HVACR Videos Q and A livestream originally aired 03/16/20 @ 5:PM (west coast time) where we will discuss my most recent uploads and answer questions from the Chat, YouTube comments, and email’s.
NEW YOUTUBE HVACR TOOLS CHANNEL LINK https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO-nk0rPOkp_tCS5diKpa-Q
Affiliate Links
American Flag hat- https://amzn.to/2QwotNM
Commercial Refrigeration book link https://amzn.to/2YF4jU1
Samsung Tab A https://amzn.to/2IZxSKY
Ottor Box case https://amzn.to/2ZWYIZZ
Fieldpiece JobLink probes https://amzn.to/2XeiKNI
Appion Core removal tool- https://amzn.to/2SvdLIi
JB Schrader torque tool- https://amzn.to/2Hcytrc
Belt tension tool- https://amzn.to/2OJx93n
To support my channel please visit
Support the stream: https://streamlabs.com/hvacrvideos
and or my Patreon page here https://www.patreon.com/Hvacrvideos
For Optimizing my videos I use Tube Buddy
https://www.tubebuddy.com/HVACRVIDEOS
Please consider subscribing to my channel and turning on the notification bell by clicking this link https://goo.gl/H4Nvob
Social Media
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/HVACR-Videos...
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hvacrvideos/
For any inquiries please contact me at hvacrvideos @gmail.com
Mailing Address
HVACR VIDEOS
12523 LIMONITE AVE.
#440 - 184
MIRA LOMA, CA. 91752
Intro Music : Pilots Of Stone by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
Artist: http://audionautix.com/
NEW YOUTUBE HVACR TOOLS CHANNEL LINK https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO-nk0rPOkp_tCS5diKpa-Q
Affiliate Links
American Flag hat- https://amzn.to/2QwotNM
Commercial Refrigeration book link https://amzn.to/2YF4jU1
Samsung Tab A https://amzn.to/2IZxSKY
Ottor Box case https://amzn.to/2ZWYIZZ
Fieldpiece JobLink probes https://amzn.to/2XeiKNI
Appion Core removal tool- https://amzn.to/2SvdLIi
JB Schrader torque tool- https://amzn.to/2Hcytrc
Belt tension tool- https://amzn.to/2OJx93n
To support my channel please visit
Support the stream: https://streamlabs.com/hvacrvideos
and or my Patreon page here https://www.patreon.com/Hvacrvideos
For Optimizing my videos I use Tube Buddy
https://www.tubebuddy.com/HVACRVIDEOS
Please consider subscribing to my channel and turning on the notification bell by clicking this link https://goo.gl/H4Nvob
Social Media
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/HVACR-Videos...
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hvacrvideos/
For any inquiries please contact me at hvacrvideos @gmail.com
Mailing Address
HVACR VIDEOS
12523 LIMONITE AVE.
#440 - 184
MIRA LOMA, CA. 91752
Intro Music : Pilots Of Stone by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
Artist: http://audionautix.com/
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 yo wow. I faded that out a little bit too soon, but that's okay! How are you guys doing this evening? It's kind of a stupid question to ask: hopefully you guys are weathering the storm.
Okay, there's no need to ask how people are doing because we're all going crazy right. We have this crazy, crazy virus going around and it's just causing pandemonium, no matter what you believe. I know there's some people that don't believe it's a thing, some people that do believe. No, this isn't about that.
Okay, regardless what you believe. It's chaos because of everything we are all having to reevaluate things and you know change the way. We live our lives. It's a trip right, I'm not some genius when it comes to all of it.
In no way am i a genius at all, but I'm doing the best that I can with the tools that I have and trying to survive. You know we have some plans in action at work. Oh by the way, if I didn't mention it's a drinking game every time I say um, okay, good luck with that is considered an um so but um you know we're trying to. You know explain to our kids, I have two young daughters and you know we want to be honest with them and not freak them out.
But you know we're just trying to be as honest as possible and explain and share, and just you know reassure them that we're gon na be okay and life's gon na move on it's interesting because us older guys there's guys older than me too. I don't mean sound, like I'm an old person, but I mean there's guys in here that are older than myself too, and certainly you guys remember things from your childhood that I read about in history. Books right - and you know I explained to my kids about things like 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing, and you know things like that that I remember from my childhood that are written in history books and you know this is one of those things that no matter What happens we're going to read about it in a history book or our kids? Kids are gon na read about it, so you know it's crazy. We just do our best to survive, and you know I guess just deal with what whatever we got going on here.
As usual, guys, please, if you guys, have questions or things you want me to talk about, throw them in caps lock in the chat. Okay, I'm sure this is gon na, be a busy stream. I'm sure and there's probably gon na, be a lot of stuff going on so, as usual, I'm gon na start off with an intro real quick for the people that are new, because I know there's some new people inside here. I'm an HVAC are service technician and small business owner here in Southern California, run a small restaurant refrigeration company with just a couple service trucks.
I started making videos for my service technicians a few years ago, never anticipated sharing these videos. They were supposed to be just unlisted videos. The reason why I started making these videos was because I got myself into a position where I lost a bunch of employees. At the same time, and a lot of it was my fault - I made a lot of mistakes in the way that we were running things and handling things and not paying people enough, and we found ourselves in a predicament and we needed to hire multiple people at The same time, I ended up finding several service technicians that were great service technicians, but they just didn't have what I needed them to have. You know I mean they didn't know how I wanted to do things. I have a tad bit of OCD and I'm a little anal and kind of a control freak when I do things so I started making videos when I was on like problematic service calls to kind of show my guys hey. This is, this is how we want to approach this, and after I made about two videos, I decided you know what I'm gon na make these public. I was really nervous about making it public I did, and here we are now it's been a year and a half or two years or something I don't even know how long November of 2017 was.
