Okay, so I think I think you should hear me now as well as my probably exceptionally loud new music, that I've got here as having a lot of audio trouble today, lots of audio trouble. So please forgive me for my audio trouble that I was having today that I I have to confess that I did. I swore a little bit I didn't want to. I didn't I didn't intend to swear, but it just it just came spewing out when I could not get this blankety-blank and thing to work.

I got this new audio interface and I was excited about it and I tested it and it worked. But then, when I went live it didn't work so then I had to scramble and shift back to my old audio interface. So here we are it's like an old friend, so everybody says they can hear me now. Give me one.

Second, I need to go shut. It or I'll be right back hold on okay, so we are gon na go through some mids. I think I might. I think I might adjust my screen a little bit and make the make this a little bit smaller.

You can tell that I this this whole audio thing really has me in a in a tizzy straight up tizzy. So we will love. I'm gon na send this back here. I'm gon na just do this.

You know we'll just do this live. You know we'll. Just do this live it'll, be it'll, be no biggie, you'll be no biggie because you guys are patient and you understand you know you understand the creative process. You know.

Sometimes when you, when you do things in the creative process. You know just face challenges, see here much better, much more legible. You know cuz. I want you all to be able to see the myth.

That's as we go through them. Cuz! That's! This is the format today. The format today is, we are gon na go through these myths from Facebook, together you and I, and we're going to bunk them or debunk them. When you bunk a myth.

I guess that means that you agree with it and when you debunk it that means that you disagree with it. So, let's see here, let's see if I can bring myself into the screen just so you can have something to look at. Why hello, everyone, and so it's so lovely to see you think I'll think I'll just move! My oh that's weird! You know my face ought not move across the screen like that, but that's exactly what we're doing in real time and then I'll come here alright. Here we are here: we are masters of Technology.

All thank you for joining us today on this bunking and debunking of myths and controversies. I've already put ten minutes late, so we might go ten minutes long. We might go 20 minutes long heck. We might go 22 minutes long, it's not, let's not get ahead of ourselves, so I don't know.

Did I see Burt in chat, I'm not sure. If I saw Burt in chat, I think I just saw his name up here on the screen, so we're gon na go through these myths and hope that everything plays nice and Facebook doesn't act up on me, as many of my other software has so. The this is gon na, be all in fun all right, so we're not gon na have any fighting or swearing like I was doing at my software or at my hardware I should say a moment ago. I hope someone says volume.

Okay, so maybe maybe my volume isn't the best, I'm a little quiet. Is that what we're saying here we're saying I'm a little quiet will will pump up the volume will bring the heat. Let's see. Oh, my epic music is still too loud.

Let's go ahead and take this epic music out I mean it is pretty epic you have to you have to admit alright. So let's go through the myths. Let's get started everybody's your name's right here you put your name on it in Facebook. Maybe you didn't expect that we were gon na go through and do it this way, and I am gon na still do specials on some of my favorite topics that I feel are definitely in need of bunking or debunking, but these are the myths that are on This list - and we have 500 of them, so what we better get started all right, they're, not there's, actually not that many.

Actually, let's go all the way to the mystery. We need to start at the beginning if we're gon na. Do this thing, let's see if my internet connections gon na play nice, I think the kids are watching Andy Griffith streaming in the other room and that can cause things to bog down. But let's face it, I mean handy Andy.

Griffith is great, great, show great, show all right here we go number one Brandon that managers are truthful. You know here's one of the big things in business, and that is communication and a lot of times what happens between managers and technicians or anybody. Anybody in any job is that there's a lot of manipulation and misunderstanding using information that maybe they have that a field worker doesn't have in order to get people to do things that you want them to do, and then that leads to the way my business coach Used to always say it is that unfulfilled expectations lead to disappointment, and so one of the best ways to make sure when you're, interacting with managers or really anybody in leadership, to make sure that they're held accountable, is to get things in writing. Even if it's just an email and to keep asking clarifying questions until you get the exact answer that you need that, then that way you have something to hold them to, because people are are forgetful.

Sometimes it's selective forgetfulness, but sometimes it's just legitimate forgetfulness and it's a really good idea to get things in writing when you're, interacting with anyone in leadership that you can only use OEM part. So that's a that's a good one. I can only use OEM parts Original Equipment Manufacturer now. Is there a time to use OEM parts? Yes, there definitely is a time and place that OEM parts make a lot of sense, especially in larger I was gon na say in larger equipment.

It really. It really depends on. It depends on what it is. Obviously, if you're dealing with some sort of proprietary control, like even, for example, an ACM motor, there are ECM motors that are aftermarket that you can use it's just that the amount of information you have to have in order to get it right to get the airflow Right is much more and so a more experienced person who really understands the OEM and really understands the additional options that they have the replacement, the repair parts Universal repair parts, then maybe they can get away with it.

One thing is that I hear a lot is that om parts are better quality and sometimes that's the case, and sometimes it's not the case. I think it's just one of those things. I agree with Frank. I would never say: don't you only use OEM parts because you get in certain applications like refrigeration and that's just crazy.

