Let's hope that you guys can hear me: okay, hopefully everything's good. I hope you guys are doing well this evening. I've got a little bit of a cold, so bear with me. Gon na do things a little bit differently.

I've got a clip to play today. You know I have a giant hard drive full of all kinds of stuff that is not usable, so I've got a clip that I think, will work out perfectly and we'll go ahead and play that at some point tonight. So it's just like a little micro clip. It's not enough to even make a video.

I think it's only like three or four minutes long. So hopefully that is gon na work out. I've got some things I want to cover got some questions. I want to answer, and then I definitely want to get to your your questions in the chat.

Do me a favor and please make sure if you guys do have questions to try to put them in tap caps lock. So that way myself and the moderator can make sure that we get to them. I'm moderator, Justin so and we'll try to get to all your guys's stuff. Let me see what we got going on in here.

I'm going to try to answer some of these questions. Real quick someone had s: oh yeah, okay, I'm sorry! I forgot who asked me already, but someone had asked me my recent video that I put up Sunday. I think they asked what that hybrid Walken was being used for okay, so that refresh, if you guys haven't watched, I did a walk-in video, where it's not a walk-in freezer per se, because they're storing their product right at 28 degrees and what it is is they Keep chicken in there they keep chicken inside that walk-in before they throw it into the fryers and with some of these restaurants, when they cook stuff, like that, you know they. If it's that perfect temperature, then the settings that they have on the fryers cook the chicken to the perfect settings, so, for instance, that Walken had been down for like three two or three days they told me they were keeping me the product in the walk-in freezer And what happened was they were having an issue with under cooking their product because it was too cold and then they throw it in the fryers for that certain amount of time and it wasn't making the chicken crispy enough.

So it's just one of those things. You know they they have their fryer set to that perfect temperature in that perfect time, and you know they need everything working properly. So, while I am talking about that, while I am Ralph holily, I use a actually have it right here. It's a Plantronics Voyager, something-or-other 52, something whatever the newest whatever it is.

These things probably like mess with your ears too. I swear I I'm not joking. I am going deaf in this ear and I swear it has something to do with that bluetooth because I keep it in my ear all the time. It can't be good for it, but let's see I'm gon na get into some of this stuff.

Oh, I want to go and point something out: real, quick sport lanai I threw it out on my social media today on Facebook to sport'ln has a promotion going on right now, they'll send you free like a beer stein or whether they call in they call in Pub glasses, okay, all you got to do is tags Portland and a picture that you take of any of the older spoiling products, whether it be installed or not installed even a picture of a manual if you're in a supply house, and they have some old spoiling Stuff, just post it on Facebook or on Twitter and put the hashtag borlon 85, so hashtag spoilin 85 and then make sure that you subscribe to their social media. So facebook twitter youtube and i think, they're gon na pick a couple of those glasses a week to give out so pretty cool little promotion. They got going on something as simple as and that's gon na segment segue me into what i wanted to talk about to, but something as simple as if you guys follow my social media. I was a little bored this weekend and i went crazy with my bandsaw and started cutting up parts, so i took all the guts out, but you could just something as simple as this take some pictures of this post it on social media and tags portland in It and you can get a you know, though you can get entered into a drawing, and i think you're gon na give away like two of those classes a week but yeah.

So I have a bandsaw that I've had for a while and I bought a table attachment for it. So this is a head pressure. Control valve. I'm gon na try to make videos with these, but I don't know how well the camera will pick up the small parts inside of this.

I mainly did it for my guys at the shop, so I could show it to them this morning, but yeah. This is a head pressure control valve. I took all the guts out of it and then cut it in half with my bandsaw and then put it all back together and it's pretty cool because you can see all the working components inside of it same thing, I did a couple components. I went a little crazy, add some old parts in the shop.

Here's an expansion valve - I don't know if the cameras focusing on that good enough, the expansion valve is pretty cool because you can see the orifice inside of it and stuff. I find that when you're cutting these valves up, it works best. If you do it with a flare because the flares they they don't Bend and stuff. So it's really cool, but you can see all the the actions you can see how the power head works and everything it's a really cool.

Little cutaway did a liquid line silhouette valve also that one's not as interesting, but it's still pretty cool. You can see. It's just a little nylon or teflon diaphragm in there that closes it off and then spoilin had sent me this liquid line. Cutaway filter drier, but I took my own and did a different cutaway of it to where you could pull the whole inside of the filter.

Dryer out, you can see the core inside there and then you could see the screen. So I thought that was pretty cool. You know, for those of you guys that want to learn. Even if you take old parts, go pick them up, take them and go cut them up, be very careful when you're cutting them up, but I mean you know it helps you to understand how they work.

It'll really really help to explain it to you guys and you know, then you could really visualize. What's going on inside of there, I cut up a externally equalized TXV and that one's a little bit harder to cut up, because the external equalizer is on the wrong side. But it does what you know it's hard to show it on camera. On the externally equalized.

One, but it it does help you to understand how that works in helping the powerhead and it's it's a really cool little thing. So I suggest you guys do that. Do that with compressors. Do that with everything you know, compressors I've got a bunch of compressors that I plan on cutting up to show.

