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 this oh a oh what is up everybody, how are you doing this evening? afternoon? What? I guess it's evening for probably most of you guys. Late afternoon here in Southern California it has been warm.

it has been very warm. so uh, got a couple questions already in the chat that I want to answer. but I want to catch you guys up because it's been a while I haven't been here for a while, haven't released any videos uh this week and I've missed two or three live streams. So uh, you know, it's definitely been a while since you guys heard from me and uh, let me catch you up just a little bit.

So been super busy at work. Like crazy busy right? Just all kinds of crazy stuff going on. You think as Summer's starting to segue and transition and turn into fall, it would slow down. but no, it's been super busy.

Um my daughter had a birthday. uh my youngest she turned uh 14. Damn man, that's freaking nuts. I have a 14y old and a 17y old now.

Good gosh. Um it got really really hot in my house for about 3 days and then now it's really, really cold in my house. Okay, that was just I'm exhausted from that. Um, I became an Apple user.

Okay, Whoa. I know Android to Apple right? but uh, slow your roll. Okay, Um, I'm going to the dark side, but just a little bit. Just the tip.

Okay, not the full, you know, just just a little bit. All right. Uh, I'm transitioning to an iPhone but I'm still going to keep an Android phone too because I carry two phones anyways so that we have the best of both worlds there. Okay, oh yeah, and I kind of transition to a Macbook too.

So yeah, things have been going a little crazy, right? Um, what else is going on? Uh yeah, it's just been nuts. I got a concert I'm going to this weekend and then I fly out to Georgia Next, let's see I go to a concert on Saturday night I'm going to see Zack Brown Band and then Sunday morning at like 6: a.m. I fly out to Georgia to go visit Heatcraft for a couple days like it's just crazy right now and then I'm still running normal service calls and doing my normal thing. so it's definitely been kind of crazy.

So man. but uh yeah, I did the full install on my house this weekend. so Friday before the overtime show I disconnected my system I did the overtime show without air conditioning and then Saturday morning all day Saturday until I don't know 11 12 o'clock at night and then Sunday morning and then all day Sunday until 11:30 and then took today off work too and all day today tying things up and it's not completely done. but I got my system up and running and uh, I'm pretty happy with it I'm actually really happy with it, but having it shut down for those two days when it was 98 degrees outside, it sucked.

It really did. My family was just miserable. Absolutely miserable. So uh, let's see what else we got going on in the chat.

Um, yeah, I'm going to Stone Mountain and to Tiffon both uh, to go to Heatcraft I'm going to their manufacturing plant in Tiffon to see some stuff and then I'm going to go visit Stone Mountain which I've been to Stone Mountain before so that'll be cool. Um, let's see what else. Uh yeah, we're officially fall here too. Mike but it's still hot days.

See, our fall is like really hot days I think I I'm almost going to hit Design on Thursday I think it's going to be 97, but then at night time we're getting into the the high 50s so it's definitely big upticks. Yesterday it was the hottest day I think it hit like 98 and then by 11:30 at night it was 65 degrees outside. So we get these big bipolar weather swings for sure. Um, let me see.

so uh Brian Thank you very very much. Uh I really do appreciate that. Super Chat Man, that is really awesome. So couple questions: uh Landon Ferguson Asked: can a condenser coil have too much air flow? so you know personally I think it can okay and I think that I've witnessed issues with it moving air way too fast through a condenser.

We definitely know that when you slow down air flow, um, too much, it can affect things. But you can also slow down air flow to increase head pressure. Uh, for different situations too. Okay, so personally I think that you can have air flow that is too fast through a condenser.

Um, and not give it enough time to absorb the proper heat, so that way it can reject it. That's my personal opinion on it. I'd love to hear if someone feels the same Okay, um Scott Asked: Asked: how do we determine if a new employee is good or just blowing smoke to get more money before you hire them? Okay, Scott so that's that's a very loaded question, but that's a really good one too. Um, and really I think Uh, First off, let me say this: Scott you're watching on LinkedIn that's great.

