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 so hey everybody! How are you guys doing this evening? Hopefully you guys are doing well. We are surviving over here.

We're definitely uh as far as work goes we're dead. I mean we have calls here and there, but man, you know it's. It's super slow right now, um our restaurants. I've said it many times, but none of our restaurants are open to in-person or even outdoor dining.

It's all shut down, they can only do to-go service so and that's 99.9 of the work that i do is this restaurant work so we're still getting refrigeration calls. Like i mean i still went and i worked on an ice machine today and i had another guy working on an ice machine, but i had one guy take the day off um. We still have calls it's just not anywhere near. You know crazy or anything um.

I haven't gotten one, no heat call all well, we don't even have winter. I think you know there was like 90 something degrees at my house. Over the weekend today was probably about 84 degrees, um, it's a trip and then we're having like a cool down where it's going to hit like the 50s at the end of the week and maybe rain. But the weather is so bipolar here.

But we don't really know what cold is as far as winter goes or anything so, but we're hanging in there family's doing good, i'm so thankful. I've been i've been so i i know it sounds so corny, but i've really been reflecting on that lately um. The fact that i am so thankful for for my problems, my problems are so petty in comparison to many other people's problems that are so much worse and i'm so thankful for that, and - and i don't mean not to say it in a bad way or anything. It's just i realize that you know my problems are nothing in comparison, so um, i'm thankful or grateful whatever you want to say for that.

So hopefully you guys are doing well. I've got a couple things as usual that i want to talk about and also want to address the chat, questions and stuff. So do me a favor if you guys do have questions put them in caps, lock in the chat and we'll definitely try to get to them. Okay, as usual, if i miss your questions, hvhcr videos at gmail.com feel free to send me an email and we'll try to get to them there too, all right so um before i start getting to the chat right now.

I want to address something, and this is kind of a continuation of uh. Actually, you know what before i get to that, i do have to say that uh. This is the first live stream, since we did it, we hit 100 000 subscribers. I lit up that sign behind me.

I know you can't see it because the glare from my studio light is glaring off of that, but um we hit a hundred thousand. That was so cool, i'm so thankful for that um and then um my buddy rich. That's in the chat right now and my buddy ike, that's popping in and out of the chat right now between the two of them rich made this fabricated it. I came up with the idea um this cool sign and it says hvacr videos, my catchphrase, big picture diagnoses on it and it says 100 000 subscribers on it, and i do have to say that that is far better than the diamond or then the play button Thing that i'm going to get from youtube, i don't know if it's a diamond play button or silver whatever.

It is that little itty bitty thing that i've seen pictures of from youtube. This right here is so much nicer. I put some led lights behind it and it was a very, very cool present from you guys. So thank you very much um so yeah, since we hit 100 000 subscribers.

I've been kind of thinking about a few things and - and i do have to say you know it is very - i'm very grateful to hit the hundred thousand subscriber mark, i'm very humbled by the fact that um, a hundred thousand people have chosen to subscribe to my Channel, i'm very humbled by the views that i get on my channel. It's amazing. I still have a hard time, believing that you guys want to listen to me ramble um. You know i realize that there's knowledge in there too, but sometimes i know i go off on a ramble on a rant whatever same thing, on these live streams too and and uh, it's so cool to see the support from you guys, the emails, the comments, the Messages all of it.

Thank you guys so very much. You guys are the ones that have chose to hit subscribe on that youtube channel um, and it's because of you that we've reached this milestone, so i do appreciate it: okay, um, so uh. Let me see what we got in the chat: real, quick, um total, so real, quick, i see some questions. Can i explain what total superheat is total superheat is the combination of the evaporator superheat and the compressor superheat.

So that would be the total system superheat. I guess no compressor superheat really is total superheat too, but it's it's the the superheat before it gets to the compressor, the measurement, the amount of heat that the suction line has absorbed. Um, basically is, is the total system superheat um. Have.

I ever had an electrical shock. Yes, i've been shocked not by nothing bigger than 120 volts, so i've never had a deep electrical shock. Uh very thankful for that. It's something that you always want to be prepared about and being electrocuted by anything is nothing to be proud of.

It's not anything. You want to have as a badge of honor or anything like that, because something as simple as uh 24 volts can uh. You know mess you up in the wrong way. Okay, so even though, most of the time it won't.

If, if it's just the right circumstances, you could get hurt by even 24 volts. So you want to be very careful and and try to be as uh cautious as possible when you're working around electricity, so i don't take it as a badge of honor to be electrocuted at all, so um all right yeah. I really really appreciate it. Let me see what else we got in here, hello, everybody.

I see ernesto hvac, our vloggers in here hello to everybody um. Let me see i'm seeing if i'm missing anything yet okay cool, then i'm scrolling right on down here. Uh! Let me oh, i got one other thing right here: um yeah, i saw a video, i'm just calling. It also said it was not yeah.

It is a trip uh, this weather, that we're having right now. So it's gon na cool down again, but this is southern. California - and this is how it works right now - we we're supposed to be having a santa ana wind condition. I'm looking out my window right now that you guys it's kind of really bad video, because you guys can't see it one of these days.