When I created my channel - and I think my first video has uploaded so whatever that is, but here we are now and I'm just you know, sharing a little bit of knowledge that I have. I don't know everything. Okay, I specialize in restaurant, refrigeration and air conditioning. I don't do any hot side equipment, no fryers or anything, but I just try to make videos that show what it's like for me as a service technician to have to deal with things.
What you know, sometimes you have to make things work. Sometimes you got to deal with, you know problematic customers, and I just try to show that on my videos. Okay, I do these live streams as a way to answer all the questions that I get from the videos, because I get tons and tons of questions. It's actually getting to the point that I can't even respond to them all it's kind of getting kind of crazy, but I appreciate it.
It's awesome so anyways now that we got the intro over okay. I got a have a couple things that I want to talk about and then also I want to get to questions that are in the chat so, like I said, if you guys have questions, throw them in caps, lock, okay, right off the bat. How is this affecting my business? Okay, so right now this was an extremely slow winter for us as it was okay, I live in Southern California. We have a very mild climate, so we don't even I shouldn't even call it a winter, because it's embarrassing for me to say we have winter.
We don't know what cold is here in California, okay, our winter time I mean we might have an extreme low of like 30 degrees here in Southern California, for like 1 hour of one night, but on average our winter time. Temperatures are about 50, something degrees, ish, and you know it's um, so we don't get a lot of no cooling or no heating calls. So this winter, especially, we were very, very slows kind of crazy. So with that being said, coming off the tail end of the winter time or our fake winter right, you know and then this this pandemic happened and it turned into a disaster. So we are extremely slow. I have a lot of construction to do and what I call construction is walking cooler, evaporator, replacements, condensing unit replacements, ice machine installations, package unit replacements - I shouldn't say I have a lot. I probably have about 15 construction jobs, maybe not even 15, maybe 10 10 construction jobs and for the time being cross, my fingers were still a go for those construction jobs. But after that, there's not much going on most of my restaurants, I deal with restaurants only right and so with the government.
You know shutting everything down which I'm not mad at them. For that I mean it is what it is, but with what's happening, they're shutting down restaurants, we're not going to get comfort, cooling calls period; okay, because there's nobody in the restaurant right now, so you know we're gon na get refrigeration calls and that's about it. I've already had to talk to my employees and we let them know today that you know we're gon na do the best that we can to keep them busy, but we can't promise them anything times are tight. I expect that people are gon na see two to three days a week worth of work, but maybe not even eight hours a day I mean we're gon na.
Do everything we can to keep them busy as much as possible, but you know we can only do what we can do. This is an interesting time. I'm not some big giant company that has tons and tons of money saved up to be able to float this. You know if there's any saving grace I work for chain restaurants, but that could be a problem.
On the other side too, I can already tell you that my one of my restaurant chains contacted me today and said no more preventative maintenance. -- is so you know. There's that, and essentially only emergency service calls, I do have a couple service calls lined up for tomorrow, but not a full day's worth of work for anybody, so we're just doing the best that we can. You know and it's it's it's a struggle.
We basically put a spending freeze on everybody. We told everybody at this point forward. You do not spend a penny on a company credit card or a company Charge account without calling the office and asking for permission. You know, because we just we have to control things.
We're gon na we're gon na learn to utilize things that we have in the shop so that we don't have to purchase you know, so you may even see me doing it on a video. You know if I have a 5/8 inch dryer in the shop. I'm probably gon na be putting five-eighths inch dryers. You know where, where it might only need a half-inch, I mean we're gon na utilize, everything that we have the shop stock that we have that you know has just been sitting there. We're gon na try to use it up because we need to conserve. We need to be cautious about our spending and we need to try to you know utilize everything that we have to try to save a dime. Basically, it times are tight, and I know you guys are having to deal with this too we're all going through this at the same time. So as usual guys, my moderator bought stream Labs thing is posted in there right now.
If you guys have questions that I don't get to answer, send me an email to HVAC our videos at gmail.com. Okay, also there's going to be a movie quote popping up and there's gon na, be a song quote popping up too so just just kind of play around in the chat so see. If you guys can guess what it is, I'm seeing a lot of things passing by in the chat. If I don't answer your questions feel free to throw them in again.
Okay, so am I gon na be compensating service texts? We're gon na do our best, but I don't have the money to give them eight hours a day. No, I can't just pay service text for that. Obviously, if there's any government bills that come up, that you know mandate that we have to do something then we're gon na. Do everything that we can.
You know to make sure that our guys are taken care of, but I mean they're basically getting paid for what they work and that's it. That's all we can do we're a small business. I mean you know we're not making crazy crazy money. We don't have crazy, crazy money in the bank.
Don't get me wrong, you know, but I mean we can only do what we can do. So let me see what else we got going on here. What is that set up behind my head? So behind my head right now is a trainer board. There's a piece of plywood and I actually made that for my service technicians many years ago, and I just hung it in my office because we haven't used it in a while.
But it is a smoke detector. Trainer board so smoke detector or duck detector for our tea. You package units or split systems in the commercial setting oftentimes over 2,000 CFM's or five yeah 2,000 CFM's. Typically, they want you to have a duck detector to sense smoke and the whole point of having a duck detector.
