Ah, it's time to chill out and get ready for a mediocre q, a live stream if you're old enough grab yourself your favorite adult beverage and if you're not stick with apple juice, put your feet up and relax. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the chat and now, let's queue up the intro music yo. How are you guys doing? Hopefully, you guys are doing well turn off my phone as someone's trying to call me at the moment. All right so got as usual got a nice group of people in here right now too.

Already, this is awesome. You guys are awesome that come in here every week. It's really cool to see a lot of the same people and then also to see the new people that come in here. It's really neat, it's very humbling actually to see the response and the chats and the emails and all that good stuff and um.

So a couple questions that kind of came up real, quick before i get into my monologue and all that crap i need to talk about uh. Someone had asked about the mag ring. I happen to have one sitting on my desk right now, so i got this from my supply house. It's called mag ring and it's a magnetic ring.

It has a really heavy duty, magnet on the back and i'll. Hang my field piece manifold from it um. I just got it at my supply house honestly. I don't.

I know that true tech tools doesn't sell them. Just google search mag ring you might be able to find it there. I'm sure you can find it on amazon or something i mean, i'm sure. If you've got ingenuity, you can probably make one of these.

It's just a ring with a magnet stuck to it. But you know when you go to like harbor freight and stuff like that they have them, but they're not strong, like this one. This one's really really strong um but yeah. I don't know where else to tell you.

I got it from my supply house. Rsd is where i got it from so um how to polish a turd. Well, you get some viper cleaner, okay from refrigeration technologies, from truetech tools. You want to just name off all the sponsors, no uh.

I, like that term polishing a turd, that's one of my favorite uh titles to put on a video. I think i've used it maybe two times now, but i like that title, that's a funny one. It really tells you how i feel about that so um. Oh, the other thing someone was asking me what i'm drinking tonight so uh yeah that whole i'm not gon na drink for the rest of my life, for maybe a couple weeks or maybe a week or maybe a couple days.

It ended up being about a couple days. Um today is a black butte porter. It's like got a coffee taste to it super good. I have a rogue down here too.

If i run out, i've only got a couple of those black butte porters um. I went up to our local mountains this weekend and hung out with my dad and i found those at the local grocery store. When i was up there super good. I like dark, ales, dark porters.

You know dark beer in general, really good, so um yeah all right. Let's start this off good okay! My name is chris. I'm an hvacr service technician here in southern california. There's a lot of new viewers to this channel.

They keep coming up every week and i get all kinds of comments. So that's why i'm gon na start these off with the intro, like i usually do. Okay, i do these live streams uh to supplement the videos that i upload on youtube. Okay, i do typically two videos a week, although last week i did do three videos.

Yeah yeah last week was the three videos, but typically two videos a week. Um and the whole point of these live streams is to answer those questions. Okay, uh. It helps for me because it gives me time to spend with my family, so i'm not staring at my phone all day long.

So most people don't know like uh. Today i got off work a little bit early, but typically i get in my office around two or three ish. Today i got in my office around noon and i've been working on. You know answering emails, comments, questions and that kind of stuff and then inviting people to the live stream and coming up with like a little script.

You know a list of things to talk about and all that good stuff. So i do spend a lot of time kind of getting these streams ready and just kind of coming up with a list of stuff. You know answering. I don't really answer a lot of emails throughout the week uh.

I have been kind of laying off of that because unless it's something that's really easy to answer or if it's a pressing question i'll, usually jump on it um but yeah, that's the whole point of doing these live streams is just to answer your guys's questions. Okay, i really really appreciate the support that you guys give. I love reading the comments. Okay, if you guys could do me a favor on this live stream, give the video a thumbs up.

It definitely helps it. Okay, as my moderator has said in the chat, if you guys do have questions you want me to address, put them in caps lock. If i miss your question, feel free to send me an email to hvacr videos, gmail.com and i'll, try to get to it. Okay, so um, i'm gon na take a quick look at the chat and then i'm gon na kind of go off on my little list of things to talk about naka.

Thank you so very much for that. Uh super chat. That's really awesome bud. Thank you very much.

Um yeah there is a discord server. You guys can feel free to join it. Usually before the stream. We hang out inside the discord server.

I pop in there i'd say: maybe 10 15 minutes a day. You know on average and just say hi to everybody and stuff, but then there's a whole. You know chat going on inside the discord server, so um the discord, server, yeah i'll put the code in the moderator bot's gon na put it in there. I was going to say i know how to do it, but here i'll just put the co, or i mean the the link right now for those of you guys that are interested here, you go ctrl v boom right there so feel free to join the server.

If you guys like but uh, don't expect me to be in there all the time, because i'm not gon na it's the same thing like i don't wan na wait. You know not waste. I don't wan na spend all my time away from my family staring at my phone. You know that kind of stuff, so uh, i do have to say my family has been gone for four or five days now and i am so ready for them to come back.

Basically, i think they left. On thursday they went up uh for a little vacation with some family and i wasn't able to go just because of work and stuff, and i've been home alone and it's boring it's boring. I can only eat out so many times yeah. I don't like it.

