Ah, it's time to chill out and get ready for a mediocre Q A live stream. If you're old enough, grab yourself your favorite adult beverage and if you're not, stick with apple juice, put your feet up and relax. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the chat. And now let's cue up the intro music.

Thank you Foreign, Foreign, Thank you Foreign This live stream is brought to you by Heatcraft Refrigeration Find out more about them at Heatcraftrpd.com and what is up everybody? Welcome To the Hvacr videos, live stream or podcast if you're listening to this on the podcast platform. So uh, for those that don't know, I have a uh I've been uploading these live streams to the podcast platform if you just look up Hvacr Podcast it's on all social media platform I mean all podcast platforms? Um, and it's on this YouTube channel too, just under a playlist labeled podcast. So it has all my live streams and then any of the actual individual podcast episodes that I have done so. Um, I just released a podcast episode at least a few things over this last couple days, but I released a podcast episode that I did with my good friend Bill Russell over this last weekend.

Uh, and it was cool Bill and I actually recorded that a couple weeks back I just have been busy and haven't had the opportunity to actually record or to edit it so it's a good one. Bill and I want to start doing those more often and I want to have other people on too. just kind of discussing the restaurant side of things. and you know the stuff that we run into.

the air conditioning stuff. just you know. but my, you know I do things differently. Um I don't really want to have like a scheduled like set podcast every week kind of a thing.

I just want it to be natural. You know when it comes when we have something to talk about, we'll throw something out. so stay tuned. Uh and yes, Heatcraft is a sponsor of the live stream.

Um, and they'll uh be. We'll do some podcast episodes with them in the future too. So as we did last year, so stay tuned. but uh, welcome if you guys don't know who I am I'm Chris nice to meet you.

uh I started this YouTube channel as a way to start making kind of like training videos for my employees and then it morphed into what it is now, which is just a place to show the way that my brain works when I go through troubleshooting things right? I certainly am not an expert I certainly do not know everything. um I just know a little bit about a lot. Okay, and um, you know I just like to share the way that my brain works I know it's peculiar I have a very methodical way of troubleshooting and figuring things out and then also maybe even in a rational way of going about things if that makes sense because I know I'm kind of strange, so it is what it is. But yeah, if you guys do have questions, please throw them in the chat, put them in caps, lock or all capital letters.

It helps me to kind of see things. so um, oh, that is funny Mike B yeah I did actually I haven't even watched that video yet Bill told me about the phone call that I made to him. but I haven't made that video I haven't watched that yet. so I'll have to check it out.

Bill was telling me about it. But all right, let's see what I'm missing in here right now. Um, okay, so got a couple questions already in here and again, welcome to everybody that's watching all the different social media platforms that this is streaming on. Uh, you're free to watch it.

It really doesn't benefit me any differently which one you watch it on. But one thing I will say is there tends to be a lot more people in the YouTube chat and there's a whole conversation going on. So if you're watching this on any of the different Facebook platforms or Pages or profiles that it's streaming on or on LinkedIn or Twitter, you'll find that there's an entire chat going on in the YouTube chat. So if you want to interact with the chat, I suggest you check it out on YouTube but again, it doesn't really benefit the channel any differently.

Whatever platform you're watching on, it's just more for your enjoyment if you watch it on. YouTube You can actually interact with the chat and that's something that's really cool that I really enjoy about these live streams is the chat itself is a place to ask me questions, but it's also a place to get questions answered by others and have great conversations in the chat. There's there's a good group of people in there, a lot of regular people, and there's always all kinds of cool stuff. So that is also why it's so important that when you have things you want to me, discuss or want to talk to me about, that you put them in caps lock because that's how we differentiate for the most part between the random conversations that happen in the chat.

Usually things directed at me should be put in caps lock. So there we go, Right as usual. Got a couple things I want to cover and then I also want to get to your guys's questions and comments in the chat too. So um, reading through right now? Uh, let's see Jason uh.

Asked a question at the beginning of the stream and he was asking about your guys's locations. Uh, so I'm really curious everybody that's watching right now. no matter what platform you're on, where are you located, and what are the temperatures? Uh, right now. So here in Southern California in the Inland Empire Uh, specifically.

Uh, Harupa. Valley California which is kind of a suburb of Riverside Um, it is about. It was about 95 degrees today. Uh, we are moving our way into our second heat wave of the summer.

We're supposed to hit anywhere from 103 to 105 in the next couple days throughout the weekend, so it's going to be warming up. Um, we're going to get a little bit busier, but we've been trying our best to be proactive. Like for instance: I had a technician out at a service call today for a customer that does not do routine maintenance. He was working on an ice machine and of course every question I Ask every Tech that's at a restaurant right now.

Did you go up on the roof and look at the condensers? even if it's a just an electrical problem downstairs or something like that. Go up and look at the condensers, find out if they're dirty. When he went up there, all the AC condensers were dirty, the walk-in condensers were dirty, the evaporator condensers for the walk-ins were dirty, and their walking cooler was flashing. So we try to be proactive now.

I Don't expect that technician to clean everything today because I don't want him working there at five six seven, eight o'clock at night if we don't have to. But what we did was a really quick. we just grabbed some Viper aerosol in the can, a pump sprayer rinsed off the condenser for the walk-ins really quick, the walk-in cooler. We dumped some refrigerant into it because it was flashing meaning that it was low on charge, and we did a quick clean on the evaporator too.

It's really important that if you have a flashing sight glass on a refrigeration system especially a walk-in cooler, walk-in freezer. Um, and it's the summer time, you know you're not going to have any low ambient issues where it's going to try to run and the head pressure control valve is going to flood without enough refrigerant. All that good stuff, right? If it's just a summertime and you notice the sight glass is flashing, you don't want to necessarily dump refrigerant into it until you look at the shape of your evaporator coil and your condenser coil because those can skew some numbers and make some weird things happen. if your evaporator coil is completely impacted and not allowing air to flow through, or if it's iced up and Frozen and not allowing air to move through the evaporator uh, helping with the proper heat transfer, then your your refrigerant can act wonky.

