This video is brought to you by sportlin quality, integrity and tradition, all right. It's uh wednesday july 21st. It's 8 16 pm got an emergency service call and a walk-in freezer, not working pretty cold in here the coil's not iced up. So it's not iced up um everything's running in here.

This is a qrc board. So at this point we're going to need to jump onto the roof. The qrc board says cool 13 degrees and a1, which is high room temp. If you look right there high room temp, so it's obviously been shutting off throughout the day and it's probably running now that it's cooler outside so let's get up under the roof.

So the heat, heatcraft qrc uh controls package is a smart evaporator controls package. It's a little different than their other controls package, which is the beacon system, which is a fully communicating system. This one literally just makes the evaporator coil smart, okay and when we say smart, it has intelligent defrost at demand defrost. Essentially, if you set it up that way, it has an electronic expansion valve.

It has an evaporator sensor, an air sensor and a suction line temperature sensor, and then it has a suction line, pressure transducer and with all three of those and the circuit board. It allows the electronic expansion valve to regulate the superheat appropriately and then you have the capabilities of having demand defrost. If you choose to utilize it, you can also do a standard time defrost with the qrc board too. It's a a step in the direction of a fully communicating refrigeration system uh.

You can definitely go much higher when we say fully communicating than like the beacon system. The beacon system is essentially the qrc board. With some extra controls you can add uh. You can go crazy with it if you get into like supermarket, like the parallel rack systems and stuff.

Those are crazy, communicating but anyways, let's get on with it. Let's see what these condensers look like, actually not as bad as i thought it would be that one's pretty bad, though pretty much plugged solid. I think it's pretty safe to assume they've, probably been turning on and off on high head pressure. This is the walk-in cooler and this is their walk-in freezer.

Oh yeah. The heat coming out of this is intense right now, so we're gon na get the top pulled off the hoses up here, we'll check it out with these refrigeration systems. They have to be able to reject the heat. Okay, it's absorbing the heat downstairs, bringing it up to the compressor.

The condensing unit, the condensing unit itself via the compressor, is also producing heat via the heat of compression, and we have to be able to reject that heat. If we cannot reject that heat, then the system will overheat and lead to catastrophic system failure. Okay, now in this situation we take air and we pull it across the condenser, coil, okay and we reject the heat. So the outside air comes across the condenser tubes or micro, channel tubes, right or tubes.

I guess they're, not tubes, but micro, channel, whatever you want to call them and it absorbs the heat. So you have cooler outside air running through the condenser right and the condenser is much hotter. So therefore we're transferring the heat into the outside air and we're rejecting it out of the unit via the condenser fan motors. Okay, it's pushing it out of it and if we can't do that, this particular unit has safety controls built into the condensing unit.

A high pressure control and a discharge temperature control, both of which are there to protect the compressor from the catastrophic system. Failure that i'm talking about the catastrophic failure that can happen is uh, broken components inside the compressor okay, so the system pressure gets too high. The system gets shut off via the high pressure control and it's a vicious cycle in this situation because there's no it's an automatic reset pressure control in this particular condensed unit. So it's literally going to turn on turn off turn on turn off.

So there's a couple things in a situation like this that can damage the compressor that, on off on off on off, is also something that can severely damage the compressor, because it's running it's overheating and it's short cycling on off on off the compressor. Contactor really starts to see that, because it's going to see a high current going across that every time it tries to restart that compressor under a heavy load, and it just leads to the catastrophic system failures. Okay, so it's so important in this situation that we keep the condensers clean that way they can reject the heat appropriately. That way, the compressor can do its job, which is move the heat from one place to another, all right, it's getting dark! Everything is plugged up here.

Ac's are plugged water's running down the drain. I mean one running across the roof because the drains are plugged. This is frustrating man, i'm here for the walk-in freezer they're, also saying the walk-in cooler, it's probably just all dirty crap. It is what it is, i'm frustrated, because i was about to go up to dinner, but whatever life happens, um 270 psi.

What is the refrigerant in this bad boy? Is it 448a? I think it's four, oh wait. Is there a label right here? No, i want to know what the refrigerant is. I think it's 404, because this is an older system. Um 108 degree condensing temp, it's not 90 degrees anymore.

It's like 75.80, it's cooling down outside, so we are running high head pressure for this guy and obviously the condenser is plugged too so we're gon na go ahead and shut it down and clean it and then we'll clean all the other walk-ins too. At the same time, this condenser fan motor right here is whining, as it was slowing down too, like the blade like it's got, a bad motor bearings are bad end or something so that's probably adding to the problem. When i shut it down - and i did confirm it is 404a - i liked the install invoice. This equipment was installed in 2019, so pretty nasty i'll get some coil cleaner.

