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 yo, hopefully you guys are all doing well this evening um. I will do the giveaway here in about 10 to 20 minutes, something like that. I'm gon na get through the intro and stuff and then we'll get it over with and then watch the numbers from the stream drop off dramatically.

It's all good, though so, pay attention for that. So welcome to the hvacr. Videos live stream. So for those of you that don't already know the reason why i'm doing these is to consolidate my time basically and answer questions um for those of you that watch my videos, obviously because you're here and send me emails and comments.

You'll often notice that i usually don't respond to them very often until usually mondays. Okay mondays are my days to sit down. I get off work early, come in, my office start answering emails and then i use these live streams as a means of communication to try to just save my family a little bit of time. I'm a super busy person in general.

I have a lot of stuff going on uh, obviously uh. I guess i should start it off by saying my name is chris um, i run the hvacr videos youtube channel and the whole reason why i started this channel is to share the little bit of knowledge that i have, but i really started it for my own Technicians, i never anticipated making these videos public. It was just kind of like a thing where i finally hit the button. I i uploaded two videos to youtube and then just shared them as unlisted or actually private, well, unlisted, yeah, unlisted videos to my own employees.

I would send them to them and i was a little bit nervous and i hit the public button, and here we are two years later. It's this thing, never anticipated it turning into what it is um, but i'm super humbled by your guys's support by your comments. Uh, i try to read every single comment that comes through on youtube. I acknowledge the comments with a thumbs up and a heart.

I actually learned that from my buddy andrew greaves, uh andrew grieves has a youtube channel, um called ak greaves and he doesn't post on it anymore, but he was a huge youtuber when i was barely anything and i reached out to him - and he gave me a Bunch of support and one of the best things that he told me was hey. You know when someone leaves you a comment, give them a thumbs up and a heart just to acknowledge the fact that you know you read the comment. I had the opportunity to meet andrew grieves at the ahr show this last year: uh naca fire and security. Thank you so very much man.

I really really appreciate that super chat, but i had the opportunity to meet andrew grieves and he's a really cool dude for those of you that don't know, even though he doesn't make videos anymore, his videos are still relevant. He does uh or he did motivational videos for the trade. So look up ak ak, greaves or ak hvac. Someone in the chat will post it ak greaves or ak hvac.

I can't remember his channel name right now. I know i'm subbed to it, but anyways cool dude, but he's the one that kind of pushed me to do the whole thumbs up in heart, but really cool dude to me anyway. So as usual, i have a list of things i want to talk about. I want to get to the chat too, if you guys have questions or comments in the chat.

There's going to be a lot of people in here. Do me a favor, put your questions and comments in caps. Lock again, this chat is going by really fast right. Now so we're going to try to get to them all, but if i don't, i don't okay um for those of you that are just coming in too we're going to do the giveaway in about 10 to 15 minutes now.

Okay, so um so hello to everybody. Really really appreciate it and uh: let's go ahead and get started with this okay, so the last two videos that i did since my last live stream. I did one on 7 30 and it was a walk-in. Cooler was at 60 degrees.

Okay, that was the video where i really broke down the wiring schematic uh. You know, i usually don't do that and it's partially just i get into a groove when i'm working with myself so just to to to give some context here. The whole making videos thing. Um, it really is just a way to make me seem like i'm, not insane.

Okay, i'm not joking. When i say that i talk to myself, that's how i troubleshoot things. It's really no different when i'm troubleshooting, something if i have a camera on or not. If i have the camera on at least, if someone walks up on me, it doesn't look like i'm talking to myself.

Okay, but i genuinely talk to myself and that's how i troubleshoot things oftentimes, i walk up to a call and i'll just you know i can walk up like on in that video. I already knew that more than likely the high pressure control was tripped. We had a really hot day the whole walk-in was down. I walked up on the roof.

What i would have normally done was gone and just pushed the high pressure control watch that we had a bad fan motor and moved on, but on that one i decided to stop and kind of take a few minutes and go through the schematic. Okay, i know a lot of people appreciated that and i'll try to do that a little bit more. But you have to understand too that you know i got ta you know. Do normal service calls.

I can't you know, take forever on these calls and that one i didn't take too much time so uh johan. Thank you so very much for that super chat, man that is awesome or uh the sticker. That is really cool. Thank you so very much.

I really really appreciate it: okay, uh chris happy birthday, man, chris emery, how you doing bud all right um do, i ever think about just getting a torque wrench just rust, so that is on my list of things to talk about and yes, okay, alex zepeda. Thank you so very much for that super chat man. That is awesome you guys with the super chats. Let me address this right now.

I really appreciate those, but genuinely you don't have to do those okay. I leave them on because i realize it's a way for you guys to show gratitude and - and i appreciate that and i'm not trying to downplay anything. Thank you so very much, but you guys don't have to do that. Okay, um! You don't have to do super chats to get questions answered or anything like that.

