Okay, really quick before I start this video off notice, those shirts in the background stay tuned in the next week, or so I'm gon na be releasing a website and I'll have those shirts for sale. I got a crap ton of them. Hats too, so be ready for that. Okay, this video, I vent some frustrations all right.

Let me tell you something: I've been helping out one of my customers lately and I've been going behind a couple other companies and I'm not a perfect service technician. I make mistakes too and in fact, at some point in my career, I probably made the same mistakes that I find in this video. Okay, the biggest thing that I want you guys to understand is I do appreciate the work that the customers give me and I'm thankful for that. Okay, this particular location is out of my service area.

I have no interest in permanently servicing this location. Okay, so, as said in a couple of my most recent videos, people say: well, you got a new customer now. Actually, no, this isn't a location that I can service on the regular right now with the virus thing going on. There's no traffic, but this location is so far from my shop that during rush hour traffic, it would potentially take me three hours to get to this location because of traffic.

And that's not something practical for me, because there's nothing worse than a three hour drive home at the end of the day. That's not my style at doing things, okay, but also to give perspective. This call came in on a Friday afternoon and no big deal. You know I went out there and took care of it in the middle of this call.

I don't know if you guys can see the attitude change in the middle of this video is when they called me out right. So I'm at this call right now working on a walk-in cooler, a walk-in freezer. They actually asked me to work on some regions too, but I told him no I'll come back for those okay, but in the middle of this call was when I got called to a walk-in freezer, which actually was the video that I released earlier. The last video that I released the walk-in freezer that turned into a disaster - and you know the fan motors and the icing up issue.

Okay, so I was genuinely frustrated and then you guys will see the point in the video when I realized on the walk-in cooler in this video, why it kept icing up. That's why I'm so frustrated? Okay. I do appreciate the work and I am thankful that I have the opportunity to be able to fix these kind of problems, and I wish I could service this location on the regular. But I can't okay, so we're gon na get on with the video now and you guys will see the whole story.

The best bet is to unswept that right there, but who's to say that that's not going to blow up when I am sweating it. As far as the deteriorated copper, so this is one of those things you got to tread lightly. You can't just jump into this or you might be. You know, opening Pandora's box which I tend to like to do.

It seems like I like that, but I don't this video is brought to you by sport'ln quality, integrity and tradition. Today we have a call on a walk-in cooler and a walk-in freezer, not working, so we're going to start with one of them. I'm just going over here to evaluate them right now. I believe these are both my pieces of equipment, we're gon na open these things up and get an idea more than likely.

This is gon na, be my walk-in freezer. More than likely, this is gon na, be my walking cooler, so we're gon na dive into it. Man, I just got dealt a bag of rocks, okay, so walk up here. This is what I see looks like a fairly new compressor.

It's got a new suction dryer, which indicates maybe a burnout walk over here. It looks like again brand new kind of looks like look at that. That's all oil yeah covered in oil. Again, I'm making an assumption that this is the walk-in cooler.

I think I'm still right, but I'll figure that out more. But if this is the walk-in cooler, which I think it is it's ice stuff down in the evaporator section I'll, take you and show you that in a few minutes, so I'm gon na power this one down. While I dive into the walk-in freezer - which i think is that one so then I'll do some more investigating to verify also these things are beat down. This isn't a normal location of mine, guys, I'm helping someone out doing a favor feel like I'm getting hosed, but it's all good.

I'm thankful right. Look at that condenser! I feel your pain, NorCal Dave. I don't do a lot of work by the coast very much! Nothing is getting eaten up by the coastal air, but you got to give it credit. That's an original masterbuilt unit from probably 1992.

It's lasted through the test of time, oh yeah, that is like hitted beyond belief. I'm surprised that a compressor was put into that thing. Almost seems like they've, been better off just changing the condensing unit overnight, instead of changing a compressor. If that's what it was, I have no idea so all right, we're gon na power down what I think to be walking cooler, which I think is this one.

Okay, that show that shut, that down and I'm gon na go get some service gauges, and then we need to verify that this is in fact the walk-in freezer and I'll label them too. Once I get, it figured out all right and this thing's cycling on and off, and we got a batch potential fan motor, it's locked up, okay, but I still need to go: get some service gauges but yeah. This is our walk-in freezer from some diagnosis, and that is our walk-in cooler, so walk-in cooler is defrosting while I get the walk-in freezer up and running, but the walk-in freezer also has a refrigerant leak right here. I'll have to get to the bottom of that.