I've actually got a working one, two that I want to cut up and we're gon na go and plug it in. While it's all cut up - and we can see you know functioning and stuff like that, so I suggest that you guys do that. That's really gon na help you to understand things a lot better. Let's see, I cut up a liquid line.

Receiver too, I don't have it with me in here right now, where you can see the dip tube inside of there. I have some plans for doing that. So we'll do some stuff with it and I'll see. If I can get some film, then when I do it, so I just went a little crazy, just cutting everything.

So, let's see um answer some of the questions that I got. I got a really good question and this is something I wanted to make sure that people understood the field piece. Joblink probes. I really really like the field piece, Jopling probes, they're a great tool, but they have a weakness: the weaknesses in a walk-in freezer, the JobLink probes, do not work very well when they get below like zero degrees or something when you're down at negative ten.

They don't work right. So that's something to think about. Someone had to ask me in my chat, and it was just like oh yeah. I forgot about that yeah.

Something about the temperature sensor inside of them does not work when it gets down to like negative 10. So don't try to use your JobLink probes or be cautious when you're trying to use them. They may not be as accurate. You always want to make sure, especially when you're using digital tools and stuff, you want to make sure the things are very accurate and and verify know when a weird reading is not the system and when it's your tool, that's doing it too.

So that's something to think about um, let's see yeah. I do want to point out a couple things too. I'm reading the chat as we're talking right now. We've got.

We've got a lot of people in here right now. That's really cool. We've got a lot of new content coming out on YouTube. We have the new HVAC overtime, show that I know they're posting links inside the chat.

That's the that's going to be on the shoptalk channel, so check that out, that's on Friday nights and then also you got my buddy in here bill and he's curious, HVAC guy and he's got a new YouTube channel and guys he's been putting out some really good Content and I'm sure he could use some subscribers coming over to his channel, I'm gon na post a link inside the chat right now control V. I highly suggest you guys check out his channel and subscribe to it. He did a video the other day, I'm trying to remember. I thought it was a really cool one: oh yeah, where he found a liquid line, dryer on the discharge line, and it was a real cool, little diagnosis, and I really liked the fact that he went into that job and stopped right when he got there, because He realized that they quoted to do something and when he got there it was a totally it was a mess, and so he knew to go ahead and stop and call the boss and let no hey this needs to be recoated and step back so check out His channel he's got some cool stuff going on on there, so lots of great guys on YouTube right now.

I really like the fact that, there's more and more of us coming out that not out of the closet, but you know out onto YouTube not that I care if you come out of the closet, but you know hey. Where did I go with that? One huh? It's a California thing, but yeah there's a lot of new guys coming out on YouTube and it's really cool because it really helps the guys that want to learn. You know so just be cautious too, though, because there's a lot of people on YouTube that put out some crazy information and tell you to do things that are a little inaccurate. So you want to be very careful and just know when to gauge whether something's great or not.

So, let's see what else we got going on here: um, okay! So let's go ahead and talk about and I will get to some of your guys's questions in the chat. Remember guys if you're posting questions in the chat, room and capslock and we'll try to get him okay. So let's talk about my video about the hybrid walking cooler, so first off that restaurant, the the walk-in cooler had been down for the day, told me two or three days: okay, it went down like Friday night and they didn't want to pay the overtime, so they Waited until Monday, I think, I think Monday or Tuesday anyways went out there, and that was another one of those things where it led into a cluster F, okay of stuff, but stepping back and looking at the big picture, I was able to not jump in there. Thank you very much fluke.

196. I really appreciate it stepping back and looking at the big picture I was able to. I couldn't distract it. That's funny bill I was able to you, know, diagnose the things one at a time and you can't just jump into things.

You got to start, I started with the contactor. Once I replaced the contactor. I found that the pressure control, then, when I replaced the pressure control, I found that the compressor then, when I replace the compressor, I found the TXV and it that's how things go and when you're, quoting things on the business side of things. When I quote things, I always let the customer know if I'm submitting a quote, there's no guarantee that what I'm quoting is gon na fix everything.

I guarantee that what I'm quoting is gon na you know like if I'm quoting, to replace the compressor. My diagnosis or my quote, is gon na say we need to replace this compressor first before we can further diagnose. So that way the customer understands there may be some some stuff, because any time I come pressor fails just like many people say: compressors get murdered right. They don't typically die on their own okay, they usually die because something went bad, whether it be a TXV.

You know in this situation my it was kind of I made some educated guesses on what possibly could have been the problem of that compressor, and the biggest thing was because it had a failed high pressure control and that particular unit was out in the Coachella Valley. So they get regularly 100 and 1520 degree ambient air temps. I knew more than likely it had to be a high-pressure issue when the when the, when the pressure control was short cycling. So I I had a feeling it was a high pressure.

When I verified it was the high pressure. Then I had to think okay, what caused this high pressure control to trip and my thought was well probably those condenser fan motors and I've said on that particular location. Before I don't know, if you guys remember, I've worked on other equipment. There we go through.

