Ah, it's time to chill out and get ready for a mediocre q, a live stream if you're old enough grab yourself your favorite adult beverage and if you're not stick with apple juice, put your feet up and relax. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the chat and now, let's queue up the intro music, so yo. What is up, how are you guys doing this evening? Yeah? I know i look a little different right. I got into a fight with my razor, the other night and i just decided to shave it all i've even shaved, my head, too.

You know the weird thing though, watch check this out. So i shaved my head, bald shiny. The weird thing is: is uh, my head was soft and smooth and then by now it's like five o'clock shadow already, i feel like homer simpson. Like you know, i don't know if you guys remember any of the simpsons episodes when homer shaves and then it's like the five o'clock shadow comes right back again, so nah just time for a change.

So hopefully you guys are doing well um. Hopefully, you guys are staying safe and healthy um, my family's safe and healthy, we're thankful for a lot of things and uh. You know we're just gon na keep on moving along. We got uh couple things i want to talk about videos wise.

I definitely want to get to your guys's questions and uh yeah. Definitely, nice and smooth. You know what this this does is. This makes me realize that i really need to lose weight as you get older, you start to notice, like oh yeah, there's some stuff there.

That's not supposed to be there and you know when, when you have a beard, you can't see it. So it's like oh yeah. This is a motivator. I need to lose weight so um right on all right, cool um, and so you know bill curious, hvac guy.

He promised me that if i shaved my head bald and my beard off that he would shave his beard, so the challenge is here bill. I you promised me that you would do it, so i think everybody watching this stream is going to hold bill accountable and make him shave his beard completely, because that's what he told me he would do so, let's see what happens um. I definitely want to cover a few things, but i want to start off real, quick. Okay, i'm just going to cover this real, quick, i'm not going to go into crazy detail about it, um basically over the weekend - and i usually don't like to cover this stuff.

But i just got ta say this was completely inappropriate and um. I did not appreciate it whatsoever, so i am a person that admits my faults readily. Okay, whenever i realize that i potentially did something wrong, i try to ex you know. I've always been completely open with everybody: okay, um, another content, creator on youtube, someone that i actually look up to which again kind of just dumbfounded me, because i totally looked up to this person, found the need to make a video basically saying what i did wrong In my video but then filming my video with his phone and then use that on his video, i'm not going to say the name and if you guys do know the person's name, don't we don't need to share it or anything? We don't need to give that person any more attention than they wanted.

Okay, because that's the way that i see it is that they just wanted attention um, i make mistakes, guys everybody makes mistakes now, the the particular you know potential mistake. I honestly don't think i made a mistake there. Okay, so i'm going to tell you guys what happened in my recent video about the reaching cooler? Okay, it was my i made two videos this week. It was the reach-in cooler bar cooler almost won the fight.

I think was the title of it: okay, so um. What i did was the unit had a bunch of issues and i put a three in one: um uh start kit on it: okay and uh. In the end of the video, i showed that the three in one shut, the compressor off okay um, the the person had said that uh. He thought that i used the wrong three-in-one and that's what caused the compressor to go off and there's a chance that i did honestly.

I scoured, through my footage, even my unedited footage, to see if i can see an image of what three in one that i used. Okay, because they do make a couple different, three three-in-ones and if you use the smaller one on the system that i was using it on it currently or it would have been running over current and theoretically, it would have shut off on internal overload. Okay, um i'm pretty confident because i usually buy the half horsepower three and ones um, but i'm pretty confident i was using the half horsepower. I see a bunch of super chats and everything.

Thank you guys. So very much. I see super uh people becoming channel members. Thank you again, okay, so i'm pretty confident that i bought the half horsepower three and one, but i can't say for sure: i'm not gon na come out here and say that i i did because i don't know okay, i went through my footage.

The odds are that i had the right three and one on there, but the the video furthermore started to just say how you know. I was wrong and all this stuff, okay, who knows: okay, there's, there's always the potential for me being wrong and i'm always open to say, hey. You know what i might have made a mistake here. I usually do it all the time.

Okay, the right thing to do is to send me an email leave me a youtube comment. The person did leave me youtube comments. They actually left me two different youtube comments, and then they kept commenting on everybody else's comments. In my comments, too, i'm cool with that.

I have no problem with criticism, but to make a video like that was just kind of silly. Okay, regardless we're not going to say the person's name again, if you guys know who it is just leave it be okay. I just had to address that. So i make mistakes, just like everybody else, and if anybody out there says that they don't make mistakes, they're lying okay, everybody make mistakes in their career.

There's a chance that i was mistaken on this. I don't think i was, but who knows? Okay, all that we can do is do our best to be the best. You know for the customer as possible and that's what i strive to do. Okay, again, i'm human, just like everybody else, all right so um, but i want to address something i will the person that made the video did say that it was.

It was not correct for me to say that uh three-in-one start kits were compressor killers, okay, and that is a fair statement because i did say it in my video. That is a common phrase that i use, because i don't like three-in-ones. Okay, three-in-one is a universal start, capacitor current relay and overload device. Okay, the particular one that i was using was made by supco okay.

