Foreign, so, 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, so so yo. How are you guys doing this evening? Hopefully you guys are all hanging in there. Um we're doing okay here family's doing well.

Uh work is slowing down, but you know it does every time you know about this time. Every year the holidays are always weird. It's it's funny because you know i find myself looking forward to the holidays because you get to do the family stuff and you know that's great. But as far as work goes, the holidays are always frustrating because they get in the way of things and all the days off and different things.

It just makes it kind of frustrating sometimes for work. You know so like on one side. I really enjoy the time off, but on the other side it just kind of gets frustrating, and but it's also that time well i mean with the whole virus and all that cred going on it makes it all confusing too so hey. So, let's start this off right, my name is chris, and for those of you that don't know i've been getting a lot of questions about what i am who i am and why i am okay, i'm an hvacr service technician here in southern california um i started Making these videos as a training aid for my own employees and then here we are now um.

I started in the trade when i was a little kid i started working for my father. I grew up working with him. Basically, anytime, i had off from school or anything like that summers and all that um, you know, went vacation. You know after school that kind of stuff uh, then out of high school.

I came to work for him full time, and here we are now we run the company together. My dad doesn't really work anymore, but he still comes out every once in a while to kind of help me out with different jobs and stuff. We have a few employees that work for us and uh. You know, like i said a minute ago, i started making these videos from my own employees um and it actually it's funny that i brought this up.

I have it written down too. I started making these videos in uh three years ago: okay, uh, it's actually right at the three-year anniversary of when i started the youtube channel. I think it was like november 16th or something like that, but we are at the three-year mark of posting videos on youtube and it's amazing the support that you guys have given. Thank you guys so very much.

I think we're at like 95 000 subscribers and the views they're insane guys it's nuts, okay, it it's very humbling um. I started doing live streams two years ago, and here we are now monday evenings. It's been pretty consistent, i think. In the beginning, it wasn't necessarily every monday, but it's certainly morphed into that - and you know it's crazy, the turnout and the questions and all that stuff, okay, so uh.

The reason why i do these live streams is to kind of consolidate the questions and answer them in one spot and obviously for for those of you that enjoyed the entertainment factor too, but um and it's always great to interact with the chat. You know it's. It's a whole community on the youtube thing and it's really cool so uh. Thank you guys.

So very much again, it's all very humbling and i really really love your guys support it's. It's amazing, okay, so um i've got a list of things to talk about. As usual, and then, of course, i want to get to the chat too uh keep in mind, if you guys have questions or things that you want me to cover, please put them in caps lock. It just helps me a little bit more or the moderators kind of field, the questions to see which ones i need to answer now.

It happens every single time on these live streams that there's questions that i don't see or don't get to with the amount of people that come into here. Sometimes it's difficult, joshua sweet. Thank you so very much for becoming a channel supporter that is awesome. Um i'll go ahead and address that right now too uh there is people that support this channel.

Thank you guys so very much okay, but you guys do not have to do that. I it is much appreciated. I really do appreciate it, but it's okay! I'm gon na continue making these videos, whether you guys support them or not. Okay, uh.

If you are interested, there's methods that you can support them, you can become a youtube channel member. You can become a patreon supporter. The easiest way to support the channel is simply just watch the videos from beginning to end and leave a comment. Leave a thumbs up same thing with the live streams.

Just leave a comment thumbs up just anything to to make youtube realize that people are watching these videos, so that way they continue to recommend them and it brings new people in too so. Okay, that's the easiest way to support so um. The last way to support the channel, if you guys are so interested, is to go to my website hvacrvideos.com, and i have merch available. Okay, uh now keep this in mind.

Um tentatively, i am expecting a shipment tomorrow. Actually, it's gon na take me some time to go through it, because it's a really large shipment of uh, zip up hoodies and the new shirt design, supposedly they're, going to be coming on a couple different, pallets, uh or one pallet. Maybe i don't know, but supposedly it weighs 700 pounds, so it's a pretty big order of crap, so we got to go through that inspect everything. And then you know the whole process of the merch too.

So i got um my old shirt design. I got like three quarters of the delivery, i'm still missing a few things, but i have to go through. I think we ordered, like 288 of the original shirt design and my wife, and i we go through every single one, because we found some some issues with the shirts, and so we have to bring that stuff up. So it takes me some time to go through.

I have to go through every item, inspect them to make sure that they're all in good condition, because i don't want to be shipping out stuff, that's jacked up or you know, like there's little printing errors. It's to be expected when you order big orders like this. That there's going to be every once in a while something that's kind of messed up. So that's why it takes me so long to go through this stuff, but i'm hoping the plan if everything goes well um as long as the the holidays doesn't get in the way i plan on having the hoodies the new shirt design and the old or the Original shirt, design loaded onto the website tentatively by friday, um, if not later in the weekend, but i really want to have that stuff up there, so it will be available if you guys are interested okay, so hello to everybody, that's in here again! Thank you guys.

