Ah, it's time to chill out and get ready for a mediocre Q A live stream. If you're old enough, grab yourself your favorite adult beverage and if you're not, stick with apple juice. put your feet up and relax. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the chat.

And now let's cue up the intro music. Thank you Good night, Thank you thank you thank you! Welcome to the Hvacr videos live stream. How are you doing today I am doing well. It's Monday In case you guys didn't know, you know they just keep coming.

They never stop. I You know that's just the one thing about Mondays They just never stop. It's always something right. You just wish like hey, maybe the Mondays maybe let's just stop with the Mondays Let's start our work week on Tuesday But then I guess Tuesday would be the Monday So yeah, I guess there's no escaping it.

It is what it is, right? Had a very interesting one. I'm going to tell a cool little story here in a little while, but um I uh want to wait for a few people to get in here? As usual, you know I like to do a little introduction because I know we have some new people in the Stream Uh, lots of people I See uh LinkedIn Facebook YouTube all the different platforms if you guys are on LinkedIn or Facebook it's all good. It doesn't really matter to me what platform you guys are watching this on, but I will say that there's already darn near 100 people in the YouTube platform and so there's a chat going on. So while you're on LinkedIn and stuff you guys will see, you can chat with other people on LinkedIn or other people on Facebook but you miss out on the the YouTube Community that's in there.

so if you guys want to be part of the whole conversation going on, definitely go over to the YouTube Community but again, it doesn't doesn't change really much for me. so I could care less where you guys watch it from I Just don't want you to think that you know I'm weird and talking to myself because I'm acknowledging the chat and then you guys are like uh, there's only like two people in here. what are you talking about? Well also the wooden surprise probably you guys that I'm kind of insane to I just told uh Bill Russell him and I were having a voice conversation and a Facebook messenger chat and I was just telling him something I was like, you know I just need to uh full disclosure: I got to tell you since you know I'm talking to Bill right now, right? and I'm like full disclosure uh I talk to myself and he's like yeah I know that and I'm like yeah, no but I think it goes one step further than that I actually talk to myself to the point that I actually rehearse conversations with people that probably never happened like when I'm driving down the road like I legitimately talk to myself all day long. so I am insane so you know it is what it is.

But hello to Everybody! If you guys have questions or comments that you would like me to address, do me a favor and put them in caps lock. so all capital letters I'm not going to promise that I'm going to get to them all, but it definitely helps me to recognize them and see them when they go across inside the chat. Okay, hello to everybody Danny What's up my friend? Um, yeah, exactly. Jason Johnson said if you woke up this morning, you were doing better than some people who didn't That is a very, very good point.

You know some people say how you doing today, you know and I it's funny because like my response is, well, I woke up you know and that's the truth, right? We got to be thankful for every single moment we have because you never know, you just never know I think my wife, um, saw a really bad accident where it was unfortunate because some people passed away in the accident over the weekend and uh, that stuff really gets you reflecting. You know? So life is short. Cherish it, right? All right? So let's get to this. Got a couple things on my list of stuff that I want to talk to as usual and then again of course I want to guys answer your guys's questions? So um Jacob Crabtree says Russell equipment with two speed motors specifically I guess I can put this up on the screen? Uh, specifically with the relays.

What's my opinions and experiences with them? You've had some cause headaches over the last couple months? Okay, so first and foremost, let's address this. All manufacturers. Uh, the Department Of is it? It's the Department of Energy. Yeah, it's the Department of Energy.

Came out with some new Federal regulations that spread across the entire country. Of course they hit California First it's typical, but they are spreading across the country and it's Awf requirements. Annual walk-in efficiency factor I think is what it is and if I remember right, it's walk-in coolers and freezers. Uh, 3 000 square foot or less.

There's all kinds of new rules. Okay Energy Efficiency Requirements Uh, are we surprised that this stuff's coming out? We shouldn't be because it's been affecting the residential Market forever. Why? You know it's only logic says that it's going to hit the refrigeration Market Okay, so one of the Energy Efficiency things that they do a lot of Manufacturers is they put in two speed evaporator fan motors or they put in ECM Motors or two-speed ECM Motors Okay, to try to even save more energy. What is my opinion on those two speed motors? Okay, um well.

I'll show you in our tell you an observation. An observation is is all the manufacturers a good majority of the manufacturers are using very similar Motors Um, especially with like the Russell equipment and all of the manufacturers that they produce products for which is a lot. Uh, they're using a two-speed motor that has a lot of failure points to it. Okay, now understand something.

This is a really important thing for everybody to understand. This is not the manufacturers that are choosing to do this. The manufacturers are being forced to install this. You know, high efficiency equipment, right? It's It's basically they've had to change everything.

They've had to redo their entire processes because the Department of Energy came in and set those standards. Okay, and it also makes sense. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, right? Saving energy. It makes sense, right? because we consume a lot of it.

So of course if we can save it, we can conserve some things. We can reduce pollution. All that stuff. Okay, so it totally makes sense I Understand the logic behind it.

but unfortunately, manufacturers having to do certain things and some of those things have repercussions. Okay, the motors. They all kind of dip from the same pool of Manufacturers There's only so many motor manufacturers and we are having a lot of problems with several of the motor manufacturers. Okay, it's just a very common thing to come in there.

Uh, Chris Marco Thank you very very much for that. Super Chat That is much appreciated. Jennifer you did not need to do that but I do very much appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Um Jennifer is from the HVAC um are the Misfits of HVAC podcast and then also HVAC chicks. uh Jennifer has been very active on all the social media platforms. Um, so you guys Definitely, if you haven't already want to check out the Misfits podcast, it's a really cool podcast with Ryan Hughes and Jennifer Monzo. Uh, that both do it together and it's a really cool time.

I'm actually scheduled to be on it, but you know the crazy thing, they're so booked out on guests meaning that they have guests booked all the way until July. So Ryan had asked me a while back if I wanted to be on it. I was like yeah but I was a little busy at the time so then I hit him up a couple weeks ago and I was like hey Bud I'm you know I have time if you're available he's like yeah we're booked out till July I was like whoa that's awesome. So good for them but definitely check that out.