I mean you're gon na be using spoilin valve, so you're gon na be using you know, Emerson, controls or whatever, and there is no real om. It's a built up system, so you have all these different parts and pieces. So there's that Raven says that I have 14 years of experience, it could be 14 could be, 10 could be 30. It does not matter how much experience you have.

If you are saying things that are false or doing poor work now again there, one thing that I think is its critical is to be able to tell the difference between an opinion and a fact and right now on social media. You know in our current climate politically and everything else, there's a lot of things that people put out there as facts that are really just opinions, and it's actually hard really hard to know something as a fact. It takes a reasonable amount of time on tools and time on tools doesn't necessarily mean 14 years experience. It means that you have to have put a lot of work into the question or the practice that you're applying with a desire for excellence and so yeah.

I think people who quote how long they've been doing it if there's that that's a very rare hammer that you want to use in a situation because it doesn't matter if somebody's been doing it a year or 50. If what they're saying is correct, it's correct, and if it's not correct, it's not correct, and generally you get into trouble with statements correct or incorrect. When you make sweeping generalizations, when you say, for example, I only ever use OEM parts or you should only ever use OEM parts. Well, it depends on the application.

It depends on the part of the industry that you work and whether or not that would be true or not true, all right, let's see here if you have a youtube channel or on a podcast, then you're, a god, an HVAC. That's a that's a funny! One! Wait a second am I on the right thing here: oh wow, this is hilarious, I'm actually on I'm on a myths post from 2019, because I remember, I remember seeing them before all right. I need to switch this real, quick hold on. Give me a second.

We need it, we need to go. Those are all good myths actually, but they were just not the ones that I wanted to cover today. Okay, for 15, give me a second here: we're gon na go back to the beginning of this situation. Boy, I'm just I'm.

Just full of full of preparedness today, full of preparedness. Today we have so many good ones, those we had 500 from a year ago. So apparently I've asked that exact question before oh, hey, there's Daniel Anderson, all right. So here we go Daniel Daniel Anderson says it's always so I want okay.

Let me address the one that about, because you have a podcast river, that you're an HVAC god. I think what some people mean by that, and is that, because you say it it's true and that's ridiculous. I mean, like I've, said so many wrong things and I've been called out so many times and that's a good thing like if you learn something new, because you say something and then somebody else says no, that's not correct and then you research it look into it. Like oh yeah they're right, I mean why, wouldn't you welcome that again, if somebody's being a jerk, even if they're being a jerk and if they're right, then you still have to admit that they're right so so yeah some people get angry with me because I'm say Things as statements, but I say that statements.

If I have, I mean, I don't just say things out of nowhere, you say it because you believe it to be true or you've read something you've practiced it, but it's totally fine to be wrong sometimes and when you are wrong to be called out on that, All right so that it's always the TXV, this failed. Obviously it's not always the TXV. One thing that I think comes up a lot is that sometimes it is the TX feat, that's failed and it depends on what segments of the industry you work in. So if you work more in refrigeration, those sorts of applications where you can replace screens those tend to be what plug up and then you don't have to replace valves and residential air conditioning.

There are a lot of TXV failures and they're, often caused by improper practices. Poor evacuation and then failing to flow nitrogen while brazing or failure to use a liquid line dryer. So it is actually the txp a lot. I can think of a couple brands and a couple subdivisions where I've replaced a lot of TX, vs and again likely could have been prevented.

So there's two different things. So there's one is people who misdiagnosed a TXV because of an airflow problem. That's a really common one: low air flow causes low suction pressure and they just think it's the TX B, but then the other hand a lot of times. Tx keys, do fail because of improper installation practices.

So that's that's another thing to think about there or another thing to watch, for I should say I'll shoot, let's see if we can get that back, I'm just I'm just struggling today. If I click on the wrong thing in the screen, then I just lose everything. I'd have to go all the way back. Sorry about that guys and gals.

I know there's some I know there's some. Ladies up in here, you always have to you always have to preface that all right, adding refrigerant to a system with a known leak, is illegal. In some cases it is if it has a very large refrigerant charge of over 200 pounds and if the leak is known to be of a rate that is and on an unallowable rate, but for most of what we do unless you're working on very large equipment. If it's 50 pounds, unless specifically, there is no leak rate requirement based on the EPA now, a lot of people say well in Canada, well in Australia.

Well in Europe! Well, I'm not talking about those places. I don't know the rules there. I only know that in the old US of a if the system contains less than 50 pounds of refrigerant, there is no leak rate requirement and that one comes up a lot. That's a very common misconception! Well ma'am! I can't recharge this thing with our 22 again you're gon na have to go with the new system, because there's a rule about that and again I don't mind if people have policies within their organizations to say it's our policy that we won't.

I don't prefer that, but but that's fine, that's your choice, but but don't say it's the EPA because it's not and you're making that up. I got into a really big fight with an owner about this one time, but they kept telling me they were gon na turn me in to the EPA, because I added a pound or one of the technicians added a pound of refrigerant to a system that had A very small leak and they had fun with that. You can see the Glee in my eyes when I remember this story going back and forth with this owner. Okay, let's see here whether or not to check refrigerant charge, I mean that's, not really a myth, so I'll just address that, I think you don't always have to gauge up.

