Today we are going to talk about uh, maintenance and obviously uh, I shouldn't say Obviously But I think you all probably know it's been a long time since I've done uh, a lot of Maintenance Maybe a little bit on my own house, a little bit. but uh, so this is going to be a interactive, hopefully uh, conversation about maintenance best practices. Um, most of the most of the ways that we do maintenance have remained the same I would imagine. but um, but I'm always open to to hearing from all of you.

First step in a good maintenance. and I would definitely, uh, say that this is still a huge part of it is looking at the prior history and notes. Um, from uh, you know, even just knowing things like did we install the equipment is really important. Uh, how long ago was it installed if we installed it? Why would that matter? By the way, if we're doing a main main if we installed the equipment, what's that like? if issues pop up like to reinsulate suction line? If we didn't do a good enough job on the install a year and a half ago, you should just take care of it without saying anything exactly.

You should just take care of it. You should look for things um, like that and if they come, if you come across them, then you should just take care of it. What are some things that you should pay attention to? Let's just dive right into the nitty-gritty What are some things you should pay attention to if, uh, say, we recently installed this piece of equipment. Maybe it's 3 years old, four years old.

What are some things that you should look for? one? Uh, you should be aware what the warranty is and so that you have the customer expectations there. So what is the warranty That's a good one? What else you should be making sure that deification is set up properly. There we go. That's what I was looking for.

Yeah, making sure the humidification set up properly. Um, let's say that it's a Lenux unit that we installed in the past. What are some things we should be looking for? The Wire jum or clip the circuit board. Some of them actually have it on the circuit board.

You have to clip the solder connection now. Yep. solder connection? Clippers Um yeah. Initial setup, Initial wiring? um pin settings? Uh, if you have like older, um you know it's not as much of that anymore.

But yeah yeah yeah. like the Comfort yeah, Fvs Fvs? Yep, Yep, uh yeah. just paying attention to those little details and then if you come across it taking care of it I'm I'm not saying that you shouldn't do that no matter who installs it. Um, but obviously if it's something that we did, um, you want to, you know again, it's it's part of our responsibility and so always kind of reconfirming.

And and again this is true of every of all equipment, but always reconfirming just the fundamentals of the installation. Things that, um, you know, things like drain pitch as an example. Um, things like uh, float switch installation making sure that it's installed properly. Um, if it's a horizontal unit, an attic, making sure that the drain pan is overlapping in all areas and can't be slid around or it's not going to get you know out of position.

Those are all really important things and that goes along with just understanding the history. Just understanding something about that. And that's also where going through uh and checking to see what type of consumables you're going to have. Is there a UV light? Is there? Uh, a media filter? What are the consumables on this? A piece of equipment now? ideally.

uh, the Csrs or Dispatch would be paying attention to this and they would already kind of notice. but you know sometimes that stuff gets missed. Sometimes it doesn't get put into the service items and it may just be in some of those older notes. So just paying attention to that, Do we need to bring something? What do we need to quote the client? That's another big thing.

Obviously, if it's a media filter and it's not included. Um, we need to make sure that we we know what that cost is going to be. Um, and make sure that the client's been quoted for that cost if we bring it along. That can save a lot of Heartache anything I'm missing there.

Bert Uh. Consumables? No. Okay, Notify the client. uh and rout.

You should be making a happier face than this. Um, because that comes through and how we speak to our clients, You know you should be the the rule of when you're talking to a client, you should look in the mirror and have a gigantic, cartoonish smile at all times notifying the customer and rout. This is one that, um, do, do we do it pretty consistently. Do you all? Historically, it's one that we sometimes Miss um, not anymore, but not anymore according to Bert So that's good.

thinking about when we are arriving, uh, to a customer's property, how we're uh, uh, how we're approaching the house and we talk about this a lot. But a lot of clients are paying very close attention to those first few things that they can notice about you. And one of the things is, where do you park? Um, we don't generally park in driveways. Um, sometimes they.

You know. Obviously, if you come to my house, my driveway is like half a mile long. so obviously you're going to park in the driveway in that case. But um, for communities generally we're not parking in driveways.

Um, but even even bigger than that, Because a lot of times we'll say the reason we don't park in a driveway is because because the vehicle May leak. Well, we should know whether our vehicles leak or not and we need to make sure that gets addressed. So don't keep if if you have I Just hear it from me. If you have a vehicle that is leaking oil, we need to get the oil leak fixed.