Okay, so let's get on back to my rant about motor manufacturers and the two speed motors. So these manufacturers wrestle specifically. Um, they're having to do this stuff to save energy. Okay, so one important thing to understand is the Department of Energy comes to these manufacturers and gives them guidelines in Energy Efficiency requirements that they have to meet.

but they don't necessarily tell them how they have to meet it, they just say that we need you to meet these requirements and be this efficient. So each manufacturer does have a little bit of wiggle room right to say okay, we're going to use a two-speed motor or we're gonna make it up by doing this. So they each have a few different things they can do, but several manufacturers have chose to go to two-speed evaporator fan motors. I Have been seeing some problems with these two speed motors, so as a a technician, you need to analyze the situation and understand things.

Okay, of course, properly sizing your Refrigeration equipment is key and critical. Oversizing your Refrigeration equipment when it comes to walk-in coolers especially can lead to high humidity issues, which can lead to a lot of freeze-up issues. Okay, so make sure that you're sizing your equipment appropriately. Don't always trust the people that say it's size right.

do the work yourself, or verify yourself. Make sure that the numbers they're giving you are correct. Okay, there's several different load calculation programs out there, but when it comes to the two-speed Motors Some problems that I'm seeing, especially on walking coolers, is that typically the way that they're wired from the factory is in the off cycle. when the thermostat Cycles off it closes the liquid line solenoid valve and then the refrigeration circuit pumps down.

When that happens, there's a relay and the relay uh, engages and slows down the evaporative fan motors on most of them. Not everybody's equipment, but definitely on the Russell equipment. It does that. It slows the evaporative fan motors down to half speed when it's satisfied.

Okay, but here's the problem. When the unit goes into Defrost, it is satisfied. So during Defrost, they run the evaporator fan motors at low speed and I have noticed that that leads to a lot of premature freeze up issues, especially if the equipment is oversized and or the customer is using their walk-in box like a reach in cooler. Okay, walk-in boxes are not meant to be going in and out of multiple times in hour.

A walk-in box really. And this all comes to how you size the equipment. You need to make sure you size it appropriately. But here's another very interesting thing to think about.

If you have a walk-in cooler and you know that the customer is going to be going in and out of it all day long, right? and you size it for that, then what's going to happen is when the customer slows down and they aren't going in and out of it all day long anymore, that equipment is going to be massively oversized and you potentially can have some humidity problems depending on if you need a very dry environment in the walk-in or if you need more humidity because maybe you store produce or different things like that. So humidity control inside of a walk-in cooler is very important and it's really dependent on the type of product that you're keeping inside that box. That's a very important thing to understand. I Once had a refrigeration system where it was just a customer I didn't do any work on it, they just called me out as a second opinion because they had it installed by a handyman okay, and uh, didn't really know much of what he was doing and they relied on the supply house to size the equipment and somewhere between the supply house sizing it and the information they gave them something didn't Jive And it was, actually, um, a wedding cake business where they made wedding cakes and there was too much humidity inside the box and they were having issues with that.

And it was because the equipment wasn't engineered for their requirements, right? So when they would finish their cakes, they'd put them in the box to cool and then the cakes would collapse and it was just like a humidity issue and it was just a whole bunch of drama. And it came down to it that I was just like you guys just didn't get this equipment sized right and I even called the manufacturer the supply house that they had size the equipment and I said did they tell you guys that they were going to be keeping this kind of product in there and they were like no, they just told us it was a walking cool cooler. They didn't tell us about anything they were keeping in there and see it's so important when people don't know what they're doing and they size equipment. Okay, so back onto the question at hand that was asked.

you know about the two-speed relays I do see problems with the two-speed relays on walk-in coolers, so typically what I do is I give the customer the option uh, of course on installation. if I install their equipment and it has two-speed relays for the evaporative fan motors, I will leave them in play as long as the customer is okay with that until we run into a problem. But if we start to notice a lot of freeze up issues, then I'll disable the two speed relays and just let it run as a normal equipment you know and then tell the customer they need to figure out what they're going to do here because they're losing their Energy Efficiency On the flip side too, let's be honest. and I'm going to be frank right now.

those two speed relays those Motors they are ridiculously expensive. Okay, and you know I'm gonna go ahead and step out here and stay on a lot of the that equipment. the return on investment. it's just not there on some Brands Okay, there's other brands where they do a really good job.

This is where I'm not going to name names okay, but on some Brands the evaporative fan motors that they're just too expensive. and it's ridiculous how expensive they are. And you know oftentimes given the option, the customer is like that motor is going to cost me twelve hundred dollars for a evaporator fan motor. that should cost them a hundred and twenty dollars, you know? And sometimes they cost them twelve hundred dollars and it's like yeah, that's a problem.

So I don't know why you're going to solve that one. Cm, thank you very very much for that super chat I Really do appreciate that. Uh Cm's question says do any of my customers have redundancy or backup for the product It blows his mind that commercial customers have no backup here and roll. Mountain Wyoming When the whole business is selling product that needs to be cold, that's a really good question.

So um I'm trying to think if I've ever worked for customers no I don't think I've ever worked for any customers that had redundancy built into the refrigeration equipment I just don't think I have there's a problem with the redundancy too. Um, if it you, if you're gonna have redundancy built into your equipment, you need to have like a lead lag set up to where you're cycling and running the Redundant equipment for so many hours a day and then switching off and running the other equipment like you need to have some sort of a timer. I've seen that happen before. Um, where the primary and secondary compressors on a parallel rack would switch every week.

so for one week one would be the primary, one would be the secondary and then for the next week the secondary would become the primary and then the other one would become the secondary. That way they got even run times on both compressors on some of the parallel systems. I Don't do a lot of parallel rack work Okay, and actually I don't do any at all. I Had one customer years back that had a parallel system and they ended up having us take it out of operation because they were changing refrigerants.

It was just a whole big mess. but um, on that particular system. Yeah, they had a seven day timer that would switch off from the lead lag or the primary compressor all the time. So if you did have redundancy built into a walk-in because of the this type of product you have in there, Something like that I would think you want to get some even run times and then also that way you're not just sitting there leaving the system off all the time.

