Previously, on hvacr videos, all right there is leaks all in here, this leak, detector, there's so many links. The leak detector is kind of useless they're just everywhere, so we're gon na have to bubble this guy and then just start counting uh. This is gon na, be one of those situations where you're, just gon na fix what you can and we're not gon na do it today, but okay, so i soaped this guy up so there's so many leaks, one, two, three, four: five: six, seven, eight, nine and There's some in the back too there's at least nine. I count ten and then there's some in the back that i can't even zoom in on so at least 10 leaks.

This unit has two stages, so this thing has leaks everywhere. This video is brought to you by sportlin quality, integrity and tradition. Before we start this, i want to give some context. I made a video on april 5th of 2020, where i was out on the same system, and we found that the unit had multiple refrigerant leaks across it.

This is also the same one that i had changed a compressor in a reversing valve in we've done a lot of work on this ac now um. What went through my head with the amount of refrigerant leaks, that i showed you guys in the little teaser in the beginning, was originally i was like hey. We need to change this unit. Okay.

First, we said: let's change the evaporative coil, but after some investigation i realized that changing the evaporator coil. We have to drop the entire air handler down to the ground to get the evaporator coil out anyways because of the way that they have it suspended from the ceiling. So i'm going to go into it in a minute the process and my thought process, basically of how to change the entire air handler. Okay, before we get to that, if you guys haven't already, please consider checking out my website hvacrvideos.com.

We got shirts hats, sweaters beanies. All that stuff available helps to support the channel, so please check it out and let's go and get on with the video. This is going to be insane. So this is the air handler right here.

It's a fan, coil unit, uh connected to the ductwork over there and then also over here. We've got economizer ductwork coming in here, so we we do have a lot of beams up above that. If a structural engineer said we could, we could put the entire load on some of those beams and hoist this unit up, but they would have to remove the entire ceiling right here. All this would have to go and sprinklers stuff like that, and then the the air handler would have to be hoisted up set on the strut and then with another hoist like a winch or something once it comes up at a sideways angle, it would have to Turn it to where it could be put, and then maybe they'd have to put um strut trolley so that way they can move it.

This is a nightmare of all nightmares. To change this air handler, i mean look at all the electrical and wiring and everything that would have to come out of the way i mean there's a lot of stuff here. This is a mess. This looks like the easiest spot to lift it, but i mean lifting this.

This thing weighs 700 pounds easy. We did one of these, but they had a place to use an equipment. Lift you know this is insane. I don't know that these beans can handle 700 pounds.

You know because the currently right now it's spread out amongst multiple beams, so it's not just putting the entire load on one beam, but if you're putting a hoist up there, you know electric winch or something the load would be on the one beam and you know They'd have to get a structural engineer to say whether or not whether or not that's safe but yeah. This is insane. You know the refrigeration lines aren't too bad once they get it up here. We could connect it back, but this thing has so many leaks inside of it it's insane.

So i'm about to rope the wheeler bag up and uh. I do have to say it's a bit silly. What you got to do so they have a strap. You can buy, but they want you to hook to those guys right there.

So all that i did was just figure out a way to get a center pole by just wrapping my rope through but um i mean i guess you could buy that fancy rig, but it just make the bag even heavier. I thought about just doing it, but that's a really high uh ladder to be roping it from that handle and the handle might break so so it's not too bad roping it up. You know - and this is where it really pays off, because now i got to go across the shopping, mall and uh. I don't have to carry it on my back.

You know so that makes it super nice and i have used it and strap stuff to the top too, like put extension cords and things like that over it, it's pretty capable all right. I got my unit opened up um because we found so many leaks down at the evaporator and i'll show you there was over 20 leaks. All right, you can see the picture of the evaporator right here. I've marked the leaks with a paint marker the previous day, so that way, it's easier for me to get in here and do the repairs.

I just wanted to make sure that it wasn't leaking up here too. It's such a process, because this is five stories up to get to the condensing into the evaporator, so we don't go back and forth back and forth, so i did a quick leak check using the field, ps, dr-82, nothing jumping out at me. I mean couple little things: you know these guys are picking up traces and stuff, but i already took those caps off um. We are gon na, be changing both filter dryers uh.