I'd be really good to put cameras all over the place, but uh we had what we call our santa ana winds today. So it's this just erratic wind event that we get and it comes couple times a year, but it wasn't as extreme as they said it was. I actually got notices from my power company saying that the power might be shut off today because of the santa ana winds and um. I mean i'm looking at my window and it's not blowing at all right now.

So then you know the weather forecast can be very unpredictable um. How often do i change a dryer filter on a refrigerant recovery, machine, frank, jf, guan, so uh, i'm going to be honest with you in the very beginning, uh i used to keep a filter dryer on my recovery machine all the time and, to be frank, i Don't even put one on there anymore unless it's a contaminated system um. If i find that my system is very contaminated, then i'll choose to put a filter dryer on there, but the filter dryers on the recovery process are actually restriction that slow down the process. Um.

Now i'm the owner of those recovery machines. This is my business. Okay, so be very cautious and don't take me saying that i don't use a filter dryer on my recovery machine, as you know, the way that it should be for everybody. You need to do what you're told to do, but you need to do what's best for your situations too.

Okay, i don't um, i don't uh, let's see what we got in here, i'm seeing what i'm missing um! Oh, i don't have uh um. Sorry. I saw a message come through on my phone right now, so i um got distracted for a second but oh yeah. So i'm not like this person that walks on water and does everything: okay, i'm just a normal person.

So don't take everything that i say in my videos to heart: okay, um! Let me see what i think i missed a comment right up here. I'm gon na try to find this um and uh yeah. I usually don't do this, but i'll. Do it real, quick? Okay, so uh robert from ohio, asked, if i could say, happy birthday to his son who's turning eight years old and happy birthday bud so um all right.

Let's get to my list of things and uh. Have i ever miswired anything to the level of it. Blowing up yes, i have, i have not gotten it on film. I've done it on vfds, at least two times that i could think of right.

Now, where uh i wired the incoming voltage to the outgoing and when you do that on a vfd, it's not a good thing and it will blow up and it makes a large sound. You know. Big boom and smoke goes everywhere. I'm not talking like blowing windows out or anything like that, but yes, i have you know it's very important.

You know that we understand that mistakes are made by everyone. Okay and it's what we do when we make those mistakes. I don't think that anybody is ever going to be mistake. Free, okay, majority of my mistakes come from me, cutting corners and being lazy.

Okay, i think it's a natural trait of people in general. You want to do the least amount of work possible to get the job done. At least i do. I don't know if you guys are like me, so you know it's it's.

It just happens. Okay, so i am constantly fighting myself to try to not cut corners and it still happens to this day, i'm not this holy person that doesn't make any mistakes. I genuinely have to fight myself all the time where i have to trust my gut. I've learned to trust my gut, but when i say oh it'll be okay and then you know that little thing inside of me saying no, no, you should probably put your service gauges on it and then you know i'm just having an internal fight with myself.

No, i don't want to put my service gauges on it. You know, and usually i, if i don't trust my gut. It comes to bite me in the ass after the fact. Okay, but um.

You know, i think the biggest thing is is to try to learn from your mistakes, so i've made mistakes several times, wiring up a vfd thinking, hey, you know what yeah this is where incoming goes and outgoing goes and not paying attention and not reading the installation. Instructions - i am the worst at installation instructions that very very very hard for me to get to open up a set of installation instructions so um. I am definitely trying to work on that. You know and it's a work in progress.

I'm never going to be perfect. Okay, um, you know in in i i say this quite often too. I make mistakes and i try to point them out as much as possible in my videos, if i was actually having a conversation actually today, i was over at refrigeration technologies talking to mike and john pastorello and uh. We were just talking about mistakes, you know, and i was telling them you know i made so many mistakes and especially early in youtube.

When i was first making videos, you know my first one or two videos uh. You know i wanted to cut out every single mistake or thing i i incorrectly said out of my videos and i started to feel like an imposter syndrome. Kind of a thing, because i would get like comments saying. Oh, this is great and oh, you did good job and - and i didn't feel like i did because i wasn't truthful and didn't - show my mistakes, so i really quickly corrected that and started showing my mistakes in my video, probably to the point now that i show Too many mistakes in my videos, okay, i still make them.

I you know again, we do everything we can to try to not make mistakes. It was interesting too, because there was a comment that i made on another youtuber's channel about my mistakes and how majority of my knowledge has come from learning from my mistakes, and i was kind of criticized for saying that you know the person criticized me saying: hey You know you shouldn't, you know you shouldn't brag that you've learned from your mistakes. You should, you know, learn from a school or whatever you know. I learned from an institution too.

I went to a school and you know: school knowledge has a place in your brain and it sits there and in the way that i work is, i have to get my hands on things and i have to experience things. I'm a hands-on learner. So you know, while i'm learning with my hands, you know the the institution, knowledge of the school knowledge kind of fills in the gaps and it makes sense. But really i am a person that learns from my mistakes.

