Thank you Foreign Foreign. What do you guys think of my corny 1980s synthwave intro music I don't know why I like that. it's just I think it's like a childhood thing. It reminds me of something that I remember and so I enjoy that and it is what it is.

That's how it works. So yeah, you love it. You love it because it's like just so corny and I'm embarrassing myself, right? It's pretty much it seems like my relationship again. I think you got good taste in synthesizer music? Yeah I wish I could find more.

There's actually a really, really cool band that I found called the Midnight and they make new music that's 1980 synth but I cannot use that music and I love it though because it's not like royalty free. all that good stuff. So if you get yourself a blazer with a break like blue shirt and just roll the sleeves up on that thing and wear it to work I need John Hughes the late John Hughes to produce my live streams and then that way I can get rights to all the cool music and let them do that. All right, let's go and untie there.

There you go Ty You're ready to go. So um, this is a different format as usual. Okay, so real quick. Um I've got two of my really good friends here.

I've got Ty Branham in below me and then I have Bill Russell to the side of me I don't know what side you guys see him on? Um, yeah, exactly something like that. So Bill is my friend from the HVAC overtime show. If you guys don't know what that is, um HVAC Overtime on YouTube is a uh a YouTube show that we do. It is a very different type of show from this channel.

Um, it's very uncensored. It's very raw crude. It's literally like a bunch of guys hanging out at the bar after they've had five or six beers. That's pretty much the best way to explain it.

There's no filter on that show, so be cautious if you guys go check that out. But if you like that kind of stuff, definitely come over and check it out. and then Ty Branneman down below me Ty I Know we've communicated for a long time. We met each other at the Symposium for the first time, but I started following on you on.

YouTube Someone must have shared something one of the groups and it was right around the time that you were really living The Nomad lifestyle and you were driving around in your truck and you would do stuff on YouTube but then you would. You would post different things on social media and I saw you just kind of traveling around everywhere. That was a good life. Still is a good life.

Yeah I I envy that. I I think that's what drew me who your content. But then also I realized that you had great technical content and I'm gonna flatter you right now and say that you're a very animated educator that is very passionate. That's at least my observation about what you're teaching and you seem to have a good way of explaining things.

So I think that's really cool about you I like to use your videos in remote training because I say hey, watch this video and then we'll talk about it at the end and you know discuss things because you had live stuff actually out there and it was great and then and then bill I Love your comment, all your content Because the Curious HVAC guys one of the things I promoted is be curious. be interested. You know that curiosity is a great learning point of it and you know you had the whole aspect of being curious and wanting to learn. and hey, I don't know this and being free to be say hey, I don't know something today is like oh, you can't say that you have to know everything so no, you guys are absolutely awesome and so it's really good to get to know you.

Over the last few years, both of you and uh and it's been super great cool now that we've kissed each other's butts. Um Tai you can find all kinds of information on Tai I've got his YouTube channel link popping up right there. Oh wait, what is that? BTUs Plus cats yeah see that's interesting how stuff just see I Don't know how this streaming platform works and need to be careful. So someone made a comment I might as well address it.

Oh, because that's Bill popping it up I'm confused I'm like What's Happening Here there you go. So Bill does have literally just learning. How is this how this works? So so the wheels, that's the one I was trying bills, pushing buttons and messing with my head I'm over here going. Wait, what's happening, what's happening I'm losing my mind.

So Bill and I uh, recently started talking on the phone about how there's so many different podcasts out there, right? And there's so many great podcasts that have a lot of great information, but nothing that's really tailored towards the the little niche area that Bill and I work in, which is kind of like commercial refrigeration and air conditioning. Bill and I both do a lot of restaurant kind of work and and other Light commercial stuff. And so the whole idea is that we're gonna transition and start doing a podcast which is going to have a video format to it too and this is what you're seeing. This is the first iteration of it where we're going to be talking about Light commercial refrigeration but touching on what you said a few seconds ago.

Ty Bill and I both discussed that we need to make sure that we don't come on here and act like we know everything right. We want to be vulnerable. We want to show That we don't know everything and we're gonna to be curious and we're going to ask questions and we're going to have people on like Tai who's a very, very smart guy and we don't expect Ty to know everything. We just want to have a conversation and we want to go back and forth and I'm going to say something and I hope that Ty says well, that's not quite right or same with Bill or vice versa all the way around.

So that's the whole format. These are going to happen regularly. We're not going to do an exact schedule every single week as of yet or anything like that, but we're gonna start doing that more. So that's why you know you're seeing this on a Sunday It's a different than my normal streaming.

You know? it's just something fun that we're going to try. so hopefully everybody likes it. And uh, let's kind of get on with this. So bill for the people that don't know you already.

So you you work in like Light commercial refrigeration. you do like restaurant stuff. How long have you been in the industry? It's going on 15 years, 15 years? What guys? Favorite part of it is the refrigeration aspect of it. Okay, oh I kind of fell into the trade actually.

I Uh. started off managing a restaurant and then soon discovered that I hated all of my employees and then uh I got offered a position doing maintenance, got into doing maintenance and I loved it I was like this is great and uh I was always asking the other maintenance guys questions you know, like what's the sunglass do and I was like why is it bubbling and half the time they didn't know at the time but it was, uh, it really spiked my curiosity and then that led into um, there would be days on ends I'd just hide up on the rooftops of these restaurants and I would just read the manuals trying to absorb as much information as I could and um, yeah. slowly worked my way into the Uh into the industry that way, that's cool. What about you? Ty What kind of got you started in the industry? Well my dad is a sheet metal man and I was forced into it and I love my dad now but I I hate sheet metal at the time and I like it now to play with but everything had to be at the 16th of an inch and so I wanted to get out of sheet metal.

that was 1995 I was still in high school and I was working with my dad and and um wasn't uh wasn't my greatest Me my dad along so great dab at the time. oh my gosh, I couldn't stand it. So I got into Uh doing installs and I remember this guy drove up this big service fan and he had a Slurpee and we had to crawl out of the attic. Everybody wouldn't talk to him I had to go back and stay because I kept having to work and I said is that one of the owners I said oh no, that's just a service guy I was like just a service guy.

