Ah, it's time to chill out and get ready for a mediocre. Qa 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 hello. How are you guys doing this evening? Hopefully, you guys are doing well a couple things we want to talk about this evening and, as usual, I got a little list of things to go over when I cover the last couple videos.

I actually got two videos out this week, so we're getting a little bit better. I was having a hard time after the new year, actually getting out with some normal videos. I do have to say, and I'll say it at the end of stream - two - that it's only been like several months, but my wife and I finally filmed another HVAC. Our life episode that we'll be uploading Wednesday morning so it'll be popping up Wednesday morning West Coast time, which should hit Wednesday afternoon East Coast time, so that will be coming soon.

This one we're gon na be talking about finances and just kind of going over its we'd been teasing this one forever and it just took us a while to both get in my office and actually sit down and have a conversation. So I think the key thing is with these. You know, and I kind of deal with my videos too, but with with the whole Q & A series or the HVAC, our life, that I was dealing with my wife. We you know, I found myself trying to rehearse everything right and that's not what we were doing with those.

So it was more of a candid conversation. We kind of had a general idea we wanted to talk about, but it was trying to get a little more. Just a conversation between the two of us and just kind of talking about things, let me know how you guys like it when it when it does release again it'll pop out Wednesday and then we'll uh, we'll, hopefully get you guys some to give us some feedback On that and see what you think anyways, how many times can I say, see what you think, but all right so want to talk about the videos right. I released two videos.

Last week, one of them was on a hybrid walking cooler, slash freezer. The reason why I say hybrid - I got a bunch of questions about that. Why is it called a hybrid freezer? It's because I call it a hybrid okay. I come up with all kinds of weird terms for for my systems right, I I think one of the the most common things that I get the weirdest question on is when I call whatever I don't know the name of it, I call it a chingus and Everybody freaks out like wow: it's not a chingus, it's not a genius guys.

It's just a term like I come up with the weirdest terms for all kinds of crap right anyways. So I call it a hybrid freezer, because the customer maintains 27 degrees in the box. So it's just barely below freezing, but it's not what you would normally consider to be a walk-in freezer right, because a walk-in freezer typically is negative, ten or zero or zero or below. Basically, all right and a walk-in cooler typically is 32 degrees or above so it's that weird hybrid area.

I call it so anyways we had a hybrid walk-in cooler and I will definitely hate twizz dude. Thanks for becoming a supporter on the channel man. I really appreciate it so I have I have brain fart is what I did right there anyways. So the the video was about a walk in a hybrid walking cooler that the customer called me and they said that it was not maintaining the correct temperature and but then, when I got there, the thing was working.

That was the tricky thing right, guys. Big-Picture diagnosis, just like I said so, I went up on the roof and talking to the customer, I found out immediately that it was a defrost clock that was likely the problem, because the customer had called me an hour and a half previous to when I arrived And it was down to temperature by the time I got there and the customer said the fans weren't running right. So I went up on the roof found that the defrost clock was an hour and a half out of defrost and the defrost clock was kind of sticky too. So.

But I didn't just stop there right because I'm looking at the big picture as I always preach, so I went ahead and found that the system was low on charge. Ok went ahead and corrected that really quick and I have to make that clear. I got a couple comments saying how come you were testing the expansion valve when it was low on charge? I cleared the sight, glass and adjusted the charge first then I went down after I cleared up the the glass got the system operating properly with a solid column of liquid going to the expansion valve. Then I jumped on the expansion valve and found that the superheat was way out of range.

I want to say it was like 30-something degrees tried to adjust it and it wouldn't take the adjustment. It basically went down to like 15, but then the valve was basically backed out as far as it would go. So obviously we had something going on with the valve okay and I went ahead and quoted it and in all honesty that video was from about two months ago the customer took that long to approve. I got the system operating and then they took forever to approve it, and then they finally approved it.

We went back in and I did it last week, basically where I went ahead and replaced the expansion valve. Okay, the system came down to temperature. Everything was operating properly once I changed the valve, I mean everything it was already down to temp. Before I changed the valve, we got the system operating, but big picture diagnosis guys very important.

I can't stress that one enough. Looking at the big picture, okay, we find problems that maybe the system could have operated, half-ass, okay, but it wasn't operating efficiently. I didn't lie to the customer. I went to them and I said: look this system has an issue with this and I'm seeing this.

How do you want to address this? You know so people say like you know, my customers won't go for that kind of diagnosis. They just want it fix and they want it want us out of there. Well, that's not how I roll and I'm not trying to say I'm up up on some high horse and I'm better than everybody. I'm not, but I try to give my customers the best service and if my customers don't appreciate my service, then you know we might have to move on.

So I thank you very much Terry for that supporter role. I really appreciate it became a supporter of the channel thanks a lot dude, so you know I understand that you guys have to operate differently. Some some customers, don't let you guys fix things, the way that you want to and I'm not trying to say that I'm better than anybody. But you know I try to give my customers all the options and let them know this is what's wrong and they can choose to fix it or not, but I'm still gon na look at the big picture, even if I know they're not gon na fix it.

I'm still gon na look at the big picture and I'm gon na document the heck out of it that's the biggest best advice. I can give you guys this document everything and nowadays guys we have no absolutely no excuse about not documenting something guys. It's so easy. We snap a picture with our phone.