My wife's cat is driving me nuts following me around the house wants me to pet it all the time stupid cat anyways all right, so uh questions, cap, lock, okay, so what happens when you mix r22 and 422d in a mini split? Well, that's a great question! So what happens? Is you just became a chemist that didn't understand what he was doing and we don't know what's gon na happen? Okay, because there's two different chemical compounds in there um and the pressure temperature relationship is going to be a mystery depending on how much 22 is left in the system and how much 422d is left in there. Okay, you know i'm not a fan of mixing anything uh, it's just a mess and it creates havoc for everybody else. If you are going to use an alternative refrigerant, i highly highly suggest you remove the old refrigerant, follow all installation practices. I've said this: a million times most manufacturers out there there's some misleading information: okay, first off from some supply houses and different things like that, but you can never mix refrigerants period any alternative to r22.

You do not mix it with r22 or any other refrigerants, because we are not chemists. Okay, what's gon na happen, i don't know i mean. Excuse me if i was professional, i'd have a cough button and this fancy mixer. I think i do, but if i push something i might not know how to turn it back on, and so i just leave that be all i know how to do is work the faders up and down, and that's about it with that mixer.

So uh yeah, just mixing refrigerants is no bueno. Okay, don't go down that path um. What did i do today? Just a couple service calls went around two service calls. Uh, did i got a little bit of video footage, so it might be turning something into a video and nothing too crazy, um, because i was home by noon.

So you know i was able to get in here and get ready for the stream, so um all right. Let's see what else we got going on in here, uh wait! Well, i eat out. After seeing those nasty refrigerators in ice machines, um yeah i eat out, yeah ignorance is bliss, i mean uh, you know, even at some of the restaurants that i work at i'll eat out. Um hell, i even get ice in my drinks when i get a drink.

If i get an iced tea, i'm gon na get ice in it jose ramos. Thank you so very much for that super chat. You guys i'm gon na address this right now. Just like i do all the time.

The super chats are awesome, but they are not required. Okay, guys, i really do appreciate them and i don't want to downplay anything. You guys are trying to do. It's super nice of you guys, but don't spend any money that you guys don't have.

Okay, don't feel obligated or anything like that. You guys do not have to do super chats to get questions answered or anything like that. Okay pay attention as much as possible, but again, thank you guys, so very much okay. So, let's get on with it.

Okay, uh! The last two videos that i released this week well actually three videos right. I think this week was the three videos i'm almost positive. It was well. Maybe it was just the two, whatever um, so the two videos i have this week, the first one was polishing.

A turd, and that was on 723, that was a york package unit that had a indoor blower motor that was bad and then the the blower wheel had actually rubbed against the side of the housing. So what i did was i pulled that blower assembly out, which was a pain in the butt to get out of that tiny unit, took the whole blower assembly over to um over to my uh supply house and had them uh rebuild it. I have a special motor rebuilding supply house and they take care of all that stuff, so they rebuilt it for me and then i just cleaned up the unit and uh. Everything was good after that, so um.

There wasn't really a lot of meat to that video. You know i kind of made a comment in the the description of the video is that you know sometimes um. I shouldn't say sometimes between all these really fancy. Intricate calls that i get, and i make these cool videos about there's usually about five or six of just these plain jane, go out and change a contactor videos like nothing too crazy.

So you know my my service calls and stuff that i do are not always these epic crazy things that just go on forever. It just so happens that i usually get to film those, so they make good videos and it makes it seem like i do, that crazy stuff all the time. But it's really not. I get a lot of silly calls and you know just changing thermostats and all that different stuff, so um anyways all right.

The next video that i had was a trained voyager call back. That was an interesting one and i have lots of things i want to talk about that too, but uh it was a follow-up visit behind another one of my service technicians that had gone out there and we had when my technician was out there. I remember him talking to me on the phone and he had seen a vfd fault inside the human interface or the display. But then i vaguely remember him telling me that he saw a a drain - overflow fault too, and he didn't catch.

The fact that the drain pen was actually plugged up, but it was dry that was the interesting thing: okay uh joseph horse. Thank you. So very much man really really appreciate that man um. So you know it's really easy for us to get like a one-track mind when we go out to do a service call, and it happens though, and i'm not you know i mean life happens, nobody's perfect nobody figures, everything out so um.

You know it's easy to go out there and just kind of get tunnel vision and see a blower fault and ignore everything else when in fact the simplest thing was going on with that unit, whatever was going on with the blower, i don't know what the blower Fault was it hasn't, reproduced the blower fault at all, and when i went back out there there was no blower fault in the history either. Okay, it was nothing but overflows for the drain pan. So you know we have to be thorough. We have to be careful.

We have to look at the big picture. All right. If you see a drain, pan fault, you need to investigate it. You need to blow out the drains.

You know just because the drain pan is empty doesn't mean that the drain's not plugged up. You guys saw that in the video okay and then i went ahead and did every other ac on that roof too. You know it's really important to understand that. There's opportunities all around us to stay busy to keep working to get hours to make money.