I'm going to try to address everything that i can but again i'm grateful and thank you very much. Okay. I realize that i can easily turn the super chats off and i thought about it for a while, but then i realized you know what i got to give you guys the opportunity, if you want to do that, that's cool, but just don't feel obligated. I'm going to keep doing these videos, no matter what okay, while i'm addressing that, i usually address this on the stream anyways.

If you guys want to be able to support the channel, the easiest way to do so is just simply watch the one youtube commercial. I put in my videos, okay. Lately i've only been putting one video if you go or one commercial. If you go back to some of my older videos, i had a few more, but lately i've only been putting one vid one commercial in there.

If you guys simply watch the commercial alone, that would support me and let youtube pay me: okay, um and also support the sponsors spoiling refrigeration technologies. Those guys are great, too uh and then uh. Another way to do it is by my promo code with trutek tools. You get eight percent off your order using the promo code, big picture, one word um all right now that we got through that so uh.

Now that i got distracted and i totally forgot about it, uh hvac kid asked me a question. How do i feel that i got mentioned in the technology connections? Video, so alec? The the creator, the owner of the uh, the i'm sorry, um technology connections made a video and it's a really cool video i got. I gave alex some props too, so he made a video on air conditioning and he really broke down the air conditioning process. Uh did a really good layman's term explanation of how air conditioning works and i actually commented or complimented the guy on it um, but he did mention my video in his uh his you know on his he mentioned my channel on his video, and i did tell Him thank you.

I i tweeted him on twitter and said: hey really appreciate it. It was really cool um. We got a few people coming over from his channel. It's really kind of neat the whole um group of people that we have on youtube from creators.

Everybody supports everybody, as you guys see. If you look at the end of any of my videos, you guys will see other creators that i i'm promoting their channels and different things uh. You know i try to promote different people all the time. Sometimes i promote my friends.

Sometimes i promote people that don't even know i'm promoting them. I don't message people and say: hey, i'm promoting you. I just throw them at the end of the stream. You know into the video, so we all try to do it.

I think as much as we can, so it's really cool eric castro. Thank you so very much man. I really appreciate it. Okay, so uh back to the walk-in cooler.

Now i get super easily distracted, so walking cooler, video high head pressure. I walked through the schematic on that one: okay, that one ended up being a bad condenser fan motor, went ahead and changed the fan motor and got the system back up and operating. I did go through the schematic, though, like i kind of already said and broke it down a little bit oftentimes. I forget to do that, i'm going to try to make a better effort of doing that more often, okay, the next video that i released was the bar ac, keeps tripping the breaker.

That was the title. Okay and it was an rtu that uh tripped. The breaker downstairs the customer brought it to my attention. Actually, what happened was the customer was having a planned power outage and i was there working on something different and they asked me to go into the electrical room and show them what breakers they could shut off, because this is a very proactive customer.

So they knew they had a plan power outage. They were going to shut down all the rtus and they were going to shut down all the uh refrig. Well, not the refrigeration, but they were going to shut down all the regions and computers and everything, and they were asking me what breakers had to do with the hvac equipment. So while i was in there, i noticed one of them was tripped and the customer said yeah.

You know we've been resetting that about once every two weeks and it keeps tripping so that alone, just me asking about it, drove a service call and led to this repair. So you know we can't always be perfect on our repairs. There's a lot of things to cover on that, but i walked up and you know the breaker was tripping so immediately. What i found was they had one of the three fuses going to the unit that was blown okay well with three fuses.

If one of them goes bad, then you're single phase in your unit, that's actually something that i don't care for. I don't care for fuse disconnects. Unfortunately, oftentimes in my area, we don't size uh main breakers correctly, so we need to have fuses in there for the most part to protect the equipment, because oftentimes they'll oversize, the the breaker and then they'll step it down with the fuses in hopes that the fuses Are going to protect the equipment, so i couldn't um anyway. So in that situation, the reason why the breaker was tripping was because we were single phasing the equipment.

So when that fuse blew, there was still control voltage to the ac and it would start up, but then the contactor would pull in and the compressor would single phase and it would trip the breaker okay. Once i replaced the fuse, then it was a matter of going through the equipment. Now i never found the exact cause of the reason why the fuse blew in that equipment. Okay, uh.

I went through everything, but i went to the customer and i said: hey: hey. Look: here's the deal something's going on here and this unit has a mad vibration to it. That was the issue that i was worried about. Okay vibration was coming from one of the condenser fan motors and the vibration was coming from the indoor blower assembly kyle.

Thank you so very much for that super chat man that is awesome. Okay, so i went ahead and talked to the customer and i said, look here's what i propose. I propose you know and i gave him a list. You guys saw the video and we went through everything and surprisingly, i thought they were going to hold off on it because being in covid right now, that was a bar ac they're, not seating people in the bar, but they went ahead and repaired it.

But still i made sure they understood that i never found a reason for the fuse to blow in the first place, but i did find a mad vibration in the unit took care of the vibration issues. Okay, now i got a bunch of questions about the condenser fan motor in that video. Why did i change the condenser fan motor and why did i not just cut the shaft? Because the shaft was extra long and a lot of people were saying you know the shaft could be the reason why the condenser fan motor was vibrating. It's possible okay, but here's the reason why i changed the condenser fan motor.

