This video is brought to you by sport, l'm quality, integrity and tradition. Today we have a call on a kitchen AC. At least that was the way it was told to me. Was the kitchen AC wasn't working properly, but when I got here my conversation with the manager whenever I get to a service call, I always start with the conversation.

Okay, walking up to the manager shaking his hand asking him how things are going, so my conversation with him led to several AC is not working all right. He said like basically out of out of all the ACS, maybe one or two if he thinks might be working so again, big picture diagnosis. You know walking in the door that conversation with the manager I could have just walked up and said kitchen AC down. Okay, when on the roof fixed kitchen AC moved on, but just a general conversation led to a lot more stuff going on led to hey.

Do you mind I'll, go ahead and check out all the other ACS yeah? Please do that. I'd appreciate that I am looking for service technicians in the Southern California area, specifically the greater Inland Empire and South Orange County. I have a small service company, nothing, big, okay, very small. We service, mainly restaurants.

The kind of technician that I'm looking for is the technician that picks up after himself. When I go up onto the roof, I don't want to see all this trash. It does not take very much time to pick up after yourself. I understand.

Sometimes you may forget apart, but look at all these belts. Look at all the metal mesh filters, simple things like hey, I'm not blaming someone for that, because maybe the customer didn't want to fix it. Look at how that drain is propped up with a cinder block, but at least, let's make sure we note it down on some paperwork. I want someone that is willing to look at the big picture and look past the fact that this unit needs to be replaced and then it's a piece of junk.

Okay, even if it is I'm still once I have the customer's permission, I'm gon na straighten out the fins on that condenser. I'm gon na treat it like it's a brand new unit. When I'm all finished, I'm not gon na leave the panels on the ground. Okay, I understand ax happen if you're an experienced tech, I'm really looking for you if you're a tech that doesn't have so much experience, I'm even willing to train I'm looking for texts that are willing to look at the big picture, spend some time and fix things Right if you're, that tech send me an email all right, so the complaint is the kitchen.

Ac is not working. When I went downstairs, they had a blank thermostat, whether or not the thermostat is for this AC. I don't know. I did not troubleshoot past that point.

Yet, where I'm gon na start is I'm not gon na disturb anything, I'm just gon na do a visual inspection on the unit. Condenser looks like junk. Disconnect switches on drain looks a little funky, but hey look at the gas valve is off okay. Things like that.

We're propping a drain line with the cinder block and a piece of 2x4 metal mesh filters missing out of the outdoor air outdoor air hood. Okay, once we just do a visual inspection, we're gon na go ahead and open up. The electrical panel now keep in mind that we as service technicians, can't necessarily turn everything off when we're working on it, but we got to use common sense. We got to be vigilant and be careful.

Okay. Another thing that I'm noticing, as I'm looking around, is there's only two screws in this panel. Nothing on this setup, there's one over here: okay, so I'm just visually looking at how many screws there are here in Southern California. Screws in a panel are really big because we get crazy.

Wind events down in Southern California called the Santa Ana winds up in Northern California. We get the Diablo winds, but essentially George is crazy up to 70 mile an hour gusts that come and all panels have to have multiple screws in them. Okay, so we're gon na open up that electrical panel and see what we can figure out all right, very important. If you don't understand the sequence of operations and say you're, an apprentice or a novice tech ask for some help.

You know I appreciate it my guys. Just call me and say: hey dude: what's the sequence of operations, you know what do I have to look for, because if you know anything about the killer units, this unit has got a compressor, lock, outboard. It actually has two of them and if we power cycle the unit, the compressor lock outboard will reset. So we have to know how to diagnose and check to see if the compressor, lock outboard is locking the unit out before you power cycle the unit, our compressor lockout boards are right here.

