HVACR Videos Q and A livestream originally aired 03/29/2021 @ 5:PM (west coast time) where we will discuss my most recent uploads and answer questions from the Chat, YouTube comments, and email’s.
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Hmm, let's see if this thing comes back on, i don't know what happened here. We lost the stream for some reason. So let me make sure that it's coming back on here and then i'll continue my conversation that was really random. It just literally stopped next hold on bear with me.

I'm just double checking to see if we are actually going live. What the heck is going on here, the live stream just died. Let's see, make sure that we are actually live. That is really bizarre.

Huh. I don't know if you guys are hearing me right now, but it's not showing live on my side, so i just want to make sure before i keep on rambling, that i can see the confirmation on my side. Okay, all right yeah that was random. I don't know what happened there, it just all of a sudden went dead, but here we are so um all right.

Oh did it okay, so it started back up on the same stream too. Oh that's good to know. I don't know how i managed to do that, but that's cool. I managed to get it to start back up on the same stream, so that's a plus so anyways with the online suppliers um.

You know i'm starting to notice that it's becoming more and more convenient to potentially use an online supplier. Of course, i'm going to uh to try going to my local supply houses first, but guys these online suppliers are giving the local guys a run for their money and, of course i want to push people to support um the local suppliers. I really do, but you know, there's there's something. That's frustrating and i was just having this conversation with my buddy adam um recently, and you know i walk into my supply houses and i tell them like hey: have you seen this new tool? Hey check this out? Look at this tool that i have i'm finding out about these tools before the supply houses are i'm finding out about new products, chemicals, different things, refrigeration, technologies, products before the supply houses are, and that frustrates me right.

Yes, i realized that i you know whatever you want to call me an influencer or whatever i do. You know, find new products and stuff oftentimes before they go to market, but still the fact that you know most of you guys. I hope that you guys can go to your local supply houses and find refrigeration technologies chemicals, but in my area it's difficult. You have to go to certain supply houses and, and it's frustrating so i don't know you know this is something that we're going to have to figure out, but i will tell you something: people like true tech tools.

You know they're a great company. They have stuff that supply houses. Don't you know? If i want a cool tool, i can usually go find it at true tech tools and my local supply house says: oh, we can order. We can get you a price, it's it's inconvenient and frustrating okay, but the one thing that i really love about a local supply house is, i love the fact that i can go put my hands on something see because i am a person that likes to feel Things and hold it before i purchase it, so you know there's a plus there too.
So it's it's! It's interesting! You know this whole supply house thing. I don't know how you guys feel in the chat but um all right so uh for those that are just coming in here right now. Do me a favor if you guys have questions put them in caps, lock and i'll try to get to them? Okay, um! Let's see trail master, how often do i clean an evaporator in a condenser? Well, it really depends on where it's located: okay, um in a perfect world, i want the restaurant to have us come out and do a preventative maintenance and clean their equipment once a month. Uh, you know, as you go through the summer, you get uh, you know in certain areas you can have cottonwood.

You can have other kinds of pollen and stuff like that. That's going to plug up condenser coils, you know, depending on how often the doors are open inside of a house. The evaporative coil can get really dirty really quick, so it really depends on the situation that you're in um for a residential system. I don't think that i'm gon na you know recommend someone clean their equipment every month, but maybe every two to three months.

You should have someone service your equipment or and or clean your equipment, something this is going to actually segue into something that i wanted to talk about too. Why do i show so much coil cleaning in my videos? I've been getting some people pushing back on me, showing the coil cleaning process so much okay, um and first off too i'm gon na go ahead and address the fact you know i've had some people push back on me talking about the refrigeration technologies products too. All right, first and foremost, i want to make this clear to everybody. I make these videos for my employees and you know, of course i make them for you guys too, but i'm going to continue to make the videos the way that i want to make them.

I'm not going to be influenced by other people, okay, so of course you know. If, if you know i read the comments and stuff and i hear things but there's a reason why i show coil cleaning, there's a reason why i show refrigeration technologies products. In my videos, mind you refrigeration technologies is a sponsor of my channel, but go back to the very beginning. Videos way before they were a sponsor.

They've only been a sponsor for about a year, go before that and you're going to see their products. In my videos, all the time, because i like their products, okay, why do i show coil cleanings in my videos so much because a lot of younger generation technicians are watching my videos and it's very important for people to learn how important it is to clean a Condenser or how important it is to know when you have to split a condenser on a split row, pretty much anything five ton and over in the commercial side, um and i'd, say three ton and over on the residential side. Newer equipment is going to be split row condensers unless it's a micro, channel, condenser, okay. So people need to understand that.
I can't tell you how many times i get emails. I never knew that that was a split row condenser. So i show that stuff because it needs to be beat into people's heads that our job starts with cleaning the equipment and cleaning it proper. You know making sure that we're doing everything correctly - okay - and also it's very important - to understand when we're using chemicals to clean our equipment, that we know what chemicals are safe for the equipment and what can happen if we use the wrong chemicals? Okay, so using the wrong condenser, coil, cleaner and not properly rinsing, it that's going to cause some issues.

Okay, so it's very important that i think we show this stuff, and so i'm going to continue to do the videos. The way that i want to do them. So all right, um, let me see what else we got in here: um yeah uh, ernesto hvac. Our vlogger says that 95 of the supply houses are still old school and don't like change.

