Hello, how are you all doing? Hopefully you guys are doing pretty good. Hopefully the summers not killing you guys too much. It's been getting a little bit warmer here, still really haven't broken a hundred since our first heat wave we've been kind of in the 90s. This last week, so not too bad, but you know just kind of since we had the last heat wave.

I think I mentioned this on the last stream. It kind of enabled us to catch up a little bit last week was kind of a little bit slow, but this week today kind of started off strong. We had quite a few calls and stuff. So you know it's really interesting and I don't know about you guys, but here you know I deal 99 % of my work is restaurants, and you know the trend with especially with chain.

Restaurants is to cut back on preventative maintenance. -- is so you know a lot of people have been cutting back on them and a lot of people. You know we're seeing the repercussions of it. So we've had one of our really really big restaurant chains.

They cut the preventative maintenance is out about five years ago and we were a little surprised like because we we noticed the first year. We thought you know everything was going to hit the fan in the first year. It was kind of ok second year third year, but the fourth year is when it really hit the fan and the fifth year. This is the fifth year of it and same thing.

I mean we're just going crazy right now, because no longer do we get a service call where we have just a bad contactor on an air conditioning unit. We get a service call kind of like my last video, where I showed you guys the the Lennox unit that had a leak repair similar to that we get a service call where you know air conditioner not working and we go up there. We find that every unit is neglected, the belts are loose, the evaporators are dirty, condensers are dirty, refrigerant, charge is low, and you know we no longer get that 45 minute to two hour service call. We now have 8 to 10 hour service calls, because you know we bring everything up to him.

You know big picture diagnosis right. So hey. Do you want me to clean all your condensers? Do you want me to address this? You know so it just kind of leads into the craziness and so that's kind of what we're going through. You know we don't have a lot of preventative maintenance work anymore, like we used to you know, 10 years ago we were slime with preventative maintenance work and then we had probably longer than ten years ago before the recession.

We had crazy preventative maintenance work. You know, but at the same time you kind of got to understand the trends and, what's going on - and you know like I said, 99 % of my work is chain. Restaurant work - and you know casual dining in general - is really hurting casual dining and what they consider casual dining is the sit-down restaurant that you order from a waitress. Okay, casual dining in general is really hurting, and you know the fast casual restaurants.

You know the ones where you just go up to the order, stand you order your food and you go sit down at the table. Those ones like your Chipotle's and your you know little mom-and-pop, casual or fast casual restaurants, and you know the pokey places and whatever those places are slamming right now and even those, I think, are starting to hurt a little bit. But it's just interesting how they cut back on the preventative maintenance is, but I mean we're really making it up right now, because we get these. You know eight hour service calls where you go out there and it's like.

When do I stop? We literally have to do that. You know the one where I showed that Linux package unit that had a refrigerant leak. Where do I stop so? Luckily, I had my apprentice with me and he's doing really well by the way but um. I had him with me and he you know he was able to help me clean condensers.

Basically, so he you know he was able to clean the other condensers. While I was cleaning the problematic AC and then I troubleshooted the problematic AC. But then it's like. Okay, do I put my gauges on every stage of every other AC you know.

Do I bring it up to the customer? Do I clean the walk-in condensers? Do I check the belts on the exhaust fans? You know where do you stop basically, and you know where I stopped is, is I try to if I have time you know if I'm, if I'm approaching over time, I typically and over time for us is after four o'clock p.m. so, if I'm approaching over time, I typically kind of I'm just gon na finish up what I'm working on and then I'll bring into the customers attention and then, if they want me to dive into stuff more then I'll give them the option. You know, but it's very interesting with that trend. You know, because we no longer go in there and catch problems before they happen, and I still have a few customers that do really good preventative maintenance work.

But you know the majority of them, they don't and then they just want you to you know fix it. So you know it is what it is. You got a it frustrates us and it frustrates me, but at the same time you got to evolve because if you get angry, it's not gon na solve, because either they're gon na continue to call you or they're gon na call someone else bottom line. So if you don't like the customer, you need to make up your mind.

You either want to do their work or you don't and you kind of got to play their games. You know they're not gon na bend over backwards for you, and you know you just got to do you just got to deal with it. You know it is what it is so um I will uh, let's see so Dave, you said you work for a very large chain and you demand p.m. from your vendors.

That's good Dave! That's really good man! You know a lot of places. I get that. Don't so that's really really cool Dave. Have you sent me an email? I think you might have sent me an email.

You don't need to name the place that you work, but I think you sent me an email for some reason. Your name looks familiar but anyways. So I want to get to your guys's questions in the chat as usual, and I've got a little list here stuff and I kind of want to start off with a bang had a service call today. Well, let's, let's start with this question, so I got a question in my email actually on the the air conditioner, the Lennox air conditioner video that I released.

Okay recently, I think it was was at yesterday's video yeah. I think it was yeah, yesterday's video, so I got a couple questions about using you know how come I didn't use leak sealant on that unit. Okay, the leaks were so small leak. Sealant would have been a great thing for it and I'm not trying to knock those of you that want to use leak.

