All right! I'm excited to have my friends Jim Fultz and Jim Hagel here from Copeland We I'm so used to saying Emerson I'm probably going to say it a couple times here, but it's exciting to get to be able to say the Copeland brand again I think that's the one we all cut our teeth coming up on. so it's It's really cool to kind of have that back and front and center again. and so we're going to talk through that and a bunch of other stuff we're going to talk about: filter Dryer, Suction dryers, liquid dryers, system cleanup, all that stuff. but before we do that, I Want to give you each a chance just to kind of introduce yourselves.

Tell us a little bit about what you do uh with Copeland So I'll start with my uh with my good friend Jim Fultz hey thanks Brian uh thanks for having us on today. Always a pleasure visiting, chatting with you here and and great to be talking about filter dryers today! um Jim Fultz my name title is a Technical Training specialist here at Copeland White Rogers and I help out on the heating side of things mostly and so that's why. uh we we uh kind of tag team here with with our cooling partner on on the cooling side of things to go through those together today. Awesome Yeah! thanks for joining us and now Jim Hagel We got two gyms with us so when I say Jim they're both going to go.

Yeah we we can just go for first letters the last one. Okay so I'm Jim Hagel I've been uh I've been affiliated with uh dare I say the word Emerson um for 35 years. So um, currently a lot of different roles. but currently I'm in charge of all of our wholesale sales for the cooling control sector of our business for our portfolio.

So um, and we're all kind of, uh, learning our new, uh, learning our new. A lot of changes going on besides just the name change. Yeah, I bet. So uh, we're we're getting used to that.

Yeah, for sure happy to be with you. Yeah, it's exciting. So I'll let you kind of talk about that because you already mentioned it. so a lot of people may not know this.

um, brand realignment? Copeland is the name? Everybody's going to hear a lot more now. So what what should we expect? What's that all about? And what are we? Uh, what are we gonna see in the near and uh, and maybe distant future? Yeah, well. I think you know Again, this is just going to be a fight between Fulton eye and who's going to speak first. But anyway.

Um, but there's a lot of excitement about about us being a standalone company kind of breaking away from the traditional Emerson um platform and and being a standalone with Copeland as our is our name. Obviously well respected for oh my gosh, let's think 100 years or so. Yeah, um so um, yeah, we're excited about it. Um Kerry's you know the name I've I've been with even before Emerson I've been with uh, you know, white Rogers been with with flow controls, been with Alco so it's been a it's There's been a few changes along the way, but this change is really being embraced well by everybody.

So uh, we're excited. um and uh gosh again. what's what's the dust settles? We'll we'll feel a lot better about everything is as we'll talk a little bit more later on about trying to find some of our stuff. It's it's all a work in process right now trying to, um, get our websites and everything back up and everything functioning great.

but uh, everybody's pretty excited about it. You know, being a standalone company um is going to definitely open some doors and allow us to invest more in the company. Um, so from that standpoint, uh, we're pumped. So yeah for sure it's going to be interesting.

Like you mentioned, because a lot of the products we're used to asking for an Emerson dryer for example and now that's going to change. Uh, so Jim what are you? What are you seeing on your end? Jim Fultz. Well, yeah, I think Hegel covered it quite well. It's just a matter of of the process of working through this.

As far as the products themselves, they're going to continue to flow uninterrupted. So as far as seeing the product come and be available I don't know that you will even see any hint of of any change in that whatsoever. As far as the actual rebranding of things, that's the part that that there's still discussion and talk of exactly how those names all fit together. uh, and and the example that you gave of of the Emerson filter dryer and obviously the Emerson name will be no longer affiliated with that, what group or or name it is attached to.

that's you know, until we know we, we really don't have much to share on it because you know we have the the Scentsy name uh as well as The Verdant which is a thermostat based out of Uh Canada that was in acquisition a couple years ago. Uh. and and then the Copeland name as well as the white Rogers name. And so how those names are all used currently? Well let's go back.

Uh here to last year Emerson was the umbrella that all of those names were under. the acquisition that took place started a new company and I like to hear it as as we are a 5 billion startup. Uh, so lots lots of opportunity. But but how all of those names fit underneath the the Copeland as the the overarching uh company name? uh, we'll we'll see those rebranding uh effects here probably within the next year.

Uh, hopefully sooner. But uh, it's taken some time to get there. Yeah, of course I mean it's a it's a it's a big ship so there's a lot of things to work through. All right.

So let's dive into the topic of the day, which is, uh, filter dryers and the filter dryer line. So let's start there. What are some of the different types of filter dryers? Start real wide? Um, and what are some of the different categories and subtypes? Whoever wants to take that? Wow, that is A. We could spend an hour just on that That one question.

But uh, let's uh. so when you're talking filter dryers as a general rule, when you talk in the refrigeration aspect, you have, you know you have your liquid line, you have your uh, uh, another classification called the biflow which is also located in the in the liquid line, and then you have your suction line dryers. Um, and then we also get into a whole notherness and a whole nother. WebEx um or uh, talk about oil dryers and and some other specialized dryers.

But let's just keep it to these refrigerant dryers and I'll kind of go through maybe our batting order if you will of uh, our our primary dryers at Copeland here. So um, from a liquid line perspective I I Look at it from a liquid line we have kind of like four main liquid line dryers. um, a buy flow we have two and then the suction line we have four so and I'll if you want me to. Brian I'll just give you a brief kind of overview of those.

Yeah, sure is that good. Yep, so we have our uh, our bread and butter. our our wonderful EK the industry's best filtering drier. When you have when you say filter dryer, it filters and it dries.