I do have a new ball valve, for it we'll put a ball valve on this one. So that way we can isolate yeah, so uh we're gon na get started on this, go get the recovery machine and everything and start sucking this gas out. I believe i have on here that second stage takes 28 pounds of gas, so first stage is probably gon na. Take that much too so uh.

These are big boys uh 15 tons. Each each circuit is seven and a half tons. So so i got two recovery. Cylinders - and this is what my little navac battery operated pump - does best i'm gon na.

Let it pull this cylinder down while i'm taking everything onto the roof. So that's pretty cool all right. We've zeroed everything out, uh we're ready to start this guy up. I already purged it, so all i need to do is open this we're going to let it push what it can in there and then we'll start the recovery machine, and we want to be cautious.

We don't overfill that cylinder, so looking good gon na hit start, it's got the slow ramp up, go ahead and open up the low side too. Now i am going through high flow schraders. I am using normal hoses, so it's going to be a little bit slow, but i did go to a 3 8 process hose to a 3 8 hose to that too. So that way, we've got less restriction on the output and we're just going to let this guy run monitoring it to make sure it doesn't overfill the cylinder.

So the machine went off on high pressure because it's kind of warm outside it's not hot i'd, say it's like 80 something, but the pressure in the system went up high enough and we've only gotten 11 pounds out of it. So far, so we're gon na have to do something to cool these guys down somehow ended up having to put a hose on it to cool it down, which is fine, i'll, just monitor the weight and keep checking it to make sure we don't overfill it. This circuit should only have 28 pounds of gas in it, so we should be okay, we're going to try to make our job as easy as possible, and what we're going to do is we're going to leave slightly positive pressure in the compressors, okay and we're going To isolate it via the ball valves, so that way, when we do the evacuation, we're just going to be evacuating the line set and evaporators, and we don't have to worry about dealing with the compressor oil, so this system never ran out of gas. So when i close, these ball valves i'll actually have to move these lines over, but we'll have, you know, be just on the uh um.

You know the other side of the ball valves. Basically, so we pulled 21 pounds of gas out of the first compressor. Now we jumped onto the next one and we got another cylinder um, so we're still doing good so that one was about seven pounds, shy of the full charge and we'll see where this one's at so i'm still waiting on the other compressor to back or to Recover so we're going to go ahead and braise in the dryer, the side, glass and the ball valve and get that part done. So we're going to knock that out real quick, we're already purging with nitrogen through the system.

So we're going to get these guys sweating real, quick, i'm using a number two tip, because i'm going a little bit bigger on my copper, so so we're gon na inspect the welds real, quick and then we're going to uh get that wet rag stuff off. We got the rooftop part done both the dryers changed um clamped back down like they should be so they're good. At this point, we're gon na go downstairs and uh start doing. The leak repairs downstairs we're gon na take all of our stuff down.

We'll leave the refrigerant up here: okay, we are up on the roof. I just rinsed everything off, because the last time i was up here, i didn't wipe off the soap bubbles and there was just a film on everything. So the last time i was here, i marked every one of the leaks. So that way i know where they're going to be at because obviously we don't have refrigerant in here anymore, so i went and marked them all so we're going to get in there and braise on everything, and then we also got to get in here and install Some ball valves so that way we can pressurize with nitrogen from here, so we've got our work cut out for us.

Is there fire things above us? Not clear. Right now seem like it's going all the way around: oh yeah, okay, so we just have to stop and go get new uh oxygen and acetylene because we ran out. So that's why you always keep spares last brace joint on the ball valves. So it was using a rosebud tip and it's got multiple orifices on it, but uh.

Now that we're going to get in on the evaporator, i'm going to try to do everything with my zero. So so that way, i don't heat everything else up in there and i can really pinpoint the heat better, but we got the ball valves all in uh. We're just cleaning off some of the stuff right now, so we're getting there all right, ball valves are all brazed in and uh we're purging with nitrogen. Now we got to get in here and start cleaning these joints up.