I agree with some of that statement. Okay, um. I grew up in this trade. I was taught to call the supply house and ask the supply house for technical support.

I did that for the very first part of my career. I would call the supply house and say you know this isn't working right. Is there anything you think i could check you know and while i thought they were giving me the best information, what they were actually giving me was hearsay kind of stuff right, other technicians telling them how they fixed a problem. Now, i'm not saying that supply house managers and and counter guys, don't know what they're talking about, because some of them do, but there's also some of them that just repeat information that they've heard um.

So i quickly learned, you know that uh i wanted to start doing the research for myself and digging into why equipment failed and what was the cause of bad things to happen with this equipment. So you know um that led me to doing research and actually what that led me to i've told this story before, but that led me to looking on the internet uh. 2000-Ish. 2003-Ish.

I searched the internet for hvacr technical support and i actually came across a message board called hvac, hvac-talk and uh. That's where that was before facebook. Really i mean - and that was a great message board, where we would have all kinds of great information, and i learned a lot from hvac talk and then came the hvac talk, facebook group and then you know all these different groups - hvac school and different stuff, like That that helps everybody else learn too okay. So i started looking for more information and found it on hvac.

Talk then started. Reading more in books found some great books that are great resources, but you know having the supply houses. Give me the information that they wanted to give me kind of frustrated me and sometimes right. I could think a couple years back.
I was looking for an r22 replacement right and this was before they were becoming really popular. This was when um. You know it was still on its way out and i reached out to my supply house, and they said you know what use this refrigerant right here and uh. Now, i'm not gon na blame the refrigerant, but it was r427a okay.

My supply house said yeah, this stuff works great, you don't have to do oil changes. You can just use this refrigerant and i listened to the supply house and i proceeded to kill two 10 ton. Trane 3d scroll compressors because i listened to the supply house and that i didn't need to do an oil change and that it worked perfect and again it wasn't the refrigerant's fault. But it was me not following the installation instructions and not understanding and really digging into how that refrigerant would work in the particular system.

I was putting it in now, a quick google search with r427a and trane 3d scroll or even r22 alternative and train 3d scroll you're, going to come up with some things about lubrication issues with bearings and you're, going to realize why those compressors went bad for me Within two days of installing them, when on startup, they had perfect superheat, everything was good, it was oil, return problems and we were basically just breaking those compressors. So i trusted the supply house and i didn't do my own research again, i'm not faulting r427a, because if i read the installation instructions on that refrigerant, it actually tells you at the very bottom. It says: works best with polyester oil. Okay, if you're reading any installation instructions and there's a caveat in those instructions that says works best with polyester oil, that's basically telling you that it works with poe oil and not with mineral oil.

Okay, so that's something that you need to pay attention to while we're on the topic of refrigerant. What i do want to say is i've since met a lot of really cool people that have helped me with a lot of this stuff and i'm actually going to post ralph's email in the chat right now, because my buddy ralph with honeywell refrigerants uh, is always Willing to answer your guys's refrigerant related questions when it comes to alternatives and stuff so reach out to my buddy ralph. I just put his email in the chat: okay, all right so um. Let's talk about this, let me cross that off my list.

Um ricky was in the chat earlier too, before the stream, and he was saying that he wants to learn how to use measure quick on walking coolers. I might be paraphrasing this question a little bit ricky. What i do want to tell you is that measure. Quick.

Does have a refrigeration mode in the top left-hand corner of the screen when you're profiling, your system, there's a little house. If you click on that house, you can change it to the snowflake, and that is going to take you into refrigeration mode. Now, as far as using measure quick, what i'm going to tell you is that measure, quick's refrigeration mode is still in beta testing mode, meaning that they're still working on the software. I personally don't use measure quick for um diagnostics.
You know, like the the the diagnostics that it produces. I like measure quick, because it consolidates all the information and allows me to look at it and come up with a diagnosis based off of what i can see on the tablet. Okay, so i'm not saying that the diagnosis that measure quick would auto populate would be incorrect. It's just that.

I do my own diagnoses, okay, but um yeah. It works great with refrigeration. I mean the cool thing is that you can consolidate everything on the screen and you can see all the numbers right there and it's awesome so i'd highly suggest you check that out. I also get this question a lot.

People emailing me commenting on facebook. What app? I'm using when i'm using my field piece joblink probes, because their app doesn't look like mine. That's because i'm using an app called measure, quick, okay, you guys can download it on any of the play store. The apple store, whatever it's called measure quick one word um.

Just download that it works with a majority of the the tools out there at least the most popular ones, the testo probes, the field piece probes, the sporlin probes, you know, works with all those and you can intermingle the probes too. So you can have a few of you know each one. So it's an awesome app. You definitely want to check it out all right.

Let's see what else we got going on in here, um and yes, it was ricky from the trailer park boys that was asking me that question. So all right do i ever damage myself on the job and how uh yeah i've hurt myself. I actually just went through a pinched nerve that i still have the pinched nerve by the way. It's just calmed down a lot but uh.

I went to a chiropractor and he worked through some things to kind of help it calm down, but i still need to go, get an mri and see the doctor that does the neck crap and stuff. I'm pretty sure i have a messed up disc or something, but i mean i have full mobility now, but if i move my neck a certain way all the way forward, i can feel the nerve pain go down through my arm uh. So more than likely, i did that at work. I can think of a few instances that um you know when i was playing superman.