If that's the question you can, no, you can learn how to test a system using temperatures without having to always connect gauges or probes, but I will say that if you use a good set of probes, especially with the core depressor, you can check refrigerant on without Losing much, but if I walk up to a nice machine, I'm not gon na start checking pressures right away. The idea is that we want to make sure that the I think limits working, not that we just have some sort of dogma. That's as we always have to check pressures. Okay, let's see combustion can be set by flame color.

No combustion cannot be set by flame color combustion is set with a combustion analyzer. That's how you set combustion. You know you set your gas pressure, you clock your meter and then you start doing a combustion analysis and in fact, even at kalos. Now that is what we do.

We do. We do it on every single service call. No because we're we have so few gas furnaces in our market, but whenever we commissioned a new gas furnace, we are always using a combustion analyzer and tuning it in that way see here. Water freezing during evacuation, water can freeze during evacuation, and that has that is just science, but water can also freeze when it's really cold outside, even when you're, not in evacuation.

So if we have liquid water in the system, that's a problem and it can freeze given the right conditions, but the idea that you should pull a vacuum slower in order to deal with freezing water. That is the falsehood. That's the myth. The myth that using large hoses in a good vacuum pump is a problem.

That's what I would that's what I definitely not suggest. Zac says Brian. I love everything you do except not text me back. You know how many people I've been not texting.

Back lately, Zac I mean I, you are special and - and that is absolutely true, but my not message back list is really high now and it's not because I'm a big deal it's mostly because I'm borderline depressed right now and I don't feel like communicating with people Some truth to that all right. So, let's see what else we got here. So can you freeze water during evacuation? Yes, you can, but it's not going to help to not pull any vacuum. What will help is, if you're, in a condition where you are potentially freezing water because of low ambient conditions or maybe you're working on a very small system, or maybe you have a cold box or something like that use a heat gun use the heat gun to Help drive the moisture out to help sublimate because ice.

You can still change it directly from solid to vapor, even if there is ice inside the system. But again, there's just a lot of factors, and this is a really long one, but the it's not something. To worry about, don't worry about, building up ice inside the system. Zack says he doesn't care about other people I relate I relate, and I chose to bring ten of them into the world and sometimes I question that decision, but in the end I'm sure it will all be great.

All right, let's see here bigger, is better bigger. Is definitely not better in terms of equipment selection, we want to load match pretty much in all circumstances. We want to load match, so we want to take our equipment capacity and match it to whatever the heat load is on that piece of equipment and match those. Two together, so that way we get longer run times again.

There are there cases where you may be. You know maybe removing humidity isn't ideal, and so then you in that case you'd alter your evaporator temperature, like you would in a wine cooler or something like that, but we still want a load match. We don't want additional capacity, because that results in short, cycling, short cycling, is not good for the equipment and even in even having the equipment off for a long periods of time. It's not ideal because that's when you start to get refrigerant migration, then all rushes back into the compressor during the next on cycle.

So there's a lot of things you get to deal with. You would much rather have the equipment just running at a nice, steady pace and load matching for essentially every reason that exists so bigger is not better. Bigger systems, push more air to the second floor or larger systems, fixed comfort issues, that's very similar. I used to do that I used to when I was the company I used to work for we used to do these residential air balancing, which was a joke, because we didn't have tools to measure anything I would literally take.

I think I said this on a podcast. I would take a piece of PVC and I would take a flag and I would snip the flag and I would tape it around the piece of PVC and I would use that. I called it my wind domitor. I would hold it up and I'm not joking.

This is what I would do. I'd hold it up and I'd see how much it flapped around and then I would just measure the temperatures in the rooms and I try to balance it. I don't remember where I'm going with this story. This is a ridiculous story, but but what I used to do was is, I would tap up the fan speed in order to produce more air, because I thought that was the solution.

Everything I didn't understand the negative ramifications of use of providing more airflow to the space than I was supposed to which, of course, Dima fication coil temperature. It effects all those things and from a good standpoint, they were running low compression ratios, because I was running high, suction pressure when I did that, but that's another side of things, yes, Zack is just joking with me, we're just joking. That's all that's happening here now. Zack - and I are friends legitimately I mean I hope her friend Zack, please tell me we're friends.

Alright, let's say we got else. Is PPE and employees, responsibility or the employer? I like this one yeah, it's the employers, responsibility, PP, use the employers responsibility. Now. The question comes up, sometimes is what is appropriate PPE if for a particular task, and that's not always as obvious as it may seem, because an example would be like steel-toed work, shoes? Okay, does a residential service technician need to wear steel-toed work shoes, that's actually kind of disputed ground with OSHA right I mean you know: anti-slip footwear, yeah, the you know they're more likely to slip, but are you really going to drop a heavy object on your toes As a service technician, you know like, and so you do these you do.

These studies and OSHA is very, very interested in employers who take an engaged role in their employees, safety where you're not trying to shortchange anything. Now, if an employer is saying you've got to buy a hardhat, that's your responsibility to buy it. You've got to buy a fire extinguisher, you've got to buy, gloves, you've got to buy. You know, safety glasses, those sorts of things.