they need to come back you know in a few hours he'd come by sometimes two or three times a day and sometimes I wouldn't see him for a few days and I said man, how do I get that job I said well you're gonna have to read manuals and learn stuff and you know it's a lot of work and I'm like sold like I want to drive around with a big Surfer cup? that's and that's what started it and uh and then from there my curiosity just kept driving me and you know I get bored easy. so I keep want to learn new stuff and more things and different stuff and so my curiosity has really been the big leader for for me and I've traveled around the world doing it and I'm still learning new stuff every single day. I Just got through with a class last week and I was working with a guy they'd been in Copeland for 12 years. He has 50 years of experience and uh, just how much little details and knowledge and stuff he learns and everybody I'm working with I'm always learning something new and making notes and writing stuff down and it's a great career because you you cannot learn it all I'm trying and there's this.

It's changing so fast. There's so much to it you can never learn it at all. but it's It's just amazing. There's so much science and everything that we do, it's all around us.

Yeah, that is great. I I There's so many different Avenues of the trade too. Yeah, yeah there is and it's interesting because I'm coming towards the the mid part of my career and there's so many different things that I want to learn. but then I also have to be practical because I run a business and I'm like yeah, my business can't really go in that direction.

so like I'm gonna just kind of learn a little bit about it, but it's not going to be something I'm going to sell, you know? um I myself started in the industry really young, working for my father, grew up working with my dad. uh I remember not in a bad way, but telling my dad that I never wanted to do this again. Uh, that was about junior high school because he would always have me with the Summers or working when I was off school during the Summers and you know, Southern California 110 degrees and he would always give me the stuff that he didn't really have to worry about me right? So he'd send me on the roof and go change filters. you know, go change belts like that kind of stuff.

And so I was just up on the roof all day long and it's just like this isn't fun, this wasn't anything and I love my dad to death but similar to what you said Ty we kind of butt heads later in life you know after high school I went to work for a body shop and about two years into that just decided you know this just isn't what I wanted to do and I didn't really have anything else. So I just said hey, Dad can I come work with you and he's like yeah, that's fine So and since then it's been 20 something years officially, um, growing up though. But you know the interesting thing for me and I'm sure you learned from your dad the same thing Ty was you know I learned a lot of beer can cold methods I learned a lot of very incorrect stuff but that was so important in my career and I always say that there's value in everything and even though I was told to charge an air conditioner by pressures right and just make sure that Line's not too cold, you know that's how I was taught, but there was value that I extrapolated out of that, you know and and um, and I grew and you know that was also a different time, right? The industry was very forgiving, the equipment was very forgiving, and you know we eventually evolved. But I wanted to say Tai that I envy the fact that you get to work beside people that are teaching you because that's something that I don't get to do I don't get to work beside people right now um I get to obviously communicate with people on YouTube and make friendships with people and learn from them you know and and I surround myself with a lot of really great amazing people that you guys will all see later on on episodes on this.

but um I do Envy the fact of being able to work next to a mentor because I haven't had a mentor for a very long time. Well, we live in a digital world right now so you don't have to work right physically next to somebody to work with somebody and learn from them. I mean there are so many amazing people that I have all around me that I get to ask questions stuff I don't know people that you know they don't care if I say I don't know something you know I mean there's so many great people I talked to Craig last week and I was like hey Craig at these questions ask questions and Craig had some stuff about electrical that I you know hadn't thought of before and we had some great conversations and um Michael house I don't know if he's here but you know he has the way he thinks and his environment is completely different in mind being up in Ohio I don't know how anybody could live up north. uh I'm not my chicken and names bill but it's just so incredible.

Everything is this backwards and I have to think you know differently and it makes me think and sometimes it's you know, challenging. sometimes it gets overwhelming. you know all little details and what ifs. but I get to work with all of these other people without having to physically actually be there.

So I mean and the same as you. You have all these great people around you and people you can talk to so you're still getting to learn so much more. like look at the blower door stuff that you've learned and picked up on. I mean that wouldn't have happened in our age where we grew up, but we had to have somebody to go and talk to and ask questions.

and I lived in a small town so trying to learn information we got the hope that somebody came to our supply house and taught us. Other than that, you had to read manuals and and wait for that facts to come through. You know I mean it was. it was all blacked out.

So we have the technology which a lot of people fight, but hey, let's just embrace it because right now look we're having a meeting and how far apart are all are we and all these awesome people that are here asking questions and making comments. and and you know this is amazing You know. last week I went uh for the summer I went up to uh the blower door place and um uh the Energy conservatory and Chris Hughes is there and and uh Steve Rogers I mean the the Brilliance the Mind behind all these people. it's it's amazing and I get to talk to these people all the time just on a chat or it'll be Sunday night and I'll send a message and I'm not thinking about.

you know people have families in time and people respond back. You know what a great community and everybody wants to help everybody else out and that's that's the best I think that's very important, um the helping each other out, you know? Uh, in the very first part of my career, of course my dad helped me out. but when I would run into people at supply houses and different things like that and you'd ask someone who looked like they were a senior level Tech you'd ask them a question and I would always get hesitation like they were afraid to share information with me and uh I even still get it I get emails from people I've literally gotten threatening emails I don't know what they're threatening me with but they've threatened me saying Stop sharing your videos on YouTube I Paid a lot of money to learn that information, but unfortunately, you know what? Yeah, you did pay a lot of money and and I'm not saying that money was wasted, but it's a different time. But if I can share a few valuable pieces of information and I can share someone a hat or save someone a hassle of of running into a problem that I ran into or screwing something up like I did hey that I I learned it the hard way and and the mentality that people think their job was going to be lost because they shared their knowledge.

If that was ever true, I can 100 percent 110 promise you? That is not the case today because if you're a competent, uh, kind, hard-working person, you will be employed for the rest of your life. Right now we are I'll never forget the people that helped me. There was nobody's a self-made person either they they say they are. Some people work hard on themselves, but everybody works together and I believe so much into helping people out.