These two guys right here and if you look on the back of the panel, I bet you the schematics missing, but there's usually a legend, and that tells you which board goes to which unit. But you can actually test the compressor, lock outboard on these carrier units by checking power at the X terminal, so we're gon na. Do that and see what happens and it'll tell us if we've got an issue so first thing: I'm going to do real quick is just make sure that I have 24 volt power going to my thermostat checking on the c-terminal, the common and the our terminal. So we are sending 24 volts down to the thermostat currently alright.

Now, if our compressor lockout board was off on lockout first off, we already checked hard to comment. We get 24 volts now if we go from common or the C terminal to the X terminal. If we had voltage that would indicate that we were off on a compressor lockout, so we're not so our next step. We know that we have our two C 24 volts.

So we know our transformer is good. This is sending the power down to the thermostat, we're not getting power coming back up, because when I go from C or common to y1, I get some weird low voltage. I don't get enough. We got like 8 holes, which is weird nothing why nothing to w1.

Nothing to w2, nothing to G. So at this point we could go downstairs as a thermostat. But since I'm already up here, I'm gon na go ahead and diagnose the unit with some jumper wires. So we're going to go ahead and simulate cooling and see what happens so, first and foremost, we're going to take a jumper wire from our 2g.

The indoor blowers should turn on and it did so now we have a heat load going across the evaporator coil. Without that heat load can be problematic. The next thing I'm going to do is jump from R to y1, simulating a thermostat call and nothing is happening. That's a problem so because I understand the sequence of operation I'm going to go ahead and check to see.

If I have a call for cooling coming back to the compressor lockout board, I do not have a call for cool he coming to the compressor, lockout bored, again, understanding the sequence of operation. What that means is I'm sending power to the economizer area and it's not coming back, so we need to look into that. Maybe we weren't calling for free cooling right now, maybe there's a problem there's a lot of typical carrier problems here and I already have a hunch as to what's going on, but we'll jump over to the economizer section and see what we can figure out over there. All right, I've still got a call for cooling.

I left that there. This is what happens when people put these units on these giant curb adapters, I'm standing on a cinder block, alright, so we're gon na open up a filter area and they've got these weird they've got a filter, changing company that comes over here and puts these weird Media things in it's like the solid junky filter crap and it's plugged solid filters plugs completely. So here's my economizer module. We need to figure out our problem.

I understanding the sequence of operation on this unit. Power comes into that economizer module and if the economizer is not calling for free cooling, then it goes to the compressor. Contactor column. Eyes is not open.

This module is bad. We've got corroded components. This is low voltage, okay to touch I'm not going to hurt, but I'm still being careful. We've got wires, just laying in here that I've broken off their terminals.

So this economize er is not running right. Now this module is not working, so we're gon na look to see what we got to do to bypass this from now, because, just because of all the broken wires and the corrosion on the terminal, I maybe you guys, can't see it, but it's trash. Okay. Just for giggles, I know the economizer module is all corroded, so there's no point to it much with that, but what I'm gon na do just to be safe.

Is I'm gon na jump out why to also because sometimes keyboard, you know? I know people are gon na. Ask me okay, so now y2 is jumped out also, and so we've got 24 volts going to y1 y2. We have absolutely no cooling and that's because it's getting lost in the economizer module. So what we're gon na do is we're gon na go ahead and power.

This unit down now we're gon na go ahead and connect all of our jumpers and temporarily, I'm gon na bypass this economizer module. Until we can talk to customer into replacing it, we got to get cooling going, so I can further troubleshoot out of minimum ok. So again, I understand the sequence of operation on this unit, so I'm gon na do some stuff. You guys got to stare at a schematic to figure it out yourselves all right.

If I did my job correctly, which I think I did, I pulled off the wires coming from and coming back just taped them off temporarily, because we're not destroying anything just in case the customer wants to fix it. I went ahead and permanently disconnected the heat because the gas valves turned off so well. I'm sure it's got a crack to you exchanger or something, but I'm just focused on the cooling right now. So now, I'm still going through my compressor lockout boards.