Your sight glass can Flash Different things can happen so you always want to look at everything. Kind of take a big picture approach to it. even in the case of my technician today where you're just doing a quick diagnosis right? We're going to come back and we're going to properly clean everything. But before he dumped gas in it, he went, did a quick cleaning on the evaporator, quit cleaning on the condenser, made sure it wasn't nice stuff downstairs.

Then he went ahead and cleared the sight glass, added an extra half a pound just for good grace. Now the extra half a pound in that situation would be for the flooded charge. Now, normally we're not going to run into an issue right now with these high ambient temperatures, but this actually particular location is near it kind of gets an ocean breeze, so it does get to be into the the low 70s at night time and that actually can be a situation where the head pressure control valve can start to flood. so you always want to pay attention to that stuff.

But all right, let's see what else we got. But yeah, let us know in the chat where you're from and what your temperatures are. I'm really curious. Uh, let's see what else we got going on in the chat right now what alignment tool am I using do I recommend the one I'm using or other recommendations The good guy.

So in my recent video, I used a laser alignment tool I've been looking at that laser alignment tool for a couple weeks. It was about 400 bucks. It was, you know, kind of expensive for something that I don't think is the greatest laser alignment tool. Okay, the reason why I don't think it's the greatest laser alignment tool is because it mounts to the outside surface of the pulley or the sheave on each side.

Okay, pulley thicknesses can be different when it comes to the sheep. Hold on, let me grab a couple. Now What I have right here is two variable pitch pulleys or sheaves. whatever you want to call them.

I'm just going to call them pulleys. Okay, so you're typically not going to see two variable pitch ones on a system. You're going to see a fixed and a variable or two fixed. Okay, but the difference in the surface of each one of these because these are both made from different manufacturers.

and let's see actually no I lied these are both Brownies So these are both the same manufacturers, but still, the thickness on the outside of the pulley versus the inside might be different. So in a perfect world you use. if you're going to use a laser alignment tool, you want to use something that sits on the inside surface right here that looks at the straight across pitch between. You know the two pulleys like that where it shoots straight through.

But then you also want to look at the the left and right alignment of the pulleys 2 and the cockeyed pitch too. So do I think that laser alignment tool that I use that mounts to the surface is amazing? No, but for the price 400 bucks I mean that's still a little bit pricey. but compared to a high-end laser alignment tool that can cost well into the tens of thousands of dollars depending on which style you want to go with. For me, the one that I bought, it's going to work for what I need.

You're still going to have to do some eyeballing to make sure that the belts are aligned properly and stuff, but it's made by Best Torque I don't have the part number on me right now, but if you just look up Best Torque Laser alignment tool you can find it. it was. it was like 450 bucks or something like that and it's pretty cool. I mean for what it is, but it's not perfect at all.

Okay, look at that. my good friend Brett Wetzel is in the chat from the Advanced Refrigeration podcast. How's it going buddy? let me see what else we got going on in here. I'm scrolling through the chat so if I miss your guys's questions and I don't address them, make sure you repost them and I'll get to them again.

Okay, um, good old string still works great. Yeah, the string method is a good way too. but the string method. you know it.

There's there's pluses and minuses to every different method. Okay me personally my my standard way of aligning pulleys, sheaves, whatever you want to call them is by using a straight edge. If you can, a string that'll work a string you're going to basically look at how it sits. If you, if you run a string across four corners of two pulleys, you want the string to touch one side, one side, one side, one side.

If you have a string that only touches this side and the far side and it's not touching in the middles, well, then that means something's off there. Okay, so that that is a way to do it. Um, just like my laser that I was using where it shoots a laser across, you put on three little guides and it looks at it has a measurement device so you can line it up to the measurement device on each one. I Mean again, nothing is perfect unless you get into the super super high-end laser alignment tools.

Okay, so be cautious about that, but even straight edges, they can be hard when you're working on the smaller equipment that I work on in the Light commercial side. Because for a straight edge or a string to work, sometimes you have to be able to get your head into those positions to see if the straight edge of the string is touching on the different sides of the pulleys. and sometimes that's difficult to get your head in there to see that, you know. So that's where the the laser alignment comes in and it's pretty cool.

So um, let's see, you can use the lasers to align your tires too. Yeah, that is another way to do it for sure. Anyone else want to throw tenants out here? I don't have no tenants? Um, oh I I'm assuming you're probably working for someone who has tenants and stuff. Yeah, that's a possibility.

So um, let me see what else. So Jason Johnson says they have a SKF alignment tool I'm sure that's a pretty big uh, expense to buy something like that. Um, he said it was just it was 3K the shaft alignment tool was five to seven. K So what? Yeah, that is what's up Steve Everything Hvacr, How you doing my friend? All right? let me see.

um so uh, you know a common I I post a lot of content on social media whether it be shorts and different things and I also am posting on um, what's the new one threads threads by Instagram it's it's basically a Twitter clone. They like copied everything about Twitter and tried to tweak a few things. I'm on I'm on it and I've been posting on it a little bit. Um, it's interesting.

so if you want to find me again, all social media platforms at Hvacr videos the easiest way and then on Facebook I have a profile under Chris Stevens I think I have a profile under Chris Stevens on something else too. Um, yeah. but anyways, so check me out on threads if you're interested, give me a follow. Communicate on there too.

Um, but uh, you know I post a lot of content. a lot of short form content. What? I'm noticing with the short form content is that there's not enough time to give context. so you get a lot of pushback and a lot of comments of people being dumb on the internet.

you know, saying really ignorant things because they don't have a whole video to watch. see when when you have ignorant people. it's really easy when they watch a YouTube video and they leave an ignorant comment and I'm very familiar with the video. then I can say I can clearly tell you didn't watch the video I suggest you go watch to the end of the video and then usually their questions are answered on my YouTube videos.

What? I typically do I have to watch them typically three times when I'm editing them. Okay, so I watch them multiple times and I usually catch a good majority of the stuff that I do that's incorrect or things that I didn't clarify and I usually clarified at the end of the video. So I usually call myself out on my own issues before anybody has a chance to. For the most part, there's a few things I miss and some people call me on it.