Okay - and i hope that some of the mistakes that i've made - maybe you guys, can learn not to do them, because i've made mistakes that could get people fired, you know or get people hurt, i've done silly things and they're not things to be proud of, but They're definitely things that we can share in hopes that the next guy doesn't make those same mistakes. Maybe i don't know you know all right. Let's see what else we got in here, um pro c is asking. Can i explain how i do cold weather charging on a system with a fan cycle and a receiver such as a walk-in cooler? Well, that can be a very interesting dilemma.

Right fan, cycle controls are not my favorite thing in the world to work on okay, but uh. When you have a fan cycle control i mean i i'm not working in extreme climates, okay, the coldest it ever gets at. My house is like in the 30s um. That's extreme lows: okay: it doesn't get any colder than that, but on a system like that, what i'm going to try to do is go ahead and charge the system up and clear the sight, glass.

Okay, that's the most important thing i was talking with someone because it doesn't have a head pressure control valve. It's just a fan, cycling system, you're, going to clear the sight, glass okay, but you got to be careful, though, because, as your fan is cycling on and off on and off on and off your sight, glass is going to drain and then fill up and then Drain and then fill up, so you need to try to block off the condenser, get that head pressure up and get the fan motor to stop cycling on and off on and off. Okay, if you can that's the best bet and clear the sight glass now i had an interesting conversation through through comments with someone who was talking uh. Actually, no, i didn't have a conversation.

I wanted to have a conversation. It was another person that made a youtube video someone, that's not in our normal circle of youtubers, and i watched someone else's youtube video and he was talking about how his words you don't have to clear sight, glasses and that you should always use sub cooling. Okay, so uh that can be very, very um. Well, that's! That's not true! Okay, when you have a refrigeration system that has an expansion valve a receiver in a sight, glass.

Okay, your expansion valve is relying on the fact that you have a solid column of liquid going to your expansion valve at all times. You do not have you know just a halfway full sight, glass that is not a clear sight. Glass. You need to have a solid column of liquid period, okay, going to your expansion valve, so there's no ifs, ands or buts about it.

Okay, sub cooling is a metric that we pay attention to in refrigeration, but we don't necessarily using use it as a charging metric. Now i will occasionally pay attention to sub cooling on systems that have receivers, but what i'm looking for is an extremely high sub cooling. Okay, if i see sub cooling in the 20s and 30s, then we have an overcharged situation more than likely okay, but it's totally normal for me when i work on my systems, my refrigeration, walk-in condensing units and stuff to see about one and a half to three Degrees of sub cooling coming out of the condenser. The important thing is is where do you measure sub cooling on a refrigeration system? It's not a very good metric because you have the vapor and the liquid mixing inside the receiver, and that throws everything off okay.

So that's why we rely on the sight glasses, okay. Now, if your refrigeration system, of course, has a head pressure control valve, you want to add the correct flooded charge check out spoiler. 90-30-1. I think i beat that topic to death, okay, but plain and simple.

If you have a sight, glass, receiver and txv, the sight glass needs to be clear. Okay, it's it's ensuring that you have a solid column of liquid going to the expansion valve. You are not supposed to charge to 10 degrees sub coin and assume that that is correct. That is not necessarily correct.

Okay, clear sight, glass period, um all right, let's see what else? What else do we got going on here? Can a sight glass be added on a residential refrigerator out of curiosity chad? No, don't don't go adding sight glasses to any systems that didn't have them unless you really know what's going on on a residential refrigerator for the most part, they typically have capillary tubes, capillary tube does not belong or a sight. Glass does not belong on a system with a capillary tube unless it's an ultra fancy residential refrigerator that has a receiver um. I i wouldn't go adding anything now. Another problem you have with the residential refrigerator is the refrigerant.

Capacity of that system is very, very small. We're talking ounces, maybe four ounces. Five ounces of refrigerant, adding a sight glass to the system, is extra volume that you're adding to the refrigeration lines, and it requires you to add more refrigerant to the system because it's going to try to fill up that void in the system. So you don't want to go, adding sight glasses to anything that doesn't have it from the factory unless you really really know what's going on with the system, so uh, what about sub cooling on a region with no receiver for charging? You know there's a weight on the tag uh mr ice.

I prefer on a region with uh with um no receiver. Okay, i've seen this before i have del field refrigerators or i have a like charleston's notorious for doing this for um putting a expansion valve on a system with no receiver uh. Basically, in my opinion, they're oversizing, the condenser to have the extra storage capacity, so the expansion valve can throttle the refrigerant right and slow it down. I still don't use sub cooling.

I will look at it right, but how? How do you know what the manufacturer had it leave the factory with as far as what sub coiling they're asking for okay? So in that situation, i'm going to weigh the charge in and benchmark the numbers. I know that doesn't sound very practical, but you really have no idea if you first walk up onto a system what it's supposed to be running at okay. So that's when you're gon na look at your condensing temp and your evaporator temperature and if you're, seeing anything funky, i highly suggest dump the charge recover it and vacuum it down and weigh in factory charge and then benchmark the numbers write them down somewhere. You know for the next guy so that way you know.