Sealant. Okay, I do remember you Dave. I remember you yeah, I know who you are. You don't need to mention anything unless you want to but um yeah anyways, so I used or no.

So the question was: why didn't I use leak sealant in that package unit, because the leaks were so small, okay and I'm not trying to knock those of you that do use leak, sealants, okay, but personally, my stance on any additives on the system is, is, I Prefer not to use them. I'm not gon na say that I'm never gon na use an additive because I'm always going to give the customer. You know the option to do what they want to do. I'm always gon na give them my opinions about things and let them know hey, I don't want to use this product.

I will not warranty anything if you have me use this product, but some of the customers. I've literally had a customer demand like hey before we change that package unit. I want you to put this leak sealing in there. I want to get another year out of the unit and I just made sure so.

I did use a leak sealant at one time, but I made sure that customer understood I'm not recommending this. You know they brought it to me. They brought the the products you know they wanted me to use the product. I still bought it, but they wanted me to use it and I just gave them all the facts like look.

This is what it can cause and in that situation they wanted to use it. It didn't work, it didn't. Well, I shouldn't say it didn't harm anything, but it didn't work but anyways. I digress.

I'm going off on a tangent, but the whole point of me bringing that up was the leak sealants in the system. My stance on them is is that I don't want to put anything into the system that didn't come with the system. The only thing that came with assistant is refrigerant and oil, the refrigeration. Well, that's in there.

I don't like adding the additives. Okay, I don't like adding flushes. If I don't have to okay, there is instances where I might use a flush, but I prefer not to I prefer to use refrigerant and oil, okay and those that's kind of where I want to go with that now. So today I had a service call at one of my restaurants, where they called me and said their ice machine wasn't working.

So I walked up to the ice machine and this is a customer that I've serviced for a very long time, but this particular location for whatever reason likes to use another service company. That happens to be in the same area as us, and they kind of go back and forth. They sometimes I don't know what it is. They'll call that service company, but then sometimes they'll, call me and I kind of get a little frustrated with it and lately they've been calling me more whatever I just kind of deal with it and move on.

You know so anyways right when I walk up to these ice machines. The first thing I see is this other service company stickers on it and they look fairly new. So it looks like they just worked on this ice machine and right when I walk up, it sounded like the machine was low on gas, okay and the reason why I say that if you experience text know what I'm talking about it sounded like the expansion valves. We're trying to feed vapor refrigerant, it was making that hissing sound.

The hiss of death, I think, is what a NorCal Dave called at one time but uh. It basically is just kind of a using your senses. You can usually tell when you've got a low refrigerant charge on like a walk-in cooler or something like that. Okay.

So at first I thought: hey I'm low on charge, but I go ahead and check out the machines and I noticed they're they're acting kind of funky. So I put my service gauges on him and the pressures just don't add up, so I went ahead on and this was both machines. They were both off on safeties and they were both just kind of acting funky. So I went and put my gauges on there.

After I figured out the pressures didn't add up, I went ahead and turned both machines off and I noticed something the machines did not shut off. Both machines continue to run and I can fit. I can audibly hear them. You know I could hear the hissing of the the what now I figured out.

What's solenoid valves, I thought it was expansion, valves, feeding, vapor refrigerant, but no it was. These were Manitowoc CVD machines, so cool vapor, defrost machines. So what was happening was on each machine. One of the cool vapor solenoid valves and the liquid line valve were both stuck open.

So no matter what happened, if I disconnected power to those machines completely disconnected power, the compressor units on the roof or continuing to run because the solenoid valves would not shut okay. So first I kind of like okay step back, because it seems very odd that both machines are doing the exact same thing and both machines have two solenoid valves that are stuck open, so kind of gets me wandering. So then, I see the other company sticker on there, and it just kind of makes me wonder: did that other company come in there and put a leak sealing in that system, because why would I have two identical machines right next to each other? At the same time, have two bad solenoid valves on each machine very strange, very peculiar. My my gut feeling is is that someone put a leak sealant in there and that stuff is gumming up the system.

Now, there's always the possibility. Manna talked many years ago, how to you know, had a bunch of cool vapor valves that were sticking. That was the thing that they had for a while, but these machines are from 2011 they've ran fine, we've never had to change any other valves and all of the sudden they both have two solenoid valves that failed at the same time sounds a little peculiar to Me and kind of makes me wonder if another service company had put a leak sealing in there and cause that problem. So you know who knows, but I don't prefer to use any leak sealants in this situation.

I'm gon na strongly recommend that that customer consider replacing both of those ice machines, not just because of the stuck solenoid valves, but the machines in general and very poor condition very, very dirty. Yes, they could be cleaned, yes, they could be repaired, but I'm just gon na give them a price and say: hey. Look! We're gon na need to put X number of dollars into these machines and we may run into problems later. You know and kind of give them the options and let them make that educated decision.

You know what the information that I give them. So that's how I'm gon na approach that situation, but I thought that was an interesting one. So you know just and again, I'm not knocking you guys that she used to use leak sealants. I just don't understand them, they scare me, and I just don't want to do it so and my personal preference is I'd rather not use any additives.