I've been on Tick Tock which is extremely difficult for me because it's a whole different type of context and everything but the HVAC Army the people over there are really trying to get people in the trade and help and do work and I figured hey, if I can help some a different generation get connected, you know, be interested in this information. share this stuff out there then that's what I do. whatever it takes to get the information out there. Get people excited because I love this trade.

It's taken me around the world no matter what happened in life when everything was taken away from me, they couldn't take away these skills. Bills and I could start over anywhere in the world and just start over and keep working and keep doing stuff and keep learning. and that's something that you know that's that's missing in a lot of people's lives and that's something they're proud of. has something that they come home like.

This is what I did today or you drive by the house I worked in that house. You know I can drive by houses from 20 years ago and be like I worked in that house. My wife's like okay, stop my poor wife I was literally I worked at that restaurant, you know? Nope, Yeah, it's it's definitely nuts now. Bill I Want to ask you you know, was your dad mechanically inclined at all? Like did he lead you into the mechanical path? He was an auto mechanic but he was one of those types that wouldn't teach you anything and so I would insert myself in the the times he was fixing a car or doing whatever and I would insert myself into these situations I was like eight, maybe ten years old and as a like I guess I'll put steps to my dad and he would just he was one of those types that would just holler at you all the time here.

hold the flashlight, you're doing it wrong. God you're so stupid I'm like oh man, this isn't going well. Yeah, so he didn't really teach me much, but that could have been the underlying spark that was, um, given to me long long ago. Yeah, I mean he did teach me what not to do.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. And and guys, we are going to get into some technical topics here in just a minute. but I I just want to kind of close this out. Um, you know I personally and I would kind of curious what your guys's thoughts are on this too, but I'm driven by embarrassment if that makes sense.

Um, there's been a lot of times that I've been embarrassed or I didn't I had to tell a customer that I didn't know how to fix something and that has been my massive motivator for the last 20 years is is just being afraid to fail. um and and I'm sure there's faults in that, but it's that's something that's driven me. Um, do you have like something that's been driving you through everything Ty Is it just curiosity or uh, curiosity? I Naturally I a bit of a perfectionist. Um, although I have massive Falls but when I mean for practice I don't mean you're trying to be perfect in everything I'm trying to do something and I want everything about it to be perfect and sometimes that drain line not being exactly perfect it doesn't.

You know it, you have to leave it and go on because it's taking too long or you know these little details of stuff that we want to be just right. So I you know I have to find a balance but I hate the embarrassment of saying something and it being wrong and a lot of things that I was taught was like hey, Ty do it this way okay but why why don't know you just do it that way and then I go to somebody else like well that's incredibly wrong how how stupid are you? why would you ever do it that way Yeah and that was like a horrible feeling. So I would start going and checking stuff. so when somebody tells me something I don't just take it for face value anymore I respect what they say and then I go and research it and look it up and find out more because even the most the smartest person you know can make mistakes or say something wrong or simply not know.

And there's so much information. So many things that I taught I had to relearn about. you know, superheat and sub cooling and refrigerants. but again when we started we only had what two refrigerants we had 22 and 12 and you know had carrying like carrying 500 carrying 507 something like that.

but it was. You know it was different times but understanding how it works, understanding super eat and sub cooling I mean that applies to all of the refrigerants so you don't have to memorize stuff anymore. And it was. It was great.

but I do were just the embarrassment of being wrong and that's something that's very difficult for me to teach because as we go through you know my brain's working faster than I can transfer information and I I'll say something wrong and it's just um is a lot of work for me to get over that to be like hey, just just go for it. if you say something wrong then you'll correct yourself and say hey, I've said that wrong and it's okay but yeah it oh man. I I hate being wrong about something and I really feel bad if I share a false information I just like a kick myself so bad. the Saving Grace that I take away from from being afraid of being wrong is that when I am wrong, it's an opportunity to learn.

So that's what I've I've kind of makes me. it helps me, it doesn't solve my problems doesn't make I still have anxiety about being wrong, but it makes me feel a little bit better. Now what about you? Bill I Know you're curious right? because your your screen name on social media is curious HVAC But what drives you is that the only thing curiosity definitely drives my wanting to learn. Of course that's that's kind of dumb to say that, but uh, I mean I've always wanted to be one of those guys and I've I've come to the realization after years and years of trying to do this that I can't be one of those guys that could just like quote numbers and things.

It's like an encyclopedia and a lot of that I think is, um, like I listen to these podcasts like these super Gene Yes, they're just quoting numbers and manufacture specifics and like, well, this does this then then you got to torque it down to this spec and then you train. You know you know what I'm talking about and I always wanted to do that but then I got understood after a while that for one, my brain doesn't work that way. Two, that's pretty much unrealistic. Three, Um, you know, if you're doing the same thing day in and day out, then you probably get to the point where you can quote this stuff so it's an unrealistic expectation.

But initially, that's what drove me. Now what really drives me is I just want to be the best that I can be I don't want to ever let myself down and that just goes into like letting myself down would ultimately let my customers down. You know, not fixing throwing Parts at things, not diagnosing things correctly, Wasting a bunch of time and money, You know? Yeah, I think that that's very important. The phrase that you said being the best that you can be so you're not.

You're not trying to be the best person out there because there's no way possible you'll ever be the best person. Nobody can ever be the best, right? But there's the best that you can be I Think that's a really good point to make. You know we all make mistakes. We're all human.

you know? Um, so that's awesome. Those torque specs. We don't have to memorize those anymore because we have all these apps that we can pull up and find out what it is. or find that specific stuff.

you know, calculations. We had to do all this long math in school. you'll never have a calculator with you all the time and they were live because I do. But I I was not about knowing the information about finding it and people say well tell you how you smart I'm not I just can find the information I can look stuff up especially for Copeland like I can look the information up and give you exactly what they say without ever having to call them because I don't know all those numbers and specific details and if I did I'd have the numbers backwards.

But yeah, it's amazing. Now that we have this, it's not about ignoring everything. It's annoying where to find it. Yeah, yes, that's true.