Okay, this is the the operating pressures. This is where the system runs a condensing, temp, evaporator, temp, sub cooling. You can even measure superhere but superheat's going to vary because it's an expansion valve system, so um yeah. I still don't really pay too much attention to sub cooling, but again it's not that i completely ignore it and don't ever look at it.

I mean i'll, monitor the numbers, but it really doesn't do a whole lot when it comes to charging my systems. Unless i see a super high sub coin, then i start to get concerned. So that's my personal preference but remember. I said this in the beginning: i'm just a normal guy.

Okay, i am not the king of everything. I don't know everything and i would caution everybody out there to be cautious about watching someone on youtube and thinking that everything that they say is correct. Just because i have a hundred thousand subscribers or five thousand or ten thousand in all. These views doesn't mean that my stuff is absolutely correct.

Um, i have to say there was a youtube comment. Um on someone else's channel long story short, there was some crap going on, but anyways there was a youtube channel, a youtube comment where someone was defending me and they used the fact that i had a hundred thousand subscribers to say: hey look at this guy. He knows what he's doing. That's not necessarily true, okay, because you can have a lot of subscribers and not know what the heck you're doing.

Okay, so don't don't trust just because you see someone, you know you need to do the research yourself now, of course, if, if i give you advice, i encourage you to to fact check that advice. You know, hey if i say check this check that google, it you know, look at the manufacturer and and you can usually tell what sounds correct and what doesn't sound, correct. Okay, but again, don't just trust everything that i say: i'm just a normal guy. Okay, just trying to share the little bit of knowledge that i do have so is there a discount code for my merch on my website tried big picture, but it didn't take it.

No, there is no discount code on my website. My website is just the straight across prices uh. I basically made those things as cheap as possible. Um to where you know i make a you know a little bit of profit on the stuff, but i'm not looking to break the bank so um.

You know but yeah there's no discount codes or anything like that for my website, so the prices that are on there are just the prices uh for the most part unless you're in another country, like canada or um, some of the provinces of the us, if you're In the the mainland continent, or in basically in the united states, uh shipping is included in the price of the merch. So, but if you're in canada there's a flat fee and guam there's a flat fee and stuff like that, so all right, uh, maybe a dumb question. But when vacuuming a system does it matter if the evaporator fans are running, say airflow across the coil, not really pro-c, i've never really ran into a situation where um i've i've need the evaporator fan motors running uh. You know, i guess if you have a lot of moisture in your system, but no i i'm trying to think if it would boil anything off, not really if you still had refrigerant in your system and you were trying to get vapor refrigerant out of the system.

I guess, but no it really shouldn't matter if the evaporator fan motors are on. What does matter is solenoid valves, though, if you're working on a walk-in freezer system and you shut off the the the power to the condensing unit, oftentimes it'll, shut, solenoid valves or, if you're, working on a walk-in cooler it'll shut solenoid valve. So you want to make sure that if you do disable power to the system that somehow you keep the pump down solenoid valves or that you know whatever solenoid valves are in the system open. So that way you can evacuate through those valves uh.

It gets really tricky when you're working on ice machines, because ice machines have multiple places. Hot gas valves, solenoid valves check, valves, different things like that. So when you're working on ice machines, you need to lean on the manufacturer, most of the time they're going to tell you to do multi-point, recovery and evacuations, where you get on two three different places: uh and there's ways to hack that too um. You know manitowoc ice machines, you can go in there and you can enable all the relays within the indigo board, and you can turn everything on essentially and evacuate for 15 minutes with everything enabled.

But then it defaults back and turns everything off or you can use solenoid magnets. I've showed those many times in my videos different things like that. So all right, let's see what else, but it's not a dumb question. But what is the proudest moment of my career? The proudest moment of my career whoo, that's a good question.

You know some of these questions. They're really good, but, like i genuinely don't have an answer. What the proudest moment of my career is, i feel like my career is still so young. I mean i've only been in the trade, for i don't know 20 something years: 15, i'm somewhere between 15 and 20 years.

I haven't really done the math um officially and i i feel like there's so much more to my career. So i don't think, there's something that i can say being the proudest moment. Um, let's see uh what else we got in here uh. What would i consider a complete pm on a reaching cooler? Well, basically, it all depends on what the customer wants.

You know i get people emailing me quite often saying hey. What should i do for a pm on this particular system or this particular customer? How much should i quote a pm that kind of stuff? It really depends on what the customer wants. You know i i will typically lay out to the customer. Look how what do you want to do i mean, do you have a budget that you want to work within and then usually, if they give me a budget, then i can say okay.

This is what we can do for that budget. You know, and it's based off a time of materials. For me i don't have any preventative maintenance services really anymore. I used to, but not anymore, where i lose money on.

Okay, all of my preventative maintenance services are basically time and material, so uh. It's, however long it takes me to do a certain task, so the customer will come to me sometimes and say uh. You know for an air conditioning maintenance. They'll say i want the filters changed: the belts, change, the electrical connections tightened and the coils washed.

Okay, then i give them a price for how much i think the time would take for that. As far as a reach and cooler i mean in a perfect world you're going to clean the condenser blow out the drains. Tighten all the electrical connections make sure the door seals are working. You know you're going to spend an hour or two at least doing that per cooler.