We attach it to the invoice, we send it in an email and you type everything out in the past. We had to handwrite everything and then the customer just couldn't read our writing and that kind of stuff. But nowadays you know we just type everything out. Ironically, on the flip side, now we have customers complaining that we don't know how to spell, but that's a whole other thing.

They need to get over that one right, because we're dumb, knuckle-busting mechanics, we don't necessarily have to know how to spell everything so and the I did have another technician with me on there, and I want to clarify something too on that video was when I sprayed Down the condenser coil with the misting device right, I was using my mister because I was cleaning it and I was bringing the head pressure down. The reason why I was doing that was because I had already cleared the sight glass and then I put the misting device on there and carefully brought the head pressure down below the bypass pressure of the head pressure, control valve and checked the refrigerant charge when the Head pressure, control valve was flooding the condenser okay. So that's what I was doing with the mr., so anyways we took care of the problem. I ended up finding the leak the leak was up on the roof I repaired.

The leak changed, the dryer changed. The expansion valve we ended up changing the thermostat to on that particular call, because while we were in there, we noticed that the the original thermostat was a piece of crap one and it was all rusted out and I just didn't feel comfortable and we had to Move the thermostat to change the expansion valve, so we were kind of tugging on the capillary sensing bulb. So it's just like you know what it's a cheap thermostat. I had a miscellaneous in my quote of a hundred bucks.

It covered the thermostat, you know, so we went ahead and changed that to again big picture right, you know and then just try to alright yeah and then everything worked properly on that system and it was good to go after that. Okay, so I see lots of stuff going on in the chat. I'll definitely definitely try to get to your guys's questions as usual. Guys, if you do have questions, please put them in caps lock.

It really helps myself and the moderators or my moderator Justin, to field the questions. So that way we can make sure that I try to get to them. Okay, don't hesitate to repost your question if I don't answer it: okay, guys the the lower case, there's oftentimes a totally separate chat going on within the chat right there and as these things are scrolling by in my face right, I mean on my screen right now. It's hard for me to see the lower case stuff.

I honestly don't pay too much attention to the lower case, so the questions need to be in caps. Lock that way we can see them. Okay, cool all right. Let me see what I got.

I really appreciate the support guys you guys are really cool. I really appreciate the feedback to you guys and that's another thing too. I am a hundred I've said this many times before completely open to criticism. I know that my stinks guys.

I know it. Okay, I know that I don't know everything. I know that I make mistakes and I am totally open to hearing it. Just don't be a punk about it.

You know, you know, let me know, hey you screwed up on that. That's cool, you know, but you don't got to belittle me right. I mean we. We are human here.

Okay, but again, let me know if I mess something up or if you have a different opinion or you have a question or you have feedback, I'm always looking for that. Okay, emails, all that good stuff right. So what I want to do is I want to get to my list of things right here. So I mentioned that we've got the HVAC our life series coming out.

The other video that I released was my delfield reach-in cooler, video again big picture diagnosis guys. I went up. The region was working, okay, it was iced up, but once I defrosted it, it kind of came down to temp, but I was just watching it. I was testing everything.

I noticed that the sensors on that region weren't reading accurately right, but then I went and looked further. It wasn't just the sensors because I could have just changed the sensors, but I noticed there was water damage on the temperature controller and it's a digital, Danfoss, ERC controller, and I noticed there was some water damage on it and from my personal experience I know that When we have water damage controllers, it just leads to all chaos, so I changed the controller, the digital display, the communication, cable and the sensors okay, and then I watched the unicycle after that because again we're looking at the big picture. We're gon na make sure that when I walked away from that that unit was working properly, there's always the possibility. That's something else would happen after, but at least while I was there, I did everything in my power to make sure that that region was working properly.

If you guys aren't getting the picture here, I'm always talking about being thorough. Being honest, communicating with the customer and looking at the big picture, that's the the best advice I can give you I'm not necessarily the smartest person in the world, I'm not necessarily going to tell you that you know how to answer or how to fix every single Thing out there, but I will encourage you to step back and look at the big picture as usual. Okay, again you guys that are becoming supporters, you guys are awesome. I really appreciate it.

Okay, how often are ice maker failures due to the lack of maintenance and just need cleaned storm? I would say that ice machine cleaning probably equates to be 80 to 85 % of ice. Machine calls are dirty ice machines, okay, ice machines, worst nightmare is water. Ironically, ice machines need water to make ice, so there's your problem. We can eliminate majority of our ice machine calls if we have a normal preventative maintenance program set up a qualified service.

Technician is performing that preventative maintenance and we have decent water quality coming to the ice machine again on the flip side or, ironically, you can have water that is too clean and it can affect ice machines too. Okay, if you have a D ionizer on your water coming into the ice machine that can affect things, especially once you get into these ice machines that have microprocessor controls. The new manage that have the the indigo microphones for the ice thickness. Those things will get screwed up if you have deionized water coming to them.

So it's a it's a it's a fine line between having to clean of water, but some sort of filtration on your water coming into the machine and a normal routine preventive maintenance program. At a minimum, every three to six months for sure, sometimes depending on the water quality, you might have to do it every month. It just depends okay, but ice machines. Yeah biggest problem with them is.