Condenser fan motors like crazy. There we have to change them every single year, pretty much all the way through the gamut, especially on the refrigeration equipment. We have to change the condenser fan motor, so I made an educated guess to change those condenser fan motors when I was doing the repair. Mr.

Jonny boy, I really appreciated it. Yeah I made an effort to change, can mean a made, a decision to change the condenser fan motors and I think my my my decision to do that was correct, because once I poured out the oil on the compressor, you saw how discolored it was from being Overheated, so my thought in the fact that we also had a bad discharge valve in that compressor. My thought was that thing had been going off on high pressure and that auto reset pressure control is on off on off on off and the on those encapsulated pressure controls too. They typically don't set the the differential.

Far enough apart, the I installed an auto reset to replace it, but I have a big differential on that thing so, but anyways I'm going off on a tangent there, but yeah. It was really important that we looked at the big picture that you know. I diagnosed everything that I did and I changed the condenser fan motors. I got a bunch of questions as so.

Why did you change the fan motors if they were working? Well, you got to kind of look at that stuff and I made an educated guess: okay and that's what my customers pay me to do, because in in the world of restaurant refrigeration, they don't want you to come back, they want it fixed and they want to Be done, they don't want to say: oh yeah we'll come back and you know we might have to change this tomorrow. We might have to change that the next day they want it fixed. So sometimes you, you know, you can't just be throwing parts at it, but you have to make you know, like I said, educated guesses with those condenser families. They have a high failure rate.

We have a high pressure control, that's bad compressor, discharge valves, bad, it's probably gon na be the pressure control because the condenser was clean. So that was why I made that decision. Another question I got on that. I it seemed like: I got a million of these as everybody's saying, hey.

Why didn't you just change all that equipment that sounded great and I actually thought about changing the equipment, but the problem is: is that restaurants don't have time for that and to change that equipment? I would have needed a crane, so you know I. I decided that you know is just gon na be faster and easier for me to go ahead and change that compressor. Yes, it probably cost if not the same amount as changing the entire condensing unit. Now the condensing unit would have been a little bit more because I would had a crane fee in there, but I definitely would have saved on labor because it would've been super easy to slap in a new condensing unit.

But it's just one of those things. You know I had what I had and we need to do get it running, so we just sometimes have to make those decisions and not go down the route of replacement all the time. That happens a lot with chain, restaurants, too, with AC equipment stuff like that, you know to them. It is what it is and they just got to spend the money.

They don't have money to to change an entire package unit, especially here in Southern California, because we have some crazy energy codes that make it really difficult for us to change equipment and do it on the the you know. Do it correctly? Okay, because what they want. You to do with the hoops that they want you to jump through to pull a permit here in Southern California. Is ridiculous: okay, duct testing seismic testing structural engineers.

They got to make sure that you know from 30 feet away from the restaurant. They can't see the units peeking over the parapet wall. I mean it's just crazy. What they make us do, and you know once they get in there to start doing duct testing.

What else are they gon na? Look at you know when the when the code inspector comes in, it's just a nightmare, so most of the time we're just repairing equipment, and you know occasionally a restaurant will change a piece of equipment, but it's very rare most of the time they're repairing it, because Just what you got to do to pull permits is just ridiculous, and I don't know for those of you guys in the chat, how how is it on the rest of it? You know where you're at I mean are your permit requirements insane like they are in California. I know in New York, New York and California pretty much parallel each other on everything, but how about the rest of the country? Do you guys have to deal with all these crazy permit requirements, duct testing and you probably don't to deal with seismic testing like we have to our seismic straps? And but I know you guys got to do like hurricane straps on the you know down in the south and stuff, but I mean: do you guys have to go through crazy stuff? Let me see, did I buy a compressor kit from United refrigeration bill Burnett? No, I did not. I just bought a from it was. It was from our SD, which is my local Copeland distributor.

I use United refrigeration occasionally, but that one I got from our SD so have I ever done work at hospital kitchens? Yes, I have just rest. I used to do work doing working on all the medical refrigerators in the hospital, all the ice machines and a lot of the equipment in the kitchen at a local hospital here in my area, so yeah cancer-causing agents. That's that's a thing in California. Everything causes cancer.

Let's see what else we got going on in here, let me get to some of these questions: Mollie, penderson, you're, trained, compressors, very loud and AC, and it's for 63 phase for the oil and it's still very loud and I'm sure there's a mechanical damage and the Pressures are good, I'm not sure why yeah Molly definitely definitely got to get a technician out there to look at that something's going on there. If it's really loud, there's there's a lot of variables in there. It's kind of hard for me to answer that in the stream I mean how how did you put oil in there? I don't know. Are you a technician? Are you a homeowner, I'm kind of well, it says 460 three-phase, so I'm assuming you're, not a homeowner, I'm assuming you're a restaurant owner or something business owner of some sort.

Let's see what else we got. How many times do I have to go back to the customer for a modification and they get upset? I mean it happens. You know, you know you just it is what it is, but I try to prevent that as much as possible. So what he? What headgear do I use to keep the Sun off of my head and neck? You noticed it in the videos.