So we still got safety protection in the unit and we're gon na fire it up and hope nothing blows up in my face. Then you like this to look at brown wires myself, but if I did my job right, this won't blow up in my face. So the stand to the side turn it on no big boom yet and we're going to go ahead and test the thermostat. So what we're going to do is go from our gene.

Bad runs are to y1 contactor chatter, but compressor turned on, but condenser fan motor is not running. That's interesting, you're from our. Why yeah cadet your family should be rounding right now, it's not so. That's a problem want to dive into that and the second stage should've come on by now to kill power.

My convinced our family, to relays right here we should be energizing back. I see where the problem is okay cool, so I forgot to put a wire on when I bypassed it. There's a blue wire right here and this blue wire is power for the condenser fan motor. So I got ta put that back on the terminal, so we'll get it so the condenser family should have came on right with the first stage compressor and it did it.

Okay, we're gon na go ahead and try this again. So our 2g. There we go Arta G indoor fan there, we go are to y1, the denser fan and compressor contactor. That's all today's applicants, something got screwed hey, it happens.

We messed stuff up, especially when I just kind of tried to rewire things using my brain. I figured out it just grabbed the wrong wire. That's all! There's a Gil nobody's perfect guys, it's just like everybody, so I figured out what I did. I made an assumption because the wire was blue, that it was a blue wire going to the fan contactor and it wasn't grab the wrong wire.

Essentially, I was sending wire back to these with any power back to the economizer module got that out of there I'll confirm right now. Yep got the right wire now so this time, if it doesn't turn on, then I'm a common 88 and I'm going to show you guys on camera. How much of an idiot! I am that one yeah in door blower motor okay - now I know, there's still a problem with y2, but I want to troubleshoot y1 first, why one there we go and that's your fam boaters, ready, compressor, one right, rust or two is not ready. Why to jump out compressor to now not good to run the condense? The unit with outdoor fan open either panel, but I'm doing some testing right now.

While I was doing refrigerant testing, we couldn't have his family. Second, compressor turned on we're good now, so we've got a call for cooling. We need to put the panel on secure it, so we can test all the cooling stages to make sure it's working properly. Now, before I test cooling, what I did was I pulled the belt off.

The belt itself is pretty worn out. It's got some weird wear pattern on the side where the belts worn down it's kind of probably hard to visualize with the camera. There's like a nick in the sidewall right here, it's like coming apart, but I really want to point out, is the the motor pulley and the motor pulley and the blower pulley basically achieve whatever you want to call them. I can physically feel with my fingers.

It's kind of hard to show you on a camera that they're bad, but I have a bad pulley over here and I'm going to show you guys if you guys don't know how to feel for a bad pulley, you can use a pulley gauge okay, so this Is a pulley gauge, it's made by Browning I'll, put a link in the show notes, but you can get these all over the place. You find what size belt you have and I have 1/8 belts on there. Ok, we've got two pulleys here. One of them is good, and one of them is bad.

This is a good one. What you do is you take the gauge and you line up this corner with the edge of the pulley or the sheave, and it should rest flat on the surface of the pulley right on the bottom right here. This one rests flat: okay, there's no grooves built into it. Essentially, if you look at a pulley, it needs to be a perfect v-shape without any notches in there now here I have a bad pulley, this one's visually bad, but if we take the pulley gauge and we notice on that far corner - it's not that it doesn't Touch here, but if you push it on the bottom, it does not rest flush either side that I use it does not rest flush.

It is a bad pulley. All right, I'm gon na go ahead and throw the belt back on here. I believe there's a new belt in here yeah. You know I'm probably gon na get HEC for this, but I'm gon na go ahead and slap the belt on you're not supposed to put them on this way.

It stretches them out this one's still kind of loose, but we know that if we tighten this up too much the belts going to get stuck in the pulley and it's gon na break the belt and cause problems. So I know we're gon na be running low. Airflow on this unit because of the pulley that's worn out, and also because of the blower wheel, it's dirty, but at least we know it works. We're gon na put this guy back together and finish our cooling test.