All that good stuff, we don't have to cheat, we don't have to steal, we don't have to lie to the customer. I went out there to go back on a callback right and i was able to talk to the customer and say: hey all your ac filters are plugged, all your belts are plugged and i need to clean the coils. You know, and i got to sell them all that, and it was you know justifiable. There was nothing wrong with what i did and what i sold them.

The customer was happy because i found a potential problem that was going to save a money in the future. Okay, so remember the whole big picture thing isn't just to be a pain in the ass. It's to keep us busy. It's to keep us working, you know so take a step back guys, remember the whole take a step back too.

It's not just a look at the big picture. It's take a step back and slow down smell the roses. Look around, you know talk to the customer. Ask questions.

You know it helps us to find out what's going on with everything all right, um, let's go ahead, and so that's the two videos that i had this last week, something i want to cover right now. We've already got quite a few people, and i think this is a really important topic. I talk about. I talk about this every couple months: okay and i like to fall back on it and just remind people um.

I have a video series with my wife and it's called how we live the hvacr life uh, terry, oh yeah. Definitely i'm gon na cover that right now, terry. Thank you very much. That's a great awesome super chat.

I really appreciate it. So i'm gon na cover that here in just a second, so i did a video series with my life called how we live the hvac, our life, okay, and in that series you guys can go back on my youtube channel and you can see we kind of Discuss a few things, the one thing that i think is the most important thing that i discuss that i want to get to everybody is that um we need to talk. We need to not bottle things up all right. We work in a very stressful job, we're out working we're in the heat, we're doing all kinds of stuff and little things they nip at you.

They nip at you and oftentimes. I was very guilty of this of not talking about it. I just bottled it up and i bottled it up until i snapped okay and snapping usually entailed me punching a hole through a wall throwing a tool across the roof um when, in fact, i didn't need to okay um, i'm gon na kind of segue over to Mental health um guys don't be ashamed to talk about mental health. Don't be ashamed to talk about depression anxiety, any of that stuff.

It's really important. I decided um the one time. I've told the story a million times you guys can go. Listen to my how we live the hvac life i'll go more in depth than that, but uh what happened was i got really really angry.

I punched a wall. My family wasn't home. I felt very ashamed because now there was a hole in the wall um and i went to go see a doctor realize that i had some issues. I had some mental issues for sure.

Okay, i was diagnosed bipolar, a couple other things and uh i got help. I talked to the doctor. I saw a therapist for a while, so guys this sounds silly. A lot of people don't like to talk about this stuff, but it's really important.

Okay, especially right now with everything going on um, you guys need to talk to someone whether it be your wife, whether it be a friend, your spouse, whoever all right a doctor. You guys need to communicate and talk to someone don't bottle up all this crap. It sucks, okay, i know generationally. This wasn't something that we would talk about in the past.

Okay, i can tell you right now. I remember talking to my grandfather. This was about 10 years ago that i went and saw a doctor. I remember telling my grandfather that i went and saw a doctor because i was dealing with anxiety and stuff and i remember that you know the look on my grandfather's face like confusion embarrassment for me, and he was just like.

Why would you talk to a doctor about that stuff because you got to remember generationally in the past? That was something that you didn't talk about. You just buried that you were just manned up and moved on right. It's real guys get help. Okay, talk to a doctor talk to a family member.

All right, really really reach out, don't be ashamed to talk about that stuff. I know that this isn't a very big topic right now. You know i'm sure, i'm losing viewers right now, but i really don't care, because this is a really important thing, especially in the midst of this pandemic. I know a lot of people feel hopeless and helpless, seek help you're, not in it alone.

Okay cool, i'm gon na get back on with everything else: okay, um callbacks. Let's talk about callbacks! So in my recent video we were going back on a callback. Callbacks are a pain in the butt you guys, but the mistakes that i've made over my career have made me the person that i am today kind of a screw-up kind of a silly loser, different things like that, but that's whatever we can get on that topic Later but um, but seriously all joking aside callbacks they make you the person that you are. You need to make sure that if you do get callbacks or you go back on other people's callbacks, you learn from them.

Okay, sometimes it can be the simplest of things like in my recent video, where we had a plugged up drain, it's the simplest of stuff, but it's so important to make sure that you take care of that stuff. I have this little thing in the back of my head, that always talks to me and when i in my head i talk to myself that kind of stuff. That's i you know anyways, that's a whole nother subject but um. You know when, when i finish a job, there's like a nagging something in the back of my head, saying, hey, hey, think twice think twice.

Look at this again! Look at this again and often times. I ignore that, and usually when i ignore it, it comes back to bite me in the butt. Okay, so trust your gut when you're doing a service call. If something's telling you to spend a little bit more time, then spend a little bit more time.