Oh, I don't remember what it is. I got it from Sport Chalet, which is a sporting goods store that doesn't exist anymore and then the Hat is an Outdoor Research hat from REI, recreational equipment Outfitters, I think - or something like that, which is a local sporting goods place around here, but that the the Headscarf thing that I wear, I don't remember the name of it. I might have a link in a video or I'll try to put it in a link in a video here soon. So can I post videos at 60 frames per second, I can but the problem.

Mr. johnny-boy is that if I remember right at 60 frames per second there's something about my camera, I don't think I can. I can do 1080 at 60 frames for there's something funky about the camera. Then I had to drop it down to 30 frames per second, because the quality or something about the quality of my camera wouldn't wouldn't work right at 60 frames per second or something I'll look into it though, but yeah excuse me, this colt is driving me nuts.

What I'm gon na do? How do you know if a compressor is low on oil Hashim if you're lucky it has an oil sightglass, and you could see it that way, if not you're gon na take an educated guess based off of the temperature and the amp draw the compressor. It's really kind of shady. You know honest on a hermetically-sealed compressor wondering if it's low on oil - I imagine maybe you can do it with a infrared thermometer, maybe or something yeah. I don't think that would work either.

That's kind of a shady thing. What I'm gon na do is uh. Does my hat measure air flow too yeah? I wish man no not like yours bill not like yours. I do like your air flow method there, though, what I'm gon na do guys is I'm gon na go ahead and play my my clip, so I can call for a few minutes and I'm gon na go ahead and see if I can make this work here.

Real quick, so what this is is this is a clip of a split. It's a 15 tons carrier split system that wasn't working correctly and you'll kind of get the gist of it. When I play the video - and I just point out a few little tips that I like so I'll - still be monitoring the chat, it's gon na play for like 4 minutes or something and then I'll come back, and we could talk about it a little bit more. But let's see if I can manage to pull this up and not screw this up and show my desktop this time like I did last time, hang on just one second, and let me go ahead and hit play and I'm gon na go ahead and let me Know guys in the chat once you guys can hear the audio on this once I get it playing here, so I'm gon na go ahead and put my display capture on there transition that over and let me hit play.

I am working on a carrier split system right now: okay, 15 ton split systems tells to seven and a half ton compressors. The point that I want to make right now is a lot of people say that sight, glasses, don't belong on air conditioning systems and I disagree. Okay, a sight glass does two things for me on an air conditioning system. Okay, it acts as a moisture indicator.

All right, but it also acts as a charge indicator. Now it's not the same as with the refrigeration system, so with the refrigeration system, with uh with the receiver. Okay, typically you charge to a clear sight: glass. Once the box gets closer to temp, and then you adjust your superheat out to your expansion valve okay and then you test, evaporator, superheat and all that good stuff, but on an air conditioning system.

Okay, a sight glass on the liquid line is an indicator of. If there is liquid refrigerant going to the expansion valve, but the difference is just because you have a clear sight: glass doesn't mean you're fully charged. This is an expansion valve system, okay and I'm gon na charge two subcooling five right now on a PM, we're noticing that we've got a flash in sight glass when we have proper air flow. So that's an indication of a gross under George.

So to get me in the ballpark, I'm gon na charge to a clear sight, glass and then I'm gon na add refrigerant via subcooling. Once I get past the clear sight glass on a system like this, this thing might hold. You know twenty thirty pounds per circuit. This is a big-ass guy running, probably hundred foot line sets down to the air handlers, so it could take me a long time and a sight glass is a good way to get you in the ballpark and then adjust her subcooling.

So basically, I'm gon na clear up that glass, okay and then once I get it cleared, then I'm gon na really pay attention to my sub point all right and you see what we got going on here right now. We are grossly under charged. This is a 14a system, I'm running 101 suction pressure in 321, head pressure, that's a 31 degree evaporator and a hundred degree, condensing temp. It's currently a hundred degrees, ambient temperature outside right now.

Okay, see my suction line is 71 degrees. My superheat is 39 degrees. I have zero degrees, subcooling and a hundred and one degree liquid line. Okay, so I'm going to add refrigerant, clear, my sight, glass and then once I clear it, then I'm gon na add more refrigerant to dial in my sub cooling.

Now this is a carrier unit and they have the carrier charging chart. If you guys don't know how these work, it's basically ass backwards way of looking at sub cooling. So you plot your stuff, and it tells you your add refrigerant. If, when you plotted it's above the curve - and you remove refrigerant if it's below the curve - okay, so that's where we're at on this one, so this little dot right here indicates where I'm at right now and, as you can see, I'm above the curve.

Therefore, I'm gon na add refrigerant, so we are currently at two point: eight degrees subcooling. We just cleared the sight glass and you know I just want to make point. I'm not saying that it's easier to charge via two sight glass, I'm saying that the sight glass is a great preventative maintenance indicator. You can just walk by so you're, not even messing with the ACS.