Let me be clear too: I am not afraid of criticism and I appreciate criticism as long as you're not a jerk. Okay, so I learn from criticism I learn and I grow so I encourage you guys. If you have a criticism to give me, give it to me. You know? Uh, you know, if you don't want to put it in a public form, you can shoot me an email hvacrvideos Gmail.com but I'm not afraid to put them in the public form like let's let's talk it, let's have a discussion.

There's usually good discussions that go back and forth between multiple people. When someone wants to criticize and then maybe someone else gets to learn, it's a great way for everybody to learn. So I'm not saying don't criticize, please. If you have feedback, leave it okay, but be nice about it.

But one of the questions, uh in comments that I got a lot when I posted a short using a circuit breaker finder I used a circuit breaker finder to try to locate a circuit breaker in a panel. It's a 60 second video. you guys didn't get to see that I pre-ran the panel to calibrate the tool. then I went back and tried to locate the breaker and it gave me the incorrect breaker and then I found it and it gives me a false reading I do not have a very high end circuit tracer or circuit breaker Finder right? It's not a very fancy one and it's not super accurate I don't use it that often and if I need to, you know it does what it needs to do.

I check I try it doesn't work. You know that kind of stuff. So I do my best. But in that video when I showed myself trying to locate a circuit breaker, I did pre-calibrate the tool by running the entire panel before then I ran it again, it gave me an incorrect reading.

I Got a lot of criticism because I didn't simply just short the wire to ground to find the circuit breaker. All right. I'm gonna tell you guys. I Usually don't tell you this kind of stuff to say, don't do things but I highly suggest that you do not short wires to ground to try to find a circuit breaker.

In today's day and age, we have a lot of people that do not know what they're doing. They might be stealing a neutral from something else to power something. They might be sharing neutrals. They might be doubling up a breaker and putting another load on it that they shouldn't be putting on it.

So if you're tripping a breaker, you never, you know, purposely like shorting something to ground. You never know what you're going to do within the system. especially with all the inverter technology. all the computer systems we have inside restaurants like commercial heavy commercial, you just never know.

Now, if you take a wire and short it to ground, will it trip the breaker? It should. It should. That is the key word. it should.

But it doesn't. Always okay, it doesn't. always. There's sometimes that something's wrong and it doesn't trip an individual breaker and it might trip a main breaker.

Okay, maybe the breaker's going bad. Who knows? You don't want to take that risk. So I Highly suggest that you do not try to locate a circuit breaker unless you absolutely have to. that way.

I Highly suggest you try to use a circuit tracer or something like that. Okay, that's just my two cents on that one. Let me see what else we got going on in the chat right now. coming from a Kentucky guy, that's saying something.

I don't know what I'm missing there. But okay. oh, ignorance is bigger in Texas That's right. Do I think V belt might get changed to Flat Car style.

They have less friction equals Energy savings. No. I Don't think that a V belt is going to get changed to a car style. Um I I Just don't see that happening.

That would change an entire industry. I See belts being completely taken out of the industry before we change to a flat style bill? Um, and and there is a push right now and a big trend of getting rid of power transmission and going direct drive on a lot of stuff. So a lot of Manufacturers such as Captive Air I was just recently notified by them that they are no longer manufacturing belt driven equipment. they are only doing direct drive and that creates a problem sometimes.

Okay, because in my situation. I Work in desert climates where it gets extremely hot and you have an exhaust fan that's on a roof where it might get to 115 120 degrees on the roof, well inside that exhaust fans probably gonna be dang near 100 degrees hotter, maybe pushing up to 100 degrees hotter inside the fan. And that creates problems, especially for a lot of these manufacturers that pre-mount their variable frequency drives in the exhaust fans. Now, Captive Air does do that on their exhaust fans, and to to their credit, they suggest if you're installing their exhaust fence in high ambient climates that you relocate the Vfd into the conditioned space.

But when you're working on an exhaust system, something that a lot of people don't know is that if you have a Vfd variable frequency drive, you do not want to interrupt power after the Vfd in between the load and the Vfd without powering down the Vfd first, there's potential that you can cause some damage there. Okay, so you've got to be careful about how exhaust fans are wired. So if that's the case, if you locate a Vfd down into the occupied space and then you have a safety switch on the roof in case of emergencies. If someone doesn't know, theoretically they could turn the Vfd off, then power it back on too early and they can cause problems potentially.

So what you have to do is you have to make extra wiring within the system. So what I have to do on I've done it a lot on the captive there exhaust systems where we have a Vfd and we relocate it downstairs is I have to install a new safety switch that has a micro switch and then you have to break an occupied signal. So now you've got three-phase power coming onto the roof right and then you have to run two pair um, communication calm wire downstairs that goes into the Vfd that interrupts a comms or a occupied signal. essentially.

so that way when you turn off the disconnect switch or the safety switch, it opens a an auxiliary switch that basically tells the Vfd to power down until the safety switch on the roof is turned back on. Now, most people don't read instructions like myself. I'm very notorious for not reading instructions and most people don't know that now. I will say that you know the odds that you're going to cause an issue with the drive by powering down.

Between the drive and the load, it's pretty slim, but it does happen so you you want to make sure you wire things right and that's where when we're going to all this direct drive equipment. It's not cookie cutter, you know and these manufacturers have a lot of exhaust equipment and air conditioning equipment. Same thing, they just throw a Vfd in there and think like hey, let's just throw a Vfd in a package unit and it'll be perfect there. but they don't care that it's being hit by high humidity, high heat heat, low temperatures.

you know it just creates a problem. So in order to use this high efficiency equipment, install equipment with Vfds and different things, there's a lot of thought that goes into it. And it's not just a really quick slam it in and call it a day approach. Um, uh Josh Snowman Thank you very much for becoming a Channel supporter.

That is really awesome. So jaw says Josh has chosen to become a Channel supporter on YouTube through YouTube channel memberships and it's just a way to help support the channel. He's making a monthly commitment and you don't have to continue it. He can make one-time donation, then cancel it.

It is what it is, so that's really cool. but I really do appreciate that. Uh, crazy. Carl how's the Home Project going going Good man! I've been doing cut-ins on my registers I cut in uh, two more registers this past weekend.