So very much for coming in here. Thank you for supporting by watching this okay um two videos that i posted in the last uh week since the last live stream. The first one was a walk-in freezer breaker that was tripped, okay and then the second video was the ice machine, video that i posted yesterday, all right, so the walk-in freezer breaker or the walk-in freezer video, where the breaker was tripped. That was an interesting one, because i couldn't find a reason for the breaker to trip during that video.

Okay, i went through everything now i said inside the video, though that later on a couple weeks later, i did get another service call out there and i kind of made an educated, guess and traced the problem to the twist timer and went ahead and disconnected the Twist timer and it still has been disconnected we're waiting for the approval, we're going to be replacing that entire walk-in freezer door and then we're going to put a whole new twist timer on there when we do that. Okay, so i made a mistake in that video uh and it happens every once in a while. Maybe it's a bit of dyslexia, i don't know what it is, but i mixed up the color combinations and - and in fact many people saw it right because i actually wrote down the color combination incorrectly. What i thought i wrote it down and then i realized oh shoot.

I didn't okay, so i messed it up the compressor. I started it up. I immediately turned it off because it was making a funny sound and i didn't show the phase rotation test, but you kind of could see the glimpse of the meter after i did it. I did a phase rotation test and i used the field piece.

Sc 480 meter - and it gave me a phase rotation of 3 2 1, meaning that it was backwards. So i had to correct the phase rotation and once i did that the compressor was running correctly. Okay, it's important to understand what was confusing me, though, and and the reason why i hesitated so much in the video was because i wrote down the color combination. So when i look down i'm like no, i got it right.

What is going on here? You know it was like confusing me, but you know i made a mistake. Life happens. Okay, we all do it. Don't think that you're, the only one i make mistakes all the time.

The whole point of making these videos is to share the mistakes that i've made over my career in hopes that you guys don't make the same mistakes. Okay, but i mean you know everybody's going to make mistakes, that's how it happens. Let me see what we got going on in here. I'm just going to look at the chat real quick.

Have i met someone wearing my merch on the street. I can't say that i've actually met someone wearing my merch on the street. No uh lots of people have sent me pictures and emails and different things like that. But no i have not.

I've met definitely met people that watch the videos they walk up to me at supply houses, if you guys are ever in a supply house here in southern california - and you happen to see me um, sometimes i'm a little bit distracted like i have a one-track mind. So make sure you stop me just you know, i'm not going to be pissed. Just stop me and say: hey what's up because sometimes i'll walk in and i'm oblivious to what's going on in supply houses, because i like make a b line for the counter, because i'm thinking about what i need so yeah definitely stop me and say hi, but No, i i have yet to see someone wearing my merch out in public. That would be pretty cool.

You know it'd be interesting, but you know the merch is shipped all over the place. It's kind of a trip how many places that we ship this stuff to and we're also working it's it's really difficult, because i juggle the whole operating the business doing service calls, making videos and having a family. I really want to be able to ship outside of the united states right now we just shipped to canada, but it's it's difficult to try to figure all that stuff out, so we definitely are working on that for those of you, viewers that are in. I know i got a bunch of you in australia in the uk.

I'm definitely working on that and we'll get to it. Hopefully soon sooner than later i would hope so um, let's see what else we got yeah colorblind for sure um. I i i'm sure it's like a tad bit of dyslexia or something like that, so um, all right, so um. The next video that i released was the three ice machines that were down now uh that video was actually filmed last friday.

Okay, so sometimes i film them way behind and i wait forever to edit them, and sometimes i edit them real quick, so that one was filmed last friday. I posted it on sunday and actually the quote to repair all three of those ice machines was actually just approved today. That's what i was doing today was, i was working in the office. Sending out quotes doing some invoicing and different things like that and picking up some materials for a job tomorrow, so uh yeah.

We got that so on the left ice machine. I quoted the new expansion valves uh i quoted. I don't think i showed it in the video but to replace the insulation on the refrigeration lines right above the compressor. So that way, it doesn't rust out the compressor, we're going to replace a float boot on it, a cube guide and then we're going to do a thorough cleaning, the middle machine we're going to go ahead and change the cube guide.

Do a thorough cleaning, also repair. The insulation and then the right ice machine we're going to go ahead and order a power switch, do a thorough cleaning, uh change, the water level probe, and i think that was it on the right ice machine so but yeah we, i already ordered the part. So hopefully, we'll have them in a couple or a couple days or something you know what the holidays. You never know how the shipping is going to go so um, something that i want to address, and i get this every single time that i make ice machine videos.

Okay ice machines, if you guys think what was in the video that i showed was nasty you're in for something else, because that really isn't that gross okay? Yes, there's calcium! Yes, there's some bacterial growth or something like that, but guys that is in every ice machine out there. Okay, it's naturally in the water, it's in the air - i shouldn't say it's. Naturally, some of the calcium and minerals and stuff are naturally in the water, but as far as the bacterial growth and stuff like that, it happens because of the environment in the kitchen, the doors being shut, the moist air from the ice machines. You know just the temperatures and different things like that, but i mean uh trust me.

Those actually aren't that bad from things that i've seen before i wish i had pictures of some of the ice machines. There was a particular mexican restaurant chain that i used to do work for many years ago, and their ice machines were always the nastiest because they never did preventative maintenance and we would just get calls out on them and they were just so gross it'd. Be really cool if i could come up with some pictures. I bet you if i look in my emails and different things like that, i can probably find some pictures so i'll.