You add to the system, but I'm not gon na say I have never used them because, yes, I have - and I've covered this before, but you know in a situation where we had to really really peculiar leak. I did add dye to a system. I've used it. Two times, I'm not a fan of it, because that stuff makes a mess, but you know it is what it is so all right.

Mr. ice, no I mean I'm not really a fan of a/c renew either, but I have used it. I've never had great luck with it. You know I have used it as a last-ditch effort, we're talking the it's either.

Zero. All ice is what it used to be called. Now it's rebranded as AC renew, and you know I have used it to try to clean up the actuators on a carrier package unit. I haven't had any luck with it.

I just haven't really had much luck, but I do know that they, you know when the carrier debacle was going on with the expansion valves and the Copeland compressors that actually wasn't a carrier. It was a Copeland debacle with the Copeland compressors, because the the rust inhibitor doubted about y'all heard that okay. I know that all of the manufacturers are pretty much approving to use that AC renew, I think for them. In all honesty, it was more of which is cheaper to try this product that might work or to pay out claims on every single machine out there and you know, basically replaced systems.

So I think the manufacturers went with the additive just because it was cheaper for them with the liability HVAC our North. Thank you so very much man. I really appreciate it so anyways there's my thing so um any advice for someone new to the trade. I am a fat kid one, that's an interesting name, but basically you know if you're green, if you don't know anything, just just listen to your peers.

Listen to your senior mechanics! You know absorb everything you can like a sponge. Don't run your mouth, meaning don't get lippy with people, you know, don't don't raise an attitude even if someone's saying something that doesn't quite sound right. You know before you open your mouth kind of. Ask them politely, you know what do you mean by that? You know why are you telling me to do it this way when school's telling me to do it this way that kind of stuff, you know you don't got to be confrontational about things.

Do you remember even I was raised I raised, I was brought up in the trade by an old school tech. My dad - and you know everything didn't make sense, but he did have some smart stuff behind what he was telling me, even though it wasn't a hundred percent right. It was basic, troubleshooting stuff, and I learned from that and then I also learned. Okay, that's not quite right! I'm gon na adjust this and do this this way.

So I'd love to talk to you some more. If you want to send me an email to HVAC our videos at gmail.com, I can give you some more tips on. You know what to do as a new person in the trade. So all right, any of you guys that uh HVAC are north happy Canada Day.

Man, any of you guys that want to put questions in here. You will really help myself and Justin my moderator out, if you put those questions in caps, lock, okay, because it really really greatly helps us to make sure we don't miss the question. So all right right on superior, you know and into each their own if the additives work for you guys, I'm not saying you're wrong for using them. I just choose not to use them, so I I've certainly heard a lot of people say to use certain additives and they work great for them.

So you know go for it. Just not my choice! D, hard! Oh one, you said leak Locker night log and grew up in the trade using leak lock, but I hate the stuff now. My term for leak lock was called blue death and because it basically would be the death of you, because it would end up on your nose in my case in my nose, because I picked my nose all the time it would end up in your ears. It would end up everywhere right: blue death sucks.

I am a huge, huge proponent of night log. I've used nylon for a couple years now never had a problem with it. It does not harden like leek Lockwood, but it works great as a lubricating medium. Basically, for when you're putting mechanical joints together in different things, and then you know it also will lubricate threads when you're trying to tighten things it's a great product.

So I, like my log, a lot so ok REE, protect mark you asked me, could I please go into the approach method that I mentioned in the Linux video, so the approach method is kind of - and I say in the Linux video that it's basically an ass Backwards way of doing subcooling, Linux basically takes the liquid line temperature, and this is a Linux, so the actual temperature of the liquid line, the surface temperature of the liquid line, and they compared it to the outdoor ambient, and that is how they determine an approach method. So it really is a non-invasive way to test whether or not the condenser essentially is rejecting the correct amount of heat okay. So I will try to explain that a little bit more in a video where I can show some visuals rather than just talk about it here, I will say that I highly highly suggest that you use the app, and this is another thing I wanted to talk About when I'm working with my videos, I'm using the app measure quick and that's an app that was made by mr. Jim Bergman, who is just a great guy in the industry, he's been part of a lot of developing of different tools and stuff.

But he made that measure quick app and it has a lot of great information and the cool thing about the measure. Quick app is. It has basically an explanation for almost every feature and every term that's within the app. So if you click on the approach method, I believe there's even a little asterisk or something like that that you can.

Click on and it'll give you the definition of approach method. It probably links to links you, I think, to an HVAC school article that Brian or wrote I believe, about approach method and it's a great app. So if you guys haven't already been using measure quick, I highly suggest you guys consider it it's a free app. I have no affiliation with them.

It's just that. I really really like. So all right. Let me see.

Let me get a drink here and I'm gon na get to some more questions here and then I got some other stuff. I want to cover too. So it was interesting because someone - I don't know if you're in here, not because I know I sent a message to you, someone sent me a message or commented on my very first live stream. That was in October of last year and he was saying something about good information or something you know in the video comments or whatever, and it was just kind of funny to see someone comment on my livestream video from that long ago.