Some Hospital customers mind. now that's for refrigeration equipment for air conditioning equipment? Yes. I've done work for hospitals and stuff that had like server rooms and oftentimes in the server rooms they would have redundant equipment. They'd have backup units so that way they would never have a server room get into an overheat situation because that could be a bad problem for a hospital.

So let's see what else. Um, what else we got going on in the chat right now? uh Chris says out of all the restaurants that I service which one pisses me off the most. Which one pisses me off the least? Well, unfortunately I can't really name names so that's just that bummer that it is. I'm not gonna throw any customers under the bus, but there is some.

Well, let's just say this. Currently right now: I'm happy with my customers. Of course there's going to be inconveniences with certain customers that other customers don't do, but when it comes to a customer, that truly pisses me off, they're not really going to be my customer for very long because it's not worth it for me to have that kind of stress. It really isn't.

So you know when customers start becoming a real problem and a thorn in your side I start making phone calls, letting the corporate office know that hey, this is becoming a problem. We really need to resolve this and make it easier, you know? And I don't threaten them. but if the the situation isn't made better than we will usually let go of that customer, fire that customer and move on to another one where we can better spend our time. So um, uh Jason Johnson says that he has a lot of lead lag equipment.

actually most as lead lag. That's that's good to know. Yeah, very much. Again, everybody that's in here right now.

we're on all different social media platforms. Uh LinkedIn Facebook YouTube Hello to everybody I Said this earlier I have no opinion on where you are watching this. It doesn't benefit me or uh, positively or negatively depending on which platform you're on. it's all great.

Whatever platform you're watching this from. The one thing I will say is that YouTube is the most popular. so there's a huge chat room right now that people that are watching on Facebook and Linkedin aren't necessarily seen. so if you want to be part of the chat, you definitely want to come on over to YouTube Okay, um so I want to talk about evacuations? Okay, do you guys remember a time that I love this story? I Love these stories and these Facebook posts that people say okay, so I'm being sarcastic right now.

Understand that. Do you remember a time when things were easier and we didn't have to worry about evacuations? Gosh, evacuations are so dumb. You know, back in my day we didn't have to deal with evacuations. You know it was no big deal.

You just put a vacuum pump. We didn't need micro engages. We didn't need any of this fancy stuff. I'd really like to know that person that said that when their day was like, you know, when did they start in the trade right? Was it in the 1980s? Was it in the 1970s? Was it in the 1960s? Like when did they start in the trade that they didn't have to worry about an evacuation because they're lying to you? Most of our industry has simply just gotten so complacent with some of the very forgiving equipment that we had that they didn't Focus Or they weren't taught to properly evacuate.

Equipment Evacuation has been a thing since the beginning. Okay, um, I find it funny. This is one that fascinates me. So I Have no affiliation with this.

This is a book. A Review of Vacuum for Service Engineers Okay, uh, Saunders and Williams was the original uh author of this and this was actually revised by Jim Bergman and Brian Oren 2020. it's very interesting. This book.

it goes into evacuation and it talks about evacuation And you want to know the crazy thing. The publish date on this book is 1959 1959. now Brian Oren Jim Bergman Added some really cool pictures to the end using digital tools. But the things they were talking about in this book, the explanation of an evacuate and the need for an evacuation goes back to 1959 and before that, Okay, this was just a book that was written in 1959.

Evacuation's not a new thing. It's not a thing that oh you you young kids and all your digital tools, you don't need that. Before we had digital tools, they still had vacuum gauges. Okay, they were just a little bit different.

They weren't just using. you know, negative 29 on the gauges, That that's not how they were doing it. Okay, you actually had uh, vacuum gauges that could actually measure evacuation. So it's nothing new, right? It's just people are stubborn and they don't want to learn the proper ways to do things.

Now to be fair too, I was brought up in a time when evacuation wasn't as important or it wasn't stressed to me that it was as important. Okay, but it was important. It's just that the equipment was very forgiving, right? I came up working on Old R12 equipment and R22 air conditioners And you know what? There's many times that I have still some vivid memories of not using an evacuation. Uh, pump, not using a vacuum pump I Remember just Purge Purge in the system, you would and this wasn't right.

But the way that it was taught to me was oh, you know you would just take the refrigerator. Now if you made the repair and you put it in on the high side and you take your low side hose off and you just okay, that's good refrigerant. then you put it on and run the system. That was not right, but I was improperly trained I wasn't trained right? Okay, and a good majority of this industry is not trained right.

The cool thing is that we have social media. We have technology. We have everything at our fingertips. We have these phones that can tell us so much.

I used to keep Stacks and stacks of manuals and books and binders in my van. textbooks and different things and I don't need to keep any of that because I have this now me personally. I still prefer to flip through something with my hands, you know? So if I'm going to be doing some really important installations and I'm going to need like I prefer to still hold the manual. but you have the ability to look at everything on your phone and we have the ability with new tools and different things that we can get to to be better at our jobs.

And it's so important that we do that, let's go through the chat right now. Um, yeah. old school tools are still awesome. Yeah.

uh. I have a dialer charge? Oh yeah. dial a charge behind me. That's right.

Yep. Chris Marco thank you very much for that. Super Chat uh Chris is asking he's curious if I play music when I'm working on the rooftop units. Have I ever wanted to play music while working? Yeah, it is a thing sometimes.

if we're doing a big job and we're all working on the roof I have a radio in my van, we'll take a radio up onto the roof. but I don't ever wear headphones. Okay I don't like wearing headphones because I want to still be able to hear everything around me I Think it's really important that people not wear earbuds when they're working unless it's a safety thing, right? Because you might be working in a machine room or a motor room where it's really loud and you need to have hearing protection. I actually use bone conducting headphones that sit underneath my ears.

Um, so occasionally I'll put like a podcast on or something like that. but I can still hear everything around me right? So I can still pay attention to what I'm doing, but most of the time I get I find myself getting distracted if I have a podcast or music playing on my bone conducting headphones sometimes I find that I can't focus on what I'm trying to do so I prefer not to. Sometimes we'll bring a job site radio up onto the roof, but with that being said, if you bring a job site radio up onto the roof I'm working in restaurants. you turn that up too loud.