Maybe i'll make a note of that and try to work on that because man, these things were just you would open up the they were hoshidaki machines, you'd, open them up and they'd just be pure black, like everything inside it was nasty but um yeah. What what for the most part, i don't work in really many uh too many nasty restaurants. I mean it's really not that bad uh, but it's interesting because you know we have especially with my channel. You know we get some attention from people that aren't necessarily hvac service technicians, which is fine.

It's cool. I appreciate it. It's people are interested and curious and that's the whole um thing about youtube. Is it's public? It's free, you know, but um some people see it and they're like.

Oh, my god, i'll never get ice in my drinks, guys i get ice in my drinks all the time i go to restaurants, i order ice. I just ignorance is bliss sometimes, and you know it's it's just something you got to get used to so uh. Do i ever find cats on the roof of jobs, scotty scotty, that's a really interesting question and the reason why i say that it just blows my mind that you asked about a cat no well. No, i take that back.

Yeah i've run into cats on restaurants, um weird particular ones, but it's not a normal thing, but ironically at my house - and this is kind of sad, but i mean it's just how hot things happen. Ironically, at my house we have some wild cats that come from my neighbor's yard and they just started coming down into my yard, because i don't have a dog anymore. So they come down into my yard, and you know my wife. She likes to feed the neighborhood cats and stuff, so all the neighborhood cats love to come to our house.

We have our own cats inside, but they don't go outside, but anyways. We had like this little kitten that that just kind of started coming around our house and then of all things. My wife was feeding it and i remember telling her like: hey, don't get attached to that cat like come on, you know let it be um. I went outside to go get something from my van last night before i went to bed and the poor little kitten was laying there dead, like.

I know, that's horrible, but it's just ironic that you said cats, because i have cats on my mind right now. Um yeah that poor little kitten there was something wrong with it, though i told my kids too, like when i was explaining to them when they were because for the last couple days, they've been feeding it and stuff, and i said guys there's something wrong with that Cat, like i, can tell, by the way it's walking don't get attached to it, there's something wrong there. You know and then sure enough. You know i found it on the side of my house, like that was a bummer, but you know that kind of stuff happens and that's the stuff that you know we have to deal with every day.

I know that seems simple and silly, but you know i go home. You know i go to work. I deal with that. I deal with the business.

I come home, you know, hang with my family and then you find that at the end of the night. So then you got to break it to your family the next morning and even though i didn't you know, told them not to get attached. Of course, even i was sad, everybody was sad. You know it's just one of those things, but it's just ironic that you brought up cats, because that just was right on my mind.

So when do i plan on calling it quits in the field? John john, i got ta be honest with you. Working in the field is, is my de-stressor, okay, that is what relaxes me going out and fixing things the most stressful part of my life is the business side is running the business you know having to deal with all the issues of running a business. My favorite part is in in when i'm so stressed out and so angry or whatever, because of whatever it's it's such a relief for me just to go out and run service calls so um. You know, i can't see myself stopping the work.

The field work anytime, soon, um, it's just i just love it. I love fixing things so um. Let me see what else uh? What am i missing here? What is my hvacr life? If i were to work in there? Is it wait? What is hvacr like if you were to work in there? Is it big, hvacr, uh hvac, i mean there's, there's all kinds of interesting stuff to do. The the trade itself is huge, there's so many different aspects, so many different areas you can get into in the trade you can become service technician.

Installer designer engineer i mean there's so many different things so if you're interested definitely get into the trade for sure uh, let's see uh eric that the email that you sent. I really can't troubleshoot that over the the thing i mean you had asked me a question about a dehumidifier that wasn't working right with a cap tube and it was frosting up just coming out of the cap tube. It's there's so many variables that it's not really something i can troubleshoot over the the live stream. I mean there's so many variables in that so and plus i'm not a person that works on dehumidifiers, so um, yes, the the r in hvacr does stand for refrigeration.

So it's heating ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration. So um, let me see what else uh, how bad is the shipping cost going to be? If i send something to greece, that's a really good question, that's something i would need to look into it's just. I haven't had a single minute to look into that, but um i'll i'm trying i'm trying to get that stuff figured out. How does an oil log evaporator frustrate and make me rip my hair out? Okay, so i can probably count on my hands.

Oil logged evaporators are like they're they're, so interesting, okay, i have two instances that i can think of where i diagnose an oil logged evaporator. But okay, it's interesting, though, because it's really okay, so it's almost that you've tried everything else and what else could it be? It's got to be an oil log evaporator, you know, but theoretically it could be a restriction too. So, yes, they make. You want to pull your hair out and they are so hard to prove and so hard to diagnose again you're, making an educated guess.

Most of the time at least i have and that look i know everything else is working right, there's no restrictions. It's got to be oil, stuck in that evaporator things that lead me down. The path of thinking that there was possibly an oil logged evaporator would be multiple compressor replacements. You know oil changes different things like that, and you know when you change the compressor, not all the oils in the old one.