On there, too, i got some of the viper hd cleaner, which is micro, channel safe, so we'll make sure we wash all this crap down too get everything washed. So the viper hd, cleaner or the yellow venom pack are both micro channel safe, so you're good. To put it on there, you don't want to put any of the brightener cleaners on the micro channel condensers because they will uh etch the coil and cause a lot of problems, and i love this little pump. Sprayer man little guy right here - foams, it up real good, let it sit on there with all of its magic go ahead and shut this guy down too.

Oh, you know we got to be careful actually shutting this down, because this has a new coil. So i'll see, if i need to do that, one or not, this seems to be the worst um that one has a uh intelligent coil. I think so. I need to go down and power down the intelligent coil or go off on an error that i'll have to reset we're gon na.

Let this set see what that does see. If it's coming all the way through yeah it is, i can see it coming through. So we're doing good, let it sit for a minute, then we'll rinse it i'm gon na start rinsing. These ac's too.

I mentioned the intelligence system and it's not intelligent. It's intelligent, okay heatcraft came out with the new version of the qrc. Essentially, okay and it is their intelligent system. It's got some new features.

It is actually capable of being a communicating system. If you choose to do so, i don't know if it's possibly replacing the beacon system or not. I'm sure you guys can tell me in the comments, because i do know that you have the capabilities of making it fully communicating by hooking it up onto the roof. So it's always a possibility.

I'm not an expert in the matter, but anyways i've installed some of their intelligent systems. Uh it's! If you order a new smart evaporator, you get the intelligent. Now, okay, it has a user interface, a little knob to move it around. It's it's a pretty decent little system, but the point that i was bringing up was: i didn't, want to shut off that other condensing unit, because i might have raised a red flag or an error within the board if it doesn't see a superheat change in so Much time it'll actually shut off and i believe it locks itself out again.

I'd have to stare at the installation and user manual to figure out for sure, but i was being cautious and as service technicians, we need to understand our equipment and we have some ice machine systems that i work with too. The manitowoc quiet cube machines where, if you shut off the condensing unit, when the evaporator is running, it'll actually lock itself out for 60 minutes and then try to restart. So you want to be very cautious before you just go flipping things off. Okay, to make sure that you know it's not going to cause issues that can you know, make things chaotic same thing with the air conditioners on the same building.

When i go to shut them off, they actually have a silent alarm, the way that they're wired, and so we have to notify the alarm company ahead of time to say: hey, we're working on the air conditioning systems, we're going to power them down that way. They don't get a trouble signal through the duct detectors within the unit okay, so it's so important that we understand the equipment we're working on and we don't just walk up onto a roof and start flipping things off, because we can cause repercussions. We're working in some kitchens, if you shut off exhaust fans it might shut off cooking appliances, so just always pay attention. So i'm sure people are gon na ask why the heck am i worrying about cleaning acs and other condensers when all i'm called about? Is this one? Well, i'm so busy and short staffed right now that i don't have time to come back.

I i'm so many weeks behind on service calls right now that i just don't have time so the customer's not getting a choice and i'm gon na clean. This stuff - i'm not gon na, spend hours here, but i'm gon na clean everything and uh. It's just gon na have to happen on overtime, because i don't have time to come back and to be honest with you, i'm a little frustrated too. I was literally walking out the door to go to dinner with my wife, my wife's, about to go on vacation for a couple days, and i wanted to you know, go out to dinner and you know life happens, i'm on call.

I mean it is what it is you know, but i did have a polite discussion with the manager about when they find these problems. They need to call us asap because, like i told her, the walk-in freezer is not going to fix itself. You know they noticed it at like three o'clock, but i didn't get called to like seven o'clock and to be honest with you, they probably noticed it before then too, but you know just those things like just trying to educate them and let them know make sure They understand that we are human and don't necessarily want to come out here in the middle of the night. You know to clean condensers and it's not management's fault.

You know again, all these restaurants are struggling to open back up after everything, and you know it's hard to get to all of them. Even if every one of my restaurants, i service, wanted me to do a preventative maintenance, i couldn't do them, i'm just too short staffed right now, so you know it. Just here is what it is and while it might be frustrating you know, we just uh bite. Our tongue and move on with it you know life happens.

