This video is brought to you by spore'ln quality, integrity and tradition. It's a beautiful day, though my equipment is all the way in the corner. Over there inside all right, we've got a no cooling call, you've got an energy management system and it looks like we should be first and second stage calling and the fan calling and it's 81 degrees in their kitchen. So we're gon na jump up and check everything out.

So this is like crazy, but we got to use a huge ladder to get up top and then we'll get up to an air handler up top. I'm on, like, I think, it's a 12 foot ladder or maybe a 16 foot letter - I don't know, but you get on top of the walk-ins and then there's an air handler way over there, so we'll get to it. Yeah so see. There's lots of construction mess up here electrical lines vibrating it's kind of annoying all right.

This is my air handler right here, so I'm gon na start here and then we'll get up onto the roof where the condensing unit is we're. Just gon na start here and see if we have a call for fan and all that fancy stuff. So these are heat pump units and the line sets are like 75 to 100 foot long, it's insane, so I just wanted to start down on the ground. My liquid lines are cold, so I don't think you know there might be something running on that, one, that one's not cold, but that one is cold so as in not running in heat mode but yeah.

I know no cold suction lines, either. Indoor blower motors running, to be honest with you just knowing the sounds, it kind of sounds like it's not running on second stage right now, but we'll figure that out. But this is what I'm more concerned with. We have no cooling or heating going on, but there's oil everywhere, that's all oil, so we definitely have a leak here somewhere, yeah there's oil on all these lines.

There's oil right there there's oil all in here, but yeah. We got to get up under the roof, but I'm gon na open this up and see if second stage on the fan is calling, because this is a 2-speed blower with a VFD and when it when it's on first stage, the motor will make a whining like Vfd noise, like it's doing right now, which makes me think we're not running on second stage. One thing that really sucks is when I take that panel off the motors you know running higher current draw or higher amps, and I worry that it's gon na trip the VFD, but I just got to hurry up and get my meter out check for second stage. All right, so it looks like we're good, so between C Vaman and G you should have 24 volts, that's my normal call for fan and then between C and y2.

That's what puts it into full speed for the for the second speed. Basically - and we have a call why so that means we're calling for second stage so: okay, we're gon na fatten this up and then jump up onto the roof, good gosh, I'm out of shape. I already walked up two flights of stairs and then we got that. I mean, while I appreciate my Vito bag, something like this is pretty heavy, but it's gon na be nice.

When I have everything on the roof, so I brought some refrigerant. I have it tied off on a rope that way. I can pull it up because I have a feeling: I'm gon na need add gas again, just thinking about it, so I don't have to make multiple trips, because this is such a chore to get up onto their roof again, I'm extremely out of breath, but all Right pull up the refrigerant it's a beautiful day, though my equipment is all the way in the corner over there, a bunch of heat pump units, this big stuff, these boxcar units are all for a movie theater that we don't service. So it's just a common roof.

All right, so my equipment right here, condenser fan motors, are all running the frame rate messes it up, but it is running properly and it's all cold air. So we need to open up the control section and figure out what's going on. So all my line sets come over there go down that giant chase and then go down that all the way down to the ground floor. So it's quite a ways down these line.

Sets are super long. All right. We've got compressors back here and nothing's running. Only the condenser fan motors we come up here.

We have comfort, alert, little modules right here and we're getting a three beep safety or three flash on both of them. And if we look right in here, it says three flashes due to short cycling, which would make sense, because I saw that oil. So I'm pretty confident we're gon na be low on charge. I certainly imagine a spy really low on charge, though so wants to say.

Let me put my gauges on it to reset these. What I did so that way I didn't have to go all the way down to the thermostats is just disconnected 24 volts going to the protector for 30 seconds and plugged it back in now, it's giving me the red flash, which means anti short cycle delay, so It should start up here in just a minute and then we will, you know, diagnose like I got my stuff on the first stage compressor and I will say something that I know just from experience that the first and second stage compressor are miswired and swapped. So I'm actually on actually no I'm on the second stage, compressor right now, because they swapped them when they did insulation of every one of these units. I know that for a fact, so I better jump on the first stage actually to get it right.