There's nothing better out there than an EK filter dryer. from the from the filtering aspect. Um, everybody's kind of dries pretty pretty much similar. but from the filtering aspect, we can filter down to 20 microns which is uh, which is the finest filtration in the industry.

So but our EK is our is our kind of our premium. Um, it's uh, like I said filters down to 20 microns. It can capture and hold up to 13 grams of grit, which is quite a lot. Where most like block style dryers, they will.

They filter to 40 microns so not quite as small and they can capture and hold about eight grams of grit before they get to that pressure point where they need to be removed. Pressure drop point where they need to be removed. So our Eks are kind of a bread and butter. it's the it's the I Guess it's not the Cadillac, it's the Tesla I guess out there.

So um, and then we have our what we call our Builder series line. It's a little more economical like our BSL Builder series liquid. It's still got that compacted bead design filled. Still filters down to 20 microns.

It's a skinnier diameter liquid line dryer. Um, so it removes the same size particles, but it removes just a little bit less as far as volume total grams and it removes just a little bit less as far as drops of moisture. Now when I say less, you know we're talking maybe 25 less. And let's be honest, for the most part, filter dryers.

unless there's a catastrophe, you're not going to get into the To Max it out on on drops of moisture. I mean we're talking I and I'm just going to shoot off the cuff here. we're talking an EK and maybe hold 163 will probably hold about 150 160 drops of water. That's a lot of drops of water.

and EK can hold um, the Builder series version of it which is kind of like the mini EK if you will, is uh, um, probably holds 75 percent of that. drop some moisture, maybe 120 drops somewhere in that ballpark. So it's and it's a little skinnier diameter. So um, but I Know some con: some contractors get a little.

It'll a little nervous when they see these out at wholesaler shelves or whatever as because of its, the diameter of the the shell is a little smaller. Well, they think, well, that's not going to flow the same amount. Well, It's an interesting perspective, but the capacity of a dryer is not only the size of the shell, but it's it's relegated to the size of the connection as well. So a 3 8 dryer, that's 5 8.

eight, you know, an eight cubic inch, a five cubic inch, and a 16 cubic inch could all flow the same capacity. Because it's it's mandated by the 3 8 inch connection, not necessarily the volume of the of the dryer. so there's some. There's some myths out there and some some nervousness that a smaller dryer like that might, um, you know, raise some questions.

The the good side of them would be on a builder series a smaller diameter shell is it fits easier into tighter spaces so some contractors love that aspect of it. still flows the amount of refrigerant it, but it it's easier to sweat into a smaller, uh, smaller, you know configuration. So so anyway, so we have the EK which is our our Tesla we have the little more economical BSL Then we have a couple other specialized dryers um which are like our be Okay and I would love to get in. A little discussion later about um be okay.

It has the HH desk again so it it's uh, HH is a is a acronym that's used in the industry to tell you it's got activated carbon in there for burnouts and stuff like that and maybe we'll Shelt this conversation still a little bit later in the talk. but uh, but that's our that's our burn out So the Be Okay stood for Burnout clean when we came out with that burnout clean. so EK was extra clean. BSL is Builder series liquid.

Then we have the BOK um for it's really a temporary dryer for Burnout and then the other specialized dryer we offer is on the liquid line side is the CU which is our copper spun dryer. Um, so we make two different types of copper spun. We make the appliance type dryers for um, you know beverage machines or um, you know refrigerators Coke machine stuff like that. but we also make it in regular 8 and 16 cubic inch filter dryers which we have a really nice handout flyer that we that we sell our C U, 163s and Co83s.

It's especially in coastal applications or Marine applications that it's a hundred percent copper. Why is it 100 copper? Because it's it. It's corrosion resistant so it's really targeted along those coasts. an interesting thing.

and I that I when we launched this product some years back I looked at the Statue of Liberty The Statue of Liberty is 100 percent coded in in Copper just from the rusting aspect so it's not rusting so. but a CU dryer I mean we've all seen it if you've been out in the field. Uh, dryers. man, they rust in a heartbeat if they're out in the ambient.

boy, it's it's crazy. So those are our basic four liquid line dryers. From the buy Flow side, we only have two. We have our BFK which is our industry kind of leading.

Um, we've just done phenomenal over the many decades as far as shares as that goes as the industry leader with our with the internal flapper design of it. so it's a BFK. It's a bi-flow filter. It'll flow in both both directions, but yet it will capture and hold the the grit inside the dryer itself.

And then we have the BSB which is our Builder series version of that. Again, more economical. um a little bit less on the diameter and a little bit less on the Uh on the desk that's inside of there. But again, when I say less don't get Don't Panic it's not that much less.

And then from our suction line which you know suction line drives aren't as common as liquid line. obviously because you know they're really in there for uh for safety net. um when you've had a system issue. Um so we have the ASD which is our um, premium liquid or suction line dryer.

Uh, it's got It's got the most desk in it could possibly have. Then we have the Sfd which is a smaller version. kind of the more economical. um some people who are refer to the Sfd maybe call it a short fat dryer but then we also have the Csfd the compact suction filter dryer which is like the pancake dryer again when you need a suction dryer you don't have and you want you got again a little bit of space.

Um, it's a industry calls them pancake dryers. that's the Csfd. And then we have the Ask which is the one that has activated carbon so it has the HH suffix on on the model number. So again, that's for definite burnout installations.