That's awesome I Stream on LinkedIn Facebook YouTube Twitter All these different places just know everybody that's not watching on. YouTube It doesn't benefit me either way that you watch Okay, you can watch on any platform you want, but I will say there's an entire chat with 97 people in the YouTube chat right now and a bunch of them are chatting having conversations. So if you guys want to be part of the the the conversation that everybody's having, you definitely want to watch it on. YouTube But again, it doesn't benefit me either way.

Okay, so how do we determine whether or not someone really knows what they are doing or what they claim? they know what they're doing right? Really? I Think it comes down to proper apprenticeship and proper ride alongs. Okay, now you're hiring an experienced technician. I Think that starts with um, you know, depending on the experience, it still starts with ride alongs. You put them with senior mechanics.

You put them with a service manager. Something like that. Now I'm a small company I've hired many people different ways I've hired experience texts that said they knew what they were doing and then it turns out that they don't really know what they're doing. you know? I've been there done that right? Um so I Personally like to hire apprentices and have them do a ride along.

My last Apprentice rode with me for six eight months. Maybe it was closer to a year he rode with me. Um, in the beginning I didn't make any money off of him. It was an investment that I was making.

but I was able to gauge his character, gauge his skills, and mold him to be the technician that he is today. Okay, he's not an apprentice anymore and he's out there running his own calls, running his own on call, you know, rotation, and he's doing great now. I'm not going to say every person's going to be able to do that. every company's going to be able to do that.

But I Really think to be able to gauge an employee? They need a proper Breakin Period. They need an apprenticeship. They need something to where people can actually gauge instead of just throwing them out there in a van. I Understand the desperation of throwing someone out in a van because I've been there and I've done that and it's worked.

and then it's not worked. So it's it's kind of a gamble. I Personally like to take my time and you know, let them work with me, Shadow me that kind of stuff. Follow up on a few calls and gauge their character in the type of technician that they are.

That's just how I roll with that. Um, let's see. Dragon Gamer wants to know if a duck detector can trip a breaker? If so, what breaker would it be linked to the AC unit? Well, certainly, if there was some sort of circuit protection on a duct detector, it could potentially trip that circuit protection. Majority of the duct detectors that I see here in the United States are either 120 volts or 24 volts.

Okay, sometimes 12 volts too, depending on who installs it and what kind of a detector it is. I Typically don't see anything 220 uh, I would imagine or 208 or whatever 240. Whatever you want to say. I Imagine in the European countries, they probably see 240 volt, 220 volt, whatever it is.

Um, but uh yeah, if if something was to short to ground, it could trip a breaker. but typically there's not any kind of a breaker protecting a duct detector on the systems that I'm working on. um, they're usually 24 volts they're tapped into. Well, no.

I guess there's a a breaker on the Transformer sometimes depending on how it's installed. So yeah, I mean I guess it is possible, but for me to know which breaker it tripped in your situation I don't know. So uh, most of the time when I wire in smoke detectors duct detectors I wire them into the control circuit as long as I have enough room in the Transformer right? it's not being overloaded as it is or I'll add an auxiliary 24volt Transformer with a circuit breaker on the Transformer Now I Personally don't buy Transformers that don't have the little control circuit breakers on them. All of mine already have them and it's just easier that way.

So yeah, I guess it is possible that it could trip that little circuit protector. Um, let's see what else we got going on in the chat right now. Um, reading through and if I missed anything I apologize. If you guys have questions or things you want me to cover, try to throw your questions in caps, lock, all capital letters.

It helps me to see them and please understand I'm not going to get to everything I've got things I want to talk about too. and uh I got a little video clip for you guys here too shortly, so let's see what else we got going on here. Um I should Vlog the Heatcraft trip? that's that's something interesting. I've never really done a vlog Style video, but yeah, I'm sure we could do something of the sorts.

Uh, let's see what else You know. What's funny is most of the trips that I've taken I filmed them like vlogging style but I never released them like when I went to Ahr I filmed it I had like the planes taken off the planes landing I had time lapse stuff but I never used it. um I don't know, it just just kind of I film a crap ton of stuff and then probably only use 80% of it like there's a good 20% that just goes in my hard drive of Wonders and it just sits there for its eternity. Um, let's see what else we got going on in here.

