Ah, it's time to chill out and get ready for a mediocre q, a live stream if you're old enough grab yourself your favorite adult beverage and if you're not stick with apple juice, put your feet up and relax. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the chat and now, let's queue up the intro music, so so yo. What is up everybody? How are you guys doing this evening and i hope everybody's doing well? Hopefully uh you guys are uh doing good. Staying healthy, your families are healthy.

You know all that good stuff jesus asked a question. He said. How does my kids feel about me me doing youtube? That's an interesting question. My family is really supportive of this youtube thing, because i really don't have very many hobbies.

My favorite, like hobby or thing that i like to do, is camping or outdoor stuff hiking. You know anything on a lake paddle boarding that kind of stuff. I love that kind of stuff, but i don't get to do it very often. So my family is very supportive of this youtube thing, because it's something fun that i really enjoy doing um and you know they just they know it, so they all like it and my wife helps out with it.

You know she handles all the merch sales and everything and shipping and packaging, and all that good stuff, and then she's been taking a little bit of a bigger role as far as the video stuff goes and she's even started her own social media page. If you guys don't already follow her uh on instagram, it's facebook, it's at hvacr, wife, one word um, that's her instagram handle and her facebook handle and she's actually gon na start posting some more content about. You know how we live our lives and stuff, and also we have a uh. We have up coming up.

My wife and i uh jill is my wife and um. She is gon na be doing another. Hvacr live video series. So if you guys don't already know, we have a little series, we've done.

Five of them so far called how we live the hvac, our life um, the first one is just kind of an introduction, the second one a couple of them. We talk about finances, health and that kind of stuff we talk about covet and one of them. So we it's been about a year since we've done an episode. So it's about time that we do another one, so we're actually we're gon na.

Do it actually saturday, but it didn't work out uh, but so uh, hopefully in the next week or two, we should see another episode of the how we live the hvac, our life series popping up and then maybe um. You know in the future. That might be something that pops up on her hvacr wife youtube channel, which uh we haven't started posting anything on, but i think that will come in the future. So just something cool.

You know the the whole plan with the the hvac. Our wife thing is literally just to tell people how we make it work, because this is a crazy trade. It's frustrating stressful, it's hard with the family um and that's something i actually a lot of my comments and things i want to talk about today have to do with that, because um this has really been beating me down lately, i you know: i've been in the Trade for over 20 years - and i've done this - you know for all my life but um - it's really been getting at me lately and there's a lot of reasons. Why and stuff.

So, let's start the stream right. Okay, uh! I know we have a lot of new people in here right um. My name is chris, i'm just an hvacr service technician here in southern california. I started making these videos for my own employees got myself into a position where i lost three employees.

At the same time, put my company in a bind because we only had five employees at the time put me in a bind. It was really my own fault as to why i lost so many employees at the same time, but um we uh, you know overcame it and came up from it and one of the things that i started doing in the midst of all that was, i hired A bunch of new people that had experience, but just not experience in the way that i needed them to be experienced so um. Thank you very much for that super chat or super stick or whatever it is. It's much appreciated.

Um, you guys are awesome with the support you always have been so um, but i started making these videos as a training aid for my new employees and it just kind of evolved from there. So if you go to my youtube channel, the the first two videos were never meant to be for the public. They were literally just for my employees, just cool troubleshooting things that i ran into, and i kind of got the courage to make them public. And then here we are now it's kind of crazy.

It's been a couple years. I officially started my youtube channel in november of 2017. and uh. It's been a crazy ride and - and i i have so many people to thank uh, those of you that are watching.

I get to thank you guys it's it's amazing, all the support that all of you have given me. It's a very humbling experience for sure so um. Let me see what we got in here. So, as usual, if you guys do have questions that you want me to cover, you want to put them in caps.

Lock that way i can get to them or i try to see them. If i don't answer your guys's questions, you can try to repost them until myself or one of the moderators tells you to stop, and if i miss your question, just feel free to send me an email to hvacrvideos gmail.com, okay, all right. So why are so many people afraid of r600 r290? It's not much different from the propane barbecue grille or the bic lighter in most people's pocket, or is there something you're, not understanding so hydrocarbon, refrigerants r? 600. That's isobutane.

R290 is um scientific grade propane. It is different from the barbecue propane uh, in that the bbq propane is basically not as pure as r290 and there's no odorant there's no smell to uh refrigerant grade r290. Okay, so why are so many people afraid of it? Because people just don't understand change and they don't like change, i mean i'm guilty of it too. I'm so used to the things i'm used to when you throw something new in the mix.

It kind of confuses me, okay and then, on top of that, we're a little bit unsure about putting a highly flammable refrigerant in a pressurized vessel that is energized with electricity and in our heads has the potential to go boom now um. The argument can be made that the amount of r290 about 500 or 200, what is it? 500 grams? No, i'm tripping right now: it's is it 500 grams or is it 250 grams? I think it's 250 grams. The charge limitation right now, i think, is 250.. It's it's like five ounces, or something like that is the maximum amount of r290 or r600 that you can put into a system uh.