Um, you'd want to put that in um as a temporary fix and then get it back out once. Uh, once the systems have been identified as clean. so those are, that's probably our our I just went through the top ten, four, two, and four of our batting order of uh of filter dryers. uh, in our portfolio.

you covered a lot of things that I was I was making some notes on there that I want to touch on and then and then uh, folds I'll I'll kind of get some of your comments on it. Um, one of the things you mentioned was the copper spun dryers. How they're great for environments where corrosion is is advancing. it's going to happen more quickly.

and in fact you see spun dryers and a lot of Manufacturers equipment. So you when you you know, open up the condenser. A lot of times spun dryers are what they put in from the factory. Uh, for that reason probably because you don't have as much control over where they're going to be.

um, but I would want to hear because one of the things I've always said and some manufacturers say this, others don't But I've always said where possible, put your liquid line dryers on the inside, where they're going to protect the indoor metering device and they're going to be out of the elements. There's some debate about that, but there are some factors in where you place liquid line dryers. so I'd like to hear I mean just just because it kind of came up in a couple different areas there. Um, if Jim fultz if you have any thoughts on that.

Yeah, I'd be glad to share with that. and and there has been debate in the past of exactly uh, how that's done, where where they go and I like to to take it from the aspect that we're going to stop and we're going to think about what we're wanting to protect and and the main thing that that we're looking at is we are wanting to protect the metering device. We're wanting to keep any type of debris to get into that meeting metering device and and cause it to to malfunction or to to be completely restricted. And so the placement of that filter dryer on the liquid line side of things is going to be, uh, critical of getting it where it's going to do the maximum protection.

So if you're you're installing a straight air conditioner, not a heat pump. Straight air conditioner. Your metering device is on the inside and the ideal spot is right outside that that indoor coil right close to the TXV So it's doing the maximum system protection of protecting everything all the way back from the condenser to the the TXV or or whatever type of metering device is there. Now the exception to the rule that that I would prefer would be if you're installing a heat pump and you are installing it in the winter time and you're going to do the startup in the heat mode.

Now you're going to be using the Txe or the metering device in the condenser in the outdoor unit and in that application for a startup in the heat mode. my preference would be to see that Tia that filter dryer which is going to be a buy flow at that point out close to the condenser. so that again it's going to be at the point the closest to that metering device to do the most protection that you can get from throughout the entire system. And so if you're going to do a heat pump and you're going to start it up in the cooling mode, I'm perfectly fine with it being on the inside.

so the inside is is really the majority of of your applications. If you're primarily AC if you're doing heat pumps, then decide what you're going to start up and what mode you're going to start up in and do your placement. from that the the that's the liquid line side of things, the suction side of things and we'll probably get a little more into why and and where with suction um, filter dryers. But but those, uh, the ideal place for those is again where they're coming back to the compressor doing the the maximum protection against that compressor and that's going to be outside close to the condenser.

Uh, and you say? well, the most protection for the compressor is in the condenser, uh, in the in the tubing inside. Well, if you're right, that is the best place as far as placement for. But for practical application, if you place it outside the condenser, then you can use the service valves the king valves on the condenser to pump the refrigerant down into the condenser when you go back 24 hours later to remove that suction dryer without having to reclaim all the refrigerant. So best placement practice for the suction filter dryer and those those burnout situations is right outside the condenser there on the suction line.

Yeah, there's so many different factors. One of the things and I Want to mention this? We've got 81 people watching right now. Uh, any of you can ask questions as we go along. Uh, Freon Leon is the name you put and that's a pretty funny name And he said, uh, he made a good point.

He said so always start up an AC so you could do that right. If you're in in a situation where you had reason to put the liquid line dryer inside, maybe you're in a corrosive environment or whatever the case may be. Um, then you could actually start it and run it for several minutes in AC mode first and then that would kind of cover that. um, now again, there's a lot of reasons why people don't like to put it on the inside.

You may not want to bring your torches in there depending on where you're doing the work. There's lots of factors and I think you got to think through all of these things. Another one of the factors that gets mentioned a lot is that Emerson or in this case, Copeland I'm going to keep doing that. Uh, mentions that uh, you know, locating your liquid line dryer in a cooler location is also preferred.

Is that is that right? Still, absolutely yeah. The deficit. The inherent property of desiccant is it. it absorbs more.

It performs better in a cooler location. So yeah, you drive by it before you go by a Starbucks or something. You see a dryer sitting out there just baking in that sun. You know that? I I Think those stupid thoughts if you will.

but uh um yeah, the desiccant is designed to operate at its Peak Performance in a cooler cooler location. So that is a um, definitely one reason why you should make Do it. Take it the extra step. get it as close as you can to the expansion valve if if like Jim referred to and put it inside.

So yeah, and I've had people mention it's funny how far we fall. We've felt on this. Rabbit Hole in social media. So I had somebody say but what if your fan coil or your evaporative coil isn't an attic? Well so now the attic might be warmer than it even is outside.

So there's all these different factors um, to consider and just looking at your application. But we know it needs to be in the liquid line and we want it to be as close as possible to the metering device. it's going to be first protecting. We want to keep it cooler and we want to keep it protected from the elements if at all possible just to increase its life.

But again, you know we don't ever want to make the perfect The enemy of the good. most important is to get it in there, replace every time we open the system and we're gonna. we're gonna try a little bit more about that. Yeah, and I'd obviously go ahead.

I I Don't think that can be said enough that get one in there every installation. If if you go out to a job and you have there's no filter dryer inside outside anywhere, um, it's It's unfortunate that that is occurring even yet today because they need to be in there now. Am I going to tell you to go ahead and just open it up just to do that? No. I don't know that that's going to be beneficial if the system's been running several years and you're good to go at this point.

But yeah, anytime that that system is touched and opened, uh, and there's not one in there that needs to be be verified and get one in, Absolutely, Let's move on to the question of selecting and sizing a dryer. So now obviously we're talking. You know we could go into the the whole world of of core dryers and all that. That's not really what we're talking about.