It's a little difficult when I'm super busy at work and I was on call this weekend so I didn't want to get too too Head Over Heels involved. So I cut in two registers and then, um, just kind of prepped everything and I I'm very meticulous about the way I'm doing. I'm duck sealing the boots, going nuts, sealing the insides, the outsides, painting them, mounting the registers, leveling them. It's like a whole thing that I've been doing.

It's kind of my own craziness. All right. let's see what else we got going on in the chat right now. Um, what happens when direct drive gets up and drives away? Well, you know you got to be careful anytime you open a system to atmosis.

Okay, so I see you're having a comment right there. Okay, cool. Um, let's see system open. All right.

Reading through the chat right now. All right. what else do we got going on? If you don't have contaminated oil, just the liquid line, dryer, oil, contaminated suction dryer, or other means to clean up the mess, when will it be a channel? memberships for the overtime show that I don't know, Cyborg. Um, let me see what else we got going on in the chat.

What am I missing? I'm trying to get to the bottom of this question that someone asked or um, let's see Jordan Hinshaw is asking about filter dryers. Um, no need for a suction dryer. Unless okay, install liquid and suction dryers after a system exposed. You work in residential.

Oh, okay, got you. Yeah. So depending on the severity and I actually just did this, depending on the severity of the cleanup you need to do, you can choose to install suction dryers or liquid dryers. For the most part, manufacturers typically recommend that you remove a suction dryer after you install it.

Two points I Want to make if there's not a pressure drop, suction dryer is not a problem. Okay, if there's not a large pressure drop, it's not a problem you can leave it in, but you need to be very careful because pressure drops can you know happen without you knowing. and then you're going to have a restriction on the suction side the low side which is going to cause compressor overheating and cause issues low system pressures. So be cautious about installing suction dryers unless you're going to monitor the system in a normal regular basis.

Okay, next thing. Uh I just installed a walk. actually I wanted to talk about that. it's on my list of things to talk about, but I just did a compressor replacement.

Uh, posted a video about it and it blew the terminals out of the compressor. but I analyzed the entire system, swept the system with nitrogen. Um, made sure that there wasn't contamination as best as possible, and then I only installed an HH core liquid line filter dryer. Okay, so sometimes you may choose to install just a liquid line dryer.

but for the most part, if you're doing a system repair and it's not an acid burnout, it's not a contaminated oil situation. a liquid line filter dryer anytime you open the system to Atmosphere. So anytime you make a leak repair, anytime the system runs out of refrigerant, Anytime the atmospheric pressure can enter the system, you want to change the liquid line filter dryer. The liquid Line Filter dryers for the most part are typically made of a desiccant hold on.

so this is a cutaway of a spoiling catch-all. And uh, this is their desiccant style and this right here is very absorbent of moisture. So it it absorbs moisture and it can become restricted once it absorbs too much contaminants. so you want to be cautious about that.

So anytime you open a system to Atmosphere the proper way to do things is to change the liquid line filter dryer or suction line filter dryer. You know, wherever you're going to go with that, Um, let me see what we got here. Hold on just one second. Uh, let's see.

I see Brian Sanders said favorite Bond character Connery or Craig uh Pierce Brosnan My friend, Come on. GoldenEye Favorite right? I mean Sean Connery was pretty darn good. but Pierce Brosnan and GoldenEye come on my friend, come on you, you can't discount that one. Daniel Craig is really really good.

Daniel Craig reminds me of like a Jason Statham character where he just keeps going. man just keeps going. But Pierce Brosnan and Sam uh and uh Sean Connery both brought character and attitude to the Bond characters. So and I'm sorry if I'm sacrilege and saying that, but I really do like Pierce Brosnan as the bond character.

So um, let's see what else we got going on in here. Uh, so Liquid Line even if system was opened on Vapor side 100 Jordan Now if your system has a suction line filter dryer, then yes, you need to change it when you open it to Atmosphere Okay, now keep in mind and the reason why I say this is there's a lot of refrigeration manufacturers and ice machine manufacturers that will ship their ice machines and Refrigeration condensing units with suction line filters that do not have drying capabilities. They're literally just a heavy duty screen. basically.

Okay, so those I'm gonna say that you don't need to worry so much about changing out if you open the system to Atmosphere but it's still probably good practice to change out a suction Line Filter But there is a difference between a suction line filter and a suction line filter dryer. Okay, Sporlin and all the major manufacturers make both, so keep that in mind. All right. Um, let me see, let me see what else we got going on in here.

Uh, where do I look to find good employees? I mean you know I found great employees uh from Word of Mouth from friends I've found great employees from going to uh Local Schools Uh, it's it's a hard process and it takes time you know. Uh, let's say that you know if you're hiring an apprentice or a green technician, you definitely need to hire on personality if they have Mechanical Aptitude you can teach them the trade but it's hard to teach them personality and people skills. Okay, so keep that in mind. that's my opinion on that.

Um, let me see. Uh What uh we send our Chiller off. Okay, so reading through the chat right now um, at home am I oversizing ducting for quieter, slower velocity? No. I am not over sizing anything.

Now we are sizing my ductwork properly. So we are downsizing actually everything. but we're very carefully selecting boots and registers. We are not just going off of common rules of thumb.

So I want to say that my biggest duck size uh, as far as a branch duct is a nine inch duct? uh and then I go all the way down to S I think one of them is actually getting a five inch duct? I'm doing a lot of sevens. um, one or two eights. I believe my trunk line is going to be a 14 I think if I remember right? So uh, we're not doing common sizes, you know? Um, I'm cutting in new registers and Boots into every room. And what we're actually doing on spoiler alert is we're taking the existing registers in each room, we're going to turn those into transfer grills and we're going to have jump bumper ducks that go into a common Um transfer Grill in the hallway.

So we are not running dedicated returns to every room to try to reduce the amount of duct leakage potential. So we're just doing transfer grills from each of the bedrooms. The rest of the house is just going to have a central return and then we're just doing. you know, just Standard supply stuff.

But we are being very careful in the way that we selected our registers. We went with very high-end registers from Krueger and uh, it's it's It's a pretty lengthy process. So and and again I'm learning I'm not just pulling this all out of my butt. my buddy Adam Muffets from the Overtime show is the one that's really helping me to size everything and make sure that the design is done right.