The argument can be made. That's about the amount that's in a bic, lighter. I i've heard that argument a bunch of times. Okay and the difference between a bic, lighter and a refrigeration system with r290 or r600 either one is that the refrigerant compressor is a pressurized vessel that has electricity going to it, and if someone doesn't treat it correctly, there can be some issues.

Now is the explosion from an r290 refrigerator gon na blow up a house, that's highly unlikely: okay. Is there actually gon na be an explosion? That is very highly unlikely uh, but there is some uh practices best practices that you need to take as a technician to make sure that you're being safe when working with a flammable refrigerant. Now we have a lot of these new a2l refrigerants too, which are mildly, flammable refrigerants such as r32 and other ones like that. Those are things we have to consider too.

When it comes to hydrocarbon refrigerants r290 and r600 uh, you do not use um the normal uh equipment that you would use on those okay. It is legal and safe to vent those two refrigerants into the atmosphere because they are considered natural refrigerants, but you also need to be careful about venting them in confined spaces or places where there's explosion, hazards and different things like that. But to answer your question: is there really that much different between a hydrocarbon refrigerant and a normal refrigerant when it comes to the service side of things, not really if we actually follow the best practices that we've been taught from the beginning, when we went to trade School and stuff, like that, it's really not that much different, except for the fact that you don't recover it with a typical recovery machine. They do make recovery machines or recovery methods to recover hydrocarbon refrigerants, but you do not use the normal ones that you have on your truck, okay and in the united states.

They're, not really anything. That's available um commercially, that's easy to get to that is uh made for recovering those hydrocarbon, refrigerants. Okay, um! You know it's really just about safety and understanding. Okay, um.

We have a tendency of being lazy and sloppy. When we do certain tasks in hvacr uh. We don't do a good job of pulling proper evacuations. We typically don't do a good job of purging the system before we braise or anything like that, and those are things that you really need to make sure you're doing properly when it comes with hydrocarbon refrigerants.

One of the key things is before you open up a system before you light a torch on a system that has hydrocarbon refrigerants you're supposed to purge that entire system with clean, dry, nitrogen push it through the system get rid of any pockets in that system. I have a couple videos on my channel where i was doing hydrocarbon work, changing a compressor and things like that and even after i vented the system. Even after i purged with nitrogen, i went to go brazen, the compressor and when i would wave my torch across one of the open tubes, it would light like a lighter because there's still little vapors that can be stuck in there. So you just need to be cautious, but it's really not that big of a deal.

Okay, i work on it all the time my technicians work on it all the time. You just need to follow some best practices and that's pretty much it. It's not nothing. Really too scary about it, so, let's see what else we got going on in this chat right now.

What region manufacturer do i find to be the most tech friendly? I mean they all have their quarks and features right. If any of you guys watch doug demiro. I love his little tag line there we're going to find all of its quirks and features but uh, which region manufacturers do i find to be most friendly. It's really just about what you're comfortable working on now me.

Personally, i work on a lot of true refrigerators. I work on a lot of kyrak refrigerators, dell field refrigerators and i find those to be the most tech friendly. Now you put those in the hand of someone that has never worked on one of those and they're not going to be as comfortable. So it's really about what you're comfortable working on.

I do not have a one that i'm going to say is better than the other of those three, because they all have little corks about them that make them frustrating in different ways. Um. But i mean those are the three. If i was given the choice to sell one of them, i would sell either a dell field a true or a kyrec.

One is what i would probably sell. Charlson's kinda on there charleston's pretty much the same thing as kyrak they're owned by the same company, they're, actually badged the same a lot of times, they're very similar. So that's another one too! Let me see what else we hear. Don't you need air oxygen along with sparks to make that go boom? Yes, now like vids, you do need the three sources of combustion to make an explosion with r290.

But when you think about it, it's not so much that i'm worried about explosions. What i'm actually worried about the most with an r290 system is a terminal vent. Okay, a terminal vent is when one of the compressor terminals blows out or there's an internal short and the compressor arcs inside and the terminal vents it pops right. And then you have an ignition source right because you're venting that combustible gas.

If you have never seen the repercussions, i've seen 404 a vent and cause a little explosion, not a not a boom blow things up, but a little fire coming out. The side of the compressor, because there was a terminal vent, there was really hot oil and you have to have the perfect situation so with r290. That's my biggest fear is a terminal vent that ignites something else on fire and that's where it gets to be a little bit sketchy. But it's again it's just one of those things.

You learn to work on it. So it's not that big of a deal do. I buy my employees, water or let them dry out like brad does um, i uh oh yeah. We we supply them with water and stuff like that.

We have it in the shop honestly nobody's been taking it. I have giant jugs of water and i'll get them water jugs and offer all that stuff, but all my guys know to stay hydrated and everything um. How do you deal? I already lost the question. Have you seen the doug demiro ytp videos? Uh? No, i don't know if i've seen those ones yet um, let's see just in my opinion, what's the best or my favorite refrigerant r22 uh.