Is that way, if it's, if it senses smoke and the ductwork, it wants to shut off any motors that move air within the ductwork and potentially bring fresh air into the building? The whole point of shutting down the art to use or the packaged units or the air conditioning units is to ELA or the make-up. Air units is to eliminate any fuel for a potential fire that might be within the building or sometimes you could just have a burnt motor or a motor. That's going bad and it's smoking or something like that and they'll shut them down. So it's essentially a smoke detector like you have in your house, but it has a bunch of relays and controls on it. So I set up a trainer board so that we can go through the setting up and the wiring and the testing of said. You know duck detectors to try to help guys, so it's things like that train that got me started doing these videos, like III, would be in my office thinking man. You know I finally figured out these duck detectors and then I'm like. I want to show this to all of our employees and I decided to set up a trainer and that's kind of the whole same reason.
Why I make these videos too? Is you know once I figure something out cuz? I struggle with things just like everybody else. So once I figure something out, I try to you know share it with everybody that I can, because the way that I see it is is I'm not the smartest person in the world and I make mistakes all day long, I'm not a genius whatsoever. So when I do figure something out and when I do understand something, I try to share that with everybody. So that way, maybe just maybe there's at least one or two people out there.
That might learn something from a video that I put out and it might help them to not make the same mistakes that I make. There's something about my videos that when I, when I say hey, don't do this. For this reason, it's usually because I've made that mistake as stupid as they sound. Sometimes I may tell you, don't you know, forget to turn this on or don't forget to leave a you know whatever it's, because I've made most of those mistakes, and I try to share that with everybody.
Okay, so that way, maybe you won't make the same mistakes that I did all right. Let me see: okay, I'm just seeing a few things in here. So again, I'm looking for caps lock to be able to answer or address anything. Okay, okay, I'm seeing yeah.
So great Brett from Brisbane says now is a great time to add training upgrades to my staff when in the downtime - and I actually have that on my list of things to talk about so we have downtime right now right. The entire world is kind of shutting down in one way or another. We have downtime, we have resources at our fingertips, we have the Internet, we have YouTube, we have all kinds of stuff get as much training as you guys can make use of this horrible time and research, research, research, okay, one of the biggest places that I could Stress that you guys go check out is spoil ENCOM. Okay, spoilin has a lot of resources on their website.
It's simply spoilin, calm, okay and there's all kinds of training information on there. Do it check it out. Okay, check out HVAC school with Brian or okay. He's a buddy of mine and they have he has so much great information on his website.
He has YouTube videos, he does a blog, he does podcasts. Brian is a great resource. Lots of training information, our SES org, is another great training resource and then there's tons of people on YouTube, sharing their knowledge to be cautious about YouTube. The same thing with me: don't just trust something that I say in a video. You got to vet that information. Okay same thing with everybody else: there's a lot of good people on YouTube, but there's also a few people that are a little bit questionable. Whether or not they're, sharing good information so be very cautious about the people that you you, the information you get from YouTube. Be very, very cautious about it.
Okay and again, I urge you guys if I say something to my video: don't take it as word. You need to fact check it yourself: okay, cuz, I'm not the smartest guy in the world. I make mistakes all the time with that being said, I'm always willing to learn from other people. So if you see something that I did in one of my videos and you think I could have done it better if you see something that a mistake that I made call me out on it, don't be a dick about it.
But call me out. Send me an email, hvac. Our videos at gmail.com leave me a comment in youtube: whatever I'm, okay with criticism, I'm okay with feedback. Okay, if you think I did something wrong.
Tell me okay, I I'm always looking for feedback, because I want to grow every single day of us as a service technician. Okay, all right! I'm gon na get to the chat in a minute, but I'm gon na go ahead and talk a little bit more. All right about my, but the topics that I have here so we're gon na go back and I don't want to take this whole stream with the whole corona or the I can't, even think of a proper name for it, but the whole virus. That's going around the cove in 19 virus.
There you go yeah, that's what it is Cove at 19 anyways so, but something I wanted to say. Okay, I am NOT an expert in parenting, I'm probably the worst parent out there, okay, but the one thing I am doing is I'm trying to share information with my pet, my kids. Okay, again, I have a 10 year old and a 13 year old and I try to be as honest as possible with them. Okay, try to share the little bit of stuff that dunno.
I try to calm some fears because you know my thirteen-year-old might come to me saying that hey you know. I heard this on the Internet. You know I heard that Donald Trump did this or you know whoever did that or China did this whatever, and I try to calm her nerves and and teach her use this as a teaching moment. Okay, so just because you hear a rumor doesn't mean that it's true, let's fact check it.
Let's look for multiple sources, that kind of stuff, so I'm trying to do that. I'm trying not to freak out myself, okay, not so much, I'm not so concerned again. Maybe I'm naive, but I'm not so concerned about getting sick, but what I'm concerned about is the repercussions of all of this business food money, all that it's scary right, so everything is scary, trying to relax with it. Okay, as far like I already started talking about in the beginning of the stream, was you know just explaining to our employees we're doing the best we can talking with our customers communicating okay. This is a great time where big-picture Diagnostics are gon na come into play, but at the same time we need to be open. So you know I always look at the big picture. I always go to my customer with hey. This is the problem, but you know this could be wrong or this is a problem.
There's multiple problems or you know I, but I let them know okay, I can get it running by changing this part. We still have other problems, but I can get it running by changing this part. So I'm very open and upfront with my customer, because I know that times are tight, so I'm not gon na try to sell them everything in the world, but I'm gon na be upfront and honest with them. Still to this day, I'm gon na give them all the information and let them make the decision.