The customers will hear it when they're walking in the doors. so got to be careful about that kind of stuff too and be aware of what's going on. Uh, let's see what else we got going on in the chat. I'm reading through here right now see if I miss anything.

Can I evacuate too quickly? Your true Blue setup does it so quickly. CM Um well. I am not an absolute expert, but my understanding is that the myth of freezing when you're pulling an evacuation is is. it's not that it's a myth, it's that it's very difficult to actually freeze that much moisture in the system and have it cause a problem.

Uh, and they actually cover that in this book. The Review of Vacuum for Service Engineers If you're interested uh, you can actually get this from Truetechtools.com and if you use my offer code I get a small discount I'm sorry you get you get a discount I get a small commission. So my offer code is big picture. One word: Definitely a good little book to pick up and just flip through when you're hanging out.

it's it's. kind of cool and interesting to see the publish date and the information that was in there from all the way back in the 19 late 1950s. It's really cool. Uh, let's see what else we got going on in the chat.

Um, love listening to classical music while brazing. Makes it a lot better see in my head I've got a 1980s Montage playing in my head all the time, so that's why I used to add it into my videos because that's what I hear anyways I'm like Beverly Hills Cop over here you know thinking I'm Axel Foley swinging from the back of the truck hanging on the chains that every time I'm raising. That's all I think about is Axel Foley swinging from the back of the truck uh, you know that's hauling. uh what is it? uh, cigarette cartons, right? It was like pirated cigarettes or something like that.

I can't remember what was in that movie, but it was a long time ago. Um, let's see what else we got going on here. You know what? I do have to say Spoiler Alert I'm sure I'll make a video or something like that, but I bought uh the new Navac Power Bender you know the that I have some problems with that. Has anybody else bought the navac? Bender Do you guys have issues with it? I bought it and I'm like there's some real flaws inside there.

uh and I'm really intrigued. like it seems like they just I don't know. it's still cool, but there's some definite flaws with the powered. Bender I'm not going to return it I'll still use it but I was kind of like when I I brought it I got it I haven't used it on a job yet, but I was just doing some test bins in the backyard and I'm like oh yeah, yeah, there's some problems with this.

So yeah, all right. Um, you're listening to Axel fully next time you braise. That's right. Uh, Dale says that's what my dad taught me.

Uh yeah yeah, my dad did teach me to uh, sweep the system and uh, some other improper things. But to be fair, okay I don't fault my dad for teaching me the incorrect stuff. That's where the industry was at the time, right? and that's how he was taught. and so he.

you know he tried to do better when he taught me, but my dad knew enough that when I was coming up in the trade working for him, he would tell me like I'd ask him a question. he'd be like you're gonna have to ask your teacher at school because I don't know how to answer that you know. So he knew what his limits were and you know he encouraged me to become the person that I am today, which is I'm not the best service technician in the world I I never will be. but I'm just a curious, inquisitive person that likes to ask questions and try to figure things out.

So and I'm constantly learning too. So I don't fault my dad for teaching me improper stuff because that's where the industry was at the time, right? I mean you know before all the EPA laws and everything I can remember not recover in refrigerant, you just let it go. you know? And it's like we all know now how bad that is and of course we don't do that anymore. But um, all right.

see what else we got going on in the chat, reading through here, seeing what I'm missing? Sweep the leg. That's right. Sweep the legs. Some karate kid action going on there that was pretty funny I heard that on the show the other night Ryan So have I ever worked on any uh, cryogenic Refrigeration equipment Nicholas um I've actually turned down work? no no I've never worked on cryogenic.

uh I've turned down some really ultra low lab refrigeration work before. like I've gone up. they called me out I looked at it I was like yeah, this is beyond me. I'm not even gonna try so um no.

I've never worked on cryogenic. So uh so my father was the reason that I got into HVAC Stephen is asking me yes my dad I'm second generation uh my dad started the service company that I now run uh and he's pretty much retired now. um you know he. he basically comes in uh three to four days a week, works in the office now and then occasionally will come out on like crane jobs just to kind of talk with the crane operator and kind of help me out a little bit but really doesn't go on the roof very much anymore.

just kind of helps me administrate doing Administration work. So but yes I did I learned everything from my dad good and bad. So and then I I Grew From that and made my own stuff from everything that I learned. So uh, is there a preference on gauges I use when pulling a vacuum? you still use old analog for everything from Reading pressures to vacuum.

You still have trouble trusting digital gauges. so um, it just comes across as Facebook user. So I don't know who you are, but that's fine, it's okay. Um, when it comes to gauges, all right I still have compound gauges in my van they're individual stubbies and I use them most of the time when I'm just working on R290 equipment.

but it's not that I don't want to use digital on R290, just sometimes it's just easier throwing a compound gauge on there. but I will use digital on R290 equipment. also. okay.

But as far as normal gauges that I use I use digital gauges when I'm working on everything or digital smart probes. Okay when I'm pulling evacuations I prefer to pull an evacuation without a manifold gauge set and to pull with just large diameter hoses with using vacuum core removal tools to valve the system off and Micron gauges on the system digital Micron gauges. That is my preferred way to pull an evacuation, but sometimes it's not practical to pull an evacuation. Maybe you're working on a tiny little system, or you know, who knows.

Sometimes I will still pull through a manifold gauge set. One of the most important things to understand when you're pulling through a manifold gauge set is that no time will the Micron reading on the manifold gauge set be the actual Micron reading in the system. It just even if you isolate the system and let it go into a Decay and open up your hoses and leave it. I would argue that there's always going to be a lower Micron reading in the system, so that's why it's always best to have your micro engage at the furthest point in the system.

And what we mean by the furthest point is let's say your opponent evacuation and you're pulling just on the high side, right? You're working on a walk-in cooler remote system. You've just got your hose hooked up to the receiver, and you're pulling from the receiver. Then you want to put a micron gauge on the low side of the system, open up the liquid line solenoid valve, and pull all the way through the system, and then the furthest point from the vacuum pump is going to be where you're going to put the micron gauge because that's going to be the most accurate reading. So when possible though, if I or when you know you have to, if I do use a digital manifold, I will use a manifold set with a micron gauge in there.