You know you can just walk by and say hey! So there's my sight glass, my sight glass cleared up, but you can see that we're still not to where we're supposed to be we're getting close, but we're not to where we're supposed to be typically you're, gon na, say 10 degrees subcooling, but we're also going to Use this charging chart so I'll plot it on the charging chart and show you guys where we're at at the moment. So this first thought is where we started and the second dot is where we're at right now. So we still need to add a little bit more refrigerant, just bring it down to the charging her, and this is where we're at on the unit we're getting closer to proper charge. Again, it's a hundred degree ambient right now, here's my target head pressure right here.

It's kind of hard to see with the glare but we're getting closer. I do not have temperature probes on the evaporator yet because of the long run, there's nothing that all this over a hundred foot run. I'm not gon na be able to get temperature probes on that. At the moment where we're at now is basically is my mark, we're right on the line and in about ten point, five degrees subcooling, the head pressures right on point within range yeah.

So, okay, now here's the deal, we're running a clear sight. Glass so again remember I had to add quite a bit of gas after clearing the sight glass, but I'm just saying the sight. Glasses are good for preventative maintenance reasons, because on a building like this, it's rare handlers are 20 feet up in the air. So it's not something I can regularly go over there and check temperature drops across them or anything like that.

So you know we're just doing a rooftop or walking by checking things. We can look at sight, glasses to say hey this one's flashing. Now, if it's not flashing, that doesn't necessarily mean it's not under charged, but at least when you know it's flashing, it's grossly under charged, and you definitely got to fix it. So that's what we're after now, this particular restaurant.

We have a problem because the second stage I had to turn the second stage off, because we have a blower motor bearing that is going bad and it screams god-awful noise. So we need to get a blower motor for it, but it only happens when you put it on high-speed, and this is a two-speed VFD system. So I turned off the second stage. Dialed in the first stage got the first stage charging like a running like it.

Should so at least they have something and then we're gon na submit a quote or a place to blower bearing motor. I should say, and, and I'm pretty sure the second stage is low on charts, so we'll address that when we come back. But at least I got it charged up and running so they have something now all right. This is a difficult one.

So where is this noise? Coming from? I just grease the bearings. I think it's coming from the motor wait for it and you'll hear it only goes at high rpms, I'm almost positive. It's in the motor yeah. It immediately stops me turn off power.

It does not spin. When you take the belt off, I mean it does not make it. When you take the belt off the motor, though I think it's coming from that damn motor all right so interesting is you know what ended up solving the problem on that motor was replacing the motor that sound was only happening on high speed. So when the VFD drive would would ramp up to high speed, that's when it started making that sound.

So it was very interesting, but it was a pain in the butt, because this particular VF D Drive is like 17 feet in the air. So it was a nightmare and actually it wasn't a belt. It was the motor bearing so yeah. It was very, I thought it was the belt too.

That was one of the first things I thought when it first happened was hey it's the belt but nope. It wasn't, it was definitely the motor bearing. So let's see if I can do this without screwing something up there, we go alright. So now I can go and go out of that, so we should be going back.

Let's see what else we got going on here. So Zack asked a good question: you said: is it worth it adding a sight glass to an air conditioning system with the risk of a potential refrigerant leak? I'm going to tell you that with the spoilin sight glasses, I can't. I honestly can't tell you that I've ever had a leak on a spoilin sight glass and we use them in refrigeration. My entire career there they're out there on everything single system, so I really don't see a difference in putting them on an air conditioning system.

I don't see a problem with it. Do we need to put them on every residential air conditioning system? No, maybe not you know, but you know when I when I worked on my mom's house, I put one on hers just because I could, but I'm not gon na you know I don't do residential work. So it's not something but remember a sight. Glass, though you know using that sight glasses as a preventative maintenance measure to see if we're low on charge.

Remember that means we're extremely low on charge. So that's not an excuse to just walk by and just look at a side glass if you're there to do a preventative maintenance and that preventative maintenance requires you to put service gauges on. Then you need to put service gauges on there, because you saw the difference in refrigerant. Tell you the difference, but I mean there was a drastic difference between when the sight glass cleared.

I think we had one or two degrees subcooling and when I actually finished the charge and we had 10 degrees subcooling, and we were right on point with the chart. The other thing to remember, too, is in order for any of that stuff to work in order for superheat and sub cooling to work properly when you're charging anything you have to have proper air flow too. So it's very important that you verify air flow and that everything is working like it's supposed to be before you go in there and start cleaning sight glasses same thing with like refrigeration when we're working on walk-in freezers. You know every once in a while I'll get someone call me and say they have the sight, glasses, flash and it's low on charge and then I'll say.

Is it iced up? Because if it's got frost on it or it's iced up coil or it's got low air flow, it might flash. So you always got to make sure you have proper air flow before you start adding refrigerant to any system out there. So what ways can you tell if a system has mixed refrigerant? That's a very, very difficult thing: Colorado, fish guy! There's a couple different methods, such as doing pressure test in the system by shutting the system off opening up the evaporator section, opening up the condenser section, letting the indoor blower motor and the condenser fan motors run, and you need the evaporator and the condensing temperatures to Be the exact same with no compressors running and then what you can do is you can take a temperature pressure chart and compare the numbers at the ambient at which the air is being drawn across that evaporator and condenser, which would be your ambient air, and you Should match the temperature pressure chart for that temperature, but when you get into some of these new blends that have a high glide, you could have a problem with that. So that's one way to test for possibly that doesn't necessarily mean wrong refrigerants.