Yeah, exactly right. And and some key Search terms. some interesting ways. Um, my personal advice would be when you're searching things on Google don't write a whole sentence, just write the key points to that sentence in Google and you'd be surprised the stuff that comes up.

But also, you can't just ever click on the first thing that pops up because majority of the time there's three ads before there's anything else. But you have to be able to read things and look and say that doesn't quite sound right. You know? move on to the next one. Move on to the next one.

Social media is a great resource too. But again, you got to be really careful because you can have a very overconfident person that can lead you down the wrong direction. so just be cautious about that. So so you know something that I kind of wanted to to talk about is a question that I get all the time.

it's it's one of the more common questions or even an aggravated stop saying that because that's dumb or whatever a comment that people will make is when they talk about sight glasses. Okay, sight glasses in a refrigeration system. Uh, specifically on the liquid line, right? And a sight glass is just a window into the system. But people that say don't ever charge by sight glasses always charged by sub cooling and superheat.

um, well, sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't and I kind of wanted to cover that and I think it's important though before we go deep into that that we give a brief, brief, uh, explanation of just the basic refrigeration cycle. Then I think that'll help, especially with some people that don't quite completely understand. you know, um, where we're going. So I want to start something off? and please, if either of you guys hears me say anything incorrect, call me on it.

Okay, so just the basic introduction to a refrigeration system. I Was thinking about this today and I was just writing down some points is number one, and the whole point of a refrigeration system is to move heat. Okay, to move heat from point A to point B right? We have a space that we want to cool. or potentially a space that we want to heat right.

And we're talking about a refrigeration cycle and it's going to take energy to do that right? So our form of energy the most effective way to cool things is to use electricity for us right now, right? I'm sure that people can argue that there's better ways and there's probably going to be all kinds of new technology, but we have to have electricity to run a pump that's going to take a medium typically a refrigerant and move it through the system. Um, would you agree? Do you guys have anything disagreeing with what I've said so far? Nope. Okay, so once we move that refrigerant, we start to cycle. the compressor is going to start its pumping cycle right? The compressor is a vapor pump.

so the compressor is going to take a gas and it's going to compress it. The natural action that's going to happen when it compresses that gas is you're going to create heat. So Tie has a piston right there that's perfect. There's other methods of compressing refrigerant.

There's scroll sets which there you go. Ty has a scroll plate right there so there's different ways. good. What'd you say? Bill Uh, let's just say of course he's got all that stuff right there in front of him.

and if I was smart, I have a few things, but I didn't think to grab a scroll plate right there. Um, on a side note, before we go any further: I Encourage everybody out there, especially if you work on smaller compressors. I Encourage you to do it with bigger compressors too. But if you can get your hands on smaller compressors, cut them open and take them apart.

They make great visual aids. Bigger compressors work too, but they're just harder to maneuver and carry around. I found like a a the smallest scroll compressor at the time that I had and I disassembled that and it's great to take those scroll plates around because they're super light and super easy. Um, so we take that refrigerant.

We compress it by whatever means we use inside the vapor pump and once we compress it, that refrigerant. is going to heat up because of, uh, it would be friction, right? and the heater compression would that be correct? Ty Okay, both so so as that happens, we're gonna create more. I Would say we're creating energy, right? Would you guys agree that when we're doing that, we're creating or we're just moving now, we're moving on. No, we cannot create nor destroy energy.

and anytime we take molecules and then we squeeze those molecules together, the the energy is now compression, the volume decrease, the pressure increased, and so all those molecules are moving so much faster. and there's more heat there. So as we compress them together, the molecules moving fast. it's like going to Disneyland It's like oh, this is all fun.

It's all fun. And then you get into that line and you're all squished up a bunch of people. It's like this is not fun anymore. They think all those molecules just squish them together in a really tight place.

The temperature goes up and we we don't just want the pressure to go up, we want the temperature to go up. We need a temperature to be higher than the temperature of the air. So now even though it's 100 degrees outside, the refrigerant's 120 degrees, it's all compressed together and they're like he's like man, this is not fun and he likes to go where it's less heated. It wants to go where the cool kids are.

It's like whoa, it's only a cool 100 degrees outside. Let's leave this hot refrigerant and go to the cool 100 degree air. So the heat starts to leave in the refrigerant and and there was a reason why I brought you and that's it Ty because of your animated explanations and the ability to just jump in and I appreciate that so thank you. Okay, so um, as that refrigerant starts moving through the discharge line S after it's exited the compressor, we are now going to go into a condenser.

The the purpose of the condenser. There's a couple different things that it's going to do, but the biggest thing is it's going to reject the heat of compression. Fair Point To say okay, so it's going to try to reject the heat of compression and when it does that, we we get with the right thing to to say. I Know we're going to sub cool the refrigerant tie, but we're going to bring it down to saturation and then saturation where it's changing State and saturation is I Know we don't have a lot of time to go into all the details, but saturation is the most overlooked part of refrigeration.

It is the most overlooked thing because people look at pressures because that's you. know what we had back. We only had three refrigerants, but the saturation. the change of state of a material.

So I don't have a water bottle with me. But if you have a water bottle uh, and you think of heat and if it was at 70 degrees Yeah There you go. If you pour that water in you 70 degrees and then you heated it up one degree, that's 71 degrees. And what if we took it from 32 liquid to 212 degrees liquid? How much heat would that be? So it's 212 minus 32 Still liquid not changing State 32 minus uh sorry.

212 minus 32, That's 180. that's 180 b2's Now, if you took that bottle of water, hold it up again. So imagine that being all liquid at 32 and you were to pour that on you. Okay, how are you gonna feel I Imagine not what? No.

Well I should do this with Bill Bill I'm going to pour this 32 Degree water on you. Yeah, uh, how are you gonna feel it will feel uncomfortable? Yeah, you're probably gonna kick my ass. Let's be honest. Okay, now we're gonna heat it up to 212 and now I'm gonna pour this 212 degree water on youville Uh, how are you going to feel about that? Not any happier exactly now.