Is water related issues? Okay? What's my favorite HVAC our service book for new service technicians, my favorite book is called well okay. So that's that's kind of a fine line, because my favorite book for refrigeration service is commercial refrigeration for air conditioning technicians by mr. dick wars. But if you're not mechanically inclined, that book is more geared towards service technicians that are already HVAC techs and wanted you refrigeration, it just kind of goes in-depth, explaining the controls and all that good stuff.

So, as far as my favorite book, I don't really have a favorite one. Modern refrigeration is a decent one. I think that I have got the HRI fundamentals of HVAC. Our is another book that I have up there, but I learned from modern refrigeration.

I think Tom CPEC or Sypek. I can't remember the name, the guy that wrote that book, but modern refrigeration. That was the one that I cut my teeth on, but you guys for me: I'm not the kind of person that can just open up a book and read I'm more of a read. The book do hands-on here from another person and then someday it'll, all click.

So I, like various resources, there's several great YouTube channels out there there's a great resource. I'd suggest you check out as HVAC our school comm. That is a buddy of mine, Brian's website, and he does really good with helping to educate with more fundamentals and things. Okay, a really really great resource is manufacturers right.

So one of the manufacturers who happens to be a sponsor of my my videos and my part, my stream is sport'ln and sport'ln has a lot of great resources online and in fact I've got a little clip that I want to show you that's gon. Na kind of tie everything in together, but really quickly, I want to explain that spore'ln is actually - and I have this on my list, but it's funny how this all worked out. We segue into it spore'ln. Is they changed their website and they're just kind of redirecting and they're their new web address is spore Lynn, comm? Okay, so you don't have to go spoilin online, comm anymore.

It's just spore lend calm and they actually changed some things around. So what I'm gon na do is we're gon na I'm gon na pull up a screen share of spore lens website and I'm actually gon na answer a question using their website and it's gon na make sense to you guys once I do this. Okay, so give me a second, but I had a question about and it was from another technician. He had sent me an email and he was saying that he was having pressure drop issues.

What he thought to be pressure drop issues. He had a temperature job, a three degree: temperature drop across a filter dryer on an air conditioning system, but what he was confused about was that he had a three degree: temperature drop across both filter dryers for each circuit within that air conditioning system. So he had a 15-ton air conditioner and he had two 16 inch or 16 cubic inch dryers on there right to seven and a half ton compressors is is the math that I was doing just by looking at his email, and I started thinking about it and Again in my head, a half-ton compressor to me a 16 cubic inch dryer isn't big enough! That's where the manufacturers come in to play right, whether it be spoiling or whether it be an ice machine manufacturer. If you guys have questions about a particular ice machine, or you want to learn more about ice machines, look up the manufacturers and go to their websites.

They always have the best information same thing. If he's curious about a pressure or temperature drop across a filter, dryer 3 degrees, temperature drop - hmm that's kind of a marginal one. I don't know if I'm gon na change a dryer for a 3 degree temperature drop. But let's look at the pressure drop.

Let's check a few things, but with a 7 and a half ton compressor off the top of my head, a 16 cubic inch dryer is on the hair side of being small, but we can easily investigate that using sport lens website and I'm actually gon na pull That up right now so give me a second and we're going to pull up their website hold on just one second, sport land, I'm a pecker when I type so give me one second, so let me pull it up yeah! It takes me a minute when I type things out, but what I'm gon na do is I'm gon na go ahead and screen share really quick and I'm gon na show you how easy it is to find out what size filter dryer you should use. When you talk about tonnage of a system - okay, it's really not that bad, but you can also simply open up the dryer look on the box and they have a recommended tonnage side on the side of the box to where it tells you. You know if you're working on air conditioning, we recommend this size filter dryer right. If you have a dirty system, you, obviously you might need to go bigger with the filter dryer, depending on it.

Okay and also another thing to think about too before I screen share right now, is that just because something comes with a certain size, dryer doesn't mean that that's necessarily the right dryer. Once the system has contamination issues. Sometimes I've noticed that on certain air conditioning manufacturers they might like, for instance, train train will ship a 32 cubic inch dryer on, like a 5 ton package unit, I've seen it before well 32 cubic inch, dryers, rather small right. So on a system cleanup or a system repair, I'm gon na put a bigger dryer in that system, but you've got to be careful when you add a bigger filter, dryer to a system.

You have to know that it's going to have more storage capability. So therefore, you're going to need to adjust your refrigerant charge, okay, so what we're gon na do is I'm going to go ahead and screen share over here and mind you, I'm not looking at the chat right now guys, but I'll definitely get back to it here. In a minute, okay, so we're gon na screen share over. Let me go ahead and close this off transition over this is Portland's new website.

It's Portland comm, but it redirects you to Parker comm same thing. Okay, so if we scroll down right here, we've got a tab that says literature. If we click on literature, it's really easy and we're gon na scroll down and I'll go ahead and make this scroll right on down here and we've got catch-all filter, dryers, we're gon na click on catch-all, filter, dryers right and we're gon na go to the top One spoilin bullets in 40: 10 guys. This is all the information you can get.