Uh, that recent water leak I showed was nuts. Which one did I show the water leak? arng G Oh which one are you talking about? The story that I told on the HVAC overtime show? Yeah, that water leak was insane I showed that on the overtime show. is that the one you're talking about? That was a a joke I wish I had those pictures queued up right now. but I don't um do? I No, no I don't let's see what else we got going on in the chat right now.

Um, reading through the chat. All right. Cool. Uh, right on.

Yeah, lots of great stuff going on in here. Um, all right. yeah. I'll definitely look into that.

So yeah, eron that was pretty interesting. So I'll tell you guys. So I had a service technician I wasn't on site okay and I let's see if I have these pictures I think I already deleted them. oh no I didn't can I show these pictures.

Let me make sure this works okay and I will show this. Yes I can show these I'm going to show this real quick and I'll preface this with the story. Okay, so I had a service technician go out to a jobsite. Uh, in no way am I upset or anything at the service technician.

This was a freak incident that happened. It had nothing to do with him. There's no way that he could have known this would have happened. Okay, so sent a service technician out for a water leak.

The water leak uh, the customer said was leaking on top of a table, but they said it was just like a drip drip drip drip. So service technician went out there and uh he went up onto the roof, he blew out the drain and uh let me pull up these pictures. Okay and let me screen share this real quick. Screen share.

Let me make sure I get the right screen there. We go right there. All right. So this is looking up into a open ceiling so we're from the ground.

Looking up you can see the insulation that's tied in and right in this area. Right here you can see where there maybe used to be a package unit. Okay right in that area right there. So what happened was the service technician went up onto the roof and he went to go blow the drain out because there's standing water in the drain pen.

Okay, he went to go blow the drain out and he blew it and water went through the drain line. But then when you took the hose off of it and hooked it back up and filled up the drain pan in the AC the water was standing again and he's like why is the water not draining So then he decides to hook his hose up and go to town on the drain. just blasting the drain out right? Just going crazy. Okay and uh, let's scroll over to the next picture.

Here's what happened. He went downstairs and the manager and all the employees were in the dining room cleaning up a giant mess of water. The whole dining room was full of water. That old package unit.

someone cut the drain out of it and left it completely open in the attic. And this is a common drain setup meaning that there's multiple AC's going to a drain and basically it backed up out this open pipe. Now What? I Didn't preface this with was saying that he oops, wrong one right there. He had a and that's a look from it too.

so he had blocked off the other AC drains right. so he blocked off the AC drains. You can see where when he blew the drain out, it had a restriction down at the floor drain right and it backed all the way up. It couldn't go out any of the other AC drains.

so it went out this open pipe that was just cut below the roof deck and just started pouring down into the dining room. Okay, so this wasn't his fault, He couldn't have known that was above the insulation. You couldn't see that right? That drain was just going above the insulation and you had no idea that it was like that and he just blasted it and it wouldn't go out the the exit of the drain down into the floor drain. So instead it went out the open pipe that was all the way up in the insulation and then flooded down.

Now, we were fortunate that there was no customers underneath that. But what I'm told is that there was a server or a Hostess walking a group of customers to the table that this poured down on top of and they just so happened to see a waterfall coming out of it. so they went to another table. Luckily they weren't sitting at that table.

Yeah, that's messed up. So what it looks like to me is that when they took the old package unit off because this restaurant was something different before this tenant moved in. right? Uh, the way that the drain is cut, it's cut at an angle. So I think someone pulled the drain up above the roof deck, cut it, and then just let it drop back down and it just sat there with insulation all around it.

So you had no idea. Imagine that, man. All right, let's see what else we got going on here. Uh yeah, if you guys have questions, you gotta.

First off, you got to be patient because uh, there's a million questions going by. If I miss your question, feel free to shoot me an email to HVAC Rideos Gmail.com But Stephen uh, try to post your question again and I'll see if I can see it. Okay, um, put it in caps lock and it'll help me to see what's going on. Let me see reading through here.

How long does the average Tech stay with me? Um, I mean every person's going to be different I've had employees stay with us for 12 years I had one guy with us for 12 years. Um, 10 years. My current employees have, uh, have been with me for eight years. both of them and then my new technician that is not my Apprentice anymore has been with me for almost two years.