It was still running and it wasn't over amping, but it was an aftermarket condenser fan motor that was not sitting correctly in the fan shroud. I look for an excuse to change those things. Okay in the past long long ago, i used to put condenser fan motors in, like that all the time just grab an aftermarket motor, throw it in there move the the blade up as high as you can, but i've learned that it really messes with the head Pressure in the system and really messes with everything so going back with the oem fan motor that fits with the fan blade in the shroud is the best thing that we can do and that's what i did so. I was looking for an opportunity to change it.

There was a vibration in it boom. It's time to change it, you know moved on, got it the vibration to stop. Now, when i finished up that unit by the end of that day, it was about 105 or 108 outside. So i was baking up there.

I was dying, so i didn't spend a whole bunch of time. My pressures were a little bit wonky, but again, like i mentioned in the video, the compressors were two different compressors, so which one was right, which one was wrong. If any of them i didn't know, so i really didn't sweat it too much. We got the unit operational, that is a normal customer of mine, we'll follow up and watch everything as we go through okay.

So another issue that i wanted to address was understand that in my videos i don't necessarily go in there. Thinking i'm going to give a hundred percent of the correct information. I i don't rehearse. I don't script.

My videos, you're literally hearing me talk to myself. Okay, so i said in the video hey, you know what i want to change this wire because they were running number four wire to the contactors or two some wire nuts, and i didn't like that - and i was going to redo all the electrical on that because It was just a rat's nest, spaghetti crap everywhere, so um i had said hey. I need to go pick up number eight wire, but in thinking about it as - and i think i might have mentioned it in the video - but in thinking about it i realized you know that unit was running about 53 amps and number eight wire wasn't gon na Cut it so i ended up going with number six wire um and ironically, i sent someone to go, get me some number six wire from the hardware store and when he came back and he showed me the wire that was actually what i was picturing in my Head as number eight see, i knew the size that i wanted, but i just couldn't think of the numbers. So we ended up putting number six in.

There ran it directly to the contactors changed the orientation of the contactors put lug style contactors in there and just tried to clean up as much as we could and knowing you know the problems that these units had. I decided to go ahead and eliminate the economizer wiring, because the economizer was completely disconnected in that unit anyways. So i just eliminated that as a potential electrical short and just cleaned up the unit in general, wired back in the compressor lockout boards um, which basically puts uh safeties back in there, the way that it was wired, they still had the safeties, but the the it Would never lock itself out so, if went off on low pressure, it would turn off turn on turn off turn on turn off turn on with the compressor lockout board. If it turns off it locks the board out or locks the compressor out, so it won't short cycle.

So we got the unit back as good as we can sometimes that's all we can do. Even if we can't find the problem, we need to make sure that we put it back to normal operating conditions, so that way we can troubleshoot from that point and the rate the way that i write my quotes up. That's how i say is look here's the problem, here's my solution, but i don't know if this is going to completely fix everything, but all this stuff is wrong. I need to get it back into operational order and then we can diagnose further.

From that point, i literally have that wording in every one of my quotes. We need to do this portion before we can diagnose further. So that way, it kind of gives me an out in case there's something else wrong. The customer always knows like look.

This is what we have to fix. First, okay: i try to be as upfront and honest with my customers as i can so all right. We got quite a few people in here right now, so let's go ahead and get this uh giveaway over with okay, so um in my last video. Let me address this, so i did not um want to make this a giant publicized huge thing.

So i put it in a video. I did leave a little comment in the beginning of the video and said pay attention, there's going to be a giveaway, but i don't want to do. I don't want to be. You know, that's just not my style to do.

Giveaways all the time, okay, so i i do like to do them every once in a while. So in this situation i didn't want, like everybody and their brother entering it unless they truly watched the video. So that's why i asked the questions that i did. I wanted to make sure that the people that entered the giveaway literally had to watch certain portions and i realized.

Maybe you didn't watch the whole thing. Maybe you skipped through some of it. That's fine, okay, but i wanted people to think about it. Okay and pay attention to it, and i wanted to reward those people that always support the channel by watching it, okay, because i really do appreciate you guys so what we're giving away today.

This is my personal one, but is the sc480. This is my go-to. I've been using a lot lately. This is the field piece clamp meter, uh.

My favorite feature is the feature that i showed in the video and that's the phase rotation. Now before now you could only do phase rotation in the sc660. The 660 was the giant clamp meter that i used for a very long time. You probably still see it pop up in videos.

It has a swivel head on it, they've now redone that meter and made it the 680, and it has the full bluetooth capabilities and some other features in it. But i've been using the 480 lately. Okay, this will communicate with my phone and all that good stuff works with the job link app, it's a really cool meter, but i really really love the phase rotation, so i've been using that a lot lately, so we're going to go. Thank you very much for that super chat, randy johnson.

That's awesome! So we're gon na go ahead and do the giveaway for that so uh. What we're gon na do. I didn't want uh. I did this a little different.