Mostly here we're talking about selection of dryers in residential Light commercial HVAC Maybe some Refrigeration applications, but the the smaller size ones. How do you go about picking the right dryer? Well, you know I listed 10 different dryers there. so you obviously need to know your application. Uh, any sort of system issue that you've had that you need to address.

You know whether you you tested the oil and you got acid and all that kind of stuff. but but is it you know? is it general rule? You know from the Copeland perspective from a liquid line we're going to tell you go through the EK or the BSL as a standard do your best all-in-one kind of dryer. Um and then if you have those certain issues then you look at going at the if you want to put in a be okay or something like that. um from the and again the suction side is you know all these things are really they're common places to We have the we have the one main dryer but then do you have a you know, do you have enough space to put something in? Do you have enough you know are you trying to fix a certain problem? But as a general rule um from the Emerson perspective you use the EK um suction line.

You would probably want to use the ASD or the Sff again. just depends on the on the price. Um so it's that's that's from the selection of it from the sizing of it. you need to know what the refrigerant is you're dealing with um any sort of special applications where you're operating temperature wise obviously air conditioning plus 40.

um and we kind of size that we make it simple. we put it on the boxes but even in our catalog like the liquid line dryer we only put whoa look at that 3D Beautiful uh the uh uh we put it in a catalog. We list it is uh both one and two pound pressure drops on the liquid line side because the liquid line dryer you want to kind of keep in it's doing its job until you get you exceed really three PSC 3 PSI pressure drop. So um so we we size it on the box I think at 2 PSI but we put it in a catalog at one kind of in our catalog for the OEM purposes.

So Oems can look at it. But general rule is resize it off a 2 PSI from the liquid line side. On the suction line side, we don't size off pressure drop. We don't want pressure drop in the suction line size.

so we just we base it off of your operating temperature where you're what, what you're dealing with. Whether it's you know, you know where you're at. Um, so that's that's how you kind of size those two. Um, but you know I I do want to I think I May have mentioned this briefly, but I do want to point out when your sizing dryers again it you need to know not only the cubic inch a cubic inch of the dryer, but you also need to know the connection size.

So you gotta because like I said, a 3 8 inch filter dryer could be could be on a an O33, a three cubic inch dryer could be an O53, an O83, a 163. and yet the 5, 8, and 16s are generally flowing about the same amount of capacity. So um, but the best bet is to look in the catalog. Look on the box because on the box, we put different um, sizing models on there based on the dryer that's in that box.

So you know on a 16, we only put the six teams on there. But as long as you pick that up, look at that if you're in a wholesaler shelves. Um, but just be leery that don't base it off one or the other. I Need a five ton dryer for 410A Oh I Gotta go 163s.

No if you don't have one, if you've got to know 83, that's going to do the job for you. So um, those are just signed Kind of some things to think about. Yeah, you got to know what refrigerant you have. You have to know the size of the connection.

You have to know the capacity of the equipment that you're working on. You have to know. is it going to fit like you know you can't get some gigantic suction dryer if you don't have space for it and you need to know what you're putting it in? Are you putting it in just because you open the system for a regular service? You installed a new new piece of equipment, Or are you putting it in because you had some event with the equipment. Something bad happened that now you need to potentially clean up.

That's kind of my basic categories there. Yeah. I I Kind of divided it into four. Uh, new installs where the line set and everything is brand new and and you got new refrigerant.

And then you have the retrofits where you may be keeping the the line set and flushing it out. There may be a benefit of having a little more uh, size there, especially if you're you're going from a 22 mineral oil to a 410A Poe oil. Uh, then you you have the the burnouts where you're going to have specialty dryers and then just simply the the opening of the system for for regular maintenance. and to finish up that that size-wise uh Jim was talking about a 083 or um the 163.

The those first two digits is the cubic size of the the filter dryer. So you have the eight and then you have the 16. the 16 is is by far the most prevalent filter dryer. Uh, that works.

You can put it into a one and a half, you can put it into a five ton. Uh, do you need that large of one and a one and a half? No, uh up to three ton. uh and you'll see this on on the box. You can use that that eight cubic inch and then from above three.

Uh, go to that 16 on the liquid line size. So and and then the clarification of that. uh as far as the flow, uh the the larger the the tube that's connected to it, uh the more flow you're going to get through it. But typically on on your 3 8 liquid line size of tubing which the majority of what we're going to see out there in Residential Heating Air is going to be that that 8 is going to be good up to 3 16 up to to the the five.

So I'm just trying to make sure that was clear and that I think it's been covered. You, you both have done great on that. Yeah, excellent. I mean again and so kind of what you're saying is if you get a 16 then you're going to be safe.

Pretty much most of the residential equipment that you'd ever work on if you're keeping Eights on your truck. just don't you know. Just don't pull that off when you've got a larger piece of equipment because it's probably going to be too small at that point. Sounds good, all right.

So one of the biggest questions out there is when should you replace a dryer and what indications do you look for of when a dryer needs to be replaced? I mean the first thing? The first most simple answer, of course, which is giving away the lead, is that you replace the filter dryer anytime that you open the system for service. and that's specifically Liquid Dryers we're talking about here. But let's cover the whole gamut. We've got liquid, we've got suction, what are the cases that we need to either add or replace a dryer and I'm going to pull up one of the slides here that kind of covers this just to kind of make it easier for people to follow along.