The first stage to the other side. Well, no, I take that back yeah. I should be on the second stage, because that's technically the first stage, because when they install these units, they swap the lines so right now, I'm on compressor one at the unit which it says down there from cluster two is over there again, I'm probably confusing the Hell of you guys, but compressor two is actually first stage, so I need to be on compressor too. Both sigh classes are violently flashing, so this is the second stage.

The first stage is right there that one's violently flashing too so ok, a sight glass on an air conditioning system is a great indicator of a gross under George, meaning that it's severely low on refrigerant a clear sight: glass. It's not like on a refrigeration system, a clear sight. Glass doesn't mean full charge on an air conditioning system. Ok, but so we need to start by clearing the sight, glass and then adding refrigerant per sub cooling after following the charging chart, all right.

There's your quick going over here, so we're gon na go ahead and add a little refrigerant. I'm hooked up to another suction port. I'll, add refrigerant! That way and we'll see if we can't get this thing at least one stage running, because I don't have enough gas for both of them, I'm sure, then we got to go down and find the leaks too, but we're at least gon na put some gas in There and get it up and running nice and good alright, so we are not too bad, but we are above the curve and if you don't know how to read these charts, whenever your dot is above the curve, you add, whenever it's below you remove. Okay, I don't know why they don't write that on here, but so we are above not bad, but we're going to go ahead and add some charge and get it back closer to the curve.

Well, that's interesting! Okay, there we go. You know the sight glasses both just cleared up, I'm going to give it a few more minutes of running. Before I add any gas, it's very interesting. It is also peculiar that it would be short cycling when it's only just barely above the curve.

So right now we're running about five six degrees: subcooling, that's not horrendous, so we're gon na watch it for a few minutes. Before I add any gas, it's possible, we have another issue. They did just have an energy management system installed on these units and I guess it's always possible that they were running without the indoor Valera motor. That would cause them to short cycle too.

So interesting we'll have to see alright, so I'm fairly confident that the refrigerant leak that we know is downstairs because there's oil is not the problem here, because both of these are not bad they're low, but they're, not bad. We're running eight degrees subcooling on the next stage right now and according to this chart, so I added my estimates is a pound or two to the. What would be the first stage, so I started right here on the chart above the curve, and then I got right on the curve about 12 degrees up cool, and I think it's what I ended up at and on this one right here, we're basically almost the Same just above the curve, so I'm taking a gamble here because it's such a difficult task to get up on the roof. Now that I'm up here, I'm starting to question whether or not that indoor blower motor is running at full speed right now, which would mess with our numbers a little bit.

But I'm pretty confident it is so I'm taking a gamble here and going ahead and topping off the charge. I am gon na have to go back into that attic and do something to prove whether it be pull the cover. So I can see the VFD or something I have an idea, maybe pulling the second-stage wire and listening to it ramp down. But we got to do something to prove that it is running on full speed right now, but anyways I'm going to continue just because it's such a chore and being the the length and distance.

I can't get smart probes. Nothing will make it this far because you're talking crazy distances, so I'm just gon na continue with adding charge and getting on the curve and then we'll go downstairs and prove that we're blowing the proper amount of air go figure right. When I pack my stuff up the unit actually satisfied yeah, so I'm kind of curious, because this unit right here, I'm gon na open it up and check it out. They didn't ask me to look at this one, but this one's blowing cold out the condenser fan motors, makes me wonder if that one is off on air.

So this is not. This is the other unit same thing no compressors running. Now, I'm not going to gauge up and stuff on this one cuz. I don't have a work order for this, but I'm gon na go ahead and reset the lockouts and see if it stays running.