I've done some silly things, lifting things i shouldn't lift climbing things and not paying attention and running into a roof hatch, one time that sucked um yeah there's there's a lot of things that i've done uh hurting myself. So, yes, i have uh. If i can tell you guys and beg you guys, please, okay, i know i'm still young, but i'm just about to turn 38 um and i can feel it already. Okay, i can feel being stiff in the morning and my hearing is getting worse.
I'm having some hearing issues, you know i've gotten a lot of crap in my eyes over the years and it's not worth it. So you need to protect your body. You need to wear proper. You know protective equipment, um safety, glasses, ear protection, um, gloves and stuff.

Like that, but of course you know - i get the question all the time too. How come i i don't wear gloves when i'm brazing and stuff i mean there's certain times where gloves are impractical, and i make a judgment call on myself to take my gloves off. Okay, but that's just my choice, but i mean you guys got to take care of your body, so be careful out there all right do. I order my drinks with ice after cleaning, so many ice makers, yeah ice doesn't bother me guys.

I went to subway today and got a sandwich and a drink, and i i i've never cleaned a subway ice machine, but i know how nasty they are, but i drank the ice um. My buddy adam sent me this cool tumbler hvac overtime. It's perfect for my tee um all right. Let's see what else uh has anybody else had a roof hatch fall on your head, yeah ernesto! I have it's, not good um, you know, ironically, in the past, i would always rather the roof hatch fall on my head than my hands.

You know what i'm saying like keeping your hands up there, but i don't know man, this nerve pain, that i've got right. Now or that i had um that's from things hitting my head, so i don't know man i mean i almost think a smash or a broken finger might have been a better deal than a messed up neck, because this is gon na i'm gon na live with This for life broken bones, can heal um all right. Let me see what else we got in here. All right, i'm gon na go through my list of things so sam had asked - and this was a great question because i was talking - i was working on a linux unit.

In my recent video uh, the their office ac was not working and sam asked me hey. I talked about approach, method or approach temperature, because linux publishes what approach temperature you should run and he was kind of curious what the approach temperature was. Okay, so i've talked about this before and if you guys don't already know the approach. Temperature is basically an ass backwards, sub cooling, that's all that it is okay, but there's one really cool thing about approach temperature.

Now linux did not invent approach. Temperature. Linux is not the only person that uses approach temperature. I know you guys that work on chillers use approach temperature, often too, okay, so referring to an air conditioning system.

The approach temperature is the liquid line: surface temperature, not the saturated temperature, but the surface temperature of the liquid line minus the ambient entering temperature into the condenser okay. So if you take the liquid line temperature and the ambient air going into the condenser - and you take the you know - you you figure out the the the reciprocal whatever you want to call it right, you figure out the difference between the two. That would be your approach: temperature, okay, so um the cool thing about approach, temperature and again linux has always used it, but it's not their thing. Other people use it too is that approach.
Temperature is a non-invasive way to check part of the charge in the system. Okay, so that's a really cool method and i've always tried to research as to why linux chose to use approach, temperature, and i will say too, that works on txv systems. You use approach temperature on txv systems, but um i've always been kind of curious as to why linux started using that, and i kind of think - and i don't know this to be true, but i kind of think it was the fact that um you know you Didn't necessarily have to put your service gauges on the system, okay, so it's a way to test the performance of the condenser. Essentially right, if you have the proper approach temperature, it's just like checking the sub cooling.

So all right, hopefully that answers your question for you bud um. Let me see what else we got in here: um uh, let's see what else in here: um yeah, okay, i read that one right there, that's a pretty good one! Okay cross that one off the list um nick had asked. This is a really good question, so nick had emailed me - and he had asked me when you're doing a leak check with nitrogen when you're adding nitrogen to the system. Okay, it's a very common place and it is perfectly legal for you to add a trace gas to the system.

So that way you can use an electronic leak detector. So, let's talk about this, you have a system, that's completely flat on gas right, there's no refrigerant! In it and you need to find the leak, you could pump the system full of nitrogen. But the problem is, is that you necessarily might not be able to use your electronic leak detector, because if there's only nitrogen in the system and there's not enough traces of refrigerant oil in there or refrigerant, then you know the electronic wouldn't work and you'd have to Soap bubble the entire system and, if you're in refrigeration - and you start soap, bubbling walking cooler lines, you're going to be there forever. Okay, so what you can do - and it is perfectly legal per the epa - the environmental protection agency in the united states - to add a trace gas to the system.

Okay, so nick asks number one. Does it matter what refrigerant you add as a trace gas, not necessarily nick okay, so and where he's going with this, was he had an r22 system? And he put, i think he said like two three pounds: r22 in there and he's like and then put nitrogen in there, but he felt like he would have rather put something in there. That was a lot cheaper than r22. Yes, you can put another refrigerant in there because it's the oil you're more concerned about rather than the refrigerant.
Now you don't want to put a flammable refrigerant in a system. You guys got to use common sense, okay, but yeah. You can use another refrigerant 404. Whatever you want to do just so long as it doesn't have oil in it, be careful with some of these drop replacement, refrigerants and or retrofit refrigerants.