It seems like that was so long ago, but really it was just October when I started these streams, and I just want to say thank you all you guys that come into these. You know I'm just trying to share the little bit of knowledge that I have so. I appreciate all the support that I get from you guys, yeah a lot. A lot of people can use approach method, it's just a method of checking the the performance of the condenser.

Essentially, so, let's see okay. So this is a great question, Sean Mack. So what concerns me the most about restaurant refrigeration, trade business now and in the future, and my biggest concern excuse me my biggest concern is the the lack of new blood coming into the trade and the the the people that we do have coming into the trade Right now you know they have a lot to make up for with the amount of people that we're losing and when it comes to the restaurant stuff and then on top of that, okay, so California is a whole different ballgame right. We have crazy, high tax rates right.

I think that I heard that as of today and the City of LA this is just the city of Los Angeles. I think I heard on the radio when I was getting out of the car that minimum wage went to 1425 today $ 14.25 for for state minimum wage in the city of Los Angeles. That's not the whole state, but that's just the city of Los Angeles and similarly we have all kinds of minimum wage rates going up all over the place too. You know we have some cities will control it, and then we have the state that controls it.

We completely ignore federal minimum wage here we just blow it out of the water. Now I do want to get political and talk about yes or no and all that different stuff, but I will say that, as far as the restaurants go, that worries me, because what we will start to see is the bigger chain. Restaurants are gon na start. Changing things up: okay, they're, gon na start and they're already doing it.

You know my wife's a server at a restaurant here in Southern California - and you know they're already, basically, don't have them handwrite their tickets anymore. You don't take an order on a pad of paper. You input it into a little computer. It sends it to the you know to the kitchen, some restaurants, you can actually order your food without even talking to the server in.

Basically, every restaurant is trying to trying to survive and when they have to pay those crazy high minimum wage rates, it hurts the restaurants. You know the prices of the food goes up and everything so with the cost of living here in California, restaurants, being a service technician or a business owner that deals with restaurants and services, restaurants on a regular. It worries me because these restaurants are really starting to question whether or not it's worth it to have these establishments in this state and they're doing all kinds of things to avoid it, whether it be a big chain, they're gon na franchise out and have franchisees basically Handle the burden and then they're just gon na collect a franchise fee, so there's all kinds of different stuff, but that's the biggest thing that feared that I'm scared of is you know the restaurants hurting so bad and us having to still I mean the equipment's still Gon na break - and it's still gon na cost the same if not go up, because everything else is going up, so it hurts their bottom line basically when they have to fix this stuff. So that's a concern I have for restaurants, all right canga.

Thank you very much man. I really appreciate it. Okay, how do I change oil in the system when replacing a r22 refrigerant? So, there's a couple different methods: if you have a newer scroll compressor, which most the time you're not a lot of times, they'll have an oil port on the bottom of the compressor. It's got a Schrader in it and you could essentially drain the oil from the compressor from that port.

Okay, it's at the bottom of the crankcase, and it just drains out. If you don't, you really don't have very many other options, but to tip the compressor over and pour the oil out, but that is a risk in itself, because that compressor is not meant to sit upside down and if you've ever pulled a scroll compressor apart. You know, or even a reciprocating compressor, you can damage the internals by flipping it over. So it's not something you want to do on a regular, but I guess worst case scenario.

You can tip the compressor over. If it's a big semi-hermetic compressor, you can usually pump the oil out, they have pump mechanisms, they usually have oil ports on them. You know I've heard of some people saying push this. You know, there's like these little chingus -- is that you can put in the suction line and like feeds down to the bottom of the crankcase, but I don't really trust any of that stuff.

So really, if you don't have an oil port on the compressor, you really just got to pour it out. You got to unswept the compressor. Pour the oil out. You know wäôre yep basically way in new oil.

You know you just essentially whatever oil you get out of the compressor you're gon na put the new oil with that particular weight back in there and then you're gon na braise, the compressor back in which is kind of sketchy. So you know, there's not, there's not a lot of great options, and that leads us to some problems, especially with the r22 phase-out, with the prices of our 22 going up. You know we we have to choose. Do we want to use an alternative refrigerant, or do we want to stick with our 22? It might be cheaper depending on how hard it is to get that compressor out to go ahead and replace the compressor.

I mean there's so many different ways to go about it. So alright, um, let's see what else I got going on here. Hey there Adam how you doing bud. Okay Quinn, you said: do I have experience in large-scale systems? Chillers process? Cooling? No, I don't I'm sorry.

I only work on the small stuff. I do like commercial refrigeration, 99 % of my work is restaurant stuff, so package units, basically 35 tons and smaller and refrigeration systems, probably no bigger than five horsepower and smaller. So I don't work on the big giant. You know industrial and/or supermarket stuff at all, so all right, yeah exactly pour oil out and make it alright um.

Okay, so I got a couple topics here. I want to cover so this was a really good question. Someone said: why is there a fan delay on a walk-in freezer and how long should that fan delay be set for okay? So I don't think he quite understood and there's nothing wrong with that, but I don't think he quite understood because we don't set the timeframe of how long a fan delay delays for okay. So, let's step back to a walk-in freezer.