Trust your gut most of the time i mean, what's the worst that can happen, you spend an extra 10 minutes and you don't find anything perfect, there's nothing worse than shaving 10 minutes off of the service call not finding the problem, and then the customer has to Call you back out: your boss is pissed the customer's pissed. It just looks bad all the way around okay, so it's very important um terry. He had said that uh and again thanks so much for that super chat. Terry, he said be careful changing over to poe.

It will uh yeah, it will okay. So when you're changing over from mineral oil to polyester oil, something that you have to remember is that polyester polyester oil or poe is a great, solvent. Okay, let's just say it like that: it's a solvent that will clean the line. So if you have sludge and different things built up in your refrigeration lines, poe is going to do a great job of bringing that all back to your compressor and if there's anything in between that point and your compressor, it's going to plug it up.

Txv screens filter dryers different stuff, like that. So when you are doing conversions, you guys really really need to follow all manufacturer's instructions on how to properly clean equipment. Okay. Now i personally don't use any r22 alternative refrigerants at the moment, but if my customers ever wanted me to, i would have to and it's a very good possibility.

Well, i know that if i was going to use any alternative refrigerants absolutely i would be changing the oil over i'm not going to be using any of these ones. That say that you can still use the mineral oil because that's a whole nother thing, but um. So i'm going to make sure that i'm going to follow all manufacturer's instructions if you can make sure that you cut the line set in different sections and blow it out very well with nitrogen. Personally, i am not a fan of additives, uh, flushes and different things.

Like that, okay, but there's an argument to be made for both sides: uh do as you will. You know, do your research yourself and make that decision, whether or not you want to, but just be very careful when you are doing retrofits to refrigerants. Okay, very, very careful all right um! Let me see what i'm missing in here uh. I do sing to myself couch potato.

I definitely sing to myself. I talk to myself. I have conversations while i'm driving down the freeway with myself like i'll rehearse conversations in my head that i'm gon na have with someone or something like that yep i do it all the time. So all right, let's see hm how big and dangerous is a vfd explosion, uh very dangerous.

I mean i can't really register it on a scale but depending on the size of the vfd, it's essentially an arc. Flash can come out of that thing. So you know if you're dealing with a 480 volt vfd um, you know and depending on the size, it's got some pretty big capacitors in there and usually when they explode they're, pretty violent. They usually blow the housing apart, the capacitors go flying.

It's not a good thing. I've seen it happen quite a few times so um i've seen the results of it. I should say, but all right, um, okay, get back to my list here, um showing my call back. So that was something new.

I i really haven't shown callbacks and videos before of my technicians, but i'm not throwing my technician under the bus. Okay mistakes happen, i'm not it's not the end of the world. Okay, we need to learn from those mistakes, but i'm going to try to show that stuff a little bit more, because i want to be as open and transparent with everybody and make them realize that you know we have those problems at our company too, and even I me and i have no problem showing my callbacks. If i make a mistake i'll say it all day long, but in this situation i'm not naming the technician or anything like that, but it does happen.

Okay, um, okay, so flush will thin the oil okay, so use nitrogen blow both ways. Yes, okay! So but here's the thing about flush. Here's one of the things number one most people don't realize that if you're using a flesh, uh, hey joe, thank you for becoming a channel supporter hvacr north, that's awesome, but so when you're using a flesh, okay, uh, something that you don't realize oftentimes they have an Accelerant in there, and then they have a chemical solvent in there and what it's meant to do is it's meant to scrape the lines of the refrigeration line, set and push any oils and different things out of the system. Okay, now here's the thing, though, if you're going to use a flush, if you follow the manufacturer's installation instructions, you actually have to create a restriction at the opposite end of the line, so you need to pinch down the suction line.

If you're dealing with a 7 8 inch suction line, you need to pinch it down to about an eighth of an inch, maybe a quarter of an inch. And then you put flush in the system and then you pressurize with nitrogen and you blow all that crap out by creating a restriction, you're backing up the flush in the line and you're pushing it through. Now i don't like flesh and the reason why i don't like it is because i'm worried about that solvent that's in there getting stuck in the system - okay, because guess what? If there's oil stuck in the system that solvent can get stuck in the system too? So that's what worries me um, but if you're following the installation instructions, a lot of people, don't realize that you need to create a restriction on one end of the system: okay, to build up the pressure and blow it through and then blow it. The other way too, if you're, just leaving the line, set completely open and putting flush in there and blowing it out, it's not doing much.

Okay, you know i mean you're that the manufacturer's instructions for that flush tell you to create that restriction. So always read the installation, instructions for sure um flush voids warranties yeah. It does because it's not good for the system. So that's what scares me so, but but to be fair to be completely fair.

I have used flush many times in my installations. I've used over my career and uh. You know. I can't really tell you one specific time where i ever found a problem from it, but as a principle, i just don't really care to use it anymore, just because i'm worried about potential damage in the system.

So you know i'm not going to sound like a hypocrite and say i've never used it. I have used it, but it's just you know. I just don't want to use it anymore. It's just my choice, so um did me or any of my techs break a fire sprinkler head before uh cross, my fingers.