So yeah, you know people move on. people do different things. We're a small company so you know we tend to, um, try to take care of everybody as best as possible. So uh, let's see.

oh that's really cool. JJ says he's been copying my style bad Motors and compressors. He's been taking them home and opening them up and it's really interesting to see the parts. Yeah, even if you don't understand how a compressor works, once you open up enough of them, you'll start to recognize certain things and you're like that doesn't seem right and then it just kind of Cur You know, gets something curious going in your head and you really start looking into it.

So uh, let's see what else we got going on in here. Reading through here? All right? Well I have uh I'm gonna play a little video for you guys real quick. Okay so uh, this last weekend I did the startup of my AC system. I'm going to give you guys a little teaser.

There's going to be plenty of videos showing the the nuts and bolts of how everything went down and stuff. but I'm going to show you guys the after: Now Understand something. something. This is not perfect.

It's about as good as I can get it okay and I'm not the best technician installer anything. Understand something too I went crazy. Okay, and you guys haven't even seen like everything. This little clip that I'm going to show you doesn't even show you everything but I went crazy but my brain works so differently.

Okay, to the point that you know and understand I said this on the overtime show too. understand something like I understand that a customer couldn't afford to pay for the Mtic I Think that's right. I think that's a word meticulousness or how meticulous I was with my setup. A customer couldn't afford to pay me for how much time I spent on this.

Okay, this time didn't cost me anything other than my sanity. Okay, so I went a little crazy with like taping mastic lines and different things like that. but I'm going to play you guys a little clip and uh, show you guys just a little teaser of a lot of videos that'll be following in the future. Okay, so let me go ahead and pull this.

I did a thing and uh I went a little nuts doing that thing. This thing's running mind you. super quiet. still got to figure out some conduit, securing and stuff and clean up a few things.

Let's go look inside. Got a wall control right there, cut in an extra return and got a fan coil installed with a media filter condensate drain. Yeah! I went a little crazy SE all sight glass ball valves so you can valve off the B flow filter dryer, disconnect switch, surge protector totally custom, not perfect, but as perfect as I can get it so it's not perfect. But I'm so glad that I finally got it installed.

I'm so glad because that killed me this weekend. It was a 95 degree weekend or whatever it was, it was insanely hot. Um, but one thing. my wife is really, really upset.

She's really upset because she was so guys. I should have measured with a decibel meter how loud my previous system was. Okay, I had a 4 ton installed on my house that was only moving about three tons of air. maybe two and a half tons of air depending on how good you measured it right? Um, but it was so loud right to the point that we've all.

We've lived here for like eight years and I knew it was a bad system. I knew it was oversized but I just never, you know, dealt with it. Well now you can't hear anything right? My wife was so upset last night when I got it running she couldn't sleep for crap. She had a white noise generator but even with that, she still could hear everything in the house.

and uh, my kidss are freaking out about it too because they're so used to the white noise that the the the air moving across the return grills used to make and now you don't hear anything. So my existing system was or my previous system was a 4ton system and I downsized it. Okay I went very aggressive on the sizing thanks to my buddy Adam Muffet who helped me with the design. We went very aggressive and we installed a two-ton system.

We're currently in about an 1800 foot home, but we've done a lot of upgrades to the house. Um, I plan on doing more upgrades in the future to hopefully get to a point where two tons is almost even slightly oversized. Okay, so but that's going to be some time before we get there. But we definitely upgraded and it's awesome.

The other thing too I was just talking to Adam about this is my energy bills. my energy bills I think earlier I was looking on the Um and I haven't verified these metrics yet and these numbers. but on the infinity control when I was running out 100 100% earlier today. uh, doing the charging and stuff I think the condenser was only pulling six or seven amps total.

That's it. Okay, um, I'm hoping that my $8 $900 electric bills that I've been paying for you know, four months of Summer every year go down. That's the reason why we spent all this time spent all this money downsize the equipment. we're trying to make it more comfortable in my house.

Um, you know we're trying to just make more livable, right? So let's see. let's see what else is going on in the chat right now. Um, all right. Steve from everything Hvacr, that's how it should look.

It just never does. Yeah, that's true. Um, very true. Let's see what else we got going on in here.

