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. Foreign, foreign foreign foreign foreign. Thank you yo! What is up everybody? I Hope you guys are doing well I'm doing pretty good over here I Can't really complain too much. Got a few things I Want to talk about? As usual, my list here is pretty small though, so it's not going to be a giant list of things. I'll definitely be looking at the chat and seeing what you guys have to talk about too. Remember, if you guys do have questions or things that you want me to cover, feel free to throw them in the chat, put them in caps lock. It helps me to see them a little bit better. but I'll admit half the time stuff goes by and I can't even see it. You know that's one thing that I do have to say if I had YouTube's ear. um, same thing with Facebook and all the other platforms. but YouTube especially somehow I'd like a better way to interact with people on live streams because when people ask questions, they just just get lost in the chat. you know and then it's just kind of confusing. Like it'd be kind of cool if YouTube had a feature where they would have like a question thing or something like that and it would pop up in a different spot on my screen. So that way you can actually see questions. but I mean you know that's kind of the reason why I say if you guys have things that you want me to cover, you can always email me during the week different things like that and I try to go through my emails but I'll even admit that you know stuff gets lost in my emails too. So it's kind of kind of interesting. you know I run into? well let me before I go off on a tangent and like I usually do. Let me start this stream out right. Okay, my name is Chris for those that are new to the stream I know it seems like we get new people every single time, whether it be on Facebook or on YouTube Um, but uh, I'm just a normal service technician here in Southern California run a small business have a few employees started making videos for my employees and it was more of a training aid and I found the need after I started making the videos I never really intended on making them public, but eventually I did. and then when I hit the public button I started getting questions. you know whether it be emails, comments, different things and I'd find myself just completely addicted to my phone just staring at my phone all the time. And then the live streams were born. But to be fair, um, who was it that I I was talking to the other day someone gave me right about the time that I was thinking about doing a Q a live stream someone in like on a Facebook chat or something like that I know I said it recently on the overtime shows. One of our regular viewers um told me that I should start doing I was Michael house actually I think um who's very active in the social media Community uh HVAC School Group HVAC Overtime group the House uh what? what is what is House's Facebook page called I don't know but anyways Michael House she's a cool dude but uh, he was the one I think that had commented you know hey, you should start doing live streams and I was thinking about it. but then he kind of gave me the encouragement. Regardless here: I am I do these. It's been a couple years now I think I actually started making videos in 2017 actually November of 2017. so 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. so I think we're five years in. uh, right now is about what it is and then the live streams I think are about four and a half years because I think I started them about six months after. But thank you to everybody that's in here. Um wow, that's really awesome man. I Really am thankful that you became a channel supporter True Fellowship Thank you very much Bud And I know that we were emailing back and forth so that's really awesome. Thank you! Um, all right. I'm looking through the chat right now seeing what's up. Um, hello my viewers says Jason Johnson that is a Dr Zar cloth reference If anybody doesn't know who Dr Z is you need to go back to the old school YouTube HVAC groups um or Pages just look up Dr Z HVAC it'll come up Dr Zarkoff he was one of the original YouTubers um that was making HVAC content. You know there was a lot of people that were making HVAC content well before I started coming into the game and uh, you know my content's questionable at that too. So hey, I know and you know for the people out there that send me the emails and stuff I can promise you that my worst critic is me. Almost. You know it's funny someone sent me an email uh or no, it was a YouTube comment and they said your channel is dead I'm unsubscribing I'm never gonna watch another video your CH your videos are boring and I didn't but I wanted to respond with a guy. tell me about it bro I edit these same videos and I'm bored out of my mind like I truly am bored I'm I'm I need to find a way to do something different because I am just completely getting bored if I have to edit another iced up walk-in freezer service call Oh my gosh I'm gonna yeah I don't even know it's it's just so funny because every time I make a video um uh, every time I make a video I have to watch that video probably three times in editing. So if it's a 40 minute video, I've watched that 40 minute video probably three times. Oh man, I am my own worst critic. Trust me. Okay I see a lot of great people in here Ike's in here Ike's been a Channel supporter for a long time now. What's up bud? Um yeah I did yeah uh PC's been running good. everything's been going good man. So hello to everybody out in Facebook too I am streaming on Facebook so that's really awesome. So as usual I want to cover a couple things but uh I think that's enough talking about me and uh, something that I wanted to start off. You know why do I do this? Why do I put this content out on? YouTube okay um part of it is I like interaction with people. okay I mean plain and simple. you know I put stuff out people email me I get to have conversations with people. it's really cool. Um the other thing to the to the whole content creation is inadvertently. you know my goal when I first started making these videos was not to go out there and be the best educator. The best service technician because I'm neither of those small platform, decently sized platform and for whatever reason, you guys keep coming back and watching the videos and the live streams and different things. and um, to be frank, like you know I I'm super thankful I guess to be frank wouldn't be the right term but I am very humbled by it all. It's awesome, but you know I just like sharing the little bit of knowledge that I have and I'm very honest. um and try to show as many of the mistakes that I make. Now when I say I try to show as many mistakes as possible. It's not that I that everybody should screw up the the what I'm trying to show is that I'm human. Okay, I am a normal service technician I make mistakes and I think it's really important because it's very easy when people make content to edit out their mistakes. okay and I try to leave them in as much as possible because I try to address them right. So that's you know people will email me and they say you know I don't ever watch the closing words of your video. you know I don't want to watch your videos anymore because the closing words are boring. Well, then don't watch them number one or just watch the video and not the closing words. but for for a few people that do watch to the end in the closing words I usually address the mistakes or different things that I feel that I need to address. You know because hey, I didn't go in depth enough about this or or whatever and you know I don't take offense. If you guys have criticism or anything like that, feel free to shoot me an email. hvacrvideos Gmail.com I Mean as long as you're not a jerk about it and I can learn something, go for it. If you know a better way to do something that I showed in my videos, please send me an email and if it's relevant, I'll address it I'll discuss it I've done it several times where I've come into these live streams and said I made a mistake. This person pointed it out and you know and I grow from