There's great information in here. So I know that this is on page 10, so I'm gon na scroll down to page 10 and we're gon na have drier sizes. Basically, right here recommended dryer sizes, and let's see here, we go over here. Okay, this is for 134a, so let me go down for r22 and if we look at a 16 cubic inch dryer, which is labeled right here, it basically tells you that in an air conditioning for a field replacement that they recommend 16 cubic inch, dryer B for A one and a half ton through a 5 ton system.

Okay. Now, if you want to go bigger 4 4 through 10 tons, they recommend using a 30 cubic inch, dryer, okay, so for the person that emailed me, forgive me, I don't have your name right now. Right off the bat, when you sent me the pictures, my immediate thing was those dryers look to be too small. If that system has any sort of contamination, okay, but a 3 degree, temperature drop doesn't necessarily concern me.

Okay, if I started to notice a bigger pressure drop, I would need to put my gauges on there and check the pressure drop across and start to notice if we're having a plug up situation. But if you have contamination, I highly suggest using spore lens recommended sizing, charts okay to get you the right size dryer for that system. Okay, so I'm going to turn the screenshare off and then we're gon na go back to our normal display and bring it on over okay again using spore lens sites super-easy, it's all the same information that they've always had nothing really changed. Okay, it's just they just made it a little bit easier to get to it.

So all right, let me see what we got going on inside the chat. I know I missed a ton here. Okay, another thing to when I was talking about ice machines, every manufacturer like ice machines. Are they use the same concept? They bring the temperature of the evaporator well below freezing.

They run water across the evaporator. It freezes it, but where the ice machine manufacturers change is in the style of ice cubes that they make in the way that they harvest the ice and their control strategy. Okay, that's where you really need the manufacturers information all right! That's why you need to look at the OEMs website download the manuals read that information. It will greatly help you guys out.

Okay, let me see what I am missing in here. Um storm. You said you just serviced a display core that stunk the cause was a dirty p-trap. Have you heard of putting some sort of smell good? To prevent this? I mean I've heard of people putting all kinds of different things in systems to eliminate drain odors and stuff.

Like that, ideally, if you have drain odours really what it means is you have some sort of contaminants getting into that drain pan and it's not being cleaned out fast enough, sometimes on prep coolers and reaching coolers. They don't necessarily have them in even display cases. I don't know your situation, but oftentimes. They won't necessarily drain them into an actual drain and they will oftentimes rely on some sort of evaporation to remove the condensation that builds up in the drain pans.

Okay, when that happens, you can get smells and different odors, especially if the customers have a dirty box and they're rinsing the evaporators down or there's a drain that goes into a common draining goes down into the drain pan. Okay, ideally you want to do more preventative maintenance'as. I know that the customer isn't necessarily going to approve that stuff, but you know if you have continuing complaints, that's a way to recommend to the customer. Look you know, depending on this situation, we might need to go ahead and do more preventative maintenance says where we clean this now I do know.

There's all kinds of products out there to help to maintain drain pans, keep them clean. I know refrigeration technologies, I've never used it, but they have some of a product that you spray in the drain pans to help water, so it doesn't sit in there and it moves along. That's something hey Joe! Thank you very much for that super chat man. That was awesome, okay really appreciate it.

So do I go. Can I charge extra to a customer for stupidity yeah? I wish sometimes there's some times that you know they call you out and they say. Oh, my gosh. We need you now and then you get there and you're like okay, I'm gon na turn the switch on and move on.

You know so yeah. You wish you can charge them for stupidity for sure. So again, thanks so much for that super Chad, Joe okay, I'm gon na go ahead and go to my list right here. I had a question.

It was what's the rule of thumb for superheated sub cooling when it's hot, when it's talking about direct expansion systems when we're talking about reaching coolers when we're talking about air conditioners and guys, rules of thumb can be dangerous. Okay, rules of thumb can get you in the ballpark, but you always want to lean on the manufacturer for the proper way that they design the system, especially when you're dealing with reaching coolers and reach and freezers, walking, coolers and walk-in freezers, okay, engineers - and you know The people that design those systems they may have, they may have had something in mind when they designed it, especially when you're talking about reaching coolers and reach-in freezers. Okay, so we generally have a rule of thumb. If we're working on a reach-in cooler, you know you want to see if it's or on an air conditioning system.

You know you have some general rules of thumb when it comes to superheat and sub cooling, but you always want to lean on the manufacturer. Okay, obviously, we have, if you're doing with a fixed orifice metering system on a air conditioning system, you're gon na use the target, superheat method right and if you have a refrigeration system that has an expansion valve and it has a receiver. You typically want to have some sort of a sight glass on there to help to make sure that you have a solid column of liquid go into the expansion valve either way. If your system has an expansion valve, it needs a solemn, solid column of liquid, going to it for the valve to work correctly.

