This video is brought to you by sportlin quality, integrity and tradition. All right, we have a service called a kitchen ac, not working properly today so um. They said that their office, which is controlled by the kitchen ac, is extremely hot holy moly. Does that compressor, sound bad, that's so loud, so uh we're gon na have to dive into this unit and try to figure out what's going on with it and what we can do to get it fixed.

So we have an extremely noisy compressor. The second stage compressor is disconnected and the plug is taped off, and that is my style, so i might have done that. Let me turn this guy off all right, so this guy, we have a first stage, compressor, that's extremely noisy. We have a second stage, compressor that is taped off, and this is totally my style to tape it like this, so i might have done this third stage is still hooked up.

Uh condenser itself is kind of dirty, okay, um. So from the looks of it, this stuff happens. Let's see the inside oh yeah, this guy's really dirty in here too. So from the looks of it, we condemned a compressor on this unit again i'll have to go through history in our system.

Um and maybe the customer didn't approve the quote or something yet we'll have to look and see so we're going to start by cleaning up the unit, because we know the condenser needs to be cleaned, so we're going to pull the panels clean. The unit up we'll clean the other units too and then we'll get on to the diagnosis uh from the sounds of it. I don't think this is running backwards, but we'll double check that, but if yeah, because the wiring coloring is the same as all the other ones, everything looks good there. So i think we have a second compressor on the way out, we'll double check the diagnosis on this compressor and then we'll see if this one works at all and test all the condenser fan motors to see, if there's anything we can do to get this running.

I did go through my service history and we condemned this crib presser back in march of 2021, so this year it's now uh july of 2021. So we're just confirming diagnosis. It was not me that condemned it, but one of my texts just did it the way that i like it. So we're testing continuity to ground nothing on that leg and we have continuity on this leg and then, let's test the other leg yeah.

So we have a grounded compressor, so definitely bad compressor, but we still need to go through the rest of the unit now uh. The complaint is that it was working kind of okay, but then now all of a sudden, it's just really gone downhill. So some obvious things that compresses really loud it might be inefficient, we'll test that out, but the condenser being dirty is a huge thing. So we're going to clean that condenser first, like i said, and then we'll finish going through everything understanding how your your restaurants or your buildings operate is so important all right.

This particular restaurant uses the air conditioning units for the air balance, there's no makeup air; okay! No makeup no dedicated makeup air unit. They pull makeup air from every ac. It's imperative that the outside air filters be clean for proper operation of this setup, and these filters are plugged solid and that's why they're plugged is because they're pulling so much air through these things, so that will affect the performance of the building significantly, because if your Building has a negative air balance. That means the exhaust fans are pulling out more air than you're putting back into the building and it'll make it really hard to open outside doors the customers will struggle and when they do get the outside doors open.

All the makeup. Air is going to come in through that door now so you're going to get a rush of really hot air or really cold air depending on the climate. So it's so important to make sure you understand how these buildings work and when you're doing coil, cleanings and things like that. You clean the makeup air unit.

I mean the outside air filters if necessary. Our first step is going to be just to pre-rinse the big stuff off the condenser, get it nice and wet inside and out then we'll apply cleaner and start cleaning everything, so these inside ones a little difficult, but we just kind of get in there as best As possible get the big stuff off and then, like i said, we'll get the cleaner on there and then, while we're cleaning, we got two people here today. So, while we're cleaning um i'm going around and i'm gon na start checking the belts, i went ahead and pulled the panels off of every unit, we're doing this teamwork style, okay, so one person's not doing all the work, we're trying to be as efficient as possible, Because we want to be able to bill for everybody's time, so we can't be standing around. You know what i'm saying kitchen ac units belt, pretty darn good, pretty happy with that.

Don't see any major problems, blower wheels really really dirty. That's definitely a an issue. Let's check these filters see how bad they are. Filters are pretty dirty, but i mean the unit itself is pretty dirty inside too, but i mean i don't think they have to be changed.

I think they'll be okay, while we're rinsing this ac, i'm kind of looking around, and i think i might have found a problem. Look right in here: that's all oil, it's refrigeration, oil and i'm almost positive. That is the third stage. If we follow this guy back.

