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. All right, Thank you thank you thank you! Foreign, foreign, what is up everybody? Welcome To the Hvacr videos Live Stream podcast. whatever you want to call this. Yeah, if you guys don't already know this actually is, Um, I do put these onto podcast format too.

I Don't really announce that I was just kind of curious, but if you guys search the Hvacr podcast on any podcast platform, you'll find it. Um, but I I Really haven't announced it anywhere, but maybe here in the streams and every once in a while I casually mentioning it just because I haven't gone full force on it yet. but stay tuned. We are going to be, uh, really, starting to push hard on that um in the next coming short while I guess I should say.

But for the meantime, I've been posting a few things on there, uh, the podcast itself and then putting the live streams up there too because people have been asking for that for years, so figured it's about time we got a lot of great people in the chat. Hello to everybody. If you guys haven't already, please smash the Thumbs Up Button like it on whatever platform you're watching this on. So far, this is streaming on LinkedIn several different Facebook profiles and Pages YouTube um I think that's it? Yeah, but anyways, share it.

Comment: Whatever you got to do, subscribe, it does help out I Really do appreciate it all. Okay, so um I go through a bunch of different questions in these live streams I definitely want to get to the questions in the chat I have a list of questions right here on a a Word document that I've kind of populated from emails YouTube comments things like that. so I'll definitely try to get to everything I can. Um, if you guys do have questions, do me a favor and put them in caps lock.

It helps me and the moderators to see them better. If I'm missing your guys's questions, feel free to keep reposting them. Uh, but again, it's it's kind of hard to see them all because there's usually a crap ton of questions flying by. So um, if I miss them, you can feel free to shoot me an email to each VCR videos gmail.com and maybe I can get them on the next stream.

There's actually something that I'm trying to work on right now. Um, and uh, do me a favor, let me know in the chat where you guys are from I See, there's one person in here that says uh, he's from North Korea That made me laugh when I saw that calmer, um nasty HVAC says hello from North Korea But yeah, let me know where you guys are from in the chat. and uh, for those that don't know, I'm pretty sure everybody out there probably knows where I'm from. but I am from the Sunny well sometimes Sunny State of California I am in Southern California specifically Riverside California is where I'm at.

um I'm a service tech here in Southern California Also run a small business and uh, the primary work that I do is what you see in my videos I work on restaurants HVAC ice machines Refrigeration air conditioning. all that good stuff. So you kind of see an Eclectic mix of different stuff inside my Channel or on my channel. I should say um I'm always looking for feedback.

Okay, when I post a video, if you guys have critiques a hundred percent, I'm willing to take them if you have criticism for me. praise, whatever it may be, throw it in the comments. It definitely helps. Uh, the engagement of the channel.

So I definitely like it. and again, I'm totally open to criticism too. If you guys think that I did something wrong, let me know. Okay, just you don't got to be a jerk about it.

But let me know because there's some times that I do learn from things. Okay, I certainly got a lot of feedback. I'm not going to say criticism, but a lot of feedback from my most recent video which is an exhaust rebuild. So we're going to be talking about that in due time here in a few minutes.

But I got a couple other things. So something that I'm definitely working on is interacting with you all in these live streams. More, What I'm noticing is there's a problem and I've There's always been a disconnect between me doing these streams and being able to interact with you all you know I Do these streams? The whole point of me starting live streams was to consolidate the questions. When I first started making YouTube videos, I found that I was just bombarded with with questions and they were repetitive questions.

A lot of the times they were the same questions over and over again. So I started doing the live streams and just finding the most common questions and talking about them in the Stream that way. I didn't have to answer the same question 10 times. But what I'm starting to notice is there's a whole crowd of people that come in the Stream and ask me questions and I don't even see them until like maybe I watch a replay and I'm looking at someone asking their question three four times and I just don't see it because they're They're moving by so fast.

so I'm definitely trying to figure out a way to be able to interact some more. Maybe there's going to be, you know, and if you guys have feedback on that, I'm totally willing to listen. I thought about a few different methods I've thought about um, you know some sort of uh, everybody emailing their questions, people calling their questions in like I've thought about different ways and I even thought about doing another stream too like you know and then like breaking it down because I feel like typically we're seeing about I'd say um, anywhere from 100 to 200 people. Typically in these live streams is what we usually see and I'm feeling like I just can't get to it all.

So hello to everybody that's in the chat. Hello hello, hello Um. reading through here, did I know do I did I know that PC custom water cooler is in the fridge? Um, don't know where you're going with that. but I do have a um water cooled uh heat exchanger on my PC uh glycol cold actually.

So um, wow. people from all over the place Maine San Diego Texas Utah New Mexico Virginia have family in Virginia Mike My mother-in-law and my uh, grandmother-in-law live in Virginia Um wow, lots of great people here. Fort Worth Iowa This is awesome! It is so cool to see that you guys are interacting with some random dude on the internet. It is very humbling for sure.

Is my refrigerator running? Hmm, that's a good question. Brett yes it is running You think I should go try to catch it all right? let's see what else we got. Chihuahua Mexico that's cool Victor Um, you know what? Yeah, I got all kinds of ideas but I gotta be careful about spewing them on these things because I want to make sure that they're my ideas. So um yeah, I gotta be careful.

All right. Cool. Well um I Want to go ahead and start talking about the uh, most recent video that I put on my channel. It was released on Sunday and it was an exhaust fan repair.

So I'm going to go ahead and throw out some of the most common questions real quick and just knock them out of the park. Okay, why in the heck? I I did get some people that were agitated with me. They were angry with me because I repaired that exhaust fan and I should have changed. It should have just changed it.

Even if it was expensive, the customer shouldn't have gotten a choice. Suck it up and just change it all right? Here's the deal. that is a critical piece of equipment for that restaurant. That bearing had been making a noise for about a month now and I've been trying to get an approval and what had actually happened was the email got lost in the shuffle and the person that I sent the email to with the quote didn't see it.

So about a month went by and I'm like man I forgot about it and then I'm like man I don't need that exhaust fan to go down. So bottom line, even if they were going to replace that exhaust fan, the build time for that fan. They don't have those in stock. They had to build it.