How do you deal with the stress of managing the guys in the field i world leader? That is one of my biggest struggles, and i want to get a little bit into that tonight. I'm not going to forget to get into that, because that's actually on my topic of things to talk about okay, but a few things i want to get to. First. First and foremost, we have a lot of new changes coming into this industry.

When it comes to walking coolers and walk-in freezers, we have a new energy efficiency code spreading across the nation right now, it's being implemented by the department of energy. It is a federal code that all walking, coolers and walk-in freezers that are 3 000 square feet or less. They have to follow certain criteria. We call it the awef awef, and that is the annual walk-in energy walk-in energy factor, or something like that right here.

Annual walk-in efficiency factors there you go um. Basically the easiest way to understand these new energy codes, it's very similar to the sear ratings that we have on our existing air conditioning equipment for residential and commercial okay. So it's about time that they tackle the refrigeration side and the coke nose is already going off strong. So the awef energy efficiency standards are basically going to lower the energy consumption of your refrigeration equipment.

The most common way that the manufacturers are doing this and the reason why i'm bringing this up is because there's a big issue with this. Okay, the reason why the manufacturers are doing this or the government is implementing it is because they want to lower the energy efficiency. Okay and the way that the manufacturers are complying um is to lower the head pressure or float the head pressure of our refrigeration equipment. Okay, so what they do is the head pressure.

Control valves now do not energize or do not start bypassing or flooding the condenser until a much lower system pressure. Okay, sometimes a hundred psi to 120 550 psi is when the head pressure control valve is going to start to bypass. Now, it's not just as simple as putting on a head pressure control valve what they're actually doing is they're oversizing the condensers they're, putting extra sub cooling loops in there so essentially they're making the system much more efficient. Now, with that being said, i've seen a lot of people complaining that these new energy efficient condensing units are causing my system to not work properly.

In the winter time we get a lot of the guys in back east and the midwest complaining about this okay. Now i do agree that back there, where they have extreme cold environments, there is some things they really need to consider. But that's where the system design comes in if you're ever changing a condensing unit, and you get one of these new awef compliant condensing units, which pretty much is going to be all of them coming out from this point forward, you cannot just simply throw them on A system that's existing and assume that a new condensing unit is going to solve your problem, because these newer condensed units are set to operate and float the head pressure down. You have to size your expansion valves accordingly, guys the expansion valves, whether they be thermostatic or electronic, have to be sized accordingly.

There's some tricky ways to do that, because now they're running, lower liquid line temperatures, they're running lower condensing temperatures and that all affects the way that you size, your expansion valve sporlan's, actually done a really good job. I've talked to a bunch of people over there and they have a service bulletin right here. It's 500-10 okay! You guys can very easily look that up awef factors for tevs 500-10-awef awef, and this is actually going to change the way that you size, an expansion valve. So, if you're working on any of these systems that have the new awef compliant condensing units, you guys want to get this document and you want to make sure that your expansion valves are sized appropriately.

At the same time, you also need to make sure that your refrigeration line sizes are correct too. Now the downside to floating the head pressure down is you're, reducing the pressure drop across the expansion valve. If you have a thermostatically, controlled expansion valve, the pressure drop is what makes the refrigerant feed through that valve properly. So the valve itself, the valve itself, can only do so much because it has your bulb, and then it has the spring on the bottom.

Okay - and it can only do so much, but it can only control the refrigerant at a certain velocity and that velocity is controlled by the pressure drop. You have so much pressure coming in on the liquid side, there has to be a certain pressure drop across this valve for it to work properly, but with the new awef requirements, we're reducing that pressure, drop or potentially lowering it. Okay and that can cause issues with the valve sizing and that's where you guys really need to look into the new sporelin tech bulletin 500-10-awef, and it will explain how to properly size those valves, if you guys wouldn't mind what i'd really really suggest you guys do. Is go over to sporland's youtube channel, okay, um, i'm gon na post a link inside the chat right now and go go subscribe and they actually have a video talking about sizing, the expansion valves for the new awef compliant systems, and it's something that we're all gon Na have to start paying attention to because everything's changing and so, like i said, if we go buy an existing, i mean a uh.

If we go to a system, that's existing and we just need to change the condensing unit. You really need to focus on that expansion valve to make sure that it's sized appropriately, because when we drop that pressure um and float the head pressure down, it's gon na affect the expansion valve whether it be electronic or thermostatic. So you guys really need to look into that. That's something we really need to be concerned about making sure that we do that stuff right, because uh there's some big changes coming when it comes to that.

Okay, um. The other thing i wanted to talk about too and i'll get back to the chat. I know that you guys know this, but man do we need help in this industry. Okay, um! If you guys know someone, if you guys know a kid that just isn't made out for college, push him to the trades, if he's mechanically inclined any of the trades electrical plumbing air conditioning, refrigeration being a mechanic, all of the skilled trades right now need technicians badly.