I thought about a few different ways to do the giveaway and i kind of pushed back on doing a giveaway um program. Okay, because i was worried about your guys's information, so instead, what i did was i created an email address within my domain. That only goes to me, your emails are not being shared with anybody. Nobody else has access to your emails.

I i was telling my wife that last night and she was like wow. I can't believe you thought about that, and it's like yeah, because i didn't want you guys getting bombarded with spam just because you entered a giveaway or something like that. Okay, so i made sure we did it that way. So what we're gon na do is look at my inbox right now.

I'm gon na refresh okay, um and we'll do these more often guys. So we have 731 people that entered this giveaway okay. So what i'm going to do is i'm going to do a random number generator between 731 people and i'm going to generate the number right now. So let me make sure my i can't show the names, because i don't want to out anybody on the emails, but i'm going to do a random number right.

Now, okay, we're going to generate it and the random number is 607, so the 679th email is the one that won okay. So i'm going to go back and i'm going to find email number 679. Give it just a second, because there's a lot of emails here. I'm scrolling through them right now and i will announce the winner now keep in mind uh.

We will ship this meter anywhere in the world and we do have to give thanks to field peace, because field peace is helping me out with this giveaway. So we're going to go ahead and go to. Let me look at that number again, 679 and let's go ahead and go right down here and see what email this is that one we need to go back a few more hold on just a second and i'll announce the winner right now. So the winner is josh t, okay, the answer that he put is correct.

I had two questions. The questions were uh. What was the voltage between uh line one and line two when i was doing the second phase rotation test and what was the name of the meter that i used? Okay, his answers are correct, so josh t i'm gon na go ahead and send you an email and uh. You are the winner, uh hold on just a second, let's see.

If i can spell this right, congrats josh make sure you respond to this email with the address and all that information and we'll respond back and forth and we'll get this meter shipped out. Okay, so um we will be doing another one of these soon josh the email's coming through right now, uh, i'm not going to say your last name, just josh t you're going to get an email from me right now, so you'll uh you'll be able to answer That so again, thank you guys very much for answering that and uh congrats bud. Okay, um we'll be doing another one of these very soon too. So, let's see what else we got.

Okay, i got a whole list of things all right. Let's re-up on this one, real quick, i think i'll do these things more often too. I don't want to do like giveaways all the time, because that's not really the style of my channel, but i do appreciate you guys so we'll definitely try to do this. A little bit more uh field piece is doing really good too ray ray said field pieces got it together, so, yes, they are they're, doing awesome all right um.

Let me see what else we got uh. I already did that. So in my videos, you know, especially when i'm working on rtus, why is the wiring always so messed up? Okay - and i get a lot of comments from other countries too saying you know in the united states, our wiring is so shady looking okay, i agree that we do things a little bit differently here in the united states um, but you know oftentimes. The reason like in this, this particular video, where i had the the package unit, that i was rewiring and doing all the wiring.

You know oftentimes it's because previous service technicians, when they go in to diagnose things if they can't read a wiring schematic and i'm not blaming them, because sometimes some wiring schematics are super hard to read, and the only thing you can do is just trace wires by Hand or, if you're, just looking for an electrical short oftentimes you'll cut the zip ties and start tracing out wires, but the big thing is is when you're done put the zip ties back on that's the biggest thing when you you know you got to think about These jobs - i always try to say this - you think about it, like someone's gon na, come and talk behind you, that's the biggest thing right now. Hopefully it's you that comes back next time, but what, if it isn't? You don't want to give anybody any fuel to talk crap on what you did. Okay, so always try to think about that when it comes to installs when it comes to service, you know, look at the big picture and always try to think that someone's going to come up behind you. It keeps you on your toes and keeps you honest for sure.

Okay, um, let me see what else we got: uh yeah, poor quality of work. It is true, okay, um and, let's see uh. What am i drinking today? Um? Well, i started out with i started out with i had some of these black porter butte again another organ beer. I've been drinking a lot of organ beers lately, but uh right now, i'm on a rogue rogue hazelnut brown's.

My my jam right now, so i drank that porter butte, whatever thing and then now it's on the road so have i used the supco defrost timers. I can't say that i have um. I don't know, though, are you talking about like the domestic residential style, refrigerator defrost timers, those little things? Yes, i've used those um, but i've never used anything else. So i don't know um, let's see exactly think of the next guy, because it can be you for sure.

That's a really important thing to do so. Um, customers. You know why are the customers - and i get a lot of comments about this too. You know people saying you know these customers are skimping on preventative maintenance.

The costs are through the roof. You got ta sympathize with the customers right now with these restaurants, they're barely surviving right now. Okay for all the restaurants that i worked with, i pretty much. I think everyone that i work with they all had to sell major portions of their company to make it through this crazy time right now.

Okay, they're doing anything and everything that they can to try to survive. So while it does frustrate me, sometimes that i get a call out in you know middle of the night and i got to clean a condenser that sucks. But at the same time, i'm super thankful that i have a job to go and i'm super thankful that they're calling me and i have the opportunity to be there to fix their equipment. I have to remember that because, yes, i get frustrated and i vent my frustrations you'll, see me on social media and different things like that.

