all the caps off. Let's look at a capsule clay pick up trace in the oil on the cobs we going right on the poor. Well, there's definitely getting it on the suction court and I need to get this one off over here too test this one out all right. I've found a few more because liquid velvet slinking yeah picking up traces right in the top of the valve yeah.

I'm picking up traces on the liquid line Schrader now every once in a while, it's the blip blip get little hits on the suction line, sit with everything on this guy. You don't get anything on the receiver about down here. It's a discharge line service valve yeah. We're getting it on the discharge line service valve Schrader.

Let's check this condenser connection, where the aluminum goes to the copper. We got leave something all right, so we got a lot of Schrader's so far the longer I let this sit, the more hits I get. I was just getting some hits right in here yeah right on the bottom of the flare. Not I don't know if the camera will focus on this or not, but I found it there.

It is right there right there in the middle of the corner of the flare-nut right, where this is that right yeah this point: the bubbles are popping up right. There yeah - and it looks like there's some over here to that big blue - is showing it's just hard to see without the light but yeah they're there. So I'm gon na try to get a little wrench on that guy and then we'll talk to them about replacing these other valves, I'm gon na at least top off the charge, but I need to go down and melt that frost on the coil first all right. I just got done defrosting the coil and I just doing a quick leak check and I'm picking something up over here, picking up traces of a leak all inside here, so I'm gon na hit it with some soap bubbles.

All right. I know we have two leaks. One on the top right there, it's bubbling, like goodness right there. We also have another leak right there.

It's like we have one right there and I'm getting some behind the fin pack too. So this thing is gon na, probably end up being a candidate for replacement. Let's see if we pick it up down in here again, I was picking it up down, underneath yeah might be able to repair the see, but I mean look at the hole. It's the whole tube it's leaking on the bottom.

It's leaking all over the place. Look it on the that side over there all those little foamy things is all big blue because of the shape of that copper, it's going to be deteriorated on the inside too, so yeah we're gon na talk them into we're. Gon na recommend evaporator coil replacement on this is what we're gon na end up doing all right. We are starting it up right now.

I've got a flashing sight glass. That means we're feeding vapor to our expansion valve. This is a microchannel condenser. According to measure quick, our target head pressure is really we're really low.

Basically, on a head pressure or condensing time, which is accurate, cuz we're low super heat is extremely high, but again we are gon na clear the sight glass first before we start looking at those metrics, but almost non existant sub cooling, sub cooling is a metric on A refrigeration system with the receiver that we will pay attention to, but we don't really use it a whole lot. We can use it for a gross under George or it grows overcharge, but, unlike on some air-conditioning systems, where you dial it it into like 10 degrees, sub coin you're, not looking for that exact number in refrigeration for charging, we are clearing the sight glass. The best place for the sight glasses as close to the expansion valve as possible, because theoretically, we can have a clear sight, glass up here and have a pinch point somewhere in the liquid line and still be feeding vapor to the expansion valve. But you would see that reflected in your superheat for sure I am currently getting evaporator suction pressure and evaporator suction line temperature down at the evaporator using the field, peace, probes and it's connecting all the way through the roof.

So I'm gon na go ahead and clear up the sight glass, because I've got my my probe connected downstairs. I can just hook up on the low side with a ball valve, and all that we're gon na do is turn this on flip it over, because, of course, you want to charge with liquid refrigerant on a 400 series or 404 or any blend we're gon na Purge so we get liquid okay and then we really should purge well, there's you not gon na, be able to really purge right here, but and we're just gon na go ahead and add a little refrigerant watching the system operate and we'll come back to in a Minute we want to be very careful when we're clearing the sight glass every once in a while. I get a slight bubble, I'm not going crazy with it right now it's about a hundred and ten degrees outside 109 and let's see what my box temperature is box. Temperatures 41, so we're good to make sure it's 100 % clear now you just don't want to clear it if you're up in temp really high, I'm gon na put a little bit more and that's gon na be a let's go back to our vitals and see Micro channels run a little bit more efficient, so I'm curious what our sub cooling is.

Yeah see we're barely running two degrees, sub cooling with a clear sight, glass and our evaporator super heats right on range where it's supposed to be so you know that's pretty good. Interestingly enough see, I used a ballpark number here, so you know what that's suction crushers awfully high we're gon na. Let the thing keep running for a minute. Let's look at my targets that I set it up.

One of my targets. My targets are condensing tempo, ver ambient 20 degrees, we're actually running a little bit closer to 15. It's interesting, so you can't always just use the targets on these software's to know exactly and now what did it set up? My evaporator TV for an operator, tv4 10 degrees, interesting we're still rather high on our suction temperature. You know I may be getting a bad temperature read on the clamp.

Let's see what my suction line temperature is no doesn't seem bad. That seems pretty accurate, seemed at all all right. Well, we're gon na keep watching it. You have to know how to interpret what's going on.

In this case it was user error. I had inputted I for some reason it missed the 39 and it did nine degree. Fox ten, so it was setting my target way low. So you know these gauges are awesome and stuff, but you also have to know when you make a mistake or your probes make a mistake.