Okay, where is it? You never saw it come back that kind of stuff, you know and then just systems acting like they have a restriction or the evaporator icing up in a weird way like it's not getting fed properly. You know it's a really difficult thing to diagnose, at least for me: oil logged evaporators, so um yeah. No, my family wasn't touching that cat, i mean well, they they they'd been feeding it, but the cat. Wouldn't let anybody touch it.

It was a skittish cat. So nobody had been touching it and i doubt it was rabies in my area um. Let me see what else it wasn't. It was like it was walking funny, because there was something wrong with its back.

It wasn't acting like a crazy, it wasn't rabid or anything. Have i ever seen a leak in a line set and if so, how did i fix it? Oh yeah line sets they i've had several times where line sets have leaked. Sometimes you can actually trace the leak out and sometimes you have to just replace the whole line set. So can you add a bullet puncture valve on a system that doesn't have any schrader valves you can? But you need to be very careful because bullet piercing valves at least the mechanical ones, they have a tendency to leak.

I personally don't like bullet piercing valves unless you're using them to recover all the refrigerant out. So is there any case to not put a trap on a suction line in a walk-in evaporator hvacr novice? I mean you're, not gon na as long as you're, not creating a pressure drop. Um you're, not gon na hurt anything by putting a p-trap on an evaporator. I mean it can only help really but again so long as you're, not creating a pressure drop um.

You know it's very much required when the condensing unit is above the evaporator, but you know if it's like right above the operator on top of the walk-in, it may not be absolutely necessary, but of course it's always best practice to do so. If your equipment is down below the evaporator, it's not as critical to put a suction p-trap on there, but it also depends on the riser how high the suction line's going above the evaporator before it goes down to the condensing unit. So um, let me see what else. Okay, i got a couple things on my list here that i want to talk about uh ice machines.

I already talked about you know what what you guys see, what some people see as nasty? Really isn't that bad i mean when you deal with ice machines, you kind of get used to them and and uh honestly, i don't think i've ever showed. I think there's one video that i've showed where it was pretty nasty where there was a bunch of crap up in the hoses like it made like a poop stick when i took the the brush out of the the hose that was a pretty nasty one, but Um i had an interesting comment from my buddy clive big clive uh. He had commented on my recent video when i was talking about the ice machines. Okay, and if you watch the video you know what i'm talking about, where i kind of quiz, the customer asking about resetting the ice machine he had asked.

You know he mentioned that he doesn't personally like to tell customers where the reset buttons are, especially when they're on circuit boards, because he's afraid that someone might damage the circuit board, hurt themselves, etc or reset it. And that's a great point, and you know something. I probably don't mention, and i maybe i know i didn't mention clearly in the video was yes, i did ask the customer if they had to reset the circuit board and then i i when they said yes, it just didn't seem like. I got the answer that i wanted.

I didn't have confidence that they actually reset it. So i said: did you actually get into the circuit board and hit the reset button? You know um and i pointed towards the electrical control box, but i didn't actually show him where the reset button was, and he goes. Oh, no, my guy doesn't know how to do that and that's you know i will ask questions to kind of get the answer that i want out of the customer, but i'm also being very vague when i'm asking those questions, because you don't want to instruct the Customers, especially on the hoshazaki ice machines, and i have videos showing it - you do not want them resetting that circuit board, because if a customer learns how to reset the circuit board on a hoshizaki ice machine and then they call you and say yeah the ice machine Is not working and then you go out there and you know you're, trying you're tearing your hair out trying to figure out what's wrong and then at the end they say: oh yeah, it's been beeping for like a week and i keep resetting the button. And then you say well how many times is it beeping? Well, i don't know you know, because on a hoshi, there's different beeps, a two beep, a three b before beep or a one beep to tell you different things, that's going on to the machine, but once you reset it it's gone.

You have no way of re. Recalling that error message? Okay, so you always want to be careful about. You know giving the customer too much information, but at the same time you want to get the right information from them. So you got to be very strategic with your questions.

You know. I think i might have said it in the video, maybe not, but you know i try to make casual conversation with the customer. It also helps too um and i'm going to segue into another point that i wanted to make. But when you're working on ice machines - and i said a little bit - i alluded to it in the video when you're working on ice machines - you know it can get kind of uh tedious.

You sometimes have to sit there and wait for the paint to dry. You know you're just like oh my gosh, especially when you're working on hoshizaki ice machines in the middle of the summer. The freeze time can be up to 45 minutes long, so you're literally just watching ice freeze just waiting and waiting and waiting. You know so whenever that does happen, it's always important to to keep the customer involved.

Okay, keep them in the loop and try to stay as busy as possible. You know making casual conversation with the customers so that when they walk by you and they just kind of glance at you and say - and you know that they're thinking like - why is this guy just sitting on the ladder he's not doing anything, you know um, you Know, keeping that casual conversation going and then when they start when they walk by grab them before they even say anything just grab them hey. Would you come over here? I want you to see what i'm doing here. You know and explain just kind of almost bore them with the facts, like you know, make their eyes roll in the back of their head, because you're giving them useless information that they'll probably never use, but it it just keeps that customer thinking and knowing that you're Doing something: productive, okay and explain to them like man, these iso machines take so long to make ice, and you know, while you're waiting, wipe down the machine or something do busy work just to keep busy.