We don't just drive it that way. That's not. That's not a good practice because sometimes you have no choice but to park in the driveway but always thinking about an appropriate location. So what are some other things that you need to think about in terms of appropriate location of parking? Mailbox, Mailbox Big One Fire Hydrant.

that's that's a huge one. Opposing driveways, opposing driveways. Y back out. Yep.

Think. and thinking about, um, thinking about those vehicles in the client's driveway. Are they going to be able to get out? Um, because sometimes there you know there's a lot of different configurations. You may have other vehicles parked in the street, and are you going to get in their way when they're trying to back out thinking that through? another one is garbage.

Obviously, if it's garbage day, we don't want to block the garbage man and that can get real. Annoying Well there's times where I've moved the garbage cans to the other side of the driveway just so I can have a good place to par. Yeah, sometimes sometimes that is the the best bet. um when you from so so this is a um uh a good best practice which is when you hit the the the client's you shouldn't hit their house.

but but from the time that you get to their house um to the time that you walk in or start to walk up to their house you only want there to be maybe a minute or two maximum. Um, clients get really, uh, edgy if they see you pull up and then that whole kind of traveling to their house feels L fair I Don't know if you've ever seen a service provider come to your house. uh and they just sort of are taking forever to get out of the vehicle and then when they do get out of the vehicle it's just like this this snails pace. you know, walking up, that's how our Pest Control uh person is.

it's like oh my gosh, would you please just like, get you know I don't I'm just waiting for you to come to the door. so uh, having a having a kind of snappiness to how you, uh, get out of the vehicle um that kind of thing now obvious. Obviously you know the question of sequencing is important. A lot of times we rush away from the last job too quickly.

So you should be doing everything that you're going to do for the next job. at the job that you're uh, just now leaving. or if you got to go get gas or something like that, that's okay, but you don't want to be doing that. When you arrive sitting in front of the client's house.

You don't want to be going through the history while you're sitting in front of their house. Again, The main reason we rush away from the last call is because we're afraid the client's going to come out and talk to us more and that should be exactly what we would want to have happen. If they want to do it. We should let them do it because it's better that they do it while you're there than getting a silly call back for no reason.

So, uh, don't be. Yeah, don't be afraid of that. Don't be opposed to that, and just do all of your prep stuff for the next call while you're still in front of the client's house before you leave. The last job.

make sense. All right? Um, next thing is. Uh, we talk about this all the time, but shoe covers is really, really, really important. Um, you all know that we can I think we've beat that enough.

Um, and then when you're interacting with the client, that first initial interaction, you want to be talking to them about how the system's been working. Have they noticed anything? Have they noticed anything with their power bills recently? You know, just making kind of small talk, but small talk that all surrounds. how has the AC been doing? Because you want If they have something that they want to tell you, you want them to tell you you don't want to try to. And again, this is a human impulse is to try to push through those ation cuz you just want to get your work done.

Um, now there's social conversations that can waste a bunch of time that obviously we don't want to have a ton of those we want to have Rapport But we don't want to spend half an hour talking about, you know, FSU or whatever and how they got. You know, how they were kept out of the national championship completely unfairly. You know, you know what I'm saying. It's ridiculous.

It's insane. We could go on for a while. Um, so so you know you want to keep that to a minimum, but you do not want to be opposed to having conversations about their system and the comfort in their home. Sometimes we don't want to because they'll bring up things like, well, you know.

my back bedroom is always a little warmer than my and we're like oh my gosh, I Don't want to go look at duct work like that's not, but we shouldn't ever have that again. It's natural, we all feel it, but we should push through that because if the client wants to pay us to make duct alterations, then we should be willing to make those duct alterations. Not in the middle of the summer, probably. but we can at least go take a look and see is a duct apart? Is there anything? uh, significantly wrong? and that gives the client confidence.

So for example, if a client does say hey, this back bedroom while you're there Again, we're talking about maintenance here and I know we're getting a little far a field, but these are all the first steps when you're there. And the Cent If the client does start talking about other rooms, just say okay while I'm here uh, is it Okay then if I just pop up and take a look, uh, in the attic at what you've got up there. Of course the client's going to say okay, I Don't expect you to spend a lot of time up there, but what you're going to do is just quickly verify there's nothing apart. There's nothing like severely damaged a raccoon didn't tear the tear into the duct or something so like and then you're going to come back down and say okay, there's nothing major wrong with your duct work that I can visually see.

In order for us to address it, we're going to have to do ABC right? And that depends on your skill level and if you're competent to to make that assessment or if somebody else needs to do that, you agree with that b Yeah, that's right, that's our prop. All right. great. Uh.

and finally, be conscious of occupants. children and pets. uh, And pets who act like children And children who act like pets. You have to.