So i like to blow off the micro channel condensers, because the water gets stuck in them and then also it just causes a giant bubble party. Obviously i don't want to get the motors wet, but you know you can only do so much. So all right we're going to continue rinsing off ac's we're waiting for that guy to start calling again the smart uh. It's not the qrc board downstairs.

So you got to wait for it to start calling, even when i'm frustrated and tired, still try to be as thorough as possible, so wash all the dirt away that you washed off the condenser, wash it away from the condenser, because it's just going to suck back Up tomorrow, so just rinse, this guy got all the other ac's rinsed off blew out the drain. On that one, i'm going to check the other drains rinse the ice machines. I got a hose up here, so everything that needs it's going to get a rinse eliminate a service call tomorrow. That's the way, i think this guy's kicking butt.

Um pressures are a lot better. Um that condenser fan motor is amping good. It was just making like the slightest squeaking when it was shutting off, but i think i'm just gon na let it go and we'll keep an eye on it. Both of them are amp in about .47, which is good.

It's coming down in temp we're gon na. Go down to the box, i'm gon na start assembling this um rinsed off all the ac's blew out the drains because they were all plugged. I need to run around and tighten the belts, real, quick, i'm going to check the condenser fan motors. Oh, my phone doesn't like to focus at nighttime.

I want to check the condenser fan motors, make sure they're working and check the units for codes, real quick, make sure there's no major codes in them, because if there is then that'll have to be a service call. Look at that alarm 13 strike 3 on compressor, 1 high pressure, so yeah see the the the compressors are going off on high pressure because the condensers were dirty and then we got to check to make sure yeah. All the condenser fan motors are working so yeah. It's good thing: i'm doing this because i'm saving myself a service call tomorrow, all right.

It has been running for a good 45 minutes to an hour now, box temperatures dropped significantly. Last time i was in the box, it was about eight degrees, we'll give it a little bit more time, we're running a clear sight, glass, everything's, looking good the dtc valve's, not even bypassing right now, because it's dropped significantly. It's probably like 78 outside right now. So all right, i'm taking gauges off and putting everything together and we're gon na wrap this one up.

So i mentioned that the pressures look good they're much better than when i got there and what i'm referencing is the condensing temperature all right or the high pressure in the system it has dropped significantly and that high pressure has a direct correlation to the outside air Temperature, if the system is working properly, we can expect to see on this particular micro channel, condenser style system. We can see expect to see about a 10 to 15 degree condensing temperature over ambient ctoa, okay, and that is a measurement of the performance of the condenser right. So if we have a very dirty condenser, our condensing temperature over ambient is going to be extremely high. On another note, your sub cooling would be extremely high.

Okay, you see the correlation, but condensing temperature over ambient um essentially is really just focusing at the condenser okay, and it's just a rough number. We don't charge to a condensing temp over ambient. We look at the big picture of the system. We look at the sub cooling, we look at the superheat, we look at the sight glass.

We take all those things into consideration when we're charging one of these refrigeration systems. Okay, you also have to understand your systems and if it has a head pressure control valve for low ambient controls, which what this one does, we've got to understand how to charge a system with the head pressure control valve too. It requires extra refrigerant in the winter time or when the ambient temperature drops so that way it can appropriately flood the condenser and maintain a set pressure differential across your expansion valve now i know boom mind explosion. What the heck did.

I just say it's it's. It's not too complicated just understand that, essentially for an expansion valve to work appropriately, the refrigerant has to flow through the system at a certain velocity. If you slow it down too much. Theoretically, an expansion valve, especially a thermostatically controlled expansion.

Well, this one is an eev, so it can tolerate a lower than normal pressure drop a little bit better than a thermostatically controlled expansion valve. But essentially, we still need to maintain a certain pressure difference from the liquid line side of that expansion valve to the vapor line side of vapor liquid mixture side, the evaporator side of the expansion valve okay. We got to be able to push that refrigerant through at a certain velocity that way that valve can regulate, open and close and meter the refrigerant, so we can get the best heat transfer in the evaporator. Okay also, i mentioned a dtc valve.

That is a discharge temperature control valve for the compressor. The easiest way to understand that is it's an expansion valve for the compressor it cools off the internals in the head of the compressor, all right. It takes liquid refrigerant and meters it through an expansion valve and cools off the head. We tend to see this on low temperature systems.