So what happens on walk-in freezer is our evaporator temperature, while we're bringing the box temperature down below freezing, typically on most walk-in freezers and restaurants. We're gon na maintain a negative 10 degree box, temp. Okay, the negative 10 is usually because we have ice cream in there and we want to keep the ice cream, not rock-hard, but we want to keep it firm so that way, it's not melty when they go to serve it. So we usually maintain negative 10 box temp and doing so.

My coil temperatures usually going to be 12 10 degrees below that. So we've got an extremely cold evaporator coil, okay, anything below 32 degrees is freezing right. So we start to build up ice particles on that walk-in freezer evaporator coil. So we have to do something to defrost those ice particles.

So what we'll do typically on a standard walk-in freezer system is we have electric strip heaters that are built into the evaporator coil and periodically throughout the day, based off of a defrost clock of some sort, we're gon na defrost that evaporator, when we defrost that evaporator We're gon na turn off the evaporator fan motors, we're going to turn off the compressor and we're gon na activate the strip heaters. Okay, the strip heaters are gon na warm up, they're, typically located on the bottom of the coil and then usually throughout the coil and the heats gon na rise and it's gon na melt. Any frost. That's on that walk-in freezer as long as it's not excessive.

So once we go through the defrost process and we're all done, we have a problem now, because that evaporator coil is more than likely to the coil surface. Temperature itself is more than likely about 55 degrees and at 55 degrees, you're gon na have condensation. Now. Okay, it's no longer gon na be frozen.

You're still gon na have warm strip heat heat coming up from those strip heaters, so you turn it off and if you turn the system back on, there's evaporating motors start running and it's gon na blow all that moisture. Condensation off of that coil and then it's gon na instantly freeze, because your box temp, is still below zero. Even though your evaporator surface coil temperature is 50 to 55 degrees, hey wink thanks! So much man, you know the the evaporator surface temperature is is still 55. The air temperature inside the box is still very low, so when you start up those fans, that's gon na blow that moisture right off and it's instantly gon na freeze, okay.

So what you'll see if that happens, is you'll see a bunch of ice on the fan guards and then you'll see water droplets that are, if blown onto the ceiling, but then they refroze. So you see water droplets everywhere and then you'll see a lot of steam and or vapor moisture. You know moving around inside the air, so we add a fan delay to the box and the fan delay usually - and don't quote me on these numbers, but I think with heat craft. I believe the fan delay brings the evaporator surface temperature down to about 30 or 35 degrees.

I believe, before the evaporator fan motors turn on, I think it might actually get. I think it might go down to 20 degrees. I think each like Russell and in heat craft they change it up, but basically we want to get that evaporator below freezing. So that way any of those ice droplets they refreeze and they don't blow off of the evaporator coil.

Okay. So that's the purpose of having a fan delay. I've been getting a lot of requests for a video again. I've already made quite a few, but I've been getting a lot of requests explaining and simplifying walk-in freezer control systems and different stuff.

So I will be working on that and we'll try to get you guys, one that explains it a little bit more. So alright, let me see what else we got any more questions, guys a throme in caps, lock and I'll try to get to them. For you, guys, okay, I'm gon na go to my list right here. I had a question come through talking about in here in Southern California locally, and this may not apply to all you guys, but basically people were asking for training resources in this in this area.

What schools are the best? I'm not gon na knock any other for-profit trade schools, okay, but I prefer - and I highly suggest, that for most people that are gon na be working in the trade, they don't have time to go five days a week to a trade school. So a lot of times what you can do is you can go to the community colleges. The community colleges usually have night classes Matt. Thank you so very much man, so the community colleges usually have night classes.

So I'd highly suggest. Looking into a community college, there is one for-profit trade school. That's in my area that they do have a great teacher that works there and that school is called CET it's Center for employment. Training, I believe, is what it is.

I don't know the the quality of the school, but I do know one of the teachers there he's a colleague of mine. I, I think, he's a great teacher, so I'm gon na put CET on that list, but I'd highly suggest in my local area. Looking at San Bernardino Valley College and/or, Riverside Community College's of the two Community College's local to me. They both have great educators there, and if, for those people that were asking me that were local than me, those are great resources, so alright, Ryan Melanson.

What made me start, this HVAC our videos, Channel, okay, so in all honesty, I started this video for my own employees, this channel, and you guys, probably if this might give some context in my videos. If I come across being forward or kind of bossy and my videos, it's because think about it. From the perspective of me, I'm a business owner and I'm making these videos for my own employees now it's kind of evolved into something different, but that's what it started as these videos were training videos from my own employees. So what happened was hey Ralph.

Thank you. Very much man, I really appreciate it. So what happened was I would find myself regularly in the morning we meet at my shop every morning and I would find myself regularly explaining a difficult service call to my technicians that work for us saying hey. This was something interesting that I ran into and I was explaining it to him and I found myself thinking one day, it's like why don't I just video this, because trying to verbally explain something it's so much easier to show someone a video, so I made, I Think I made one or two videos before I made my channel public and I just shared them with my employees.