All right. We are probed up on the first stage, compressor if you want to know how to tell which one's the first stage compressor on the carrier units. You can look at the evaporator on these carrier units that have a straight evaporator and even the slanted evaporator. The bottom of the evaporator is going to be the first stage.

The top is going to be the second stage, so just follow the liquid line in the suction line and you'll know that this is all the stage, so suction temperature, suction pressure discharge pressure, discharge, temperature, liquid temperature, we're gon na go and start it out. Let it stabilize and then evaluate what it's doing all right using measure. Quick again, I usually don't use the Diagnostics. Personally, I just like all the information at my fingertips, but the Diagnostics I'll show you are usually pretty on point too.

So, first off we're running a low load on this evaporator. Let's go look at my my outdoor air temperature right now is 64 degrees. My return air temperature is 62 degrees. Okay, they we've got a low load for sure all right.

Let's go look at our numbers, though superheat I sub coins on the hair side of being low, but not horrendous. Liquid refrigerant pressures are on the hair side of being low. I am kind of leaning towards low airflow, possibly low charge based on those super heat numbers. Let's see what measure quick has to say, measure quick, says, low load on the evaporator for sure potential return, air duct leakage.

I agree with that. They probably do have a system maybe under charge. There may be a restriction, there's all kinds of problems now. We also know that we're probably running an abnormally high higher than normal head pressure because of the messed up condenser.

So we have to take that into account to the condensers like almost flat and a bunch of spots. So we've got poor heat transfer on the condenser, which is probably adding to an elevated head pressure higher than what it actually is. But we're gon na go ahead and jump on the second stage and see what that has to say again we're just getting them a list of problems. I mean in all honesty, of course, just like everybody else.

I'm gon na tell them to change this unit, but I'm gon na go to them with a big-picture diagnosis and say I need to spend this much money straightening out the fins on the condenser we need to before. I do anything with this. I'd probably go ahead and pull the blower assembly clean it recover the charge, weigh it back in check the heat exchanger. You know that kind of stuff, so we'll get them a whole list of things and then we'll go from there.

So next we're gon na check the second state all right, so the second stage is actually doing pretty darn good. It's actually probably doing a majority of according to measure quick, we're kind of on point with our pressures. Let's see, our super heats definitely lower. Still a little bit on the high side subcooling, you know right and range.

Let's see what measure quick has to say low load for sure I mean I agree with the low load and possible return air duct leakage again very good possibility. Let's look at discharge line. Temps right on point, our split still going to be the same about 18 degrees, we're on the low side of the split yeah air flows, a little bit higher, okay, so refrigeration, wise. Our system is working, we have a potential leak and or it could be, a low load issue could have a lot to do with the airflow to that's, causing some pressure issues.

First and foremost, this unit, before I make any major changes, needs to be properly PMDD and cleaned up. Okay, condenser is flattened out. I guarantee that's a split row condenser I guarantee the inside condenser coils dirty. We also need to inspect the heat exchanger too, but we know the indoor blower motor needs to be pulled in cleans economizers, not working properly.

So at this point, I'm going to do some more visual checks. I'm gon na visually check out that heat exchanger and then we're going to give the customer a list of problems, but I got the unit operational. Ok, the economizer was not letting it turn on now. I did not check voltage on the economizer simply because of all the corroded terminals, so it's very possible that it was.

It would have been in a call for cooling, free cooling, basically that it was cool enough outside when I first got here, but the dampers weren't, open, ok and I found munch of corroded terminals in there and just personal experience. I know I'm not even gon na dive down that rabbit hole of trying to diagnose that thing. Alright, I do not see any cracks in the heat exchanger at this time. It definitely doesn't look good, though lots of corrosion, but no cracks no visible holes or anything, but I'm still not gon na fire.