So if I walk up to a packaged unit on the roof air conditioner - and you know it has a bad condenser fan motor, I'm gon na say it has a bad condenser fan motor. But I won't know if there's any other problems until we evaluate it, and you know we're just gon na give them all that information and I'm trying to be as fair, 7. 1. 6 appliance guy.
Thank you very much for that super chat. Honestly, I'm kind of a little bit. I really appreciate that I probably should have turned the super chats off. Okay, please guys don't okay, seven one, six appliance guy! That is awesome, but please no more super chats guys for real, I'm dead, serious! Okay! Everybody needs to hold on to the little bit of cash that they have.
Please don't! Okay, if I, if I knew how to do it, really quick I'd turn them off. Okay. So please keep that to yourself. I I don't, need you guys as money right now.
You know later on down the line when things get better sure, but leave it to yourselves, okay, but seven, one six appliance guy. That was very awesome. Thank you very much and I'm sorry. I didn't turn those off already anyways.
If we go into a recession, how does that affect HVAC service technicians? Well, it just depends on what kind of work you're doing. Okay, most people, in my opinion, I'm not an expert when it comes to the economy, but most people, in my opinion, are not gon na spend cash to change all their ductwork and you know, add a home generator and you know all this different stuff on their Systems when they're in a recession, they're gon na fix, what's broken and that's probably it okay, you're, probably gon na get a lot more repairs heating into a recession heating into these down times. It's really gon na separate the technicians from the salesman for sure, because if you're just a Salesman, you don't know how to fix something. You're gon na have a hard time because nobody wants to buy an entire replacement right now.
Everybody just wants to do the best. They can to get their equipment running so that way they can weather the storm. So this is really gon na separate the service text from the salesman for sure, okay, something that I want to address right now, I'm going to talk about it is. There is a lot of information and what I consider to be miss information out there right now about ways to solve this. This virus, okay, adding on all kinds of funky air, cleaner things and - and I I am NOT an air indoor air quality person - I do not have facts to back anything. Okay, I'm not saying that! There's one product, that's worse than the other, I'm just saying I don't really buy into all these UV lights and all these different things. That's my personal preference again. I have no facts to back any of that up.
Okay, I'm not saying that none of them are good. I'm just saying that now you're you, you can tell the difference between a service tech and you can tell the difference between a salesman, because the salesman sees this. This downtime as a time to sell all kinds of indoor air quality products. Okay, I'm sorry but shame on you if you're trying to sell people something they don't need now, if you have facts to back up that this particular product works.
Well, Nate dude for real man. Thank you, but please don't. If you have facts to back up. You know that this solves this problem, then so be it.
But I'm telling you right now: there's no air purifier or anything out there right now that we know for sure 100 % will kill this virus. Okay, there's we can make educated guesses. We can assume that you know you know. Maybe it will help, but there's nothing out there right now that we know for sure we'll kill it okay, so I understand that sometimes customers just want anything and then with that being said, there's nothing wrong with that.
If your customers calling you saying I want whatever indoor air quality you have, then you know they're, basically begging you to sell them something you got to do what you got to do. But again I don't mean to attack anybody, and I probably went on a whole different thing that I probably shouldn't have gone down. Okay, but one thing I am gon na say is: there is actually a a webinar coming up this Friday and Nate Adams from the he's, the house whisperer, okay and he is gon na - be doing a webinar with retro tech and they're gon na be talking about. I think the topic of their the title of their webinar is snake oils.
What's what's real? What's not - and I think again I don't know for sure, but I have a feeling they're gon na kind of go down the path that I kind of believe in and that's proper air filtration and controlling humidity. I have a feeling, that's where they're going with this webinar again, I'm kind of going out on a limb by plugging this for them, but I'm pretty sure that this is a legit thing, so I'm gon na plug it right now, I'm gon na go ahead and Paste this in here you guys definitely check it out, it'll be come, I think it's Friday or something. I think it's in a couple days. Definitely, okay, all right again, I don't mean to talk crap on anybody. That's trying to sell anybody! Anything I'm not trying to tell you guys how to do your business, I'm just I probably shouldn't even gone down that path, but I just personally don't believe in all the the funky things that you add to your systems. In my own mind, I just think good air, filtration fixing, your air leakages is a good way to go. In my opinion, okay, I will say that there's a lot of products out there that people swear up and down are the greatest things and that's great. Maybe they are, but I would love to see the science behind it, see third-party reviews behind a lot of these products to know that they're actually gon na solve this.
Now it's one thing: if you go to the customer again, this is me justifying my going down a deep dark hole that I'm trying to dig myself out of it's one thing. If the customer comes to you and says I want something: that's gon na kill this virus and you say I have nothing. That's gon na kill it, but this thing kills these other viruses, so maybe it'll work as long as they understand 100 %. That you know there's no guarantee.
You know, I guess I'm okay with that, but anyways I'm gon na go ahead and stop talking about this, because I'm probably going down a horrible thing. Now that I brought it up. What's my opinion of air purifiers, UV lights, etc? Viral videos, I'm not a fan of them, I'm I'm air, I'm a fan of proper air filtration, I'm not a fan of chemicals and different things. I mean UV lights.
They do something again, I'm not a genius when it comes to indoor air quality, so I posted a link, definitely check that webinar out they'll, probably talk to you a little bit more before I go down something that I'm not qualified to talk about. So how long does it take for me to feel comfortable in the commercial field murky to feel comfortable in the commercial field? Probably took me a good solid. Ten years before, I felt confident in what I was doing and how how I was handling myself. It's always good to be a little unsure, even to this day, I'm humbled by running into other service techs or even with my youtube videos.