Uh, thanks guys. Yeah, no. I'm trying and again, there's a lot of things I can still fix I Still got to work on securing the Uh electrical, going to the condenser and stuff like that I still want to level out the condenser too because it's about a half in leaning forward. so I kind of want to level it out on one side.

make sure that looks a little bit better. I'm reading through the chat right now seeing it in here. um, read through here. how much did I have to pay for my assistant for that install? Uh, actually.

so I did that entire install as far as um, doing the physical work myself. but my wife Jill uh, she's also. if you don't follow her, go just look up Hvacr wife on Instagram she posts a bunch of stuff the time but uh, she had to get in there and help me put the new system in there and uh I had to push up the plum I've got video footage and stuff too. I had to push up the planum before because and you guys will! You guys will have to figure it out.

but that whole closet. Once you see the videos, you'll see that closet, the utility closet where the existing furnace was at right, and the furnace. Mind you, my air conditioner was a 4 ton. the furnace was 100,000 BTUs guys and I have a two ton heat pump now so we were massively oversized.

but but uh I had to take the popcorn texture off the utility closet cuz it was all inside the walls and all on the ceiling. and I had to take the whole ceiling down in the utility closet. Red Dry wallet cut the holes so that way that is now completely airtight. There's no more combustion air vents, no more fresh air vents going in there.

There's nothing. It's a completely airtight closet that is now part of the living space. So but yeah, she did have to help me lift getting the equipment in there so she was definitely part of the project. Um, let's see what else we got going on here.

Reading through here right now Jennifer says that her furnace was so loud now and you swapped out the oil system. Yeah, that's awesome, huh? Um, reading through here, What am I missing? Uh, what's my cop on that setup? Uh cop? What do you mean by that? uh. the cost on that setup. Is that what you're asking? Brian Let me see what else we in here.

Uh, won't I see it on my energy monitor? Yes! Dale I will see it on my energy monitors. Uh, so we'll definitely because I have an almost a year and three months of energy monitoring of my previous system because I installed it in August of last year. So yeah, we've got full energy monitoring for an entire year basically. Uh, reading through here.

what am I missing? Sorry guys. I'm just reading through the chat. um, he thought. Joshua Timman says all new residential installs need hurricane straps Joshua I am in Southern California We don't worry about hurricanes, we worry about earthquakes here.

Uh, so yeah. um, what else am I missing? Uh, reading through here. Um, okay. how do I deal with exterior walls as far as insulation if they ain't spray foamed.

uh, if it isn't spray foamed, it isn't tight C Young, Yeah. so I am a slab on grade Foundation At my house we have stucco exterior and we have drywall interior and the air sealing on the house is horrible. So um, something that I planed to do in the future that I haven't done yet is I've already done blower door tests on my house I've I've fixed the things I can get to. We have can lights and every room all throughout the house I sealed up the can lights put in um uh LED fixtures you know, new new ones, airtight seal well, pretty airtight seals uh insulated covers over the tops, sealed up the outlets, the receptacles, foam, gaskets, silicone cocking in the back of them uh what? I plan on doing is in the future we're going to be replacing our floor.

We have wood floors all throughout the house and they're just completely destroyed. so when they pull up the wood floors I'm going to seal um where the foundation meets the walls, pull the baseboards and completely seal all the way around the perimeter of the house on the inside uh to try to help with air sealing things and then eventually again I Kind of ran out of money on this project because I way blew out my budget on this. um eventually I Want to have my attic completely cleaned out all the insulation I want it vacuumed out sanitized because there's rat crap and stuff up there from previous crap that we had up in there. We don't have any issues now, but we have in the past I want all the insulation ripped out and then I'm going to completely seal the top plate of the house with spray foam now.

I Don't want to spray foam the whole attic but I just want to spray foam. the top plate where the wood meet meets everything and the holes are drilled down for the RX wire and all that stuff I Want to seal all of that and then I want to do blown in cellulose all in the attic and then increase the r value of the insulation to try to help. So it's not going to be perfect unless you built a house from the ground up, you know it's never going to be completely airtight. now.

another thing I haven't addressed yet on the house project that I will address here in the short future because I've still got a lot of work to do is I need to bring fresh air currently right now I think before I put the new system in and sealed up a few more things I think I got my blower door number as far as the infiltrating air coming in at Cfm50 down to about 900 Cfms of leakage. Uh, so I know that number is going to improve and as we make the house tighter, we definitely need to be adding filtered fresh air to the house. So that way we don't create a sick building syndrome inside of here right? Because if you make it too tight and then we're breathing out all the CO2 you know everybody gets all sleepy and you know nobody wants to do their chores. So we definitely want my kids doing their chores right because we got slave labor going on over here.