Now, if you think of the difference, it's only one pound of water, that's 180 BTUs That's only sensible heat, so that's significant, Would you? Would you agree? That significant? Definitely. All right. So if that same water is changing state from a liquid to a vapor without changing temperature, just changing state from a liquid to Vapor, it's 970 B2s of heat energy 970. So if 180 was dramatic, imagine 970.

So it's not just that the refrigerant needs to condense at a temperature, it's that when we get to that saturation point, that refrigerant changing state from a vapor back to liquid. so it's rejecting. If it was water, it'd be 970 BTS heater Just rejecting a massive amount of heat energy. And that's the magic.

And it's not just that we want the pressure there, but we want the majority of that condenser. Changing State Because that's a massive amount of latent hidden BTUs That refrigerant coming out and the pressure only converts to a saturated temperature. Giving us that that point at what point that's happening. Just like water, it boils at 212.

Would everybody agree? Add Atmosphere pressure. Ah yes, you know where I'm going. Yes. So when we put it into a vacuum, I can make it boil at room temperature, but it's still rejecting or absorbing a massive amount of heat.

So the refrigerant boiling is absorbing. it's absorbing heat. It's it's cooling something else off and in a condenser. when it's rejecting, it's heating up.

Same thing. we use these cool insulated mugs because we want to slow down the heat transfer. And if water is condensating on this glass, then it's going to heat the glass up a lot faster because that's latent heat that the water condensate is going in. So they're referred with the condenser.

That change of state is so incredibly important. And how much refrigerant? Changing State Because that's what we're rejecting the most. heat. These superheating from a high temperature down to saturation.

Very little heat. It's only the first two little rows of the condenser. Maybe the first row. very little heat that that the majority of the condenser.

It's changing State That's important Then after we change it to a liquid. So if you have water, you make it condensed into a liquid, can you cool it off even more? Say that again. sorry. if you have water that just turned into a liquid, can you cool it down even more if it just turned into a liquid? Well Yeah yeah yeah yeah.

We could only drink a sub cool liquid. So we want our water so it's saturation temperature at zero PSI 212 degrees. Well I want my water sub cooled I want it sub cool down to like I don't know. 60 degrees.

So 212 minus 60. That's that's how sub cooled I Want it. but ultimately the amount of BTUs in the sub cooling. it's sensible.

It's It's a number we could look at to know that we have a liquid, but it's not that much heat energy. Overall, if that changes state in the condenser, that's so important and that's what is. Uh, that's what's overlooked so much in refrigeration, that change of state. the magic of latent heat people say? Well, let's just book stuff.

No, it's the science of what we do. Somebody just said that and put it in a word so that we can transfer that information. but it's that late need. That's what's amazing.

So that's where all the magic happens. Yeah I have so many points that I want to talk about and I Really do want to focus on the condenser and sub cooling? Um, but I really want to get through real quick? just the the the basic refrigeration cycle. After we've sub cooled the refrigerant, the refrigerant is then going to travel to the metering device. Okay, once it goes to the metering device, then we're going to have another phase change.

Where we're going to have uh, it would be a liquid Vapor mixture right inside the the inlet of the evaporator coil and and it's slightly liquid. Vapor But it's really important that as we have the reverse process the heat transfer going on in the evaporator, we have to ensure that we don't have liquid coming out the outside or the exit side of the evaporator coil. Right now, we have heat transfer happening in the evaporator. then we have a uh uh, super heat.

Yeah, superheated. Vapor Going back to the compressor now that's that's serving two functions while it's cooling off the compressor and it's completing the refrigeration cycle. Um, now what compressors real quick do we still have that are not in Light commercial refrigeration I think majority of the compressors that I'm dealing with are vapor cooled compressors. Um, in the past we used to have uh, head fans on like semi hermetics that weren't very efficient.

but for the most part we're looking for that suction temperature coming back. I Would even say on the semi hermetics that you have head fans on you still need um, superheated Vapor Coming back to that compressor to help cool it off too because it's it's just needs to keep anticipation. What we Overlook with superheat people say oh the soup. Read the numbers.

Really super. It just ensures that it's a vapor. So if we're whether it's saturation or we're above saturation being a superheated vapor and we can only breathe Associated Vapor If we tried to breathe the liquid, it would be a problem. Oxygen boils up minus two 90 something.

so we want to make sure that we're breathing in. so we drink sub cool liquid like our metering device does. and we Breathe superheated Vapor Like our compressor does so by having super heat some number of superheated vapor and just don't even say super say superheated Vapor that way we know our compressive reasons. Superheated Vapor It It's a vapor pump.

It moves Vapor pulls in low pressure Vapor pumps out high pressure Vapor moves the vapor only. So if we don't have super heat coming to the compressor, if we do not, if we let's reward this if we do not have superheated Vapor Coming to the compressor, we end up with a saturated Vapor liquid mixture. How much liquid? I Don't know but we know that there's liquid and vapor and so we try to compress a liquid and then we end up with things like this where we have broken parts. So yeah, we could only compress that Vapor Otherwise we end up with broken things and like uh um yeah, how does a superheated vapor cool anything down because it's super heated.

This and this is what's so important is we as technicians really need to stop thinking about hot and cold. We need to think about warmer than or cooler than so because we're attached it into our feelings. Oh, if I touch this line, it feels cold. If this line feels warm this day and we gotta put our feelings out of it, we have to think of a refrigerant.

So a refrigerant, anything above it saturation point is a superheated vapor. Let's go back to oxygen. Uh, what is the oxygen boil at at zero at zero PSI gauge. Okay, Google What This temperature.

What temperature is oxygen boil? Well, we'll use my skills here memorizing stuff. Oxygen boils at minus 297 degrees Fahrenheit That's its saturation temperature? Minus 297. Now if oxygen is at minus uh, let's say at zero degrees Fahrenheit would that be cold to you and your feelings? If oxygen? Yeah, you're you're outside and it's zero degrees. Fahrenheit Is that.

How's that going to feel to you and your feelings. it's gonna be cold. Yeah to your feelings, it's going to be cold. But according to the refrigerant, according to the refrigerant, it is super heated.