They had to custom build that fan. The build time for that fan was going to be a long time. So either way I was going to have to change the bearings on that fan. Okay, because that restaurant cannot operate without that exhaust fan has to be there.

They can't do without it. Another common question that I got about that exhaust fan is why in the heck didn't I just put an aluminum mushroom style fan on there? Well, if any of you guys has ever worked on an older Supreme fan and you've had to, uh, you know, try to adapt it to something else. What you're going to find is that that exhaust fan has grease stuck in it. Okay, so it comes with a curb adapter, the base section of that exhaust fan, and then the grease duct is dropped down from the top and then usually welded to the top of the exhaust fan curb.

So I would have had to have left that original exhaust curve there and then gotten a curb adapter to step it down for like a 24 inch mushroom fan or something like that. And then you would have needed a four foot ladder to access the mushroom fin. The next thing is on that Supreme fan and see, there's so many things that go through my head when people put these comments in there and they just instantly happen in my brain. and I don't know if other people think about this stuff either, but on that Supreme fan, it has, uh, it has a upper section and a lower section and there's welded brackets all on there for the catch pin for when you lift up the whole entire fan to clean the ductwork.

there's a catch pin that's welded on and there's all kinds of stuff that I would have had to grind off. So making that fan work for something else that is possible. Taking the old base it is possible, but it's a lot of work and it's just not really worth it. I'd just rather go back in with what belongs there.

Okay, so you know I would have had to have repaired the fan but again, understand that I gave the customer options and either way I was going to have to put the bearing on it, but I gave them an option to replace it and inevitably they are going to have to replace it eventually. You want to know the cool thing about the Supreme fans and actually it's manufactured by a company called Pin Bearing now is that, um, you can actually order just the top section. So I mentioned in the video and I usually don't talk about this kind of stuff, but I did mention in the video that a new fan installed with everything was going to be about 20 grand for the customer. Okay, um and that was pretty ridiculously expensive.

I was kind of Blown Away with how expensive that fan was. Um, but um, that was just for the top section. that wasn't even the bottom section, the curve that was just the the hop top assembly for the fan and then basically just take off the old hinges and you slap that one in place. Uh, that is an older fan.

It's probably from the 90 maybe 93 ish 1993 was when it was built and installed. Um, so sometimes you just got to do what you got to do. Uh, let's see. Mr Shark by 6415 says he hates yelling questions.

but do I work for a Wendy's location? I Do not reveal the names of the locations that I work for. Unfortunately, the general public just doesn't understand how I would have to or how I have to protect myself. So I'm not gonna confirm nor deny that I work for a Wendy's location. but actually I don't work for Wendy's okay.

so I'll tell you that. but um I don't uh I don't like talking about the locations I won't ever reveal them I have to protect my customers. Okay, all right, let's see what else we got going on here. The glycol in the PC is a mix of glycol and water.

That is correct. Uh, typically it's going to be a propylene glycol, but depending on the way they set it up. I Guess they could run an ethylene glycol in there. But yes, it is glycol and water.

All right. Um, Junior Bacon cheeseburger? Yep, maybe greasing the motor in shaft twice a year? I'm assuming you're talking about some sort of preventative maintenance? Yeah, that you know. getting these customers to do any of that doesn't really work All right. Let's see what else we got going on in the chat right now.

Green through here. All right. Cool. Um, okay.

uh. so someone had brought up, uh, all kinds of ideas about ways to uh, work on the particular exhaust fan. So let's say this up front and I mentioned this in the video too when I did that exhaust fan replacement. when I replaced those bearings I haven't done a bearing job like that I can't probably in 10 years.

Okay, we used to do bearings all the time. There was a time when in the the late 90s early 2000s when I was really cutting my teeth, learning everything and stuff. We would repair things left and right. We never changed exhaust fans.

We would just rebuild them, put new bearings on them new. Wheels New everything. Can't tell you how many times I did that and then all of a sudden everything got just. everybody, just started replacing everything, the customers and and it was just crazy.

So we don't get to do bearing Replacements very much anymore. So with that being said, I'm sure that there's a few tools that I could have in my truck that would have made the job go easier to replace those bearings. but you know you have to be practical. like I could go invest three four thousand dollars in a bunch of different tools and keep them on my truck, but then I won't use them again for a very long time.

On top of that, I can really get the job done I mean realistically, I was only there for a couple hours and maybe maybe four hours at the most at the most. Probably not even that, maybe even two and a half three hours. I don't remember exactly how long I was there, but it didn't take me that long to do that kind of work. Okay, and of course some of it was me being stubborn trying to break the bearing loose before I could have just cut it all from the beginning, you know? But I just you know, wanted to try to get it off if I could.

Okay without having to cut and again I was working with another person. uh Jasper Wiley thank you very much for that. Super Chat That is very appreciated I really, really do appreciate it. But so do I do home air conditioner repairs.

So no, uh, the type of work that I do is commercial refrigeration and air conditioning I do not do Residential uh I have done residential for friends and family and I'm currently in the process of changing my own air conditioner in my house if you look on. I don't know what the series is called, but there's probably a playlist on my channel where I'm changing my home air conditioner. Just go through the last couple videos and you'll see it. Um, it.

I think I've done two episodes now. so I need to record my third one or I need to upload my third one. But no I do not do Residential work. Okay, um, reading through the chat, seeing what I'm missing here.

Is it possible to make an exhaust fan into a makeup error unit? No, no, it is not. Um, maybe maybe if you had an inline exhaust fan like a utility style fan and you you installed it backwards. But no, no, there's really not a maker. Bear unit is specific in the way that it filters the air going into it.

So I mean you know, with enough money and some really cool tools, maybe you could figure it out. Um, but yeah, it just wouldn't be practical. You could just buy a maker per unit for cheaper than what you could do to make an exhaust fan into a makeup or unit. So for those that don't understand a makeup or unit, um, is a unit that makes up for the air that you exhaust out of the building because we have something called Air Balance and we have to be concerned with the air balance of the building.