I can't remember which ones some of them were coming with oil already in the refrigerant to try to use like there was one brand out there that added poe lubricant to the replacement refrigerant to try to help with the oil return, so be cautious about that. Okay, but yes, you can use another refrigerant, not necessarily r22 in the system, so long, because you're going to end up venting that nitrogen and that refrigerant mixture into the atmosphere before you properly evacuate the system and recharge after you fixed it. Obviously, right so yeah, you can add another refrigerant, and i do that often, in fact, when i work on uh r20 or r290 systems um, if i have a flat r290 system, i will put some 404 in there and put some nitrogen in there and do a Leak search with a normal leak detector that i will do that. Okay, so you can use other refrigerants in there.

It's not so much you're not going to run it with the refrigerant in there, but you're just going to do a standing pressure test or not a standing pressure test, but you're going to pressurize. So you can do a leak check. Yeah! That's fine! You can use another refrigerant, there's nothing wrong with that. Let's see what else what happened back? Everything moved! Oh, what happened in the back yeah! I know some of you guys are just getting in here.

Um yeah, i'm just moving my office around a little bit. I'm still in the process of kind of coming up, i'm i'm freeing up some wall space to kind of change things up a bit. I've got those sporeland posters up there because there was holes there from the the trainer board that i had mounted on the wall. So yeah i'm just moving my office around.

I needed a change. I told my wife. I i really want to. I need a bigger space to be honest with you, because it's getting really crowded in here, but um but yeah.

So all right, let's see what else do i use die to find a leak? Pat. So that's a great question, pat i'm going to segue that into another question too. So someone had asked me uh. If i've ever used ac leak, freeze leak, sealer leak, whatever insert whatever brand name here.

Okay, yes, i have used a leak sealer. No, it was not my choice. No, i would never recommend using a leak sealer in a system, my personal preference, i'm not judging any of you because you choose to use them. That's just my choice.

Okay, have i used dye in systems? Yes, i have used dye, i don't like it. It usually ends up disastrous, there's, usually dye everywhere, and it stays in the system forever, even after compressor changes, there's still dye in the system. It's just now, of course, there's instances where die is appropriate. Okay.
So, yes, i have used dye before now. My personal preference is that i really don't like using any additives in the system that didn't come in it, and that includes um. You know uh, like you, know the crap, the acid neutralizers and things like that, like i don't like using those anymore either. I'd use those a lot in the very first part of my career um.

But if you lean on the manufacturers of the compressors, don't necessarily listen to the air conditioning manufacturers or the refrigerator manufacturers. Talk to the compressor manufacturers and uh you're, going to be very hard-pressed to find a compressor manufacturer that approves one of these additives in their systems. Okay, i.e, copeland, dan foss tecumseh. Give them a call call their reps now make sure it's the compressor, reps and ask them.

Do you guys approve die in your system? Do you approve leak sealer in your system? Do you approve acid neutralizer in your system? I bet you. Majority of them are going to say no. Now you have to be careful, though, just because one of these manufacturers of these additives says that it's oem approved that doesn't mean that every oem approves it. There's some misleading information on a lot of these products.

Okay, so again do they work. I don't know, i'm not a fan of them. I don't care for them. I have used a leak sealer two times in my career, because the customer demanded it.

It did not fix the problem. I have used dye a handful of times four or five times and uh. It's i don't know it's just a mess, the stuff just sprays out everywhere, and it's just it's hard getting it off. It's a mess.

Okay! So not a fan of using any additives in the systems. Um, scott sylvester. How many microns is 1400 1400 mbar. I have no idea bro.

That's my head is not big enough to understand that. That's a google question so um. Let me see what else we got going in here. Why is evaporator exit temperature so important, um, frank, f, guan, i'm assuming you're talking about like uh using target evaporator exit temperature or something like that? Um? Okay, i don't know where you're going with that question, but evaporator exit temperature is one of the things the surface temperature is one of the things that you're going to use to determine the superheat.

Okay. If you uh take the saturated temperature in the evaporator 2, we can measure the performance of the evaporator okay, how much refrigerant or how much heat the system has absorbed um by checking the evaporator exit temperature. I again i'm kind of guessing as to where you're going with that question. Okay, so essentially we're going to test the performance of the evaporator by testing the suction line, temperature, taking the saturated pressure and figuring out the difference between the two and coming up with our evaporator superheat.
We can see how well that evaporator has done or how. Well, it's performing so i don't know if that's where you're going with your question on that one bud but feel free to send me an email to hvacr videos gmail.com. If i didn't answer it enough. Okay, let me see what else we got in here.

Uh. Do me a favor guys if you haven't already, please do me a favor and go over to sporland's youtube channel and subscribe to it. For me, i'm going to post a link in the chat right now for you. They have some great webinars on there.

They're, supermarket training seminars they've been doing a lot lately, they're not doing one this week, but they were asking if i could remind you guys about their channel so check out their youtube channel guys and help to support my channel by subscribing to theirs. Okay, all right. Let me mark that off the list and let's see what else we got going on in here um. I already answered that question.

Um nikki had asked me: uh, she's, a technician and or i'm assuming she's a technician or a maintenance person at a facility and uh she's, seeing a lot of ice in the walk-in freezer, okay on the walls on the floors, um on the fans and everything. So when it comes to a walk-in freezer ice in the system is typically some kind of moisture and or warm air getting inside the box um by by whatever means, okay, it could be by someone leaving a door open. It could be by a defrost going on too long, something like that. Okay, walk-in freezers can be tricky.