Um, let's see what else we got going on here. What did I use to seal the unit to the wood when mounting it? Uh so I used a neopren gasket that I have and then I cocked around the gasket on the inside. Now I haven't air tested it yet so once we air test it, we'll definitely see and then underneath that return box. I completely boxed it in because it was completely open.

uh to the wall cavity. So I completely box it in and I still plan on doing some more seiling inside of there too. Uh, let's see. reading through here, what's the let's see what I'm going on for for the first time in a long time.

You're stunned. You have an issue with a walk-in freezer. You think the receiver is too small and the compressor can't pump down and overheats prime time. Um I Wouldn't doubt that I've come across a few systems where the receivers were undersized.

Definitely has happened. Uh, that is definitely a problem. Um, you know. Another one that'll throw you for a loop is when you have a cracked dip tube on a receiver or a broken dip tube in a receiver because you keep adding gas trying to clear the sight glass and you're like there's no way this T takes 15 pounds of gas, you know? and then you just keep adding it and adding it because there's no dip tube to pull liquid from the bottom.

That is a a brain stunner too when you run into that one. um uh, fresh air is always a good idea or only when you know it's a super tight house. Well, I mean think about it. Rather than adding ozone and LED lights or neon, whatever crap Ieq devices people want to put in there, why not just filter outside air and bring fresh air in? I mean that just seems like the most logical thing.

I'm a firm supporter of fresh air, so I'm reading through here. Oh thank you very much Chipmunk! I Really do appreciate that. Um, reading through here. What's the oldest system I've had to work on and how annoying was it? Loco Ohio In the oldest system I had to work on I was I don't do work for this customer anymore so I can talk about I don't even know if they exist anymore but I went to work for a Joe's Crab Shack in Long Beach California and uh, I had to change out a 10 ton split system.

It was a 10-ton Carrier split system from like 1964 if I remember right? Uh, it was so old that it was just a remote condenser on the roof. It had a giant coil with a uh, carile 06d compressor underneath the coil. right? so your evapor coil had a compressor underneath it and then it just had a two-pipe condenser set up Up on the Roof We had to remove that. We had to cut the thing up in pieces because it was up on the second floor of this particular Joe's Crab Shack And then we had to take down, take it down a utility stair set, and then out their back door.

Um, and then we replaced it I think I don't remember what brand we used, but that was like 15 years ago. That was probably the oldest system. It was like a 1964 68 somewhere in there. Um, what else we got going on in the chat? Uh, set a minimum to maintain.

Okay, I'm kind of missing a few things inside here. uh um, is the Uh Fau's door ceiling um, you talking about on my fan coil is the door ceiling? They have gasketed materials now I plan on air sealing it some more once I'm done with most of the work. I'm going to go in and uh, just make sure that it's you know, even sealed more I Still got a lot of testing to do on the system, so this is just my preliminary startup. All that I've really done was installed.

The equipment started it up uh, adjusted the airf flow and dialed in the refrigerant charge. That's all I've done so far. I Haven't even figured out how to really use the infinity control I've never even touched a Carrier Infinity system. so I'm stumbling my way through this.

I Still got like one thing I'm having a hard time with is how to get I can't for the life of me connect the carrier service technician app to the system I have the consumer-based app connected to my system. but there's a service technician app that you're supposed to be able to go in and adjust parameters and things. and for the life of me I can't get it to connect. it keeps erroring out.

So I've got a lot of things to learn on this system and there'll be lots of video content to follow with all of that. So um, see what else we got going on in here? Um Oh Chipmunk says this house will be the show home for my business. No I don't do any residential work dude. Nobody can afford like I'm I'm in so deep with this system.

Nobody would ever pay me as much money as I would have to charge to be profitable off of this install. There's no way. Uh, let's see. the oldest compressor you have that is still going is a pressed cold from 1963.