Well then, no, but telling you you've got ta, buy your shoes. For example, see this is where it gets interesting: steel, toed shoes that is, that is PPE right, but it's also clothing. So I think there are always going to be gray areas with this. In general, you want an employer who is going to take PPE super responsibility.

Other thing I always say, and all of our safety meetings is, if you need something in order to do your job safely, that I haven't thought of, and it's not on the truck, stop. What you're doing and go get on the company dime now most of our employees have company credit cards. So that's easy, but that's the way that I look at that, so you, but you just have to look at what are the types of jobs, you're doing and sometimes you'll run into cases where you need some PPE that you don't previously have, and you need to Stop and go get it. Okay, let's see here, somebody says I'm a geek.

I I never said I wasn't a geek geek nerd dork dweeb, all of the above all the above. I always wanted to be an athlete. I've always got way too competitive and really wasn't good at much I mean I could probably be most of you a golf probably, but that's a DC, that's a geek game, so it doesn't count and are golf and bowling even sports. You know like I don't know, so that's that's a question for another day: okay, let's see here moving tonnage when tonnage doesn't exist in the space okay.

So I don't always get this tonnage thing. People have a problem with the term tonnage. Tonnage relates to the latent capacity of one ton of melting ice over a 24-hour period of time. So a ton is not a measurement of weight, it's referencing the heat capacity of a block of ice, so I don't have a problem with the term.

I think some of you think that it's like some sort of weight thing I mean it is a weight thing, but it is really relating directly back to be to use that's where we get that from that 12,000 BTUs per hour so anyway. So I don't have a problem with people saying you're moving tonnage you're, because by moving tonnage you mean that you're moving BTUs. That's what you mean by that. Let's see here.

Do I break are why I did a specific one on that I break are mostly but again keep in mind the amperage capacity on your float switches. That's something we're going to need to really start paying attention to, because we have had cases where they're starting to fuse clothes because of too much load, and you are gon na - have more load on are than you would on. Why somebody says Shawn says I wish. Would just use kilowatt yeah, you know, frankly, and I know this is gon na sound an American, but for a lot of what we do.

I think we should probably go to metric just because it makes more sense. There are cases where it doesn't make sense like, for example, Fahrenheit. I actually prefer Fahrenheit, because it's a smaller degree, so I think Fahrenheit actually continues to make sense. But for things where you're dealing with hundreds or you're dealing with hundreds and tens versus weird numbers like 12,000 and a kilowatt is thousands of watts makes a lot more sense to me anyway.

Just a side note: how about you need to read the effing manuals, but Ralph wolf says: hey I've said that all the time, I don't think anybody disagrees that there's benefit and reading the manual, but but it's just people don't like to read. I mean that how cows can you say it I mean you know, reading, isn't fun, especially when you're out there in the field. You would rather just kind of take a guess and if it works, you move on. That's a lot of how people do things, and it's always going to be that way.

But frankly - and I think some people - because I posted this today - I think some people got the wrong idea. What I was saying, but what I wrote was, is that you'll never get better than sorry. I know this guy's you're irritating you also I'm gon na move them out of the screen. You'll, never be better than the people who teach you.

Unless you learn to read and that's not to say that you have bad teachers, if you have good teachers, then you'll do pretty good. But but a lot of us didn't have great teachers and a lot of us. You know sometimes some schools or have great teachers and some don't some companies have great educators within the organization. Some don't and those are.

You know it's just kind of a crapshoot, but if you know how to read, then you can always find the answers that you need when you need them. Let's see here, Jeremy Smith says psych glasses and frankly you know. I am not qualified to talk about this. Without Jeremy being present, because they're in refrigeration, there are definitely there's definitely a lot more application for sight, glasses and it goes beyond because you know in air-conditioning and in single single condenser, no, no receiver non parallel systems.

We look at sub cool sub cool is essentially telling us what a sight glass would tell us and the moisture indicator in a sight glass. Isn't that useful or accurate anyway, and so the idea in a residential or you know, light commercial air conditioning type equipment that you need a sight glass? I just, I think it's just another thing. They can leak. Another thing to worry about frankly, but some people like them - I'm not I don't I don't.

I'm not gon na complain about cycling. I don't have a lot to complain about there. The ECM motors compensate for poor duck design. No, they do not compensate for poor duck design, but what do you CM motors do? Is they do ramp up in order to produce either constant, torque or constant airflow again we're talking about an ECM blowers.

You know in residential, traditionally is what we're talking about here. Anyway, so what they do, though, because they increase their output, is that they do help maintain capacity. So you're gon na have less capacity drop off with low with bad ductwork, but what they do in order to achieve that is they run higher wattage. So, in order for an ECM motor to keep the same air flow, it has to run faster, which takes more energy and also the motor fails more quickly.

So you don't want to have higher than your rated static pressure on the equipment period. I mean whether it's due to bet bad duck design, whether it's due to highly restrictive filters. It doesn't matter why, if you have more than the rated static pressure against that motor, then that motors going to be running harder. I don't like that word, but it will be running at a higher rpm than it should and that will cause greater wattage and it will fail quicker because the motors gon na run hotter.