I'm more or less just doing the the footwork and installing and you know, giving input in different places. So um, let's see uh at home. Okay, so I already asked that one? Um, all right. Uh, so I already talked about shorting wires to ground.

Not a good idea. Okay, what's my opinion about the best ice machine manufacturer out there? I Had a question through an email from someone. Let's answer this: What's the best ice machine? Well, that's going to change from service Technician to service technician to company to company to region to region. Okay, so my favorite ice machine may not be someone else's favorite ice machine to work on.

So I have two favorites. It's typically going to be a Hoshizaki or a Manitowoc ice machine. Okay, but does that mean that the other ones suck? No in my explanation for this is that I am very the better way to explain this is: I am very comfortable working on Hoshizaki ice machines and Manitowoc ice machines. I'm very comfortable with it, but another company might be more comfortable with an Isomatic and a Scotsman or um Ice Trail and you know, whatever insert name of whatever brand Follet or Vote or whatever right? I've worked on a lot of different ones, so to go out and Trust what? I say as my favorite ice machines to work on I Wouldn't take that depending on where you're at, you need to have a relationship with a good contractor.

Understand something: If you buy an ice machine, it's gonna break. It's inevitable. You're not going to find an ice machine that's not going to break. You're not going to find a refrigerator that's not going to break.

You're not going to find any piece of equipment that's not going to break. So your best bet is to buy equipment that your contractor is comfortable working on. Okay, now there is some brands that have more breakdowns than others. Okay, so there's a give and take on that I prefer Hoshizaki or Manitowoc but as of late, Hoshizaki has been slipping a little bit with their evaporator quality.

but Manitowoc you know, has been having a hard time getting parts lately. So I mean it's a give and take. Uh, let's just say this. I'm kind of thankful that I don't sell a lot of refrigeration equipment to the customers and the customers buy it themselves because the amount of breakdowns on all equipment is insane and I'd feel kind of messed up if I was saying this is the best ice machine I'm going to sell you this one and then the customer buys it and the brand new piece of equipment doesn't work.

This is happening with all manufacturers right now so it's kind of a pain. So find a brand that your contractor that you trust and that you work with is comfortable working on and that is what I would say would be the best Ice Machine brand. Or you can use that for any other piece of equipment too. Um, let's see.

reading through here two things go wrong with the Quiet Cube Manitowoc they work or they don't No, uh, quiet cubes. Um, they have fan cycle switch failures is a is a really big issue obviously cleaning stuff and then uh Harvest valve issues. Uh, and typically the Harvest valve issues are more or less contamination issues in my opinion and the fan cycle switch failures in my opinion are lack of maintenance equipment running with dirty condensers all the time running higher currents. Uh, you know, running with bad capacitors, people not doing routine maintenance causing High currents which the fan cycle switches in my opinion are not designed to handle so they tend to start sticking and failing.

That's again, just my opinion I have no scientific fact to solve that. Okay, all right, let's see what else the chat has to say. Are there any contactors with silver on the points that would last longer? Yeah, you can still get high-end contactors that have silver on the points, but you're not going to find those in your off-the-shelf cheapy contactors that you know you get from the supply houses. You're going to have to buy high-end um, specific Duty rated contactors and you will get the higher end ones.

You're going to have to get those from major electrical suppliers, places like Grangers and things like that. They're going to be quite expensive, so be ready for that. Um, what are the best ways to get new accounts? So that's a good question. I mean so I Don't know if I'm quite equipped to answer that question because a lot of my accounts have been Word of Mouth relationships that my dad when he started the company 30 years ago built and I have maintained and continued.

now. My dad still works in the company, but he's doesn't really have a very active role in it anymore. Uh, I'd say he's got three feet out the door. he's semi-retired Um, so you know it's my responsibility to maintain these relationships and build these relationships and continue them.

So our relationship started from right now, our company. The accounts that we have have all started from to customers that my dad had from 30 plus years ago and Word of Mouth from those customers managers have left and gone to New Concepts new restaurant chains and they've brought us over and brought us over and it's been word of mouth. So um, that's you know. and then and then I have new I haven't really taken on anything new, but I do have a lot of people reaching out to me from videos like they see my videos and they want me to do their service work kind of stuff.

Um, but I haven't taken any of those new customers yet. Even though I get a bunch of emails, nobody's quite fit my criteria quite yet. So um, let me see. Uh, Jci P266 is the best fan controller out there in his opinion.

Interesting is that the digital one the the Pen digital 266. I I think that might be that one. Um, don't know how many melted fan cycling switches he has seen might be? it's it's countless. It is countless.

So many fan cycling switches it's ridiculous. Um, see what else we got going on in the chat. Customer service is everything that is a hundred percent all right. Uh, so uh, had a video where I had a compressor blow a terminal out and I had a lot of questions about this and this happens anytime people ask me these questions all the time.

I did not use any acid neutralizers and I did not use any flushes besides nitrogen to flush the system and oil. Okay, so how come I don't use a flush? How come I don't use an an acid scavenger or uh, acid neutralizer or whatever additive that you add to the system I used to use all that stuff and to be fair, the early part of my career I used acid neutralizers I used acid flushes and all kinds of different stuff and to date I don't think I've ever had a problem with any of them that I knew of okay and I still service a lot of the same restaurants, but the equipment has since been replaced on majority of it. After learning a lot in the last 10 years and and gaining a lot of knowledge, I've realized number One manufacturers are very deceptive in their marketing and I'm talking about aftermarket manufacturers that market their flushes and their neutralizers and their additives. A lot of them are very deceptive and they love to be able to put on their marketing products that say OEM Approved OEM approved.

What does that mean? Original equipment manufacturer? Okay, which one? Well, uh yeah, sometimes they'll name a compressor manufacturer. but did you know Copeland compressors in order to get them to approve an additive to add to a system? whether it be a die, whether it be a flesh, a neutralizer, um, you know, whatever insert name of whatever additive you want to add Copeland Compressors makes the manufacturer pay for extensive testing sometimes into the hundreds of thousands of dollars to test their products just on one application that that compressor might be used in. Okay, so there's some manufacturers out there that may have gotten an approval from Copeland to use this additive in their compressor in one specific application. That does Not mean that it is approved across all applications of Copeland compressors.