Let's put it this way, if you have a paper bag okay and you collapse the bag around your mouth and then you suck the air out of the bag, the bag is going to collapse. Okay, but if you cut a hole in the bottom of the bag and you do that same thing, the air is going to pass through the bag. A building works the same way. A building is a sealed environment.

You have an exhaust fan pulling unwanted Smoky hot air out of the building. Well, that makeup air has to come from somewhere. If you do not have a dedicated makeup or unit, then what it's going to do is it's going to start sucking air from every nook and cranny in that building, cracks under the walls. Uh, from The Leaky Duct work all that different stuff.

So we have a dedicated makeup air unit that balances out the building. It blows Supply air into the building that's usually conditioned in one way or another at a minimum filter and makes up for the air that we exhaust out of the building. Okay, uh, to do motor bearings is only an hour? Mario Perez Now, um, yeah. okay.

I would say that if you're talking about motor bearings, sure if you have the bearings with you Okay, but there's too much liability in changing bearings in a motor. If I was going to rebuild the motor, I would take it to a rebuild shop and ask them to replace the bearings in it. But I'm not going to rebuild a motor for my customer because there's too much liability, especially for customers that don't do routine maintenance. It'd be one thing if we had a customer that says they want us to maintain their equipment.

you know, on a regular basis, but a good majority of my customers. actually. Right now, at this point in time, only one of my customers does routine maintenance. One of them keeps stopping and then one of them, two of them don't do it at all.

Um, but yeah, it's not a practical thing for us to rebuild motor bearings. it's just not um. and there's a massive liability. And then on top of that, my technicians would have to have specialized tools to pull the motor bearings and then we'd have to ensure that they got that put back together correctly And it's just not something that we do.

Plus, these motors are so cheap that it's not even worth trying to put a bearing in it. Now when you get into the big giant Motors Maybe five horsepower and above? Maybe it's practical to put a new bearing inside of it. But even in that situation, I would encourage someone if they're going to rebuild the motor that they have a redundant motor. That's there that you install and then take the other one out and go have it rebuilt, refurbished and then have it on standby for when it's time to change the other bearings because a lot of the times these customers can't deal with downtime.

It just can't So uh, reading through the chat right now, um, there's also different of cooling solution. Oh okay, got you. Um, let's see. Run it until it blows.

Will said yep. all right. um. Rtu Outside Air Mario Perez Yeah, I do have uh, some restaurants that actually use the Rtu units as outside air but they need to be engineered correctly.

Uh I have some restaurants that have direct drive exhaust fans that the restaurant no longer uses the variable speed Hood System on. and so we're having to pull all the air through the AC units. but unfortunately, uh, we're making some of those AC units like their kitchen ACS and some of these restaurants 100 outside air units and those units aren't designed for that and we're essentially just cooking the air conditioning units from the inside out. If you're pulling in large amounts of outside air, you're adding a load to that air conditioning unit that it most of the time wasn't designed for.

So let's say that you know you have a Linux package unit carrier York train whatever it may be that wasn't designed to pull a good amount of outside air in and then you just do it that way. Well then the life of that unit is going to be drastically reduced. Okay, so in a perfect world, what you need is a Doas unit, a dedicated outside air system or whatever it is, But those units are engineered and set up to pull in that hot outside air and they have different means of cooling the compressors. So if you're using outside air and you're drawing it into the evaporator, you know, especially in some of my restaurants where we're pulling 100 outside air.

If you're drawing that into the evaporator, you're increasing the suction gas temperature going back to that compressor. and most of the time, in my situations, we're an Ambience of 105 to 120 degrees. In the summertime outside, those compressors were not designed to run with that high of a suction temp and it basically starts disintegrating the inside of the compressor, damaging the oil, then eventually creating sludge and different things inside the compressor oil. So yes, you can pull outside air, and yes, on newer buildings, a good majority of newer buildings.

it is part of the process that they do pull a little bit of outside air through all the ACs, but usually you have a dedicated makeup air unit, and then you're just pulling a little bit of outside air through all the ACs just to satisfy fresh air requirements for the building for all the occupants that are going to be in there. So let's see what else we got going on in here. Um, let's see. Jason Johnson says he mostly works on Aeon right now.

Doas units for makeup air exactly and those are engineered specifically to bring in that outside air correct. Jason And they have dedicated cooling systems for the compressor to make sure that the suction gas isn't too hot. so oftentimes they'll have some sort of a uh uh desuper heating expansion valve to help cool the suction gas. But the problem with that is that's going to increase the energy consumption of that unit.

So it's all things that they have to factor into the design of the building. All right, let's see what else we got going on here. Um, reading through here. All right, Cool, Yeah, I've yet to see.

although I will say um I'm a little bit intrigued because I'm starting to see the captive air Doas units popping up on some fast food chains I don't work on them. but I happen to drive by and you know that I can't not look at rooftop equipment when I'm driving by places and I'm noticing that I'm starting to see those doeases popping up on top of some restaurant style places too. So uh, Scott HVAC rookie, thank you very much for that super chat. So your question was where can you get that awesome hat Uh, so speaking of hats, So this hat right here.

Go to Hvacrvideos.com It is available right now. This is my standard Flex fit hat. You may or may not have seen some stuff popping around on social media because a couple friends of mine uh, will speed in the chat Jason Johnson in the chat Bill Russell Who's not in the chat? They all have some prototype hats out there. Uh, more than likely we're going to be going with those hats, but I sent them to those guys to kind of give me some feedback on what they think about them.

So Jason Johnson and Will speed. both have flat bill hats that are all black just like this one, but they're not the same material and then uh Bill Russell Curious HVAC Guy has a dad hat which is just like a floppy dad hat that sits. It's a little shallower and stuff so they're kind of doing some testing for me seeing if they like them. They're going to wear them for a while and then eventually we might order some of those and put them in production and start putting them on the website.

But for now, the standard Hvacr had is is available at Hvacrvideos.com All right, let's see what else. Um, reading through the chat, seeing what I'm missing. All right. Cool.