It looks like I might even have one down here, looks like it's got, multiple leaks, I don't know fun stuff right always on a Friday night or a Friday afternoon I haven't even put my gauges on the unit, but I know that we have a bad convince. Your family, or so I'm going to take that off, but this is a really old Tecumseh condensing unit and you use the little quarter. Inch square jingis is to hold it on as a set screw, so I usually grab an extension with a flex adapter on the end. I know that if you get the right like ten point socket or whatever you can fit it on there, but I couldn't find it for whatever reason.

So you just put this in on backwards very carefully grab this guy channel locks or what I did was used. A quarter-inch and that fits right in there and then basically just unscrew those guys pretty sure I got this guy loose there you go so and they you think that they put it on backwards, but they didn't the old Tecumseh motors that used to run him backwards. Like that, so all right, I'm gon na change this family route. If you guys don't already pick yourself up a fast go 97 21 they're, very versatile motors and they usually get the job done.

Hopefully I can fit it in there. I think I can and that'll usually replace majority of the families out there, especially these old. I think this is a D 471, or something like that. If I remember right, we used to use these all the time.

Yeah D 417 is the part number used to be a super common fan motor we used to stock, but that 97 21 has since replaced it I'm getting ready to wire in this new motor, and I get down here yeah this. This compressor was just changed. I have the manager trying to pull the end voice from the previous company. I don't know if look at it, but the fact that it has a suction line.

Filter dryer makes me think that it was an acid burn or a burnout, and it's a three-phase compressor. Okay, but we come down here and got a single-phase contactor. Okay, it's doable, but I mean this contactor I can tell wasn't changed when they change the compressor and the terminals are burnt. So it's got bad poor connection, overheating man, it's a mess! If you look at this refrigerant leak down here, it's jacked up right there.

But if you come up here like this, coppers really paid -- it out. So, to be honest with you, the only repairs - probably gon na, be to unswept this fitting right here and it's going to be sketchy, but I can probably do it and then just redo that whole section down there. I mean this equipment really needs to be changed, but you know you can only do what the customer wants you to do. I want to do a lot of work here, but it's also Friday afternoon and I don't want to get involved in a giant cluster F.

So I'm probably gon na get this operational and then get the customer some pictures and see how they want to go about it. Ideally they'd. Let me change the condensing unit and be done with it. I mean, even if they don't want to change all the equipment.

If they just, let me put a condensing unit up here, we can knock this out in no time and be in much better shape than what they are now. But the evaporators equally is bad. It's 1993, 92 ish, so yeah all right, fun, stuff all right. So I got a condenser fan motor wired in I got an amp clamp on there, we're going to fire this guy up, see if it's going in the right direction.

It is the correct direction and what was it we were allowed to run. We're allowed to run 0.49 amps doesn't feel right, though we were good on the current draw, but it didn't feel like it was moving the right amount of air. So let me double check it's going in the right direction. This second, here it's going in the right direction.

It just feels like it wasn't really moving here. Maybe I need to. I think I need to move that blade further. This way get the correct air movement all right.

My unit is up and running we're moving a good amount of air. Now we're still under current draw. I think it's allowed to draw a point. Four, nine we're at point four, seven point, four six, so we're within spec.

Now I need to put some gauges on this guy check out the refrigerant pressures check out the sight glass see if we're flashing. It looks like we are. I really want to clean this condenser, but I'm also afraid to because it doesn't look like it's going to take too well to a cleaning. Yeah fins are just coming off.

Let's try to do my best down here. I can see through it, but man. Nothing is a mess. Alright come put some gauges on this.

I'm gon na go ahead and close this up again. I want to change that contactor, but I really don't want to open Pandora's box here on a Friday afternoon and then quite a ways away from my home. So in the South Bay, so yeah anyways I'm going gauges on it all right, so I'm bouncing between the equipment. But this is the walk-in cooler.

I've got someone cleaning the evaporator right now and defrosting it. You can see, we've already cleaned majority of it and it's it's pretty plugged up. This is years of neglect. You know people not maintaining it, not blaming it on the previous company.

You can see it's nice and I step to, but I'm also looking at some invoices from the previous company - and they just worked on this about two months ago three months ago, and they were making expansion valve adjustments more expansion valve adjustments are useless when your coil Is plugged so this just you know you don't start twisting and turning on when you don't know what you're doing? Okay, when I was taking the caps off and putting my gauges on there, this thing reeks of our 502 and mineral oil, and I know it's hard for that to make sense, but 502 with mineral oil has a very distinct smell. You tend to learn it over. The years - and this was originally a 502 system and more than likely when they changed this compressor, I don't know if it was when they did that or later that they changed it to 404, because this is 404. I was able to get my hands on the invoice from the cut in the previous company.