People correct me like hey you did that wrong. Oh geez, you know, and then we kind of talk about it and we learn so it's going to take a while to get comfortable and to be very to become a quality service tech for sure all right. Let me see. Um yeah have some more apple juice, especially how there you go right on for sure what about power vented exhaust on economizer packaged units for rtu units, so power vincit exhausts as in air exchanges.
The whole point of a power vented exhausts okay. So, first off, let's talk about an economize or an economizer is the device that we put on an air conditioning system or a chilled water system that uses free cooling and what that means is. We can potentially shut off mechanical cooling that uses electricity and we can use free cooling, whether it be outside air groundwater, a groundwater like geothermal loop, I'm going down a path, I don't know anything about the geothermal stuff. So I'm running my mouth at this point, but let's just talk about an economizer on a package unit, okay, air, to air package unit. So we have a set of dampers that opens up and it brings fresh air into the building. It turns off a compressor or might go in tandem with the compressor, and essentially it saves energy right. Well then, we have a powered exhaust fan because when you bring outside air into the building, you have a problem in that you need to bring some of the air out of the building too, because if you over pressurize a building, it becomes too positive and it'll Blow the doors open, it'll cause problems, so we'll use a powered exhaust fan too. That's set up on the side of the economizer and typically it'll be set up and staged correctly that for every you know inch that the damper opens the outdoor air or the powered exhaust fan will move so much air out.
So theoretically it should balance itself out. So I don't know if you were asking about how they work Sean or if you were asking about using them for indoor air quality dad, I don't know so put some more information down in the the chat there Sean. Let me see what else: when will videos be coming to the tools channel, pro-c, great segue, I'm sure those will be coming a lot sooner now, because I'm gon na be a lot slower at work. So you have to understand something, and I know a lot of people been asking me about the tools channel.
First off. You know I've kind of a schedule that I post on my videos channel, and I do typically two videos a week, usually Thursday and and Sunday is usually what I do. My videos and those ones are easy because I don't really go out and plan on making a video. I just go.
Do service calls and I shoot what I'm working on and it's super easy. So the tools thing I decided to do a tools channel and it's come to be a little bit more difficult because I actually have to plan out the videos. But I've already got some footage that I've been filming for a while I've kind of gotten a backlog of different footage. I have a bunch of different tools that I've been working with and those will be coming a lot shorter sooner now that we've got some down time and we'll definitely get on that soon.
Let me see what else air exchange okay yeah, what is short, cycling short cycling, Perry. Well, we need some context, but in general, if you have a compressor, a basic dictionary definition would be if a compressor is turning on and off too much. Okay, it's short cycling. It could be because, because a compressor on it, let's just say to make this super easy on an air conditioning unit - it's meant to run for so much time and if it turns on and off on and off on and off, we would call that short cycling, Meaning that the cycle is short typically, you want to run time on a compressor to be 5 minutes whatever. It is right, just any number, and if we cut that in half, we would call that a short cycle, so things that can cause short cycling in an air conditioning unit is potentially that it's low on refrigerant, the chemical inside of it that heat it transfers. The heat it could be have a dirty, condensed or different things like that can cause it to short cycle. Okay. Hopefully, that makes a little bit of sense.
Okay, why does it seem like every economizer in my videos, is disabled or bypassed and not repaired? That's a great question so, to be honest with you most restaurants out there don't care about. Economizers economizers are typically installed on their units because the salesman at the factory sold it to them. And/Or, the city required them to have it to be able to pass inspection for the permit. After the fact, most restaurants don't want to fix economizers because they typically don't see the return on investment.
Economizers typically cost them way too much money and the the energy savings does not basically equate to it being. You know smart to fix them, so a lot of restaurants don't want to fix them. So when you submit quotes I'd, say probably like 95 % of the restaurants out there. If you give them a quote for an economizer, they're, gon na say ain't: no, they don't want to fix it.
So, of course, I would love to sell the restaurants economizers all day long, but they'd never approve economizer repairs, ok, so Sean Mack for indoor air quality over a certain occupants that you was wondering so yeah powered exhaust fans are great for air exchanges, because you're bringing In fresh air, you got to get the out the old air out of the building, so ya powered exhaust fans are a great thing, for you know, moving air and buildings and they actually are supposed to be there per code to help move the air. But again most restaurants don't want to fix them. So when, when the economizer fails, they just have you bypass it open it manually and leave it be. You know it's not really my thing to call the city and say they're not fixing their economizers.
You know that's kind of a problem, so all right yeah definitely we'll get to the thermal imaging tool thing for sure. Ok, so how's my business affected by corona pandemic at the moment at the moment, everybody's getting short hours today was the first day with the whole shutdowns and stuff. We ran a few calls. We did to exhaust fan installations today and then an exhaust fan service call and then, after that I think everybody went home.
So I think everybody probably got like four hours today and that's about it tomorrow. I think I have work for all, but one technician tomorrow. So yeah I mean it just depends if I don't have work for them. Actually, no, I I have work. I think two technicians are gon na be off tomorrow, because I don't have work for them, so it just depends see the installations and this the construction work. That I have to do is like you: can only do it so many days a week because of deliveries and all kinds of crap like that. So let me see what else all right, I'm gon na go, get to my list of things to talk about. So the two videos that I released this last week, I had a beer as pouring warm out of the taps, and that was a glycol unit that had a failed, circulator pump.