Um, yeah, that one guy Bill Russell the Boston Celtic himself oh Bill Russell has been called the Boston Celtic player Bill Russell has been called the perv of Detroit um The Creeper of Detroit He's got all kinds of nicknames so yeah, you definitely Bill Russell's the guy Man, he is definitely the guy. All right. Um, someone had mentioned uh, someone had actually reached out to me after he saw me struggling with that bottom bearing on that exhaust fan and he said that he has a tool that would have been great for getting that bottom bearing off. and he has a special induction heater that would have heated up the bearing without heating up the shaft too much.

And you know, I'm intrigued by some of these induction heaters, but I still don't see how they would completely work with the type of stuff that I am doing. I'm intrigued though. but when you start looking at the prices of some of these induction heaters and the lack of portability, I don't know I Just don't know if an induction heater is quite there yet. Maybe when someone makes a battery operated induction heater that can heat something using some really high-end lithium ion batteries or something like that? I Don't know.

maybe that'll be better. but right now, having to plug something into the wall? I'd just rather spend an extra hour on the roof than having to drag a bunch of stuff up onto the roof to try to do that. I Do see people talking about induction heaters quite a bit when they see me brazing and stuff, but they're just not practical for the type of work that I do. But if you guys have feedback, I mean um, you know, shoot me pictures, emails, videos.

If you're a manufacturer, you know, let's talk. You know I I can but I you know, don't take offense when I see a product and I just say yeah, that's not going to work for me because a good majority of the time I can see things and I can be like it's just not going to be feasible. Um, you know, so it's just one of those things. All right, let's see what else we got going on in here.

I'm reading through the chat: Bill looks like the guy in the Nickelback video bill is a hundred percent Chad Kroger from Nickelback but Bill Bill is a Die Hard Nickelback fan. Bill is my good friend and I don't know if I'm supposed to share this, but Bill Russell goes to bed every night just listening to Nickelback like um I can't get him to stop singing it whenever we're talking on the phone and stuff because sometimes Bill and I will be like talking on the phone as we're going to bed. you know? and then we try to see who falls asleep first and then he'll just be listening to Nickelback the whole time. So um, all right, let's see what else.

DD Refrigeration thank you very much for that. Super Chat that is really awesome I really do appreciate you. Okay, um when I own a crane to take every oh to every site to take my tools up there, that would be fun. huh? Um, do I think the shaft will spin without locking collars? Mario Perez So are you saying that? because I used a set screw style bearing Am I worried about the set screw releasing and the shaft dropping down? Not at all.

Uh I have had extremely good luck on uh, set screw bearings. In fact, that's what I prefer to use on almost everything. Uh, because I tend to find that locking collar bearings are a nightmare to take off after the fact. But that's partially because of the fact that when you use a locking collar bearing, if you put the top race on the correct way, it actually self tightens once you snug the race on there.

It'll actually kind of make itself even stronger as it starts to spin. but I tend to find that they're almost impossible to get off to change later down the line. My personal experiences I prefer a bearing with a set screw all day long. That's just my personal preference.

but I'm curious to hear. Have you guys had stuff fall apart that has set screws on it? So all right, let's see what else we got going on in the chat reading through here. Um, you could use a TIG welder to the pipe instead of using acetylene. You could use Tig to weld the pipe instead of acetylene.

I don't know where you're going with that cyborg sheet. All right. Um, reading through here: what am I missing? Cool? Do I think? Do I talk much with Technology Connections anymore? Um so Technology Connections is a channel on YouTube Honestly I haven't had very much feedback with the guy from Technology Connections. He just happened to mention me in one of his videos one time I watch his videos every once in a blue moon.

But to be honest with you I don't have a lot of time to watch very much. uh, technical content I really would like to get better and that has actually been a goal of mine in this coming years to interact with people more. But um, no I don't really talk with them very much. like I said, the only interaction I've had is because he used one of my videos as a reference in one of his videos one time.

So if I could do a custom PC liquid cooling business, would I do it? No. I I'd stay in my own lane. Um, all right. reading through here change many bearings and totally agree about lockering versus set screw.

Scott Savage Yeah, it's just something. they're just a lot easier to come off. set lock ring. it just takes forever.

Um uh Jason Johnson says he's never had a set screw back off on a set of those bearings and the key that I see when you're tightening anything. Okay, especially when you're going into a shaft. Okay, and you're trying to tighten a set screw on a fan prop or fan blade. Whatever you want to call it is.

you always run the set screw. Okay, and what I mean by that is you tighten it. You loosen it. You tighten it.

you loosen it, You tighten it. You loosen it. You tighten it. So usually three to four times and what you actually do is you Scar the shaft you run the set screw in.

You loosen it, you run it in, you loosen it, and you build a Groove within the shaft. and I do the same thing. like when I'm tightening down, uh, stranded wires and like a lug connector is you. You tighten loose and tight and loosen and you're actually going to smash the wires down and kind of give them a good set.

But the same thing goes for set screws too. Scar it. Go to town. All right.

reading through here. Um, and that's actually what Jason Johnson just said. So uh, do I plan on having a bit of positive pressure with my home unit Dale Maher Uh, let's see. yeah, 100 my home unit will be in a slight slight positive pressure in a perfect world.

Now how I'm gonna do that? I haven't quite figured that out yet. I Don't know if I'm gonna go with a um I might just be drawing outside air. It just depends. We'll have to see.

Well, there's several different ways that we can go about it and we're trying to figure it out. All right. Um, have I ever had a carrier Rtu with a Vfd run correctly with the Transformer tapped incorrectly but not run with the Transformer tapped correctly. You switch the Taps and got all sorts of error codes? Oh, that's interesting.

Tim Hmm Well are you talking about one of the new carrier package units with the Eco blue axial fan motor? Maybe I'm intrigued by that. Uh, I would. Oh, you said it has a Vfd though? Hmm yeah, something happened there. Did you change the Transformer Taps while it was running? I Wouldn't think you would have done that.

No. I've never had that problem. That's really interesting. So um, uh, let's see.

Have we figured out geothermal yet here? in California our ground temperature is way too warm. We'd have to dig way way deep, but our ground temperature also is very dry and it's also very Rocky We don't have a lot of water sources here. we do have wells underground and we have aquifers and stuff, but I don't know how deep I would have to go to make geothermal that efficient within my location that I live in. we live in a desert climate so we'd have to go really, really deep to get that surface temperature of the ground to dissipate and make geothermal efficient.