But it's very important to understand that it's not going to be the most accurate reading. Okay, but there's also a time and place to understand that you're never going to pull a perfect vacuum, right? Let's just say you're working on a refrigeration system and you pumped it down. meaning that you close the king valve on the liquid line receiver and you let the refrigeration system run and it backed up all the refrigerant and the receiver and the condenser and then the low side is void of refrigerant. Well, if you're doing a evacuation just on a pump down system, on the low side, you're never going to get a perfect vacuum because everything the the king valve is going to be slightly leaking within the system and the the discharge read is going to be slightly leaking inside the compressor.

There's always going to be something that will let a slight bit of refrigerant through. so you're never going to get a perfect evacuation in that system That point? Okay, the only way that you're going to get a really, really amazing vacuum on a refrigeration system is on the new installation. So that's really the most important time. Because that's going to be the one time when you're going to get a true solid evacuation is on the system startup or if you change the compressor and put a new compressor in there because pulling refrigerant and moisture out of refrigeration oil is a nightmare and almost impossible to get a true true solid vacuum on it.

Okay, Chris thank you very much for that super chat again. Power failure. Right on Bud, We'll see you next time. Okay, um, let's see.

Uh Dwayne says that he'd rather use the old manifold for working and use Digital for commissioning. Hey, you know to each their own whatever works and see. Here's the thing when you when you go into the social media side: when you go into some of the Instagram or Facebook or even Tick Tock different places even on YouTube there's always going to be people out there that have an opinion and they feel like their opinion matters more than your opinion. keyboard Warriors right? There's always going to be people out there that are going to judge you because you use this or you use that.

Hey, you do you right and I'll do me. and if you don't do it the way that I do it. it's okay. I'm just gonna keep doing it my way right? Or maybe you can give me some knowledge and I can learn from that.

But I'm not the type of person to go out there and say that you're stupid because you did this or you did that. Hey man, you know what. To each their own, It is what it is. If you do something different than me, that's I mean you know you do you right? All right.

So let's see what else we got going on in the chat. uh Jason says he had a flooded Barrel Chiller blow its charge the burst disc let go he was five feet away from it I bet you that scared the you know what out of you Jason uh 3 400 pounds of 134a all over the place, especially on you Yeah, that's scary my friend. that is scary. Um okay.

Uh. Brian wants to know my thoughts on A2l's and the loss of capacity they are talking about. Advanced Refrigeration Podcast So okay, A2l is a mildly flammable refrigerant. Okay, mildly flammable refrigerant.

Uh, they're using some flammable components in there. It's a multi-component refrigerant. There's several different mixtures of refrigerant. This is nothing new to us.

The newest thing is is that they have a flammable component to it. Okay, E2ls are something that we need to consider and something that we need to understand. but we don't need to be afraid of them. Okay, that's the most important thing.

I work with E3s, which are highly flammable refrigerants. r290 It's unotorized propane. You can't even smell it leaking. Okay, granted the charge limitations keep it at a small amount about 150 grams right now on the stuff I'm working on, but there's just some safety procedures you follow and it's not that big of a deal.

I Don't want to make you think that you don't need to worry about it at all, because of course, you need to keep it in the back. Your mind follow proper safety practices, but it's pretty much the same safety practices that you've stopped following since you were taught them purging with nitrogen, cutting out as many components when it's practical. Okay, there's sometimes like I say in my videos you just can't cut that TXV out. You just can't cut that dryer out.

You got to unsweet it, right? So sometimes you got to do what you do, but at least understanding that there might be some dangers in what you're doing. So what are my opinions about the loss of capacity with A2ls? I Mean you know, at different times with different refrigerants, especially the newer ones, the Blends the the high Glide refrigerants. Uh, we deal with Uh. 448a is a high Glide refrigerant that we deal with on the refrigeration side or even 449a both High Glide refrigerants.

There's some capacity losses and capacity gains that happen with that refrigerant and it's just things that you need to understand when you're designing it. Okay, if you're talking about A2l refrigerants I don't really understand the the phrase that they have capacity loss. Okay, because here's the thing. you're not.

There's not going to be an A2l refrigerant out there that you are going to be putting into an existing system. That's not how A2l refrigerants work. A2l refrigerants have to be designed for the system they're working in. Okay, just because 448a is a high Glide doesn't mean that it's an A2l because it's not an A2l refrigerant.

Okay, it's just a high Glide refrigerant. But with the A2ls, you're typically going to see that right now on the air conditioning side, I Mean a loss of capacity is not really going to affect you or me because it's all about how the equipment's designed. Okay, so we're not going to even see a loss in capacity because it's going to be designed to operate a certain way. And if you were retrofitting to an A2l, yeah, you might have capacity loss issues that you need to factor in.

but that's not how it's A2l's are going to work. You're not retrofitting the A2ls. Okay, you're using A2ls in a system that was designed for them. Hopefully that makes sense for you.

All right, All right, let's see what else. Uh, reading through the chat right now is a 448 and a 2L No, it is not. Um, let's see what else. Uh, Jeopard, thank you very much for that.

Super Chat Man I Really, really appreciate it. Uh, he says been a fan for a while not an HVAC guy but enjoyed the commitment to doing a quality job and being. oh, that's really, really awesome Bud And you know what it's really cool like I appreciate people that are not in the industry I've gotten emails and this is this is again I Don't like to talk about this stuff because I don't want it to seem like I'm being braggadocious or anything but I've gotten emails from people and they are very humbling emails when you read them and someone's like yeah, I started watching your videos you know, four years ago. Five years ago and they made a career change because they found some random dudes videos on YouTube and they liked them and they got in the industry.

So I welcome anybody that's not in the industry to watch these videos because maybe you want to transition into the industry or maybe you just get entertainment or you get just a little bit of knowledge that you necessarily didn't need but it might help you some way in. Life or just answer some Curiosities about what it is that Hvacr service technicians do. So I welcome everybody and thank you very much for that. Super Chat man I Really appreciate you.