mistakes and so does everybody else. Okay, um Henrik thank you very very much for that. Uh, super chat or Channel donation? That's really awesome. But what is my hardest service call if there is any? I'm gonna write that on my list right now and I'll think about that for a few minutes and finish talking about what I was going on. So hardest service call and I'll try to cover that. So um, something that I did want to cover and I'm probably going off of whatever tangent I was going on right now and I'm changing the subject again is that I have a lot of viewers that are from other countries. okay, um Henrik I think maybe you are and I know there's a lot of other people and that's really awesome. It is really cool to think that people in other countries want to watch this content. but something that I realize sucks about my videos is that when other people in other countries do watch them a lot of the times the unit conversions or there is no conversions, right? because I'm talking about everything in American terms so we're using American Standards Okay and oftentimes that won't translate over and it'll kind of confuse people I know that people eventually catch on and they figure it out I would love to be able to do something about that honestly I just don't even know how to approach it I'd love to have unit conversions. or when I say something have a pop-up that comes up and shows different conversions or something. that would be awesome but it's like almost impossible because this this channel is just me nobody. I mean every once in a while I have my daughter come in and help me with something. but I mean that's very rare too. This is just me on the the video. so I edit the videos all by myself I don't have time and I'm running a normal business and having a normal family. My wife does come in and help me with like some of the merchandise sales and different things but this is all me. I mean so I don't have a way if anybody out there has advice or different ways that they think that things can get better as far as making it easier for other countries and different people even other languages. Hey I've even thought about having my videos dubbed having them transcribed in other languages I think that'd be awesome. you know have a HVAC videos Mexico and different. you know different channels like it's a cool thing I'm probably talking about things I shouldn't talk about but it is what it is, you know. So if y'all have advice, please feel free to send me an email to Hvacrvideos gmail.com Another thing too is tomorrow is uh November 15th and uh if you are local in Southern California and you happen to have time I will be at the Ihackie Trade Show in Pasadena California I'm taking the day off work going to go down to the trade show and hang out, see friends, meet new people, see all the new stuff. I mean the eye hockey trade show is nothing like Ahr. It's a super super small show but still it's a really cool great local event. and I've already gotten several confirmations from great people that I know that are going to be at the show. so if any of you happens to be local in Southern California Feel free? stop by the show. uh it's free I think you just gotta like fill out a little ticket thing and get into the show or whatever. but um, if you see me walking around the show, say what's up. Uh, you know oftentimes I wear on my forehead and so you know when I'm when I'm focused on something I tend to people don't want to I'm an I'm a I think I'm a nice person. You know you just gotta just get past the whole super focused look that I have on my face and uh, talk to me you know? So um, and uh. but just stop me, stop me and say what's up all right Um I'm looking through my chat right now. All right? Cool. Uh, so yeah. definitely the I hack your trade. So so stop me and say what's up. um I will also be at the Ahr trade show in Atlanta what is it in February I think or the end of January and I actually just registered for the um uh, the HVAC tactical Awards uh band pool uh from HVAC Tactical and Solder Weld again are putting on the HVAC Tactical Awards It's a great, great little thing they have going on where they're recognizing cool people in the industry for things that normally wouldn't get recognized. Really really cool event and every year it's evolving and getting bigger and bigger. So I actually just bought my tickets today myself and Brett Wetzel from the Advanced Refrigeration podcast are going to be going so but yeah, I'll be at the Ahr trade show too. that's I'll announce that a ton and everything. So all right, let's see what else we got going on in the chat. See what? I'm missing? Hire helpers just for the channel. It sounds like a great idea. Um, your wife makes a killer apple cobbler I'm reading through the chat. um am I gonna be at the trade show tomorrow? George Walls Yep. I think you asked that just before I started talking about it. but yep I'll be at the I hockey trade show in Pasadena So if you're coming, make sure you stop me find me. I'll be walking around I'll probably announce it on social media and different things tomorrow too. So um, reading through here. Papa All right I was last getting here too. Oh yeah, Alaska did show up. What's up? Alaska How's it going Man, everybody was wondering where you were because we haven't seen you in a while. So all right, uh, is my troubleshooting process for walk-ins different during the winter or when it's cold out? Well, sure. and I'm gonna segue that into a question because I had a service I Had someone email me Um, Adrian actually had emailed me asking about an issue he was having with a walk-in freezer. So first and foremost I'm gonna Adrian I'm not gonna address just your question I'm going to talk about walking equipment and my troubleshooting process in general. And I'm sure you'll get something from it. Okay, so first and foremost, when you are working on refrigeration equipment, it is so important that you understand what you're working on. You understand the ins and outs of how the control strategy Works how the refrigeration piping is piped and what happens. The sequence of operation okay is very important because it makes it so difficult for us as technicians to troubleshoot one of the biggest myths. Well, no misconception is the right word. One of the Misunderstood things about Refrigeration Okay, uh, we are. It is ingrained in our heads when we're in a trade school, when we're being taught by senior technicians, when we're reading books that you need to look at your system vitals and that is very important. Okay, uh, superheat and sub cooling are very important. But it's also drilled in our heads that we use superheat and sub cooling for charging of refrigeration and air conditioning equipment. While there is truth in that, there is also some things that you don't necessarily pay attention to in certain situations, if that makes sense. Okay, when you're working on an air conditioner and you have a fixed orifice metering device, right? It has a piston or accurate or metering devices or whatever, and it's just a package unit. Okay, and you want to charge the system, your best bet is to weigh in the manufacturer's charge. Okay, but if you can't weigh in the magic manufacturer's charge, what you can do is you can use a method called Target Superheat. That's where it looks at the indoor conditions of the air going across the evaporator and it can give you a super Heat number that you're aiming for and you add or remove refrigerant to kind of obtain that superheat number. So that's very common on air conditioning equipment. Okay, But there's also times that you're working on an air conditioning equipment or air conditioning unit and, uh, it's a heat pump. Okay, well, charging heat pumps is a little difficult and usually you're recommended to, uh, weigh in the charge when you're working on heat pumps. So the point I'm trying to make is, while you know there is truth in the fact that you should use superheat and subcooling when you're charging, it's not always the same in certain situations. Okay, when it comes to Refrigeration equipment that has a receiver, a