I would think but I don't know, You guys correct me in the chat. Am I on Tick Tock Yes, you can find me on all social media platforms at Hvacr videos. Am I going to use a big Rtu for my setup? No I am not all right. Uh, okay.

I'm gonna get to a couple more questions. So um, in that exhaust fan video that I released on Sunday do I think the customer was better off rebuilding the fan versus repairing it? Uh I mean in a perfect world, we're gonna have to replace that fan if we get another probably four or five years out of the rebuild that I just did right now. But what you guys can't see on video that I could see while I was there on site is the top plate of that exhaust fan is starting to bow from the weight of the wheel pulling down on it all over those years. So they've only got a so many more years left on that fan.

but we got a rebuild like I said, we had to do this either way so we're fine with that. Um Cameron was a bit upset that I repaired the fan. uh and you know kind of said that I should have demanded that the customer replace the fan again. like I said Cameron we're gonna have to rebuild it anyways.

but I mean whatever I have my opinions like in a perfect world I would have purse suddenly replace that fan. it's a piece of junk If that was a high volume restaurant that I owned I would have replaced the fan. But guess what? it's not my money and as a contractor I just do what the customer says I give them two quotes. Here's a repair.

Here's a replace. I mean you know the the the repair of that fan was. Let's just say I'm not going to tell you exactly how much, but the repair of that fan was less than three grand. Way less than three grand versus the replacement was 20 grand.

So if they can get a couple more years out of that repair I mean good for them, You know? Um, let's talk about something else. Um, when I walk up on these rooftops, especially with these customers that do not do routine maintenance, there's often something that I say that I have to go up and I have to triage the equipment. These are things that we all need to consider and think about and some of you already do this, but maybe some of you don't understand or realize why you need to do that. When you walk up onto a restaurant roof and they call you and they say we've got four air conditioners down, our customers are complaining, we need you in here now you know and they're like urgent and you get on the roof and you're like where do I start I have four air conditioners down.

So typically what I do is I put the fires out I go and I find the the easiest ones to fix that are are a real obvious problem and we get them up and running and then we work our way through the equipment. We find what's the easiest to fix. we triage it. You know, now in a hospital setting you're looking at triage because you're looking at the patients that you know are about to bleed out the most important ones.

So we do factor in the most important unit when you're walking up onto the roof. But another thing to understand and you guys didn't hear this because I just filmed it in a video today. Another thing that you have to understand when we're working in restaurant environments. It's a whole new mindset.

Okay, when you work just heavy commercial work and you're just doing rooftop package units all day long, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I'm just saying it's different because I do some of that where you just do rooftop package units. Typically, you don't have to deal with the kind of stuff we deal with when we're doing restaurant work because with restaurant work, there's all kinds of factors that go into what you're fixing. Oftentimes you're trying to solve something that the customer did to their equipment versus you know, just fixing a piece of equipment that's broken.

So I was working on a package unit today and I walked in and it's so important to understand your surroundings and what you're working on. So I was walking into a restaurant that just had a construction remodel. They had a bunch of construction workers there for the last three weeks doing all kinds of work, redoing all kinds of stuff inside the restaurant. Restaurants do this about.

every five years they rebuild the whole restaurant, repaint it, put new stuff in there so that way people don't get bored going to the restaurants. Okay, so as I'm going in there, it ended up not being a problem, but it's always in my head. Hey, they just had a remodel here. Make sure you look at anything the construction crew could have messed up.

So the first thing I did when they had an air conditioning complaint was I walked around because they repainted all the ductwork and they have spiral exposed ductwork. I went around looking at all the dampers for all the diffusers because they have butterfly dampers and every diffuser making sure nobody shut the dampers. That was the first thing I did. Then I looked at the return grilles that are way high up 15 foot up in the ceiling where I can't get to them.

Made sure with flashlights and mirrors and different things that they weren't plugged up, there wasn't a bunch of construction debris in them looking at Zone sensors. Maybe they took the Zone sensors off the wall to paint the wall. Okay so let's talk about this. Something that can happen with a thermostat if you didn't know this.

Some thermostats have an auto change over inside of them now not an auto changer between Heating and Cooling but in Auto changeover if it loses sight of its Zone sensor. So some thermostats have a Zone sensor capability so you can either sense the temperature at the thermostat where it's located or you can run an external Zone sensor to another part of the building and on some of them. If you have it set up for a remote sensor and the remote sensors across the building and the remote sensor goes bad, the thermostat has the capability of saying hey, instead of just completely shutting off, we're going to start sensing the temperature where the thermostat's located. Even if someone connects the Zone sensor back, sometimes it doesn't automatically reconfigure itself to go back to sensing The Zone sensor.

So those are all things that I think about in my head as I'm walking up to these job sites. So I'm going to triage the equipment I'm going to look at the situation. but I'm also going to pay attention to my surroundings and and think about things. So we got to go further than we're just there to fix an air conditioner.

We're thinking about the things that could have happened in the building and this can be applied to regular commercial work or even residential work too. But you have to keep that in your mind that you're there to solve the problems. and we're looking at the big picture, right? So we're not just going there to say yeah, the air conditioner had a loose belt. we're out and then you find out that this is going on and that's going on.

So you want to be thorough. Okay wink HVAC Thank you very much for that super chat. I Really do appreciate it. Okay, um, let's see.

Reading through the chat, what do we got? Um, seeing so it looks like there's some conversation going on in the chat and I love that. Okay, so good for you guys. Um I Like when people help each other in the chat? All right. reading through here.

Um, reading thread I Saw some comments here. Okay, so on an R22 unit, can you use 410 to do a leak search if it's flat on charge? I mean well, you're not going to use 410, are you could you? Yeah, Okay, but what you want to use is you want to use a nitrogen with a chaser gas. Okay, so typically if you have an R22 package unit, you're going to put a little bit of refrigerant in there and then you're going to dump a bunch of nitrogen on top of it because you're using it as a chaser gas or a trace gas. That's actually what you're supposed to do per EPA And then you can still use your leak detector because it's sensitive enough, but the nitrogen is actually building up to pressure.