Okay, I made some assumptions and I kind of skipped a few steps and started going down the path of this compressors not running, and why is it not running and then after I started to look into the compressor? I realized that the glycol was actually at temperature and then it made me realize that the unit had a bad circulator pump. So I went ahead and ordered a new pump came back the next morning and got the glycol unit back up and running and then the biggest thing that I show in that video and if you guys can take anything from that. Video is to pick up after yourselves and pick up after other people, because it seems like every time I go into a glycol room, there's at least one pump in there there's. You know insulation trash towels, all that crap towels, I'm okay, with leaving up in a glycol room, because if you guys have ever done glycol work, you know that you need towels around you, sometimes in a pinch, because something gets messed up.
So towels I'm good with, but it's all the trash so always try to clean up after myself. So that was that video and then the other video that I had was a delfield unit that was freezing the food. So I wanted to talk about this one because you know I work on a lot of delfield refrigerators actually and a lot of them. I don't put in the videos because it just seems like it's the same thing all the time, okay, but it's very important to understand that, even though some of these calls are repetitive - and sometimes you can predict, what's gon na be wrong before you even get there, You still have to approach them, assuming that you know starting from scratch.
Basically, so sometimes it's easy to let your assumptions get ahead of you and then you start skipping steps, it's very important to step back and think about it before you really start going down a path that you shouldn't, because it's really easy to start chasing something down. A path and then realizing, oh, my gosh, it was so simple staring at me in the face kind of like with my glycol thing. I started to you know, chase something down thinking the compressor wasn't working because it was shut off when in fact it just had a bad pump. Okay, so with the delfield one, you know it was some bad sensors and it's very common that the sensors fail on those things. They keep me busy all the time with those sensors. It's it's / common, but you know it. It's easy to go down that path, but you just need to step back and think about it. Okay, so, and that one I actually called technical support, because the unit was under warranty and I went ahead and said hey.
This is what I'm running into you. You know, and in that situation we actually had a failed defrost sensor that wasn't allowing the unit's go into defrost and I asked the service tech. I said so you really just want to change one service probe or one. You know defrost probe and then he said you know what now, let's change them, both evaporator and air probe, which is one of the smart things, because in all honesty, in my opinion I would have changed the temperature controller too, but because it was under warranty, I Had to do what they said, so we went ahead and put two new probes on that thing and you know ran them back up to the front.
I like to try to show you guys as much as I can to try to help you. You know, like the routing of the probes, you can't just tug on them that kind of stuff, because my videos are made for service technicians and with that I'm gon na segue into something else that I have on my list right here. So I had a question and no offense if you are watching, because I did email you a link to have you come check this out, but I'm gon na explain something that I'm gon na try to be as polite as possible. Okay, so I had a question where someone specifically asked me if I can make a video to show how to replace a mechanical temperature controller with a digital temperature controller and to show all the wiring okay, and he even went as far as to ask to say.
I'm using this kind of mechanical control can you show me how to bypass it and put in a, I think you said a Ron Code, digital controller or something like that, all right? No, I can't and I'm sorry, but my videos are made for service technicians. They are not made for end-users, they are not made for restaurant owners, they are not made for homeowners. Now I will say that I realize that some people can watch my videos and put together the pieces, but I purposely leave a lot of stuff out of my videos because I do not want to be responsible for taking someone's job and what I mean by. That is, I'm a service business owner.
Okay, I don't want to put videos out on the YouTube and become a DIY channel. That is not what I'm about. I purposely leave a lot of information out of my videos, all right and I realize there's some people like I'd, started, saying: there's some people that are gon na be able to figure it out. Well, those people were already mechanically inclined and we're gon na figure.
It out already, but I don't show people exactly how to wire things. Okay, because I feel that you are a service tech and you should be able to read a schematic. So no offense meant to any of you guys that are watching this. But I am NOT a DIY Channel and I cannot tell you how to fix your equipment. I have absolutely no problem helping you guys. If you guys email me and say hey my service company sent me this quote, you know it seems really high. What do you think, I'm gon na answer you honestly? Okay, now, I'm not gon na. Tell you how much it costs the service company for the equipment, but I'm gon na say you know what that seems like a fair price, but you have to understand something that I'm Mark equiptment up to.
So i'm gon na be pretty pretty generous. When i say what's fair and what's not fair because I realized different parts of the country, there's different markups, I realized that on the residential side, you know you, you have a lot of money built into so just because it says you know it's gon na cost. Six hundred dollars to change a capacitor. Well, there's a lot to that.
Okay, so I'm not a DIY Channel. Nor will I ever be a DIY Channel, so I apologize if I offend any of you guys, but it is what it is. So, alright, let me see what I have. I ever tried brazing glycol lines.
You have to pro press the fittings for boilers and chillers. No, William Hunt. I've never tried to braise them, but I imagine that if I did, it would be a nightmare trying to braise a glycol line because of the the the remnants of the. I can't think straight right now, but because of the crap, that's left in the lines could be very, very difficult, so pro press would probably be your best bet for sure.
Have I ever thought about adding a disclaimer at the beginning of each video Brad yeah? I have thought about that. It's one of those things, I'm actually you guys I'm finally having to like go legit and make like an official business and all this crap out of this, and it's so ridiculous. Just to share some videos on YouTube. It seems so silly that I have to add disclaimers and all that stuff, but I do and that's life that's how it works.
So, yes, I am gon na start doing that all right. Let me see what I'm missing here. So has anybody guess the movie quote or the music quote: there's a movie quote in a music quote: that's gon na pop up and I'm curious. If that has popped up yet I haven't seen anything yet: oh yeah yeah, there's there's the movie.