It's kind of crazy makes me wonder if this is like the energy management company screwing up or something ooh, so yeah, this one's saying short cycle on both, but look at that that looks healthy and safe. This is 480 volt. I bet you that makes a nice spark when that thing turns on that's kind of sketch for sure, and that is line voltage. That's shady, I'm almost afraid to put this panel back on we're gon na, have to tell them about that and see if they want to issue a work order.

This is a dining room, a/c and we're in the middle of this virus, so they can't have people in the dining room anyway. So I don't know if they want to fix this, but that's scary-looking. I love this Cline hook. I keep an extra long rope.

I want to say it's 75 feet long. If I remember I, and then this way I could just lower stuff down, so my veto tool backpacks already down there and I don't got to go down with you know all this crap on my back. So get you one of these hooks. I love them.

It's just made by client. I got it from my local supplier. You find it on Amazon or whatever I'll, throw an Amazon link in the video show notes. But these things are awesome all right.

It's not gon na translate well on video, but I can tell that the unit is satisfied. It's cool in the kitchen now and the VFD noise or the inverter noise coming from the motor right, because it's reducing the frequency it makes like a high-pitched, whining noise. It has gotten louder, so I'm just making some educated guesses here that this thing is running on first-stage, fan, speed right now and then earlier it was running on two speed or a two-stage fan. Okay, so this thing looks like crud down here: I'm not really picking up any leaks, I'm using the detect select not over here, but it is corroded really bad.

So, alright, that's it for that. You guys have worked on these carrier split system, commercial ones, they're a nightmare. Getting the filters to stand. I ended up having to tape the filters as I went along so that way they didn't fall out that way, they're at least holdin together.

I still got to go on the other side and put the plastic bracket in, but looking good. So far, all right there is leaks all in here. This leak, detector, there's so many leaks. The leak detectors, kind of useless they're just everywhere, so we're gon na have to bubble this guy and then just start counting.

This is gon na, be one of those situations where you're, just gon na fix what you can and we're not gon na. Do it today, but we're just gon na try to identify as many as possible. Okay. So I soaked this guy up so there's so many leaks, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and there's some in the back too there's at least 9.

I count 10 and then there's some in the back that I can't even zoom in on so at least 10 leaks. This unit has two stages, so this thing has leaks everywhere. Just I mean you could just see it bubbling like crazy stuff everywhere on this. It's crazy how many spots are bubbling.

Where do you even start? I mean changing. This evaporator is gon na be the biggest nightmare in the world, but I mean I just have a feeling you go to braze one of these and the other ones are just gon na pop up. You might as well just rephrase every single weld in this thing, but holy moly getting this evaporator out up in this attic. I guess we could pull it out from the top, but good grief.

This job alone is gon na take freaking, so many man-hours alright. So I'm thinking the best way, there's so many leaks, I'm afraid I count 13 so far and they're just popping up everywhere mind you two guys. I don't know if I told you, but this is a heat pump, so this thing does get high pressure when it goes into the heating mode yeah. This is crazy.

Just how many I mean every one of these distribution tubes is leaking all this is leaking all these distribution tubes and then there's leaks in the back. The bottom corners bubbling out, something I mean, there's just stuff everywhere, so I'm thinking the easiest way to change this evaporator is to pull the top off and lift the evaporator out through the top, but it's gon na be a pain in the butt. Luckily, this bracket right here is bolted on, so we can take this off in the evaporator. Hopefully would slide right out the top, but getting it up here and everything I mean that's there, we'd have to I mean it's gon na be a whole process, getting it up through yeah, it's gon na be a thing, but it would give me an opportunity to Change this drain pan! So that's a plus, oh boy, so yeah, that's my air handler over there.

It's gon na be interesting. Changing that coil man holy moly. This ductwork is probably gon na come out. I take that apart and then that gives us access on top.

I might even have to move some ceiling grid wires. I'm gon na probably have to have them. Have someone come out and remove the ceiling grid in a couple places? So we can do this because getting it up here that coil is gon na be heavy. I don't know man, I just don't know if I can, if it's worth just trying to fix it, we might just give it a shot, do a bunch of braze jobs on it and just warn them like hey.