That's this liquid line going there going up there yeah! That's the third stage compressor right there, so that sucks, big old fat leak right there well we're going to keep going with the cleaning we lucked out and that the water that we supply i have supplied here is hot. So it's helping to clean this thing, but you can see what's coming out, is just pure mud coming out of this guy. This is our final rinse on this guy, so we've done a couple rinses. This is going to be the worst one over here this side, because it's kind of in sides is what happens so i'm getting ready to profile and set up measure quick, we're gon na.

Do it for a two stage, because we know the third stage has a bad compressor, but i can hear this vibrating and feel it and it's this blower motor. It's weird, i think the blower motor is going bad too. It's coming and going every once in a while. You get this high resonance vibrating see it's not doing it now when i open this panel, it goes away.

It's very interesting, and i put this on. I will say this: building's air balance is really out of whack. So it could be putting extra strain on the motor or something but strange all right. Well, we got this unit back together, um we're going to uh, probe up and then see.

What's going on, i was looking into where that oil was and it actually might be. The second stage, which well we'll see that might be a good sign, but we'll see so this uh first stage compressor is vibrating so bad, but it's pumping. So i might try to put some oil in it, but we're definitely looking low, but it's vibrating. So bad.

The the refrigeration probes keep coming off all of them. Both of them are really loud, though so first stage is running low pressures, high and low high suction line. Temp high super heat, low, sub cooling first stage looks low on gas. To me second stage just looks like it might be running a little low on the suction pressure.

Sub cooling is low, super heat's high, both of them might be ever so slightly low on charge, but we also got to pay attention to condenser fan motors. Only two of them are running. We need to get those other two running to make sure that we have a thing, and i just rubbed refrigeration oil. All over my eye, my eye itched, and i did so number one that first compressor is really loud.

What i'm gon na try to do is go get some oil and we're gon na put some oil in through the suction side and see if we can get some oil in that compressor and see if it quiets it down just a little bit um and then We're gon na top off the charge too, so i stepped back from the unit and i tripped over something - and i look over here - this is something sneaking up through the roof, someone drilled something through the roof and it vibrated up it's i can, when i push On it, i can feel something moving and that's been drilled up from the other side. What the heck is that that's weird, i can have a water leak there, so i was curious about something on the first stage, so this is my liquid line. Temp coming out of the dryer 90 degrees, okay and then we're gon na switch it to this side. Right here make sure it's got a good connection.

It does. We've got a plugged up liquid line, filter dryer on the first stage, so this guy and it sounds like it's low on oil or something, but it could just be that the dryer's plugged up and that oil might be stuck ah questions questions. What do we do here because i talked to the customer and the customer said that they're replacing this unit, but we need it running so huh all right, there's something major going on with the third stage too, because look at that head pressure, it's insane right now, Yeah something's funky there um, but i can't i don't know what the heck is going on with measure quick. There's like a see it's like coming and going it's weird um.

I checked the the filter dryer it. It has like a two to three degree: temperature drop across the dryer which i'm not in love with, so we might change that. Dryer too, i did talk to the customer and, like i said, they're getting a new unit, but um they're so far behind at linux. That they're they're having to build them because they're out of stock - and they said it's not going to be built and delivered until october.

So we got to do what we got to do to get this unit operational, we're not going to change the compressor, but we're probably going to get the first and second stage running so we're going to go ahead and uh kill the power to the first stage. I'll recover the gas out of that one leave the third stage running and then we'll flip-flop and everything and change the dryers and see if we can't get these things at least somewhat running. I can't stress enough how important it is to purge your gauges. Okay, i'm going to be reusing this refrigerant, so we can't be having it contaminated with air.

So i purge my gauges up to here. This is open. These are open. All i need to do is open this to recover and i left this loose so that way it can purge there we go now.

It's purging and we've gotten all the air out of the lines or as best as we can so important. All right we got done recovering the gas i got. Ta say there was a lot of refrigerant in there, so i hooked up the nitrogen tank, we're purging with nitrogen through the low side we're going to get in here we're going to change this dryer real quick. Once we get the dryer changed, we'll get the vacuum pump running and then hopefully get that first stage back up and running, i sent someone to go, get me another dryer and some oil.

Just in case we got to add oil, but it could just be that the oil is logged in the evaporator too. So we don't want. We got ta be careful about adding oil all right, we're going in with an oversized dryer we're putting in a 16 cubic inch. What was in, there was an eight cubic inch and actually what was in there was oversized two, because what comes from the factory is a five cubic inch uh.