So it wasn't fair of me to say it was a compressor killer. In my defense, you have to remember something that i'm making these videos, while i'm working these aren't planned out videos, they aren't rehearsed, they aren't scripted stuff comes out of my mouth. Sometimes, okay and yes, i realize the more subscribers i get. The more viewers i get.

I do have some sort of a responsibility to make sure that i'm fair and honest - and that is very true okay, so it wasn't fair for me to call that three in one start kit a compressor killer, because, okay understanding how the start kit works. It has an electronic control board in it it. You know it looks at everything it knows when to pull the you know the relay in and out. It's not a fair statement for me to say that it was a compressor killer because they can very easily people.

Can buy the wrong ones? People can pick the wrong ones. They can put them in situations where they don't go. The compressor could already be on its way out, there's so many different things. So it wasn't a fair statement for me to say a compressor killer.

I'll. Give him that okay, but again all you got to do is send me an email, my email's out there for everybody in every one of the show notes on my videos, and i totally end up talking about these on the live streams. Okay, i didn't feel the need to pull the video down because again it shows what people deal with every day and how people either potentially make mistakes or don't make mistakes, or you know i mean there's there's i just try to share the little bit of knowledge That i have okay, so um super chat, knock, i think or conor. Thank you so very much.

I really appreciate it bud. Okay, um! So yeah you know i i prefer not to get into that stuff. You know - and i i but it really irked me for some reason. I think, because i looked up to this person and it was just kind of like oh wow, that kind of you know kind of like a gut punch, kind of a thing so yeah.

I really rather not get involved in the drama and all that stuff, and usually i don't there's rarely ever any on my channel, i rarely ever delete comments and i didn't delete comments and i actually um the person that made the video. I actually uh asked him to keep his video up, because i could have flagged it and said: take it down because he used my footage, but no, i i told him, i said: please keep the video up because he had some good knowledge in there too. He was showing how to just how to size the three in ones and there's great information in the video it's just kind of like dude. Did you really have to call me out on that one? There was just so many different ways.

You can go about it. You know so i asked him i said please i don't want you to take the video down. I want you to leave the video up, but the only requirement i had was you need to pin my comment in the the top of the comments. So that way, everybody that comes in to comment on the video can see what i had to say about it: okay, so um, but i want to talk about these universal three-in-one start kits, okay, why don't i like them? Okay, they are a tool that we use.

I wish i had one with me, but i don't they're a tool that we have in our arsenal that we can use. Okay, i'm not a fan of very many universal components. Okay, as it shows in my videos all the time, i prefer to use oem parts as much as possible, but i still use aftermarket parts sometimes too. The issue with aftermarket parts comes that you have to use brain power and ingenuity to put them in and they're not effortless.

Okay same thing goes with the three-in-one start kits condenser fan motors. Anything you have to think about things. Okay, so we as technicians have to do our jobs. So the reason why i'm not a huge fan of the universal three and ones is just because you have the potential to um, undersize them or oversize them.

Okay and your best bet when it comes to the universal three-in-one start kits, is to oversize them, okay, but the problem with oversizing them is, i don't understand the mechanics of the inside of that three in one okay, and i don't understand what logic it use to Know when to go on an over current situation: okay, meaning when does it open up the overload? So if you go with the bigger one for the half horsepower right, i believe the over current. It says it can handle up to like 12 amps or something like that right, okay, but what's the over current or the clicks on relay on the oem component? Is it lower than 12 amps? If you put a universal one on there, that has a higher uh over current protection on it. Are you theoretically going to create a potential fire hazard because it has a higher over current than what it should have on that compressor? You kind of get where i'm going with that. Okay.

So it wasn't fair for me to say that they're compressor killers, because, if installed properly and used properly more than likely, they probably wouldn't kill a compressor. But i just that was kind of something that came out of my mouth and i probably shouldn't have said it: okay, but i still don't care for the three-in-one start kits, there's nothing wrong with you. If you use them it's fine. I i'm totally cool with that.

I personally just prefer not to use them. Okay, there's lots of things that i do that other people or that i don't do that other people do and, and they get the job done just as equally as i do you know, so it it's not a big deal. Okay, i'm not calling anybody out for using them or anything like that um, but i just need to be careful. You have to remember that these videos they're really meant for my own employees, okay and i share them with the public and obviously i know it's gotten.

A lot bigger than my own employees, but um the stuff that comes across in my videos is really meant for my employees. So to my employees we say we don't use those three-in-ones now. Why did i even have one on my truck? If i don't use them? Well, i will use them to start up a compressor. I will use them in a worst case, scenar situation.

Most of the time i keep starting components on my truck for most of the major manufacturers of refrigeration equipment that i work on true kyrak dell field. I keep a lot of the starting components for those three manufacturers, because i work on a lot of their stuff. This time i didn't have it and i had happen to have a universal three in one on my truck, so i was never going to leave it on there. I was going to put it on there and then, if it started up and ran, then i was going to order the oem start components, and it's also interesting too, because in the comments there was some people saying uh in the comments on my video saying.