They changed like three four months ago and yes, it was 404 that they put into it now my sight, glass. You can see that when i zoom in there's there's vapor in there there's not very much lick, but everyone's small. You get a little bit of liquid, but it's just vapor patrolling around. So we are gon na top off the charge.

We're gon na put four or four in it and get them up and running as far as that leak, I'm not going to fix it today, at least that's not the plans once I get it charged up. We're gon na talk to the customer because we got to see what it is I mean I all right like I said I don't want to open Pandora's box, but the best bet fixing that leak is not gon na work because they already did a crappy job In the first place, who knows, though, it may be that the copper is really pitted, because it looks like crap, or it also looks like it might be another leak down here on the discharge line? The best bet is, is two unswept that right there, but who's to say that that's not going to blow up when I on sweat it as far as the deteriorated copper. So this is one of those things you got to tread lightly. You can't just jump into this or you might be, you know, opening Pandora's box which I tend to like to do.

It seems like I like that, but I don't all right. It wasn't as bad as I thought it's actually cleared up. It didn't take but less than a half a pound, so it does have a refrigerant leak because you see oil everywhere, but it's not leaking that bad okay. So every once in a while, you get a bubble like right.

Now I'm getting a bubble through there, but we're also still pulling down. So I don't want to clear it too fast, so I literally put in a half a pound, but where our head pressures running pretty high for it's probably about eighty degrees outside 78. Something like that and yeah we're running pretty high on the head pressure, but that's also to be expected because of the shape of the condenser. With the deteriorated like this, it's not able to reject the heat as good.

You know so the air passes across and the fins would help that air to cool the refrigerant lines, and you know. Obviously, then you reject the heat out of the condenser and that's not happening, because we don't have the contact between the fins and the copper. Essentially. Okay, so even down here where the copper is deteriorating up here, where it looks like it's, not it's actually not performing properly either because it doesn't have a good bond with the copper anymore because it's so deteriorated so yeah.

This thing is, is in bad need of replacement very much so as part of everything that I'm doing today, I'm gon na take down all the specs, the inside dimensions of the walk-in freezer, the voltages and everything. So that way they can make a decision on replacement or replacing the equipment eventually all right. Well, it's not gon na get too much better than that, but you see you see how it moves see, how the lines like so it's no longer doing proper heat transfer anymore, like it doesn't make contact with that stuff so that you can't keep prolong in this Stuff, the customers gon na have to replace this there's no choice about it, but we've got to defrost it for now. So these dumbasses put all the raw like.

I didn't realize that when we started this, all of these guys are going in the wrong direction. Flip that switch for me real, quick check this out just bump it on off every one of these is going in the wrong direction and we didn't move the blades at all. All we did was pull the whole motor assemblies off cheese and rice man and then look at this we're trying to put this one up and the whole bottom falls out of the motor good grief. What a day, okay and to make matters even worse.

The more I look at it, they just got the blades on backwards. Every motor look at this is the blade if it spins this way. It's a reverse air flow sucks. The air up blows it out the coil.

No wonder this! Damn thing is I stopped, these idiots put the blades on backwards. Okay, that's spinning that direction, and if I put that on it scoops the air and blows it up, I don't charge enough money for this. Okay, we got the blades reversed. I want to change the blades because they're all in horrible shape and there's cracks, but again I'm only giving them so much of my time today.

So they're only gon na get so much but see. Now it's going the right direction and you could tell it's been going the wrong direction for a very long time, because look at the outside of the blade it shouldn't be dirty and they're filthy. So these things have been running in the wrong direction. For more than months - and you can tell that the previous company has had a hard time because they've got the thermostat inserted in the coil and usually people only do that when they're having freeze-up problems and then looking at their invoices, I'm seeing they were having a Lot of freeze up problems to go ahead and bump it real, quick or go ahead and leave them on this one's cracked, but we were able to straighten it out now.

We can actually feel air blowing out of the coil. Now I've already told the customer too, though, that this like they need to change this equipment. This is literally gon na get them through, but yeah so at least we're operational okay. I just turned this equipment on on the roof.

We just got done defrosting and putting all the stuff together. It sounds like we have a fan motor going bad, but it's running at the moment. Let's do the sight. Glass looks like sight.

Glass is clear, clear, refrigerant pressures are extremely low and it is not for or for a, although it is cooling off outside. This is our 22. So I would say it's about 68. 78 yeah.

I guess that's about right. It's about 68 degrees outside right now, so yeah. I'd expect this to have a 30 degree condensing tempo over ambient with a clear sight, glass yeah. So we're probably okay on our pressures.