You know, if you do multiple coolers in a cooks line. You can probably consolidate some time there, but um yeah. It's just really time and materials based for me. You know, and are you going to use coil cleaners and filter, medias and different things like that, i typically in a preventative maintenance service and not doing any service work on a reach and cooler.

So let's say i go to do a preventative maintenance for a customer and i go there and the reach and has a problem like it's all frozen up. That's not part of my pm service for the customers that i have right now. I haven't quoted any repair time in my pm work. So if i walk up and it's iced up, then i say you need to place a service call for the istep situation.

That's not going to be the part of the pm price. I can do that and then you know we can pm the rest of the equipment, but i'm not doing repairs in my pm service unless the customer said that's what they wanted right. I don't have any all-inclusive kind of stuff or anything like that. Um.

Let me see what else we got going on in here. Is it not safe to change an expansion valve all the evaporator fan motors are running uh john deere fan, i mean it depends. Dude i mean. Sometimes you can get uh, for instance um.

If i'm working on a walk-in cooler - and i don't want to put a solenoid magnet on it, i might leave the evaporator fan motors running and purge nitrogen through the system after i've recovered all the refrigerant and brazen. The expansion valve with the evaporator family running for the most part in most of my situations, i'm not working right next to a fan motor, that's going to chop my hand off, and i don't even think i really have any fan motors that move that fast. That would rip my hands off. I mean big, blower, assemblies and stuff, but evaporator fan blades.

I mean they're gon na they're gon na hurt you, but it's not gon na rip, your arm off or anything like that, the ones that i work on, but but still you have to judge that situation when you're there. So uh. Let's see describe a typical day for one of my texts start time time allowed in the office etc. Are any of them allowed to quote high repairs on jobs? No, my technicians, don't quote repairs.

We quote the repairs in the office. My technicians leave the office in the morning right now, because we're kind of slow everybody meets at the office around 8 a.m and then we dispatch from there they go out to do a service call. As far as my text, they start getting paid the moment that they leave the shop and and head to their first call. They get paid from port to port until or from call to call until the last call of the day.

They do not get paid to drive home um, so my techs, really their responsibility, is to go out to the service. Call look at the equipment figure out. What's go. What's wrong, they'll usually call me and talk to me about the repairs that they recommend um.

You know we don't have them quote anything in the field. They usually call us. We usually do ask them to go ahead. If they know we need parts and stuff to give the manufacturer a call and give us part numbers, but even in the office we order.

The parts for the most part we've realized that with us handling the quotes in the in the office and with us handling the part ordering in the office, it eliminates a lot of mistakes. Okay, it does put more work on us in the office uh i'm out in the field too, so i i do some of the ordering, but for the most part my dad is the person that's in the office and he does the the part ordering and stuff Um, you know and uh quoting and things like that when it comes to big jobs i get in and quote those but my dad will usually quote the little stuff and then, if we're doing, walk-in replacements and exhaust fan replacements and stuff like that, then because i'm The one in the field, so i know what the time it takes to do the big job, so i'm the one usually quoting those so um all right. Let's see what else we got in here, uh do my techs take their vans home? Do they get? Yes? The vans are going home with our service techs right now at this given time. Right now, all my service techs live within about 25 minutes of the shop.

So that's why everybody comes into the shop um. If everybody, you know, if i had texts that were living two and a half hours away, which we don't, we wouldn't do that anyways. But you know i wouldn't make them come into the office every morning, but because everybody lives right around the corner, they all come into the office and, yes, they do take their vans home at the end of the day. So um all right, let's see uh yeah.

They have company cards as far as gas cards and things like that, but supply houses. We have open accounts at the supply houses, they just, they know what they're allowed to purchase and what they aren't allowed to purchase um and then you know we still have to scrutinize. We don't do po systems or anything like that, but we still have to scrutinize supply house tickets and stuff. Sometimes we'll see hey dude.

You picked up this tool this. This is on you. You need to you know, depending on what it is some things we pay for, but majority of the time, if it's thermometers and things like that, that's on the techs you know, but as far as what we pay for as a company. The way we run our business is, we handle all the big stuff, so we pay for the weird specialty tools we pay for recovery machines, vacuum pumps.

The only thing our technicians are required to bring to the job is a manifold gauge, set, uh hand, tools, cordless drill and then, for the most part, we handle everything else from the company's level as far as extension, cords and ropes, and things like that, we take Care of all that so um all right, 99 of the time, you're wrong, the other one percent you're changing filters: okay, uh. What is my opinion on swamp? Coolers leon, simeone, simone uh, i mean i use swamp coolers out here and we're we're in the you know. Southern california, which is partially desert, so we have really dry conditions. I think the humidity level outside is like six percent today, because it's we've got like a dry wind going through so swamp.

Coolers are great out here because it's so dry but uh in places where there's humidity swamp coolers are worthless because they don't do anything but pump humidity into the building. So you got ta be careful about that. Uh swamp coolers, too, can be. Can harbor bacteria in the water and different things like that? You have to be careful about, so you got ta, make sure that you don't have growth and different things like that in the swamp coolers and that they're maintained so that way, they're not pumping nasty bacteria into the air um.