No, we haven't. I don't ever want to break a fire sprinkler head. I have hit my head on fire sprinkler heads so many times and wondered why the fire sprinkler didn't break, because my head was bleeding after the fact, but no i've never broken one. Thank goodness! Okay! I don't want to break one of those because it's going to be a disaster if it ever goes off so um yeah, it's not good all right um.

Why do commercial compressors kind of squeak when they start up uh? That's a good question, but i i don't know of a commercial compressor that i work on that squeaks when it starts up, so there might be something going on with your system there um rock nails. Thank you so very much for that super chat. How did i decide to go into commercial instead of residential? Well, that's a really easy one! So i was raised in the trade by my father. My father started the company that i work for today in the late 80s and i worked for him as a child.

Growing up and then out of high school, i came to work for him full time, so i was born into the trade. Essentially i was raised in the trade and restaurant refrigeration is what i've always known and what i've always done. So i really didn't i mean i could go back to residential if i wanted to, but i love the commercial work. I love fixing the regions.

I've worked in restaurants, my whole life - i just i dig it a lot so when you're talking to customers, something that you know i wanted to kind of point out is the backstory. The backstory is so important guys. You know interviewing the manager talking with them in the past. We would you know i would always preach to everybody to go shake someone's hand.

Today we don't get to do that quite as much, because the whole you know pandemic and all that stuff. But you know still just going in, and you know talking with the manager kind of trying to ask them, and sometimes you can get answers from them without them, realizing that they're going to give you certain answers, sometimes you can get answers that will they'll incriminate themselves, Like hey, you know, if you notice that this door, every once in a while, gets stuck open, it makes a funny noise and then the manager says yeah yeah. I come and find it open all the time. Okay! Well, if you went in that situation and went to the manager and said hey, are you guys leaving this door open? Their instant answer is no, but if you ask them in a roundabout way, you know what i'm noticing that this door hinge is getting stuck.

I think we might have a problem here. Have you ever noticed it? Oh yeah, you know so asking questions and interviewing the manager is really important because it tells you a lot about your service calls and helps you. So today i went to go work on a walk-in cooler and i got there and the manager said yeah my walking cooler's at 60 degrees, and i said: okay, is there any backstory i mean? Have you noticed temperature issues over the last couple weeks? That kind of stuff you know, i knew what i needed to know. He said the walk-in was broken.

I could have just simply gone on the roof, but in asking him questions you know i was trying to find out any other potential problems now in that situation. Today there was no other issues, he hadn't had any history, so it really was useless, but still it's good to have that conversation. It builds a replica with the manager too, and you know helps them to trust you more so um all right have. I ever had a vfd lose its programming.

Yes um. I have i've, had a vfd on a carrier package unit, lose its programming and or have like mysterious faults, uh one after the second time of having to reprogram it it's time to change the vfd. For me, i don't play games with it. I don't work on very expensive, vfds, they're rather small, so i just uh we'll just change it out once it um once we figure all that stuff.

You know once we um see the second time that it's lost memory or something it's just i'll, just change it out. So sam had asked me in uh. I believe it was in the discord chat. Sam had asked me: how long is the hvac college course and is hvac licensed the same from commercial to residential okay? So how long is an hvac course? Well, typically, with a community college, if you're going to do a degree program, it's usually going to be a two-year program, you're going to go for two years, you're going to get a degree in you know, heating and air conditioning or whatever, and but it'll include math Science, english, all that good stuff.

Okay, if you're going to go just for a certificate at a community college, just for an hvac program, you could probably get it done in a year. I don't know the exact dates it depends, but that's if you went full time personally. The reason why i recommend community colleges is because you can take classes a little bit at a time. So, to be honest with you guys or to be i've, not honest, i mean i've told everybody this um.

I started going to community college when i was first getting uh out of high school and i actually never finished the program. I'm still missing to get a certificate in hvac, i'm still missing a welding class and a technical mathematics class, those only two classes. I need to get a certificate, so i mean it's okay, though, because i got everything else that i needed from it. I wasn't looking for a degree in hindsight.

I wish i had a good degree just to have one because it's kind of a pain in the butt to go back now as a 37 year old - and you know, while i'm running a company, it's a little difficult to go, do night classes. But you know something i kind of want to do someday, so i encourage you guys to get a full on degree if that's ever something you guys are interested in, but community college is my choice. There's private colleges out there too, and those can be great. Just be ready for a hefty price tag.

Community college is really easy because you can pay per class, so it might just cost you 400 for a class, plus a 200 book versus paying anywhere from 10 to 20 000 for a private tuition that you just pay for all up front. Yeah, i mean you guys kind of do the math there all right, let's see if i'm missing, have i had freezing up issues with the trenton evaporators starting from the bottom, any remedies to the points uh. No, i have not had any freezing up issues with trenton evaporators. I wouldn't even say that it would be a trenton problem if you're having freezing up issues number one.

The first thing is, is let's make sure that you have the right nozzle installed in the distributor before the expansion valve okay, a lot of people, don't realize that you do, and i can't remember if the trenton's come with them or not. But that is a very common issue. If you don't have the right nozzle installed, that can lead to refrigerant flow issues which theoretically, could lead to oil return issues. The next thing is is to make sure that you have a properly piped system that has proper oil traps in it.