You will have to adjust the charge accordingly, but it's not that big of a deal so um. Here's the old dryer i got ta say it's rather heavy, so i imagine it's restricted pretty well with whatever's in there, probably the compressor oil breaking down or something um, but uh yeah we're gon na sweat this guy in real quick, then we'll make sure we get A long screw to secure that guy, but i really like using the sporland catch. All dryers never really had a problem with them. Whenever possible, i try to go.

Oversize got the vacuum pump running uh we're doing a three hose, pull right now to try to pull the system down as fast as possible. I've got the gas ballast open, but something i'm a little bit concerned about is the oil. Now is the compressor low on oil? I don't know the sound that it was making was making me think it needed oil, but i don't know if that's the case in situations with restrictions, you can have oil get stuck in the system in different places. So these are all things i need to pay attention to.

We may end up sucking oil out of the lines. I don't know it's hard to get it out of the compressor, but if it's stuck in the system, the vacuum will pull it out of the lines. So something we got to keep an eye on we'll watch the oil level on the sky. We did a good vacuum.

Everything looked good on that, so we're about to weigh in the charge we're going to open up the high side. I've zeroed out the weight on here. I'm using the field piece. Wireless scale takes 11 pounds.

Eight ounces we're putting it in through the high side and my micron gauge is still reading some weird lower levels, but it's good we're going to take it off now, because it's in positive pressure and yeah 11 pounds. Eight ounces is what we're looking for. So we're gon na get that into there and then uh, hopefully start this guy up pull a good vacuum. It pulls all the refrigerant in we overshot it just a little bit.

It says 11 pounds 12 ounces, but it should be good because we have that bigger dryer on there, so uh yeah everything's good on this guy. We're closed off ready to start this up, i disconnected the third stage, so once we get this running, we can recover from the third stage now. So i want to watch out when it does start up. If that oil is in the system, i don't know if it's going to come back or what be careful, probably gon, na, go and put this guy into test mode.

So that way it just starts right up unit test and then i'll just go c10. That should be first stage it's still loud as hell, but we're gon na give us some time to run and see what happens here. Comes the look at the pressure coming back up. It started really low 75 psi 76 because it's under a heavy load right now.

So i'm surprised it's coming that high, because i thought the pressure they usually have pressure limiting expansion knobs on them, 88. Psi notice that it's quieting down, though it's definitely quieting down, so we're gon na give it some time. Let it run and uh check to make sure all our fan motors are running too. I probably should have just done the full call for cool.

I don't know if that turns on all the fans or not because the head pressure is kind of high. I just manually turned on the other fans by jumping the wires over temporarily on the relays and my head pressure's dropping. So that's good compressor sounding a lot better, but we're gon na. Let it run for a while and hope that if there is oil trapped, it comes back and, like i said, we'll get recovering on that.

Third compressor look at this, so it ran for a few minutes. I have temperature clamps across that dryer 103 on the inlet 66 on the outlet the dryer's already plugged up again, i wonder if it's oil, i wonder if the dryer is getting saturated with oil, what the heck is going on here, man, or is it just really That severely contaminated, so uh it's getting really hot outside granted. This is just r22, but my tank pressure started climbing, so i'm going to run water across the tank and you see it's dropping now. 420.

419.. Remember this is the discharge. This is the outlet so we're going to keep some running water across the tank. That'll help us to be able to recover faster, we're gon na have to figure something out here, put a bigger dryer, and maybe some ball valves or something it's really interesting.

I'm kind of scared like what is plugging up this system, so i disconnected the condenser. I recovered the gas. Obviously new dryers right there disconnected the condenser blow out of here and no oil is coming out. So what the heck is plugging up this dryer - i don't get it it's very interesting yeah, not even any oil or anything's coming out it's coming out, just fine, nothing blowing right into the liquid! Well, you know going into the condenser.

This is the liquid drain, but yeah i mean it's flowing through just fine. It's very interesting! I'm really intrigued by what is plugging up this dryer, because i for sure thought i was going to have oil stuck in the condenser, but that's not the case. It wasn't there, i mean the the condenser was clear and whatever is restricting it had to be in the condenser. It's very interesting because it would have clogged up the metering device if it was running through the liquid line.