Saying hey this sucks blah blah blah blah it's true, okay, but at the same time we have to remember in these crazy times right now, uh. We need to be thankful if we have the opportunity to work - and i know there's probably some of you guys out there that aren't working right now, okay, so um and i'm not trying to you know make it seem like i'm any better than anybody. I'm just a lucky person that gets to still work every day and i'm super thankful for that every day and i have to sometimes remind myself of it. But you know if they're not doing preventative maintenance, you know yeah, it seems like it would make more logical sense.

But when you think of some of these restaurant chains that have 600 800 1400 2 000 restaurants across the united states, if they did preventative maintenance at every one, you know they're, probably their expenses are probably going to be pretty high. So for them, my law, you know their logic is: is that they're going to cut preventative maintenance in hopes that they don't have problems they're, taking a gamble, because the odds are they're not going to have these same problems at every restaurant? You know so got to give them props they're doing everything they can to try jerry. Thank you so very much for that super chat. I really appreciate it that is so awesome.

Uh g bow and bone bowen one. What did i do today so today? I did a service call on a glycol unit. Actually the customer called me out there for one glycol unit and i found out it was actually two glycol units that were completely down two separate issues. You guys will see a video coming on it soon because i did shoot some film on it, but i was there for probably about six hours fixing two different glycol units.

It was pretty interesting, so have i ever heard about pressure thermostats? I can't say that i know what you're talking about with pressure thermostats. Well, do you mean using a low pressure control as a thermostat, because i have some videos where i talk about that, using the temperature pressure relationship on a refrigeration system with an expansion valve that doesn't have any solenoid valves or anything like that? You can use a pressure control to maintain box temperature. It doesn't work very good when you have remote equipment. When you have a condensed unit, you know 150 feet away.

It gets a little bit more difficult. You can still do it, but it works best when you have a self-contained reach in uh, not a cold rail or even cold rails, sometimes work, but you can use low pressure controls as a temperature controlling method. I've actually done a couple videos on that and if you look up on hvacrschool.com, that is brian orr's website and look up. Temperature controllers in the search bar of his articles you'll actually see an article that i wrote for him.

Talking about the different types of temperature controllers that we use in refrigeration equipment - and i actually go through the process of talking about using a pressure control as a means of temperature controller - i may have even done. I can't remember if i did a podcast with him about it or not. I don't know i've done a few things. It's been a while, since i've done something with brian, though i need to work on a new article for him um.

I really appreciate that. Randy. Thank you very much for that super chat, bud um. Let's see what else we got going on here, uh! No! I have uh hvac grandpa asked if i have worked on an emerson or a copeland, xjal low, temp condensing unit.

No, those are actually the condensing units that look like a mini split they're, all inclusive. They have a major circuit board in them. They've got ecm motors all that fancy stuff. No, i have not worked on one of those i've definitely seen them.

I've gone to classes on them, but i've never had the opportunity to install and or work on one so um all right. I'm gon na get to my list of things: uh, oh great, okay, roscoe, jackson, you have an interesting question. What do i think about misting air conditioning units in the desert? I think that you're asking for a world of trouble. What is okay, the concept of misting, an air conditioner, a condenser? What you're doing is you're using evaporation to drop the temperature or the condensing temperature of that equipment? So in theory it's a good idea.

Okay, but unfortunately we have extremely hard water here in southern california and most of southern california. I don't know where you're at so. You can filter that water to death and you're still going to get calcium coming out of that water. So as that water evaporates, the minerals are going to be left behind they're, going to build up and they're going to destroy your equipment.

Unless you have like crazy filtration on your equipment, okay, if you really really need to go that path in some of the dry areas, i i do have equipment that. Does that what you can do is you can take an evaporative cooler or swamp cooler, and you can actually blow on the equipment and drop the condensing temp that way and they won't get so much of the water mist on the condenser itself, but also that is Very inefficient because you're getting a lot of wasted air just blown across that your electricity bills are going to be high, but as you get into the desert, vegas arizona, southern california deserts. It's sometimes a must that you have pre-coolers and or you need to oversize your equipment, so you can drop the condensing temp. That way too uh be very careful, though um.

Let me see i'm gon na get back to my list of things here. Okay um! I was asked: oh, this is a great question. Okay, so i was asked by a residential sales, tech, okay and he was commenting about one of my videos and he wrote me a really interesting comment and i thought it was worth addressing. He said he would like to know.

Well, actually this is another one, i'm sorry, i'm jumping ahead. Uh. Let me see there we go. I was asked about uh.

If i had sales quotas to me, i'm reading his email verbatim. Okay, the point was made that on rezdy side - often - oh i'm sorry - i'm not reading his email verbatim. I'm reading my notes. Okay, so he was asking me if i have sales quotas to meet okay and he was trying to make the point that on the residential side oftentimes where he works.