The last thing you want is oil, getting stuck in your evaporator, causing weird freezing up issues. Okay, i have a few or i have one video where i talk about that so but i don't have any history with a trenton one doing something in particular, but i would start with making sure that your equipment is sized right. Your compressor is operating to full capacity, the nozzles uh installed the expansion valve size right and you have suction line p traps on the system uh. I imagine that would solve majority of your icing up problems, assuming that it's not getting too cold in the box and a door is not being left open.

So thank you very much for that super sticker. I really appreciate that tommy um, you went one year hvac with no extra courses, hvac certification course, one year, twelve hundred dollars and now a tech good for you, man, that's awesome, you know um. So the second part of that question is um. Uh is the license.

The same from commercial to residential, well, licensing, changes from every municipality, so california, we don't have any state license to become an hvac technician. You don't have to have one. The only thing you have to have a state license for is to become a contractor and own. Your own business, but federally we do have to have an epa certificate epa, section 608 or 609 certification, 608 for residential and commercial 609 for automotive, basically just to be able to purchase and handle refrigerants.

You have to have that certification, and essentially it just says that you know you're not supposed to vent it into the atmosphere, okay, but we do not have a specific license that you have to have. I kind of wish that we had to have a state license to work on air conditioning and refrigeration because i feel like it might weed out some of the headaches that we have with unscrupulous technicians. Let's just say that, so all right, let's see what i'm missing in this chu super chat, i mean in the chat. Sorry, um yeah definitely hit the like button guys.

It really really helps out the stream really. Please do so. Um ryan wk sending r22 into a poe compressor. I don't know what you mean by that, but there's absolutely nothing wrong.

R22 can work with polyester oil and or mineral oil there's nothing wrong with it. So i don't know if that was a question or a statement but r22 and a poe compressor is not going to hurt a single thing, so um all right. Let's see what else as long as it's rated for the correct refrigerant, so um gary had to ask me which schooling is better online or in person and what are some good schools? He wants to get trained in school, so he can start a business. So that's a pretty loaded question gary um and i'll kind of get into that a little bit so online or in person, schools, okay, there's a couple different online schools: there's one called it's about: q and or h v, a c r e d.

U, it is an online program that you can get an actual certification in uh. The problem with online is that you have to be focused and you are self-regulating yourself. You can simply fail the class by not keeping up with the classes and or i guess you can't fail. If you, you just have to pay a fee, if you don't get it done in a certain amount of time, and then you just re-up and start the course or continue your course essentially, but uh hvacr, edu and or it's about q.

You guys can do some research there. It's an online training program, there's nothing wrong with it. Okay has lots of great information. Um i've taken some classes there, so it's a pretty cool thing.

Uh, there's also online resources such as hvacrschool.com. That's, my buddy brian orr's website. He's got all kinds of things now at this moment. I think he might be working on it, but i don't think he has an actual certification that you get online through his website yet, but i'm sure that'll be coming soon with brian knowing him, but me personally, i'm an in-person kind of a thing i like to Go into a trade school i like to sit down interact with the teacher interact with my fellow students and learn that way.

I'm not disciplined enough to handle my own uh education to make sure that i get to class on time or that i keep up with this or keep up with that when it comes to online stuff. So um now the the loaded part of your question there. He said you want to get trained in school, so you can start a business. Now, that's a sore subject with me: okay um! You may not mean it that way and don't take offense to this at all.

I don't think anybody has any business whatsoever trying to start a business out of trade school. Okay, in my opinion, to start a business. You need to work five to ten years in the trade bust. Your knuckles learn and become an expert in hvac, then start going to night school, start learning about business and then jump the ship and start a business.

Okay, that's my personal opinion. I'm not an expert okay, but i get too many people and i see too many people that start businesses fresh out of trade school which doesn't even make sense, because, theoretically in california, you're not supposed to be able to do that, but people do it happens. Um - and i'm not a fan of that, so i think that people need to learn. They need to be an expert in hvac and then they can transition into learning how to become a businessman and then merge the two together and start your own hvac business.

So matthew asks um, which meter i like best, the field piece, sc680 and or the field piece sc480. So that's kind of a hard question. Both meters are great meters. Both meters are the newer line.

Okay, i actually don't have the 680. I actually have the 660, which is the older one, but it shares a lot of the same features so the 680 and the 480, the main difference, the biggest one, is the size. Okay, the 680 is much bigger and it has a swivel head. That turns.

I really miss that swivel head, like i said i still have the 660, but i my go-to meter has been the sc480 because of the size. My favorite feature of both of those meters, the sc680 and the sc 480 is the phase rotation. That is my favorite feeder, okay, so, basically within two leads, you can check line one line two and line three and see if the phases are in sync. So that way, when you start up a three phase, compressor you're sure it's going to be going in the right direction.