Could you use 410 on a system that had R22 that was flat? I Guess you could I Don't really see a problem because there's no oil that's in the 410. Be careful though, because there is some manufacturers out there that do weird stuff with some refrigerants like some of the R22 Alternatives they were adding oils or different things to the system. You want to pay attention if you're using A2ls and different things like that. but I mean I I Guess you could put a tracer of 410 in there.

Sure. All right. Reading through the chat, what else we got going on in here? Um, okay. cool.

Lots of great conversations. As usual. this is awesome. Our condenser.

Oh okay, so it looks like you're just answering questions. Cool. Um, Heat exhaustion? I Wanted to talk about that because I mentioned it in a recent video and a lot of you commented on this. Jason Johnson You even commented about this and one of my uh, my previous video.

Heat Exhaustion is no joke. As we're coming into the spring, it's slowly starting to warm up here in Southern California These are all things that we need to be concerned about and aware of the moment that you feel the effects of heat stroke. It is too late, so don't ever let yourself get to that position. Make sure that you all are taking breaks, cooling yourselves off and staying hydrated.

I Can't stress enough and I said this in the recent video too. Sodas and different things like that are not good. Now here: I am I'm drinking a ginger ale right now. This is a soda right? Um I'm getting paid by Canada Dry Not really.

but um, uh, that stuff's not good. Okay, uh Gatorades there's only so much I mean Gatorade's mostly sugar and salt and I realize that you do need a little salt and it does help with certain things. but Gatorades probably aren't the best thing to be drinking. and if you are going to drink Gatorade I'd highly suggest you drink three to four Waters and maybe one Gatorade That's usually what I'll do if I'm feeling like I just need a little energy or something I'll drink three to four Waters and then maybe one Gatorade and then three to four Waters and then maybe another.

Gatorade Kind of helps with electrolytes and stuff, but there's actually other things that are a lot better for you than just Gatorade you can actually get like liquid IV and different things like that that give you a little more nutrients and kind of help you a little bit more so just be aware of that stuff. And another really big piece of advice that I can give anybody is do as I say not as I do I used to just be. So I would work until I just push myself past because I'm like I'm almost done I'm just going to keep pushing through this right? and then you're like, okay, cool I'm just gonna go cool off in the walk-in freezer and then go sit in the walk-in freezer for a few minutes. That can be really, really dangerous.

Going from one extreme to another can put your body into shock and you don't want to do that kind of stuff. So if you are going to cool down, make sure you're gonna go downstairs. You're up on a roof. it's really hot.

You're gonna go downstairs, go downstairs, and acclimate in the normal building for a little bit, and then if you really still need to cool yourself off further, give yourself time to acclimate before you go to an extreme environment. Okay, be very, very careful about that. Uh, Joey Hall says liquid IV 100 Yeah, you got to be careful about that kind of stuff. And some other things that have electrolytes and different vitamins and different things can definitely help you.

Okay, um, all right. reading through the chat. Uh Joseph Campbell says that he had a tech die in a walk-in That's crazy man. I'm curious to hear more about that story.

Uh, that's nuts man. Um Joe is a cool gamer. Thank you very much for becoming a channel member. That is really awesome.

But I really do appreciate it. Um, all right. Morgan Asked about my bone conducting headphones. so in my videos I'm using a set of headphones and they're bone conducting so they sit below my ears and they have a little boom mic.

um they're pretty cool. they're made by shocks I Think is the company of all people I Heard about them from Nathan Orr from Kalos actually at one of the symposiums Nathan was wearing them and I was curious about him so I picked them up. The bone conducting headphones are nice where I say that they do really well. One of the things that's cool about the bone conducting headphones is you're still able to hear everything around you and they they play noise like right on the bone, right on your cheek, right there and it kind of just obviously conducts and and you can hear it and it does pretty good, but if you're in a really noisy environment, it's kind of hard to hear him.

One really cool thing: a tip that I can give you about the bone conducting headphones is um, if you're ever going into a mechanical room, if you put earplugs in your ears, it actually makes you hear the bone conducting better the audio coming from that. So if you have earplugs in your ears and you have bone conducting headphones on, you can still hear what's going on. You can still have a conversation. But they do work and they're really good for driving for sure.

and they keep because I I wear Bluetooth on my head all day long I'm sure I'm going to get some sort of crazy brain cancer from that. um, but you know it is what it is. Uh, read through the chats all right. um Todd Asked if I've used a courier to pick up parts yet such as like Uber or Lyft or there's some other ones I haven't yet and here's my big apprehension to that: I live in an urban area, There's a lot of supply houses within a short distance now I'm sure there's been there's there's probably a time or two that I would consider using a courier to come pick up parts for me, but what are the odds that they're going to pick up the right parts? I mean come on half the time I have to go to the supply house I call something and I tell them what I want and then you get there and they have the wrong thing and you're like no, that's not right or you open the box and it has the wrong part in the wrong box I Don't know if I'd really be using a courier to bring me Parts It just seems like it'd be a waste of my time, especially with supply houses that aren't, um, confident, competent in actually giving you what you ask for.

So yeah, I'm not really into that yet, but I'm sure there's a thing I know that blue on uh, they're doing something with like a choreo that'll bring you the parts. but I just don't see how that's going to work very well. Um, using uh, someone had mentioned in my recent video when I was fixing the exhaust fan I used a pickle fork or a ball joint separator. That's actually a really cool tool when you're when you're disassembling bearings and doing different things.

that ball joint separator, uh, fits right on top of the bearing race. You can hit them down. They do a very, very good job. so let's talk about this too.

Another thing that does really good for moving bearings when you really need to is actually a uh, galvanized pipe. So if you go and buy a galvanized pipe of whatever length that you need, you get it for the right size. It'll fit right over the shaft, but it'll still hit the bearing and you can knock them down or do whatever you need to. A lot of people were commenting on how I need to get a bearing puller I Have yet to see a bearing puller that would truly work on an exhaust fan shaft such as what I was working on recently that was about 23 inches tall.