Instead of just staring at your phone because staring at your phone there's nothing worse than that, even if you're doing business, even if you're, researching or reading up the customer doesn't see it that way, the customer would be better off seeing you reading a technical spec book Right um, i have a couple tech, specs books right here. I keep these. The customer's gon na be better off seeing you reading this book than seeing you stare at your phone trying to read this book on your phone because they think you're just scrolling facebook. If you're actually opening this book and then the customer comes by - and you say yeah, you know what i'm looking in here and i'm verifying that that you know the the temperatures and the pressures are meeting what the manufacturer specifies and you know show them your stopwatch And say this is what i'm doing it makes the customer understand a little bit more and gives them more confidence in you, okay, their perception of you goes a long way because if the customer, every time you come into the work on their ice machine sees you Just sitting on your ladder waiting for it to make ice, even though you're doing something every time you come in from that point forward, they're going to think.

Oh, my god, this guy just sits on his ladder. You know, but if you actually keep them in the loop and and explain things and and make them see you in a different way, you know make them realize that you are doing something and that hey you're, going out of your way to wipe down your their Machine while you're waiting for it to make ice that makes the difference. Okay, the customer relationship is key because if you have a bad relationship with them, it's just going to make everything worse. It's just going to be a problem.

So all right, i'm going to get to the chat right here, um, what the heck did. I do to my stupid computer. There we go all right, i'm going to go down to the chat and see what i'm missing is 404 or 410a refrigerant, better uh they're. Both totally different refrigerants, so that that brings up a good point.

404 is a medium and low temperature. Refrigerant 410a is typically a high temperature refrigerant, but it is used in some medium temperature applications too, there's some ice machines that are using 410a okay. So that brings up another point and thing that i want to cover refrigerants: okay, there's so many different flavors of refrigerants every day, there's a new flavor, a new refrigerant. Coming out this new one is replacing 410 there's a new one, replacing this a new one, replacing that guys you're never going to be able to keep up with all the different refrigerants.

Okay, oh my gosh, you read the the headlines right. I got a magazine right here: uh non-flammable these these words that people put on these articles are just to get you to read the dang article they put flammable and non-flammable. Everybody loves that word: okay, because they're trying to grab your attention so they'll read so you'll read their article: okay, guys just use basic refrigeration practices. It's super simple, okay, but the key thing with all the different types of refrigerants.

Okay, just understand how to use a pressure temperature chart hey what what is the pressure of 410a at 120 degrees outside? What should my condensing temp be? Okay, i mean what should my the pressure actually be on my gauges? I don't know, but i can tell you that if it's a micro channel condenser coil more than likely, i'm going to run 20 degrees over ambient temperature, so my condensing temp should theoretically be, if it's 120 degrees outside what 160 or 140 degrees. Okay. Theoretically, my condensing temp should be that. Okay, if i'm working on an air conditioner and i'm looking for a 40 degree, evaporator temperature.

Okay, i can use my pressure temperature chart and tell you what my pressure should be. Okay, so understanding how to use a pressure temperature chart is so key with all these different refrigerants. You can't keep up with all the different operating pressures, but the one thing you can do is just keep up with the saturation temperatures: the evaporator temperatures, the condensing temperatures, whatever you want to call them. Okay.

So if you understand how to use a pressure temperature chart - and you understand what basic temperature differentials across the condenser or the evaporator should be okay, you can predict what your refrigerant pressure should be running and you could know hey. This is what it should be. Instead of having to remember all those pressures now, yes, certainly when i was coming up in the trade i used to work on a lot of 134a cap tube refrigerators, okay, so, yes, i have a number in my head of what the pressure should be: okay, because It was consistently always the same with one manufacturer, it's natural that that's going to happen, but guess what we don't use 134a refrigerant readily anymore: okay, we're using r290, which is propane; okay, it's different than the pressures that 134a was okay, but if i just understand what The the saturation temperature should be. I don't need to worry about what the pressure is, because the temperatures are going to be the same, almost all the way across the board.

Okay, so pay attention to your saturation temperatures. It's really important um. Have i ever seen r407c for a walk-in cooler, because you have a customer with it and has constant problems. I've seen 407c used in some medium temperature applications.

Yes, i've seen it. I've never seen it on a walk-in cooler, but i have seen it on refrigeration equipment. Like regions and stuff like that, uh it's not at one of my normal customers, but i mean you know with with some some fancy tweaking and stuff you can make it work, it's not ideal, but yeah! It's you know i i if it can get confusing. I'm sure so uh what merv filter should be used on a heat pump in a house.

Okay, so that's a good question. Merv ratings are the the the filtration rating. Essentially, okay, that's the easiest way to understand it. The higher the merv rating, the more restrictive that filter is going to be the more restrictive.

It is theoretically the more it cleans the air, but there's a downside. There's there's you know so much restriction that it can actually cause your unit not to work correctly. Okay, so it's pretty safe to say for the most part, merv, 10 or below, can readily be used on most air conditioning systems without causing too many problems. Okay, uh.