receiver is a liquid storage vessel. Receiver systems are receivers in the system When you typically have an expansion valve. Okay, it's very rare that you're going to see a receiver on a fixed orifice metering device or a capillary tube, but never say never. There's weird stuff out there. Okay, but when you have a receiver, it typically means that you're going to have an expansion valve too. The receiver is there to have extra refrigerant when it's needed for the expansion valve to operate. Okay, because an expansion valve is going to react to the temperature in the system. It has a sensing bulb and that sensing bulb opens and closes. Or puts more pressure on a pin that opens and closes the valve so it reacts to these system temperatures. Okay, the evaporator coil temperature. But okay. that receiver is a storage vessel when you have a system with a receiver on a walk-in freezer. Typically, subcooling is not a metric that we are going to use for charging. nor is superheat. Okay, so I'm just talking in general. and again, superheat is something that we pay attention to and possibly adjust when our system is down to temperature. Okay, but we pay attention to it because if we're flooding back to the compressor on Startup and we're looking at our compressor amps and the amps are going high, well, then maybe we need to do something. We need to control the superheat a little bit. It's flooding back. There's a problem. Okay, so there's always variables. There's always things that may come up. But the basic principle is is that when you have a refrigeration system that has a receiver, whether it be a walk-in freezer or a walk-in cooler, you need a solid column of liquid going to your expansion valve. All right, we don't really pay any attention to sub cool. Well I shouldn't say you don't pay any attention you. you don't use subcooling as a charging metric. Okay, there's some caveats in there though, because if you have 45 degree sub cooling, well, something's going on there. Okay, typically you're overcharged or something's happening. There's no room for that refrigerant to kind of store and it's just backing up. increasing the head pressure. That can be a problem. Okay, but for the most part, sub cooling is not something we use because it's a very difficult thing to measure on refrigeration systems and the sub cooling will change. Okay, as the refrigerants being used as it's backing up as it's being reduced, it might change. Okay, so on a refrigeration system when we are charging it. First off, we need to understand exactly what's going on. The next thing is is that we have a properly evacuated system. We've done all the proper practices, we've changed the dryers, all this good stuff, right, and we're getting ready to charge the system. We're going to add the refrigerant into the high side, dump it directly into the receiver with the system turned off, dump as much gas as you can, not going over what you think the total charge will be into the receiver. then I turn the system on. This is how it should be done. Turn the system on and let it run, and then add any extra refrigerant that you need slowly into the suction side while the system's running, trying to maintain or trying not to get liquid into the compressor, so you're just carefully metering it through your gauges. Although, something I will say you know I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that modern compressors can actually handle more liquid than was ingrained in our head. I'm not saying that you should just go dump liquid into the suction side, but most reciprocating. at least like the Copeland and the Tecumseh compressors. I Believe they actually have like an accumulator like device built into the compressor that prevents slugging. That's a whole nother thing, but scroll compressors. They can do pretty good job, but still. you don't want to dump liquid into them but meter that refrigerant into the system. But sub cooling is really not a metric as long as it's not going through the roof that I'm looking for. Okay, okay, you are not going to charge to 10 degree sub cooling on a refrigeration system that has a receiver. Let's let's go back real quick. What does subcoin mean to us? Sub cooling means that it is 100 liquid. Okay, that's that's one of the terms, right? So if you have a degree of sub cooling, that means that it's liquid. Okay, but then why do we charge the 10 degree subcoin? Okay, I'm asking the chat right now. Why do we charge an answer in the chat? If you guys know, why do we charge to 10 degrees of subcoin? What's the point? Why do we go to 10 degrees And let's see if the chat has any answers. Don't don't be afraid to be wrong. Just put it in there. Okay, um, is subcoin always going to stay at 10 degrees if you charge it at 10 degrees in the middle of the winter, in the middle of the summer, is it going to be 10 degrees? You know when it's running two? Okay, 10 degrees is a nice number to get you beer can. Cold suction line? Hey, that's that's a pretty good answer there. Alaska See exactly what they were saying in the chat when they said they missed you because they miss your one-liners and you truly do have the best one-liners when you're in a chat? Alaska So um, you're going to ammonia. Okay, so manufacturer says so to be sure you have a full column of liquid. Yes, Okay, so you guys are getting the right idea right? But understand something. Okay, 10 degrees of subcoin is actually like a gross estimate to make sure that we have enough refrigerant when we're You know this is when you're charging to 10 degrees subcoin. Okay, because the idea is if you have one degree of subcooling, you have a solid column of liquid. So then why make it all the way to 10. Well what happens when the the the the load on the system changes? What happens when you need more refrigerant so they typically will charge to 10 degrees 16 degrees subcoin to make sure that you have enough refrigerant for when the expansion valve needs it all so that subcooling number will actually go down as your system's operating on some systems. Okay, now let's get back to the refrigeration systems. I Was talking more air conditioning on the subcoin idea, but when it comes to refrigeration systems, we don't use subcooling other than looking as a metric for a gross overcharge. Okay, so when I'm charging to a Clear Sight glass I'm not really paying attention to sub cooling I may have my gauges on there and if I see it going really high, then I'll start to get concerned. but it's not anything you're going to use when you're charging. so you're going to charge to a solid column of liquid. and then after you get the system operating and close being down to temperature, that's when you're going to go in and start adjusting your expansion valve. But before you adjust your expansion valve, you always want to make sure that the strainer is clear. Typically, you should have an expansion valve that has a removable strainer on the top of the valve. When the system's pump down, pull that strainer out. make sure it's clear because people can go wrenching on expansion valves and realize that that's not the problem. Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if you install a properly sized expansion valve on a system that was properly designed and you put the right power head on that valve, you really shouldn't have to adjust that valve with a brand new valve. Okay, they typically come set for the the typical superheat that you would see on a refrigeration or a walk-in freezer system. Now I Realize that sometimes we do have to make adjustments, but honestly, I don't make very many adjustments on expansion valves when I replace them. They really don't. You know, sometimes you may have to tweak it just a little bit. So how do we know that our system's working? Like when it comes time to adjusting an expansion valve right? So you're you're starting up a walk-in freezer and it's it's it's running and it's coming down to Temp You have a clear sight glass right and and this is where um, uh, you know it would be a good idea and I'm kind of. Well, Anyways, this is where it'd be a good idea to pay attention to subcoin just to make sure that your subcoin's not going super high. Okay, that'll help you to know if you have too much gas in the system. But really, I'm not looking for 10 degrees subcoin. I Mean just as long as you have some sub cooling you, you have refrigerant in there, right? You have enough refrigerant. You have a solid column of liquid. That's all that I care about. Um, you'll see different sub cooling numbers on refrigeration equipment. Just kind of going off on that subject When it comes to you know what? What number subcoin do you want? You will, you'll like on older systems, you know you might see three degrees subcoin, You might see two degrees subcoin on some of the newer systems, they they actually are more efficient and they add extra sub cooling loops loops. so you actually will see measurable sub cooling like eight, seven, eight, nine, ten degrees sometimes on some of the newer refrigeration systems. But again, I'm not using that as a charging metric. Okay, it's just something that I'm paying attention to. and I'm charging by clearing the sight glass with everything operating properly. Okay, so understand also that a Clear Sight glass only means that you have a solid column of liquid at the point that it's installed okay and also be able to understand between an empty sight glass and a Clear Sight glass because people can really be confused by an empty and Clear Sight glass. Okay, but um, that's where. And and if you really want to know places where sub cooling can help you again when you're charging a system and um, you see really high sub cooling. Okay, there's something going on there, right? Or when you're trying to differentiate between a clear and an empty sight glass, subcooling is a metric that can help you because if you put your temp clamps on you and you don't see any sub cooling and you're suspecting that it was empty, well, you know maybe it is because you don't have any subcoin, You should just have some Subcoin is really what you should have. Um, so uh. as far as that goes. Okay, and I'm kind of I know I'm going off on all different subjects here. but when it comes to the walk-in freezers, The Next Step that I'm going to take after I charge the system and it's running. We're going to watch the system come down in temperature. We're going to put an amp clamp on there. We're looking at the compressor current, making sure it's not going over on its current ratings, right? We don't want to overheat that compressor then, as the Box gets close to set point usually within five, sometimes 10 degrees of set point, then it's a safe time to go ahead and start adjusting the evaporator superheat. Okay, now that's the next step. When we're testing superheat for an expansion valve adjustment, right? or we're setting an expansion valve superheat, we're making sure the system's operating. We need to be checking the superheat at the evaporator. Okay, because there's two places. Well, there's multiple places you can check superheat, but there's two places that it really matters that's at the evaporator and at the compressor. Okay, one want the lowest superheat number we can get without flooding refrigerant back to the compressor. We want to make sure that that refrigerant's not coming out of that evaporator coil before it boils off, right? But we want to get low, superheat as low as we can. Really, right? So typically what I see on my systems is about six to eight degrees on walk-in freezers, but sometimes you may see lower okay, and then typically eight to ten degrees, sometimes up to 15 degrees on walk-in coolers. What you will see, though, as far as super heat numbers, is you'll see manufacturers at actually getting braver and braver, especially when they have electronic expansion valves. and they'll bring that superheat number down again. We aim. You know, we're trying to get that superheat as low as possible without flooding back to the compressor. And with a thermostatically controlled expansion valve, we tend to be kind of, uh. we. We set our superheat a little bit High to be safe because we want to make sure we don't have any refrigerant flooding back. Okay, so electronic expansion valves give us the ability to get that superheat because we can maintain within a very small margin to get it a lot lower to make our system more efficient. Okay, so you'll see that, but once you get the system close to being down to Temp then if you decide, you need to make a superheat adjustment. That's when you'd make a superheat adjustment, but I said already. It's really important that we make sure we're dealing with evaporator superheats. So to obtain evaporator superheat, what you want is you want the suction pressure of the refrigerant. leaving the evaporator coil, you want to take a pressure reading at the evaporative coil. and a temperature reading at the exit of the evaporative coil. and you convert the refrigerant pressure to a saturation temperature. Subtract the two you know your line temperature, the saturation temperature, and you get your evaporator superheat. Okay, so make sure when you're checking your evaporator superheat that you are getting the pressure from down at the evaporator. Now there is times that I can get pressure from up at the compressor, but you have to be very careful if your system has a pressure drop for some strange odd reason, right? Or if you have no insulation on your suction line and it's absorbing a lot of heat, the suction line in the Attic The superheat that the compressor can be a totally different number. The pressure at the compressor can be a totally different number because of pressure drops or different things like that. So you've got to be very careful. So you want to be checking your evaporator Superheat: You want to get suction pressure at the evaporator if you can. Sometimes you can, and that can lead to a lot of confusing things. At the beginning of this rant. I Said: it's so important that we understand the intricacies of the system we're working on. Okay, we want to make sure that, um, that we We want to make sure that we understand how everything's working because then if something weird happens and we don't recognize it, some serious problems can happen with the system. So when you're working on refrigeration equipment, you don't want to be winging it. Okay, you need to have an understand of what's going. understanding of what's going on. It's very important. So I don't know if I answered any of your questions Adrian and I know a few other people asked about the walk-in Refrigeration Equipment I Apologize I Usually go off on weird tangents. hopefully I answered something in there, but let's make sure you're getting the evaporator superheat correct. Let's make sure that you don't have um, uh, you know, restricted liquid lines or anything like that plugged up strainers. Let's make sure we're checking all of that stuff and we're understanding the total sequence of the system. Okay, so if I didn't answer anybody's questions again, feel free to shoot me an email. Hvacrvideos Gmail.com Um, okay, so it's aweff with the receiver. You didn't order the equipment. Oh wait. I'm going. I'm getting in here. Uh, just curious. Let me see. I'm going up here. Plenty of space of a box you can't stand up. I'm reading through. Um, okay. Uh Mike B says you have a new build. Three walk-ins, two coolers, one freezer. The condensers are on top of the box inside the building. Would you still charge the receiver to 75 percent? Might be. So if you have an indoor condensing unit, then you have no need to. Uh, have flooded head pressure control valves and winter charge in the system. Okay, there's no need for it if you have an indoor condensing unit and it's in a space where the temperatures are maintained now. I Think I read down in the bottom that it's Aof compliant equipment and their pre-built condensing units that maybe came with head pressure control valves and different things on it. Um, if if that's the case, you know if you can't remove the components. So I guess the question would be would I still add the flooded charge? Ah, I mean it really