You know humidifying the building and then creating issues with people's lungs, and things like that. You got to be very careful. Why would a split residential system have a solenoid valve by the condenser uh? It really depends on what it's going on, but typically we would put a solenoid valve for oil issues or refrigerant migration issues, but you know some manufacturers, depending on the line set length. If it's got a really long line set, they may have you put a solenoid valve somewhere, so it really depends.

You know. Sometimes engineers will spec certain things. You're capable of going beyond manufacturers recommended installation guidelines. Sometimes so you know, you may have a residential system that has a 200 foot line set and the customer the contractor may have reached out to the manufacturer, and sometimes some manufacturers will allow for certain things to be changed, such as really long line sets.

But they may require certain things like hey. We need to make sure there's oil traps installed or we need to make sure that there's solenoid valves installed to stop refrigerant migration and things like that. So but i don't know it's hard to say all right: uh you can buy tools that supply houses in your company will just deduct 25 from your paycheck each week until it's paid on yeah pro c. You know i've worked places before that have done that deductions, but it can get out of hand.

So you know, of course, i'll work with my guys if, if they need something, if they need a new manifold gauge set and stuff like that, you know sometimes we'll work with them and we'll. Let us let them pay us back different things like that, but the important thing is is that they know they're not supposed to do that stuff without asking so twisted candle company. Thank you so very much. I believe your name is robert.

I think um. Thank you. That was a really awesome super chat. You definitely didn't need to do that, but thanks bud.

Okay, so um my list right here. I already covered that one um, the last two videos that i did this last week. The first one was the beer walk and was too warm, and that was just a little glycol unit where i got really lucky because i happen to have starting components: oem starting components for another job that did not take priority. So i was able to take those starting components that i ordered for that other job and put them on that glycol unit to get their beer system up and running.

Now, when that glycol unit went down, it was actually back in. It was sometime like may or june, or something like that, so it was as we were, coming out of the first lockdown and they were actually starting to open restaurants back up, and so they were really concerned about getting their beer cold again and uh. So we got the starting components changed out on that one and uh yeah we've been problem free since so that was a cool one and then uh. The next video was uh hurry.

My exhaust fan is not working uh. That was a recent one. That one was uh actually recent, actually yeah. That was a couple weeks ago, uh that one we found that the unit had a bad motor starter, okay and uh.

I got a lot of questions on that video first off i knew i was gon na get questions about the sound in the background, so there was a whining sound that almost sounded like a screw chiller running in the background or something no, it was the exhaust Fan those exhaust fans are filthy. I think i even mentioned something in the video and they're so caked with grease that it's actually resonating. I don't know it's a trip because the the the wheels spinning so fast - and i don't know something about the grease - build up where it's at or something it's actually making that high pitch sound. So i did recommend to the customer that uh they get the exhaust fans cleaned, because it's also a fire hazard.

You know they can have a fire up on the building, because it's actually slinging grease all over the roof, because the fans themselves have a good two inches of liquid grease sitting in the bottom of them um. So i definitely told the customer they needed to get that taken care of another question that i got on that video and i mentioned in there that i didn't like that. The the power switch was inside the uh, the um exhaust fan, and you know people were asking me: why didn't i move it outside of the exhaust fan? Well, in that situation, i didn't have the uh the power switch covering stuff to move it outside, plus that whole exhaust fan is round and mounting a flat switch on that round surface. What i would have had to drill and mess up with the structure of the exhaust fan, so i just prefer not to put the switch outside, even though i prefer them out there.

There was really no good place for me to do it and i didn't have a waterproof cover to do so. So you know sometimes on some of those older fans i've put in like disconnect switches, but i prefer just to have a three-phase power switch on there. Rather than a disconnect they're, just rather large so yeah, it just wasn't really convenient for me and and the customer right now they're trying to save as much money as possible, so they don't want to do any more repairs than they have to so. For me to be inconvenienced, because i have to stick my hand in the exhaust fender turn it on, and you know that's not a real priority for the customer right now.

Um, let me see uh what are visible and audible signs of compressor damage. Um i mean you just got to kind of get used to the sounds and stuff. It's not really something i could describe on a a live stream right now. I do want to say if you guys haven't already, if you guys are considering any tool purchases, you can definitely help to support the channel by checking out truetechtools.com.

I have an offer code set up with them. Big picture. One word saves you eight percent, on your order, um. I also have i get a small commission from that too.

So that's why it helps to support the channel, but i can also do affiliate codes. So, basically, if you know what you're going to purchase, this is a hard one though, because like when, i do say this. People flood me with emails and it actually takes me a long time to compile these affiliate codes. But if you know what you're going to order, do me a favor and send me an email and i can generate an affiliate link.

It just gives me a little bit extra uh affiliate commission, basically, so that would definitely help out the channel for sure all right. Uh, oh, i do want to say it is official uh, because i was talking with brian orr over the weekend and i will not be at his training symposium in florida physically, but i will be doing a virtual presentation. Uh. So brian orr with hvacr school is doing a training seminar um, i think the end of february, beginning or just go to his website.