Okay So I'll just I'll just walk walk down the slide here. So it's obviously due to first and foremost would be due to pressure drop which is primarily what you'll see out there. Um, again, you know a solid core. We'll capture and hold about eight grams of grid on a 16 cubic inch.

and you know as it's capturing and holding that grams of grit, that's when it's fully that's exceeded it's it's capacity. So so um in an EK it would be 13. so it can capture a little and hold a little bit more. But when you achieve when you I like to say it, when you exceed three pound pressure drop in the liquid line um, you need to remove that filter dryer it has.

It has done its job and it is. It's it. just finished its meal. It's good.

It needs to needs to get some rest. So um, so that's that's easy to save for pound pressure drop, get it out or greater than three. Um, but when you put it in real terms, you know the the liquid line we is different than the sexual land suction line. Dryers have pressure Taps on typically on each side of it.

so it's easy to hook up your gauges and find out if you've got a pressure drop going across it. the liquid line doesn't have that you don't want to put TAPS in the system, You don't want to do that. So um I Know some people some texts have been around a long time can just do the hand test and kind of get that feel. Um, but basically you know a rule of thumb.

um Jim Correct me if I'm wrong, but probably what about four pound pressure drop is ballpark about a degree it is? Yeah, if you can put on 410A Yeah on 410A So if you put a couple temperature probes or sensors or on there clamps, um and you see there's uh, you're nearing a a degree temperature difference between the inlet and the outlet of that that filter dryer. I Think it's time to uh, invest a few minutes and and change that puppy out. Um, so that's on the liquid line side on the suction line side. um Boy Again, you don't want you don't want any pressure drop going through the suction line side because you don't want, you don't want any anything condensing and getting moisture back to that uh, liquid back to that compressor.

So we stayed. you know at 2 PSI Go ahead and change out that suction line filter dryer. Um and then you get into the discussion of do you leave it in a suction line dryer permanent I Know if you have like big shells we recommend you can even leave them vacant or just put a filter in there. Not necessarily filter dryer, but you have to kind of weigh all those.

You look at your system on an individual basis and and realize what you need in that. But as a general rule, suction line dryers aren't you know? I Guess they're They're frowned upon from the the residential side. Um, and they're only really good for the supermarket. Refrigeration Plate cases where they have other bells and whistles, other insurance policies, low pressure cutouts, and and all that kind of stuff to Uh to send a signal or alarm that you've got an issue going on in that suction line side.

So that would be the one case you get. you know? I Guess the primary case you look at a system is not needing anything done, but looking at your gauges, you're picking up an excessive pressure drop going either through the liquid line or the suction line side and that dryer needs to be the Uh is the reason for it needs to be replaced. The other big aspect would be if if for some reason it's you, you've got too much moisture in the system. obviously you would need a the moisture indicator would be the way to find that out.

Um, so again, on the refrigeration side, that's pretty easy to figure out. If you've got your moisture indicator showing wet it needs to, you don't need to replace the moisture indicator, you just need to replace the filter dryer. Once that's installed, run the system and it should should reactivate the moisture indicator so you don't need to replace that. but that would be the the three in my in my view.

The three times you need to replace a filter dryer is anytime you're changing anything out in the system. As you said, Brian and then two would be excessive pressure drops either in the liquid line or suction line and then number three would be if you do know for a fact you have moisture in that system either through the moisture indicator or if you can get an oil sample and and find out you've got some acidity in that oil, it needs to definitely be replaced. Anything else faults? Yeah, well No. I I Just reiterate on on the Uh Liquid line.

Uh, A A very simple visual. I Like the visual side of things: if you ever go out to a unit that's running and you see frost on that liquid line filter dryer, pull it out. If there's frost on there, you got some restriction in there and and that's a dead giveaway and if it's got frost on it, more than likely you're well above 4 PSI Uh, on your pressure drop on it. Uh, but uh yeah.

if you're If you have temperature probes that go to less than one degree that you got a decimal point on your temperature probes, that's a very nice way to be able to test on each side of the liquid line section. Uh, line side of things On the residential side, 24 hours is the most that that really should be in there. You really need to be pulling that out after you've put it in for the burnout and I'd like to qualify that too. You put it in and 24 hours later you pull it out and the unit never ran in that 24 hours, you've done no good.

So you need to make sure after you have replaced a compressor and a burnout and you have put that suction line filter dryer in there that you do run uh, the equipment and make sure that it's getting several hours of operation Two, three, four hours plus of operation to be able to run that refrigerant and oil through that suction line filter dryer and and get it so that any of those contaminants are held in that when you come back a day later and pull it out. Yeah, there's so many different mindsets as it relates to this question, and it has so much to do with what part of the industry you came from, right? What? What part of the what parts of the industry you've been exposed to Because in residential so many times? Well, I mean in the past, a lot of people didn't even put suction dryers in, they didn't even think about it right and then and then you're like, well, I'm trying to do a good job and so they put it in and then they leave it in and never come back. So that's the second most common. and then the third most common is doing kind of what you say.

You let it run for a while and then you come and you pull it back out. But then when you run into heat pumps, you know now you've got to make sure you put it in between the reversing valve and the compressor. and sometimes that's very difficult to do and so a lot of additional cost gets put in there. Um, what? I See a lot of people do nowadays again.

I'm in a heat pump Market is they'll put it outside of the equipment and it'll just make sure it stays locked in cool mode during the time that it's operating. But to your point, if the season doesn't allow for it, then you've got to consider that factor. Ultimately, you do not want to. I Don't think this can be overstated and this is true.