depends on the customer. Okay, if I know that it's my customer and nobody else is going to be servicing that equipment. I Guess there's a possibility I wouldn't put the flooded charge in there. Um, but honestly, I think it's probably best to go ahead and do so because if someone else walks in behind you and they see a head pressure control valve, they may not be thinking straight. you know? and they may. Who knows? That may confuse other people. So that's an interesting question. might be I Don't again. I Guess it just depends on the customer, but theoretically I mean where he's getting at here is is that if it's installed inside the building, the temperature of the buildings you know maintain at a constant temperature. It's more than likely not going to get below 60 degrees where the condensing unit is. so there's never going to be a point at which the head pressure control valve is, even going to bypass. Head pressure control valve is simply there to maintain a pressure differential. So that way your expansion valve can work properly in low ambient conditions. Easiest way to understand it. Okay, so but with the head pressure control valve, it requires extra refrigerant. Um, you know another thing too. while I'm going off on this: I get a lot of people that reach out to me and say stop talking about winter charge and flooded charge and don't call it that and stop talking about head pressure control valves I Talk about them too much. No. I don't talk about them too much because I still get a lot of comments where people people don't understand how they work. So I'm sorry if I'm boring people, but I'm I'm trying to help people with knowledge. so um, you know, feel free to skip that part of the video or move on if it annoys you that I talk about head pressure control valve so much. But unfortunately, they're one of the most misunderstood components in a refrigeration system. That and the expansion valve. You know, head pressure control valves are often misdiagnosed. A lot of people think they're horrible. I've even had local supply houses to me having conversations with them and I go in there and I start talking with the branch managers about this new equipment and the new things we have to do. And I've had a couple different supply houses tell me this, that brand new condensing units. they'll take the top off and they'll cut the the. They'll clip the tip on the Dome of the head pressure control valve from the supply house and they won't even sell it to their customer with that power head or with the the head pressure control valve active in the system. That's a horrible thing for a supply house to do. That's they're so misdiagnosed and misunderstood and they're really not that difficult. So that's why I talk about them so much. There's a lot of misinformation out there and I think it's really important to share the little bit of knowledge that I have. so let's see what else we got going on in the chat. Uh, sorry if I'm missing anything here. Uh, winter charge is super important. especially nowadays. Yes, very, very much important. So um, my thoughts as well. just wanted my opinion. Okay, Mikey Yeah, very. I mean you know this is my thing. I mean honestly, if it was my customer, I probably wouldn't put the flooded charge in there. Why do we call it a winter charge? Okay, um, why do we call it a flooded charge? Well, technically it's a flooded charge because you're flooding the condenser. Why we call it a winter charge? I'm A that's not my term. that's if you look at all the old training manuals, it'll say winter charge. Okay, my assumption is is because you know that was the extra refrigerant needed for the head pressure control valve to flood the condenser. So that's my assumption as to why they call it a winter charge. It's pretty logical, right? Um, so reading through here you wish every house with a central AC you had the option to turn to get outside air through your vents. It's underrated. Uh, Nathan it is. It is underrated. but it's very interesting. What? I'm learning about um, home Performance and again I'm just scratching the surface as I'm replacing the air conditioner in my house and I'm just doing a little bit of research and again I do not understand anything. Okay, I I understand the smallest percentage of Home performance. but you know originally when I was replacing the air conditioner my house or designing it in my head I was thinking that I wanted some really cool um economizer feature to my system where I bring in outside air and uh, you know, use an economizer controls from like commercial equipment like I wanted all this different stuff and and I've learned that's actually not the best thing in the world because when you're building high performance homes right? which I don't have. But when you're trying to make your home more energy efficient and with clean air, what you actually find is the outside air sometimes can be a lot worse than the inside air and there's different times of the day that maybe you know like I live in? Southern California and we haven't had it in a couple years. but there was a good year or two where we had a lot of wildfires and there was always smoke outside and you know it's not necessarily safe to breed that even if you put like a filter that makes the smell go away if there's there's particles in the air and different things that can cause problems that can cause lung irritation. So fresh air is important. but it needs to be cleaned. Fresh air. So that way you know it's not always 100 safer to just bring outside air into your home. What happens if there's high moisture content in that air and or what happens if it's really warm air? who knows, and it causes condensation. Different things like that. So outside air is good when it's clean for sure. So um, let me see what else we got going on in the chat. Um, you guys get some shitty outside air with all the fires? Yeah, exactly. Most residential HVAC is not there. They all have his exhaust fans. No intake. It should be yeah and I agree Dale that there should be fresh. You know, outside air coming into the home for sure. because if you build tight homes without outside air, you actually can start getting people sick. You know, suffocating them with reduced oxygen levels and different things. But um, yeah, you definitely need some fresh air. and I'm gonna have fresh air at my house. It's just not going to be as much as I thought is all. but fresh air is very important. Okay, and you know the the, the codes and different things that we have for fresh air and buildings. It's not quite there with residential. it's getting there. we we've had to do. You know, so much outside air for every person in the building in the commercial side for many, many years, but on the residential side, it's just barely starting to become a code. I Think in California It's been in the last maybe five years it became a residential code to bring in outside air, but you know it's slowly spreading across the United States where they're requiring people to have fresh air and it is an important thing. I Think so How often do I see two condensing units for one walk-in John Deere Fan: That's very rare I have seen it. Uh, typically it's going to be for redundant systems. It's not. I mean depending on on the smaller walk-ins that's not a very smart idea to have multiple condensing units running the walk-in on smaller ones. I'm talking like 3 000 square feet or less walk-ins Big industrial ones. It's pretty common because on the big industrial ones, even though it's one common occupied space where they're cooling whether it be, you know, food storage. So it's low, low, ultra low temps and stuff. It's pretty common for them to have multiple condensing units. Redundancy is very, very important and also a very good thing. So I've dealt with some hospitals before that had redundancy built into the refrigeration system. so they actually had two separate refrigeration systems and only one would run and they would stage them and do like a lead lag setup and then you know different times like that or sometimes one of the other ones would just run at low speed