It's a remote condenser. Funny thing, you changed the condenser three years ago. Oh wow, that's crazy. Um can I make an A Toz video on setting airflow with a chart? Um I mean I'm probably not the right person to make a setting airflow video there, buddy? Um, all right.

cool. Well let's get to a couple more things that I had on my list to talk about. So so um I'm not going to be on here all night because I have been uh, working my ass off all weekend and honestly I haven't even sat down to relax this is I took today off work too to tidy up things so just did a Home Depot run taking a bunch of crap back to Home Depot I still got a lot of stuff to return but um so on the really. Someone asked me a question about a video that I released a while back where I was working on one of the desert rooftops when it was like 120 outside.

and you know I get this question a lot where people ask ask me like why don't I set up a canopy on the roof why don't I have like an easy up over me when I'm working up on the roof I carry an easy up in my van I have one in my van all year long I will set up an easy up when it's convenient and when it'll work most of the time when I'm working out in the desert, they have high winds out there so there's enough of a breeze that if I set up an easy up, it's just going to become more of a problem than helping me. Okay, but if I can, yeah, I'll set up an easy up. Definitely anything. Um, here.

I wear long sleeve shirts all day long to keep the sun off my skin for two reasons. Uh, number one: skin cancer trying to prevent that, but the next thing, it just keeps the sun off and because we don't have humidity, it's not that big of a deal. So I wear long sleeve shirts. um I'll sometimes use cooling towels I have big one of those giant sloppy floppy hats that covers my whole head.

you know, like the rice Patty hats the big giant ones. Yeah I have one of those. like almost as big as a SoMo Um, so yeah, but you know sometimes it's not convenient to bring canopies on the roof. So uh, another question that I had was when I mentioned that I was I would this would have been out in the desert because I mentioned that I was two hours away from my shop and someone was surprised.

like really I work two hours away from my shop. It's not normal. Okay, those desert customers that I have, they do keep me busy. but if I have the choice I'm not going to work two hours away from my shop because it's not very practical.

Uh, it's also a pain in the butt because typically my service area is an hour away from my shop. At the most, the desert customers are two hours away. And the reason why I do those is because when you do enough work for a certain customer, right? they're like hey, you do you know 15 of our stores we need you to take these other two. It's kind of hard to say no, right? or sometimes customers in the fact of the desert ones.

They said hey, we have eight stores for you to service but you have to take these two out in the desert, you know? So it's like yeah, you just take it I charge for my time I charge travel time uh I don't always do it but a good majority of the time I charge travel time to and from when I'm going out to the desert so you know they're paying if I'm going out there. Um, let's see what else we got going on in the chat. Um, yes, long sleeve is good and you've seen the Hat Chris Yep, 100% I think I even have a link because I bought it from Amazon There's a Amazon affiliate link usually in my videos it says sloppy floppy hat or something like that. Um Urban Sombrero That's right.

Uh, reading through here you like wearing Sherlock home style hats. That's funny. How much refrigerant did it take? Uh, what do you are you talking about my system? There's like too many things going by and I'm getting lost in this. Uh, if you're asking about my system Dale I think I Honestly didn't pay a whole lot of attention.

Uh, it had an eight pound holding charge in it and then I think I added an extra two or three pounds of guas. Uh, if if I remember right I didn't document it. but yeah, it was. It was two or three pounds I charged via sub coin.

So um, let's see what else. Uh, you got yourself into a big rabbit hole with air quality at your University uh uh, the Doas unit and VAV boxes. Many rooms were getting 1,00 parts per million of CO2 because of low VAV Cfms. Oh, so you're really trying to figure this one out? Yeah, that's delving a little bit beyond my understanding.