Typically want to go with a two inch filter or bigger okay, because that's going to give you more surface area so that way it doesn't plug up as fast. If you go to a one inch filter you're, going to plug it up, really quick, okay. So on our customers we go. Our supply.

Houses typically have merv 8 to merv 10 pleated filters. Now the higher the merv rating, the more restrictive the filter, gets the more issues that can happen. If you have crappy ductwork, just like i can pretty much safely say, 98 of the country has, i think, that's pretty safe to assume that 98 of the country has messed up. Ductwork.

Okay, the higher the merv rating, the more issues you're gon na cause - if you have um, if you're in heat season right now - and you have a extremely restrictive air filter - that's hepa, whatever merv rating, whatever super allergenic hypoal, whatever that crap, is that the marketing people Put on those things, okay, what it does in the heating season is it lets less air go across your filter. Go through your filter, less air, going back to the heat exchanger. Okay, therefore, the heat exchanger is going to get hotter. Therefore, you might go off on a thermal overload or who knows okay in a cooling cycle in the cooling season, your coil is going to get way too cold because you're not bringing air across it, you're going to run up into freeze-up problems.

Okay, so it's pretty safe to say that for most ductworks out there stick between mervate and merv 10. The higher you go. They're definitely have to make sure that you have the adequately sized ductwork and you can get the proper amount of air through that filter. To make it actually do good work for you, okay, you're, going to end up spending a lot of money all right.

Let's see what else! That's just my two cents, i'm not an expert when it comes to that stuff. How often do i run into using r22? I use r22 all the time gabe. I still have probably a hundred units out there that i service on a regular basis, air conditioning units and refrigeration that have r22 in them, and i still have r22 on my truck and i still buy it every single day. I'm going to continue to use r22 until the customer tells me not to, but it's the easiest explanatory, the easiest um wait.

You know, i don't want to convert things, there's there's so much. That goes into a conversion unless i have to okay. So i choose to stick with r22 at this time. Um, let's see what else? What am i missing does april air have decent products in general, brian m, honestly, i'm not very fluent.

In april air products, i've used one of their media style filters on my mom's air conditioner, but i'm not the person to answer that question. Sorry bud. Uh. Let me see what else we need to start using 448 in ontario now, uh 404 condensing units are being phased out and next year we can't buy them.

Yeah. Okay, so here in the united states, we're having similar restrictions, uh, but actually california adopted before the rest of the united states. Some of those restrictions so 404 a refrigerant is technically illegal to use on new installations and retrofit replacements. You can use it to top off the charge.

If you fix a leak, you can, you can add 4048 back to the system. That's fine! But if you do any major system, repairs such as changing a txv, condenser, evaporator or compressor technically you're supposed to convert the system to another refrigerant 448a has become the refrigerant that i have been using. But i will be honest with you: i'm not going to go crazy into conversions unless i'm replacing the equipment unless the customer really wants me to okay. So i still use 404 on a regular basis on repairs and different things like that.

But anytime i do new system replacements. Yes, i am using r448a again just another flavor refrigerant, just pay attention to the the pressure temperature chart and understand what your evaporator temperature and your condensing temperature should be and you're going to be just fine. On a side. Note 448a is very similar to r22 as far as the characteristics, so just keep that in mind don't be surprised if you go from 404a to 448a and you start up a walk-in freezer on a hot day.

You're gon na be like oh, my god, my head, pressure's, not high enough something's wrong. Yeah, again pay attention to the saturation temperatures. You know i preach to look at the the the refrigerant temperatures right, but i still will look at the pressures too and be like. Oh my gosh and then it's like.

Oh wait. Look at the saturation temperature, it's okay! You know so it happens to me too um. Let me see what else we got in here: uh, jce, hello, hello to everybody! That's in here! This is awesome that you guys are here. Thank you so very much for supporting this.

For those that are just in here. I'm going to say it again because i said in the beginning of the stream it is, it is officially three years on youtube guys. It's such a trip, it's so humbling to see. There's 95 000 of you guys that are subscribed to the channel.

A bunch of you are regular viewers. It's awesome! So it's been three years like on the 16th of november and it's two years of doing live streams. So such a trip - and i'm so thankful for you guys for watching these videos and stuff and i'm so thankful and i'm very humbled that you guys actually like to hear me babble so all right, um does it matter. The manufacturer is dupont freon better than some unknown name.

You know that's a personal preference, okay, refrigerants uh, the chemical composition of a refrigerant. If they follow the rules, should all be the same. However, there is some manufacturers that do a better job of having better quality control and maintaining set um guidelines when they manufacture that refrigerant. Okay, i personally will use honeywell refrigerants a lot.

One of my local supply houses happens to use them on a regular, and i really like the supply house. I've had very good luck and have nothing really bad to say at all about honeywell refrigerants, but the other manufacturers are just the same. Now i have heard some horror stories from some of the the foreign manufacturers that don't necessarily follow all the regulations and rules. Okay, um and i'm not saying that honeywell doesn't manufacture the refrigerants in other places.