I sent him an email. I made him on YouTube. I made him unlisted and I shared him and said: hey here's, an interesting problem that I ran into and just showed him to my employees quickly after that I kind of saw the the need - and I saw the benefit of releasing these to the public and the Channel kind of took off so I officially started making these videos. I think I uploaded my first video in February of 2018.

I believe February of 2018 was when I uploaded my first video and then from there. I I think by June I got onto a schedule where I was releasing. I think at the time three videos a week Monday, Wednesday Friday and I kind of scaled down, because that was killing me and I went back to two videos a week and basically that's where we started. So I started making these just to help my technicians and then made them public and then saw some great growth from the channel and saw some great emails and support emails and questions.

And you know thank yous and all that good stuff. And it just kind of made me keep going. So that's why I do this. I do these videos just to help the next guy.

I see that there's a huge skills gap. I see there's a lot of lack of information out there. I even ran into it myself when I was trying to learn. You know people not being very open with sharing the knowledge, and I really don't agree with that.

So I try to share the little bit of knowledge that I have in my head with everybody all right: okay, cool Ralph. Can I explain the purpose of a heated vent on a walk-in freezer yeah? That's a really interesting one, okay! So, okay, let's picture your refrigerator at home. Okay, I have a just a standard, whirlpool, nothing fancy, or maybe it's a Kenmore, upright freezer on the Left refrigerator on the right. You know double door stand-up.

You know you know at my house right and what happens is if I open my freezer and get something out on getting a popsicle out of the freezer whatever and you shut the freezer. And then you try to open it again that freezer door won't open, because what happens is it creates a vacuum inside the freezer, so the heated vent on a walk-in freezer is actually called a vacuum: breaker, okay, and what it's supposed to do is it breaks that Vacuum because what happens is - and I'm gon na say, this is the main reason why we have them. Is you get a little lady that works in the kitchen and she's working inside there and for whatever reason, I noticed this that most ladies, that work in the kitchen, they're deathly, afraid of the walk-in freezer? They think that they're gon na get stuck in there and they think that they're gon na die inside the walk-in freezer okay. So what will happen is if you don't have a vacuum breaker on there and you have a really tightly sealed gasket and you have a very tight box, meaning there's no air leaks.

When you go to shut that door, it will create a vacuum, and it will make it very difficult for that little old lady to get out of the freezer, and she will panic and things will happen. Okay, it's not just, ladies that it happens to. There was one restaurant where they used to keep an axe on the inside of the freezer and is because people were afraid. I don't know what they were thinking.

They were gon na chop, the freezer door down with an axe whatever. For that reason, we also keep emergency releases on the if you have a latching handle on your freezer and or a locking, handle you're supposed to have an emergency release so that way, hey Shane. So much. Thank you.

Thank you so much man. So if you uh, if you have a locking or latching door, you're supposed to have an emergency release on the inside of the freezer too, that bypasses the lock or the latch. So hopefully that answers your question there about the the heated vent. It's essentially just called a vacuum breaker and it's there to prevent a vacuum from creating it's from the vacuum occurring and keeping the door shut, and we put a heater on it because we don't want that warm air from the walk-in cooler to basically freeze up that Entire vent, you know it's because because you got cold air inside the freezer and the warm airs gon na be attracted to it and it's gon na instantly create ice, and then it's gon na just freeze that whole thing up.

So we put a tiny little moly on heater on it and it just keeps it warm so same same thing with why we put a door heater around the gasket surface of a walk-in freezer. It's just to keep it from freezing shut and from condensation building up on it and dripping all over the place. So hopefully that answers that, for you what I recommend opening, I don't know what you mean by that one. Can you rephrase that question, but you said, would you recommend opening own company shout out from I'm thinking Connecticut, I'm assuming that you're asking me if I recommend you opening your own service company there's in that? That's another good question.

I really wasn't planning on talking about this, but I've been getting a lot of questions with people sending me emails, saying hey. I want to open my own service company. What's what tips do you want to give me first off? I am NOT the person to answer business questions. Okay, I actually don't even handle a lot of the business stuff.

When it comes to my business, I partner with my dad my dad handles the office stuff. I handle the service stuff. I get involved in the business stuff, but I choose to let him deal with that and you know we kind of go our own paths with that and we kind of work together really well, but I'm kind of getting off-topic there. As far as what I recommend you opening your own business, I would first off highly suggest you check out my buddy tersh Blissett.

He has a podcast called service business, mastery, so service business. Mastery. Look it up on any podcast app. You have.

He has some great information on that he's constantly talking about opening a business, the hardships and all the different stuff business advice. I'd highly suggest you check out tercius podcast. You can also look up service business. Mastery on Facebook, tersh is very active on Facebook and Instagram and he'll.

You know you get all kinds of great information from them know. Do I recommend you opening a business first off running a business and being an HVAC service? Technician is a total different world. Nothing about them is similar running a business you're worried about numbers, you're, worried about overhead you're, worried about employee cost, you're worried about Labor rates. All this different stuff right being a service technician is totally different, even if you're the best service technician in the world.