Okay, so a lot of people don't realize that. and if you just read what's on uh, the marketing materials on the outside of a box that says OEM approved. What does that mean? What? OEM in what application is this approved? Okay, for the most part, it's pretty safe to say that if it didn't come in the compressor, it's not approved by the major manufacturers. Okay, now there's some exceptions.

There's some manufacturers that will approve certain things. Okay people to add certain flushes or certain neutralizers or different things like that. But let me ask you this: If you put an acid neutralizer in a compressor, what does it do? It neutralizes the acid? Okay, what does it do with when it neutralizes it? Where does it go? It sits in the oil. Does it get stuck in the dryer? What happens when you neutralize the acid? Okay, where's that What? What explained to me the process.

Okay, so once I really started thinking about a lot of that stuff and realizing that there's a lot of deceptive marketing when it comes to all these aftermarket chemicals that they want you to add to these compressors and these refrigeration systems, you start to realize, oh, that isn't approved? You know, Did you know that for flushes? Most manufacturers are going to say that you never want to flush to enter a compressor. Okay, so you might be approved to push it through the line set, but you're not necessarily approved to push it through the evaporator and have it get stuck in the evaporator and leave a residue in there. Someone might say that, okay, if you use a flush, well, it's going to evaporate and there's not going to be anything left. Well, no, that's not necessarily true.

There's going to be some sort of a compound left. Okay, um, you know when it comes to these things and a lot of people don't even know when you use like a flush. When you use a chemical flush that you put into a system and then you have to sweep it with nitrogen, you're actually supposed to create a massive restriction on the end and let pressure build up and then slowly let that flush. Escape So that way it can scrape the walls of the pipe and push through.

But the question is, what chemicals are going to be left in the system after the fact? And a good majority if not almost I'd say 90 percent of our refrigeration systems have Polyoester oil in them. Polyester oil has a great great ability to clean the system and scrape the walls of the pipe and bring all that residue or whatever's potentially left in the system back to the compressor oil and what's going to happen to it we don't know. Okay so to to say again, the beginning part of my career: I used a lot of these additives and a lot of these flushes and as far as I know, I never had any problems but I have since stopped using that stuff because it just doesn't seem right to me. So I don't use any of that now I just sweep my system with nitrogen.

You saw in the video where I was doing some research and it looked to me that majority of the contamination was actually just in a section of the discharge line. I went ahead and poured some polyester oil in there, let it sit for a minute, flushed it out, put some more in there, just purged it with nitrogen, cleaned it out. So the only thing I added to the system was nitrogen which we purged out. we pulled out when we pulled our evacuation and Polyoester oil which I pushed out now.

I would like to get one of those systems that shoots little like, um, foam they call them pigs or whatever through the system to kind of scrub the walls and stuff. Those seem like good ideas. There's a couple manufacturers that make those, but you have to be careful in refrigeration systems if you're just doing a residential mindset. for the most part those those little foam pigs.

They're going to make it through the lines and you can back push them if they get stuck or something. But in refrigeration systems, there's lots of little access fittings and different things that inject or that that stick into the pipe that can cause a spot for that little pig to get stuck. And I'm a little bit worried about using those. I Would probably like to pick up one of those systems, but you'd have to cut it in multiple places, cut the compressor out, shoot through a section of pipe, clean it out, and go back and forth.

You know it's kind of a pain. Um, if you're going to flush the system, remove the TXV from the refrigerant circuit. That's a good idea. so definitely is.

Uh, they have uh, got chemicals for controlling pH Now for Boyer boilers? Yeah, very interesting deceptive marketing with everything you buy anywhere that is a hundred percent. Um, see what else we got going on in the chat right now? Uh, rule of thumb for a 1500 square foot single story house with a basement? What size coil should you use? Uh, I'm gonna say don't ever use a rule of thumb and I hate to tell you that, but you really shouldn't because there is no rule of thumb. what direction is your house facing? What direction does the sun come up? Uh, how's the insulation in all the walls? What? What? our value is your windows? What? um, do you have on the outside of your house siding? Do you have stucco? Each one of those has a different Um R value. It has a different uh.

heat infiltration? Uh, rejection value. essentially. Okay, so every load, even in a track house of cookie cutter homes, can be different. What happens if you know there's a bunch of really crappy insulation, Or what happens if you have air leakage in the wall cavities Or the the the house is not sealed to the foundation or the floor or the crawl space.

What happens if you have an unconditioned crawl space under your house that doesn't have a vapor barrier in it? There's so many variables. So, and this is stuff that I'm just learning myself to. I Suggest you don't use rules of thumb when you are sizing your equipment and that you actually do a proper manual J load calculation. It's not that difficult.

There's all kinds of softwares out there that can do it for you. or there's people out there that can do it for you. They can do a manual J And then after you do your manual J Manual T manual s you can go through all the different calculations to size your equipment. your Ducks your, um, uh, your heat infiltration.

All that different stuff and it needs to become a standard for sure. Uh, do I have fresh air intake? Yes, I am bringing fresh air into the house, but this is all a work in progress as we're doing things. so yes, um, let's see what else we got going on in the house. Uh, reading through the chat right now: best pair of sunglasses to buy! Aaron So um I actually use uh, safety glasses for my sunglasses from a company called Bomber.

They're I have no affiliation with them, but they're actually floating eyewear for like Surfers and kayakers and stuff. but they're actually really nice. They're ANSI approved uh, safety glasses and then you can get them with polarized lenses. Um, they're relatively inexpensive I used to buy expensive sunglasses like 150 100 sunglasses right? but then I found they'd get scratched and they get all messed up.

I used to wear arnettes and Oakleys and all kinds of different ones Ray-Bans whatever. but now I just go with those bomber glasses. They work perfect for me. They're like 60 bucks a pair.

I buy a pair for personal I keep in my personal car I pay a pair for work and then I buy safety glasses from them. They're all the the the sunglasses are all polarized. the safety glasses are just good safety glasses and they're all ANSI approved. um glasses.