So that's a really important one. I love that feature and on a side note pay attention and stay tuned to everybody. That's watching this right now, because within the next week i'm actually going to announce a giveaway for a field piece. Sc 480 clamp meter that i will be doing.

I will make an announcement soon. It will be on my channel pay attention. You guys will see how to enter that giveaway and the really cool thing is uh. The giveaway is going to be open to anywhere it's not just in the united states, so that will be coming soon.

Pay attention, don't email me or anything like that. You guys will see i'll announce it on my channel i'll, announce it on my social medias and all that stuff, the details and the rules and all that stuff and we'll be sending one of those out all right. Let me get back to the chat here and see what i'm missing um on the job, with the undersized return that i posted how easy difficult would that be to rectify? Oh man, that that underside well, okay, the question is, i don't know which one you're talking about. Is it a newer video red, oh felix, with a package unit, or is it a 5 ton split system that has a 12 inch supply duct? I think it's! The newer one with the package unit, it would actually be a nightmare to rectify that you would have to get up into the ceiling space.

You would have to open up the bottom of that ac reframe. It enlarge the return. I think the easiest method to to do that rather than fixing the duct work would be have a custom curb adapter made for that unit. Uh have the curb adapter.

So basically the curb adapter is going to be another 12 inches tall, but it would transition to that weird spot where the returns at and that would help out a lot. So i'm pretty sure that's the one you're talking about uh super ch. I think that might be a new super chat. Thank you very much for that super chat, uh, hvac, r, wiz, that's awesome, but very cool.

Do i have a cutaway of a run capacitor? No, i don't. That would be a really interesting thing to do so. Maybe i'll work on that. That's a pretty cool one, essentially you're, just gon na see a lot of little thin, aluminum metal tape or paper in there wrapped around that with a um a fluid in there.

Uh is essentially what you're gon na see but um have. I ever thought of getting into large commercial like chillers and towers, and such i'm really interested in chillers and towers and ammonia and different things like that. But it's just not practical for me to segue my business into that being that i am not an expert in the matter so um. But yes, i am very interested in that kind of stuff.

I've always wanted to work on chillers i'd love to learn how to work on them um. I realized that it probably wouldn't be the hardest thing in the world. For me to learn. There'd definitely be some new stuff.

I have to learn but um, but yeah. It's just not something i want to get my business into it's easy. You have to understand that i'm very conservative with our business myself and my dad, because we there's lots of stuff that we want to do, but we're limited by you know the skills of our employees and i don't have employees that work on chillers. That would be a whole new thing.

It would be a large expenditure that we would have to fund um. It would just be a nightmare. So all right, let's see what else. What's my go-to method for discharging a capacitor adam neil um, just arcing out the capacitor, i mean, especially if it's one that i'm not gon na be worried about just just taking your screwdriver and shorting across.

It is going to be my preferred method for that. Um. All right, let's see what else um, how do i determine what duct size to use for hvac well to to figure out what duct size you're going to use? What i would have to do to figure out the duck size is you're going to use some tables and you're going to use a load, calculation, software and or read the manual manual j. Maybe is it manual j? I can't remember yeah it's one of the manuals.

One of the ashrae manuals that'll tell you how to size, the ductwork but essentially you're, going to find the the size of cfms or the size of the blower in your your air handler and you're going to size the ductwork based off of that. So that way, you don't overload the blower and you allow for proper air delivery throughout the whole duct system, but yeah it's just going to be some manuals that you're going to read you're going to use the the friction loss you're, going to there's a lot of Calculations that go into it too, because you have to figure out the throw that you want the air to come out the register, how far you want it to get across the room. What kind of register you want to use? Do you want it to diffuse the air? Slowly, do you want it to? I mean there's so many different aspects into it so doing duct, work and airflow is a whole nother ball game and it's pretty complex. There's a lot of estimation being done out there right now and there's a lot of improperly sized ductwork, it's pretty crazy.

So all right, um yeah, definitely hit the like button guys it really does help. Have i ever been shocked while discharging a capacitor i i can't say that i have. I cannot say that i've ever been shocked by a capacitor so um. What hvac system do i recommend for small server rooms uh? You know i am not an expert when it comes to the server room, stuff uh.

So even if it's a small server room, you definitely want to get an ac system that is designed for a server room, because you want to be very concerned about too much. Dehumidification, which can cause static, static electricity issues. You want to be concerned with removing humidity, so it's a very fine line of having correctly conditioned air going into that server room. Uh, there's a there's a couple main brands such as liebert and um data air, but i i have no opinion on whether or not one's better than the other.

So let's see what else um, okay! So i'm gon na get to my list here. Uh the customer seems to fix stuff that should be replaced. Okay, guys, first off, you have to understand something in my videos when i'm fixing a region like the roach cooler, i got so many comments, saying they'd be better off, throwing that box away and starting over and i agree i i brought to the customer's attention: hey - Am i you might want to consider replacing this box, but when they look at the cost of the unit and they look at the repair quote they're like hey, it's gon na cost us six grand for a new unit. It's gon na cost us.