You know, in my company we're weirdos. We do Market Refrigeration all the way down to residential so we get to see all these different sides. But you do not want to leave a restricted suction dryer in the system because of what it does to the compressor's operation. It results in high compression ratio because again, when you think of compression ratio if you reduce the ability blue suction even slightly, that greatly increases the compression ratio, especially on in refrigeration applications.

and that makes for massive inefficiency. compressor overheating all kinds of things that are really bad for the system. so you can't leave plugged suction dryers in there, which is why you've got the pressure Taps right? So at very minimum, make sure that you're not running a plug dryer in there and the best practice is what you said. I Mean you really do want to get those out of there as much as possible.

We're going to talk a little bit more about the the different types you know? sort of HH versus Sfd kind of in here in a second. but I do want to get to a couple a couple little questions that have come up. One question that's come up a couple times here already is, what about charge compensation? So do you need to if you go to a larger drier or you go to a system that didn't have a dryer and you add one? Is there any rule of thumb that you would go to or anything you would say about adding additional charge? Not not unless you're in a critical, very critical yeah, critical charge situation. You know, as long as you go up kind of one size is that it's kind of a rule of thumb.

If you go from an eight cubic inch to a 16, you're going to be as a general rule, you're going to be okay. Or if you choke down even an 8 16 to an eight, you're going to be okay. But you know, unless you're in a critical charge. Um, and if you be, if you are in a critical charge situation, we have it in our catalog as to you know how to how, what, how much more refrigerant you need to add for the the filter dryer you're putting in there, so you have to refer to the catalog for uh for that step.

So, but yeah, as a as a general rule, um, you can go up and down one size and not have any concerns somebody else asked. Is there any issue with putting a buy flow dryer in a straight cool system? As a general rule? No. As a general rule, the only thing is your property, you're probably um, reducing the capacity of how much you can filter and how much you can dry. Other than that, you know if that's the only dryer you have access to.

I Definitely get it in and get that system running. Yes, um, is it and it should not cause any. it shouldn't Shouldn't be any any detriment to the system, it's just a reduced moisture and filtration aspect. Yeah, you're paying more uh for for something that you don't need in that case and you're not getting as much out of it.

Uh, what about Double dryer? So this comes up a lot. The question, uh, about Factory dryer is located inside of a condensing unit and now you make a repair to the equipment and it's going to be very inconvenient to replace it in the location that the factory put the dryer. Do you write? What do you recommend doing in those cases? Tim Fultz Do you have any input on that? The uh the the short easy answer on that is is that you install your filter dryer there on the outside. Um, if you are pumping down the condenser, you pull it out.

Uh. I've not seen a lot of of companies take the time to remove that filter dryer on the inside. Is it hurting anything? Do do a pressure drop across it uh with some temperature probes and check it out if if you're within limits you're good to go and and keep going if you don't if you don't have a degree temperature drop across it. I Would not take the time or or the effort to to pull it out, but I definitely would be putting something new in the liquid line on the outside.

There's one caveat I want to give to this and it's kind of a weird one. but there's a particular manufacturer who puts their liquid line dryers inside the condenser and something you have to watch for is that you can have you can have a see I didn't believe this when I first when I first heard somebody say this so it may it may not hit people right? but it was Joe Shearer Who? um who pointed this out to me and we actually tested it on a live piece of equipment and and did the whole thing. Um but if you have so much sub cooling so somebody overcharged the heck out of the system, uh, in order to try to compensate for a restricted dryer, you can actually have a dryer that's restricted on the liquid line and it won't show a pressure drop. It doesn't show a pressure drop until until there's actually a change in pressure.

I Mean it's there, but you won't see it as long as it's staying liquid. So if you're actually stacking liquid in that liquid dryer, you won't necessarily see, um, that pressure job and that comes up. I've actually seen it happen a couple times since that conversation and so the downside to that is if you leave it in because you don't see that temperature drop, you may run the risk of that really being the problem. Now you're going to see it in your in your system measurements.

I Mean it's going to be very apparent that something isn't happening, isn't happening, that it's supposed to be. But because it's happening inside of where you're measuring your pressure so your pressure, you're measuring here. and this is happening in the condenser where it's all stacked full of liquid. it's It's a tricky thing to to troubleshoot just based on that alone.

and that's where that's you know. Not having those pressure Taps makes it tricky. So that's the one thing that I would say. When in doubt, change it out and you can always cut out the factory one, straight pipe it, and then put your um, your new Copeland dryer out on the outside of the equipment.

or even better yet, by the by the indoor metering device. Uh, it's just a it's a tricky little thing to bump into. I actually ran the math on what the temperature change would be if it stays completely liquid and there's no phase change and I thought it would be more than it was. It's actually a tiny, tiny amount.

Um, but again, that's a kind of a weird thing that doesn't happen most of the time. that's that's actually. um, kind of a new question for me. I've not been asked that I'm sure you see, we see everything out there, but um I just believe in gosh.

Do what you got to do to make the system right and the system is designed for one filter dryer. I would do everything in my power to make sure I get one filter dryer if I get it, cut it out, and put in just a piece of copper tubing in there and then put the dryer Downstream Whatever. But yeah, that's that's quirky. Yeah, and in the more extreme cases, you can always let the customer decide so long as you fully communicate.

Um, the cost differences for the different options that you provide. Um, it makes the conversation challenging obviously. but in some cases that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to protect our clients from having to pay for a bunch of extra work that may or may not be necessary.

but sure, those are some. Those are some things that come up. Um, there's one other question here. uh, that I wanted to address.

Oh well. one thing was a statement, which is a really good point. I Saw this a lot earlier in my career a lot of times. Discharge: Mufflers look a heck of a lot like liquid line dryers.

So always make sure that you're not pulling out a discharge Muffler and sticking a liquid line dryer in its place. That is. Uh, that can be a pretty bad day. and I've actually seen that happen.