and only come on when you know there's a high demand. There's all kinds of different setups on that, but I don't deal with it very often. So um, let's see what else we got going on in the chat. Need oxygen for tight houses? exactly? And I'm getting the air ceiling down on my house. definitely not is I'm getting it lower better than it was. But I've also realized just the little bit of the home performance stuff that I've been researching. Again, there's so many smart people out there and I'm very fortunate to be able to lean on them. but um, you know there's there's a lot of Mis information about home performance, but then also, um, there's just so many intricacies in it. it's so interesting to see. Um, you know how much we don't know about our homes. It's really, really intriguing to see how much we don't know and how much like me? I'm assuming that other people are like me too, you know? I've been living in my home and one of my biggest problems is something that I just never really thought about. I'm not an idiot, but one of my biggest problems and I already said it in my first video for my home project that I'm doing. If you guys don't know, I'm making a series I'm just filming the process of me changing the air conditioner in my house I'm taking my time, it's super slow. Um I filmed one video and I just showed my house and the things that I knew I was doing wrong and holes in the walls that I just dealt with for years. Different stuff like that. Um, but I'm working through the process but I'm learning so much now. I'm on the building side where I'm measuring the the air leakage in my house and I was intrigued to know how common it is to have extremely leaky homes. Um, you know and and it's interesting. So the home performance stuff is fun. Um, it's something that I'm very intrigued by learning more about it. so see what else we got going on in the chat? Um, you have like three weeks a year where economizer is even feasible. yet they still have them that and yet it's still a code might be so for us out here in SoCal Yeah, we we only have a few weeks of the Year where it's cool enough outside. um to actually open an economizer and cool down a building or even my house. You know, Um, it's there's not a lot of time for it because we we don't know what cold is here and our winter. you know, our warm compared to the rest of the country, you know. So it's just it's just moderate outside now in the summer. Oh my gosh, you know all hell's breaking loose. But all right, let's see what else we got in the chat. Um, or is it or our new house is being built Cheap. New houses are being built cheap too. Yeah, but you have a lot of buildings currently using. uh, water source economizers. Oh yeah, that's a good idea. So how does beer glycol compare to a refrigeration system? Well, beer glycol is combined with the refrigeration system. Okay, so beer glycol is just a way of it. Wouldn't be very efficient if we ran refrigeration lines through a Chase and cooled beer lines. It wouldn't be an efficient thing. and there would just be a lot of issues with that, right? So if we just ran a suction liner, a couple suction lines in a loop with beer lines, it's just not practical. So a smart thing that they did was they have a secondary fluid glycol. They keep it in a reservoir. It has some sort of a heat exchanger in it. The newer ones have like flat plate heat exchangers and that's where the heat transfers happens. So you have refrigerant on one side and you have glycol on the other side and they just pump that glycol into the lines and it doesn't go into the beer, it just sits. It's in a conduit with beer all around it. It has usually like sometimes two lines and in and out. or sometimes two sets of glycol lines. That'll cool that that channel of beer lines. So there may be 10 15 beer lines in there. and there's like you know, two glycol lines and then they insulate it really well and they run it underground. So it is a refrigeration system that has refrigerant in it too. It just uses the glycol as a secondary. um. heat transfer fluid basically is all that they do. So lots of buildings you work on have maker pairs. That's right. Um, let's see. I'm going here through the chat seeing what I'm missing. Perlic Beer cooler? That's right. Yeah, uh Henrik um I probably still haven't answered your question. Uh, I'm going through my list right now. So um, another question that I have is a lot of p I shouldn't say a lot. I've had this question probably four times and I've actually had this brought up to me as a service technician in my career too. So someone had sent me an email asking me if it was safe to leave an ice machine running overnight in a restaurant. Okay, and while my instinct, my gut instinct is to say why is that even a question right? I Guess that there is, You know it's common sense to me to know that it's safe to leave an ice machine on overnight. Okay, again, assuming that it's working properly. Okay, but I'm kind of surprised by that question. just in no offense to the person that asked at no offense to anybody. But, um, it's It's just interesting. It's difficult for me to understand that question because it's common sense to me, right? But it's not common sense to you and that's okay. Okay, but is it safe to leave an ice machine on overnight? Yes, If it's a modern ice machine and it's working properly and nobody's done any weird stuff to it, Yeah, it's safe to leave your ice machine running overnight. In fact, your ice machine is meant to run 24 hours a day. If you have a Hoshizaki ice machine that is a Km1340 MRH right? A 1300 pound machine Meaning that it produces 1300 pounds of ice in a 24-hour period, that's the important thing to understand. Okay, so it needs to be able to run for 24 hours to be able to produce that 1300 pounds of ice. So yes, it is safe to leave your ice machine running assuming that everything's working properly. Um, the odds of your ice machine catching on fire because you left it running overnight are super super tiny. I Mean you'd have to talk to a mathematician to be able to figure out our statistic statistician. I don't know how you say that, but a dude that deals with Statistics and different things, they'd have to figure that out. but the chances are so slim. Okay, so it's meant to run all the time. Um yeah, so that's just an interesting question that I get from people. So or that I've had a few times, but I actually had a customer tell me that at a bar one time. so I was like what, you don't leave your ice machine no because I had a friend that told me that they had a friend that their ice machine burnt down the restaurant. It's like no, that's not gonna happen dude Um, so I already answered that question Um, so let's talk about this hardest service call. So what is my hardest service call? Well, typically let's let's talk about this for a sec. A hard or a difficult service call in my experience tends to be when it's all said and done. Once you figure everything out, those calls become in my mind, the most memorable calls. and I typically in looking back on those, those seem to be some of the best times in my career because typically if it's a really difficult service call and I can't figure it out, it means I'm being challenged and I really gotta stop and think and I may not be able to fix it as fast as I normally do. Okay, um, you know you know again. I'm not bragging I just have experience and I've made a lot of mistakes. Okay, that's just something you know that that I know. But as far as my hardest service call I mean it would be an interesting one. I there there's going to be a whole bunch of them. But one of my favorites I actually have footage of and it was a really really fun service call. Okay, so in the middle of Covid when the lockdowns were still going on and you know restaurants were only allowed to serve food to go. all this different stuff. one of the restaurant chains that I do work for, you know they weren't there wasn't a lot of service calls and the people at the corporate office they're really cool. I've worked with that company for a very long time and the person at the