Hvacrschool.Com and there'll be the dates for his training symposium. I should actually pull it up right now, but anyways i'm going to be doing a virtual presentation, so i will not be there physically, but i will be sitting in my office coming up with a presentation and brian had a really cool idea of a presentation, and I'm gon na try to work on it and make it a little bit better and stuff so yeah. I will be doing that um. I was at his uh symposium last year, but because of covet and work schedules and stuff, i'm not able to make it this year, so i'm clicking on events on his website right now, hvacrschool.com march 11th through the 13th.

So i don't know exactly what day i will be doing. Brian is selling uh, i believe he's selling online tickets for that too. So um myself, i think i'm just kind of a uh. You know there's gon na be people much smarter than i teaching at his thing, and i know he's gon na have some sort of an online thing where the stuff can be viewed online so definitely go to hvacrschool.com and support brian.

By signing up for that training symposium, i don't think the online tickets are very much money at all, so definitely check that out. If you guys are interested in that, let me see what else we got in here uh. What do i need as a license to work in my area in the state of california? I do not need um uh you. You only need a contractor's license to run a business as far as a service technician goes.

You do not need any specific license to be a service technician in california. I really do think that we should have some sort of a license, but because i think it could level the playing field, but then again yeah, that's a whole nother thing that could turn corrupt too. So you do have to have an epa certification to handle refrigerants. That's actually a federal rule across the united states, so um.

Let me see what else um. What am i missing in the chat right now right on um? Oh okay, so ernesto hvac, our vloggers uh. He made a change in his career because ernest used to do the similar work to myself doing restaurant work and he said that, as he's gone to doing commercial air conditioning only and he's saying his stress level has dropped tremendously. And i could totally understand that, because the stress level that i deal with but then again i'm an owner too.

So that's a different stress level, but you know being on call and having to fix things 9-1-1. That kind of stuff in refrigeration can be very, very stressful, so good for you, ernesto i'm happy that you're liking it man, that's really awesome so um. If i could give advice to someone starting a company. What is some advice? I would give steve rooker um.

I'm certainly not qualified to give advice for financial or anything like that. Okay, the best advice that i think i would give is to learn. Take some classes on running a business, learn about finances as much as possible. See and again.

This is my opinion. Okay, i am not a a financial advisor or anything like that, but see i would like to do cash based. Okay, my personal preference. Okay.

I realize that there's a lot of people out there that promote leveraging credit to start businesses and things like that. I'm a person that worries - and i can't have debt held over my head - that freaks me out, so my personal advice, if i was talking to myself, would be to uh do the best you can to not leverage your life to start a business. That's my personal! What i would tell to myself, if that makes sense to you? Okay, so i would not recommend taking out huge loans and things like that to to run a business, because what happens if stuff hits the fan, i'm a person that always thinks about the worst case scenario and again, maybe that's why i'm not some giant business? That's growing leaps and bounds and making sales like crazy, because you can certainly see via social media and stuff, like that. There's lots of um prominent people on social media that claim that they're, the doing so great and they're buying trucks every week and they're growing and they're expanding in their acquisitions and buying other companies and just growing and growing and growing, but um.

That scares me to death, but maybe i'm just not the type of person that's made for that kind of work. Okay, i'm the kind of person that likes to feel comfortable in what i do and know that if something happens, i'm not going to be having people banging on my door asking for money. That's that's just me, but again guys. I am not this super guru about businesses and stuff.

Okay, that's just that's what i would tell myself in the future is don't leverage your life, okay, but also understand that you know starting a business can be so stressful right. My my least favorite part about hvac is running this business. My favorite part about air conditioning refrigeration is going and doing service calls. I love working on equipment.

I hate hate running a business just i despise it right um. That's just me, though. Um yeah anyways check out my buddy tersh blisset over at a service emperor service emperor. Is it service business mastery or is it service emperor? I don't know if one of you moderators can can link tertia's channel um.

I'm trying to remember, because i know he made a name change on something i don't know if it's service business mastery still or if service emperor is just his company name, but tersh does uh youtube stuff on uh businesses and how to run businesses, and it's pretty Smart guys, so i check out tersh blisset stuff. Let me see what else we got in here. My experience using field piece job link probes. Is it worth it tate? Absolutely i love the field piece job link probes.

I was just using them today, definitely suggest looking into those if you haven't already phillip. Thank you so very much for that super chat, phillip that is amazing, but holy moly that wow but yeah. I'm dumbfounded right now. Thank you so much for that super chat.

Phillip um, let me see what else we got in here, but yeah the field piece, joblink probes. I love them and measure quick which you can use the fieldpiece joblink probes. If you follow measure quick, jim bergman just came out with the video that he's finally doing multi-stage support and multi-circuit support for refrigeration. I believe it's just about to be released if it's not already so, and the field piece joblink probes, work great with measure quick.