I mean I Know that there's like bearing separators that'll like go around the bearings and then you can get like a bearing puller that has two all threads on each side. but I just don't see how that would work on what I was working on. There's not a lot of room underneath that bottom bearing on that exhaust fan and there's not a lot of room in between. There's only a half inch of space in between the bearing race and the the bulkhead that the bearings mounted to.

so getting something behind that to clamp on I just don't see it. but I'm curious. Are you guys in the chat? Do you guys know of something that would have pulled that bearing off like practically that really would have worked for me? I mean I just don't see it? I Just think that ended up trying to separate it or cutting it is just the easiest way to do it. But I'm curious what you guys have to say.

Uh, reading through the chat, how often do I have to cut stuck up, cut a stuck apart out like your recent exhaust fan video I don't know what you mean by that. Uh, charge them for ride to and from The Parts House yeah I mean when I go to pick up parts I charge them for that stuff. So Parts town is using Uber there in Chicago Okay, maybe I guess I see that a little bit? Um, supply houses would add delivery I mean some are doing that So I've heard of some of the supply houses setting up courier services, so um, all right, reading through there Celsius is better than Red Bull Yeah, but Celsius I used to drink my wife used to drink Celsius and I would have one every once in a while. Those things are a little rough man.

Rado Thank you very much for that super chat I Really do appreciate it. What do I think about Blue on 458 A as a replacement for? R22 Is it a drop in? like they say? Yeah, Blue On I've never used Blue on 458a because the price isn't feasible. It's it's not. Blue On has had a hard time and they've actually had to change their business model.

They actually are kind of moving away from the refrigerants. I Don't know if they're going to stop manufacturing refrigerants all together, but their main focus now is actually technical support and they're going to start making their money off of Parts uh, affiliate sales. So basically, if you, um, and this is the other thing too I Don't know if you guys know this but Blue On! They've been doing tech support for free for people forever. It's no longer going to be free.

They're only going to do tech support for people that use their app and order parts. and if you're a regular customer that orders Parts through their app, then they will give you tech support. but they're no longer going to give the general public tech support for free. So um, but have I used their refrigerant? No I haven't.

What do I think about it, it's just another R22 replacement. Uh, is it a true drop in? Like they say, Well, it is a drop in. but um, under most circumstances it is a drop in. but a good majority of the public don't even understand what drop-in means.

Okay, never ever has a drop in mint that you mix the gases that you put the blue on on top of the R22. There is never, ever been a refrigerant that is. You've been able to really do that. There's a lot that people do that with, but there's not been one manufacturer out there that has said you can put this refrigerant and if you guys know of one, at least that I know of.

Okay, if you guys know of a manufacturer on their technical documents that states you can mix this refrigerant with another one I'm very curious for you to send that to me. Okay, but no. um, there as far as a drop in. Yes, Blue is a drop in for most of the times.

But what? I Will say that Blue On did better than anybody out there. Any other refrigerant manufacturer is. Blue On gave everybody the steps that you needed to do to make the refrigerant work. That was what Blue On changed.

Other than every other manufacturer of refrigerants out there, Blue, you know, because let's say you deal with Honeywell or our keema or whatever brand of refrigerant manufacturer out there and they say yeah, this one works great for R22 But they don't tell you how, they don't tell you what you need to do to make it work. they just say that it works best under these situations. Blue On was good for doing that because they said if you use this on this model number package unit, you need to install this liquid line, shut off valve. You need to install this expansion valve, you need to convert it to this.

So Blue On did that and that was really good. Um, reading through the chat right now, how often have I seen stuck pulleys on exhaust fans? Um, I mean that that happens all the time? Yeah, that's that's pretty common, but that's what a pulley puller for if you can't get a pulley off. Now what I was using in my recent exhaust fan video was a taper lock. so it had a taper bushing in it.

so if you don't know on a taper bushing, you take the two screws that pull the taper together and you put them into the other holes and it separates the pulley. Now mine was struggling so that's why I use the dead blow hammer to pop it off. but I actually did put the screws in there. they were just about to break.

so that's when I started tapping on it. Um, let's see HVAC Rookie says you need 500 points to get tech support for free. so they have a point system based off of then off of the parts that you order. So um John Ritter says he has not had a problem with 407.

So I actually had a problem with 407. So I just this last summer was the first time that I used an alternative refrigerant to R22 and I ran into nothing but problems. but with one specific situation: R22 Package units specifically carry your package units with fixed orifice accurate or metering devices. Whenever it would get above 100 105 degrees, that unit would fall on its face.

we would start running High over current and we would start tripping Breakers and blowing fuses and it was charged via Target superheat we we went with. We started when I would charge the units, I would start at the nameplate charge, go to about 80 percent of the name plate charge. Once I got to 80 of the charge whether it's set on the neemplate with R22 then I would start paying attention to Target superheat as the units running and adding refrigerant. so I'd get them dialed in for Target superheat and then next thing you know they would just start tripping Breakers and blowing fuses whenever it got above about 100 to 105 degrees ran into nothing but problems but 407c I used it on several Linux package units that had Txvs.

It worked fine, but I did. I Will say the only way I'm putting 407c in a system is if I do a complete oil change and or change the compressor. So everyone that I use 407c in I changed the compressors on, got new compressors with Polyoester oil and called it a day. I'm not mixing refrigerants I'm not adding oil I'm not playing any of those games.

If you do it, that's fine. it just wasn't my style. So accutrol equals dog crap 100 agree Jason Johnson But they keep me busy changing accutrol metering devices all day long. Um Hot Shot Two is good, but there's no replacement for R12 No, yeah.

I I Remember when uh for R12 Because I was coming up in the industry doing a lot of refrigeration work in the mid 90s was when I was working with my dad at late 90s early 2000s and uh, we were still using 409. Uh, 408 A So 408a was a 502 replacement. 409 was our R12 replacement. Sometimes we'd use Mp39 which was another R12 replacement.

Uh, but yeah, you'd run into all kinds of problems with those two. R12 was a very, very, um, forgiving refrigerant to work with. I'm not going to say it was efficient, but it was very forgiving. You could get away with a lot with R12 Uh, let's see what else we got going on in here.