If he goes out to do a preventative maintenance and there's no sales, that could potentially be made. That they don't spend time on that pm because there's no money to make okay with that mentality, um, i'm not knocking every residential company, but that is unfortunately, a mentality that is on the residential side. But it is also on the commercial side a little bit too, when we have sales quotas to meet oftentimes, it's not beneficial for us to spend four hours doing a preventative maintenance if we're not going to make any money from this preventative maintenance. Okay, especially on the residential side, because they sell that maintenance at a 29.99 maintenance fee right, there's no way to make money on that maintenance, so they should stop calling it a maintenance more or less.

If you're working for a residential company and they're selling a 29.99 or 199.99, you know check in whatever they call it, they shouldn't call it a maintenance. They should call it a give us an opportunity to come in and sell you crap sales plan. Okay, don't lie to the customer and say that it's a preventative maintenance or or mislead them, because you're not doing a of maintenance you're going in there and you're looking for sales opportunities. Okay, um, nothing wrong with that: you're a sales company.

Okay, just be honest, with the customer we're coming in here we're going to do a quick look over of your equipment. If we don't see anything major we're going to, let you know if you have any opportunities to improve your equipment so like that? Okay, but calling it a you know: 29.99 maintenance fee or something like that. That's bs! Okay! It's it's, not a maintenance! Okay. Now, on my side, i own my own company and no, we don't have any sales quotas.

Okay, we do preventative maintenance, but our preventative maintenance is preventative maintenance. Okay, we go out there and we do work and we look for opportunities, but we don't create opportunities and we don't walk away from something if we don't have opportunities, but for the most part most of my preventative maintenances. In the past, there was some that weren't priced quite right, but most of my preventative maintenance is now they're, basically time and materials. However long it takes me to do whatever i need to do is what i charge you now.

The customer can oftentimes say: hey, we don't want you to spend any more than fifteen hundred dollars on a preventative maintenance. Okay, so we go and do fifteen hundred dollars worth of work. My tech will call me at three hours and say: i'm all done and i'll say no you're, not you're gon na finish. Keep cleaning keep scrubbing blow drains out check this check that you know and while he's doing all that work, and i expect them to clean the equipment, change the filters clean, the evaporators you know, depending on you know what kind of a not to exceed value.

We have so we will oftentimes spend the time to do it right, but that is a true preventative maintenance, because we are there to prevent problems and we're there to find opportunities that could prevent downtime for the customer, the customer on the commercial side oftentimes, is concerned About downtime, okay, so if you think about a commercial restaurant back when things were going like they were before you know january, if the air conditioner went down in the dining room, the guests didn't want to sit at those tables where that air conditioner fed. So therefore, the restaurant lost out on sales, so it was beneficial for the customer to spend money to have us go in and maintain that equipment make sure it's working right so that way they didn't have that downtime. Yes, they had to spend money to make sure that didn't happen, but that's what they were trying to do: okay, oftentimes on the sales based companies; they're not there to truly prevent problems, they're there to find opportunities, and i'm not saying everyone. There is good ethical companies out there, but there's a lot of bad ones in there, too, okay, so um, if you're in that situation.

If you don't like that, then you know you got to do what's best for you and your family, and you know talk with your spouse, whoever that is and decide what you need to do. If you don't feel good, if you can't sleep at night because of the stuff that's going on when you're at work, that's kind of shady okay, um but again uh, i'm not trying to knock everybody for being a salesman. Okay, there's nothing wrong with salesman because uh, you know sometimes you have to, but you know it wouldn't work on the commercial side, really very much. Okay, because i deal with facilities, directors and you know they're they're, not looking for a sales pitch they're.

Just looking for someone to tell them what's wrong, so you can fix it. So all right um is my maintenance rate, the same as my service rate uh for the most part brandon, my maintenance rate is the same. Now i will say that in the past we would have like a preventative maintenance that we would charge the customer. You know 400 a month or something like that and we'd commit to spending four hours there or whatever.

That is in the past, when our hourly rates were a lot lower and stuff yeah, we could do that. We weren't making 100 of our money on that, but in getting the preventative maintenance, we were getting the repair calls too. Okay, so sometimes on the commercial side, you may discount your preventative maintenance, a little bit uh, just knowing that you're gon na get all the service work too um. You know that's kind of a give and take a little bit, but we don't really do that as much anymore.

We've kind of been trending away from that and it's more or less just basically a time of materials kind of a thing. But i still do have some customers, where the preventative maintenance rate is discounted. We basically a lot for four to six hours depending on a pm, and you get done as much as you can. We'll typically have like a checklist that we want the technicians to go through and essentially we're going there.

You know essentially our job guys and i'm going to give credit where credit is due. Jim bergman says this: we're glorified janitors: okay, i'm paraphrasing what he said, but we're glorified jennifers we're there to clean the equipment, we're there to make sure that it's operating properly. We change the filters we blow out the drains. We clean the condensers.

We clean the evaporators majority of the time if we're doing that the equipment's going to operate properly and then, when there's a downtime when something happens, a refrigerant leak happens or something like that. Then we get to repair it, but you know we're glorified janitors and you know that's what we do. We maintain equipment, but we maintain equipment for the opportunity to repair the equipment when it breaks so hopefully sometimes i have diarrhea of the mouth. Hopefully i didn't offend anybody with that rant that i went off on, but you know it is what it is.