So we need to do a better part of recruiting and bringing new young blood into this trade. I try my best with these videos putting these out there and i do get a lot of response and a lot of cool emails from people that decided to make career changes and stuff because they watch the videos and that's that's a very great feeling. You know i mean it feels really good to know that you know someone may have considered changing and gotten into this trade because they watched one of my videos or something, but i mean we could all do something guys. We really really need the work and i think we need to encourage more kids to get into the trades, because it's good, honest money, you know, there's definitely some things about the trades that i want to change.

But there's there's it's i i love this industry. I really do okay, so let me see what i'm missing in the chat right now. What is the most frustrating thing i've experienced as far as frustrating goes um, i mean all kinds of stuff. You know dealing with running a business is extremely frustrating uh.

Someone asked me about managing employees in the field. That's a frustrating task, um, just in general running a business is probably the most frustrating thing that i've ever experienced. This is the general day-to-day of running a business things happening uh, not understanding that new laws have passed. That you didn't know past three years ago and then all of a sudden, you you're getting fined by federal government, because you didn't know that these tax laws changed and all this stuff there's so much change and it's hard to keep up with it all.

So that's the most frustrating thing is running a business in general um. Do i solder the other half of that valve together, or does it bolt together with a gasket? Do i solder the other half of no? I cut that valve in half for um testing purposes to be able to show everybody what's going on, and i actually need to hang it back. My daughter built me that crane and i hang this valve from that technique. It's a lego technique, crane that thing's really cool.

I want to make like a little lego package unit for it. It's really neat all right. Let's see what else we got in here, um has a manufacturer ever asked me to do something dangerous while troubleshooting, not that i can think of no, not that i can really think of or remember to say, um. Let me see uh.

Why do i not use co2 to blow out drains alex? Okay? So that's a good question. I prefer not to use co2 when i'm blowing out drains, because it's bit me in the butt too many times where i've had technicians go out and clear a walk-in drain and they grab their co2 and they blow it and the co2 makes it through the drain. But it doesn't clear the drain. Okay, i like using water to clear drains and the reason why i like using water is because, if you take a hose and you put the full force of a hose on a 7 8 inch drain line or a 3 4 inch drain line, it will fill The entire cavity and scrub the walls - i thank you so much for that super chat, holy moly, um, uh, berm cannon.

I really really appreciate it, but um and i'll talk about that here in just a minute: okay, um, but uh yeah, the water fills the entire cavity and can scrub the walls of the drain where co2 will actually just go around the obstruction. So that's why i really really like to use water, and i find it to be much more effective and find it to be. You know just just better in general for clearing drains like i said, i've had a specific situation. I can think of the exact situation right now, where you put co2 on the drain and it blew some stuff out and it would drain, but then, when there would be a lot of water, it wouldn't drain, because the co2 wouldn't clear the entire drain cavity.

Basically, so because that bit me in the butt really hard, i always try to do that now. Also co2, there's so much pressure in a co2 tank, and we typically don't have regulators on it that you can actually damage components and equipment by using co2. Also so you have to be very careful because when we go get a tank of co2, you put a little adapter on it. You put a quarter inch gauge hose on it, you cut the other end off and you shove it in a drain.

That's unregulated pressure and i mean boom. You could blow things apart that aren't supposed to have that much pressure in them. You put co2 on a on a pvc line and you can cause some damage if it's an old system for sure. So you want to be careful about that.

So um, let's see uh berm cannon, you said: nate is a scam and so you're, so tired of organizations coming up with the new hoops for text to jump through to be legit um and thanks for the nice comment. So, let's address that comment, so um i've heard this many times that nate is a scam. It's a money-making ploy, all these different things and while i will agree there is a money-making aspect to nate, i do tend to support training organizations, but before you chastise me just listen. The reason why i like certifications is because, in order to maintain a nate certification, you have to keep going to school, so you have to continue your education but to to back up your comment too, i will say the way that nate recently changed about three four Years ago they changed the way that they do their certifications.

You have to continue your education and you still have to pay a fee every year. You know so it's like eh. I don't know how much i like the fees that you have to pay to be a certified tech, but at the same time, i really like the component of any kind of a certification, whether it be an rscscm certification, a cms certification, hvac excellence, nate. What i really like about all of those is that, in order to maintain those certifications, you have to continually go to school and show that you're constantly educating yourself and bettering yourself.

Okay, so i really like that aspect of it. I don't so much like the aspect of having to pay this money all the time uh, but you know it's one of those things where you i mean. Is it really that much money you know like? I go back and forth in my head. The principle of the matter is like man, i hate to have to pay this 200 or whatever it is every year, but at the same time i mean you know, is it that much in the grand scheme? You know? I don't know i mean honestly if i required my technicians to maintain innate certification the way that i would do it, which i don't require them to do so, but the way that i would do it is, i would say, look i need you to get innate Certification, but i will pay for the renewal so long as you maintain the educational credits, so i would have no problem as an employer paying for their renewal as long as they kept it up, but that's just the way i do things i i have no problem Sending my guys to school if they want to take training classes and things like that, so long as it's relevant to what we do, i would totally be open to that all right.