You have to input the right information, so we're looking good now. Yeah blocks is operating, we're gon na go ahead and pull the gauges off, get information off the entire unit. I'm gon na put I'm not going to change the Schrader's right now. I'm just going to put the caps back on make sure they have Oh rings and we're going to give them one big quote, because I'm already pushing past my not-to-exceed value on this call as part of my quote: we're gon na change, all the Strader valves and I'm gon na redo this whole setup right here, because I don't know what's going on in this road along so I'll put a new rotor lock valve on it.

Ideally they. Let me change the evaporator we put in a new condensing unit. We change it to 448. A but you know we got to leave all that stuff up to the customer and see what they want to do and the unit is pumping down.

I can actually hear it getting ready to shut off right now, waiting for the low-pressure control to kick it out, though, that hasn't happened. Yet you might have a low pressure control failing to yep low pressure control failing, but I can hear it pumping down, so they they need a low pressure control to go figure. The time clock did not have the correct time when I got here and when you go to turn it like use the fingers it gets stuck. It's not like, even with my hand, it's really hard to turn so its gummed up with sand.

This is an instance where I would suggest that we get rid of the time clock on the roof and go to a thermostat that has a defrost built into it, such as, like the I think, it's the Johnson, a 419, I think, or possibly the key to Therm 10 plus defrost control, or something like that where we can eliminate, because this is a sandy condition and I don't like having them on the roof. We had a walk-in cooler complaint and the customer actually called me the day before. Luckily, this customer has several walkins. So they because they called me, like it seven or eight o'clock at night the night before and I was like oh man and then they they.

Let me come in the next day, which was cool so that way I didn't have to go out late, that night or anything but went out there. I was thinking to be honest with you because of the location, and I know that it gets really hot. In my head, I was anticipating a bad compressor: bad condenser fan motor or something like that. Okay, but you know things change.

You can't always have a one-track mind when you get to these calls. So, even if you're thinking about the job as you're driving there, you know you don't want to focus just on that, you still go, you know. Do the whole look at the big picture thing and evaluate everything. Okay, so went through found that the unit was low on refrigerant found a little bit of frost.

It was very important that you clear that frost now in that situation. You know you still want to clear the frost, but it was pretty pretty correct of me to say that it was low on charge just by that frost pattern. Okay, so cleared that up ended up finding several refrigerant leak so up on the roof. That was the thing that jumped out in my face right away, because there was oil everywhere.

Okay, so we've just had some micro leaks up on the roof, just very tiny ones, at flare nuts at fittings at Schrader valves that kind of stuff. But you know looking at everything: okay, in this situation, the customer I did give them a quote and kind of like I pictured in my head, the customer opted to replace all the equipment. Now we haven't done it. Yet this is uh.

This is one of those big chain: restaurants, so they're gon na buy their own equipment and just have it shipped to me and I'll be installing it. I still got to fill out some paperwork. I haven't even ordered it yet so still gon na fill out. Some paperwork, but we gave him a big picture list.

Okay, so altogether, as I was going through everything we had a refrigerant leak, we had a condenser fan motor that was making a funky noise. We had a low pressure control that was sticking. We had a evaporator that was leaking on the return bins. Now you know the leak on the return bins.

You have to think about that. So there's so many refrigerant leaks, it'd be one thing. If there was just like one or two leaks, then I would probably quote just fixing them, but when you start seeing as many leaks as I did, that really gets you to thinking and the leaks aren't even on braze joints. That's what's really scary.

There are just raw copper they're, not on a braze joint, so that means that the copper itself is corroding. So imagine the parts inside of the evaporator coil right, because they're solid tubes going through the evaporator coil. Imagine what those look like if just the exposed return bends are as corroded as that. Ironically, there wasn't any refrigerant leaks that I picked up on any braze joints on the other side of that evac protocol.

Okay. So when you see that many refrigerant leaks, the worry is, is that if you strike up a torch and try to braze one that potentially the heat would make other leaks pop up too. And I've done this before. Where you go in there and you start fixing them and it's like every time you fix a leak, then you find another leak and then you find another leak and it's just as this ongoing thing.

So you know you have to use experiences that from the past that you've had to, you know make educated decisions on whether or not something is worth repairing again. I always give the customer the choice. Okay, but I give them the information and I let them make an educated decision. So in my experience I do not recommend repairing this evaporator, and this is why you have so many leaks.

I took pictures, I said they're on this side right here. You know once I try to repair this leak, then in my experience, another one's gon na pop up and it's just gon na - be a never-ending battle. Okay, so you know they have a lot of stuff going on right. We also found the time clock yeah and I think that was a and then several valves up on the roof that need to be replaced too.

So you know I like to give the customer all that information. I give them a quote and then I just say: hey, you know what there's not gon na be any warranty, except for on the parts that I install you know, but I'm not gon na warranty, like the refrigerant leaks. If I braised on those leaks, there would be no warranty on that, because you know we can't. We can't warranty that stuff, so I'm not threatening the customer, but I just give them all the information so that way they can make.

You know an educated decision on what they want to do so, like I said they chose to go ahead and replace that equipment, whether or not I'll get a video of the installation. I don't know I've said this many times before. Installations are really hard for me to video, because I have other people working with me and I don't include any of my employees in my videos just to protect their identities, and you know just that kind of stuff. It just leads to a whole Pandora's box of problems and stuff, so so yeah installs typically are really hard because there's so many people working there and it just makes it more difficult, but anyways really really appreciate you guys taking the time to watch this.

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