Why would you waste the customers, money on oem starting components and it's not a waste of the customers money again to each their own? My particular customers actually request of me to use oem components whenever possible. I have one customer a very, very large restaurant chain that says only use. Oem do not use aftermarket, so you know i try to use oem whenever possible and as a business owner again no judgment for anybody that doesn't, but as a business owner, it's easier for me to use oem parts right, because when my own technicians are out working On stuff they're not having to re-engineer things to make aftermarket parts work, they just simply put on the oem parts, and you know then it's just that much easier. Um.

I see i know i'm missing some super chats, jonathan jonathan singleton, john hershey. Thank you. So very much uh connor. I saw a super chat from you.

I see uh patrick, thank you so very much for that super chat bud. I really really appreciate it. You guys are awesome. Okay, i try to be as honest and open as possible with everybody.

Okay, um, so uh we're gon na go ahead and get off that high horse and we're gon na move on to the next one. Just remember mistakes happen, there's a potential that i did make a mistake, it's hard to say: okay um, but you know, mistakes happen. Life life is life: okay, when we are diagnosing things and i'll get to the chat uh. If you guys have questions in the chat, please put them in caps lock, so that way myself for the moderators can see them.

Okay, let me see what we got in here um. What am i missing? Why not use a compressor, analyzer, aka, bump box, sean s great point sean and the reason why i didn't use a compressor analyzer is because i'm lazy, okay, my compressor analyzers sit up on that right up there and i haven't used them in years, because i will Typically put on oem starting components so um, what is a compressor, analyzer, okay, a compressor analyzer right there or a bump box is a device that has multiple capacitors inside of it. Okay, and what you do is you have a start button on it? Okay, so you can select between different capacitors um and you can, you know, just buy a dip switch. Basically, okay and you, you put the the wiring on the terminals and then you you turn on the power and it actually has a volt.

Well, my fancy. One has a uh, an ohm meter in it. Actually, so you can test current well, i mean uh. You can check windings on the compressor, but some of them uh, some of the other ones that i've had in the past.

They had an amp meter on it. You could see all kinds of cool stuff, but so basically you turn on power and then you have a start button and when you push the start button, you release it. If the compressor starts - and essentially you act as the the relay basically so you start it by letting the capacitor go through the circuit and then you let it go and the compressor starts and that will tell you hey, the compressor is operating properly um. You can go ahead and replace the starting components or if it doesn't start, then you know you have a bad compressor.

Okay, but again, because i keep most starting components on my truck and i keep three in ones. I don't mind every once in a while using a three in one to start a compressor. I just don't like leaving them on there. Okay, so i'm not condemning them.

I buy them. I use them um, you know, but i just use them to start up a compressor and then, if it works and it's running out of good current, then i you know will order the oem start components and that's just the way that i go about things. Okay, no no judgment on anybody that doesn't do it. That way.

Where did i get all the cool swag? Oh my i'm wearing my i'm like i'm walking, merch billboard right now. Well, the hat i'm wearing the hat for those that just came in to take away from the shininess of my head, because it's my dome is shiny right now. So that's why i'm wearing the hat and the sweater, because i'm cold, my wife came into my office earlier and opened the window because she said it smells funny in here come on. It doesn't smell funny in my office.

This is a man's office, so uh i was cold, so i put my sweater on so um shameless plug. You can get all this merch available at hvacr videos.com. So all right, let me see what we got in here um. What did i do with the evaporator? At the mall restaurant that had all those leaks um in my recent video, i had a walk-in cooler that had refrigerant leaks in the evaporator and the customer hasn't approved a quote yet i actually haven't given the customer, a quote that was from, i think, like last Thursday, or something like that was or wednesday, was that video i recorded it so um the customer just hasn't approved it.

I need to give them a quote and then we'll figure out where they want to go, but they did tell me that they would be open to changing evaporative coils. So once i give them a quote, they may decide to do so. We'll have to see all right, um i'm going to get to uh. Let me cross this stuff off my list, real quick.

I already covered that one and i already covered that one. That way, i know, and let me look at the do. I ever check heat exchangers, uh yeah, but i really right, especially with covid going on right now. Um, we are not getting heating calls so in southern california, or in california.

In general. Restaurants are not open to in in person dining and they're, not even open to outside dining at the moment, so they're not fixing any of their air conditioning systems uh unless it's affecting the kitchen operations or if it's just like you know raining down water they're, not Fixing anything so i'm sure i've got heat exchangers like crazy that have failed and all kinds of issues. But another thing we have to think about is this: california, we have really mild weather so um. We don't get a huge call for heating.

So i think, last year, a previous winter, the the last winter we had. I guess i should say um. I think i got one or two heating calls. That's it.

So we don't. We have such mild weather out here that we don't get much on the heating uh. I look like slim shady, that's funny, um, i'm secretly, five years old. That is right.

Why do i have a baby face yup? I know i'm freaking everybody out right now. Even my wife, my wife and my daughters were like what what like what happened, who is this freaked them all out um? I look like an overweight 37 year old eminem. Actually, i think the eminem is the same age as me. I think 40, or so i'm 37, but i'm a overweight 37 year old, eminem all right um.