Um. I want to talk about smart evaporators. I get a lot of comments and i see a lot of negative comments towards smart evaporators rip, all that electronic junk out of there and put mechanical controls and mechanical valves just like it was in the old days it used to work so much better in the Old days - and it was easy in the old days and and that stuff's a bunch of junk and all this newfangled uh foreign crap is ju, i mean i see these comments all the time in my chat, okay and while i get frustrated at times, okay, i Do support the advancement of our industry with new technology; okay, it's cool, but on the flip side, i'm still a mechanic that fixes things and i still see problems. Okay, uh, let's see uh pennsylvania.

I see that super sticker. Thank you so very much for that. I really appreciate it and then pennsylvania ac productions thanks so much for that super chat too man. That is amazing.

You are awesome. You guys in this amazing support is great okay, so when it comes to electronic evaporators and all this technology, i like it, but on the flip side as a service technician, sometimes it's frustrating okay. So, for instance, i don't work on it a lot, so i'm ignorant to the fact on how they all operate, because i don't work on a lot of the new smart evaporators. I have a few of them.

Okay and recently i went and did a service call. I made a video on it where i went out in the middle of the night because they had an emergency service call for their walk-in freezer, and it has this ke2 evap efficiency controller, which is their big technological, advanced, uh, eevs everything's all built into it, and It has a scrolling display on it, but it's really hard to read the easiest way to get into that. The system is to plug in a computer. Well, it's 11 o'clock at night on a friday, i'm out there working on a walk-in freezer defrosting it by the time i get it defrosted, it's midnight.

I don't want to bust out my computer plus. I didn't even have it with me that day. So it's frustrating on that aspect. Okay, but once you get used to this new electronic stuff and you start working on it, it is nice okay, now um with that being said, okay, like i said, i do support the new technology in the industry.

At the same time, there's times that the new technology can be frustrating okay, so you know i will install mechanical defrost clocks and maybe just a dumb digital thermostat over putting in a full smart, defrost, evaporator, setup, okay and the reason. Why is because, if you have a circuit board that controls your defrost and you have demand defrost, it is neat, but occasionally you get that problem. Customer that constantly leaves doors open and constantly ices up their equipment, and sometimes when you're troubleshooting that stuff, it can be really hard to know and i've gone down this path just recently, where i've gone out to a customer three four times to de-ice their walk-in freezer And two or three of the four times i've told them. You guys need to shut the door you're, not shutting the doors, it's the door, it's the door, it's the door and then i'll go fix.

The door put new hinges, put curtains on it whatever, and then it keeps icing up and then come to find. You know what there's actually another problem so um and it can be hard to find those intermittent problems when you have smart evaporators, because is there a problem with the board, you don't know, is it not defrosting, you don't know because you're not there when it happens. Now, when you get into this new fancy stuff, like the ke2 thermivap efficiency controllers, you can hook up a computer and you can see graphing and see if it actually did defrost. But with some of the systems you can't or or like my technicians, they don't know how to get into the ke2 stuff.

So as a business owner that becomes kind of hard for me, because i don't send them all with laptops and all that stuff. So, there's times that i like mechanical and old school, but i'm not one of those thumpers, that's out there saying throw it all away and just go back to old school like i understand the need for this new stuff. We as technicians just need more training. In my opinion - and we need to work on this stuff more often and be more comfortable with it to where we don't get flustered okay, i consider myself to be a pretty good person when it comes to technology and troubleshooting things, but even i stumble on some Of this electronic stuff i walk up and i'm like uh okay.

I got ta stare at it for a minute and think about it, but sometimes it's good to get my brain thinking like that. So um i just saw another uh super chat, come through uh uh t t letch. Thank you so very much for that super chat. That is amazing.

I really really appreciate it. You guys are awesome. Oh my goodness guys, there's a bunch coming through right now. Thank you.

I just saw another one come through uh, an unapologetic apologist. Thank you bud. I really really appreciate it. Am i against stay bright.

Eight you've been using it for years, but you know a lot of guys, hate it and call it hack work, i'm not against brazing. You just find stay bright, eight to be stronger and cleaner, okay, so um. I am not a person, that's going to say, you're a hack if you use stay bright eight now i personally don't use it. If you guys don't know what stay bright eight is.

It is a brand of solder that is a low temperature solder. That claims to be able to hold steady with higher pressure systems so um. I have a lot of systems that have stay bright, eight on it: okay, uh, russell refrigeration, uh in the past. I don't know if they still do it.

Uh cold zone - russell refrigeration used to constantly use it for the point of which the distributor or the bell of a distributor for a walk-in cooler would uh be brazed to the um distribution tubes. The little bell would have little. You know six distribution tubes on it. Going to the evaporator after the expansion valve and those would all be with low temperature solder, and we notoriously had leaks on those all the time now i am not against using different solders, but here's the problem you run into.

Let's say you have a joint that has stabrite aid on it. Okay, and you don't work with that. Very often, i don't carry that stuff in my truck, so i come up on a refrigerant leak and it's leaking okay uh. What do you do to put it to fix it right, clean it up? You put some silver solder on there, maybe and try to mix the silver solder with the stability.