The most important thing that you need to start with with a walk-in freezer is the door needs to shut the door needs to seal. It should have spring closing hinges on there. I have customers that say i don't want spring closing hinges, because they just go bad i'll shut the door, they don't shut the door. You need spring closing hinges on a walking freezer.

Okay, you also need a door closure on there too. I don't care how good you think you are when you're, not there. The kitchen staff does not shut the door. Okay, so once you have that you need to make sure that the system is defrosting properly, but not defrosting too much okay, when you defrost a walk-in freezer.

The purpose is to melt off any frost that might accumulate on the evaporator coil, but you do not want to walk in freezer to run and defrost for way too long, because then condensation the the walls and different things like that can start to condensate. And then the system will turn back on and that condensate will re-freeze okay. So what could be causing ice all over the floors? The ceiling, the walls it's hard to say it could be a door being left open. It could be the defrost on too long.

The fan delays on the evaporator fan motors could be not working properly, so there's many things that can cause that issue. Okay feel free. Oh, i was actually going to encourage you nikki to send me some pictures if you're watching right now of the ice - and you know i can you know - i'm not an expert at it, but i mean i could probably look at it and say: okay, that ice Is from this or from that, so send me some pictures of the ice of the interior, the box to hvacr videos, gmail.com, and i can kind of guide you a little bit more on that one. Okay, all right! Let me see what else we got going on in here.
I'm gon na cross this off and jump down to the chat right now. Uh, let's see what else, how is the unit with the zoom lock fitting dj compiler uh, no complaints, walk-in installation? I did last year sometime, it's working great, no issues at all, um, there's a potential that i'm going to be using the zoom lock max fittings on something new coming up too. So we'll see i'm trying to work it out right now. Let's see finally got back up.

Oh okay, let me see what else we got going on here. Um all right, uh, gary asked about. Oh, this is a really good question, so get uh gary had asked me. What do i do in a situation - and i actually run into this often so, where the walk-in box itself is outside of the building okay and when they do that, they will typically put a rubber membrane roof on top of the walk-in box, because the walk-in box Itself is not sealed to moisture intrusion, so they put that rubber membrane roof on top of there, but of course, before they put the rubber membrane roof on there.

They drill all the holes and do everything they need to do, and then they put the rubber over it. So when you go to change an evaporator coil, often times the bolt, holes won't match up and you have to replace the bolts but they're under the rubber membrane. So you'll have to penetrate that rubber membrane. I hate to penetrate the rubber membrane.

On top of a wok - and i have had to do it many times if possible, you can try to see if that rubber membrane will lift up. The only thing that holds that rubber membrane roof down typically is some cladding and flashing around the side of it, and it's usually just floating on top of the box and held down by the flashing. So i have a job coming up where i was actually just looking at that and i might be able to pull the flashing and lift the rubber membrane up re-drill. The holes then put it back now.

Gary had also asked me - and this is another method you could do is you could use shallow unistrut and put it in there and then relocate the holes, but then your coil is going to sit down the height of the unistrut, it's kind of funky. Looking you know, i mean you can do it. I know they do it on the industrial side, all the time they probably you know they hang their coils oftentimes from the unistrut um. But you know i will penetrate a membrane on a walk-in and then what i do, though, is i have them get a roofer involved.

If i have to penetrate the membrane, i'm not going to be responsible for sealing that up so i'll do what i have to do make sure the customer's okay, with it drill the holes, bolt it down and then i'll tell them to get a roofer to come. In behind me and he'll usually use like a rubber uh roof compound that goes on there. It's not normal mastic, it's just like crap that works good with the rubber. So hopefully, that answers that question about that gary and let's look at the chat and see we got going on here.
Uh crown heights in brooklyn says winter charge is bull, charge the system and put a fan, cycling control. No, i'm not a fan of fan. Cycling controls, i mean that's just kind of a preference. You can do that.

That's fine, i'm not a fan of fan! Cycling controls. I work on smaller systems that typically will have either one or two condenser fan motors and if they only have one, i have a very mild climate here in california right because we don't know what cold is so you know when we have. You know our average winter temperatures are in the 50s and 60s. So what happens? When you shut off a condenser fan motor on a single fan system, it will immediately within seven eight seconds it's turning the fan back on and then off and then on and then off now, if you go to a colder climate, maybe new york or something like That yeah shutting a fan off.

You probably have some time before it just jams back on, but in the mild temperatures that we have boom boom on off on off. And if you pay attention to a sight glass when a fan cycle switch, turns the fan off and then turns it back on, it gets very violent inside the sight, glass you're going to see the refrigerant drain you're going to see it fill up. It's going to flash and that flash gas is going down to your expansion valve, so you want to be cautious about using fan cycle switches if you're in mild climates, like i'm in right now, they're very violent on the system. I'm a fan of flooding the condenser using a head pressure control valve.

I know a lot of people don't understand quite how they work um. You know, and a lot of people blame the the the head pressure control valve for failures, when i would argue that majority of the failures that you find on a head pressure, control valve i.e, the head pressure control valve being stuck open are because there's crap floating Around in the system and people didn't follow proper refrigeration practices to make sure that they purged with nitrogen before brazing, put on the proper filter dryers and that kind of stuff and crap will get stuck and cause the head pressure control valve to get stuck open. Now, i'm not saying that they don't fail on their own too, because they do okay, but i would argue that majority of the failures are either incorrectly diagnosed and or crap being stuck in the valves. I will say that it would be kind of neat, and you don't see this very often.