Okay with that being said, I had another question and Tristan had asked me and he's referring to my video about the AR 290 cooler that I converted to 134a, and he asked me because in the video when I put the factory when I weighed in the factory Equivalent I get not even equivalent, but when I put in 134a on the first charge of the system, I mentioned that we had no subcooling and we had vapor going back to my evaporator and he's asking me. What do you mean by vapor going back to your evaporator? What will that cause? Well, what I meant by that was that I had zero degrees subcooling coming out of my condenser. There was no receiver on the system, so that therefore meant that I had no liquid refrigerant going back to my expansion valve at my evaporator and with that being said, if we feed vapor to an expansion about the expansion valve, can't perform its duties properly. An expansion valve is meant to have a solid column of liquid refrigerant going to it.

So that way, it can properly work, basically, okay, so that if we had zero degrees, sub cooling and vapor going back to the expansion valve, the system is not going to come down to temperature and you're going to have issues, or at least it's going to take A lot longer to come down to temperature and you're gon na have issues. Okay, let me get to my next question. I had here and I'm gon na I'm gon na talk about this. As far as the AR 290 video, that was a week and a half ago, I got so many questions, guys of people asking me how come you used 134a? Why didn't you use an hour twenty two equivalent? Why didn't I use 407 C? Why didn't I use our 22? Why didn't you know why? Okay, the reason why I used one thirty-four a in that system was because I was trying to prove a point.

There's a common theme within the Facebook groups of many people out there that I've seen saying that they were assuming again I'm making an assumption that they were afraid of our 290. So they would simply take the our 290 out of the system and put 134a in it and it would work properly. So I was trying to dispel a myth when I made that video okay and in doing that. Yes, I realized there would have been other refrigerants that would have worked better than 134a, but I'm not in the business of trying to on video, show experiments that theoretically could potentially lead to other people doing those experiments.

Okay, so I showed the 134a one because I knew it wouldn't work, but I'm really not. I don't want to go out there and start doing these mad scientist experiments and hey Brad dude. That is awesome man. Thank you very much for that super Chad, dude Wow.

Thank You bud so yeah I just I can't be going showing other gasses and different things like that. You got to realize that these videos do you become a liability for me at some point, so I just don't want someone watching my video saying Chris said so. It works fine, you know all this stuff, that's not what I want. Okay, I was trying to dispel a myth by using one thirty-four, a okay, all right.

I want to get to the chat here and see any template or routine. I have for diagnosing intermittent issues. You know that's a great question and and you're asking me as far as our to use in walk-ins etc. Well, first off, if you, if you're trying to diagnose an intermittent issue, you need to properly understand how the system works in the first place.

What is the sequence of operation? What is supposed to happen? Okay, once you understand how a system works, you're, gon na be able to evaluate it even better, then you need to investigate. You need to do your vital signs. Look at the system check the refrigerant charge. Make sure everything's clean first and foremost make sure that you're getting proper temperature differentials across things then talk and communicate with the customer and ask them what the complaint is.

Why is there a certain time that it's happening investigating those problems asking them? Does it happen at this time of the day, or does it happen at that time of the day? That's really gon na lead you in in the right direction: okay and then sometimes you just have to hurry up and wait and watch the system operate. Okay, again communicating with the customer, letting them know hey it's working properly right now. What do you want me to do? I can sit here and wait or we can let it go. You know in most of the time I try to encourage them.

Let me watch it for a bit. Let's see what goes on here see if we can, you know, diagnose any issues, see something that's happening. Okay, so there's no one-stop pony that I can tell you. That's gon na help you to solve intermittent issues.

It just takes some time of watching the system. Okay. Now with that being said, I had a question on my list here that I want to talk about that kind of goes along with that. Okay, so Nelson had asked me about fuses that keep blowing when nothing is grounded or shorting out.

Now I don't know Nelson, I don't know if you're a service technician or not, I kind of get the idea that you might not be a service technician from the way that your question was worded. There's nothing wrong with that. I don't mind if non service technicians are watching this okay, but he had said he's having. He has nothing, grounded nothing shorted out and he keeps blowing fuses.

Okay. So there's a lot of different troubleshooting methods right, first and foremost, blowing fuses can be a direct short or it can be something working too hard to the point that it overloads the fuse or it overloads the motor. Whatever the system draws high current and it blows a fuse, you could also have intermittent electrical shorts. You can have bad electrical connections right.

One of the biggest things and Nelson had even mentioned in this that he noticed that on the disconnect switch that one of the the knives that the disconnect switch was on, there seemed like it was kind of discolored. Okay. Now it is okay for the knives on a disconnect switch to be discolored so long as you're getting proper connection proper electrical connection. The easiest way to find out, if you have a disconnect switch that is not working properly, is to use to take some voltage measurements to see.

If there's a voltage drop to take some current measurements, but also you can use a thermal-imaging camera and you can also use infrared laser and you can kind of go through the system as long as you know how it's supposed to be operating properly. Okay, so in diagnosing an intermittent issue again that kind of leads into that, because you need to know how the system operates properly, you need to know how to do voltage, drop tests and different things like that. Using a thermal imaging camera and/or an infrared laser to go through the system and say hey, you know what I'm getting higher than normal temperatures coming out of this fuse and it's not as hot going into it. Maybe we have a bad connection somewhere.

Okay, all right! Let me see what I'm missing inside the chat here. Okay, let me see what is the best way to acquire new customers Jason. I am NOT the smartest business person in the world, so I don't know the answer to that question. There's lots of people that will tell you, you know, use this particular marketing method.