I don't suggest you jumping into owning a business without doing a lot of research. I'm gon na say you know financials the biggest thing. I think that a lot of people will jump into a business and get bombarded when they don't realize how much business expenses are. Ok, you need to understand what a markup is and what your overhead is - and you know there's so many variables inside of a business.

So I highly suggest that you take some business classes check out. Tersh bliss, it's podcast do some reading of your own and just because you're a great service technician. I wouldn't suggest jumping into the business ownership side unless you're fully prepared for it. If you're worried about not making enough money, you know as a service tech versus opening.

Your own business you're in for a rude awakening, because just because you own your own business and just because you charge ninety dollars an hour doesn't mean you're, making 90 dollars an hour. Okay, you have a lot of overhead and you have a lot of expenses. Are you prepared to do warranty work? How are you gon na find customers when you open your business? Are you going to work for warranty companies? Are you gon na? Do warranty work for restaurants, all kinds of stuff will guess what, if I want to go, do warranty work for a restaurant? Let's say I want to go work for Hoshizaki ice machines right and I want to do their service work to get me in the door to let people know what my this is about. Guess what hoshizaki ice machines? They don't pay my full labor rate, okay.

So as a business owner, if I'm sending a technician and we're charging, I this isn't my rate. But let's say I'm charging 90 dollars an hour and guess what hoshizaki is probably only gon na pay me $ 70, an hour or delfield or carrier or whoever whoever it is. Okay, labor rates on warranty work are a lot less then because they know that you're using them to get in the door okay and they got to make business too. So you need to be prepared and do your research before you just open a business.

I'm not saying a bad idea, but if you're prepared sure it can be great, but if you're not prepared - and you don't understand - if you just think that making $ 35 an hour working for a service company is not enough, you really need to rethink things because Even as a business owner you're not gon na make $ 35 an hour half the time, okay, there's there's good times and there's bad times. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that I don't make good money. I do very well for myself, but it's also very difficult, there's a lot of variables that go into it.

So highly suggest you do your research all right. Let's see when is my next video, so I typically release videos Mondays and Fridays, so I last night, lately I've been kind of moving them around, like I've been playing like releasing one on Sunday, so but two videos a week, typically Monday and Friday. So my next video will be Friday morning, usually so yeah guys, if you could, please type your video, your questions and all caps that way we can get to them. So all right, yeah, exactly your health, goes to hell superior makes a great point.

You know hey guys, so I you guys are gon na laugh at me. A couple streams back. I said that I got a skateboard right and because my daughter wanted a skateboard and I decided to buy myself one because it's been many years since I've been on a skateboard. Well, I fell and I hurt myself.

I mean I was being silly and I was riding my skateboard and I I hurt my wrist my wrist basically inside its and it's been about two or three weeks now, it's it feels like it's bruised internally and I can still move it. I can articulate it nothing wrong, but when I go to grip, something that really hurts inside and I'm actually thinking about going to get an x-ray, maybe I fractured it inside those are the things guess what owning a business house? Yes sure, there's insurance as you can buy and different things right, but insurance only gets you so far. So let's say I hurt myself. Let's say I broke my wrist right there, probably nothing! I'm gon na be able to do about it.

I'm probably gon na put a brace on it and move on, but let's say I broke my arm for real, okay, okay, so that's great! I have an insurance that a disability insurance right, but what happens to my business? I'm a sole provider. Okay, so, let's just say, I'm the only person working at my business and I have customers that depend on me and yes, I broke my arm and, yes, I have insurance and guess what they sent me 30 grand to cover my lost wages, whatever it may be. Okay, but what happens to my customers in the six months or three months while my arm is healing? Where are they gon na go? Do you think they're gon na still come back to me when I get better it's those kind of things that people don't think about as a business owner so anyway, so I don't want to go off on a tangent on business. Ownership got any more questions about that.

Send me an email but look at my buddy tersh Blissett great podcast, great information. So, okay, when did I realize my channel was getting really popular. It was about June. I think I I think I hit 1000 subscribers in June of 2018 and it just blew my mind I think, or maybe it was August of 2018.

That number blew my mind when I hit a thousand subscribers and at this point right now I think I'm a cup I think I'm twenty eight thousand or twenty seven thousand subscribers. I think or something like that, but you know don't get me wrong. I'm don't get me wrong, I'm not I'm obsessed with the numbers, but I get more satisfaction from your guys's emails and your comments I get like this accomplished. Satisfaction from it when I see a males and being like, oh man, I really appreciate it and I'm gon na tell you guys something.

So this is another thing I wanted to cover. Was my HVAC our life series with my wife? Okay, so I've been doing these little videos, it's kind of an experiment. I wanted to do where we kind of talked about the the nitty-gritty of being in a relationship, my wife and myself and her what her perspective on the HVAC. Our life is - and you know that kind of stuff, so I, if you guys, haven't seen it there's a series where I have three videos where I talked with my wife about that stuff.