So i've got my little uh dremel tool with my milwaukee thing, we're getting in there and then just some sandpaper and cleaning up everything and then we're just gon na braise on it all. I ended up just started welding everything or brazing everything, but we pretty much did almost every one of these distribution tubes because they were just all so close together and then we did this one right here. So at this point i think we're going to go ahead and pressure test it because we have the ball valves right there. You can see the smoke coming out from the nitro, we're praying.

We don't set off the smoke detector over there um, but uh all right. Yeah, we're gon na do a pressure test on this guy and see if there's any other refrigerant leaks and then we'll move on to the next one. So that's pretty good. We did a pressure test.

We're at about 130 psi right now probably could go a little bit higher, but we only have one more leak right here and it looks like a new one because that one wasn't there before that's it right there so we'll clean it braise it real, quick and Then we're gon na go ahead and jump onto this next circuit. Okay! Well, um, that's good! For now! I don't think this is to solve their problem completely they're going to continue to have refrigerant leaks. I believe it's airborne. Contaminants um, although this one right here is, is because it's not supported super well, it's kind of difficult.

Maybe we can try to figure something out, because these guys just kind of flex but anyways we got the ball valves installed. Um we tightened up the packings uh schrader's back in we're gon na insulate real, quick and start cleaning up our messes, and then we need to uh we're gon na blow the drain out on this guy. Just because we're up here and it's a pain in the butt, if you look way over here, all the way over there there's a pvc drain line and it's a nightmare, but we put a union on it. The last time we did it um.

So we're going to do that real quick, assemble the unit and then go upstairs and get the vacuum pumps running. This is just plain dumb. What you got to do, there's nothing to stand on down there. I mean you've got that one thing, but that's not enough and it's stupid, but luckily we put the unions the last time so we're able to do it.

I got a guy going down below to make sure it's clear all right. We got this monstrosity. Put back together, blew out the drain, we're looking good there. Let's make sure oh yeah, making sure we weren't leaking water and we're not that's just uh silicone, okay, we're good um, yeah turn on the power and we'll get the vacuum pump.

All the way back up on the roof, the line set's like 100 feet up. So it's a long line set all right. We got two of the 10 cfm vacuum pumps running on this guy pulling through the blue vac hoses we're doing a one hose pull to see how that does, because my other hose the damn thing came apart this i know everybody's been complaining about that, but it Happened to me finally, so um this should be good. We got micro engages on each side.

We're gon na see how fast this pulls down. Remember we have the compressors isolated, so we're only pulling the line set in the evaporator coil. So i'm thinking this should go pretty fast. I always keep backups of my tools and uh.

This micron gauge isn't working right. I think i need to clean it or something because it says good. I have no idea. Luckily, i had my little testo one in here.

So we're just using the testo app so that one's at 6 500 microns. This was at 4 000.. I imagine we're gon na have to do an oil change in a minute, but uh we're still running with the gas ballast open so trying to get out as much of the crap. I've been running these guys for a few minutes and i'm noticing that it's kind of stalling out a little bit um we're going to go ahead and change the oil uh.

So you could do the on the fly oil change. You got an extra reservoir with clean oil in it, so we're going to swap it out real quick like watching paint dry, we're at 1200 microns on one uh 1200 microns on the other, so they're kicking button, they're dropping fast. It's just uh! I want to go home all right. We are in our decay and we're doing good we're still at 800 on one and uh.

It's slowly risen to about 800 slowly rising on this one now, so i'm pretty confident now guys. I still think we have leaks. I'm not 100 confident. This thing is absolutely leak free, but um.

I think that's good enough for now uh we pulled it down. We brought it up and decay, but it's not rising past a thousand. It's slowly rising. That's it! So we're good on that.

Um. Remember this is still in positive pressure. We checked it a minute ago. There was like 25 psi or something so we're gon na go ahead and open up the ball.