Oh I Lost it. Uh, 297 degrees above its saturation point. So according to it it is way superheated. It's way above its change of state.

But if we sep if we add our feelings to it, well it's still cold. Well we got to separate our feelings. According to the refrigerant, it's saturation. That's where it changes state.

So it's boiling at minus 297. anything above that temperature is a superheated vapor. So it can be super heated all the way up to what we got in this room right now at 60 degrees. So 297 plus 60.

I'm getting in math I Know people don't like math. Two, Six I mean 297, 200, 357 200. there you go: 357. So the the oxygen I'm breathing right now is superheated.

What number would you say? 357. Three I'm breathing in oxygen superheated 357 degrees above its saturation point. To me and my feelings, that's still kind of cold. But according to the auction, it is superheated way above its saturation point.

So that superheated Vapor According to the refrigerant, even though it's superheated, Say 10 degrees superheated 10 degrees. And let's say we have 40 degree evaporator. it's that's 50 degrees. So according to the refrigerant, it's 10 degrees superheated every motor.

But according to the compressor, hey, this is still cool. There's going to be heat transfer so we just have to separate hot and cold. Think warmer than or cooler and warmer than itself. cooler than itself, warmer than something else.

So warmer than cooler than helps students understand a little better. Look at Chris he is see that's that's I Think all of us wish Ty could have been an instructor I I think that you know it's important for instructors out there to remember when they were students and when people were educating them and and and try to make it easy. One of the things that I try to do uh is I have a hard time understanding things and I don't don't take this the wrong way. but things have to be dumbed down for me to understand them.

But then once I understand them I try to think of creative ways that I can help other people understand them too. So I always try to and I say I dumb it down. but I don't mean to make that a derogatory statement I just make it to the level that I could understand it. It's interesting how my brain works too, because once I understand it, then I can move past the dumb down level and it kind of makes sense to me.

but you know I think it's important though. for instructors out there, it was no. my internet's like I apologize Um, that's okay, that's something I had to learn was Um, when I'm teaching people I need to remember what it was like for me not to know anything to be just a blank slate not understanding, not even have a basic understanding of everything because at one point in time I was teaching people and I would just get so frustrated with the the what I deemed obvious questions at the time and obviously you can't be a good instructor with that sort of mindset. So I had to quickly adapt a new mindset adopt and I've had to change my mindsets too because I was taught by my dad and loved my dad to death.

But you know he wasn't as patient of a person as I am and I wasn't as patient when I first started either. You know I remember I probably made some people feel bad I probably said some condescending things but I I really started to reflect on myself and think like dude, nobody wants to be talked to like that like let's change things you know and I've evolved into you know, whatever I am today trying to teach things So let's get back to where I really want to go into talking about sub cooling and the condenser um and sight glasses. Okay, so one of the arguments that I'll get from people is when they say don't put a sight glass in the system because it's dumb. It's a waste of time and it doesn't serve a purpose I don't agree with that statement.

Now let's just talk about systems in general. We're not defining a receiver system or a non-receiver system. A sight glass in general, in my opinion, is is great, right? If the customer can afford it, If it can be part of the budget for the system, install a sight glass gives you a window into the system wherever it's installed so it can be of value at any time. Would you guys agree with that? Absolutely.

Um, and and there's two things. we look at: a sight glass. I'm not talking about charging method, but that window is so important for two reasons. We said that we our compressor breathe the superior Vapor Our meeting device can only Meter liquidy Frederick coming to it.

So what's the easiest way to know if we have liquid refrigerant? a full column of liquid refrigerant is to just look in and see. You know, can I see liquid refrigerant I'm not talking about charging at all I Want to know that meeting device needs to have it now outside I Can still have 10 degrees of sub cooling? Yep, and and that would that sounds great. but once that that line runs up the wall, across the mechanical room, across a very hot attic, it's 150 degrees in the. Attic Now that liquid line is actually raising in temperature which means I'm losing sub cool liquid and it can start to flash.

That metering device doesn't meter the amount of refrigerant it needs when there's liquid and Vapor different volumes. So if I have a sight glass before my metering device I can ensure without having to do sub cooling inside it I can just look at it and know hey, I have liquid coming on my device, that's a good thing I want that. The other thing is acid. Acid is the killer of our systems.

especially. We have an oil. Now this oil. it.

uh, it used to be an acid. We dehydrated this oil and now it's It's an oil. And then if we get moisture back of that oil, it turns back into an asset. It's like a friend of mine.

he's a good guy. He's a really good guy, right? He's a hell. He helps everybody out, but he gets just a little bit of meth in there and he turns into a really bad guy. starts destroying everything about him.

So our Poe oil is like that. We need to make sure that there is no moisture in our system because it will turn into a destructive force causing copper plating causing refrigerant leaks. I Can just simply look at this little Dot and I know for sure. Hey I I don't have any moisture in there I I have a dry system which means we're not going to have any acid so I can just look and see hey hey whoops, this is hard I can just look and see for sure I know I have liquid and I know they don't have moisture and I can also look to see what kind of contaminants are in there if it's all black or something else is happening I can save the life of the compressor because it's easy to do a clean up on it once.

I See hey, we have moisture I can clean it up and I can save that compressor instead of having to go back and lose all the product, the time or be in a rush I can we can save the life of a compressor 100 and I don't think most people know like you're holding up a spoiling seat all sight glass right now and the support and there's several different methods. You've got an Alco or Emerson one right there you've got and I'm old school guys. so I say Alco was bought by Emerson so now it's an Emerson sight glass. they have Dan Foss ones everybody has one right? Um, different ones like the Sporland one has a removable uh moisture indicator, right? It's not just moisture though because it can have an acid uh, ability to indicate acid on it too.

So they have removable ones. so um, I don't ever change them. I've never changed one to be honest with you, because majority of the time it's easier. when you're working on the system.

you can just change out the sight glass supply but you can I wonder what chemicals on that sight glass indicator itself that gets that reaction. It's like a um no, that's a great point. I don't know what that chemical is but I can tell you that there are different chemicals that re that react to the moisture differently. For example, I know the Emerson and the sporland react at about 50 part.