Let me see uh, how do you troubleshoot a faulty oil pressure, switch um yeah, that's not really something i could say over here. You'd have to look at the schematic and learn how they operate um. What did you do? I already answered that question is checking a heat pump discharged by a hundred plus ambient, still a good rule of thumb for charging checking high pressure discharge by one okay. No so there's rules of thumb, i'm going to kind of answer that generally there's rules of thumb that we have in the industry that you could um take an ambient temperature.

Let's say it's 100 degrees outside and then you take uh your i'm sorry. You could take your uh, your condensing temperature of the refrigerant, so the refrigerant pressure converted to a temperature, and then you could add 30 degrees to that and your your outside air temperature. It should be basically 30 degrees under that number. That's not an accurate way to charge anything these days.

Okay, when we had eight sears six to eight series equipment that was fixed, orifice um. Some of those rules of thumb you could get by with, but uh these days. No, you have to talk to the manufacturer, see how they they make. The system operate, how they designed it and kind of go with that super heat sub cooling, different things with that being said, i have a question that someone had talked about in a recent startup.

I was working on a refrigeration, walking, cooler startup actually and when i was doing the commissioning, i showed it in the video i checked the sub cooling and the person wanted to know. Why did i check subcooling if i was working on a system with a receiver? So with that being said, on most refrigeration systems that have receivers if they have an expand, well, they have an expansion valve. Okay, sub cooling really isn't a metric that we use okay. So let me make this clear: if we are working on a system, we will install a sight glass on the liquid line.

Typically, you want the sight glass as close to the expansion valve as possible, but that's not really where they normally put them. They normally put them outside at the receiver. We will typically charge a system to a clear sight, glass and we will not use sub cooling as a charging metric okay, but we don't ignore sub cooling completely, because sub cooling is still um. A number that we want to see you want to see some sub coin: okay, but you're not looking for necessarily 10 degrees, sub cooling coming out.

Okay, the next thing is, is that if you see 30 degrees subcoin well, that's an indication that we have a gross overcharge right. We have way too much gas in that system, so something's going on so sub cooling is still a number that we will look at right, but it's not what we use to charge the systems on refrigeration equipment that have expansion, valves and receivers. Okay, so you have to understand that i see so many people and i don't get into the conversations on social media, but i see so many people that say: stop looking at the sight, glass and just charge to 10 degrees. Sub cooling you'll be good to go.

You would be massively massively overcharged on a walk-in cooler if you just simply charge to 10 degrees, soap coin: okay, unless it's a really high efficient system. I've seen on some of the new uh one of the new. Actually, the video that i did. The zoom lock install on right the zoom lock max video um.

I that's a really high efficiency, uh condensing unit and i actually had measurable sub cooling coming out of the receiver, and i was actually very surprised with that. I think it might have even been close to 10 degrees, but that's because they had an extra sub cooling circuit in the condenser okay. So with that being said, i want to make this clear when we are working on a refrigeration system. You do not just simply charge to 10 degrees, sub cooling and walk away.

Okay, when it has an expansion valve and a receiver, but don't ignore sub cooling same thing goes for superheat. Superheat doesn't mean very much to me so long as i it's not zero degrees, while i'm charging the system. Okay superheat, is something that i'm going to look at after the system is fully charged when it's almost down to temperature. We're going to look at the evaporator superheat and the compressor superheat and we're going to find a happy medium between the two typically on most walk-in coolers.

We want to see anywhere from 8 to 12 degrees, evaporator superheat, depending on what you've got in that equipment. Okay, it may be engineered to run something really funky, but the general equipment eight to 12 degrees is a pretty good number and then on low temperatures. You're going to see six to eight degrees on walk-in freezers, evaporator superheat, but that is when it's almost down to temperature you're not going to be going and cranking on expansion, valves and stuff when it's still, you know, 30 degrees above the actual set point of the Box, because your expansion valve is going to be way out of whack if you try dialing in the superheat, when the system temperatures are really high, okay, so um, hopefully that answered that person's question. I'm gon na get to the chat right now and see what i'm missing in here.

Uh youtube. Should let the creator place where the advertisement goes, so they don't get cut off mid-sentence more of a statement. Oh okay got you, did they show an ad or something like that right now, yeah, who knows um, have i ever put the wrong gas in a condenser and is it bad yeah? I have i've actually been working on a system where i'm not paying attention. It's usually happens when you're super stressed out and you're you're, taking shortcuts and you're cutting corners and you go to charge up a system or i'm going to top off the charge in a system, and i just grab some refrigerant and i start putting it in and Then, as you're charging, i've looked down and it's like, oh man, this is a 410a system and i just put r22 in it.

Oh i've done it a few times. You know it happens. The important thing is is what you do with it right, because some people say well, it's running. Okay, i'm just going to leave a b; no, no, no, no! Stop! What i'm doing.

Okay go ahead and get my recovery machine recover. The gas out of the system weigh in new refrigerant, okay um. Now, if i accidentally put the wrong refrigerant in the system, guess what i don't feel the need that i have to vacuum the system down and i don't feel the need that i have to change the dryer so long as the system still has refrigerant. All that i'm going to do is recover the gas pull it into a negative right, just even with the recovery machine.