Valves and uh start charging this guy. It was a process, but we have it running now. I have to call the energy management company and we're charging it. We got one circuit charged, we're just getting them operational today, we're going to come back and dial in the charge, so all i'm doing is getting to the 28 pound six ounces and then we'll come back and check sub cooling tomorrow and check everything from there.

So i need 12 pounds in this stage right now and then this thing will be operating and we can get out of here for the day. All right, it is running, we got it going sight. Glasses are all clear, which is a plus we'll be back tomorrow, to wrap it up and dial in the charge and all that good stuff. I came back out today to verify everything's good, make sure there was no water present in the bottom.

There's not um. This is a good sign. It's only calling for one stage right now and it is the bottom circuit. Those are things we have to worry about, because i have a couple of these units where they cross liquid and suction, so uh.

This is the first stage. This should always be the one that calls first, so that way it can uh, you know, get the coil wet and then, when the second stage turns on that one will start getting wet. But if this one turns on first and this one's dry, the water will drip right off the coil um. That's a very common issue with these slanted slab coils.

So all right we're going to put this back together and go check the charge on the roof and give it a full call for cooling. Our numbers are pretty darn good uh super heat. I mean uh the according to their charging, charts we're right on the money. So, for some reason, it's showing my head pressure being a little bit elevated according to measure quick, but i'm not seeing any major issues here.

We changed to the first circuit um yeah, head pressure is definitely a little bit lower, but i'm not really gon na spend too much more time on this guy everything's cool. We went ahead and went with 28 pounds. Six ounces for both circuits so i'll go ahead and mark that down, but yeah we're happy campers and good to go. Everything's cool we're going to give this one back to the customer and clean up all our messes and finally be done with this one, at least for another six months or so until it starts leaking again.

I really don't give it very long before that system starts to leak again every single air handler at this restaurant. They have five five of them. I think uh they're all 15 tons, and then they have a. I think they have a 10 ton too um a little linux, 10 ton or something like that, but all of them have been popping up refrigerant leaks now, um, some of it.

I have a feeling has to do with vibration, but i honestly think a lot of it has to do with airborne. Contaminants um the stuff that they they, the food that they serve, is very acidic and we tend to notice a lot of refrigerant leaks in these units. These units are all from 2014, so i mean you know they're older, but you would expect them to be. You know lasting a little bit longer than this, but a lot goes into these units with proper installation.

Proper piping supports, unfortunately, with the way the building is designed. It would be insane to you know, properly support these pipes after the fact you'd have to do a lot of work and the customer doesn't approve that stuff. You know they just want them operational. It's kind of interesting because a lot of these restaurants, the way that they feel is, is just get it running.

We don't want to spend too much money we'll deal with a problem later. You know, so that's why you'll see them put in. You know: compressor change! Outs and then couple months later giant leak, repair and then a couple months later you know and then it's like, hey guys, did you ever look back at how much money you've spent you know, but they don't look at it that way. They just look at it.

You know quarter at a time. Basically you know how are we doing this quarter? Okay, we don't have money to put into anything this quarter. So you know this. This came out of an emergency repair budget.

You know they don't have money left in their replacement budget or they push replacements off. You know everything's different and i don't really argue too much. You know i just give them my quotes now in this situation. You know i i talked about it in the video.

Like i just don't see any way for this air handler to be changed without having to shut down the building realistically um the last time we changed an air handler. I never made a video, but i've talked about it a few different times. We changed one of these air handlers. I actually made him get a construction company involved because i was like i'm not capable with my small crew to get that 700 pound uh air handler 16 feet in the air and suspend it from strut like i just didn't.

Have the material so construction crew came in for the other one and they actually had to take down a wall in the restaurant. They had like a knee wall, not a knee wall, but like a partition wall or something, and they had to take that down. So they can drive uh an equipment, lift in and lift up the air handler. That way, and even then i watched the construction company do it and it was shady it was very shady, i'm glad you know, even though i i was gon na say i'm glad it wasn't my job, but it kind of was because i bought the air handler.