Go to my channel check it out! Okay, so that when I'm getting the utmost satisfaction - and I get barely any views on those videos - I think I think one of them on my three thousand views. I think my most recent want to have 1800 views, so those are not good performing videos for me, but I've gotten the most satisfaction from those videos and the reason. Why is the comments? The comments have not been negative and I understand there's some negative comments. I really blow those ones to the side, but the positive comments I've been getting.

So what I'm pointing out is it's not just about the views? It's the fact that someone sends me an email and says hey. When I talked about my depression and my anxiety, someone else sent me an email and they said dude, I'm going through the same thing, it's a trip and they relate and they talk about their problems, and they said hey. You know this or this or that I had a certain person, not gon na name who it is. You know who you are, but he sent me a message and said: dude I've been dealing with this horrible horrible depression and I haven't been wanting to take medicine.

He goes, but I watched your video and you know because my doctor had his doctor had already prescribed it to him and he decided to take his medicine. Okay, that ultimate satisfaction that that person watched my video and they felt you know compelled to take the medicine that the doctor had already prescribed to him or something like that. Okay, so I get satisfaction from your guys's comments even on my technical videos, the guys that say dude. I never knew that.

My recent video, where I shared the tip on a carrier package unit where I had a bad disconnect, and I showed that I don't have a thermal imager, but I had an infrared laser thermometer and I showed how I check the disconnect switch being bad with the Infrared laser thermometer. I think I got three or four comments saying dude I've been in the trade for 15-20 years and I never thought about checking a disconnect that way. Thank you so very much that made that video didn't matter about the. However, many other views Iyer comments.

It was those three comments that I got you know like when someone says. Thank you so very much. That's what drives me and compels me so anyways, I'm going off on tangents dude. Thank you so very much man.

I really appreciate it, so I'm not changing lives AK guys. My buddy Zack is on here. I am actually gon na be on and some way or form I'm gon na be on Zacks. It's a show tomorrow, HVAC shop, talk show tomorrow right now right, Zack anyways.

I'm gon na he he has an interview that he did with me good gosh almost a month ago before everything happened and we're gon na be yeah. He's gon na be releasing that one tomorrow check out Zach's show tomorrow night on the HVC shoptalk youtube channel. It'll be on there so Zach. Thank you so much man.

I really appreciate it all right, yeah. Thank you guys. I really appreciate the feedback and look at my buddy Chris Cassie's in your CSC refrigeration and HVAC Chris, and I you know Chris started releasing videos about the same time too, and he's got a solid channel, guys so check out Chris's channel too. I know he says he if I follow Chris on social media and him, and I talk occasionally, it's been a while since Chris and I have talked, but you know we talk occasionally and there's a cup there's a pretty good group of us guys that make videos Together and you know it's kind of kind of cool when you get to communicate with them and we get to talk about different things and stuff so pay attention to.

At the end of my videos, I'm always shouting out other YouTube channels that I think are cool. Occasionally I'll recommend Chris is or you know, there's a bunch of different ones too. So I'm always shouting out different YouTube channels on the end of my videos, so pay attention to that all right. Have I ever had a condenser fan motor blow up.

I can't say that I've had a condenser fan motor blow up. I will say funny thing: whenever you buy a new motor from the fact from the supply house always check to make sure they're not double shafted, and for those of you guys that are ever seen a double shafted motor that wasn't supposed to be. You know what I'm talking about it's kind of funny, so what happens is at the wholesale house? Sometimes they'll drop the motors and if they dry it, but if they drop it, the shaft will actually Pierce the other side. It'll push the the bearing cover out the other side of the motor, so the motor will be quote: unquote double shafted, so I always find that one funny.

Whenever I go to supply houses now I always open my motors in the supply house. Spin em make sure they're not double shafted and then also to save myself a headache when I buy a motor, I always buy a run cap with it, and I put the run cap in the box and then put it in my truck that way. So that way, I don't accidentally run out of run caps or something I always have it in the box with the motor. So, okay, how long should you leave a dryer filter on the suction line, after changing a compressor, Julio, great question, because that's something I was going to cover right now? So, okay, it depends alright, so it depends on what you're working on - and the first thing I want to cover is: there's a difference.

Okay, just because you see a filter on the suction line. What looks like a filter dryer does not mean it's an actual filter. Dryer because there's things called suction line filters too, that are literally just a screen within a suction shell, okay and we're talking about the the braised in suction line. Filter dryers, okay, but they also have flared in ones, but I'm not talking about the shell ones where you pull them apart and change the course, but even those I guess we can relate this to that.

So it all depends on what the pressure drop is across the filter drier, and/or, filter, okay, so, depending on the AC manufacturer, they may not have a lot of room in their system for a pressure drop to be added to the system. When I say pressure drop you're coming into that suction filter at 76, psi and the pressure coming out of the suction filter is more than likely going to be 75 psi. Okay, most of the time when you install a suction filter, filter, dryer, there's gon na be like a 1 psi pressure drop unless it's drastically oversized. Now here's one of the dilemmas when we're dealing with a packaged unit when we're deal with a packaged unit.