You know a third of that to fix it, so you know they chose to fix it, even though it's a mess, even though i can't guarantee that they're not gon na have roach problems again. Everything i do is what the customer wants to do guys. I give the customer the options they make the decisions. Now i get a lot of questions about sizing, air conditioning units and stuff or replacing air conditioning units.

Why didn't i just replace a package unit instead of putting a compressor and a condenser in it? Well, in california, it's insane how much it costs to replace an air conditioner. If you have a 10 10 package unit easily it's going to cost 15 grand, if not more, to change a 10-ton package unit easily. So four thousand dollars worth of repairs - they're just like yeah, do it um, california has so many requirements in order to get an air conditioner changed in california. I think i talked about this recently.

First off we have to find out. Does the new air conditioner weigh 200 pounds more okay, anything more than 200 pounds, then we're gon na have to get a structural load calculation on the building and when i say, does the air conditioner weigh 200 pounds more uh? What about the curb adapter guys? The curb adapter is a couple hundred pounds, usually if you're changing brands, even not changing brands. Sometimes they can weigh more. A structural engineer is required to come out and make sure that the building can handle the load of the new extra 200 pounds or whatever the requirement is, then, on top of that, we have to bring all the issues up to code the gas lines.

The electrical do we have uh the proper grounding going to the unit. We have to have earthquake straps going to the unit, then after we're done with that, we have to prove that the unit is working efficiently, which is fine. We have to make sure that it's delivering the proper capacity that the factory says it should we have to make sure that the airflow is correct. There has to be a third-party company not associated with me that comes in and verifies that i did my job right.

Then they have to test the duct work, make sure that's all good and they have a very tight criteria of the duct work for air leakage and different things like that. So, by the time the customer gets through all that crap most of the time they say they don't want to spend the extra whatever it is to change a unit they'd rather just repair it so, and the same thing goes for refrigerators too: they just you know They just look at the numbers, okay and and if the numbers don't make sense, then they just repair it. So what's the best tool to clean out a condensate drain. Well, i do different kind of work, joe 65, so condensate drains um, i'm i'm just a hose person.

I don't do residential stuff, so a hose with hot water is my my wet dream. Basically, if i can get a hose with hot water, i can clean almost anything. If i have hot water on the roof half the time, i don't even need coil cleaner. Even if it's a greasy condenser, i just keep spraying that thing.

It'll get so hot. The grease will just melt right off okay, but on the residential side i wouldn't suggest using co2, because especially on residential, where you have pvc drain lines, if you have a really bad clog or plugged up drain line, and you try to blow it with co2, you Can actually blow the drain lines apart in the attic, which could be a headache, so be careful very careful about that. For me, i deal with mostly copper drain lines. I still don't use co2.

I use water essentially and i'll blow out the drain lines with water. You guys see it in my videos all the time so um all right. What's my opinion on gauging up to every unit, i work on uh. There's no need to gauge up to everything, but we as technicians need to know when we need to do it and when we don't need to do it.

So you know basically um. I'm gon na make a judgment call when i'm there, i'm using my senses, i'm listening, i'm looking, i'm feeling i'm just observing and the sounds that i hear from the metering device the the heat that i feel coming off. The condenser different things like that are going to help me to understand if i need to put my service gauges on there, okay, so no, i do not gage up on everything only in certain situations. When i deal with walking coolers and walk-in freezers, i gage up quite often especially remote ice machines that have large refrigerant charges.

I gauge up quite often, but when we get into the small region, coolers and prep tables and self-contained ice machines, they're critically charged - and you know an ounce can mean the end of the world for the the particular piece of equipment. So you got to be very careful about gauging up in those situations. So sorry about that. What kind of jobs do i refuse to work on um? The jobs that i refuse to work on, for the most part is new construction.

I don't do new construction. I hate working with general contractors, i'm not a fan of working with other trades when it comes to um. Sorry, i keep hitting the damn mic when it comes to doing equipment change-outs and things like that. I don't like having to wait for electricians.

I don't like having to wait for plumbers and different things and other trades to run pipes and different stuff. It's just a headache, so i prefer not to do any new construction um. I don't even care for retrofit construction, i don't mind changing walking, cooler and freezer evaporators and package units on the roof, but i typically don't like to do stuff that involves me having to use other trades and coordinating with them, because it just becomes a pain in The butt, especially when generals are involved, um, which do, i think, is better an rt unit or a split system. I prefer to work on an rtu, an rtu unit, all day long or a package unit.

I prefer that all day long everything's consolidated in one unit and it's just much easier in my opinion, to work on it so um. Yes, it is apple juice. It is a black butte, porter apple juice. So it's got a nice coffee taste to it.

Does a body good? How long is a reasonable for an annual maintenance for an hvac or an hvac? It really depends on what you're working on. So i had a service tech. Do a really quick preventative maintenance on a restaurant that had seven package units on the roof and he was there for six hours, but that was a really quick maintenance um he literally just jumped in there hosed off the coils. He didn't split them.