Now depends on the refrigerant and the temperature. There's charts you can look it up but they react and they start changing color at about 100 parts per million whereas the industry industry standard is 100 Parts a million and other ones like some of these like this one I got from overseas it um it didn't have a name on it. it reacts it who knows what. So making sure you get a quality one that actually reacts at a very small amount of moisture is important to know.

We can do cleanup before it becomes bad. So yeah, I know that the the sporland and Emerson both react like 50 Parts a million. So I don't know what the chemical is. but I know that having a quality chemical that reacts with that moisture is very important.

Yeah, so so okay. the sight glass is a great thing that we can install in the system, but there's another thing it can do it again. Like Ty said, it shows us if we have a solid column of liquid. But we will say there's a caveat there.

you have to understand between an empty sight glass and a full sight glass. Okay, so that's where you can look. You can visually, you can do some things, or you can just take subcooling. Okay, if you have any sub cooling, then you have a solid column of liquid in your sight glass.

Um, but this is where I want to go on the subcoin when we're talking about that. Ty you made a point about you can have 10 degrees sub cooling outside at the leaving the condensed unit, but then maybe one degrees, two degrees at the inlet of the expansion valve. or maybe less. You know, maybe there's a massive restriction.

Um, now something that I've been thinking about a lot lately and nobody's ever told me this. but I'm kind of curious if you guys would agree with this and logically I'm deducing this. But you know the reason why on non-receiver systems systems that have liquid line receivers. In my opinion, the reason why we aim for higher sub cooling numbers is for changing loads and or temperature changes from the liquid line.

right? It's 10 degrees subcoin, 16 degrees subcoin depending on what you're working on. The whole point is to have at least some sub cooling before it enters the expansion valve. That's correct, right? Yes, we we our main goals we are our emitting device can only meet your liquid refrigerant, but there's a caveat to that. how they Design Systems is important.

So if they design a system with more subcooling for every one degree of sub cooling, it's about two percent efficiency gains that they have on that. Now not talking about, you just go to any system and add cycle. you're going to get more efficiency. That's not what I'm saying right? But if they design a system with more sub cooling, they increase efficiency out of it.

This is why you see sub coolers, especially in Iraq systems. And now one of the things we skipped over was Flash gas. But if we're gonna talk about sub cooling, we have to talk about Flash gas. The only the only time, uh with sub cooling the lowest so cool you can get.

You can only get your liquid line down to the outdoor temperature without any kind of mechanical additions. So if it's 100 degrees outside, my liquid line can only get down to 100 degrees. Now when you go to a metering device and we boil it from a liquid Vapor it goes to that meeting device, it has a pressure drop and then we are refrigerants magically at 40 degrees now if it's residential. So we went from 100 degree used to four degrees.

If it's a walk-in cooler, it's much lower than that. Well, that's not just magic that happens, there's physics involved there. So what we're doing is we're going to sacrifice from the refrigerant. So every time any substant change the state from liquid to Vapor it absorbs heat.

It's a cooling effect. So in air conditioning we lose approximately 25 percent of that valuable liquid refrigerator. Bam flashes immediately into a vapor. and because it flashes immediately into a vapor, it absorbed the heat for the remaining 75 liquid.

So we dropped that 75 liquid down from 100 immediately down to 40 degrees because of the flash gas. And when the refrigeration the bigger that temperature is the more flash gas you have. So let's say walk-in cooler I could end up with over 50 percent flash gas now I have a whole lot less liquid refrigerant to boil from a liquid to Vapor to absorb heat out of my box or the house or whatever my product does. So if I can reduce the amount of flash gas by increasing sub cooling, we make the whole system more efficient.

And you would do that by getting that liquid sub cooled closer to the actually you're cutting that a little bit there bill. But two points is in refrigeration, we can have a sub cooler, mechanical sub cooler. We can physically drop that temperature. but in most of our simple Refrigeration or air conditioning applications, that's why they put extra rows across the condenser to get that sub cooling number down to get it down to the air temperature.

And in the old days you know our line temperature was always warmer than the air temperature. and nowadays you'll see that that line temperature is pretty close to the air temperature. because they've added more copper and copper is cheap. Adding a little bit more copper to get more sub cooling, and then we have more sub cooling to feed our meter device.

But they have to design that you can't just go and start adding sub cooling to any system. And this is why when we get into you talked about earlier. Vapor Compression and liquid cooled compressors. There's a whole other topic for another day of how we can use that to actually cool, increase sub cooling, to increase the efficiency, but it all goes into we can reduce the flash gas.

Talking about expansion valves I Have a cutaway of a spoiling expansion valve. Here, there's not a whole lot to an expansion valve. There really isn't. You break it down, you pull it apart, and you know the the crudest way to explain this is you have a power head on the top, pushing on a rod that's opposing the force of the system pressure, and it's opening and closing a seat.

Now there's more to it, but it's the easiest way just pulling one apart. It's pretty simple to look at that, but the way that I always pictured this in my head is you need a pressure differential and that's what you were talking about earlier. You need a pressure differential in order to feed the refrigerant through this valve at a certain rate, So that way the valve can react. Now this is a mechanical valve.

Okay, now we can get we can go a little bit different with an Electronica valve because you have more capabilities of doing with less of a pressure drop. But these valves are designed to have a pressure differential so we can't just go in there and just say lower that pressure extremely low and vice versa, shoot it up as high as possible. There's gonna be ramifications in the system. Um, nowadays though, there's a lot of thought that needs to go in.

We have old school ways of doing things where you know, let's let's maintain a certain head pressure. Let's get it up to this Well, you know we've gotten smart about things and it's always been this way on the supermarket side, but it's hitting the Light commercial side where there's a term called floating the head pressure down and we're essentially dropping the pressure in the system to reduce the compression ratio Fair Point and reducing the compression ratio is going to mean that we're going to consume less energy, right? Is that that the right way to explain that? Ty Yeah, that that's close enough. Yeah. So we are dropping head pressure down and one thing I want to say we're You know it's stepping away from what we were talking about right now kind of is you can't just install and this is a really important thing that I get a lot of emails about.