That'd be a real bad day. Yeah, yeah, it's a real real nasty cleanup. Um I think that's yeah. those are all the questions I just want to make sure we got to those because some people may have to drop off and I always like to make sure we get or questions answered.

So now let's back into the question of kind of what's inside of a dryer and especially that HH nomenclature. So there's different model numbers and I think that's important to be clear, but you're looking for that HH at the end versus that EK and those and those are different as far as what's in them, so talk a little bit about that. Sure. Brian Um, so first first off, the EK is our is our type of dryer.

um and then the HH at the So the Ek's in the prefix, it's our it's uh, what we call our series of dryers. So we have the EK, the BSL, the BOK and the CU. On the on the liquid line side, the HH is an industry recognized suffix that tells you it has a a third desiccant in there. and if you don't mind, I'll just back up and go over give a quick overview on desiccans.

So um, desiccants in the in the industry um, were designed to Um, there's there's three main desks. It's they are designed and they work by an ad absorption, a D sorp, t-i-o-n absorption so they they collect and hold on the surface. Um, so there's three main Um desiccants. You have molecular sieve which is um, designed solely to to capture and hold moisture.

Then you have activated alumina which is designed to capture and hold acid and then you had activated charcoal or activated carbon which is designed to hold sludges and wax senses and resins and stuff like that. So um, from the from the cost perspective you know I think all major major manufacturers in the United States all like the you know Copen came out years and I'm talking 30 years ago and said for Poe we won a 75-25 blend 75 molecular sieve to capture and hold moisture, 25 activated alumina to capture and hold acid Well, acid is only formed when you have too much moisture. so as long as that's why you want more molecular sieve in there. The molecular sieve is also the most expensive desiccant.

That's why a lot of We'll we'll call it. We'll just say unreputable. Brands We'll fill a dryer full of activated aluminum where it captures an old acid that doesn't do much as far as moisture. Um, but it's it's It's a cheap filler, but all the major manufacturers do 75-25 blends on the on the desk against Um and then the activated carbon activated um charcoal.

When do you need this when you have a burnout? Um, you have in the old days. I'm going to go back to the old days of mineral oil and Alka Benzene oil and such like that our 22 Windy Head burnouts back then you. It created the oil to actually helped create a resin or a wax. so you needed a good you needed that third desiccant which is an activated carbon or activated charcoal to go in there and attack those um those molecules that are in the in the system in today's world.

Poe Everything You know: Refrigerant. Every 400 series refrigerant uses Poe oil and Poe Oil does not have the waxes and resins and sludges like the old mineral oil. Alka Benzene Oil used to have. So Emerson's take.

Oh my gosh, hang on fault Slap me. Um Copeland's take is not Um is for a burnout. The best bet is to use an EK filter dryer. Use it, Run it, get it out.

Replace it with another EK Just keep sifting through the EK Again, waxes and resins are picked up through activated charcoal activated carbon. If you know you have a system that has you know what mineral oil or Alka Benzene oil then the stance is yes. you probably need to go towards an HH type dryer. Um, the hazards are putting in HH in it in a in A in a Poe system that experienced a burnout.

You're just. you're jeopardizing a little bit of the molecular sieve. You've jeopardizing some of the activated alumina that you need in there. Um, you're paying a little bit more for the dryer.

You're paying for activated carbon that you don't need. so it's a little Overkill Um, where I We think that the best bet is to just go after. if it's a Poe burn, go after it with the EK 75-25 blend and just keep replacing it from that side. If you do have a mineral oil Alka Benzene oil.

or if you do have a an isolated case, it could still happen and you you have a some sort of a wax resin in there then then you can look at putting a Bok in in the liquid line side. so in on the suction line side it would be the ask model as ask with the HH suffix so I Don't know if that makes sense but that's kind of kind of the old school We went everything went to Poe It kind of changed our methodology. um, but we we've had issues over the years with sticking Txvs um where people kind of panicked and okay I I Remember talking a guy in Florida he changed out like six dryers with Hh's and he said well, it just won't clean up and well, it's it's it's the HH isn't what's helping you, there's that's just there was a there was another issue in the industry at that point. um, that caused those sticking Txv's it had nothing to do with uh, waxes and resins so to speak.

so it's it's a much debated I was I was talking with Jim Fultz about this recently and man, it is it. that is such a common question it is. The industry is just perplexed with what to do with HH dryers. um I know from our stance Copeland stance is you just keep replacing with a good liquid line dryer.

the EK would be the best, best way, best bet to go after it. So um, does that make sense? Brian Yeah, it's actually essentially exactly what Joe Shearer said when he was texting me before this presentation. So as usual Joe is uh, smarter than me and uh, turns out he, uh, he was right so that's that's good stuff. uh Folts Any any thoughts on that I think it's covered great? No.

Hegel did a great job on that one. Awesome! So a couple things um, that I Also just want to mention quickly because we're running up on time here. Um, whenever possible when you're removing dryers, cut them out. Don't burn them out.

Don't sweat them out because it does cause them to release the moisture inside of them. And for Pete's sake, like a lot of the problems that happen with equipment is because you just didn't pull a proper vacuum. You didn't follow proper procedures in the first place. If you purge flow nitrogen, then pull a deep vacuum.

That dryer is not doing much of anything anyway because it doesn't have much to catch. It's when we're you know, running our line sets to the sand and then we're not flowing nitrogen and we're not pulling a good vacuum. That's when all this stuff becomes more of a becomes more of a factor. Um, so best practices in terms of you know, handling piping, making sure when you're deburring you're not getting copper shavings in the copper lines.