I'm gon na tell you the way that has worked for me. It's taken a long time and I've gained my customers via honesty. Okay, we started with one customer in 1987 when my dad started the company. Okay, my dad doesn't really work in the field anymore.

He has like a support role in the office, but he only come anyways yeah, but we have built our business off of that one. Customer that we started with okay, we started very small, and over the years we have continued to grow at our choosing via word-of-mouth. Okay, when we made a customer happy and a manager happy and they left that restaurant they moved on to another restaurant or they told their friends about us and then their friends called us or they called us from the next restaurant, and that has worked for us. Now I realize that is not gon na work for everybody.

Okay, that's just the method that we've always used. We don't advertise. I don't even I mean I have my name on the side of my van, but to be honest with you, the only reason why I have my name. There was because of a customer that I had before that required.

I had my name. Okay, I'm not looking. I have a website, but we don't. Even I don't even use it right because I'm not looking for that kind of business and I'm not trying to brag or anything.

But I mean I turned down a lot of business because I can't keep up with the load that I have to maintain the quality of service that I do. But if you're in the commercial side, I will say that if you want to get more customers, one of the better ways to do so is to start doing warranty work for a lot of the manufacturers. The manufacturers you can get in as a warranty. If you can get in with them, that can be difficult too, but you need to become an asin authorized service agent for one of the refrigerator or ice machine manufacturers, and then that's gon na get you in there doing warranty work.

Unfortunately, warranty work. Isn't you know? There's not it's not very profitable to do warranty, work more or less. It kind of pays your your wages and it gets you in the door. I typically don't do warranty work.

You know I do it for my customers only, but I'm not an authorized service agent, for you know outside customers or anything like that. Okay, so I am not the best business person in the world. To give that advice, I would say that my buddy tersh Blissett over at the service business mastery podcast, can probably help you out a little bit better because he handles all that, especially when it comes to the residential stuff. But he does some commercial stuff too, and he handles all the network, marketing and all kinds of stuff like that.

So go check out my buddy tersh bliss it over at service business, mastery, podcast and I'm sure he could help you out a little bit more. A better way to get customers. Okay, all right! Let me see what I'm missing down in the chat here: talk about pressures and temperatures, you're, looking for on coolers and freezers, with common refrigerators for the new guys, okay, so Brad one of the first things that we want to talk about when it comes to pressures And temperatures is again: I'm gon na give credit where credit is due, and maybe it came from someone else, but where I heard it from was from mr. Jim Bergman and Jim had said, you have no business, putting your service gauges on a system.

If you don't already know what the pressure should be, okay and again, he may not have come up with that, but that's where I heard it from okay and there's so much truth in that you really have no business, putting your gauges on a walk-in cooler. If you don't know what to expect, that is where a proper apprenticeship and proper training comes in okay, I realize that some companies don't do that and they throw you to the wolves, so you're gon na have to do your due diligence. Do a lot of research and and in figure it out. Obviously, these podcasts and these videos - and these live streams - are a source of Education somewhat for some people right.

But don't just listen to me because I'm some dude on the internet that has a bunch of followers you got to do the research yourself too I'll, give you some tips, but you need to fact-check it. You need to look it up. Okay, most manufacturers and, let's just talk about walk-in coolers, most manufacturers on a walk-in they're gon na recommend, for the most part, oh they're, going to design a system to have about a 10 degree, evaporator temperature differential okay. That is the difference between the suction saturation temperature of the refrigerant in the system in the evaporator and the return air temperature coming into the evaporator okay, that is your TD often times the walk-in cooler TDS are designed at 10 degrees unless they've got a peculiar system.

Maybe with flowers or something that they may change it: okay, but a general general walk-in cooler is gon na have a 10 degree TD. Well, that's what helps us a lot. If we understand generally what the TD should be, then we know that my evaporator temperature, which is going to equate to a suction pressure, eventually, should be 10 degrees below the box temperature or the return air temperature. Okay.

So that gets us in the ballpark with an idea of what our suction pressure should be, because if we understand how a temperature pressure chart works, I have a temperature pressure chart right here and it basically tells you that at any given pressure, that refrigerant will be A certain temperature period - that's it there's no ifs, ands or buts about it at any. Given pressure, a refridge we'll be a certain temperature. Now there's some weird stuff that happens in there, because we have blended refrigerants. Nowadays we have a lot of blended refrigerants and if you have a high glide refrigerant and you've lost some charge, you could have some fractionation issues, but fractionation is something that's used.

As a scare tactic. I think it's not as big as a lot of people make it out to be, but I do have two preference. My comment by saying: fractionation: okay, there is truth to some of it, but it's not as scary as everybody makes it out to be okay, but anyways I'm going off on a tangent, and I need to get back on course. So if we understand what our evaporator TD should be, then that gets us in the ballpark of what our evaporator pressure should be.

But before we start playing with our evaporator TD and our evaporator suction pressure, we need to make sure that we have the right amount of refrigerant in the system. We need to make sure that our expansion valve is being fed liquid refrigerant and that's where a sight glass comes into a system on a system that has a liquid line: receiver. Okay, we're typically going to charge to a clear sight, glass again paying attention to vital signs. Looking at the head pressure, assuming that our head pressure, we have a general rule of thumb for condensing tempo over ambient, meaning that our condensing saturation temperature is not going to be this much or is going to be a roundabout above ambient.