So all right, um. Let me see what else we got going in here. Huh, our uh icm, 450 phase monitor is worth it. Um i've used phase monitors in the past uh in certain situations.

Uh, i don't know the icm 450. I think that's the one that i can picture in my head and i've used it in certain situations. Where i kept burning up a fan motor. We had some sort of an electrical problem and if it's the one that i think of, i installed it in a commercial application.

I've installed it a few times, but on a refrigeration, walk-in freezer equipment and basically anytime the voltage would drop or spike. I would have it shut down the control voltage to maintain everything was working properly. I like phase monitors so long as they actually work properly. Just remember that you know if you have a phase monitor that costs, you know 25.99 or whatever.

You know i'd be a little cautious about that. It should cost a few bucks. You know because you're going to get quality in that, so all right um. Let me get to my list here what device? Oh! This is a great one too.

So i get this question quite often too, so someone had asked you know when i'm using when i'm at work and i'm diagnosing equipment and i'm using my wireless probes, you know what what software am i using? What probes am i using so lately? I have been using the field piece, job link probes, but i will oftentimes toggle between the sporland smart, pro r probes, too. Okay. They both work really well. They both have a great bluetooth range, but i kind of go back and forth between the two or sometimes the cool thing about measure quick, which is the app that i use is you can mix and match all kinds of probes? So if i don't have enough of the job link probes, if i'm doing multiple circuits or different things like that, i can actually put other probes in there or if i want to do multiple evaporators different things like that.

You can use multiple sets of probes with measure quick, so i use the measure quick software. Quite often it's a great software, especially on the air conditioning side. It has on point technical troubleshooting features on the refrigeration side, it's still in beta mode. As far as the troubleshooting features, but i still love the app um and i believe that measure quick uh, they said it uh, jim bergman was actually just on the hvac overtime show, which i am on on friday.

Nights with my other buddies, um and jim had said that they uh finally synced up with the testo uh manifolds. I think the five series manifolds 510 or something i don't know the testo product numbers, but i know that measure quick is working with the testo products. Now too, so that's really cool. You can use all kinds of different stuff and you can use it all in together, which is really neat but yeah measure.

Quick is the app that i use. You guys will see it in my videos all the time i got. No affiliation with measure quick with jim, but it's just a great app and he did a great job, and you know something that jim had said on the overtime show that, i think is really important is try to support measure quick, okay, so think about it. That that app, that we use that we all take for granted is free all this data in that app is free.

Okay, well, up until now has been free. Now he did start selling some interesting reporting features and some other features with his qubits. So if you guys get the opportunity, buy a few qubits just to support the app it helps him to keep doing what he's doing in innovate. You know a lot of people out there say: when are you going to get uh? For instance, multiple super heats on measure quick or when are you going to do this with measure quick and they asked jim? I see it in social media things and facebook groups.

You know they're saying: when are you going to do this, but all that stuff that he does is usually free, so he's not making money off of that? So definitely help to support measure quick by buying the qubits. You know it definitely helps him out and will keep him doing what he's doing, i'm sure so all right, um, okay, this was another really technical question, but this was a really good question i'll get to the chat here in a few minutes. Okay guys. So if i'm missing anything on the chat, put it in caps lock feel free to post it again, you're not going to offend me.

If i don't answer your question, keep posting it until myself or one of the moderators says, i'm not going to answer it. Okay, so this question that i had this technician wrote this to me: i think he wrote it today. No, he actually wrote it last week. He said he would like to know and i'm reading this question how head pressure affects the low side of the system.

Does the expansion valve meter more refrigerant with very high head pressure? Does it affect cooling capacity if the unit's very high on head pressure, but isn't shutting down what if the expansion valve is just pressure operated and doesn't have a bulb? Can it cause flooding? So that is a really loaded question. So, let's, let's analyze the first part of that question, he would like to know how head pressure affects the low side of the system. Let's reverse that question: how does the low side of the system affect the head pressure? Okay, let's think about a refrigeration system, whether it be an air conditioner or a refrigerator. Okay.

What are we doing in refrigeration? Refrigeration applies to air conditioning and refrigeration. Okay. So what are we doing? We're moving heat? That's what we do in refrigeration, we move heat from one point to another: okay same thing, with an air conditioner, we're just moving heat; okay, we're taking indoor heat in the air conditioning mode or in the refrigeration mode and we're moving it to the outdoors okay. So, in a refrigeration system, let's not ask how head pressure affects the low side.

Let's ask how the low side of the system affects the head pressure? Okay. So, if we're moving heat on a refrigeration system, the evaporator is absorbing the heat from inside the box or inside the air conditioner, and it's moving it to the outside and pushing the heat out of the condenser fan motor. Okay, it's discharging relocating the heat outside. Okay, the definition of refrigeration is the absence of heat right or the definition of coal is the absence of heat.