It would be really neat if manufacturers started putting in ball valves that we could shut down so that you can just pull out a head pressure control valve and not have to remove the whole system charge. But ball valves do leak or line valves or whatever they do leak and or you have the potential of some dummy closing a line valve on the discharge line when it's running or something like that, that could be a problem so um but yeah. My preferences is to still use uh condenser flooding because i prefer it the most um you know fan cycling. Just doesn't do too well in my area.
So let me see what else we got going on in here uh. How do i, like my canipix, plier wrenches uh, the canipix plier wrenches? Are okay they're, not my favorite. I definitely like the canipix cobra pliers for sure, but the ones that i use to replace my crescent wrenches they're, good and bad there's some things that i don't like about them certain times when i'm removing a sight glass from a dryer where i would normally just Use the leverage in one hand and pull the two crescent wrenches together. You can't do that with the canipix pliers wrenches, so i still like them.

I still have them in my tool bag, but there's been some instances that i've had to go down to my van and get a normal crescent wrench or adjustable wrench. So, let's see what else we got going on in here um, i see someone saying headmasterite. That's way back up in there, but um headmaster is a trade name that alco used to have for their head pressure, control valve. So um, let's see what else we got in here, uh have i seen uh? No, i haven't seen the the ammonia leak.

Video. Let's see uh stefan says um. Can i talk about that and work ethics? Have you ever walked away from a job because it was too dirty or greasy um yeah. I can talk about that.

So number one um, you know understand something. I realized that my videos - i can go kind of crazy in the way that i diagnose things, and i can go kind of crazy in the way that i clean things. You know some people might call it extreme. First, off, you have to understand that my customer has approved this work every bit of work that i do my customer approves it okay, so if it seems like i'm wasting my customers time, uh majority of the time, it's quoted work and they're.

Okay with what we have to do, and my customer trusts me: okay, um now, you know, there's there's always going to be a time when they don't trust me anymore. Who knows when that'll be, but the hope is is that they continue to trust me. So i can continue to do their work. Number one thing is: is that i'm not here to rip the customer off, because i have some customers and i'm not kidding with you.

They were my dad's first customers in 1992.. We still have one of those customers. They've been our customers since the early 90s. We have screwed things up.

We have been honest with them. We've admitted our mistakes um, you know so we're honest, and i want to continue to do that kind of work with my customers. I want to be that person that they go to for years and years to come from now right. So it's not worth it for me to make an extra thousand dollars for my customer today, because i want to continue to do their work over the next 20 years.
Okay, so honesty and integrity is the number one thing when it comes to that right, the customer. I'm always trying to look out for their best interests, i'm trying to be honest with them. Let them make the decisions, but i'm trying to be honest and fair and give them a big picture. Diagnosis.

Okay, they don't always go for the big picture. Repair. I've said that many times, but treating your customers right goes a long way. Okay, now one of my customers that one that we've had since the 90s majority of the other customers that i have today are from that work.

We used to do in the 90s, because managers at that particular chain have left and gone to other restaurant chains and taken us there with them. So then, we're working at another chain and another chain and another chain - and it's all been word of mouth from that very first customer - that we had so treating your customers right being fair being honest, you have to play the corporate game too. I work for corporate chains, they have facilities departments, i work technically for the facilities department. I do not work for the restaurant management, the facilities department says yes or no, the restaurant manager, they can say no, but the facilities can override and tell them.

Yes, all right, but with that being said, even though i know that i'm not working for them on-site manager, i'm still respectful, honest and i still keep the on-site manager in the loop. I try to play a game with them right where i make them think and kind of feel like they're having decision making power when, in fact, i know that they really don't, but still i try to make them feel like you know that you know they're they're Worth something right because oftentimes in corporations, it can be a mess where you know lower management, upper management, all kinds of weird crap. So i just try to play the game and be the intermediary um, trying to know when to keep my mouth shut and trying to know. When do i need to say something too okay, so it's a fun game that you have to play and fun is sarcastic.

It's not fun, it's kind of a pain in the butt having to play that game, but you know it is what it is, but treating your customers right being honest teaching your employees right teaching them the right thing to do. Even though - and this is the frustrating part about hiring new employees - training new apprentices, i've had many new apprentices and or people that have worked with me for one two years and i've trained them, and then they go work for someone else, and it's like that was A gut punch, you know it happens, but you got to get back on the horse and you got to train them right. We're not here to be deceptive. We're not here to rip anybody off you're going to go a lot further, if you're, honest and fair with your customers, that's my two cents at least okay, all right, let's see what else we got going on in here.
Um, let's see, do i ever turn up a thermostat to turn a freezer into a cooler, and if not, why no? Gary? That's not how you turn uh the equipment in a freezer is different than a cooler. The defrost is different. The compressors are different. The refrigerant line sizes are different.

Um everything is different, so the simple answer to that question is: is: it is very difficult to turn a freezer into a cooler and a cooler into a freezer, it's possible. But if you do it right, it's difficult! Okay, because you're going to be eliminating defrost you're, going to be making sure that the compressor is going to potentially still operate within its standard operating envelope that the manufacturers recommended it remember. Compressors are suction gas cooled right. Walk-In freezer equipment is typically sized bigger than walk-in cooler equipment.