The heat up, I'm just gon na tell them that we've got no heat and we need to diagnose it further. Also again going with the fact that unit needs a good p.m. look at the inside of this is full of cobwebs all inside there. So there's no way we're firing the heat, so heat is permanently disconnected gas valve shut off gas valve shut off over there.

So that way you know they can have us, diagnose it, but we're coming into the spring they're not going to need heat. This is their kitchen yeah, so we are going to give them an estimate and also to these contactors are going to be part of that estimate, because I saw them sparking when we were there making bad contact. You know when we were turning it on and stuff. So they just need a whole lot of stuff on this unit again using my senses and not just walking away as this units been running for about 15 minutes, one of the convince members is going back to.

I can hear the bearings in it, so we're gon na add that to the list too. So again, big-picture diagnosis, guys don't put on the blinders and just walk away. There's so much opportunity out here, legit opportunity, I'm not selling the customer any snake oils, I'm just making good honest money by stating them with the facts what's wrong and then letting them make the decision hey. They may want to change this unit.

So be it. You know I'm just gon na give them the facts, give them an estimate and let them make that decision. And last but not least, I went ahead and tested cooling from the thermostat to make sure that we're getting a call for y1 and y2. So we pulled in for y1 and we're waiting for y2 to call and then we'll be completely done with this I'd, be able to give our progress, okay right off the bat.

I want to cover a few things that I know people are gon na. Mention number one: the gas line is hideous. Okay, we see gas lines like that, so much that sometimes I don't even really like bring it up. Ok, definitely if I did any work on the heating side of that system, I would repair that gas line.

Ok, especially if we come in and do a diagnosis on the heater, I would go ahead and repair the gas line we do have to use or we don't we still shouldn't say we have to, but we do use flex gas line here in California as an Earthquake thing, but there's there's definitely a better way to do that gas line for sure. Ok. The next thing is, I realized, as I was watching, the footage that I made some assumptions and it's very important when you guys are working on this stuff that you verify voltage. Okay, I have a bad habit of not verifying voltage when I shut off disconnect switches.

Now I do have ways of testing it. Sometimes I check other ways and I may not get it on camera, but I know for a fact that I did not verify that the disconnect switch was disengaging all three poles now granted. I wasn't sticking my hands in the high voltage side and if I was gon na start getting into the high voltage, I usually do instinct Chile pull out my meter and verify that power is off. But I just realized, as I was reviewing the footage that I never grabbed my meter out and verified.

You know that the disconnect was actually shutting unit off understand something that I bring everything up to the customer, and I let customer make the decisions. Okay in this particular situation, this particular customer they supply their own equipment. So what I do is I go to them with a list of problems and I tell them hey. I really don't think this unit's worth repairing, but here's a quote to repair it now.

If they choose to repair it, I actually make money off of it. If they choose not to repair it, I don't really make anything, so it does give credit or Val. It does validate my suggestions. Sometimes when I tell them hey, I really think you should consider replacing this unit.

Okay, there's a lot of things that go on behind the scenes in my videos that you got to remember, you know, I'm not going out there with an intention of making these videos. I just turned the camera on and record my thoughts sometimes so there is a lot more that goes on behind the scenes when I'm doing this stuff, okay, but this is just a typical call for me: just go in there looking at everything you know giving them All the facts and letting them make that decision. Okay, this unit is in really bad shape. The customer knows it.

I have some footage of the other AC that I repaired on this one too and again, I brought up in the beginning of this video that I'm looking for service technicians send me an email, hvac, our videos at gmail.com, and we can talk I'd love to talk To you about potentially hiring you and bringing you on the team. Okay, really appreciate you guys taking the time to watch this, especially if you watched it till the end. Do me a favor if you guys watched it till the end? Just let me know. Let me know down in the comments that you actually did, I'm just kind of curious how many people actually watch until the very end and actually watch the end notes on this so again see you guys, Monday night, 5 p.m.

Pacific time work permitting I'll be doing My live streams and that's it we'll catch you guys on the next one: okay.