So as we remove heat, okay, things happen in the system. So if we have a very hot box, our head pressure is adversely going to be affected. As the heat in our box or our space goes up, the head pressure or condensing temperature is going to go up now. If you have a really hot ambient temperature outside and you have a very hot box, you have high head pressure or you have a you know: high suction pressure, because the temperatures are directly related to the refrigerant right.

So we have a pressure temperature relationship as the the the temperature in the space goes up. The pressure in the system goes up on the low side and then, as it's going back to the compressor, that compressor is pushing that heat and it's going to discharge it out of the condenser fan motor okay. Now, as the outside air temperature raises, it's going to take a lot longer and it's going to be harder for that system. So think about it, like that, when you ask a question: okay, how does the low side, pressure or low side temperature affect the head pressure and that kind of helps you to understand and remember that in refrigeration and air conditioning, all we're doing is relocating heat from One point to another: okay, so we're taking the heat from in the box, we're pushing it out to the outside air: okay, uh, we're warming up the environment outside okay.

Now, with that theory and that same theory, we can also heat up the space by using a heat pump and a couple valves, and we can also heat the space by you know basically reversing the cycle all right now. The next part of your question does it affect cooling capacity if the unit is very high on head pressure, but isn't shutting down? I don't know about the shutting down part, because that doesn't quite make sense to me, but does it affect cooling capacity if the head pressure is high? Well, yes, just like i said you know if the box temp is high and you're trying to get that heat out. Okay, as you put it out to the compressor, it goes through the compressor the heat of compression raises the temperature and pressure of the system um. If the outdoor ambient is high, then it's harder for it to reject that heat into the ambient okay.

So, yes, the system is going to have longer run times to try to bring the box temperature or the space temperature down the higher the outdoor air temperature and or the higher the head pressure. Okay, uh last part of your question again super loaded question: what if the expansion valve is just pressure operated and doesn't have a bulb? Can that cause flooding, um, you're kind of confusing me with that? I don't know if you're talking about an automatic expansion valve or if you mean the metering device, okay, but in general yeah, if uh. If this, if well, no that's kind of a weird question. I don't even know how to answer that: okay um but uh.

In theory, you know if you now, i'm not even gon na, go there because that's a weird question: okay! So, but hopefully i answered everything else on your stuff right there um. Let me get to the chat here and see what else we got going on here. Uh, oh yeah. Let's, let's address this right now: real quick uh for those that are curious.

The contest winner was josh t okay for the field piece, sc 480 meter, um josh t i've already emailed him. Okay, uh you're, the winner uh, wherever you're located, make sure you send your information back and uh. Actually josh already responded and yeah gave me his information, so we're gon na ship that meter out to you josh, okay, so for those of you that came in here to find out the contest winner, it was josh t. Okay, let me go into here.

Look at these questions: real, quick, okay, uh, so i'm gon na look at the chat here for a minute and see if there's anything, i'm missing in here make sure you guys put your questions or comments in caps, lock and i'll try to get to them. Okay, guys um, let's see whatever ever work on geothermal. No, i live in southern california, where we have rather high ground surface temperatures. Geothermal is not something that i work on very often i do know there are a few geothermal units.

They also went into like ice bank units and things like that to try to save energy, but no i've never worked on anything like that. Um great question: what do i think about spoiling zoom, lock, frame flame, free fittings, okay, there's been many times. I have not had the opportunity to use the zoom lock yet, okay, but being that it's supported and um it's supported by sporland and sporland has been behind that product for a very long time. I got to give him credit, because sporland has always done a really good job, but have i had my hands on the zoom lock? Yet? No, in all fairness, i have not i've done training on them.

I should say i have my hands on them. I've held it at like trade shows and stuff, but i haven't used it on the field. Do i see a purpose for zoom lock, heck? Yes, i do. Okay, now i have worked in certain situations before where, especially in government buildings, large high-rise buildings.

I've worked in restaurants that are in like the bottom floor and i need to fix a leak on a refrigeration line and you have to get these hot work permits. You have to ask for permission: you have to have fire watches, it's insane guys what you have to go through in that situation. If you had enough room to fit the zoom lock in there, that would save you. So many headaches.

Okay, i don't know if it's true, but i don't know who told me this. I don't know if it was spoiling or someone else, but i heard that here in southern california, they're building a new football stadium for the los angeles rams or the new los angeles rams right, and i heard that that new stadium, the all the air conditioning systems, Were done in zoom, lock, i'd be kind of curious to know if that's true, but i have heard that that's very interesting. I will say that um in talking to spoilin uh, the the biggest issues that they have with the zoom lock is installer errors. People not following the installation guidelines that sporland has set up and going through the zoom, lock setup when they were doing demos for me and stuff and showing it to me at the ahr show.

That was the comment that i made to him is like look. You know what, if people aren't deburring this copper if they aren't deburring the outside and the inside of the copper or if they're deburring it too much. You can have some issues because it works off of o-rings and compression, so as you're sliding the fitting on the o-rings can get damaged by sharp copper and that can cause refrigerant leaks. Okay.