I can pull it into a negative and then go ahead and charge with new gas. Okay, there's no need, in my opinion, in that situation, unless it was completely flat on gas or unless there was some sort of contamination or something like that now um also. Obviously, if the unit has a leak, if you're topping off the charge, you want to try to look for the leak that kind of stuff. But yes, i have put the wrong refrigerant in systems before and no.

I did not leave it in there, even though it seemed like it was working. Okay, no because the next time myself or the next guy, i always say think about the next guy. I'm hoping that it's me when i say that um, you know think about the next guy. You know we don't want him to be confused when he's trying to do something.

So no, i won't leave a mixed gas in a system that i created. No all right at what point do i decide to adjust the txv uh so on? Let's just say, i'm working on a walking cooler. I want to see that expansion valve within about 10 degrees of set point. So if the box is set, i would say five degrees of set point.

So if the box is set for 35 degrees, if the box temperature gets to 40 degrees and i'll go ahead and put my gauges on it and look at the superheat, if the superheat is not hunting like crazy right, going up and down and up and down, If it's kind of stable and high, then i will adjust it okay, so within five six degrees of set point, maybe ten just depends: okay, that's when i'll decide to adjust on the expansion valve and remember when you start adjusting on expansion valves, you want to do Small adjustments, a little bit goes a long way. Okay, so i typically do quarter turn. So an expansion valve has one full turn well, i'll, usually do quarter turns so i'll, usually do like two or three quarter turns and see where it goes most of the time. I'm adjusting superheat down so i'll bring the stem out of the valve adjust it maybe like three quarter, turns wait about 10 minutes watch the expansion valve kind of operate, watch the superheat stabilize and then approach it again.

But another thing you want to remember too: when adjusting expansion valves, most expansion valves are factory set and there's really no reason to ever have to adjust them unless there's variables that cause issues. Okay, one big issue: you don't want to go adjusting an expansion valve before you check the strainers. Sometimes they have removable strainers on the expansion valves. You always want to check those strainers out before you start adjusting expansion valves, okay, because the strainer is there to protect the expansion valve and it'll get plugged up and then it'll throw your superheat all out of whack and you'll, be just adjusting wrenching on that valve And nothing's happening, and then you find out, oh the strainer's plugged.

Well then, now you've adjusted that valve way out of whack and you've got to get back to the midpoint position, so be cautious about that always want to clean and check your strainers before you start adjusting on expansion valves all right does r290 run 20 to 30 Degrees over ambient um. You know my experience with r290 being very efficient. I typically see closer to 20 to 25 degrees over ambient, but again um. You want to talk to the manufacturer and see what they recommend before you start playing with things.

I am not a person that likes to top off the charge on r290 systems. I'm not judging anybody else for doing so. Okay, but uh, topping off the charge on an r290 system as far as my business is concerned, is a liability. So if an r290 system is low on gas, we want to find repair the leak recover, the gas or vent the gas in r290s case, because you don't have to recover it pull a vacuum or change the dryer, pull a vacuum and weigh in the factory charge.

I don't like to guess and add refrigerant to an r290 system and again as a liability with my business, i'm afraid of fires or explosions, and my insurance company would not like me if something like that happened. So i don't want to be the person to add r290 to a known leaking system, not in my wheelhouse, not something that i personally want to do. But just from my experience, because i do record all the systems that i work on for the most part, i've started to notice a trend of where the pressures do operate and i tend to see them 20 to 25 degrees over ambient for the condensing temp. On r290 systems, yes um, you found up to five good txvs on top of a walk and all deemed bad yeah.

Yeah. Definitely right, there's really not guys hold on well that sucked. Apparently i don't have my expansion valves, but there's really not much. That goes bad in an expansion valve okay, this one right here uh has a dirty, strainer.

Okay, this is the strainer up here. The strainer is pretty dirty, it's kind of hard to see through it, but the reason why i changed this valve. You can usually rebuild expansion valves, okay. The reason why i changed this one was because the seals were all leaking when i pulled the stem off the superheat adjustment stem right here.

I tried adjusting this and it was leaking out of the the seal right here and i tried tightening it and i couldn't get it to tighten um. So we went ahead and changed this valve right here, but this totally could have been fixed. Had i been able to get a replacement packing for it, but i or i could have pulled it out and tried to field fix it, but i didn't have them, and it was one of those things where i needed to get the equipment running. So it was just as easy to go ahead and change out the valve real, quick, okay, but for the most part, there's not a whole lot that fails in an expansion valve it can get plugged up with gunk and crap.

If that's the case, you need to figure out where that gunk is coming from, so you can go ahead and uh and clean it. Okay, but you always want to, and i keep extra strainers by the way too. So i have my spoiling bq kit right and that's the the kit. I think i've got a yeah.

I don't have a pic. I kind of have a picture of it right here on the back wall, but i have a kit that has all the parts that i can build: expansion valves with and i keep extra strainers because you know what's really cool, you can order these strainers right and And so um, if you come up to a system where you've got a uh plugged up strainer um, you can safely. If you do this properly, you can do a hot swap on that strainer. Okay, so you pump the system down to about 2-3 psi and you just unscrew the strainer, and you have a clean one with you right, because i keep new ones, pull a clean one out put it right back in, it still has positive pressure in it, and I screw it back in and boom the strainer is clean and i didn't even have to recover the gas or anything like that.