Again, we have to be careful with rules of thumb, but for a microchannel condenser on a walk-in cooler for the most part, you're gon na have about a 20 degree condensing tempo over ambient and for a tube and fin condenser. It's gon na be somewhere between 25 to 30 degrees. Okay, again, I realize I'm saying some technical terms for the newer guys and you have to understand that you guys got to do some work on your own too, so that will make sense to you as you. You start reading some more okay, and that gives you some general ideas where your pressure should be if you're getting that deep into it.

I highly suggest you read commercial refrigeration for air conditioning technicians. It helps you to understand a little bit more about. What's going on that book is written by mr. dick Wars? Okay, I'm going to go ahead and get into the into the oh yeah.

Here we go right here so um. I had a question and Mike I'm gon na answer your question, because it was a question on here Mike asked me. My thoughts on vrf systems for residential versus commercial, so vrf has a couple different names. Different manufacturers have their own type.

There's a vrv there's vrf variable refrigerant volume, variable refrigerant flow they're. You know basically they're systems that modulate compressor speeds. Okay, have electronic expansion valves and the compressor for the most part, will speed up and for higher load situations, will slow down for lower load situations so that we were not over cooling. The area too fast were cooling it at a nice, even temperature.

That is, in a nutshell, an easy way to explain to vrf system. Okay, now there's some advantages to using vrf systems. There's some disadvantages to using them. I would say that one of the disadvantages versus a is is miles and miles of refrigerant piping, going all throughout the building: okay and hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds of refrigerant piped all through the system.

So you have a higher potential for refrigerant leaks. Now, on the flip side, you have a hydraulic system or a water-cooled system or a water. You know a glycol system right where you have a chiller downstairs and you're pumping some sort of cooling fluid, whether it be glycol all through the system. But then you have the potential for water pipe leaks all over the place: okay, so there's Goods and Bad's.

I do not work on vrf systems, okay, but I do know that the V RF systems have a lot of really interesting technology, built into them micro, processors that control everything. You have all kinds of electronic expansion valves all over the system. They have potential to be super energy efficient, meaning that you can cool one room while heating in another room. I mean they have all kinds of great advantages, but guess what it all comes down to.

No matter what type of system were installing, it all comes down to proper installation, whether it be an old school air conditioning system, whether it be a chiller system, whether it be a vrf system or a super, highly advanced refrigeration system. They all have one week. That is the installation contractor if the installation contractor does not follow proper refrigerant practices and proper protocol set out by the manufacturer of set equipment, then that equipment is gon na have a high failure rate and it's gon na make that equipment have a black eye, because Everybody's gon na think this equipment sucks. Well.

If that person had followed the manufacturer's instructions - and you know set it up the way that they said or you know, then it more than likely is gon na be taken care of, and it's probably gon na work. A little bit better okay, so I think vrf systems, mini-split systems, you know like the smaller ones for residential. I think it's a cool concept I do where I want to see things going. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet is bringing more hydrocarbon refrigerants because they're so efficient.

I know everybody's afraid that they're flammable, but I think they need to go ahead and increase the charge limitations. So we can use more hydrocarbon refrigerants that will help our refrigerant systems or refrigeration systems. There'll be a much more efficient, and I think that we can bring hydrocarbons into residential situations too. Now I'm not necessarily saying we need to have seven pounds of our 290 pumping through your house, but seven pounds really isn't that much when you think about it, but I think that you know again.

This is off the top of my head. I'm surprised we haven't. Come up with some sort of a chiller system for the residential set up where we have a condensing. I know they have chiller systems for residential, but I'm surprised, they're, not more mainstream where we have a hydrocarbon refrigerants outside and we're pumping some sort of a glycol.

Fluid inside so then we're not even bringing the flammable refrigerant in the house which might solve some of people's worries. I mean, but you know, the funny thing is: is that we're afraid of flammable refrigerants? Yet we drive a car with gasoline, which is very volatile right and we have natural gas heating, our house, which is very volatile, but yet we don't want propane running through our refrigeration systems. It just seems kind of silly to me. You know, I think that it's just a little bit of old school mentality there and people being afraid of things.

But you know it's funny that the guy can about working on an R to 90 system, but then two hours later he can go work on a furnace it just again, not judging anybody. That's just my two cents on it. Okay, all right, let me see anything to keep in mind as a storms question anything to keep in mind for units that operate in a wide ambient temperature range in Anchorage. You can get as low as negative 20 during the winter and eighty degrees in the summer and that's a really good point so refrigeration in general.

Let's just talk about refrigeration, because even an air-conditioner is a refrigeration system, but refrigeration in general has a very small operating envelope in its infancy right. So a refrigeration system, I would be safe to say, typically operates best between a 70 degree ambient and an 80 degree. Ambient - maybe you can push it up to 90, but anything past that it starts to have some issues right because anything below 70 degrees and we will drop the pressure differential across the expansion valve our head pressure will go too low. We won't have that refrigerant pressure to drive the refrigerant through the system right and we go any higher and we're gon na have a hard time rejecting the heat from the condenser.