So that me personally I don't buy expensive sunglasses anymore. So um, let's see what else we got going on in here. Uh, let's see. use the Sears calculation.

Yeah, no. Um, so I already answered that question. Cool Let's get to the okay. so let's talk about codes.

Okay, this is something that I've heard many times in my career. and I fully, uh, believe it. Okay, just because you have a code book for the electrical code or uh, the the code that says you have to install your ductwork this way, or um, you know, the refrigeration codes or the building codes. Different things, right? A code is a minimum standard.

Okay, so just putting things to code is not necessarily the best in all cases. Okay, a code is just a minimum standard. That means that is the minimum quality standard. You need to install that system, but you can certainly go better than code.

Okay, so keep that in mind when you're designing things within reason. When you're sizing things when you're setting equipment up, always use code as a guideline, a minimum standard, and then use common sense and the customer's budget and work your way through that, right? Everything as much as possible needs to be aesthetically pleasing. It needs to look good. It needs to be functional.

That's really important, and code doesn't necessarily take into account looks and function. Okay, code is more or less for safety is the backbone of it, right? So keep that in mind. Um, Uh, Mike B says Mike Holmes talks about minimum code. It's just that minimum that's exactly right.

So uh, there was a a video that I did a long time ago where uh, it was an air conditioning unit. electrician came out and uh they didn't They they pulled the new feed all the way down to the main panel but they didn't pull the ground and I got a lot of people pushing back on me. There was a Ground Up on the Roof because it came up seal tight and then or no, it came up EMT and then went sealed tight to the unit and they ran aground in the seal tight. Technically correct because if it's more than six feet and again, it can change everywhere.

but if it's more than six feet, uh of seal tight, you're not supposed to have uh, no ground in it. Okay, but what in this situation someone was quoting actually just commented on this the other day they were like but I was in my video I was saying this sucks they they used to be a ground wire going all the way down to the panel and there's no longer a ground wire and people are like well it doesn't have to be a ground wire. Yes it does because that system had a hundred amp breaker. Okay, so just the fact that it had 100 amp breaker, it needs a ground wire going all the way down to the panel.

Okay, that is code even if it has metallic seal tight, it needs a ground wire if it has a 100 amp breaker and then on top of that, um, it was bigger than inch and a half conduit. That's another deal breaker for no ground. If it's bigger than inch and a inch and a quarter I think I think inch and a quarter minimum. Anyways, codes are going to change, but you know codes are minimum standards.

In the old days they would use seal metallic seal type conduit as a ground for systems that had Breakers under 20 amps and different things. but it's still not a good idea just because you can not run aground in something that has flexible metallic seal type conduit. If you meet code doesn't mean you should Because seal tight conduit can break and wind seal tight condo. it gets old and it breaks and if you were using that conduit as your ground when it breaks, theoretically you no longer have a ground.

Okay, that can be a problem, People can get hurt. So code may say that you can run seal tight without a ground. But is it a good idea? Yeah, probably not. Now Have I ever ran a system without a ground? Yeah, yeah, you know I have.

But you know, try your best not to do that right. It's very important. Do I own my own company? If so, do I have any tips on how to start an HVAC company? So yes, I do own my own company? now. But to be fair, my dad started the company and built the foundation.

Do I have any tips on starting a company? The number one tip I'm going to tell you on starting a company is just because you're an expert mechanic doesn't mean that it's time to start a business. Okay, if you're an expert mechanic, that's just one small portion of running a business. You need to be an expert in business. You need to be an expert in people skills, you know, in finance and all this different stuff.

So there's a lot of variables when it comes to starting a business. So first off, you need to be an expert in your trade. and then you need to learn the business side of things and then work your way into potentially starting a business. Uh, throwing a switch on a 1500 amp motor starter? Get? yeah? Exactly.

That does. Sounds crazy. Um, what else we got going on in the chat? Reading through here. Okay, all right.

Uh, so I already answered that one. Um, let's talk about evaporative coolers. So in a recent video, I rebuilt a make a pair unit that had an evaporative cooling section that had a standing sump of water and I got a lot of pushback saying those are dangerous. They are.

They are a standing sump of water. Running across an evaporative pad is a breeding ground for bacteria. It's very, very bad and it can cause all kinds of contaminants and different things inside the building space. and it can spread bacteria.

It's not a great idea. A lot of Manufacturers are going away from standing things of water right? and they're going to, um, basically timer-based solenoid valve controlled water flows and different things. If you are going to do evaporative cooling, um, you know, in a perfect world, you don't have any sort of evaporative cooling for tempering the air and you have, uh, you know, some sort of a Doas unit or a low-cost DX cooling. So that's just a standard refrigeration system pre-cooling the air before it goes back down into the building.

But you know you got to do what you got to do. If that's the kind of equipment that a customer has now, of course I Don't recommend selling an evaporative cooler I Always recommend selling some sort of a DX cooling package or a dough as if you can. But Doas units are high high priced, expensive equipment. So uh, let's talk about that.

The other thing about evaporative coolers is that they add latent load to the building. The easiest way to explain that is they're adding humidity to the building. Okay, so it's not just humidity though, because when you add latent load to the building, you are adding, uh, more work to the air conditioning system because the air conditioning system. the building is going to try to cool the building.

and now they have to remove that latent load right? It adds more of a load to it and it creates a problem in trying to cool the rest of the building. So lots of variables to consider when you're having makeup air units that have evaporative cooling. Um, Eric Had a great question and uh, he asked me how old I was I'm 40 I just turned 40. he's 39 and he said, you know he's really curious.

You know he's starting to wonder how much longer he can do this now I I'm paraphrasing from his question but I don't think he says he can't work anymore but I think he says that he's starting to look at the big picture here and he's starting to think about his end game and he's starting to wonder how much more of the abuse his body can take. that. This trade gives it right and this trade can be very abusive to our bodies. I myself have gotten multiple things in my eyes over the years.

it's you know. I have all kinds of scarring on my retinas I Can I Can guarantee you that if you ever get something stuck in your retina if it's just a basic, you know, little piece of metal or something like that just stuck in your eye I Can probably walk the doctor through the process because I've had it done so many times. Where you go into the room, they turn off the lights, they lay you down on a table, they bust out a UV light and that has a magnifying glass in it. They put a solution in your eye that kind of numbs your eye, then they put like a a a fluorescent dye in your eye and it highlights all the scratches in your eyes.