So that's why i keep extra strainers in my my uh tool kit right there. So that way i can just swap them out. Just do a hot swap on the strainer when possible. You want to be careful about doing hot swaps, though, because you can get into trouble with that.

So all right, uh, let's see what else we got going on in here um. Let me see what else can i show us um? I i don't have a lot back there. Apparently, all my my tear or cut i have expansion valves that i cut open and stuff, but i don't know where it went must be in my work truck or something like that. I might have taken it to work with me for a video or something sometimes i'll put them in there, but yeah.

I keep them there, so i can show there's really not much to an expansion valve there's a spring. There's a seat. There's a power head! There's some it's funny. I happen to have a uh expansion valve rod right here.

If i can get it up, no, i don't. I don't think i can get it out. I have it sitting on my desk right here. There's uh some push rods that go on the valve.

This is one right here. This might have been out of a head pressure. Control valve, i don't know um, but it's very similar to an expansion valve one there's, usually one or two of these, and they push up and down on the seat uh. They they have opposing pressure from the power head to the super heat spring.

I mean. There's really not a whole lot that can fail on them. So most of the time you can rebuild them if possible, all right, let's see what else um hey! You know what i mean. I can't tell them.

Laska hvac says make sure you sniff the refrigerant for contaminants when you do a hot swap so there's truth in that right. But i don't want people going out smelling refrigerant, but when you've been working in refrigeration long enough, you can actually smell refrigerant, like you can take a small little smell and you can say yeah there's something wrong there that doesn't smell right. That smells acidic. Of course, my nose is not as accurate as an actual acid test, but you can smell a lot of things in refrigerant.

You can smell when okay, that doesn't smell right. You know something's going on there. Um do. I have used fluke meters.

I don't have any used ones that i want to get rid of, but i have a few fluke meters. Yes, i have a bench meter sitting over here somewhere over here that i use and then i have a fluke meter in my work van. I have a fluke meter in my garage, but i'm not getting rid of them. No they're great meters, nothing wrong with them.

I personally use the field piece ones in my bags just because they're light and super simple, but no i i use fluke ones too for sure um. Let me see what else can you hot swap a pressure switch? You have to be careful because doing stuff like that, you have to it's questionable whether or not you're violating epa policies. Okay, so um. The question is: when you're doing a hot swap um.

Have i ever hot swapped a pressure switch? Yes, i have okay, the question you have to ask yourself is: when you recover the charge out of a system and you open it up, there's going to be vapor left in the system. You're never going to get all the refrigerant out of a system. Okay and there's going to be losses in your hoses and different things like that when you pull your gauges off, there's going to be de minimis losses, right losses that are legally allowed because you've done everything you can to prevent those losses. Okay, so with that being said, it's a moral decision.

Are your losses from a hot swap going to be more or less than the losses from when you're recovering your gas following all proper practices, there's still going to be acceptable losses. So it's a questionable thing. Um. You know it's not really something i'm going to show on video because it's you know it's one of those things, but i mean to say that nobody's ever done a hot swap before that's that's a lie.

I mean every majority of people have, but we have. We haven't, we have an obligation, as hvac service technicians, to be concerned about the environment, so obviously we want to let the least amount of refrigerant out into the environment right. You have government organizations that protect us from doing that right. The epa and stuff like that in the united states, but you still have an obligation to do your best to recover all that gas.

Okay, we're very, very big about recovering refrigerant at our company. In fact, we just had a meeting about it where we were talking with one of our techs, because i was like hey man, i'm starting to notice like i, i had to ask him like how much refrigerant empty refrigerant cylinders. Do you have in your van? Because i'm noticing that some of these things aren't i'm - i didn't see many recovery receipts coming in, but it ended up. He was doing his job.

It's just. He was waiting until the tanks were like almost completely full before he brought him in, but i just didn't see as many as i of receipts of him swapping out those tanks. So i had to question him: hey dude, you're, recovering right he's like yeah, you know, and then we had to talk about it. So yeah we're really big about recovery at our shop, but i mean i'll be fair and honest.

I came up old school where i was taught recovery machines were a waste of time um, but i obviously went and got my epa certification and said: well wait the government's telling me otherwise. So you know what we got to do here and then that's when we really started instituting more recovery practices and then now we're 100 there's. You know we don't vent anything at all. So uh is that.

Why is it that some refrigerants, such as 404 and 22, can get below freezing and some such as 134 and r12 and 410 can't? Well, i'm assuming that you mean evaporator. Temperatures can get below freezing the problem with some of the refrigerants. I'm not a chemist. Okay! Um, actually, this is a great point.

I always put his email address on here and i'm gon na i'm gon na share my buddy ralph, my buddy ralph works for honeywell refrigerants okay. Ralph is always open to answering questions and he's a much smarter dude than i. When it comes to different refrigerants and what they can do, okay, when it comes to different refrigerants, why they're, better well they're chemically made to operate at different temperatures? Okay 410a is meant to operate within a certain envelope and it performs best within that envelope. So every refrigerant can do different and refrigerants can operate outside of their.