So if you put it on a wok, if you turn a walk-in freezer into a walk-in cooler, you know theoretically, you're not going to bring the refrigerant back to the compressor fast enough. If it's outside of its operating envelope, you can have overheating issues and different stuff like that now have i changed freezers into coolers? Yes, i have uh. Of course i gave the customer disclaimers. I've changed reaching region freezers into reaching coolers, but there's a lot of stuff that goes into that.

So you have to understand how it works. Um, the defrost being the biggest thing. Walk-In coolers typically are off-cycle air defrost, walk-in freezers. We have to use supplemental either electric or hot gas to defrost any potential ice, there's limit switches on walk-in freezers, so it's not just a matter of turning it up or down, there's a lot more to it than just that.

Um. If i haven't answered any of your questions, enough feel free to send me an email to hvacr videos gmail.com. So, let's see uh. Why don't i have test and balance when i do? Why don't i have to why don't i have test and balance when i do air handler fan.

Changeouts code says that the customer will have to get a test. Imbalance done uh whether or not the customers actually get that done in the the long. You know, usually they don't okay, but when you change an rtu unit, yeah technically in in certain areas, you're supposed to actually have a test and balance company come out, make sure it's working properly. You know adjust the air balance.

That's that's proper. The way to do it most customers, don't i'll, do kind of a crude air balance, but i'm not a certified air balancing person. It's not really practical for me to get a certification and have the equipment to do air balance because it's not going to be profitable for me, you have to understand something. I have people ask me all the time you know sure it'll be profitable.
You just got to find the customers. The problem with finding work is that i'm not the only person that works here. I have people that work for me. So if i was to take on air balancing, it would only be beneficial if my employees were certified and knew how to air balance.

Stuff too. My guys have enough trying to figure out how to deal with refrigeration and air conditioning problems, to add testing and balancing. On top of that. So it really wouldn't be practical and i would more than likely have to hire someone that would do test and balance and then i'd have to keep that person busy and it just leads into a bunch of headaches.

The same reason why i don't do hot side work too, i just focus on refrigeration and air conditioning and that's it so um. Let's see what am i missing here? Why don't i already answered that one? Is it possible for a filter dryer to fail to absorb any more acid, but continue to absorb moisture um frank asked me that question well um, i don't know that's a good question. Uh, you know a filter. Dryer can only do so much depending on which brand you go with that'll, actually remove acid um.

You know they they re. They remove a lot of the the byproducts of acid like if you're dealing with a spoiling dryer um. You know it. It's like an hh dryer really is for wax removal, which is a byproduct of an acid burnout.

You know, if you have acid in your system. The best thing you can do is refrigerant and oil changes, constant new filter, dryers, multiple times back and forth. Do multiple oil changes and then you got to solve the problem as to why there was acid in the system in the first place majority of the time. It's improper refrigeration practices, people not pulling proper vacuums, people not making sure all the moisture was out of the system before they started it up.

So that's a hard question for me to say is that if a dryer you know, i don't know the answer to that. I would think that it's not really possible because the desiccant that removes the moisture in some dryers also removes the acid. So i don't know, but that's an interesting question. That's probably a question for one of the filter, dryer manufacturers um.

Let me see what causes high net oil pressure on a semi hermetic, frank sanchez. I am not an oil pressure person, but sorry man, um, i'm not person, that's really fluent in oil talk, so i wouldn't be able to tell you that um, let's see what else uh, let's see lm sylvia you're, saying that you still service your dad's customers since The 90s and that's the same here bud same thing here so um. Let me see what else yeah do me. A favor guys smash the thumbs up button right now.
We have 135 likes and 340 people watching this right. Now it really helps out the stream so smash that thumbs up button. Okay, um, so dylan had sent or had a question for me. Uh he's a student and he actually is part of the culinary program, but he watches my videos at his school at his high school okay and he noticed that inside the walk-in freezer there was uh walking cooler.

I can't remember what he said. I think he said cooler. He said that there was ice buildup on the walls or i mean uh mold build up or you know whatever, mildew or whatever, and that they shut the equipment off, and he was kind of misunderstanding. Some things that i had said uh in recent videos - okay, i can't remember if he said it was a freezer or cooler, but basically he watched one of my videos and he thought that when the maintenance guy came in and turned the power switch off that he Was doing something wrong because i did say on certain systems and i can think of the exact video that i was talking about with them, and that was on a heat, craft, intelligence system or qrc system.

You're not really supposed to power down the evaporator, because sometimes the the electronic expansion valves don't shut like they should because of the capacitors on there you're kind of misunderstanding. What i was saying there, uh dylan, if the maintenance guy knows what he's doing, then i would just let him be okay. But yes, in some situations, if you shut off the evaporator, while the equipment's still running, if it's not set up properly to shut off the solenoid valve or something like that, it could theoretically cause some damage. But you know just just trust the guys that are coming out to work on a dillon.

I wouldn't worry too much more about it. Okay, all right so william asked me about core removal tools for the high flow schraders um, and he was saying what brand are they first off? So i did a video on the hvacr tools youtube channel on the coremax tool for taking out the high flow core max fittings right. The high flow schraders that you see on train units, carrier units, um they're on some refrigeration equipment, cold zone equipment; all that stuff. Okay, so those high flow straighters.