So there you have it Delta, 18-degree delta T. Where did this come from? There's moisture content in the air play factor in this yeah. It's there is no target delta T, that's universal. It changes quite a bit depending on your air flow.

It changes depending on the total enthalpy in the air, which is includes the moisture content of the air and we've written tons of articles about this about, and so has generally Garcia wrote a great article on the on a website. Eric says I'm saying motor motor. Yes, I say ECM motor, I should just say an ECM, but then people might not know what I'm talking about. So when I say ECM, I'm saying electron electronically commutated motor motor okay motor motor, it's a motor motor.

It's got extra motor for extra motoring. What can I say triple evacuation? I don't have a problem with triple evacuation. Triple evacuation. Isn't a isn't a bad thing? It's just it doesn't do what people think it does, or at least what some people think it does you dry.

Nitrogen doesn't have this magical property that just picks up all the moisture in the system and pulls it out now. What triple evacuation does do, and I especially see it as being helpful in cases where you're pulling on equipment that previously had refrigerant in it is that it creates some turbulence inside the system. You know just just move some stuff around a little bit, and so it helps free up a little bit of that, possibly trapped, refrigerant, trapped moisture. So it's fine to triple evacuate, but the idea that you can't pull a good vacuum without triple evacuating.

It's just not true. It may take a little bit longer your your micron gauge your vacuum sensor, because it will act. It'll, read really poorly when it's hit with refrigerant that can kind of mess up your vacuum. If you, if you didn't flow some nitrogen through purge from nitrogen through so it doesn't hurt to purge some nitrogen through, but in a lot of cases deep vacuum is perfectly fine and again that's a this is a really long conversation.

This is one the whole triple evacuation thing. This is its own video, its own podcast, that we've done. Some people are saying we don't get Erik says we don't get dry, nitrogen and the HVC are industry yeah and again, even even if it was really dry. Nitrogen truly that grade of nitrogen is it.

Would it make that much of a difference? Anyway I mean - and I don't think so - let's see here coffee pink used as a diagnostic measure. Yeah I mean it's, you know three smokes and a vacuum: two cups of coffee, whatever our 22, our 22 systems cool better than r410a. It amazes me to hear that one still now, they're different refrigerants do have different properties at different temperatures, and so that's something that comes up sometimes with r410a, but in general our 410 a does have better heat content per pound, so latent heat content per pound - and You know that, because r410a doesn't have to move as much refrigerant, there's not as much refrigerant for the same capacity booth or you don't have to circulate the same amount of refrigerant. Basically, and if you take apart a scroll compressor, that's in our 410 a compressor versus r22, even at the same capacity, you'll notice that the scroll is smaller on an hour 410, a compressor.

So so your heat content per pound, latent heat of vaporization, is actually better. On r410a, but there are some characteristics at different temperatures, and that's maybe why some people say that, let's see here Eric, I want to have you on specifically to talk about the dry nitrogen thing, because that's not something that I I fully understand what other options are Available or what the difference is between what we're getting at a supply house and what truly dry nitrogen is. Let's see here, appliances are ready to go out the box and need no adjusting yeah, and that's essentially never true, I mean commissioning, is so so critical. Seer ratings are deceptive, seer ratings.

Is that a myth that they're deceptive? I don't? I don't know that they're intentionally deceptive, but but there are problems with seer ratings. I mean because, in order to rate something with one number you're making a set of assumptions about how it will be operated in the field and depending on where you live, it may or may not be operated under those conditions. So I do kind of prefer ER overseer. Let's see here, the customers care more about pressure.

Quality depends on the customer. I've seen customers do care more about price. I always use the example of pump in my septic tank. Do I care more about price or quality? When I call to you my septic tank pumped well in the past, I cared more about.

I cared more about price. I didn't care if the guy had some janky old truck that might break down whatever I don't care. Just pump my septic tank right in our industry, I think long term people care more about quality, but there are a lot of people who don't know that yet, and so they want to argue over price, and so I say let somebody else have those customers. They Carol Baskins killed her husband.

Is that a myth? I think that's the guy's been pretty much proven at this point and we think I mean seriously. I haven't seen it. Let's see here I'll just run the pump overnight. There's nothing.

I mean again running a pump overnight is fine if you've done all the other stuff right, if you're using large hoses if you've pulled the cores and if you have a wet system open that gas ballast and let it run overnight. Sometimes that is the thing to do if the system is just of that size and it's that wet, but it's not especially great for your pump either I mean your pump again can get pretty hot doing that. So I don't love to. I don't love to run.

My vacuum pump any longer than I need to, but running it overnight. It's not something should be a typical practice or you will find it is needed in most cases, if you're following best practices, bill Spohn says, measuring air flow is useless. I don't know that anyone says that I mean. Maybe some people say that I would rather say measuring air flow ease is really really hard because it is you know, so much of what I even advocate is looking more at a newer equipment.