I have not had very good luck, mixing the two solders in my opinion, when you have one solder like stay bright, eight, you need to go back with stability. Now i've heard people say that they do fine, just putting silver solder on it or something like that. Personally, myself, i haven't had very good luck, so i don't use the low temperature solders. The two solders that i use, i use 15 silfos brazing rods, okay and then i use 56 silver solder for anything else and then obviously 95.5 for plumbing.

You know that stuff no big deal but um. You know i i just i'm not going to call anybody a hack for using stabrit8 or anything like that, but i just find it to be problematic on the refrigeration side when i'm dealing with the stuff that i deal with, maybe for residential and stuff like that, It works fine and so be it. I understand the need for it um, i just don't use it so, but i i have nothing bad to say like i'm, not going to say you're a hack or anything like that. Um, let's see what am i missing here? All right, i'm gon na get to my list of things to talk about um.

You know lately in my videos, i've been a little bit on the negative side when it comes to service calls and overtime service calls, and this is where i want to talk about things. It's really easy. I see people in my comments saying. Why are you so negative? You shouldn't be negative in your comments.

You shouldn't be negative on your videos. You should always be positive. You are an influencer, you have a duty to make things, look good and all that fancy stuff. Okay, so i understand their arguments and i hear them, but something you guys have to remember is that i am a human.

I have emotions, i have frustrations, i have stress, i have all kinds of things going on and yes, while it may seem really easy to type in a comment and say you need to calm down bro you're bitching about whatever you know anything. You don't know what i went through that day now that doesn't mean that i can be a butt head or a jerk, but just remember something guys: everybody there's always a reason. Someone does something: okay, whether it be a good reason or a bad reason. There's always a reason behind it and if you don't understand the context, it's really easy to judge from the other side and not know that someone is going through something okay.

So why have i been negative in my videos now? I will say that some of the people that have made comments on my videos - it's kind of funny, because you guys the viewers tend to come to my defense, and i appreciate that in the comments. Okay, but um, sometimes you know uh. I will usually address negativity in the end of my video, so if you don't watch till the end, you're actually missing out, because i usually address the questions, i usually try to talk about things before you know, because i assume that people are going to ask certain Questions and i'll usually address them towards the end of the video so oftentimes. If i show negativity or something like that towards the customer or whatever i usually address it in the show notes of the video, so i'd encourage all you guys to go.

Watch the show, notes and uh or the end of the video, and you guys will get context as to what's going on, but to enlighten a few people, i'm a service technician i go out and i fix refrigerators and air conditioners at restaurants. At the same time, i'm a father of two girls - i have two teenage girls, i have a wife, i have a home and i also run an air conditioning and refrigeration business. So there's stresses all over my life and oftentimes. I get frustrated lately right now.

I am short on employees and while i am hiring, i'm not looking to train any non-experienced techs at the time, because i'm currently focusing on one apprentice right now and i'm training him and he's doing really good. But it's going to be some time. So i'm focusing all my efforts on training him. In the meantime, i should have five service technicians, and i have two one of them being myself.

Okay, so i have a service, a guy that does maintenances and installs for me, okay, i have myself another service technician and i have an apprentice. So i have four employees working for me, but i should have five service technicians and i don't okay. So with that being said, i'm getting burnt out now when we get burnt out in this trade. It's really easy to happen because you're overworked you're slammed what happens is we tend to do silly things? We tend to make mistakes with that being said, because i'm understaffed i'm not going to burn out my employees.

So therefore, in my situation, i've taken it upon myself. We have a five-week on-call rotation, my other service tech that does service calls. I only have him do one week of that five-week rotation and i do four weeks in a row. So i'm on call four weeks in a row.

I have another service technician on call for the last week. Okay, we also do a little bit of a different call thing, so it's not really a full week of being on call it's a long story. I'd have to explain it another time, but with that being said, i'm just enlighten you guys to some context. I'm not asking for pity or anything like that.

Okay, i just choose as an employer to take the burden on myself instead of putting it on my employees, okay, i don't want to overwork anybody and i don't want to burn anybody out. At the same time, i have to be careful because i'm approaching the edge of burning myself out okay, but it's just a struggle as part as an employer. This is the things i have to take on. You got to think about everybody.

How do i manage my employees in the field? Okay, it's it's! It's a struggle. You know you try to make sure that everybody has the tools that they need and the resources they need to fix things properly again, as an employer, people get sick, people get hurt, accidents happen all kinds of stuff, so these are all things you have to account For and understand that they are going to come and you have to be prepared for them, so it can be a struggle as a business owner, but i'm not asking for pity at all. It's just that's what's real! So if you hear negativity in my videos, i'm venting i'm being human okay. At the same time, i always know that i got to take care of my customers.

I don't want to put my customer in a in a bad place. I don't want to make them feel bad. So, while i do get frustrated with my customers, occasionally, okay, i don't ever talk bad about a particular customer. I may point out some things that are kind of silly: that here's the text from the work order or something like that, but i find that funny.