So I'm curious. If anybody has gotten that yet post it in here, if anybody has seen anything or has guessed, the movie of the song quote curious: try to put it in caps lock. So that way, I can see it alright. Why is our two 90s, so dangerous Perry R to 90 is dangerous because it is a flammable refrigerant.
All right, let me see what else um I'm gon na go to my list of stuff. Someone had asked me a question about why I do not use a GoPro mounted on my head. It's really simple, because I can't watch videos where people have GoPros mounted to their heads there's nothing wrong with the videos, but I get motion sickness and I get sick. If someone has a GoPro mounted or their head, so therefore I don't film with a GoPro mounted to my head, because you know I just I have to be able to edit my videos and I would get sick trying to edit something like that. Yeah. The movie has stepbrothers for sure, so that is correct. Now, I'm curious, if, if you guys can get the song quote now the song quote: there's some hints in there. Okay, I I listen to all kinds of music from you know.
60S. All the way up to now, so the song quote, is a 70s rock band or soft rock band. So, let's see if anybody can get it I'd like to know the band name and the song in alright. Let me see what else we got in here.
Alright, I'm gon na go and go to my list here. I already said it before, but there's gon na be an interesting webinar. They think you guys should definitely check out I'm gon na post a link in here right now to be Nate Adams. The house Whisperer is going to be doing a webinar with retro tech, about indoor air quality and methods, and talking about some of the snake oils out there so definitely check it out guys all right.
What are training certifications, what I look for an employee so as far as training certifications, I'm looking for anything that they have gone out on a limb and taken on their own. So first off we're looking for the attitude of an employee. We're looking for you know, are they mechanically inclined and then, if they've done training, any training is better than no training. I will argue and agree with you that some of the training out there, for instance, Nate and different ones like that, like I'm Nate certified.
But it is kind of silly how much I have to pay every single year to maintain that certification and if I don't get all my training, I have to pay again it's kind of take the test again and pay a bunch again, it's kind of silly, but I do appreciate the fact if someone is Nate certified or s, Co, certified or RSC SCM certified or whatever, because it just means that they've made a commitment to continue their education, so any certification is better than no certification. Let's see okay right on all right! Last week I mentioned, I still maintain an r22 system. Do I still see our forty, our forty I've never even heard of our forty, but I i I don't. I think I'm kind, some of that might be getting lost in translation, said repost that and give me some context to that, one.
If idak. If I can't answer your question now, send me an email, the HVAC, our videos, a gmail.com, okay. Alright, let's see what else? Hey my buddy Adams in here Adam, is, with the hvac overtime, show, there's a link posting in the the moderator bot is posting a link to the overtime channel. If you guys are interested, definitely check it out Adam you can post a link to the overtime show. Go for it, dude you're, a mod. Alright, let's see what else? No, it's not air supply. Did it already post the song? No, it's definitely not air supply, though alright. Alright, I'm gon na go and get to my list of things to talk about.
Oh they're, just something silly guys. You know when I'm in my videos, I come up with the weirdest names for crap, okay, there's two very common names that I use. If I don't know the name of something the most common is chingus. Okay, jingis, I think, is derived from the word chingadera.
It's a Spanish word or Mexican word whatever you want to call it, but I say chingus all the time and when I, when I say like all that stupid chingus, I can't find it it's because I can't think of the name. Okay, the other one is Jesus. Clip a Jesus clip is any kind of a clip like, for instance, if you've ever put a receiver in the back of your truck alright and you put a hitch pin in it. I call the clip that holds the hitch pin of Jesus clip.
Okay, any kind of a clip a cotter pin is a Jesus clip anything like that. Okay, so someone had just joked about. You know the silly name that I used a Jesus clip and I think the name Jesus clip. I learned that from my dad, but I think it's one of those things where and someone had said in the comment too and I think there's in this - it's because you usually say a few expletives when you take the clip out and it goes flying okay.
So they die think they got the name. Jesus clip from the whole expletives that you might have said after you lose that set clip alright yeah. It is hollow notes. Sarah smile for sure that is the the song for sure.
So I I'm a I'm a seventies music person for sure I listen to everything, but I've been on a 70s kick lately guys as corny as it is before this live stream. I get all amped up before a live stream and I needed to calm down. I listened to some hall and oates, or some yacht rock and that'll calm. You down for sure, go.
Listen to Sara smile after this stream is over it'll calm you down, it's really relaxing. Definitely some hollow notes is great. All right, where's, the post for the song. It's it's just popping up from the moderator bot, let's see what else Anthony dude! Thank you very much.
Please guys. I'm say this again. I don't know how to turn it off right now, but no more super chats! Okay, please not! Now is not the time for super chats keep that stuff to yourself. I appreciate it.
That's awesome Anthony, but please keep those to yourself right now, guys, okay, because you guys need to hang on to your cash. What did I do when I first started in HVAC? So, okay Anthony, I grew up in the trade working for my father, so I grew up from a young kid sitting on his bucket holding his flashlight, not straight whatsoever. Moving on up okay after junior high school, I worked with my dad and I never really wanted to do this. I actually hated this trade. I remember telling my dad I'm never gon na do this. This is horrible! Then, after high school or during Highschool, I got involved in Auto Collision. Okay, we had an auto body class in our high school as an ROP class, and I started working out a body shop for a year and a half during high school and then a half a year after high school and then September of to know April of 2002 was when I quit the auto body shop and came to work for my dad full time, legit and started going to school and everything. So I started coming up as just a normal service technician working my way up my dad and I have since partnered.