You have to make sure I Heard the other day. Uh, this is silly. but I heard the other day that, um, that pets are the new children and plants are the new pets. and I I thought that that's actually about right? Yeah, Which? I don't know what that makes children at this point? I'm not obsolete.

Maybe yeah. too much work, Just too dang much work. Yeah. Expensive.

Um, all right. Pre-check on maintenance. and again, these are all things that we should just always do. So it's not like, hey, today I'm going to practice the whole talking to the customer thing like we have to do these things every time.

Just make it a habit. the pre-check is a really, really big. um when as you're walking into the house, can can you show me to your thermostat? Um, you're You're paying attention to everything in the home that's noticeable relating to the HVAC system. So what are some of those things? What are some of those visual inspections that you're doing as you're walking through the house looking at vents vents? What are you looking for with vents? The black streaks of yeah, that's a big one? Yeah.

Looking for things coming out of the vents? Looking for growth around the vents? Those are two very different things by the way, right if you see streaks coming out of the vent, uh, how is that different than seeing stuff growing around the vent, uh, one is like a a seal duly like is the boot might be leaking inside so you have to make sure of like the cool there with the uh, kind of like with the actual ambient air that's leaking out from the ADD and then the dust that's an air, it can make that dark spot around. The yeah, that streaking coming out of the vent is more about filtration and it Al also often has to do with whether people burn a lot of candles or not. Um, when you see a lot of streaking black streaking in a house a lot of times it's because you have a person burning a lot of candles. Um, but it can also just be that they don't have great air filtration.

Um, so that's something to look for. and like you said, if you see it growing around or on the vent, um then that's an indication that you should pull it down. take a look see if it's actually sealed. um on the inside if you have that attic air coming around.

So yeah, really good. Really good assessment there. Uh, what else other than Vince are you looking at filter door If is open or not? Filter door open. Okay, so like on the you're talking about like a filter back return.

You mean no. like sometimes like the carrier units they forget to pop it back inside you walking through the sure. Okay, all right. Yep.

do you have a filter door? Is it in place? All right? What else? Looking at the return? Where is it at? Where is it pulling from L The ceiling. Do we have an extra filter? Potentially in our return? Y Are they blocking over the couch? Yep. Yep. Are they blocking returns? Um.

are their vents shut off? That's another one. Has the client kind of self adjusted Vents and shut them off? Um, while we're on that topic, what's wrong with shutting off vents? Press raises static pressure. raises static pressure right? Which some times may be the way to do a little bit of balancing right? But it does increase static pressure. And when you increase static pressure, you reduce the system's efficiency and its capacity.

So it's not a great thing for the equipment. Um, and if you see situations later, like when you're testing the equipment and you're running low suction pressure, higher temperature, split, um, then that can be an indication. All right. Well, maybe we should go and look at this.

Um, stat. You know. Supply Static pressure is high that kind of thing. Uh, what else? Thermostat location.

Thermostat location. That's a really good one. Yeah, cuz what would be what would be a thermostat location That might be problematic. Outside wall across from a window next to a next to a restroom restroom.

See? really? Yeah, Yeah, yeah. People taking hot showers. Yeah, that kind of thing. What else with the thermostat? Might we want to pay attention to what frand it is Settings? They had it.

Yeah, what brand it is is Big Because then that dictates. hey, do we know some things about this thermostat that it could be easily set up incorrectly? Um, I'm going to say just as a universal thing always have in your mind, the dehumidification settings. Uh, in our Market, that's always a thing. Not always, but it's a thing a lot where either you could have a situation where, um, it's running in Dee mode all the time.

Um, or it's never running in Dee mode. It's set up either way, and neither of those is the client getting what they paid for? obviously. Um, one really. One example we've talked about a lot is cases where you pull a dehumidifying thermostat off and you put a regular thermostat on and you're like, oh well, I have this extra wire so it doesn't go anywhere anymore.

I'm just going to cap it and leave it in the wall. Well, now it's never going to run up to full speed because in order for it to come, if it's in dhume mode, it does not call for DH or D or Dee or whatever you know the terminal happens to be. and if you leave it disconnected, that means it's always going to be in Dee mode. Make sense.

So those are things sorts of things I always want you to have in your mind. Another thing is just how the thermostat's mounted because again, it doesn't matter if we walked up on it and it's falling off the wall as soon as we left it. we are the ones who caused it right? That's that's a principle that you always have to just Embrace and especially within maintenance. Um, because we do know that sometimes clients call us and I know this is going to be unbelievable, but sometimes clients call us for a maintenance when they actually know they have a problem.