You know normal operating envelopes, but they can be unpredictable and not as efficient too okay but r12 i've i've come across many r12 freezers. I've come across many r134a freezers. I've come across r22 freezers um. Are they as efficient? No, not necessarily, but i mean they're there.

You know, for the most part, 502 was the refrigerant to use instead of r12 for a freezer and um 502 was the refrigerant to use instead of r22 for a freezer. Uh 404 was the replacement gas for 502 and then now we're kind of pushing towards i'm using 448a. I actually did a startup on a walk-in freezer today with 448a, as my new refrigerant so feel free to email, my buddy ralph. He can probably answer some more questions, i'm not the smartest person when it comes to the chemical composition and why some refrigerants are better than others at low temps.

I just know that they're chemically made to operate better. So all right. What happens if you accidentally mix two different types of refrigerant? Well, what you did if you mix two different types of refrigerant, you just became a chemist. Okay and like i said certain refrigerants are meant to do certain things between certain operating envelopes and if you mix different refrigerants, you play with the chemical composition and you don't really know what's going to happen.

Okay, now, when we get into the advent of flammable refrigerants, that's when we start to get even more scary, okay, so you don't ever want to mix refrigerants because the next person i can tell you look up, you can barely see the edge of it in the Screen right now, but i have a pressure temperature chart right here and it tells me all the common refrigerants and i know that r448a will be this pressure at this temperature because it says it right on the pressure chart and the manufacturer when they made that refrigerant. They chemically made it to where it operates within that envelope right. So when you start mixing refrigerants, i no longer can look at that and say that refrigerant will be at this temperature. So it throws me off as a service technician and doesn't help me to be able to troubleshoot that equipment.

When i put my gauges on there and i see my saturation temperatures are way high or way low. I start to get confused what and it says that it's this refrigerant, but the saturation temperatures don't match like something's wrong here. So when you start mixing refrigerants, you mess things up, and that goes for the people that think that you can take these alternative refrigerants that are supposed to replace r22 and whatever right, and you can mix them with other refrigerants they're not meant to be doing that. Okay, i know some people do it and it works for some people, but that's not the way that they were designed.

Okay, there's a term called a drop in refrigerant, and people have gotten skewed on. What that means. Drop in does not mean that you drop it on top of another refrigerant. A drop in refrigerant.

The term drop in right originally was made to mean that you take out the old gas, and you just simply put this refrigerant in no oil changes. No anything! That's what drop-in means, but we have really messed that up and so we're getting away from using the term drop-in refrigerant and we're calling it an alternative refrigerant right, because too many people think that you can drop it in on top of the other refrigerant. That is not the case with any refrigerants out there. We are not supposed to mix or make our own mixtures of any refrigerants period.

Um steven mon montenez. Thank you so very much for that super chat bud. I really really appreciate it and there's no way that i would ever touch being president heck. No, i don't want any of that drama.

I'm just a dumb knuckle. Busting mechanic over here, a mediocre one at that. So your community college, instructor in 1990, said recovering refrigerant and the hole in the ozone layer was a communist propaganda. Hey dave! I get it right because i was raised by an old school service technician, my dad one of the greatest mechanics that i know, but we didn't recover anything.

In fact, i can remember as a kid before 1992 right. I can remember blowing out condensers with r22 that that was a normal thing. Blowing out drain lines. We we got a drum r22.

Why go get nitrogen or co2? We got a drum of 22. just put the hose on there. Put it in the drain blew the drain out. That was common practice between many service technicians, okay, um.

Why would you go all the way down to your van to get a co2? Nobody even carried co2 for the most part. You just grabbed that refrigerant blew out the condenser. You know it was wrong right, but um. We need to change things.

We need to be better service technicians. We need to be responsible service technicians, so all right um. Let me see what else we got in here uh, how about mo 99? Is it better than r22? I personally and uh you'll want to reach out to my buddy ralph i'll, put his email in here again he's the man when it comes to talking about alternative refrigerants. He will help you out tremendously.

There's his email um with the uh mo 99 being a better refrigerant. I personally don't use mo 99 refrigerant um. I've only used a few alternative, refrigerants uh. I i just still use r22.

My customers still ask me to use r22. So that's what i sell them. It's still available, we still keep it in our trucks. I still have a full drum r22.

I probably go through a full drum r22. I definitely don't use it as much, but every couple months i'm buying another drum because i use it on. You know certain repairs. So still common practice, but i'm not using alternative refrigerants just because my customer base is not demanding it yet okay.

I am, however, using alternative refrigerants. I should say alternative refrigerants for r22, i'm not using any for 22. uh, but here in california, like for refrigeration. You know we're not allowed to use 404 a anymore on new installations, so i'm using r448a, which is the replacement refrigerant or alternative refrigerant to 404a.

So yeah we're using that but um. How often do i whack a failing low pressure control? Uh, i mean that's if, if i, if, if i'm watching a system, that's a very common thing i'll take my screwdriver if i'm watching it pump down and it's going below the where i think it's supposed to turn off at. If you just give the pressure control a whack, what it usually means is the electrical contact inside that pressure control is starting to stick and every once in a while that, because it's corroded, so it heats up and then you get arcing and then it welds itself Kind of shut and then it'll open, and then you know, kind of weld itself shut, usually means that the contact is failing within that so yeah. It's a common thing like if i whack a control that just means hey.