Uh, let's see what else. Uh, reading through here, Truetech said you might have to lay the thing down and decided to trim it I don't know what you're talking about right now I guess I need to read up because there's a conversation going on and that's fine. Um, reading through here. Oh okay, gotcha.

uh YouTube it all right right on. Yep, Okay, so we talked about the triple evacuation. Oh no, that's what I didn't Okay, so I talked about evacuations. but I want to talk about triple evacuations? Okay, so I'm going to dispel a myth right now.

You don't need to do a triple evacuation. You just don't Okay, triple evacuations. This is my opinion. I Do not have complete facts behind this I've read some things I've pieced some things together.

But here's my understanding of a triple evacuation and the logic behind a triple evacuation. A triple evacuation was where you would put a vacuum pump on a system. You would pull it down to a certain level, You would then break the vacuum with a dry refrigerant. Way back in the day, people would use R22 Okay, but now we have to use nitrogen, right? So you'd break it with nitrogen, Then you'd evacuate down even lower to another level, then break it with nitrogen, and again, then evacuate it down to another level and then it would be your triple evacuation.

There's no need for that. Okay, the idea behind a triple evacuation was that if you had a system that had a lot of moisture in it, it would take too long for the system to pull down with the vacuum pump and so you had to artificially remove some of the moisture. So back in the day when the concept of a Tripoli Vac started, you would take a refrigerator that would absorb a lot of moisture, which R22 has a very very, you know good, uh, capabilities of absorbing moisture. Okay, so people would use R22 sweep the system with 22, pull it out, sweep it again, pull it out, and then vacuum down.

And the theory was that they were removing moisture from the system. Okay, maybe back in the day that was something you needed to do. but to be clear, if we were using dedicated evacuation, hoses and and and proper techniques, you actually wouldn't need to do a Tripoli back. So what's the most in I'm asking the chat right now.

What is what? do you think? One when you're vacuuming down a system with a manifold gauge set? Where is the pain Point Like names, there's a few of them. So where are the pain points using a manifold gauge set? When you're evacuating the system down like just say, a package unit, You're working on a five ton carrier package unit and you're pulling an evacuation down on it and you're using normal gauges and you're just pulling through the you know, the gauge hoses. Okay, so where's the pain Point Going to be? Where's the problem? Where's the point at which it's really going to slow the evacuation down? I'd like to know what the chat has to say. Small hoses.

That is a great great um, uh thing. That is one of the things small hoses. So the inside diameter of that hose is less than a quarter of an inch. Okay, you have quarter inch fittings on the outside, but the inside diameter of that hose is less than a quarter inch.

Okay, so the longer the hose is, the harder it's going to be to pull through them and do an evacuation. But that's not the only place. The Schrader course exactly the packing the Schrader core depressor in the hoses. So if you look at your hoses, they have a Schrader cord depressor.

Okay, that Schrader Decor depressor is a restriction in that hose. Then when you push down on a Schrader core, the Schrader core is A potential point at which it's going to slow down the evacuation if you just simply took off, took that manifold out of the picture, or even just simply took the cores the Schrader cores out of the system and took the core depressors out of your hoses. That would speed up the evacuation. But the very interesting thing and they go over it inside this book.

But if you take a quarter inch hose and you try to pull an evacuation through a Schrader core, you know, let's go get a 10. CFM Let's get 100 CFM Vacuum Pump: Guess what? The hoses are going to restrict that vacuum pump from its full potential. If you're pulling through Schraders, you might as well use a one CFM vacuum pump because you're probably only going to get one, maybe two Cfms through that Schrader core of flow. Okay, so bigger pump doesn't do anything for you if you're still pulling through Schraders and normal hoses.

So there's no point in going and buying a six. Seven, eight, nine, ten, twenty, Thirty Forty fifty CFM Pump: You're just wasting your money if you're just pulling through normal Schraders and normal hoses. Bigger diameter hoses is the answer. Removing the schraders, you'd be surprised how much faster it speeds the process up.

So again, understand. If you use, uh, normal hoses and gauges to pull and evacuation, so be it. It's just going to take a lot longer and your your micron gauge is not going to be very accurate. Okay, uh, Carrier tells us to do a triple A Vac on all multi-head Mini Splits and all Vrfs you use 3H True blue hoses with cores pulled cm and again, that's where manufacturers are even behind the times because manufacturers are still telling you to do a triple evacuation.

The reason why manufacturers are telling you to do a triple evacuation is because they number one, the engineers of the manufacturers are still outdated in some of the ideas, But number two, they're concerned that people are still pulling evacuations through their gauges. Okay, a lot of these rules and regulations that we have is just simply because people don't know how to pull a proper evacuation. And then you know manufacturers are having a hard time hiring people too to be their training managers and their engineering manures. And you know big companies manufacturers.

They don't want to pay enough to pay someone that actually has knowledge that knows how to train people. And I'm not saying that everybody out there is dumb. They're not. There's good people out there working for manufacturers, but there's also bad people working for manufacturers that are publishing training materials that are incorrect.

There's no need for a triple evacuation if you sweep the system with nitrogen before an evacuation and you have large diameter vacuum hoses and a properly sized vacuum pump and you pull a proper vacuum on a system. A triple evacuation. is like just a tremendous waste of time. but I Understand I Understand that Vrf manufacturers want you to do things a certain way and you have to do it their way or you can get in trouble.

I Get it? I Get it. But just understand it's pointless and it's dumb. So all right, let's see what else we got. Uh, like pulling a vacuum through a coffee straw.

100 point six CFM through quarter inch five foot hoses at a thousand microns? Al Anonymous is saying So exactly my point. You get nothing. so don't go buy that Hcfm vacuum pump. if you're still pulling through those hoses.

There's no point. Now you use a large diameter hose. There's several manufacturers that make them. Uh, Appian makes them Yellow Jacket make some JB makes them True Blue Uh Accu Tools make some.

They're all different large diameter hoses you can get KF Fittings like on the true Blue hoses or other manufacturers on the industrial setting can make you something similar to the the true Blue hoses. Did you know that Accu Tools and the true Blue hoses? they they don't own a patent on that that those hoses have been used in the industrial sector for a very long time and then in the scientific sector. You can go online and look at for KF vacuum fittings and you can find all the clamps and different hoses and the little things. It's just true Blue made easier for us normal.