I like to show you guys that this is real. I deal with the everyday struggles that all of you guys like to deal with too, and on top of that one thing that i don't feel like enough people talk about in the trades and i don't feel like enough. Uh of us people that are on youtube or instagram or influencers whatever you want to call us talk about, is mental health. Okay, we all go through things.

I don't know how long you guys have watched me. I don't know how much you know about me, but i struggle with bipolar disorder. I struggle with anxiety. I have real issues so, on top of my normal business life on top of running a business and all this stuff, i struggle with real stuff.

Just like everybody else. I am human okay. So i'm not saying i get a pass or anything like that. I'm just trying to tell you guys it's real.

The struggle is real. We all go through it in one way or another. Okay and yes, it is. It can be argued that we choose our own destinies and all that stuff.

That's true! Okay! You know i put myself in the positions that i'm in and that's fine, okay, but it's okay. I feel like you guys all need to hear. This too, is is that we all go through anxiety. We all go through marital stuff, health, stuff, family, stuff.

Okay, that's why i've been closing out my videos with in in my live streams and everything with an encouraging um phrase be kind to one another. We really really do need more kindness, guys. Even i find myself getting caught up in road rage and stuff driving, someone cuts me off and i flip them off, and it's like why. Why did i do that? Because the only purpose person that helps when i let my anger get the best of me, the only satisfaction that anybody gets from that is myself.

Okay, the person that that that cut me off or whatever uh it doesn't. I mean i know it. I don't know the answers, but i just know that we need more kindness. We really really do.

Okay, um david hvc pro 89. Thank you so much for that super chat um. He says he's watched me since day, one and still look up to me. Thanks for doing everything, i really really do try to be a good mentor or whatever you want to call it, but i am just human, i'm a normal service technician.

I try to show my mistakes as much as possible to show that i'm real okay, all right um, let's see but mr green, i didn't say - and you said man, i thought you needed a vacation you're being sarcastic, but i didn't mean that for like a pity Party, okay, i'm just telling you guys, like everybody goes through things. Where i mean i i bring on my own stress my wife, jokes, because sometimes i've joked and said man. I just need to shut my business down and go work for someone and my wife will pull me aside and she'll say chris. You know that you can't work for anybody, and you know and she's telling me this she'll say you know that wherever you go you're going to bring stress because that's just the person i'm just tightly wound, that's who i am so i live that way and while It not be healthy.

That's just me, i live stressed all the time. That's just the way that i am so i'm sure you guys all have similar things. Anxiety stress problems, just know, you're not alone and the the best piece of advice, because i am not a doctor, i'm not a therapist, i'm not any of that stuff. The best piece of advice i can give to everybody is talk to someone talk to your significant other talk to a family member talk to a friend just vent.

It helps so much especially with me. I used to bottle things up because i felt like i didn't need to bring the stress from work home to my wife and i would just bury it in my chest and then about once a month, once every two months, i'd, explode and and and my wife Would you know over something simple and i'd be extremely rude to her when when she didn't deserve it, because - and it wasn't that i was mad at whatever she did, it was just that it finally bottled up and popped. You know so, for me, talking to someone has helped me so much talking to some friends. Even it's just texting, someone see a doctor, don't be afraid to ask for help, because i certainly wasn't.

I went to a doctor and i just went and saw a therapist. I was diagnosed with whatever i worked through the treatment and it's made me a better person, so i encourage all of you guys when you have issues when you have struggles to talk to someone, whether it be a friend, a family member, a doctor, whatever don't be Afraid to ask for help. There's too many people out there, that you hear these horrible situations of people committing suicide or horrible things like that, and that is not the answer. So talk to someone get help if you guys have struggles or issues, because i know we all do.

Okay, let's get on back to some hvac talk. Now that we i went off on my rant on that, okay um. Let me see what we got going on in the chat right now. What am i missing? Any advice on brazing u-joints on evaporators seem to always blow the one.

Next to it. Yes, great question: what you want to do is you want to change the tip you want to be using an oxy-acetylene torch for one. You want to change to a zero tip, okay order, a zero tip, whatever you have to do, set your pressures accordingly, i get this question a lot. A lot of people tend to set their pressures incorrectly when it comes to the tips that they have on your torches.

Each torch tip that you buy, whether it be from victor uniweld, whoever it is, will typically tell you on the box where to set the pressures. Okay, so on the uh, i believe on the zero tip, i believe they call for five five and five psi. I think, if i remember right whatever it says, on the packaging but set your tip accordingly or the pressure accordingly sand. Everything up around it put heat blocking compound on everything around it, but by using a zero tip, it'll focus the heat, a lot better and not flare it out and also understand that condensers or evaporators.

If you're welding on the u-bins, it is very thin, copper, it's thinned out, so it will flare really quickly. So the way you apply heat slowly and then i'll kind of dabble, the solder on there and i'm not soldering the joint. Yet i'm just getting the solder to see when it starts to flow and once it starts flowing i'll, put more solder on there, the important thing when you're, welding or brazing on u-bins on evaporators or condensers, it's a little bit different than brazing. A joint is that you, i just realized it sounded like i was saying, blazing a joint, but when you're braising a joint is you want to keep applying the solder, because the solder is actually going to help to dissipate the heat? At the same time, it's being effective and moving it and constantly be moving your torch tip too.