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised we have weak valve on the compressor. So we're gon na check the compressor valve. Now, I'm gon na say this right now. A lot of people give me flak because you know Copeland doesn't recommend checking valves by doing pump down tests on the suction.

But you know you should be using the coppa mobile app, but you know sometimes you just got to do what you got to do and I'm not running this thing into a deep vacuum. So essentially I'm gon na front-seat, the suction valve, we're gon na watch. It pull down into a vacuum yeah if you get about 5 psi anywhere from 5 to 10, psi and abettor, and what would that be negative, 5 negative, 10 or 10 hg or whatever it is. But and then you want to shut it off and it should hold and it shouldn't rise: okay, you're not supposed to run a compressor in a vacuum.

I know that, but we're gon na be fine. Alright, so our front seeded, the valve it pulled down to negative 12 negative 11 and shut down. So now we're going to bypass the low-pressure control. I need to pull the cover off of it.

Actually, I can probably just get in here and push in the contactor and run it until it goes into a vacuum and then we'll finish the test. Oh, my gosh stuff by the ocean is all corroded yeah we're pulling down pretty quick, so I'll, give it that much usually they're pulled down. This Creek is doing. I will pull the negative 5 now I already released it and it is rising, but not bad.

Usually, if it's a bad suction read, it'll go whoosh and go high and you can grab the suction line and it'll be hot. That's a bad suction read, but now this one's fine, so the compressor valves are okay. Now you should still do a performance analysis on coppa mobile, app and check it that way, but for today this compressors doing half-ass. Ok, I did a quick voltage drop test across the contactor.

You know just because it just looks like junk. It's fine! There's lots of problems with this condensing unit to the fan motors are because of the frame rate so chill out yeah this thing's just corroded the motor long I'd be afraid to try to undo that disintegrate site glasses. Still clear. Refrigerant pressures are okay, so condenser fan motor on the left.

I heard it when I started it up was running funny yeah this thing's not doing great, I'm going to show you guys something real quick. Let me step away from this. Alright. What I have here is a what looks to be a damn near brand new Linux package unit installed by my competitor, whatever it is, what it is, I'm not going to reveal their name.

We have 208 volt power coming into the building. None of the transformers are tapped. They're all tapped for 240 volt smoke detectors, aren't installed correctly pan over to the other side. I just this is the return air section.

I just did a video about this, where I they installed units at one of my normal stores. Look at the dust caps. These smoke detectors aren't doing anything because the dust caps are there. They left the magnet here, but they didn't remove the dust cap, so there's no air being forced through the duct detectors.

This is the kind of stuff that I have to deal with. You know, and it makes it hard it sucks too, because I want to raise my prices, but the downside is is that this company is charging almost 10 dollars an hour less than me, so it makes it hard same thing. Here's my supplier, dust caps are still on smoke. Detectors, aren't even doing anything.

I just hate this stuff. Man, sad thing is, is uh. I know a bunch of guys from that company that watch these videos. You guys probably recognize this equipment because you probably installed it.

I'm not perfect guys. I really am NOT. I make mistakes all the time, but you see and what I'm finding at the store. This is ridiculous.

All right, so we've got about thirty. Nine degree return air in here right now, so it's getting cold, I'm frustrated because you know they've got it set for 24 degree, coil temp with their crop, and I really don't want to mess with it, because I really don't want to be here all night trying To play with it, what's their differential at, I wonder, see the setpoint as the differential 12 degree differential, so 24, okay, yeah, that's a weird cut in temperature. I guess yeah! Oh all, right! I think it's okay, I'm gon na leave it alone. We're gon na get this panel flipped on right there and yeah we're gon na talk to them about replacing this.

I don't think this. This is really far from my office. This is actually out of my service area, so I don't even know if I want this work to be honest, all right and they're walk-in freezer is running. There's no abnormal ice patterns, it's just a normal freezer coil, but it is beat down original equipment not in good shape.

We're gon na talk to them about replacing this too okay. You know I mean these calls, they can be frustrating and I am human guys, I'm not perfect. I don't always have this happy-go-lucky attitude. I got frustrated.

I used some language, I'm human right, this one. We had a service call on a walk-in freezer, a walk-in cooler and, like I said in the beginning of the video, a couple reach-in coolers, okay, I knew right when I got to the location, I told the customer look, reaching coolers aren't happening. You know it's Friday afternoon, we're going on walking, cooler, walk-in freezer, you know and then I'll come back for the regen coolers and I did end up going back. I went out there later actually yeah.

Like a week later, I went out there for the reach-in coolers. So on this one right here, walking cooler was, I stopped customer told me they've been having a lot of problems. I asked him for invoices. They showed me all the invoices from the previous company and it was like, oh boy.