We run the company together now my dad doesn't work anymore. He just comes in the office a couple days a week and helps me out but yeah. So that's where I started in the trade. Let me see.
Jesus clip is a real thing. All right exactly! That's! That's exactly so how to talk to a customer when issues are found. Prior tech missed so great question there, Jason so yeah, okay, so a lot of times. I come up to a call where I had a prior service tech go out to that call.
One of my guys - and he missed something and I'll go behind him, because this is the second call on the same thing and it's like dude. How did you miss this? So when I run into that stuff, I be as honest as possible. Now, if I'm coming behind another service company, I don't like to throw people under the bus because it just makes me look bad now. There are certain things that you have to say.
I have to be honest with my customer, so I'm just gon na be upfront and say: hey, you know what the unit has a bad compressor and then my customer says, but I just had you know this. Other service company changed the compressor and I said well, you know I don't know why, but you know III can't really comment on why we have to change it again, but I you know this is what happened. This is why it failed. I I don't like to throw people under the bus, though okay, so I'm just very upfront and honest with them.
If it's my own company, I typically like to know ahead of time. If I'm going back on a call back, I like to know hey my service tech was here and he missed this. So that way I can word things correctly. Of course, I'm always gon na be honest, okay and upfront and fair.
If it's a call back, I'm not gon na charge the customer for something that my service tech didn't do, but there's also an extent to that too. Just because my service tech didn't catch, the the evaporator was dirty doesn't mean that I should give them everything for free. It just means that maybe the getting troubleshooting and the drive time to the call should be taken care of, but the point at which I have to clean the evaporator and finish diagnosing. You know, obviously, I'm gon na evaluate every single situation depending on how long my service tech was there. But honesty is the best just be upfront and honest without throwing people under the bus. That's the best thing you can do, even if the other person sucked so bad just hold your tongue bite it and don't throw people under the bus. That's the best advice I can give to anybody. Just just be a normal person, give them the facts and let the customer come up to make an educated decision to say you know what that other service company said.
They did the same thing and now you're finding the same thing wrong. Hey. I don't know what to tell you: this is what's wrong and let them make those decisions on whether or not the other company messed it up or whether or not you're lying to them. Just give them facts, though, all right, let me see what I'm missing here.
Halla note: Sarah smile, that's right! It is that song all right gon na go to my list, so someone had asked me about common parts for walking coolers and walk-in freezer repairs. So common parts - and this was a - I think he said he was starting - a service business and he just kind of wanted to know what parts he should stock. I really argue that you might should art. You should already kind of know what parts you should stock, because, most of the time, if you're starting a service business, you should already have been a service technician and knowing what you're servicing but to each their own.
Maybe you're an amazing person and you're super mechanically inclined and you're starting your business from day one and you're kind of figure it out. Okay. But for me the basic repair parts that I'm gon na have for walk-in, coolers and walk-in freezers is I'm gon na. Have my spoilin B Q kit? Alright, it's an expansion valve kit that I can make pretty much any expansion valve for a walk-in cooler with okay.
It has multiple refrigerants multiple power heads all that different stuff. The next thing I'm gon na have is a good stockpile of the contactors that I'm gon na use, typically for walk-in freezers in my area is gon na, be a 208 three-phase contactor. Very rarely are you're gon na run into 24 volt stuff, usually only if you're dealing with beacon systems or qrc systems, I'm gon na have thermostats have a couple different types: I'm usually going to have a key to therm temp, less defrost thermostat, then I'm gon na Have a couple mechanical stats that a 19 B BC coil bulb and then a 1924 C. I don't know anyways removal.
I'm gon na have a couple. Evaporator fan motors couple, condenser fan motors. What else defrost clocks? That's a big one? Gon na have mechanical and electromechanical. So we're gon na have a grassland defrost clock and we're gon na have a Paragon defrost clock, typically the DTA v40 in the 81 45 20, because I deal with a lot of 208 volt systems and then other than that.
You have got to be one of the best Technician / Tech support/ Boss, I'll envy the technician that works for you, had a few asshole I've work for. Keep up the good work J.B.T From Brisbane Oz
My school (SJVC Hesperia) is closed down until at least April 16th. We still do stuff online, but still… not quite the same. And thank god for videos like yours. Scary times right now indeed, but I'm trying to remain optimistic that this whole thing will blow over somewhat soon. Service area Nepean??
✌👍good job
Thanks on all this links you post!! Soo much info
One of the "perks" for me working in public safety is that even if COVID-19 gets waaay worse in our area, I'm still going to be working. Heck, if I don't get sick with it I'll be making even more money from all the overtime.
There is a lot of scientific data on UV light, basically you need a lot more than any of us have to sterilise, but in massive amounts UV will work, would also melt our heads clean off in that concentration too lol
Almost all of my work is split between child daycare centres and old age nursing homes and retirement villages, I'm probably killing half of my customers and they are demanding I sterilise their coils and filters… I tell to oldies they need to go out for the day, but most of them don't seem to care
I like your videos but I wish you hadn't told me you were a fan of Hall and Oates!
Hey Chris you have an angle wand sprayer you use to clean coils. who the mfg. would like to purchase one Are you in Barrhaven ?
Thanks
We learning everyday
Sometimes harder.
Sir May i have the grainger number for that brush you used on the manitowoc water feed tube the number went way to fast . love your stuff
thank you
Chris again I just want to thank you on your show an how you talk the sensible truth about the situation going on , I have been through quite few economical years in this trade its going to hard ! ! BE safe an hope to see a BRIGHTER HORIZON