As looking at the fan tables and using static pressure, rather than truly measuring airflow, now, if you have a true flow grid, or so it's called yeah, it's the one from the energy conservatory, the one that goes in the filter, grill that that one's pretty easy it Takes a little bit of getting used to how to use it, but it's not a tool that I think every technician definitely don't have on their truck, but it's going to in the future because of its price. So something to consider looking at especially if you're doing commissioning is you're testing, that sort of thing, but measuring things with a Hotwire doing a traverse measuring with an airflow hood or with a vane anemometer. Those are all pretty hard when it comes to system airflow. Now, if you're talking about point airflow at the diffusers at the vents, then that's actually not that difficult, and it is something we need to do a much better job at and balancing.

But the person who did the presentation on that is Bill's phone and we have those up on the wall. He has him up on the true tech website. I actually took those videos. He does a really great presentation on measuring air flow, in which I've learned a great deal and probably most of what I know now so certainly not arguing with Bill.

All right following a diagnostic process is a waste of time. I mean you always good. Technicians are always going to follow a diagnostic process that engineers are all pitas. Engineers are not all pitas.

Some of the smartest people in our industry are engineers and a lot of times. The reason why we think they're stupid is because we haven't read their manuals. Sometimes they do make uninformed choices, not having as much time on tools, but it's incumbent on technicians and engineers to work together and to communicate respectfully with one another in order to find good solutions for problems. That's that's how that works.

Somebody says the video feed is fuzzy. I don't know my stream, my stream says we have an excellent connection. So I don't know this. One from Ed Miller starts really strong and that I don't like how it ends.

He says fraction is fractionation for 10 engineered obsolescence. Nathan is your son oil cross-contamination, duct leakage doesn't matter if it's in the envelope frame, sensor, coating, filter, dry replacement, txt orientation, you and jig Bergman are actually the same person. Allah, Fight Club or Jim is the cool, Brad Pitt character and you're the lame Edward Norton character. I don't know if you've met Jim in person but he's smaller than me physically.

So I don't. I don't appreciate that reference, but I get why you say it: okay, so let's, let's go through your fractionation of r410a, doesn't matter for capacity at all. The only practical concern that you could have for today is 50 % r32 and 50 % are 125. Are what 25 right yeah, I think, and so when they leak? What tends to leak more is the are 125 well are.

125 is actually a worse refrigerant than our 32, but it's the flame, it's the fire suppressant. So when you leak out you're gon na leak rr1, what am I saying our 123 is that right, no 125 you're gon na leak out there are 125 and you're gon na be left with more r32, which means that the refrigerant potentially could be more flammable. So that's really the only fear that I would have with leakage that maybe you end up with a slightly more flammable mix, but this has been tested many times. It's just not something under normal conditions that you need to be concerned about engineered obsolescence.

Um - and I don't have anything to say about that - and do engineers in dark corners try to figure out ways to make things fail at certain times in certain areas of Industry. Absolutely I mean the light bulb is a perfect historical fact that they can make light bulbs the last hundreds of years, but they don't so it does that happen. Sure it happens. Does it happen in our industry? I don't know I'm not in those I'm not in those smoke-filled rooms, to tell you whether or not that happens nathan is my son.

I don't nathan is my younger brother. A lot of people think he looks older than me because you know life's been a little harder on him. You know, I'm not I'm not saying I'm just saying oil cross-contamination, that's the old thing. If you mix POA and mineral oil, it's going to create this nasty cocktail, that's going to ruin the system and that's just not true.

You can have percentages. You know a few percentage points of mineral oil in your POA mix and it's not gon na make a big difference and in fact, in some cases people will have you add a little p OE to a system when you do a conversion in order to help Carry the mineral oil, so that was I don't know why early on that was a big thing that people talked about and now that's just sort of not a thing. What else did he say flame sensor coating? That's the only other one that I'll address there. That's the old myth that flame sensors have some sort of secret magical coating that allow them to conduct.

They don't have a secret magical coating, but there are certain ways of cleaning them that result in less pitting which result in less morph. You know decreased failure in the future. So when you clean something with a really rough surface, it leaves pits and gaps and cracks in it that you're gon na get more carbon buildup more quickly. Sometimes, if you were to leave you know, I've heard this uses a theory that if you were to use an emery cloth and you get some of the sand particles on there, those can create a silica coating which then insulate it from the flame, but really a Flame centers, a rod that sticks in the flame.

That's all it is just a rod just metal. You know it's not it's not doesn't have any special coating on that you're gon na rub off now a lot of people think of a thermo-pile or a thermocouple. Those do have dissimilar metals and you can damage those, but most of what we're talking about nowadays are not thermocouple so thermopiles unless you're working in like really old furnace or maybe like a gas, fireplace something like that, all right, let's see what else we got. Bill's pun says: Facebook is a waste of time.

It can be a waste of time. For sure I mean, like I dance the line between it being a waste of time and it being helpful, but there are some really good conversations that occur in in the group that you have to have a tolerance for buffoonery like you're gon na. This is something that I that I see come up a lot is people get really angry and they and they quit Facebook because they interact with a buffoon. Well, I mean, or somebody who's having a really bad day, and that just happens.