But i mean just like the foreign companies that don't have quality control and different things like that uh, but i personally have not run into that stuff. So um, that's funny. All right! Uh is the ac job market in the inland empire, overcrowded in need of more techs uh, the ac jaw in the inland empire. You know now is a bad time because we're going into the winter.

We don't really know what winter is here in southern california. I think my low, i think i mentioned in the beginning of the chat before the stream started. I think my low tonight is 44 degrees and my high today was like 62 degrees, so we have very mild winters here, um and i think the extreme low that we'll ever get at my house will be like in the mid 20s. But that will be for a brief like one day a year or something okay, it's very rare that we drop below freezing here uh.

For the most part, our our average highs during the winter time here are in the 60s okay. So we don't really know what cold is with that being said, that creates slow down and service calls. Okay, yeah the guys that do residential they're going to be bumping it up right now, but as far as the commercial side goes, we're not super busy right now because most of the restaurants, i don't think any of the restaurants have people dining in the restaurants. Right now so they're not having us fix their heaters very much okay, so it is definitely a slower time in the inland empire.

The summer times are you know popping, but with this whole virus thing it was definitely the slowest summer we've ever had um. Let me see what else we got going on here, uh all right. Let me look at my list here um. So this is a really good question and i have to be careful because i don't like to talk crap about any manufacturers.

Okay, but i'm just going to come out here and say this: this question was: why are hoshizaki cube guides, not stainless steel, and why are they plastic? Okay, guys you got to do the math. There i mean hoshizaki is one of the biggest global brands of ice machines. Okay, and let me let me phrase this carefully when a cube guide fails on an ice machine. What happens most of the time is the cube guide.

The little plastic pieces make their way into the water pump and they cause the water pump to fail. If i have to sell a customer, a water pump for let's say a sixteen hundred pound hoshizaki ice machine uh with my labor and the parts and everything it's gon na be just under fifteen hundred dollars. Okay, so with that being said, there's a lot of sales that go on because of plastic cube guides. Okay, you guys catch my drift, that's about as far as i'm gon na go with that one.

I will tell you that on the older model, hoshizaki ice machines. I believe it was the the dssu models, the the 1980s models they actually had stainless steel cube guides. So do the math there. That was an interesting one.

I got a bunch of people asking me that same question, so i'm going to segue into another question here: what is my favorite brand of ice machine to work on? That's a very subjective question. I think that's the right word. That's one of those big words that i got to think about. I might have just said that wrong, but anyways okay, so i prefer to work on hoshizaki and manitowoc ice machines.

Those are my favorite ones to work on now. I have learned over the years that some people love isomatic ice machines. Some people love scotsman's, some people hate hoshizakis, some people hate manitowoc. I think my understanding is.

Is it's all about what you're comfortable working on i'm not super comfortable working on isomatics, the older ones? They were pretty simple, but those timers and those those gear push rod things. They drove me, nuts, okay, getting out of sync and all that crap. They just pissed me off scotsman's yeah, i'm not super comfortable working on them. I can you know, but i'm super comfortable working on a hoshizaki and mana talk, because i work on them all the time and they're very easy to diagnose, because the problems are so consistent.

You know all the time, so it really is just depends in my opinion, on what you're most comfortable working on same thing goes for a brand of air conditioner. Okay, what's my favorite brand of air conditioner linux, because that's the number one package unit i work on all the time and i learn to love the things they they make. I don't care for york units, but it's not because york is a horrible unit. Some people love them it's just because i don't work on them very much.

Okay, so that answers that question. Let me get to the list of things uh. What is the main difference in regular refrigeration and ammonia refrigeration? Well, i couldn't tell you the difference in ammonia. Refrigeration um there's some some people that i know of that work on ammonia refrigeration, but i don't um.

So i couldn't really tell you much about that and i'm sorry uh. Let me see what else um. Let me see uh yeah, you know some people, refrigeration and kitchen eq tech says starbucks equals isomatic. You know that there's.

I know the service companies out here that do all the starbucks work and you know they're, probably super comfortable because they're very predictable, okay um. I will say that i installed one of the new isomatic ice machines, uh, probably about a year or so ago and uh. They finally put a circuit board in their machines and actually have logic built into it. I don't know you know, we'll see, we'll see how it goes.

Um all right. Let me get to my list of things to talk about um. I already answered that one uh, let's see, i kind of already answered that one. This is one that i have for you guys, okay, and i get this comment a lot.

So i kind of said something in my recent video about what the most common reasons for a freeze up on a hoshizaki are okay, what are the most common reasons? In my personal opinion, the most common reasons for a hoshizaki ice machine to freeze up are low water pressure or low water flow going to the machine. Okay could be because of a restriction, something dirty who knows but low water flow coming into the machine and cube guides, especially the older mechanical cube guides or uh thermostatic cube guides for uh were failing. Those were the number one issues that cause freeze-ups on hoshizaki ice machines. Okay.

Now i get this point all the time. People always say: don't forget about water. Floats water floats cause freeze-ups on hoshizaki ice machines. I disagree with that.