There's a Weft Compliance Awef annual walk-in efficiency factor I Think is what it is and it's energy standards set by the government. It was not started by California Guys, it's set by the government well and there might have been some argument that it was started by California but it's a government mandate across the United States that walk-in coolers with uh I think it's 3 000 square feet or less. They have to have a Weft compliant equipment installed on them when you have major failures. So new equipment installed needs to be Awf compliant.

The condensing units are now floating the head pressure down. They're reducing the condensing temperature. If you install an Aof compliant condensing unit on a non-balanced port expansion valve that was sized not completely correctly, then we're going to reduce the pressure differential across the valve. and there's potential that that expansion valve will not work correctly anymore.

Um, lots of Manufacturers have lots of great information. Uh Parker Sporland actually has a a bulletin I'll think of it here in just a second. It's just search Parker Spoilin Awaf and it'll come up. And it helps you to size your systems appropriately when you're dropping your condensing temperature.

So really important, don't just install an Aof compliant condensing unit on an existing evaporator without doing some research and finding out if your expansion valves. uh, you know, not size correctly. You want to make sure you do that because you run into some problems. How do you know if your your new condensing unit that you're buying is Aof compliant? You can research the manufacturer.

You can look at the nomelicature. Most of them are going to have an Awf number assigned to them similar to what we have on the residential side. A Seer rating. You're going to have an Awf number.

There's not a whole lot of effort that's put into that Aof number yet. It's just a certain number, but it's going to get more and more stringent as time goes on. Looks like we lost bill for a minute, but I'm sure he'll pop back in. Um, yeah, he's gone.

So now you're all by yourself. So um, let's go back to the sub cooling though. Know And and so when we're talking about sub cooling, what happens if we add a receiver to the picture? Um, now when we add a receiver, look at Ty's got one. I've got one right here.

Liquid Line receiver. Notice that there's a dip tube right here. Same in. Ties That Dip tube's pulling from the bottom of the receiver.

that's going to the outlet of the receiver. In my case, it's coming out the top right. We're ensuring that when we pull the liquid refrigerant out of the receiver, we're pulling from below the liquid seal. The liquid seal is going to be the point at which the liquid is inside there.

And let me click. Bill Back in there we go. Um, so the dip tube is really important. Uh, but with this liquid line receiver, we then have saturated liquid with Vapor refrigerant in the top of it and that changes things.

And so I'm really curious about why we don't have a very high measurable sub cooling coming out of a receiver when we have a system. Because you know if we don't have a receiver, we'll typically have measurable subcoin 10 degrees now I Kind of want to show what I think is going on there and and see if either of you has an explanation or tell me that I'm incorrect. But you know if we first off on a system that doesn't have a receiver, the condenser is going to be sized appropriately. So that way it has storage capacity in it because if you have a condenser that has an expansion valve, that expansion valve is going to require different amounts of refrigerant at different times depending on the heat load.

So with that being said, you know, uh, we have to have a properly sized condenser. But when we have a receiver that's a liquid storage vessel for that extra refrigerant, We're not talking about low ambient controls, but just for the expansion valve, Do either of you have an explanation as to why we don't have a very high measurable sub cooling in there? So by definition saturation is liquid and Vapor together. So coming out of the condensing coil, we can be sub cooled and we're dropping that sub cool liquid in. But by the time it hits this chamber right here, there's by definition liquid and Vapor.

So by definition it is at its saturation point. which is why that dip tube comes off the bottom so that we have a full column. Now our pressure is pushing in, it's pushing on the gas, the gas is pushing down on the liquid, the liquid, then it wants to come out. So it comes out that tube.

So by definition it is going to be at saturation. Now what I don't understand is it should at this point at this point right here with our true king. Though that's the only true king. valve is off the exactly at that point all the time receiver.

But um, this really should by definition all the time be zero degrees of sub cooling. even though it's full liquid, it should be at zero degrees of sub cooling. and when I measure stuff all across the country I get different numbers I get sometimes I sometimes I get like one time I got 10 degrees and I know that I heated might take it but I knew exactly where my liquid was. so I don't know if my gauges get off calibration or the temperatures off calibration or if it's some other phenomenon I don't know but I have seen that I had sub cooling coming out of the line and I shouldn't I shouldn't have any by all means I should I should be at a Uh at saturation zero degrees of sub cooling.

which means we have to rely on our sight glass to tell us you know that we actually have a full column of liquid. so I don't know why I read any sub cooling in some cases I wish I did if somebody knows I want to hear but by definition it should be at zero degrees as long as there's liquid and Vapor it should be at saturation. That's 100 correct Jason Johnson Queen valve is the inlet of the receiver King valve is the exit. Anything else on the system is a service valve I love it when you talk like that.

Jason So um, the interesting tie is I typically measure on systems that have receivers about three degrees of sub cooling now. Um, I've read some interesting articles, but there's not one definitive answer out there. I read an interesting article from Emerson Uh bulletin I got it right here. I'll think of it Brandon Brandon says because there's flash gas and the receiver, it cools the liquid and that's kind of what I read.

but it can only do so much though, is what I was reading. Um, so it's it's interesting. Uh, but you can measure sub cooling if you add so much refrigerant to that receiver that it backs the refrigerant up into the condenser and we think it would be overcharged. and the the downside to that and then it would be treated I mean it, you.

You can't just do this. but theoretically if you added enough refrigerant that this receiver then became full of liquid refrigerant right then you're going to start increasing your sub cooling number and it's going to act like a system that didn't have a receiver that has an expansion belt that you're then going to charge. But receivers oftentimes have another thing right, they're a liquid storage vessel, but they always or they can also store the refrigerant when you pump the system down. And if you try to pump down a system that doesn't have enough storage capacity in the receiver, you're going to have problems.

The head pressure is going to start climbing. More than likely you're going to damage the comp