What did I get involved in? You know, but we unraveled everything we kind of figured it out. The equipment needs to be replaced, there's no ifs, ands or buts about that for the walk-in, cooler and walk-in freezer, but there's some things that were done by a previous company and it's like what are you guys doing here? You know you could tell they were reaching for the stars, trying to figure out an icy nut problem. Well, maybe put the fan blades on right. You'll solve your.

I see no problem. Okay, it's not that hard. I'll. Also tell you that after I clean that coil or have my other technician, you know do our best to clean the coil and we put the fan blades on the right direction.

I went back there a week and a half later and we don't have an icing issue before anymore and apparently the customer told me they were having an icing up issue every couple days. Okay, I mean it's not that hard to figure out air moves in a certain direction and if you put the wrong fan blade on it's, not gon na move the air correctly, it's gon na go too slow. You're gon na have ISTEP coils. Okay, I'm gon na call him down about that one.

Okay again, I'm thankful that I get this work, it's just. Sometimes it gets you at a really frustrating time. You know and like I said in the beginning of the video, it was about that point that I had just gotten a service call to the other location for the walk-in freezer, and so I was like. Oh, my gosh, I'm never gon na get home and I was scheduled to be on the HVAC overtime, show the live stream and I remember I was messaging everybody saying it's not happening.

You know anyways long story, walk-in freezer had a bad condenser fan motor. I was a little bit skeptical because you know it was a brand new compressor started. Reading invoices saw a refrigerant leak on the connection point where they braised in the compressor to the discharge line. I'll give them credit that would have been a really crappy joint to braise in, but I think that had I would myself had a compressor go bad.

I would not have given the customer the option to put in a compressor, and I would have just said you need a condensing unit, there's a time in place when as a technician, you need to make an executive decision. Yes, of course, you get your boss involved in it or your supervisor or whatever, but in this situation, even if it was a Friday night, it would be much easier to put a condensing unit in that like really it would have been so much faster. So put a condensing unit in versus putting in a compressor, because you put in a compressor you've got to take it all out. You've got to put the new one in potentially repipe it you've got to deal with that kind of stuff, a condensing unit, you're gon na you know to braze joints in a dryer done.

You know, then you eliminate the potential of anything else going on the the condenser being deteriorated, that kind of stuff. Okay, I realize I wasn't there and maybe the other company tried to put a condensing unit and maybe they couldn't get one. I don't know you know. I I really can't say that they're wrong for putting in a compressor.

Inevitably they got the customer going and you know the box worked, so I guess they did a service for them. It's just. You know in hindsight it's easier for me to look at it and say I would have done it differently, but who's to say I wasn't there the day that they put it in. I don't know the circumstances okay, but in this situation after this call, I am talking to the customer and I am highly recommending that they have both walk-in cooler and walk-in freezer equipment replaced.

I gave them pictures and all kinds of information - and I had mentioned a couple times in this - that this location is so far from my shop that I don't think I want to do the work. It makes it very difficult because in rush hour traffic I've got it. You know if, if we're gon na be there for a crane, lift or whatever early in the morning it just it just makes it really difficult. It makes it kind of you know, pain in the butt.

So we'll see, though you know I mean if traffic doesn't pick up too much, maybe I will do it. I don't mind helping them out right now, especially with this whole virus thing, because we're slow anyways. So I'll kind of take any work I can get. But when I go behind other companies, it's hard for me to send out my service technicians, because I never know what they're gon na run into and it may be more difficult for one of my guys to unravel you know another company's disaster and try to solve Problems so I tend to try to take those calls myself because I've seen a lot of funky things.

You know and I've made a lot of mistakes myself and you know I try to take those because I know they're gon na be difficult. You know you know and nothing nothing against my guys or anything like that. I mean it's just you know they don't necessarily have the experience that I have or and or made the same. You know the mistakes that I have made and I've learned from a lot of my mistakes.

Okay, so anyways hey. I really really appreciate you guys taking the time to watch these videos, especially you guys that make it to the end. You know it's really cool when you guys shout out and say hey, you know, you know, I acknowledge the fact that you made it to the end. I do just so that you guys know it's been getting a little bit more difficult.

I do read all the comments, or at least I make a really good effort to it, and I try to acknowledge them by giving them a thumbs up in a heart. I don't get to answer them all anymore because there's so many coming in, but I try my best guys. Okay, so remember I do live streams on Monday evening 5:00 p.m. Pacific really appreciate you guys to support and remember, if you guys are considering any tool purchases.

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