HVAC Technicians or accutools Did you know to to put a kit together to give us all the equipment in one thing? but you know you guys want to do all the footwork personally I Don't I'd just rather buy the True Blue kit and be done with it. So all right, let's see what else we got going on in the chat right now. Um, how about pulling evacuation too fast where you have ice forming inside the system? Dwayne Again, this is getting beyond my logic of being able to explain, but my understanding is is that's almost impossible to freeze moisture in a system at the temperatures at which we're working on. Now would be one thing if it was negative.

30 outside and you're trying to pull moisture out of a system and you're using a big hose. Okay, maybe maybe something can happen, but in the systems that we're working on when we're working on them, the system's at certain temperatures and I realize that when you have a sealed system and you pull it into a vacuum that the the the the pressure relationship is going to change inside. there, you know. But there's still temperatures that are affecting the outside of the pipe and the coils and different things like that.

So my understanding is that it's damn near impossible to truly freeze moisture in a system okay, at the conditions at which we're working on them. in the typical air conditioning stuff. Of course, there's going to be an instance when you get into a weird situation where you could do that, but I think that's just a misinformation that's been spread for a very, very long time. and I I mean I'm sure you can go back to some of my videos I can guarantee you I can think of a time that I was making a video and I said I think I froze stuff in here but I I learned that it wasn't actually the case.

it was just I was trying to pull through Schraders and it was just taking a long time. so I'm not perfect I learned uh Daniel's saying you can with CO2 you know? there we go. All right? Um, all right, let's see what else we got going on in the chat. Uh, Let's see, we used a vacuum truck on an industrial process Chiller that had an evaporator water breached and it did freeze the moisture.

But that's an extreme scenario again. and you know, think about this on a walk-in freezer. Let's dispel another myth because there's another myth out there that says you don't want to pull a vacuum too low because you'll start ruining the oil. The oil will start vaporizing and leaving the system.

That's pretty much been misproven too. That's it. Misinformation. Okay, you know that's fake news.

Um, you know, on refrigeration systems, especially low temp systems, you actually want to aim for lower levels. Two to four hundred microns is what you want to aim for on low temp systems because at those lower temperatures, when you get the box down to temperature, if there is moisture in the system, you can actually have issues where it's starting to freeze. Okay now, but that's not during evacuation, that's during proper operation when the box is down to negative 15 degrees and the coil temperature is negative 25, you know? So then that's when you can really start to freeze moisture in a system. but it's not really happening per se during the evacuation process.

Okay again. I Know there's always going to be weird circumstances where things can happen I am not a genius I Really don't I just retain knowledge that I hear little tidbits I know a little bit about a lot I do not know? Um, everything? Okay, all right. So today over the weekend I had a service call. Uh, it's funny the weekend was really slow I'm not really slow I had a service technician someone else that was on call.

He got a few calls through the weekend but nothing major. just you know. air conditioning. Call here.

Air Conditioning Call there. We just go put the fires out. We tell them we'll be back next week. We'll clean all your equipment that kind of stuff.

So he got Sunday afternoon I Was out with my family for Mother's Day and we got a walk-in freezer service call and it's like great you know? So send them out there. he gets out there and he goes. We got a problem and I'm like oh man, you know in my head I'm thinking bad compressor that's gonna suck. he's got no power on the Roof oh okay, cool and he goes I traced it down he goes, we got a bad breaker and I go really and he goes yeah he goes.

he he went to the breaker he you know, isolated the condensing unit on the roof, shut it off, went down to the breaker. the breaker's on. It is not tripped, it's on and it does not have proper power coming out of the circuit breaker. Okay, so he's got 120 to ground on one leg and then like 20 to ground and 30 to ground on the other leg.

So he's got a bad breaker. it's not resetting. He checked out the bus bars. it has three phase going into the breaker.

No three phase coming out. Well, here's where this gets kind of tricky: I Don't allow my technicians to get too deep when it comes to electrical panels. okay I really don't want my guys sticking their hands in electrical panels if they're operating different things like that. So I allowed him to just test power real quick.

He tested it, no big deal, but I didn't want him swapping. Breakers So I told the customer call an electrician get him to change the breaker but before we change the breaker, big picture here. Okay I Talked to my technician I said I want you to go under the roof and I want you to test every component in that condensing unit to ground test the compressor, all three legs, to ground test the condenser fan motors, test all the wires. Make sure there's no reason for that breaker to trip even though it wasn't tripped when we got there.

we're still assuming because we don't know what caused the problem. Maybe a trip and then the customer tried to reset it. It wouldn't reset. You know, so big picture stuff.

We tested everything to ground, no direct shorts to ground all the fan motors spin. We visually inspected all the wires. We don't see any reason for a breaker to trip, so we said call an electrician, get the electrician out. I left it at that I Went back there today because we told them we want to come back and follow up.

I Went back there today, they still didn't have power. it's been down since yesterday. I'm like what the heck, we had to come out on an emergency. Why didn't the electrician? Long story short, it didn't happen.

So I'm out there this morning going well I want to see this equipment running so again I don't allow my technicians to do this but I got into the breaker panel I Got there when they first opened so I shut down the power to the panel itself I found another three-phase breaker for one of the makeup air units on the roof that wasn't a critical piece of equipment and I took the three-phase breaker from that and I swapped it with the bad breaker. put the good breaker from the makeuper unit on the walk-in freezer. tested everything again before I turned it on, then I turned it on and I watched the system come down to Temp No problems. The problem was a bad breaker.

Later on down the line, the electrician went out there and before I left. I Told the manager. okay when the electrician gets here I marked the breaker with a yellow paint marker the one that's now on their makeuper unit. I Said change that breaker and from experience I Told the manager do not let the electrician tell you there's nothing wrong with the breaker.

It needs to be replaced. Do you understand the manager says yeah, it needs to be replaced I said don't let the electrician tell you anything otherwise, just tell them to change it. Okay, so uh, electrician comes out. Manager calls me.

yeah, he says it's not bad and it's like okay Here we go. So I get on the phone with the electrician and I go. So what's going on and he goes? Well, he goes. My work order says that the breaker was tripped.

he goes I Got here, it's not tripped. it was off and I go I don't know why the manager told you it was tripped because it wasn't tripped. the breaker's bad and he goes well. I reset it and it clicked back on just fine and I go again.