That might mean non-condensibles in the system or that could be mixed refrigerants in the system, but other ways I mean sometimes you just have to make an educated guess if the systems not operating properly, it's best to go ahead and start and recover the charge. If you, if you can't verify it by doing that, test where you'd, let all the fans run and stuff, you could recover the charge and just weigh in new gas and see if you, you know things change. Sometimes you just have to go through the steps and check everything that you know and work your way through a checklist, and you know having an assumption in your mind that maybe this thing might have mixed refrigerants. I recently, within the last year, took over a couple new locations at one of my existing customers and we had all kinds of problems like that where it was just a problem.

You know - and I noticed there was different refrigerants in every unit. One stage would have one refrigerant: another stage would have another and it was kind of a mess trying to trying to figure all that stuff out. So it can be difficult trying to figure out if you have the wrong refrigerants in a system or mixed refrigerants. Unfortunately, nowadays mixed refrigerants is something that's going to happen, a lot more with all these different blends and the MIS information out there, and let me make this clear, the MIS information that you can mix any refrigerants.

You cannot period. Okay, you cannot put 407 C in with our 22. Have people done it? Yes, will it work? Probably? Is it right? No, it's not right to ever mix any refrigerants. We are not chemists.

We're not there to. You know, mix things up like that. Okay, that is not correct. Now, again, I'm not saying you're a horrible person for doing it.

I know lots of people have done it, but it's not correct. Okay, so mixing refrigerants period is not correct and there's there's no refrigerant manufacturer out there. That's gon na tell you in writing that it's okay to put their refrigerant on top of another refrigerant you might hear through the grapevine one of the play. I've said this many times in my streams to supply houses will give you incorrect information.

Quite often I have a picture, I don't think I posted it, but I have a picture of one of my local supply houses where they have a bulletin board and they were they were basically on the bulletin board. It said that you can mix refrigerants like it said. I think it was talking about blue on, I think TDX 20 or something like that, and they were. It was saying that you can on their chart.

This wasn't blue on saying it was on the supply house. Chart it was saying it was okay to drop it in on top of another gas, absolutely not okay, so anyways, I'm going off on a tangent there yeah, definitely guys Adam, just posted a link in there to check out the HVAC overtime show Fridays at 8:00 p.m. Central that it definitely do that, I believe this is your guy's. The second show coming up this week.

Isn't it watch the last show myself pretty good show. I actually meant to email you guys, because there was something that made me laugh really hard inside that I got to remember what it was I'll. Think of it, as I can hear in a minute, but all right, let's see what else on a bad compressor valves when you unhook the fan and try to build pressure, should the suction go up at all. I had one the other day on r22 and it couldn't make it to 400 psi and the section was going up well, yeah.

The suction will go up because yeah you it's! It's expected that your suction to go up a little bit. But if you can't build past 400 psi you've got a problem. You should be able to shut off a condenser fan motor and build that pressure up no problem, but I'm trying to think here yeah. I would expect that your suction pressure would go up because, as you raise your discharge pressure, it's gon na circle back and the suction, pretty it's gon na come all the way back and it's gon na push the suction pressure up too so yeah.

That would be expected. I mean, I don't think that it's gon na go crazy. One of the things you can do if you don't have valves to test the compressor and you can't use like the Copeland, app or gnome ligature from the manufacturer. If you have a severely bad suction, read inside the compressor, what you can do is build up.

That pressure then shut off the compressor and grab the suction line, and if that suction line gets just as hot as the discharge line, then the gas is leaking by via the suction read from the discharge to the suction and that's a dead indicator of a bad Suction read, so that's one way we could test it for sure guys go ahead and there's a lot of stuff going on in the in the chat, so go ahead and retype your questions if I'm missing them so Zak. I think I answered your question about the site glass, I mean my personal opinion is: is they're not gon na leak now, depending on which side glass you use and the you know, if you're not familiar with installing the site glass, you can mess them up on Braising them in so okay, Molly, penderson you're in school, seven months and there's a carrier condenser that has leaked okay cool. I remember that Molly penderson. I remember that so I remember you posting something about being in school.

So I'm sorry. I asked you that so and also sprayed soap water on it should solder it all. So the fans aren't turning on. That's a good question.

Molly there's a lot of thing, that's kind of a loaded question, so it's hard to answer that on the stream. So just rust what happens to a hermetic compressor when it's overcharged and you're pumping down? Well, if it's overcharged, what you'll see typically is you'll see as it's pumping down your discharge. Pressure will continue to climb higher and higher and higher, and then your suction pressure will start to climb too, and it's just you'll notice, like okay, this this head pressures going too high, and that's that's something like in the video. I mentioned that in my my hybrid walking cooler video that after I was done, charging that system.