So, hopefully that helps you a little bit there bud and i saw a few more super chats come through um laska. Thank you so very much man. I really really appreciate it, so he says: take the anger out on my equipment, i'm working on make that thing so pretty that you just can't help but stand back and smile. That's a great great point, laska.

That is a great one and then pennsylvania, ac production. Thank you very much for that super chat again and he's asking me what is my favorite exhaust fan brand huh um. I like some captive air stuff, some some of it's really stupid. I, like some green hex stuff, some of it's very stupid.

There's a local company to me called central blower. They make very high quality utility style exhaust fans. I think that they're, my pro probably one of my favorites, but i do have to say, let's step back into the 1980s and you give me a good donaldson exhaust fan. Those things lasted forever.

They could be rebuilt, they had they were. They were great exhaust fans to work on um, so i i really did i cut my teeth on the donaldson exhaust fans for sure they were a pain you sometimes have to give coveralls on, because those things were so big. But i worked on those a lot and they lasted forever: um uh jay leroy. Thank you.

So very much man um right on we'll have a joe rogan moment over here: okay, um, all right, uh just left my anger out on the equipment, flip them off or curse at them for nothing work and there you go um peter's, smart. I really appreciate it. Man have a drink there, you go cheers bud. Thank you, so very much for that super chat.

You guys are blowing me away with this support. It is amazing, why are the restaurants cutting the pm programs? I i get this question every week and i feel like i have to address it because it's an important question. I've explained this a million times but they're cutting the pm programs because that's typically the first thing on the chopping block because labor's a given materials are or food costs, are a given. Utilities are a given, but when it comes to maintaining your equipment, that's usually the quickest thing that you can cut to try to save money in a bind.

Okay. Now someone had asked me in my comments or something well, why doesn't the corporate offices, the greedy corporate offices just take a pay, cut temporarily or start moving things around temporarily and just keep maintaining their equipment? Something that you have to think about is most of these. Restaurants are corporate chains being that they're publicly traded companies when you're a publicly traded company. You can't really play around with that kind of stuff, because the shareholders us that are purchasing shares in these companies are constantly wanting returns on our investment.

Therefore, the the corporations are constantly doing everything they can to make the shareholders happy it's kind of a curse with the company. That goes public because, of course, once you go public, there's more money. Okay, bottom line, there's more money! You have more capital to work with, but at the same time, you're at the mercy of the shareholders, because the shareholders are demanding, they get a return on their investment and that can be a struggle when you're, a private restaurant company or a private corporation. It's easier to say: okay, you know what, as the president, i'm going to take a pay cut or, as these people are all going to take pay cuts or we're going to move things around we're going to you know, but it's hard when it's a publicly traded Company these restaurants, for the most part, are trying to do everything they can to survive.

And while i agree they are in business to make money. And, of course, you know they're going to do what they can to make money they're just trying their best to survive, and it's my best interest to keep these companies when i'm working for them profitable. So i need to make a profit as a business owner, but at the same time i also need to be aware - and i have empathy for the fact that they need to survive this craziness too they're struggling just as much so it's just like a lose-lose situation. Really i mean they're doing everything they can.

On the plus note one of my major major customers just sent me a quote: request for pm service, which they haven't done in like eight years, which is a really good sign that things are getting better because they're going back to pm service, i think they finally Realized that things are just costing them too much money, so that is a really good sign and i hope that it all works out um, i'm going to mark that one off my list and get to the chat and see what i missed here. Okay, advantages on inverter compressor and have i ever worked on r32? No, i have not worked on r32. What are the advantages with inverter compressors? Well capacity control is the number one advantage: okay um! If you can slow down and speed up the compressor you can do so when there's a demand and you're not wasting energy. At the same time, you can get if it's set up right and you have the right, sensors and the right equipment.

You can control humidity. Better and that can be a benefit too so customer comfort and or system operation efficiency is all going to get better with inverter driven equipment. Now, on the technician side of inverter driven equipment, it gets harder and harder as a normal technician, because we have a million things to remember, and now we got to know how to work on this one particular piece of equipment - that's inverter, driven. We have to know the parameters on how to adjust the vfds program, the logic and all that stuff, so it can be frustrating as a technician with all this new technology too.

Okay, let's see what else we got in here deep well, sockets make great fuses. Don't ever take a well socket for a fuse, but that is pretty funny. How do i determine new line set size when retrofitting walk-in equipment sporeline actually has a great method for that? If you go to sporland's website, just go to sporland.com spoileronline.com and they have a um a sizing tool. Uh.

Let me think of here. What is it called uh hold on so spoiling online.com. It is called hold on one sec, it'll pull up here in a second. If i type this thing on, it's called virtual engineer, if you go to sporland.com spoilingonline.comparker.com, whatever click the virtual engineer, tab and you can actually go in there and you can input your system parameters, the evaporator btu the line set length and it will help you to.