You should be seeing them on, especially on some of the newer blend refrigerants like 448a or the r22 substitutes, because we can run higher than what we consider normal discharge temperature on these systems and that can affect the operation of the compressor. Remember a compressor is a device that is moving refrigerant right and when that's happening, there's heat of compression there's friction going on in the compressor, and it tends to get really hot. We have oil inside that compressor circulating through the compressor refrigerant oil. These are very specifically designed systems and that oil can break down at a certain point and if it breaks down, then the compressor is not going to get proper lubrication and it's going to lead to catastrophic catastrophic system failure within the compressor.

Okay, something's going to break right, you've got to lubricate it, and if that oil is breaking down, then we have an issue so that discharge, temperature control or dtc valve has a sensing bulb. That goes in the head of the compressor, it's removable. So if you ever see one, you don't want to yank them out very much, but you can pull it out. Okay, it has a capillary tube and it basically looks for a certain temperature in the head of the compressor to open and close the dtc valve.

Okay. It's just like an expansion valve guys, it really is and when it senses that high temperature, it opens the dtc valve and you'll start to feel it and you'll see it. You'll see like a frost kind of happen, or you can see condensation dripping off the outlet of the valve and that's how i can grab it and say the dtc valve was not even open. Actually, i said bypassing bypassing is not really the technical term for it, because it's an open, close valve it kind of opens throttles and goes back and forth to maintain a certain temperature at the head of that compressor.

Okay, it's all about protecting the compressor and keeping the oil from breaking down, because, as you break down that oil, you know it's not going to lubricate the compressor anymore and it's going to lead to issues okay. So this was a pretty basic refrigeration service. Call. This video was shot.

It is now october, 2nd of 2021, so this was shot all the way back in july. It's just been footage. I've been sitting on okay and um. I was super busy at the time.

I was a couple weeks behind on service calls. It was the middle of this crazy summer, we've been having, and i just couldn't keep up with anything, and this is the kind of stuff that's happening now to be fair. This particular customer does not do routine preventative maintenance with me. They do have a company that comes through occasionally and clean stuff, but they're, not a service company, so they really don't clean uh thoroughly like i would do.

Okay, so we saw this summer was super hectic because you know all this stuff was breaking down. Okay, now, on a side note, i did just hear something. This particular company um is considering starting up a preventative maintenance program with me. Okay, and i'm not going to justify everything but i'll, give some context here, and it was eye-opening.

Okay, they got quotes from all their service providers, regular refrigeration service providers to start doing preventative maintenance on all their equipment. Again. Okay and when i talked to my contact at the company recently, i was told that all the quotes across the united states, the preventative maintenance services which they want to start doing again, are going to cost that company an extra four million dollars a year. Okay, so that is a big number, especially when these restaurants right now are not making very m very much money.

I mean they're they're, seriously struggling to maintain profits. Half of these restaurants they're closing all the time because they can't find employees, and you can say what it is, there's all kinds of issues and reasons why they're having an issue finding employees? Okay, it's just a systematic failure of the restaurant industry in general and the climate and everything that's going on it's gon na take time. So i do believe that this restaurant is gon na eventually start doing preventative maintenance service again with me. But it's going to take some time.

They got to start making some money that way, it's easy for them to stomach the cost of that four million dollars across the united states in the long run that four million dollars, i imagine, will pay off for them. But in the short term, right now it's about surviving another year. They literally need to keep the doors open and for them to put out another four million dollars on top of the money that they're already hemorrhaging to try to stay afloat and stay in business. They got to do what they got to do to survive.

So while i get frustrated like i vented in this service in this video, i also understand the other side of the coin, and you know what i want to make money. I i'm in business to make money. I have to make money, but i think about the big picture and i think about the long game right and i want to keep working for this particular customer for another 20 years. Okay and that customer needs to be around so i do worry about the state of the restaurant industry.

I do worry about the customers and, of course i know i'm going to get people saying that you know there's things they could do, they could pay better. Okay, there's all kinds of different ways to look at this, and it's not just one thing: that's hurting the restaurant industry, but this is just one thing that i happen to have. You know an inside view to and i get to see what's going on so this summer was hectic. It was crazy.

This is the kind of stuff we did every single week, multiple times a week. We went out and i would be there and it's like. I don't have time to come back, so i'm gon na clean everything. While i was on the roof - and i didn't really ask permission - it's like i'm there, i'm just gon na start cleaning.

You know i just need to do it because i just can't keep up with all the craziness all right, hey. I really appreciate you guys making it to the end of the video okay. Hopefully you got like this new style. I kind of changed it up.

Just a little bit, you know still doing the closing words like normal and stuff, but i i find that when i do the closing words, i'm i'm forgetting to talk about things. You know. So it's like i'm gon na try this little thing and we'll see. I might continue it.

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