So we add extra components to the system. That's where condenser flooding comes in, to bring up out or to bring up condensing temperatures to increase pressure differentials across the system, and that's where you bring in you know all sorts of cooling media's to cool off condensers and different things like that. So, as far as tips about working on systems is just understanding how they work if you're working on systems in Alaska, I guarantee you're gon na have some sort of head pressure control, whether it be fan, cycling, condenser, flooding or probably both. So you have to understand that refrigerant charge is very critical when you're dealing with condenser flooding right, because when that head pressure control valve goes to flood, you need to have the proper amount of refrigerant in the system, for it to flood properly same thing goes with A fan, cycling control.

You need to understand if you have multiple condenser fan motors and you have multiple fan cycle controls that you don't necessarily want all three convinced or fan motors turning off at the same time, so you want to stage them so that way one turns off at. Let's say 200 psi, another one turns off at let's say you know I mean, and you can stage them or maybe you start one at 250, one at 225, one at 200. So that way you and have a huge swing when the fans all turn off. Okay, so understanding the sequence of operation, understanding how the systems work and knowing what happens? If you don't have that component in there to help the system operate properly in those harsh temperatures, okay, also understanding how to properly set pressure controls can really come into effect when you're in cold ambience, because if you're in a cold ambient - and you have a low-pressure Cut out - and you have it set to high - well guess what, when it gets really cold outside.

There might not be enough pressure built up in that condensing unit to drive that refrigerant all the way through the system through the evaporator and back up to the roof or wherever your equipments at to bring the system back on so again, going back to our fundamentals. Doesn't matter how complex of a system you're working on you need to understand the fundamentals? Okay, one of the scariest things - and I am NOT an expert, and nor will I ever be, but one of the scariest things is thermodynamics psychometrics. Those are the big words and are the most confusing things, but when you really break them down, they're the backbone of our industry, understanding what happens to a fluid or a gas when you do something to it, helps you to be able to troubleshoot it later. Okay, hopefully I answered your question in somewhat of a way.

Let me see what preventive maintenance is. What preventative maintenance measures do? Hydro carbon compressors have to offset flammability risks. I wouldn't say that there's really much inside of a hydrocarbon compressor that is gon na offset flammability risks. I would say - and again I'm not an expert in this, but in my opinion a compressor is a compressor.

It's still got a motor in it. It still has winding in windings in it the refrigerants still cooling the windings, so it can't be completely covered up, but you're, typically not gon na have an explosion. You're not gon na. Have.

What do you need for a fire? You need oxygen, you need a spark and you need fuel right. You need the right amount of oxygen, the right amount of fuel and the perfect amount of a spark to ignite a flame, but you're not going to get all of that in a sealed system, because you're not going to have pure oxygen in there. You're gon na have a mixture of your fridge, uhrin and all kinds of things now, where you might have a problem and where I think you're leading me to with your question, is on the outside of the compressor, what they want you to do when they have Hydrocarbon as they typically have sealed components that condenser fan motor, for instance, is typically going to be a sealed motor. That's explosion-proof, okay versus an open, winding motor, the compressors start relay, or the current relay is typically going to be a sealed current relay.

Now it's no longer gon na be an open winding where you can see the actual start winding on it. Okay, that's the biggest thing that they do on hydrocarbon systems, and they put you know the condenser fan motors, the evaporator family doors. Everything is explosion-proof, they don't use wire nuts very much anymore. I have seen some manufacturers, but a lot of manufacturers are going away from wire nuts they're using Wego connectors.

So that way, their theory is, is that they'll have less chance of a spark or a loose wire net. So it's really about just understanding how the system works. If I can give you any advice, working on a hydrocarbon system is to cover your butt and follow proper refrigeration practices. You don't got to be afraid of it purge with nitrogen.

Before you light your torch, easy enough guys right make sure you purge with nitrogen sweep the system cut as many components out as you can. Sometimes you can I've shown that sometimes you got to open a system up with the torch. It's just. It is what it is, but try to purge it with nitrogen, first make sure you're in a well-ventilated area and if you ever change components on a hydrocarbon system, our 290, our 600, whatever use OEM only components because guess what? When something? If something happens on that system, the manufacturers gon na look at you when the customer goes to sue them and they're gon na say he wasn't using an OEM whatever and they're gon na blame it on you and guess what their lawyers are better than yours.

So you're not gon na win, it doesn't matter if it was an obscene point that they made. You altered it from original equipment manufacturers design. So therefore you own it now so use OEM only parts all the way down to an electrical cord. If the customer runs over an electrical cord on, there are 290 refrigerator order, the factory cord, even if it costs 75 bucks - and you know you - can go - get one for seven bucks at Home Depot or to the OEM cord.

Okay, that's the best advice that can give you. Let me see what we got inside the chat, I'm gon na scroll down to the bottom: what's the difference between high ambient temperature motors and regular motors mr. ice honestly, I don't know the answer to that one, but I would assume that high ambient motors have better Bearings inside of them, but again I'm guessing this off the top my head, but I would make an assumption that a high ambient motor is gon na have a better bearing that can have a better grease inside of it. That's gon na withstand higher temperatures.