So definitely if you're interested check out uh, truetechtools.com and use my offer code, big picture to save eight percent, and you can pick up those job link probes on there. Um. Let's see what else please explain winter charge you are in from the netherlands, okay, so winter charge all right. Um i've covered this one.

But again i know that so many people struggle with it. So we have what we call a head pressure control valve a head pressure, control valve in the simplest terms, bypasses the refrigerant flow from the condenser and dumps discharge gas directly into the receiver. Okay, by slowing down the flow from the condenser it backs liquid refrigerant up. In the condenser - and it's just like blocking off the condenser with a piece of cardboard, it drives the head pressure up.

Okay, why are we doing this? Why do we need a head pressure control valve? Why do we need to drive the head pressure up? Well, an expansion valve is meant to operate within a certain pressure differential, meaning that there's got to be a certain pressure coming in, and there's got to be a certain pressure going out for that valve to be able to maintain the superheat correctly okay. So, in order to do that, we need to keep a constant condensing temperature, okay and a constant pressure going into that valve within a certain envelope. Basically, okay, so if it gets really really cold outside your, your head pressure and your condensing temperature is going to drop right and get really really low, and the pressure differential on your expansion valve is going to get really really low too, because you're not going to Have high pressure pushing that gas through the expansion valve anymore, so the head pressure control valve is there to maintain that pressure differential across the expansion valve okay? But i said in the beginning, the key thing is to understand when that head pressure, control valve opens and starts bypassing it dumps vapor refrigerant into the receiver. Well, there's a problem because our expansion valve needs a hundred percent liquid going to the expansion valve.

So if we dumped vapor refrigerant into that receiver and vapor refrigerant went to the expansion volvo, then the expansion valve wouldn't work correctly anymore. So we have to have extra refrigerant in the system. Now, there's a term that was made a long time ago called the winter charge and i kind of think we need to change that term, because too many people get confused by that term. Okay winter charge does not imply extra gas that you add to the system for the winter.

No, let's call it the flooded charge. Okay, the flooded charge is the refrigerant that is only used when the head pressure control, valve's bypasses, which is typically in the winter. Okay. So that refrigerant is sitting in that receiver all year, long just waiting to be needed.

Okay, now that extra refrigerant hold on so i've got a receiver right here. Okay, this is the dip tube. This would be going to the expansion valve. This would be coming from the condenser or the compressor, depending on if the head pressure control valve is bypassing right.

So this right here dumps vapor refrigerant in here, but the problem is is that we need to make sure that this dip tube is always pulling liquid refrigerant from the bottom. So if we're dumping vapor refrigerant into here, we need to make sure that we have what we call a liquid seal or refrigerant. That's sitting always below that vapor port right there to make sure that we're always pushing liquid refrigerant down into the system that extra refrigerant sitting in that receiver would be your winter charge. Okay, um feel free to send me an email.

We can talk a little bit more uh. I almost forgot about this um. My buddy ray sent me this package and he asked me if i would open it on the live stream, so i'm going to go ahead and open this right now. This is from my buddy ray, and i really don't know what this is and uh.

Let me see so this is a oh that was really nice ray had this made for a hundred thousand subscribers hold on. So that's really nice of you ray. Thank you very much. He had this made for me that was really really cool.

To celebrate my hundred thousand subscriber mark and uh. I had it sitting on my desk right here and almost forgot to open it as we're going through the stream but ray that was really cool of you bud. Thank you very much. That's from my buddy ray orton all right, um! Let's see what else uh so, hopefully that helps with the winter charge.

Can you get an in-depth video on installation installing and commissioning an economizer if i ever get the opportunity to do it again? I certainly will work on that. Let me close my knife before i cut my hand off uh. Has my father been a technician? Yes, my father was a technician. I learned um pretty much the base of my knowledge from my father growing up working for my father as a kid.

So when i was a little kid, i used to sit on his tool bucket holding his giant mag flashlight. So that way you could see what he was doing and i grew up in the trade. My father taught me everything um and then you know i kind of built from that and expanded my knowledge. But yes, my father was a technician he's not really in the field per se anymore.

He was in the field for a while, but he hasn't been for years. So, let's see what else we got in here, um, stick it on the van yeah. So do i use a hall sensor tool when checking if a valve is active um? No, i've never really used those magnetic tools to see if uh solenoid valves are active and stuff. I've seen people showing them before, but um i've never personally used one uh will i bring my dad to the show and talk about his life experience.

I don't know if my dad is really interested in that. To be honest with you, of course, i'd ask my dad if he wants to come on here, but to be honest with you, i don't think he would be interested in coming on the show, but i would certainly ask him so uh. Let's see um support. Okay cool, so let me get to my list of things to talk about here, um, oh, something that i want to talk about.

We have a lot of changes coming in the trade guys. I have talked about it so many times about all the different flavors of refrigerant. We have out there right, so we have so many different refrigerants that they actually had to eliminate all the refrigerant colors on the cylinders. So if you don't already know this, every single refrigerant cylinder will now be like this monotone beige gray color from this point forward, a brownish grayish color and they will all be the same color and the reason why is because there's so many different refrigerants they literally.