You know what i'm saying so, and the metering device was still letting refrigerant through just fine huh. I mean you know not as good as it should be. It's very interesting, okay, well um. While i'm waiting i'm waiting for him, i got to get back with some ball valves in a dryer um, i'm recovering from the third stage, because i want to see if the refrigerant charge is accurate, so we're doing that real, quick and then uh.

I sweat this guy back together, this guy's back together and then uh we're just gon na build. What we're gon na end up doing is a flare dryer. I got a 30 cubic inch, a giant one, we're going to end up building something we got to secure it carefully to this, and i'm going to put ball valves on it. Ball valve here bulb out here.

So that way, if it plugs up again, we can change it. This is nuts. I've never had to do this before, but we put a ball valve here. We put the pressure port on the inside, put a flare, dryer ball valve here pressure port here.

So if we ever have to change this dryer again, we don't have to recover the whole charge. We just valve it off recover, what's there and then you can evacuate it. So that's that at the same time, i recovered the gas from the other stage and it wasn't over charged which it was running high head pressure. It, like literally, has 10 pounds nine ounces.

So it's supposed to have eleven eight. Oh, this thing is pissing me off man, so i think we're gon na change that dryer too, since we have it open. Just because i don't know what's going on here, we'll probably put in a flare. There, too, got the evacuation running on the first stage, we're at about 479 microns.

We just finished changing the dryer. I went ahead and put a new dryer on the third stage too, because i just don't know what's going on with the system um and i was running high head pressure, but we were under charge so just changed it real, quick, don't know. What's going on there um, because we had to pull the refrigerant out anyways put ball valves on, went ahead and went with the flare valve too we'll secure that guy got this guy secured it's not going anywhere, we'll secure this one, real, quick and then we'll get This cover on, we still got to uh, tighten up the flares and then get the evacuation running on this stage too. All right, this guy's still evacuating it's at about 668 microns.

This guy's running it's charged pressures are looking good, but i'm going to try to put a couple squares of oil in there to see if it helps i've already primed the pump so we're just gon na slowly. Add it very carefully. We don't want to put too much oil in there because we don't even know if it's low, but it just sounds like crap. You know so we're just going to put a couple squirts in there.

It's it's quieted down a little bit we're gon na give it a few minutes, see if it'll suck in what i put in and go from there all right. So first stage is looking really good. The compressor's not really quieting down too much, but pressures are looking good superheat sub coins about where it should be yeah. I'm not gon na put any more gas in it.

This. I don't doubt that that compressor is inefficient and there's issues with it. Um temp splits not great, but it's gon na take time. I just turned this on and we don't have that other one running yet so we're going to go ahead and probe up on the other one and see how that does all right.

So the the third stage compressor, the only other one that's working - is looking really good. The numbers are on point um, i'm a happy camper. Of course, the unit doesn't have the greatest temperature split right now, because it needs that third compressor to really help it out and the air flows out of whack too. But this guy is kicking butt doing everything it can we're going to talk to them see if they want us to change that middle compressor.

Temporarily, i don't know i got to wait all the way till october, so that's a long time with a warm kitchen, but all right well we're going to uh wrap this one up. The dryers are all secured inside there, nice and good i've done everything i can. We also cleaned every other ac check, the belts on every other ac. So we've done everything we can we're going to start getting this giant mess.

We got up here. We've already been taking some things down, so all right, i got done just uh cutting these dryers up. I was curious what was going on here and it's just contamination, so this is the first dryer that went bad okay. This is the inlet, and this is the outlet, but look it look at look at this.

It's just plugged with with gunk, and this thing is just disintegrated, so that's the first dryer and then this is the second one that we put in again: here's the inlet! Here's the outlet and it's just caked, look at this. I mean look at the mesh, it's just caked, so we're gon na call. This is just lack of preventative maintenance for so long that oil in the system is cooked and this unit's just dying to slow death. Basically, um there's not a whole lot.

We can do about it other than i mean i put in that giant oversized dryer. So you know it's working um. I didn't bother cutting open the uh, the third stage, dryer, because this is one of the emerson ones and it has all those little beads and they just go everywhere. This is a solid desiccant, it's nice and easy and to cut them open.

I just use. I have a saw and i've got this jig for it. It's called a portaban pro and you can pop this gas shock off and you can set it up as a chop saw, there's actually a table that will come up and set on here and then you can basically hinge the the bottom down. So you can cut things up, do whatever you want, but it's just a giant band saw so yeah, just uh lack of preventative maintenance.