I wanted to pump it down at the receiver to make sure that the system had enough capacity to store all the refrigerant in there. So but yeah you'll notice, your head pressure, climbing really high. Usually you know I'll give it like 10 to 20 psi on the discharge side. If the head pressure climbs above 20 psi, then I'm gon na really start paying attention and think maybe we might be overcharged.

Okay, so at what point does working on duct detectors become a fire alarm control panel tech problem? That really depends on your area and your local codes, the municipality in which you work in, depending on the facility you're working in so, for instance, if I was working in a hospital they have different requirements for safety and different things. It also, I guess, depends on it. You know where the duct detector is in my area when we call the fire alarm company I'll, I find it best to go ahead and meet with the fire alarm company, because people tend to point fingers, you know they. I get blamed and then they get blamed.

So it's just easier. If I diagnose a problem with the duct detector and say hey, I need the fire alarm company to come out and adjust their wiring. Then I'll meet them out there and we'll do it together. Most of the time in my area, fire alarm company won't replace a detector.

They won't do any of the HVAC wiring. They will only pull their control wiring in from the up fire alarm control panel into the duct detector, and that's it they'll, put some puppets on there or different resistors or different things, but that's about it. There's signaling devices and then, as far as replacing the detector or working with any of the control wiring that falls on me. So that's how just in my area it works, but I've heard a lot of different people say different things.

Some people have told me that in their areas they consider duck detectors life safety devices. If that's the case, your you need to make sure your insurance covers you to work on that stuff. So you got to be very, very careful about messing with duck, detectors and know that the local codes and the local rules - that's a that's, a very tricky one. So, okay, good reefer tech mark, you said how can you tell if a company is worth investing? Your time into training and education, some companies don't always keep their word about training after you start good point, so um, first off when you're going in for an interview, I highly suggest that you guys remember that you're interviewing the company, just as much as they're interviewing You now don't be a punk about it.

Okay and you don't want them to be Punk's about it too. I mean you got to be cordial and polite, but you got to ask just as many questions as they're asking you ask them about their training. What I would highly suggest is talk to their text, see if you can do ride-alongs with them, even if you got a volunteer you're on time for a day or two, that's what I would highly suggest you do see if you can ride along with two different Technicians, maybe they'll allow it. Maybe they won't, I mean, don't don't make it a game changer if they won't allow it, but I definitely think you need to do a ride-along with the company, at least with someone whether it be the owner or the service manager.

That's how I do it. We do an interview in office and then we do a ride-along interview with me with every single person that comes to work for us. So that way we can kind of gauge and even still theirs. They come on as a probationary period, but you know: ask around supply houses, ask other technicians in the area what people think about that company and just kind of do your due diligence.

Look up on the internet, look up the reviews and different things. That's because they're doing the same thing to you, they're looking up on Facebook, they're checking out who you are so you should do the same thing for them see how customers like them. You know again don't be rude about it, but definitely you got to do your due diligence, so all right. So at my company, oh, I have no problem sending people to do classes and different things, but at the same time I won't send someone if I feel like they're, not gon na gain something from it.

So all right. How long into pre-chilled is a Manitowoc energized? The water inlet, it really depends on which machine you're working on I work on a lot of the quiet, cube, Manitowoc machines and the pre chill is about a minute. But I can't remember if it's a temperature or if it's a timed thing it might be a temperature thing. No, no it's a time thing so yeah.

I think it's like a minute or something like that. They preach Hill four, but every machine's gon na be different. So, let's see what else, what's my most overheated system you ever seen, mine was last week, 300 plus degrees discharged, I yeah I'm guessing the compressor. Oil has turned solid and, what's the most over-engineered say over-engineered system.

What's the most over-engineered system, I worked on a I mentioned it, I think in my last stream. As far as over-engineered, it was a Chi rack blue system and it was a giant chiller on the roof and it was pumping glycol all throughout the building. It was pumping it to the walkins to the regions, to everything and that chiller had the most over-engineered control panel. With all kinds I mean, I got to admit they had a lot of redundant stuff in there, so they had a secondary pump.

So if the first primary pump ever failed and then they also had a lead lag on the pump, so it was cool, but it was definitely an over engineered system so but it was basically just controlling an entire restaurants, refrigeration and freezer system off of these giant Vats of glycol - and it was it was essentially just acting as a chiller - is all that it was so. Do I pay for classes and for their pay? It depends, it depends on the class and it depends on what's going on in every situation we have paid in the past, but I'm not talking like I. I've never sent someone to like the seven-day Manitowoc training school. Never done that.

We're talking, like you, know, night classes at the ice machine school or something like that, if it's at night time we're typically not gon na pay them. If they're gon na go we'll pay for the class, if it's during the day, we have paid certain technicians for a certain class if we find that it's gon na be of value to them. So it really just depends on what the class is, and you know most of the time we're not doing classes in the middle of the day within an hour area, but sometimes we do you know we have done it. For you know: manufacturers training.