This control is going bad. You whack it and boom and it'll open up. You know, and then you know. Okay, i got ta change that so uh have i worked with r513a you're, seeing it used with refrigeration air dryers for air compressors.

No, i haven't worked with that yet, but i know there's all kinds of new different ones, especially with them uh allowing more a2l's mildly, flammable, refrigerants you're, starting to see a lot new stuff coming. You know a lot of new stuff coming out. Um guys really important to understand something. R22.

Okay, so i keep a bunch of different refrigerants. In my van i keep 404a. I keep r22. I keep 410a.

448A. 134A. R290. I think, and i think that's all i keep in my van every refrigerant - we don't need to worry about what the pressures are with those refrigerants or anything, because if you learn how to read a pressure temperature chart - and you understand saturation temperatures, condensing temperatures, evaporator temperatures - You you have to have a vague understanding of and you're, never going to fully understand what glide is, but you have to have a general understanding what temperatures, what pressures to use when you're looking for evaporator temperatures you want to tip, i typically will use the midpoint Temperature of the glide different things like that.

Okay, but with that being said, i don't know what pressure 448a should be. I don't know what pressure 404 should be. I don't know what pressure 22 134. I used to know those numbers, but i realized that i didn't need to know those numbers.

All i need to know is remember what my condensing temperature should be if i know that my condensing temperature should be 120 degrees for that particular system. I'm just looking at my pressure chart. I could care less what the pressure number is, i'm looking at the temperature of the refrigerant. So once you start understanding that that's going to unlock a lot of stuff in your troubleshooting is paying attention more to saturation temperatures right and learning about those and forget about the actual pressure right.

The only time i really need to know what a pressure is is when i'm setting a pressure control for a cutting and cut out temperature or pressure, but you know really. I don't need to know much. You know when it comes to pressures. I pay attention to the temperatures now.

Of course, i wasn't taught that i've gotten that way in the last 10 years, where i start paying attention to the temperatures, i used to think pressures all the time like hey. What's the pressure supposed to be but think about it? Okay, we understand how an air conditioning system works right, simple, r22, fixed, orifice metering, device, air conditioning system right, it's a hundred degrees outside. Let's just say it's an eight seer system: okay, old school, fixed orifice, it's 100 degrees outside right. My condensing temperature is going to be you know my pressure is going to be.

You know about 30 degrees over ambient temperature, okay and to figure out what my evaporator pressure and my superheat should be, because we should be charging to a superheat we're going to use some temperature clamps and we're going to test the indoor wet bulb and the outdoor Dry bulb and we're going to calculate the target superheat, but with that being said, everything's changing now right. So the pressures i was taught that way, but we've had to learn that with high efficiency equipment, they're, lowering condenser tds they're, raising evaporator tds everything's changing right. So if we can just learn how the manufacturer designed the system, we have to be open to that. Okay, because we can't just go into there and someone say i know what the pressure should be.

It should be this much over this much, but everything affects the pressures if it's really hot outside the pressures are going to be higher if it's really cold outside the pressures are going to be lower right. But if we understand what the condenser td should be the temperature differential of the condenser right, if we understand what that should be, then the pressures don't mean anything to me. I know what the ambient temperature is. I know what the td is, so i sugges i subtract those two numbers and i come up with my actual condensing temperature and then i look at my gauges and i say you know my refrigerant pressure.

Is this temperature at that? You know so start trying to pay more attention to the the actual temperatures of the refrigerant. I feel like i'm butchering some of that, so i apologize. If i am, i feel, like i kind of got lost in my own words. There have.

I ever worked on any of those drop-in coolers by dell field pain in the butt um yeah. I've worked on a bunch of different drop-in ones, the ice cream ones, the the um, the cold rail ones. Yeah i've worked on a lot of them. You only see the blue one on chris's videos.

Is that a new sponsor? No okay, so in the past i had blocked blue on from advertising on my videos. I have no control over who youtube picks to advertise on my videos, i should say, but i can block blue on from being an advertiser right, but i can't say i want you to go pick honeywell refrigerants to be an advertiser. I have no say in that matter: um in the past i had blocked blue on. I realized that a lot of people - i've heard it probably five six times now, where they're starting to say that they're seeing blue on ads on my videos um, they are not a sponsor of mine, they pay youtube.

I have nothing to do with that and inadvertently. I get paid by youtube, so you know whatever, but um. No blue one is not a sponsor of my channel, they just pay youtube and they target my demographic basically and advertise on my channel. So in the past i had blocked them.

Honestly, i haven't even looked into why they're not being blocked anymore. I don't know if it's like a new year thing or if youtube doesn't. Let me you know turn that off anymore. I don't know um you've got a heat pump, not heating.

Well. 36 degree. Ambient 130 degree discharge line good air flow, but only 75 degrees supply air, clean coils filter. Any idea what to check next uh sounds like it's gon na be a refrigeration issue, but no i i.

I can't tell you what to check here.