All right, Cool, Cool. Okay, uh. splitting sandpaper. Got a few questions as to why when I use my sandpaper to sand the shaft I would split it down the middle and get a long section when you do that.

I'm surprised when I watch other people's videos that I I don't get to watch them that much, but I do watch them I watch people take a big piece of you know one and a half two inch sandpaper and they try to sand a shaft. If you split it, you can get much more targeted sanding and you can actually Target certain areas the bigger piece of sandpaper. it tends to not really get into grooves and get into tight little spaces, so split it and then sand it that way and you'll find it's a lot more efficient and a lot faster. Why in the heck don't I use an air chisel when I'm separating bearing simply because it's another tool I have to keep in my truck.

If I use an air chisel then I gotta have a compressed air tank or a compressor on the roof. It's just not practical. You know, if I was doing a lot of work, sure I'd spend a bunch more money if I was changing bearings every week. I'd spend a bunch more money and have more special tools for it.

but I I don't really do many bearing changes. So um, someone had mentioned maybe using a pipe wrench to hold the shaft so I can spin the race on the top of the bearing. That's fine, but if you Scar the shaft then you can no longer get things off of it if you use a pipe wrench on a steel shaft for like that exhaust fan, you try to use it to back something up. That pipe wrench is going to start.

it's going to put grooves into it and you've got to be able to clean that off to be able to get other components off so you don't ever want to scar the shaft if you can avoid it. Why did I get a Weg motor which is a brand of Motors versus a ball door motor which is what was there originally simply because not many supply houses that I deal with actually carry Ball Door Motors anymore? A good majority of them are bringing in US motors for their Motors and then the the place where I got the bearings and everything from just happened to be a distributor for Weg. So it really just depends I prefer like the wag motor and the ball door Motors or maybe a Sentry motor over the US Motors but I'll use the US Motors too. The US Motors tend to be bigger and bulkier.

Um, why in the heck Uh, you know and this this I Answer this question quite often. seems like every single week, but it's okay. I don't mind doing this. Uh, before I get too far into this guys.

If you haven't already, please smash the thumbs up button on whatever platform you're the like button or whatever on whatever platform you're on right now watching this, it definitely helps out the stream. okay and again. Thank you everybody that I'm I'm sure I missed a few coming through here but thank you for all the super chats. The channel support has been awesome.

Okay I really do appreciate that. So um John asked a couple videos back why I repaired an air conditioning unit that I had to change an evaporator, um two compressors. All this different stuff like why not just replace it and again? it really just depends on the customer, the availability of equipment, and how much things cost. Okay here in Southern California To change an air conditioner is really, really expensive because of all the legal requirements that you have to follow and a good majority of my customers.

And on top of that is hard to get equipment right now. Sometimes it's six to eight month lead times, even longer depending on what you're ordering. so you know sometimes you just gotta fix it. It's just what the customers want I give them options, they choose what they want to do Peter Had mentioned that a slide hammer would have been good for the bearings.

That is something that I've strongly considered getting as a slide hammer because I've gone to some places that have some really interesting looking slide hammers that have mechanisms that would do a great job for pulling a bearing. but in my situation for this recent video, you would have to have something that would stabilize the wheel underneath the exhaust fan. You can't pull that up and then put a slide hammer on the bearing and pull on it because then the top of the wheel is getting bent. Oftentimes on the top of those blower.

Wheels they have little veins on them and different things that balance them out. so you can't be bending the wheel. you can't drop the wheel because then when the fan gets spinning at the really high RPMs that wheel will be out of balance and it'll be like a helicopter on the roof. All right.

So we covered that. Let's see what else we got going on in the chat right now. How long did I work with my dad? So um, I mean ever since I was a little kid, probably from maybe like five years and older. My parents were separated when I was a kid or divorced I guess I should say so.

My dad would oftentimes pick me up when I got out of school which would have been around two or three in the afternoon and then we would run service calls on the way home to his house. So as a kid I would do that a lot. and then I officially started working for him in 2000 and two to April of 2002 is when I officially came to work with him full time. Uh, We've since partnered, he still comes into the office about three to four days a week, but he's not in the field.

He doesn't do anything like that. Uh, he'll be completely out of the office within two years because he's on his plan of being completely out. So um, but yeah, I learned everything. So all right reading through here.

Baldor that you get come from California Yeah, it's all about Distributors and this is something that I talked about on the HVAC overtime show. If you guys don't know, uh, do a live show with my friends Friday evenings on the HVAC overtime YouTube channel. just search HVAC overtime on YouTube and you'll find it. So we were just talking about this about supply houses.

Here's a problem that I have with supply houses supply houses. I'm frustrated with them because they don't have what I want similar to the Baldor motors. Okay I like Baldo murders they're they're nice Motors they tend to work really well. They're built well, but they don't have them.

Okay. if I had a supply house that stocked ball door Motors I would buy that motor over a US motor or something else. Okay, supply houses. For the most part they don't have what I want and it sends me searching.

So it sends me to other supply houses. or it sends me online or to whatever. Okay, and that's kind of frustrating. Supply houses like, for instance, it seems like every supply house out there sells U.S Motors Now Nydek Motors Okay, and that's because of distributor relationships and agreements and deals that the supply houses get and make because they'll agree to sell X number of those Motors a year so they get better pricing and different stuff like that.

And that frustrates me because they're not selling what I want, they're selling me what they want to sell me and that's that's not what I want to do. So what it's doing is it's driving me online or to other places. So for instance, the bearings and the motor uh and the pulleys and stuff I got those from a motor rebuilding shop. Okay I went to a motor rebuilding shop and I said this is what I want and that's what they had and I didn't go to my normal supply house because they don't carry what I want right? Same thing goes with tools and different things and even some truck stock items.

I'm ordering from online retailers now because I can find an online retailer that's cheaper than my supply house that gets me products shipping for free and gets it to me and they have what I want brick and mortar supply houses I prefer to use them I want to support a local supply house I do but they don't have what I want and they're missing out and it's sending me elsewhere and this is a frustration that I have. and you know I doubt that any of the supply house people are watching this. but if you are change that make your supply houses somewhere that's better. Why is it that wh