That's that's part of life and if you can't deal with that, there's no doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you, but yeah you're gon na have a problem at Facebook because there's a lot of that nonsense that goes on um. I like this one from Eric Kaiser that all Testaments have a good reading on them yeah and that one is just the way the technicians talk, they say: well, it measured good. It said it was good. The airflow was good and it's just an encouragement for specificity.

That's not helpful to say that things are good or bad. That's not how things work. In fact, when you have tools that try to give you good or bad often, they lead to misunderstandings like the sub Co may go meter that you hit the button and it will say the compressor is bad when, if you read the Copeland literature uncertain and on Their scroll compressors, it will say that it is not bad and so they're trying to say good or bad based on open, winding motors or reciprocating compressors. But when you use it on a scroll, it will give you a false positive.

It will tell you the compressor. Is bad when it is not bad so anyway, let's see here, that's important to talk about the actual measurement you're taking and not, and not just saying, good or bad Tyler says I'd like to see a discussion between fixing economizers and leaving them unhooked I mean, I Think there's a case where, where maybe they're not being used properly, and so in some cases you may leave them unhooked, but they should be fixed and used properly bad TX, feed and add more refrigerant. We already talked about bad TX V, but adding more refrigerant is a really common one that you're using it to compensate for some other problem, and that starts with using a scale. You'll find that people stop really vastly overcharging systems once they start using a scale, and they start looking at that manufacturer data plate of what was originally in it and as they started wow.

I'm adding a lot to this. What else is going on, and often its airflow or restriction? I mean those are the two things that are often mistaken for under charge because guys started looking at suction pressure that becomes their key indicator and suction pressure is one indicator that does tell us something, but but it doesn't tell us the whole story - equipment ground versus Earth ground this is definitely one I'm going to do in a separate segment because it is so vast equipment, ground, earth, ground, bonding versus grounding. Those are really tricky things for us to get our head around and if I start talking about it now, so many of you will disagree with me and I'll have to just fight to the next 30 minutes, it's sort of like the the breaker sizing thing. You know how sometimes you can put a 50 amp breaker on the number 10 wire sort of thing or everybody gets all up in arms because they it's just more of an electricians thing to know, and even a lot of electricians don't know it.

So we'll talk about that a really good source for understanding of equipment, ground versus earth, ground grounding versus bonding is Mike Holt, who is a friend of mine. He lives right down the street. We serviced his air conditioner and even worked on some of his electrical from time to time, but he talks about this quite a bit and has some really good resources. So that's a better way to go by that.

Jerry Lockhart doesn't have coronavirus in his eyes because he looks at so many UV lights. I have looked, and I don't know if you I don't know how many of you have actually done, that you have looked at a UV light for more than a couple seconds, and I did it because I was working on something else. No, it's like well. If I avert my gaze yeah, it is really unpleasant.

I woke up to the mill - and I just like couldn't open my eyes and I'm wondering what's going on and sure enough good old UV light. Uvc is not designed for the eyes. Let's see here whether or not airflow is essential for setting the charge correctly yeah, so I mean Jim talked about this, that you can set the charge without setting air flow and - and I think it depends on the type of metering device for sure so he's talking About TXV metering devices and basically, what he's saying is is that indoor air flow doesn't affect subcooling as much as you think it would. But again, I still want us to check air flow first now am I saying that - and this is a really - this is a really annoying one, because it's one of these ones that technicians just spout, so they just say you got to check air flow first.

What do you mean by that, because are you saying that every time a technician shows up on a job they're supposed to pull out their hot wire anemometer and do a traverse of the return duct? Are you saying they're supposed to take that our vein anemometer and do a traverse of the return and then calculate the K factor? Are you saying they're supposed to pull an airflow hood out and measure you know, but if there's multiple returns in the house supposed to measure, what are you saying when you say we need to confirm air flow? Do you mean that they need to check static pressure? Okay, I'm fine with that. That's not actually what I practice. I would prefer that they just start by visually inspecting the common areas. Air filters, evaporator coils blowers settings confirm all that first and then go ahead and check your system, and then you can add in checking static pressure.

I'm not advocating that you can that you measure air flow on every single service. Call now commissioning sure service calls. I don't I don't see it. I'm Sean says yeah, but with checking total external static pressure hurt no, absolutely not, but even then checking total external static pressure is of no use until you know that the system is set up to produce the right airflow.

So, in a lot of cases, a lot of cases guys will check static pressure and they'll say well, it's fine well yeah, but what? If your blowers ramped down, because somebody wired it wrong or they set the pins wrong or they set the controller wrong and - and you know the minification mode all the time or it's on stage one when it should be on stage two - that was a common one. On carrier, you had the y1 and then the y /y two people would hook the yellow wire up to landed on y1 and it would only ever run whatever 40 percent speed, six 60 percent speed and and so the system we have. If the things only blowing 60 percent of its airflow, your static pressures gon na look great but you're still going to have bad airflow, and you won't know that so Steve says I should put a flag on a stick. That's what I did when I when I was you, know 18 19 years old and I'm not saying it was right.

Just saying that's what happened. I've done everything wrong at one point of time or another, and I said I think many of us have who've done this trade for a while, but then someday. You should create a podcast and then you're an HVAC god, and you just make the rules. Man just make the rules how it goes.