First, i want people to understand something, and i i saw a few comments that made me realize people didn't understand how that core max core remover works. It's not a standard core removal tool like appion would make, or whoever insert brand of core removal right where you can do a vacuum on it too. That's not what it's for it's not for taking out a schrader core, so you can do an evacuation on the system. The coremax fitting is a high flow schrader.

You can actually pull a vacuum through the coremax fitting, because if you look at how it works, it opens up really wide. That's why it's called a high flow schrader, okay, so the coremax tool is for removing those, because there's no real easy way to remove those. When there's refrigerant in the system, so the tool itself is simply for removing the the fittings and putting them back on. If you have a refrigerant leak, it's not to remove it, so you can do an evacuation.
If you're going to do an evacuation on a high flow schroeder core or a core max fitting, you actually want to get a core depressor tool. Appion makes them. There's a couple other manufacturers and it's actually going to depress the core and then you're able to pull evacuation really quick through it. Okay, so hopefully that answers your question for you bud.

Let me get to the chat and see what we've got going on in here. Have i accidentally let the viper brightener cleaner on too long before um? No, i've never left it on longer than i wanted to, but eventually it'll just start to deteriorate, the coil fins uh. Can i mention the tragic loss that a 21 year old tech from boulder colorado sean yeah? That was a really interesting one. It was very sad, i don't know a lot of details about it, but uh there was the the shooting at the supermarket in colorado, horrible horrible, shooting and uh my understanding again, i'm not very well versed.

My understanding was, unfortunately, there was a refrigeration and air conditioning technician. I believe i read that he was sitting in his van outside of the store and unfortunately he lost his life in that incident. That was a horrible horrible thing and i apologize for the fact that i don't know enough about the situation to talk any further about it, but it is a bummer um. You know i just i feel so bad for his family, so um all right.

Let's see what else we got going on in here um, so someone had asked me a question in one of my videos about a defrost clock and it's a good point. Someone was thinking logically in their head. The wheels were turning um, they were saying, hey, you know when we put these mechanical defrost clocks on the roof. What happens when the power goes out? All right? That's a really good question.

So a couple of the more modern defrost clocks, grassland has one paragon. Has one they actually have battery backups inside of them? Okay, but the more archaic ones. The 81 45 20 paragon clock, the the grassland dta v20 um. You know those are not uh or dtav multivolt or whatever they're, not battery backup.

You have to buy a special one to make it a battery backup, meaning that when you lose power on the grassland ones, you can get a battery backup timer that has 150 hours of reserve in it. So, basically, it's going to hold its time for 150 hours of being unplugged, which is really cool so more. The modern equipment now is coming with electronic temperature controllers that have built-in defrost in them. I'm still i like those like the the the ke2 therm ke2, temp, plus defrost controllers, or the pen has one a4 21.
Something or other has built-in defrost too um, but yeah. If you deal with the old archaic, electromechanical, defrost, timers yeah, unfortunately most of them do not have a battery backup in them. So um. Let me see what else we got going on in here is goodman.

A good ac brand goodman is as good as is. It is installed basically, okay, so um, that's gon na actually segue into another question: um where's the question. Oh so nate had actually asked me what brand of unit i would recommend and i'm assuming you were a homeowner nate. When you sent me the question um.

So here's how i'm going to say this, every air conditioner is going to have problems one way or another right. Stuff breaks. That's life right! If it's installed properly, most brands are going to last a very long time. Okay, but every brand has its quarks and little things quarks and features.

That's a shameless plug right there. Some of you guys might get that one um, but every brand is going to have its quark or something like that right. What i would suggest when someone says hey what brand is your favorite brand? It really depends on the technician that is going to be servicing, that particular brand okay, so as a homeowner, if someone's watching this - and they want to know, if i say, buy - train linux carrier york whatever it really depends on who's going to service your equipment regularly.

11 thoughts on “Hvacr videos q and a livestream 03/29/2021”
  1. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Ronald Zeigler says:

    You are live at my house

  2. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars sean peterson says:

    I can’t use a PO online, local places charge so much more but don’t have good swag Are you in Orleans ?

  3. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Mark Campbell says:

    Chris, am looking to from analogue gauges to digital. If you had the choice, what would be your choice the new testo 550i or the feildpeice sm480v.

  4. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars BigHuff2316 says:

    Thanks for answering. That's kinda what I thought, I just wanted to make sure.

  5. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Patrick Powers says:

    Why do Americans ever wear hats inside? In the UK it is really quite rude.

  6. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Troy Aldridge says:

    Why does my fridge leak water onto the floorall the time

  7. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Jeremy Hall says:

    I call you a Teacher. Service area Kanata??

  8. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Jason Johnson says:

    You dont have to justify anything to anyone……except yourself. I like how you put your content out there on the interwebs.

    I dislike leak sealer and dye myself too. No thanks. Refrigerant and oil is the only thing that belongs in a refrigeration circuit.

  9. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars steven carrillo says:

    Like the way you show how to clean a coil.

  10. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Jobert Page-et says:

    🕊🕊🕊

  11. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Matt Florence says:

    For a primary residential single owner operator, how do you line the Stratus verses the Detek 3? I’m going back and forth which one to get.

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