He goes He goes I I was under the understanding that it kept tripping and I go No, it's not tripping, it's just bad and he goes well. I turned it on, it clicked on and I go. Did you test power? I'm talking to the electrician on the phone. Did you test power? Well, yeah he goes I got 120 to ground on one leg but across the phases I don't have power and I go.

did you check on the incoming side of the breaker? He goes yeah, he goes I got three phase and I go. you have a bad breaker mind you. I'm talking to the electrician. the guy that's supposed to be changing the breaker I said you have a bad breaker my friend.

change the breaker. Okay, okay. I'll change it. This is like good gosh.

do I really have to walk other people through their jobs? like just sometimes this dumb sounds to me now. I'm not singling out all electricians right. There's bad HVAC Technicians there is bad electricians. There's bad plumbers, There's bad everything.

Okay, we have a skills. Gap Big time in our industry and people are hiring out of desperation. Badly. Okay, so this particular person called me and said it clicked back on.

fine. but I don't have three phase coming out of the breaker. No duh, that's why it's bad. Change it.

You know this stuff just dumbfounds me. So make sure that you're thorough, right? And the the moral of the story is is that every trade is having a problem. Right now there's there's technicians that all are being pushed out way too fast. They need more training, more experience before they're let out on their own.

It just happens. Okay, um, let's see. and it's not all electricians that are stupid it, you know. And this guy just and I don't even think this guy was stupid I Just think that he probably wasn't ready to be out on his own is all.

So um, exactly all the time arguing. Yep, he could have just changed it and saved time I mean why did he even have to call me? That's the whole point I flipped it on, it worked. I tested power I found that it's not giving three-phase power out of the breaker. Oh okay, it's bad.

You know, Not. Well, it clicked on. it's not trippy and I don't know why you could. It's just like but again, it's not all electricians.

I'm not attacking electricians I Know amazing electricians. There's actually some really good ones on social media too that make amazing YouTube videos and Instagram content. Lots of great ones. There's some local ones near me that do really nice work and it's awesome.

So um yeah, he probably just didn't realize what was going on. That's a good point. Joe T So um, kitchen always feel hot even though the AC and exhaust hood is working fine. Any thoughts: Uh well.

I Mean if the kitchen feels hot, it's probably hot. So the air conditioning system and the exhaust equipment is not design prep correctly is all. so you know, maybe the AC is not big enough. Maybe there's ductwork problems.

You know? Who knows? There could be all kinds of stuff. Um, all right, let's see what else we got going on. Uh, you know. one thing that people comment about in my videos all the time is the wiring.

The wiring. In typical air conditioning units, there's no conduits inside the units. there's usually not. You know, manufacturers are there to make money.

They're there to make money, and they're there to produce a product. They don't necessarily want that particular piece of equipment to be the fanciest piece of equipment with the best run wires with perfect wiring inside of them. That's not money making for them, right? Because customers demand cheaper, cheaper, cheaper manufacturers are trying to make cheaper cheaper cheaper. so they start cutting Corners in different places.

I Realize that in other countries they have higher standards when it comes to the electrical wires that are ran within a particular piece of equipment. But here you know people can get away with a lot more. So they do okay and it is what it is. I Certainly don't like the equipment with wires.

just ran through zip ties running all over air conditioning units and stuff. It's a nightmare to work on. When you start having to cut zip ties. that's the worst thing ever because then the wires just kind of come out and they start going everywhere.

It sucks. Okay, but if you do have to cut zip ties, do your best to kind of tie them back up when you're done. So let's see what else we got going on in here. Um, all right, hey my buddy Bill's in here curious HVAC Guy So uh, when it comes to truck stock, that's a very interesting question.

I got a lot of pushback a couple videos back and then I addressed it in this recent video over the weekend where I had exhaust fans go down and people were like, why don't people were asking me Several people ask me why is it that I don't keep all the replacement spare belts on my truck okay and I mentioned that because it's a lot of money to keep belts on my truck at all times and it's not something that I use all the time and some of the people that were commenting I could clearly tell that they were restaurant owners or end users that feel like they've been wronged by other technicians. Okay, and so be it. Maybe they have been. But one thing that you have to understand as a service technician, especially as a business owner: I have to control truck stock I Don't sell a lot of belts because oftentimes my customers use National filter changing companies that'll come through and change the air conditioning filters.

They'll wash off the coils and they'll change the belts on all the equipment. So I don't get to sell a lot of belts to my customers anymore. Therefore, I stopped keeping them on my trucks. We used to keep a ton of belts, but then we would find out that when an employee left we'd go clean out his van and we fill up trash cans with belts.

It was just an item that we found that was just going in our trucks and wasting a lot of money. I've learned to not keep very much belt stock in my trucks and I reduce a lot of stock of a lot of materials and parts because now there's a couple things that go along with that: I Live in a very, uh, um, densely populated area that has a lot of supply houses within reach I have a lot of 24-hour supply houses, so if I truly need something over a weekend, there's either a supply house that's open on the weekends or I can open one up in an emergency basis and get whatever I need. So I don't really and there's a cost involved at that, but that's fine I don't really keep a lot of belt stock. Okay I do keep emergency belts on my truck.

so I have some uh, chain style belts that are link style belts that you can create almost any size in an A-belt and a B belt. I keep those. but I don't keep normal belts in my truck just simply because it costs me money and it's money that is wasted. It just sits in my van and it's money that's not doing me anything you know in the van.

So we we reduce our stocks significantly because that okay, um, I carry what makes money Mario yes, that is is absolutely correct. Okay, you keep ice machine parts more than anything might be. So probably because you work on more ice machines. I have a lot of Dell field Parts in all of my trucks because I do a lot of Dell field work and I have a lot of Manitowoc ice machine parts on every one of my trucks because I work on a lot of Manitowoc ice machines so it's all tailored to the type of equipment that I work on.

but I also have a few Key Hoshizaki Parts And you know I keep a Hoshizaki water pump in my shop at all times. so nobody keeps them on their truck because they're too much money to put four water pumps. You k