That's a joke. Okay, fractionation yeah, we've already covered that one analog gauges are better than digital gauges. I mean I don't that that's just that Bert gotten in this really long argument about that. I think the argument that can be made - and I make the argument too, is that I like teaching with an analog gauge, because you can see the physical relationship in between pressures and temperatures.

You can do it other ways. I don't have a problem teaching that way, but other than teaching digital is better than analog. People will say well yeah, but I can I can see you know I can see flutter on the on the gauge. Okay, maybe every once in a while that comes up.

In fact, I do like the old digi cools had that, where you could actually see you could still see flutter in it, but even with that, factored in digital's are just so much more accurate. It's it's! It's just better and I like probes, I hated him when I first started with him. I hated them. I hated having to think about displays and batteries and all that stuff I get it.

You know I started up with analogs for a really long time, so I would much prefer a world where I just use analogs, but now we've we've taken the pill. We have to move on Jen recess. What if the blower is dirty and the static is misleadingly low right exactly, which is why I say I think, really step one when I say confirm: airflow, I'm talking mostly about a visual inspect evaporator coil, blower, wheel, filter and look at your settings make sure that It's wired up right and the pins are set right and it's set to the right tonnage of a TCM. Those are the things I want you to do.

First, then, you can check static pressure and then, if you happen to have a true flow grid, great I mean I'm all for it. I think it's great. I love the tool. I would love it.

If every technician had one, not all of our technicians have one. We have a couple, but you know that's it. Everything is a compromise to some degree right I mean we could be taking million-dollar, airflow measurement sensors and put it in every job. We're not doing that.

We are making some compromises, but I think starting with a visual inspection and then going to static pressure is, is a good way to do that. A team Adam says. I think it's important to learn on an analogue first. Well, I don't think it's important to learn on analog.

First, I think it's important to learn and an analog is a good way of doing that, but you can also do the same thing with the refrigerant slider app. You can see the exact same things. You would see on an analog gauge. The bits are app.

You can see the same things you would see on an analog gauge, there's ways of teaching it that don't require using an analog gauge. But I with you, I think using analog is a really nice way to teach it and probably is a way that I'm gon na continue to teach it. But I think I don't think it's something worth being dogmatic about. But hey that's my opinion.

Let's see here, EPA recovery down to a vacuum, refrigerant leak laws. We talked a little bit about the refrigerant leak laws, but you do not have to recover down to a vacuum for most of the small equipment, high-pressure equipment that we work on, and there was I got in this whole argument with a guy cuz he's like well. What, if they're, still liquid refrigerant present, because the tanks iced up and also it's a really good practice to pull down a little bit lower and then valve off and make sure it's not still rising that you don't still have some liquid, that's boiling off! It's a really good practice, but it's not NEPA standard EPA for most of what we work on when you're working with high-pressure refrigerants and air conditioning which r410a is one r22 is one you only have to pull down to zero, and even then, if it has a Known refrigerant leak, you don't have to pull down any of them below zero if they haven't known refrigerant leak, because it's just gon na pull air into the system. Um Caleb says I'm ready.

Let's fight, I don't think teaching on analog is better. I didn't sit. I III think it's good to teach that people understand they're, it's good to teach so that people understand and digital is a little easier for people to take readings and not actually understand you saw, I argued with Bert Bert, and I really got into it over this One because I don't think you need to teach forth analog and I don't think it's necessarily better. It's okay to drill or read drill or Phasis you can Dirk Roper can argue with Jim Bergman, about that one.

I've never drilled an orifice for a gas furnace. I probably never will I'm not in a market where it makes any sense. I understand what Jim says about that. I would never tell my technicians to do that because of the risk that we're taking on and doing that, but for a super experienced technician.

Who knows exactly what they're doing? I would feel perfectly fine with them doing whatever they need to do to take care of the customer, but that's one you can take it with Jim. Let's see, EPA rewards for turning in another check, you witness venting yeah. That's that's silly find me because it because one Matthew, Bryan, says I've only heard of one guy getting arrested in 15 years. Find me the guy, because the EPA has to bring suit against you in order to even you know, it's it's a civil matter.

It's not like a you, you don't they don't have EPA police who show up and like arrest you they have to bring suit against you, and so the point is: is that you don't don't get involved in this like finger pointy thing relating to the EPA? Rather, if you are concerned about the way something's going or the way somebody's doing something, the best way to deal with, that is to get local authorities having jurisdiction involved, those sorts of things you're, not gon na get very far with the EPA. I am a big fan and absolutely encourage you to do everything correctly recovery, all that stuff. We do all of that by the book and Kalos we're very thorough with that, but don't don't get involved in the epa police stuff. Please it just doesn't doesn't happen.

It's not real life, it's fantasy in the words of Queen. That's Queen right, easy, come easy, go bleach and drain lines. I've never advocated for bleach and drain lines and chlorine gas is just nasty stuff. I don't want that getting near anything, I don't want it dripping.

On the line set, I've seen line sets fail because of people using bleach, and then it goes down into the chase. This is again because we do these underground line sets in Florida, so probably not the best way anyway, but yeah.