corporate office that decides who the service companies are. Well, that particular person or persons decided that during Covid because I was very slow and we didn't have a lot of work. They started giving us work outside of our service area. Of course we made them understand something. Hey, you know what? I can't continue to serve this when the lockdown's over because I can't get out to that location I can't service it. But during Covid I was willing because I wanted to stay busy and keep my guys moving. So I took a service call at one of the locations that I don't service I walked into it and it was a walk-in freezer not working. Okay I have a video of this. It's one of my more popular videos on my channel. So I went into the service call walk-in freezer manager says the other company that normally comes here they've been here and they they she she said like I kid you not 10 12 times or something like that she goes I have invoices for these last you know however many times they were here it's insane. They can't figure out what's going on with this walk-in freezer and it just kept icing up and when I started it to paraphrase you guys, go find the video. The other company couldn't figure this one out either I think or something like that I don't know it was a walk-in freezer one but it was the silliest thing. Like the silliest thing. but I had to backwards work my way through from looking at their invoices trying to undo all the stuff that they had done because again, going back to how I answered something earlier. the technicians that were coming out you could clearly tell did not understand how those systems work and the technician that did the install did not understand how that particular walk-in freezer piece of equipment worked. It actually happened to be a heatcraft QRC walk-in freezer. So now they have their intelligent technology. It was the previous technology to that. it was an electronic circuit board. All this different stuff and the previous company had such a hard time. they kept going out on this. They changed two evaporator fan motors. maybe three. They changed. uh, circuit boards transducers like there was just so many things that they had done. They had changed. they had. Oh my gosh, it was insane. They had electricians come in and do stuff and they couldn't figure it out. The equipment kept icing up and it just kept burning up the fan motors and the customer was pissed. but I don't even know. They kept billing the customer and the customer kept paying the bills. It was so insane. They called me in there on a Friday night. I was frustrated because I was supposed to be on the HVAC overtime show and I wasn't able to be on there. So I was like calling in talking to the guys every few minutes while they were there and I was troubleshooting and what I found was the silliest thing and I'm going to spoil it right now if you haven't seen the video. but trust me, go watch it anyways. What I found. The reason why it kept icing up was because when the installer installed the equipment, he didn't realize that the drain line coming out the wall. as it exited the coil, it goes straight into a wall. so as it was coming out the wall, he had used the drain line from the previous evaporator coil and the slope on it wasn't correct. So when he hooked it up to the new evaporator coil, it pushed up on the middle of the drain pan about a half an inch. just enough that when the defrost happened, not all the water would drain out because it was pushed up in the middle. So therefore the rest of the pan would sit and water would sit in there. It wasn't blocking off all the water though, so when it would defrost, some water would come out of the drain but not all of it. So when it would go back into a freeze mode, that water started to build up and build up and it turned into thick things of ice and it went up to the coil and it burnt out the motors. And because of that silly drain, they had thousands and thousands of dollars in service calls at that location and it was so interesting to find that it was something that simple that that customer had been paying that company for. So that was a very one of my hardest service calls. But it was also one of the best because figuring it out and there was so many things like that that have happened in my career before. YouTube and I Don't have them filmed guys I Have some of the cool stories of weird service calls we should I Should start doing that like some kind of a segment where I talk about an interesting service called before YouTube but it was so cool that I was able to film that and get it all on film. and it's one of my more popular videos so it's kind of fun so that would probably be one of my hardest service calls. See what else we got going on? the chat need to know your sequence of operation 100? Yep, um let me see. reading through the chat, seeing what I'm missing? Um, let's see. go to the uh yeah I almost read that one last guy. Oh and I was like nope, not gonna read that on the air. um let's see Jaw by the ice machine. give it an old Vanilla Ice treatment. Yeah, rolling in the 5.0 man that is. Oh man, what was that movie called? Oh gosh, there's a Vanilla Ice movie. Oh man, yeah. anyways, that's a whole nother thing. see I'm going off on a tangent. see you guys in the chat. You guys get me confused. I'm gonna start going down there. um if you guys haven't already. I Released this last week. um, a first video. I've never done something like this and I knew that the video was not gonna do as good as usual because it was not my normal format. but it was something fun that I might do something with right? I Kind of released a podcast, but it was a video podcast. Okay, it was an interview. uh I Recently went back to Um Stone Mountain Georgia and went to Heatcraft Refrigeration's headquarters in Stone Mountain and was able to work with a bunch of their really awesome um, product managers, training managers, engineering people um customer service people I Got to interview a bunch of the guys and I got to see their facility and see the research and development lab. and so anyways I released my first video it was an interview with Mr Don Fort A really cool person from Heatcraft. Refrigeration Uh, Don is one of the one of the one of the better trainers out there. He's a really awesome dude. Really nice down to earth guy too. Um, just a very very cool individual. but it was cool. So if you guys haven't seen it, go on my channel. it was Sunday's video. um it. I think I called it the Heatcraft Sessions and uh, it was really cool. so check it out! I'm kind of proud of that. It was something fun. Um, you know, who knows. I may end up putting it on a podcast format too. Uh, thought about that a lot lately too. Again, going back to this is just me. like that's the problem I have a million ideas guys I have this phone this this folder in my phone with all these ideas of things that I really want to do and I just can't do anything because I'm so busy and I have so much going on and everything takes my time. You know my Refrigeration business struggles because I focus on this and then this struggles because I focus on that. It's a it's a balance and then my family struggles and so I'm trying I'm trying if you guys know anybody that wants to help with the channel. If you know people that are like legitimately, um, qualified for something like that, whether it be you know I already have the I.T side of things going. For the most part, I have a lot of friends that help me out with the computer stuff my buddy Ike and you know we have a Discord server. um I'll find the link for the Discord server here. hold on. So yeah, there's a Discord server and anyways, but um I'm looking for all kinds of help I mean if someone really really fits what it should, you know what I need I'd definitely be willing to uh to work with someone if you know they can help me. but I I it can't be someone that just wants to wing it like I need people that I can just be like all right, do this and be done with it, you know? um I'm going to post the Discord link right now here. Hold on. Um, there we go Control V Ooh