Okay, because if any of you guys understand how a hoshizaki ice machine works and maybe i'm wrong and i'm i'm totally open to being wrong correct me if i'm wrong, i would love to see your guys's answers, but i cannot in my head think of how a Water float can cause a freeze up on a hoshazaki ice machine and here's my logic. Okay, the ice machine has a freeze, lockout timer after three. I think it's 60 minute consecutive freeze cycles the machine shuts off okay. So if that's the case, how can a water flow not telling the machine that it's time to make ice cause it to freeze up if it's gon na shut the machine off after three consecutive cycles of 60 minutes or longer? So i can't fathom how a water flow can cause a freeze up, but again maybe i'm wrong any of you guys familiar with the hoshizakis i'd love to hear your opinion on that.

But i think that my opinion is that if you're throwing water floats at a machine more than likely there's a misdiagnosis somewhere in there, okay yeah see, i don't see the float switch as being a problem. But again you know i could be wrong, but with the board with the freeze, lockout timer and the harvest lockout timer, i can't see how a float switch can cause a freeze up, but that's just my opinion, um the stupid spring by the pump. I can't see that spring causing a a a freeze up the free the spring will cause thin ice cubes for sure. So, if the ice screen diverter falls out of place, it will pop yeah.

That's that's a pretty common i've seen that before people that are cleaning the machines, don't put the cube guide back in place. Yeah it'll block the ice um on the older stackable machines uh. I haven't worked on a stackable in many years, but on the stackable machines you know if you ever had the top one frozen up in the bottom one frozen up. It was usually easy to know you had a bad bin thermostat of some sort.

So um. Let me see what else we got do i have any videos and or am i familiar with ult - i don't know what ult is roger bettingcourt, i'm sorry, uh, don't know what that is bud um. Let me see what else we got in here. Uh in freezing video, what was the switch for that was shorting.

You were just used curtains on the doors in the freezer video. What was that switch for the oh? The switch? Okay yeah? That's that's a good one, because i'm getting a lot of. I had a lot of feedback on that one too, so um with the uh with the freezer video that i did. Okay, um.

What i found was that the twist timer we have a twist timer on the outside of the door. So what that is, is a load switch okay, so when the customer they're they're constantly in and out of their walk-in freezer and what they do is we put a load switch on the outside? Essentially, it's a pump down switch, that's all that it is and whenever they open the freezer door for an extended period of time, there's a 15 minute twist timer on the outside of the door. You twist that twist timer, then they can go in and do what they need and walk out of the box and then it'll automatically turn back on alaska hvac. Thank you.

So very much for that super chat man. That is awesome yeah. It would be awesome if we could get the likes up to 300 likes. That would be really cool, um, so yeah, it's just a twist timer just for a it's a pump down, switch or uh a switch.

I guess you can call it um. Now the contention on that and i went back and forth with someone in the chat, uh and - and i understand he has a valid point, but i don't think that i'm incorrect in this. The way that we wire that twist timer is, is we we simply just break one leg to the uh. We break the common terminal go into the evaporator when you break the common terminal, go into the evaporator.

It's a 208 single phase circuit. Okay, so you just break the common terminal. What that does? Is it immediately shuts off the evaporator fan motors and it pumps it shuts off the the common leg to the solenoid valve and it pumps the system down and then, when you turn it back on boom turns the switch back on now. He was saying you should never break the common leg um, but no, i i don't see a problem with that, because it's not a it's, not a power down, switch, it's not there to turn it, so you can work on it or something like that.

His concern was, was that i wasn't breaking both legs. It'd, be one thing if it was a power switch. I understand breaking both legs, but this is just a service switch so that way they can go inside and outside of the box. So um.

Let me see what i'm missing in here uh. I already answered that one ultra low temp - oh no yeah - i don't have any ultra low temps, sorry bud um! All right, uh, don't miss anything there! Uh httpg! So you guys uh ulysses palacios is in here right now and ulysses. Someone was asking about ammonia refrigeration earlier um. If, if one of the moderators can help me out uh, can you guys post a link to ulysses youtube channel ulysses does occasionally stuff on um? He does industrial refrigeration and will occasionally do ammonia, refrigeration, stuff.

So uh you guys his youtube channel is sim. Oh no, you just changed your youtube channel name! Didn't you ulysses yeah! So someone post the link to ulysses channel in here one of the moderators. If you could, please um, it should come up on youtube. If you look it up uh, what kind of pain will the switch to r32 and residential b? It's not going to be that big of a deal guys um.

You know when you're working with these um, i think i think r32 isn't. Is it an a2l? It's a slightly flammable refrigerant or something i don't know a whole lot about it, but really it's just gon na the the biggest fear with people is that they're gon na blow up okay, when you're um, it's it's slightly flammable. I think in some weird extreme circumstances. So you're not really gon na need to do anything.

The biggest thing when you, when you have any of these slightly flammable refrigerants, is you want to purge the system? It's not like working on r290, but even r290 is not that big of a deal. Okay, you just purge the system with nitrogen before you braise anything. So it's not that big of a deal now you do need to be careful to make sure that your recovery and your vacuum equipment is capable of working with some of those refrigerants again.