Then the doctor looks at it and then he talks about the potential damage to your cornea and your retinas and all those different things. and then they remove whatever it is and then they give you an antibiotic to put on your eye and then you know a couple days later your eye stops feeling dry and itchy and then you move on right? I've been through it so many times, but it's funny as I talk about it but it's also dangerous right? I've gone through so many, so much time in my career where I didn't take care of myself, where I didn't use kneeling pads, where I didn't lift with my legs, where I didn't use hearing protection and now I honestly think I'm paying the price for it because it I have some hearing issues you know, and um I've got all kinds of stuff going on. So how much longer is is 39 getting towards the end of what you can do in this career? No. I don't think 39 is getting towards the end.

but I think as you start to hit middle age 39 40 years old, you really deaf. Definitely start thinking about how much you've abused your body. And you start you're really starting thinking about safety. And and I think to the younger generation in this trade, we need to preach more about safety Now we don't need to make them.

You know sissies that don't want to do anything, but they need to understand that you know this is a job, even if it's a career for them. This is a job right? So you know you, you hurt yourself permanently. the job's gonna move on. but you're not.

You get where I'm going with there. So so don't abuse your body to to try to get a job done. It's not worth it right? So you want to continue to work and you want to continue to be able to be a technician So you got to take care of your body. You got to think smart.

Yes I can lift a compressor Yes I can do a compressor change out by myself. But for the most part I Quote compressor changeouts with two people Okay, that's just what it is. my customers. they understand because I tell them look I could do it but I'm going to be broken tomorrow.

So I'm gonna re you quote this at two people So I have one guy and we're going to split the up and down the ladder. I'm going to be up there working and I'm going to have someone else getting parts for me back and forth. You know? So take care of yourselves, make your body last longer, right? Um, had Sparks removed before then they have to drill out the rust. Oh yeah, uh.

let's see. Jason Johnson I had a nasty burn from a 3 400 pound Chiller that let go on him 134a sucks to get burned by yeah And being married too long is an occupational hazard as well. I'm not laughing at that Mike because I'm happily married. Okay, don't don't get me in trouble over here.

Flash Burns Suck. Um, yes. Exactly Okay, all right, let me see what else we got going on here. Cool, uh.

Crane signals. So I did a video where I discussed that the crane operator didn't know the hand signals. Now understand something. It wasn't as big of a deal in the video in in reality it really wasn't that big of a deal.

I was directing the crane right and I was telling him to boom down right? No! what was I telling him I was telling him to Boom up I was saying giving them the signal for boom Up right, Boom up and he started hoisting the load up and I said no, no no no no no I needed him to Boom up because or it was Boom down. Whatever it was, he didn't know the difference between hoist and boom. Okay, so I was trying to tell him to do something and It took me a minute to realize what was happening because he wasn't listening or he didn't know the difference and then when I talked to him after he was like oh yeah, everybody uses different hand signals and I'm like okay, but that's why you know we use the right hand signals. okay and I did discuss with everybody before these are the hand signals we're going to use so that's what made it kind of frustrating.

So I had another crane job a couple days later and I discussed with that operator too from a different company and I was like look, we just had this issue so you know normally we talk to you about this stuff but I need to be clear what and this is what I asked the crane operator I said I know the proper hand signals but what hand signals do you want to see? You know and he's like and I showed him the hand signals that I wanted to use and he goes. those are perfect. That's what I want to do. Okay so yes, it is important to have pre-safety meetings.

Always do that. Always talk to my guys before the meetings. remind people refresh their brain. don't walk down to the load making sure that you know everything's good.

Paying attention to here. this is the direction we're going to swing the boom. that kind of stuff. Here's what happens if something happens.

Here's the plan. You know that kind of stuff. We always have safety meetings before for sure. Um, so I Had a friend reach out to me it's actually a family member and she knows that I make social media content and she has a a friend that had moved somewhere else in uh, another state in Nevada and they're having a lot of issues.

This person bought a brand new home and it's been nothing but headaches through the heating season and I'm sure they're experiencing issues through the cooling season now and this particular person has reached out to me and they're saying hey, do you have any guidance that you can help me with because she was the person was more concerned with the temperatures in the winter because it wasn't heating a certain portion of the house and so I instructed the person I said look, you need to get a hold of a reputable contractor and these are some things that I told them I Said first and foremost, your Builder is not going to solve your problems I know you want the Builder to solve them, but the only way you're going to get that solved is by taking the Builder to court. In order to take the Builder to court, you need a reputable contractor that does the work and that does it right and it's going to be a pain in the butt. You're probably going to be out of pocket a bunch of money. So the next thing I told the person was you need to call a reputable contractor and you need to request these tests I Want to load calculation done on your house I Want a duct calculation done I Want to look at the floor plans of your house and I want you to have that contractor go through and evaluate everything and find out and audit your existing system and find out where the problems are.

This particular person reached out to multiple contractors and I One thing I told this person too was you do not want to get free estimates. Free estimates don't mean crap. Okay, you need to find a contractor that wants to charge for an estimate that wants to give you a thorough thing. So that way they know this isn't just about sales, this is about fixing your comfort complaints.

Okay, so don't find someone that says they're going to do something and come out and spend all this time doing these load calculations and you know not charge you for that. That's baloney. Okay, you want a contractor that's going to charge you for that and this particular person has yet to find someone that can do all this stuff. Now they have found contractors that have good Solutions but they have yet to been able to get a proper load calculation done on their home.

Uh, you know and it's It's sickening and it's sad that this is happening across the country. Home builders I Know a major major one of the biggest Home Builders out there that bought a residential air conditioning come company in my local area. so now they partially own a residential air conditioning company and uh, I imagine that they're just using that for purchasing power and different things for their track homes that they're building. You know it's It's getting sadder and sadder when you have these big corporations that get involved in contractors and different things like t