Um, what should you clean your residential condenser with? It has grass residue from side discharge mower. Well, if you can't clean it with just plain water, what I suggest you do is go over to True Tech Tools.com and buy some of the refrigeration Technologies Viper HD cleaner or the Viper yellow Venom pack. It's not corrosive, it will degrease, and it does a great job. But cleaning a condenser is not just as easy as spraying something on.

the right way to clean a condenser is to completely disassemble it, pull the top off of it, split the double Road coil and Clean from the inside out and from the outside in vice versa, then assemble the whole thing back together. If you're not confident in digging in that deep because you can get electrocuted and different things, you got to make sure you shut down the power, then you definitely want to get a service technician if you're not already a service tech. But uh, the Viper yellow Venom plaque cleaner uh is probably the best cleaner out there. and it's the safest and you can get it from True Tech Tools.com And if you do go to True Tech Tools.com uh, use my offer code.

big picture. One word: uh you get an 8% discount on majority of the items and I get a small commission from it. so see what else we got going on in here. What size Suction line on my system? It's a 3/4 inch suction line with a 3/8 liquid line on my system.

Um, what are the most annoying conditions for replacing a condenser? I mean just really high heat and wind is is my most ridiculous situation. So when the wind, it just sucks and when the wind's out. um, reading through here, am I going to check for leaks? Yeah! I Did a pressure test on my system. uh I did a lot of press fittings on my system I did four braze joints at the condenser and the evaporator.

two at each and then uh I bent most to my line set. but I did use zoom lock Mass Zoom lock Max press fittings Uh I did a nitrogen pressure test yesterday, passed that and did an evacuation test down to 400 microns and then it held the Decay for I don't know 20 30 minutes. but the the blue Vac app had the algorithm where it said I passed the Decay test within like you know, a minute and a half because it wasn't rising at all. So no, my system's leak free.

Nope, no problems. Uh, what electrical fittings do I use to install a K2 THM Uh, it just depends. I mean I depends on the situation you know. Are you allowed to use SJ chord? If you're going to use SJ chord, then I use strain relief connectors on the SJ chord.

or if you need to go sealtight conduit. um, you know you can get sealtite conduit and just use that. but I Typically am either going to use SJ cord or sealtite. Um, see what else we got going on in here? Um, Reading through the chat, you teach young kids about HVAC systems.

What's a good things to do with kids? To get into the job, you feed them equipment, electrical work, show them to look at the blueprint, understand the wiring. H Well, as far as getting kids depending on how young they are I mean uh, if they're if they're really young kids, what you can do is go over to Hvacr School.com Brian or has some starter kits for very young kids like we're talking um, elementary school kids and like, uh, science starter kits and they're really, really awesome setups that teach kids about um, thermodynamics and different things like that, but on a very easy level and it's kind of fun for the kids. So Brian or has those over at Hvacr School.com Uh, definitely check those out. Then as far as high school age kids Junior High age kids I mean some hands-on experience letting them do some things, so that's that's always a fun thing.

Let them get their hands dirty, let them learn electrical circuits and different things like that put them into situations where it's exciting to them. You think about this like I Don't think you can. You know insurance companies freak out about this stuff. but if you can let you know a 15-year-old kid climb onto a roof, climbing up a ladder, and climb onto a roof like he's going to think that's the most exciting thing in the world just climbing up a ladder on the side of a building.

The things that we just do every day without thinking about it: Younger kids think it's the coolest thing ever, but you got to be careful because insurance companies often times don't want young kids doing that kind of stuff. so it's kind of a area when you do that. But um, yeah, Don't Force It on the kids though. Okay, kids need to want to learn.

Um, let's see, let's see what else we got going on in here. Um, reading through the chat, What am I missing? Uh, what do I got Okay, cool. Well I think uh, what would I do if I had to work in 80 to 90 degree temps with 70% humidity I'd be wearing short sleeve shirts and and shorts all day long because long sleeve shirts are not going to work unless they're completely breathable in that high humidity. Uh, definitely would not be my wheelhouse.

Okay, but I will tell you that when it's 120 degrees outside, even at 30% humidity, it's still insanely hot. Okay, it's just nuts. Um, cool. Right on.

Well I really appreciate you guys and uh, it is time to wrap this up. It is dinner time and I need to go relax for a couple hours so I can go back to work tomorrow. Got a couple things. Got an ice machine install this week.

Got a lot of stuff going on and then I gotta fly out to Georgia So thank you so very much for making it to the stream. If I missed your questions, feel free to shoot me an email to HVAC Rvideos Gmail.com I Really do appreciate you guys! I'm going to queue up the outro music and uh, we will definitely catch you guys on the next one.