Um, you know, not leaving the pipes open in a rainstorm. You know you don't open the system in those conditions. A lot of the really obvious stuff prevents some of the more edge cases and a lot of the rest of it will work itself out. So any other best Practices things that we make sure we need to make sure to cover here before we wrap up.

You know you, You took the words right out of my mouth with best Practices there I actually I was scrolling back through the comments and and so on. Uh, asking about uh, the the crimp style of connection versus brazing and uh, my only comment uh from previous Uh field experience is uh if you go back enough years Coleman made a system that the coil was charged, the line set was charged and the condenser was charged and all you had to do was was thread the fittings together. they had O-rings in them and within five or ten years every winter when uh, the those fittings expanded from the cold, uh the the refrigerant was was leaking out with it and most of the time techs would go out and end up cutting those types of fittings with the seals out. uh what we have today with the style of fittings with the the compression Rings Um, time will tell I've not been where I've seen them being used and seen results of that.

So I don't know that I'm going to to give an opinion one way or the other just simply from the previous experience. The the plus that I I do like about it is the fact that you're not heating up that copper and creating the oxidation and that is one thing that I've seen time and time again and a lot of. Manufacturers deal with warranting brand new systems txvs because the system was brazed closed without nitrogen and then you got that oxidation on the inside of the copper and those flakes go right to that TX via startup and and there was nothing wrong with the TXV It was a good, perfectly fine TXV It's just the the practice of not flowing nitrogen at five Pounds nitrogen when you're brazing. I I Can't stress that enough on on putting those systems back together.

and even with a filter dryer. if you're not, you know I'm putting a filter dryer in so I'm protecting it well. You got two ends of the filter dryer, one into the filter dryer where you braze without nitrogen. Those flakes will go in the filter dryer, but what about the other end that's on the outside, the exit side of that filter dryer? They're going to head to the TXV and and you're going to be back out there dealing with that or the homeowner is going to be dealing with with a refrigeration issue that that's going to be challenge to try to figure out.

Is this thing fully restricted? Is it partially restricted? I've seen Txvs that that you know, three ton condensing units and the coil. the bottom half is bottom two-thirds is saturated. The top third has had no moisture on it for several years. Uh, and and that was because of a partial restriction within that TXV So uh, do do your homeowner's service.

Make sure you're you're flowing that five pounds nitrogen dry nitrogen through every time you pull out a torch. and yeah, you, you covered that well. Brian I Just I Want to hit that because I I See that as one of the biggest things in the industry that that we could see as an improvement? Absolutely. So for people who need to find out more who want to learn from you guys and the collective wisdom of uh of Copeland what are some what are some best resources? Well you know kind of how we started this presentation is we're still working on cleaning everything up.

but basically if you go to Copeland's website I think if you go to Copeland products Copeland products and go under either air conditioning or Refrigeration you'll you'll see a a link on the side for Brands being white Rogers Best bet would be to kind of click on that and then that'll take you right to uh boy online catalogs that'll take you to cross reference information, product information, videos, free training that that we have posted out there on various products. um or you could or you know if you have a specific question. um and you want to get a hold of our application Engineering Group for the cooling controls um Good Golly Miss Molly I have the phone number somewhere I'll go ahead while you're looking for that if you can't find it, that's okay. but I created a simplified link for you to find out more on the drier side for everybody out there.

Hvcrschool.com Copeland Dash Dryers Hvcrschool.com Copeland Dash Dryers Uh is a place for you to go to find out more about the about the dryer line. and I'm sure you can easily make your way. um to the engineering team if you have specific questions. um I did want to answer one other.

a couple questions came up I Want to answer just quickly I know the answer on these. which is the questions came up about additives and flushes. There's pretty much nobody really wants you doing that. Um, now if for individual cases, the same thing is true of acid Inhibitors Or any of those sorts of things, Are there cases where it might work out for you? Well, maybe, but it's a crap shoot and no manufacturer is going to say that that's a really good idea to apply across the board.

I Talk about this with aftermarket. I Think aftermarket hard start kits, aftermarket, this aftermarket that sometimes it works out for you, but in most cases it could do as much harm as good. And do you really know when in doubt doing a good solid oil test is going to be a better bet? That's that's something that you can go back to and kind of look at is is the oil where it needs to be? Again, it's more practical on larger systems like Market Refrigeration or large AC In smaller systems that can be very difficult to do, but that's really the answer is that doing a good, solid dryer, cleanup and following best practices, going back and pulling out those dryers, putting in a nice, fresh, clean ones every time you service the equipment, That's that's going to be your best bet all the way around. I'll let you guys comment if there's anything else you want to add I Just wanted to know that nail in the head.

You know at Copeland we don't. We don't make flushes and additives and all this stuff. We we design our stuff to work and operate and we believe doing the old-fashioned method. What you just mentioned right there.

testing oil in changing out dryers is the way to do it. Um, but you know, to each of their own, you don't know if there was some other guy last week that was in there trying to work on that same equipment and threw in three different, three different things. you don't know what you're creating in there. So um, but so we're you're gonna.

You're gonna hear that from us that, uh, we're not going to be big fans of, uh, trying to get the shortcuts or the fix a flat if you will. So certainly all right. All right. Well Jim and Jim Copeland Thank you guys so much for uh for participating in this.

Everybody who uh, asks questions, uh, we're gonna keep this video up. We'll probably do an edited version uh up on the different platforms. Everybody who asks questions, always really appreciate that. And a big thanks to Copeland for being a partner with us at HVAC School means a lot.

Training is important, Keep doing the best thing out there guys and we will see you all again very soon! Thank you thank you.