They installed it, so the liability still would have been tricky to see who would have paid for it if it would have gotten damaged. But i just look at this one for this kitchen and like dude, there's just no way, especially in an emergency way, because this happened right at the beginning of our first heat wave and they were like. We need it now and i'm like that air handler special order the last time before. Well, it was right at the beginning of covid.

Before we were seeing equipment, shortages and stuff it took like three months. They had to custom, make the air handler um and ship. It from carrier direct now i bet you anything - would be almost impossible to get that air handler. So anyways i told the customer there's no changing this unit, like you guys have to repair it.

You know so they approved the quote. It was a big one, but they approved it um all together, i want to say i quoted this job for 30 or 40 hours um and we didn't. I don't think we hit the 30 or 40 hours or we were right there or something like that. Um, all together and and it wasn't 30 hours in one trip - it was multiple visits we had to come out.

You know find the leaks come back out. Do a little bit of work come back again, do more work. So it was a pretty big job, but it was just myself and another technician. We just did it over a few days knocked it out.

Um yeah, so you know uh things like this. I try to think big picture. You know those ball valves were very imperative because without the ball valves, if you guys haven't done something like this already evacuating the unit up on the roof, you know removing all the refrigerant from the line set. There's so much vapor left in this air handler and little pockets in the line set that it'd be boiling off forever.

So it'd take a really long time to get all the refrigerant out and then to try to go downstairs and braise on it or try to push with nitrogen from all the way up on the roof. You'd have all kinds of issues. So that's why i installed the ball valves down at the air handler, so i was able to isolate the line set right because there's ball valves up at the condensing unit, so i was able to shut those after the evacuation um or after the recovery. Then left positive pressure in the compressor, so i didn't have to worry about pulling the refrigerant out of the oil okay.

So then i had basically the ball valves upstairs all the way to downstairs, and then i put the ball valves downstairs. So i was able to isolate the line set and just purge through the evaporator coil with nitrogen. Also saved me a ton on having to purge the entire line set with nitrogen and then after that, then i did a pressure test on the coil. Then i went back up opened up the ball valves obviously, and then opened the line set in the evaporator and just evacuated the line setting evaporator.

That way, i didn't have to fight dealing with everything else. So you know, i don't have utmost confidence that this thing doesn't have more leaks or won't have more leaks in the future. I definitely think it will it's just one of those things where you know you just got to do some things just to get them running. You know, and i have to know the abilities of myself and my company and i'm not a big giant company.

You know i can't it was hard enough for me to spend whatever 38 hours or whatever it was on that job. It was really difficult because i have other service calls come in and you know we're just not a very big company um and you know i don't over staff, we keep. You know enough staff to where everybody can stay relatively busy. So yeah you know, but just try to think big picture is what i do um.

You know i thought about putting in flare dryers, but it was actually kind of difficult to get my hands on them. In a pinch like i needed to, i didn't really plan this one out for very long um, but yeah i'd rather not use flares on this. With such a long line set, i went ahead and sweat them in, but i put those ball valves, so it's rather easy to change them. You could literally, if i, if i felt like there, was a contamination issue or something like that.

Just shut off the condensing unit shut off the ball valve on each side of the dryer, then just recover. What's in the dryer, which you know is just going to be ounces, and then you can sweat in the new ball valve and call it. I mean the new dryer and call it a day, so it's super easy to do that. Um yeah and that's pretty much it.

I really really appreciate you guys making it to the end of the video um. If you haven't already like, i said in the beginning, check out my website, hvacrvideos.com got some cool stuff on there. Hats, beanies shirts, all that helps to support the channel. Um remember: i do live streams monday, evenings 5 p.m, pacific work permitting, obviously, and then i also go live on the hvac overtime youtube channel.

With my buddies. I say it every week. I'm sure it's nauseating, or it is kind of to me to say the same thing, but i know we have a lot of new viewers and stuff too so um, if you guys have any questions, leave them in the shown, or i mean in the comments of This video um send me an email to hvacr videos, gmail.com and any information you guys are looking for tool, links and stuff like that is in the show notes of the video. So i really really appreciate you and uh.

We will catch you on the next one. Okay.