You know this is what happens when you run dirty condensers for years you run dirty condensers. For years you start cooking the oil. The compressor temperature gets above 225, you know 12 inches away from it, which the internal temperature is well above 225, but copeland recommends no more than 225 a couple inches like what 12 inches away from the compressor or something like that um. But basically my guess is they're, just cooking the oil.

You know this isn't we're not contaminating the system, i'm the only person that ever works on that that that setup. So you know it's just it's it's dirty in that system. It's just caked in there all right. You clearly saw how plugged up those dryers were and again it's just people not doing proper preventative maintenance and it beats these units up.

You know running dirty, condensers. All the time causes the unit to have really high condensing temperatures, all the time which causes it eventually to overheat, the oil um - and it's just you know and then dirty air filters dirty outside air filters. You know just lack of routine maintenance, so um, you know we started out as a normal service call and i went through the system because uh everything was dirty, you know and when you have these customers that don't do routine maintenance, you kind of have to start That way, so we had to spend a good three hours, cleaning everything and i will say too: we didn't clean the third stage condenser enough. That's why we were running really high head pressure once i uh changed the dryer on it and started it back up and weighed in the charge.

We were still running the higher head pressure, so i personally went and checked that condenser and the water wasn't flowing properly through it. So i was talking to my apprentice and we both went through it together. It was a good teaching moment. You know that you know you got to see the the water flowing through there just because the surface is clean, so uh went through there and really really got in there and cleaned that thing got plenty of chemical on it broke everything down, cleared it out and Then you guys saw the end result where the the third stage was running really good.

I kind of went back and forth in the video calling the third stage, the second stage. That was just because i was treating it as a two stage uh, when i was setting up measure quick, because we didn't have the third compressor running so that it was yeah anyways. That was it, but so when it comes to these calls, you know i have to start them. You know and clean spend hours cleaning before i can even diagnose - and this is the frustrating thing that kind of happens with customers that don't do preventative maintenance, because you know you can't just go out and change a contactor anymore.

It's you go out there in the unit's so filthy that you can't even give them an accurate diagnosis until you clean it and then once you spend hours cleaning it, then you can come in and say: oh yeah, it needs all this work. You know and we're seeing this more and more with several of the customers, especially after the last year of the craziness going on with you know, everything and uh. You know nobody was doing routine, maintenances and stuff because they didn't have the money. Everybody was afraid they didn't know what was going to happen.

So i mean it is what it is. You know, but um, i'm still in talks with the customer to see if they want us to change that other compressor, because again having to wait till october with just two of these things, i mean they really need that that second compressor running or that third compressor. Whatever you want to call it running on this thing, so we're still kind of trying to see what they want to do, but for now they've got some crazy, oversized dryers with some ball valves, which is a little unconventional um. But you know i wanted to go in there with a flare dryer, because i don't want to have to keep unsweating that compressor or unsweating that dryer.

So it is what it is. You know i'm not a huge fan of putting flare dryers on these package units that have a lot of vibrations in them, because over time they are going to have leaks at the flare nuts and stuff. But you can only do what you can do. You know it is what it is so hey.

I really appreciate you guys making it to the end of the video. If you haven't already do me a favor guys and check out my website hvacrvideos.com uh. These hats are available. Shirts, beanies sweaters, all that good stuff.

Uh, just a great way to help support the channel. If you guys are interested um. The easiest way, though, to support the channel, the super easiest way doesn't cost you. A single thing is: watch the beginning or watch the videos from beginning to end without skipping through anything seriously.

That's the easiest way, okay, other ways that you can help to support the channel uh via patreon, via paypal, uh via youtube channel memberships. It's all in the show notes of this video um. Remember i try to go. Live uh on monday evenings about 5 p.m, pacific on youtube.

Lately it hasn't been working out because i've been so busy at work. In fact, this service call was the reason why i didn't do my monday. Night live stream. Um, let's see today is the 21st, so that would have been on july 19th was because of this video.

I was stuck at this restaurant until like 4 30, or something like that, so i didn't get home for another hour and a half after that, so anyways, it is what it is. Okay, remember: i also go live with my buddies on friday evenings again: work permitting on the hvac overtime, youtube channel, where we just kind of recap the week and kind of hang out and talk so check that out too there's links in the show notes to everything And uh yeah. I really really appreciate you guys and we will catch you on the next one. Okay,.