Basically, if I'm gon na require them to go to a class during the day during work hours, then I kind of have to pay them. So you know it just depends again just one of those situations where you just got to kind of figure it out all right. Let's see, I covered that I'm just going through my sheet right here covered that okay. So I had a really good question today and it was an air balance technician and I I don't know if he sent it today, but I came today and he watches my videos and he just kind of wanted to say hey.

I really like watching your videos and it was a real nice email and he said he pointed out something about how I mentioned about err balance and I don't remember the whole context of the email, but he he he lit a fire in my head and I'm Not gon na talk crap about err, balance people because there's people that know what they're doing, but one thing that I want to say is - is that we definitely have a lack of communication between a lot of people in our industry. So we've got electricians. We've got plumbers: we've got HVAC guys, we've got air balance, companies you've got all these different trades and they all have to kind of work together. One of the things that I don't quite understand is the way that an air balance company and again I'm not talking crap, I'm just venting some frustrations; okay, not talking crap to the guy that did this, I'm just telling you my frustrations.

I don't understand why, if you work in restaurant refrigeration, you'll know what I'm talking about, they will usually have an air balance. Company come out and they will adjust the motor pulleys or sheaves they'll, sometimes replace them, but small or bigger, they'll slow down air flow. They'll. Do all kinds of things - and I don't really understand - and I don't think that that's correct.

I don't think that changing a motor pulley on an air conditioning or a packaged unit is correct. If you're gon na do an exhaust fan, that's one thing, but on a package unit I don't think it's correct, because you're changing the performance of my air conditioner when you change that pulley or that or you adjust my sheaves now. I understand you know that particular manufacturer. That package unit gives you some wiggle room to adjust air flow.

They give you a little bit, but they typically don't give you the room to start changing pulleys and adjusting airflow, because you have to remember unless, unless it was engineered to be done, for instance, if we have a high humidity issue, maybe they're gon na slow down The airflow, if we, you know certain situations like that, but I come across quite a few systems that I cannot get the right performance numbers out of because they don't have the proper air flow, because someone came in and started changing pulleys. Now, I'm not just blaming that on the air balance company too, because remember the air balance company comes in after the fact looks at a set of plans and the plans say hey. You need to have this much airflow, they look at the unit and they try to get that airflow from that unit, where the problem might actually be the ductwork. The ductwork maybe was undersized or oversized or something's wrong about the ductwork.

Maybe the balancing dampers downstairs aren't adjusted correctly, so I'm a little frustrated when I come across some of these companies not saying every air balance company. But one thing that is my pet peeve is when you come across new installs and I deal with a lot of Lennox and a lot of Trane units and they have total external static pressure holes drilled in the wrong spots. That drives me nuts, because how did that building ever pass proper total external static pressure, if they, if they have the static pressure holes drilled on both sides of the evaporator and not on the outlet of the blower and the inlet of the returned? I've seen that a bunch and I'd love to show a clip of that I'll have to come up with that one, but that's one thing and I'm not again not dogging on air balance, guys because I know there's some good guys out there. I just know that it's kind of frustrating that some people go in there and start twisting on AC, pulleys and stuff when you really shouldn't be messing with that stuff all right, yes, yes, sometimes packaged units are designed as make up air.

That is absolutely correct. I run into that quite often, and I have a video where I did a quote: unquote: air balance right because all their VF d drives had been bypassed on their exhaust fans and in that particular I have a restaurant chain where they have three packaged units on The roof and they pull the outside air through the ACS. I totally understand that get it got it, but again, not just blaming the air balance guys. Then someone made a mistake, because if you have to adjust the air flow on that unit, you're messing with things that you know that unit was designed to have a certain amount.

Let's just say, the rule of thumb is 400. Cfm is per ton right and if we have to start changing that to satisfy indoor air quality things and again, that's not the air balance guys. That's the engineer that designed the building that seems kind of silly. So all right, yeah, that's interesting Ray Ray yeah.

We have tab guys that change pulleys all the time and again and not blaming them. You know. So how do I approach the lowboy fridge with rail any tips also, what does the evap saturation should be on a single rail and a grab-and-go display case? That's Ralph! That's that's a hard one. Ralph I'd highly suggest.

You send me on that one because that one's kind of loaded - and I can ask you some more questions on that. So if you guys have questions HVAC our videos at gmail.com, so yeah, sometimes they use static pressure. Sensors rayray, but you know not always so all right, let's see Isaiah. I see you're trying to ask me a question but go ahead and ask it.

I saw it up here. Nevermind I see it. You have a Rheem two-stage packaging that someone put a single-stage thermostat on. Oh that's interesting, so you can still make the single stage thermostat work.

What you can do is put a delay, timer and energize a second and first stage at the same time, but run the second stage through the delay timer that can make that work. Okay, I've seen people run first in second stage all at the same time you might get a little over cooling with that, so that delay timer might be a good idea. Alright, so another thing that okay, so how do you 100 % check the CFM, the airflow on a system? That's a really hard thing, so it's almost impossible to properly check CFM I mean you can do it with vane anemometer and you can traverse the ductwork, which is like ridiculous or you can do an estimation such as what the I manifold or measure quick, might do.