see, this is what I got to do I gotta delete that part all right? So I'm gonna post the Discord link if you guys are interested. Uh, there's a bunch of guys in there and they, uh, follow the channel. but then they also like the uh um, they like to help me with my computer stuff and it's It's a really cool little server. It's just like a giant chat room. so check it out. All right. Um, see what else we got going on in here? Uh, this video is brought to you by heatpiece or is it field craft or, well, eight percent of True Tech tools? Yep, that's right. gotta make fun of it. Um, it's uh, it is really cool and I know you're just joking. Jason Um, but uh, it is really cool though to be able to work with some of the manufacturers I get to work with. Um, it's a lot of fun because I get to talk to people like for instance, you know something that's been fun in the past. um Fieldpiece I have been part of their beta testing program for many years. even technically before the videos, I was part of their beta testing program where you know they would take Insight That's something cool that Fieldpiece does is they have a beta testing program where you know they send it out to multiple technicians, They all have communication with each other and and you get to help design tools. It's a fun thing, but I've been afforded the opportunity to work with Heatcraft, Refrigeration and go see their R D lab and things that I normally wouldn't be able to do so. I'm very humbled by this all and thank you everybody out there that affords me the ability to be able to do this because you guys you know watch the videos. It's awesome because then I can share the content and you guys get a window into everything too. You know? so it is really awesome and I hope I hope that uh I deliver some sort of value to you guys when I do get to do this stuff. So um, all right. uh, see what else we got going on in the chat? Uh, they have some new cool new Subs last couple? Okay, cool. Uh, who's going to be running the only fans? I don't know, you know. my wife told me I'm not allowed to have one of those even though I literally would just actually someone already got my idea. So apparently I've been told that there is someone on there that just literally posts pictures of fans. That was my idea. I was gonna be from the HVAC perspective just showing pictures of fans on my only fans and I thought it would be the most epic troll like. Come on, that's a great one. Fieldpiece needs a combustible leak detector? You mean you want it to catch on fire and burn? No. I'm just kidding. Um yeah. A refrigerant. Uh. combustible refrigerant leak detector? yeah. that is something that I've mentioned a field piece. uh I do not have confirmation if they're doing anything I would only think that they would be doing something with that for sure because that is the future. but yeah, um we definitely need one. The only two that I really know of that are of any quality or worth mentioning that I know of is the Uh detect. Stratus you can buy a combustible gas module for it or sensor for it and um. Inficon also has their gas mate and I have the gas mate. I Gotta be frank though, I'm I'm not a fan of the gas mate by Infocon. it's just not a it just doesn't seem to be very high quality. but it works I mean it does its job. It is not my favorite leak detector though by far. Um, let me see. only cans. but we post Bean cans from Hydronic systems Oh I Thought you meant like literally Bean cans full of beans like hobos sitting around the campfire eating can of beans. That's what I thought you meant there Alaska um gas made? There you go. Yeah, um all right let's see how is it that I know so much about air conditioning and Refrigeration you want to know the secret I don't know very much about air conditioning Refrigeration Uh, the secret is that the little bit of knowledge that I do have majority of it is because I made a lot of mistakes and I learned from those mistakes you know I'm I'm sure that there's people in the chat that have been in the industry longer than me I've been in the industry 21 something years or something like that or I don't know officially but I mean I grew up in the industry too. So I've made a lot of mistakes I mean I can remember don't I still in my head and my dad doesn't remember this but in my head I have this story of when my dad was so angry with me because I was a little kid I couldn't have been seven maybe 10 years old okay and I went to work with them and I I can remember the restaurant I don't work there anymore so I can say it was an El Torito restaurant in West Covina California and we were on the roof I don't do their work anymore so it's safe to talk about it. but uh, I was on the roof and my dad was working on an air conditioner and I worked on that later in my career. So I can picture the roof I can picture the air conditioner I can picture it I can picture being a little kid and he was testing voltages. Okay, it was an older train unit too. like the by OC units or they're old old. um old units. but and he had thermostat wires. he was doing something and I can't make sense of what he was doing but I had live thermostat wires and he had me hold them and he said whatever you do actually I think it might have been one wire, it was probably the r wire I know it was the r wire. Okay so I remember being a small thermostat wire and he says hold this unit and don't let it touch any metal or hold this wire and I was like all right so I'm a kid and he proceeded to go downstairs I don't know what he'd do what he was doing I cannot understand it because it doesn't make sense to me But regardless I had a 24 volt thermostat wire in my hand and he was telling me don't let it touch metal and as he went down the roof I remember my mind thinking well why not, why wouldn't I want it to touch metal like what's gonna happen I'm curious. So me as a 10 year old just thought okay, let's screw it. let's see what happens, you know and uh the air conditioner stopped working. that's all I know you know and then my dad came up and I knew instantly I felt guilty and my dad came up and he's he's talking I go I'm sorry it accidentally touched and he goes it accidentally touched Come on Christopher what do you mean it accidentally touched. How did it accidentally touch and I was like I I touched it because I wanted to know what would happen, you know and I think it ruined the Transformer because I remember him yelling at my mom or something or telling my mom the story and he was mad because it was a Transformer it's weird things that you remember but I've made a lot of mistakes in my career. I've learned from the mistakes and I have valuable Knowledge from the mistakes. So I don't know more than the next guy. There's certainly many other people out there. Some people in these comments: really really smart dudes. lots of great smart people in these comments. you know, so there's many other people much smarter than I I just happen to have my experience, my knowledge and I call it the little bit of knowledge, right? because I have a little bit of knowledge and I'm gonna share that and I hope and I know that there's people in this chat that share their knowledge too. So I don't have more knowledge than anybody. but I just got to this point from making mistakes and learning from myself and from others. So um then I got smacked around a little bit. Yeah, I don't think I I really didn't get smacked around but I definitely heard some things I got my ass chewed out for sure. So um, but yeah that you would be funny huh? Grab suction line grabs Coors Light Yep, we're good. Let's get lunch today. that was Jason Johnson I was taught beer can cold I was taught pre-epa laws and different things like that that you didn't even vacuum a system down I Can remember being a kid, fixing an air conditioner and then just hooking up the refrigerant cylinder and just dumping it in there and keeping your finger on the suction hose. The blue suction hose right? and just yep, that's refrigerant. just Purge in the system with refrigerant. Okay, like it's so asinine. The things that I was taught: I was taught to