I don't know if this is gon na work, but the alternative is a lot of money, so maybe we'll do that. Maybe we'll recover the charge fix it and then do all that, but yeah. This is all the way over. Here I mean it's just really tight up on top of this walk-in.

As far as getting up I mean we might be able to get it up here. Just gon na be a chore I'll have to see what the way it is. What started as a service call for a kitchen AC? Initially, I thought it was gon na be a refrigerant issue. Now the refrigerant issue did exist.

There are multiple leaks on that evaporator coil, but I still don't think that the the call was because of the refrigerant leaks. I really think that the customer having an energy management or internet controlled thermostats installed had something to do with the issue. I just because the charge wasn't that low. I think I stumbled onto a problem that would have become bigger later, but at this time I don't think it was that big of a deal still, I got multiple refrigerant leaks to fix, and/or, an evaporator coil to change and that's a whole thing.

Man. I've been really thinking about that one, and I don't know how I'm gon na approach that that's a head-scratcher, because changing that evaporator close gon na take so many man-hours just getting it up there without anybody getting hurt or without damaging it and then getting it into That unit, it just seems like a nightmare and because that unit is hanging on strut, you can't really take the corner posts apart of the unit because the strut is holding it up and once you start taking corner posts apart, the unit loses that's all structural integrity. It's just a nightmare. I've been thinking about that one man holy moly, so I think the best bet in this situation is is to just give the customer all the information and see if they'll, let me go in there and just start trying to fix leaks.

There's no way we're gon na get them all, but maybe we can slow down the leaks and repair it. You know as best as possible, I mean inevitably that evaporator is gon na have to be replaced. Eventually, you saw how much rust there was. It's a whole thing, but big picture diagnosis as usual.

You know I started from scratch, even though I saw oil. You know I went upstairs and went through all the trouble shooting steps again thinking through my head. Hey is this evaporator fan motor running at full speed using my senses. Listening to everything I was able to say: okay, I could tell a huge distinction from when it was on first stage, cooling and running at low speed and when it was on second stage cool, and you can hear the high pitch whistle go away.

So this really goes to reinforce the whole. Don't wear headphones when you're working on these jobs, because you got ta be able to hear things, and you know knowing what's normal and what's not normal recognizing this is the normal sound. This is not the normal sound. You know I just I can't stress that enough wearing headphones unless you're in a situation where you need ear protection.

I strongly suggest that you don't wear headphones on these jobs, whether it be normal service, routine, maintenance, no matter how redundant or mundane it is. You need to be able to hear things because your mind will recognize them and store them for later. Also, you know big picture, saying hey this other unit's, not running or hey the you know just walking by and running my hands across condenser fan motors that are running and noticing that the air is cold and it's not in heating mode. What's going on here that other unit had electrical shorts, it was also showing the same fault code of short cycling.

You know I brought that to the customer's attention and, like I thought they didn't want to do anything about it as of yet, but I'm gon na note that, and you know when times start getting better when the virus crap goes away. If it does ever we're going to, you know, go and fix that other unit and repair the electrical shorts and then diagnose further from there. So keep in mind, I do live streams Monday evenings 5:00 p.m. Pacific, where I discussed these videos talk about answer.

Questions comments. All that stuff so come check them out. I'd really appreciate it. Do me a favor leave me a comment down in the comments.

Let me know what you think. Would you done something differently? Do you have a better way of changing that evaporating? You know I'm always looking for feedback. You can send me an email to HVAC our videos at gmail.com. That's another method.

I really really appreciate the communication from you guys. Just a comment saying hey, you know I liked this or hey you know. I'd have done it like this. I loved reading that stuff so keep them coming.

I really appreciate it also. I have, I pretty much have said it to everybody, but I have a new tool review channel. It's called HVAC are tools, there'll, be a link in the show notes of this video check it out. I've only got one video up on there, but there's going to be more coming soon, so other than that guys.

We will you guys on the next one: okay.