Can you believe that? Yes. So what I usually do is I just hand them a Wwjd bracelet and I say is this what Jesus would do Um, no. So so we know that sometimes clients have existing problems and they kind of expect us to fix these things. Something like a thermostat falling off the wall is something that we should just take care of.

It's not a hard job, uh to resolve and it's something that builds a lot of value in the client's mind. It's like oh hey, I noticed your thermostat's kind of coming off the wall a little bit here. Another thing to to kind of pay attention to is that ceiling. uh, behind the thermostat.

That's something that again, are we always going to be the thermostat Off the Wall That's not a standard practice. Um, but especially if you're noticing that the ambient temperature is measuring a little high or it seems like it is, that's always something to look for. Uh, is that ceiling of the thermostat? Other pre-checks So now we've talked about inside the house. What are some things you're going to be looking for as you identify where the air handler or furnace and the condenser are located.

What are some other things you're going to do? The condenser overgrown. Is the condenser overgrown? Are there bushes all growing into the condenser? By the way, What do you do in a case like that? What do you do when you have uh, a bushes Hedges that are growing into the condenser like crazy chain? Those bushes are needed I Use my Plyers I Actually have done that a lot. Side side: Snips Yeah, a lot of Sid Snips Um, uh yeah. and generally speaking, you're not going to do a lot about it.

You You may clear up some big ones that are kind of growing in. like you said, uh, but generally you're going to advise the advise the customer if it's really bad. You may take some pictures and that kind of thing. Um, just keep it for in case there's an issue.

put it in the channel. But but generally speaking, you're just going to let the client know. Hey, this is impacting the operation of the equipment. Um, and also it is impacting our ability to work on the unit exactly which which to us is even more important I Mean, let's be real honest.

Um, now if it's a pokey, if it's a pokey shrub, that's where I draw the line I'm like I'm like, sir, you're going to need to call a shrubber. this shrub is poking me and then you say n Anyway, that's a Mony Python sorry, uh, too old, too old for you guys. Um, checking for things like, uh, tears in your uh, armaflex, checking for things like, uh, damage, thermostat, wires. those sorts of things.

now was a really good time to assess that because uh, when you do find that there are problems, things that you're going to address, or that you're going to recommend, uh, it's good to sort of notice those before you start taking the equipment apart. it's good to have that because then you can even mention it to the the client. Hey, before I get started. There's just a few things here that I've noticed right away that I want to make you aware of.

uh, and you can kind of show them those things. uh, so that they can begin to, um, prepare for that. Um, I'm not saying that you necessarily have to quote it all right now. Uh, but it is good to good to be aware of all those things.

Um, air handler wise. What are some things you're looking for? Growth around the plum. Growth around the plum. That's a big one.

One that's a big one. What else? Sagging platform? Yep. sagging platform. Man, you guys are good.

What else does it have Swit does it have a float switch? Yeah That's a big one. If it doesn't have a float switch, what should we always do? We should always quote a float switch right? Always, always always. and it's not. Doesn't you know it doesn't happen very often anymore? But it's one of the things that definitely you should notice and we should always quote on a maintenance or service call no matter what it is.

What else can they utilize a filter back? return Grill Do Does it have a filter back? Return Grill right and that's another one. and again. Bert Mentioned this a little bit earlier, but make sure that there is one filter and only one filter in the equipment. Um, and that's where when you are walking through the house.

especially if you have ceiling. uh, returns. just take a take a quick look up with your flashlight. just and that's why I still like an old traditional mag light or something.

I mean you know the the phone as a backup is great, but it's nice to be able to just kind of pull that and just take a quick look. It also makes you look really like a real awesome Tradesman you know and just like oh yeah, let me. But one thing that you'll one one kind of indication uh that'll be really clear B's making fun of me is U if you see screws that are loose, like if you kind of notice some screws backed out, that's a really good uh chance that somebody has jammed a filter up in a return grill that does not need a filter and it does happen more than you would think it does because clients are used to maybe in their past house that's where the filter was and they're like, well I guess it goes in there and so they just pull the grill down and jam a filter up in there. Um, so it should have one filter and only one filter.

um what else anything else we can think of: Air Handler taped Drain Pitch drain pitch that's a good one. Air handler taped up all the the customer tape that particular. yes, that is A that is a tricky one actually. Um, and that's where when you do have cuz cuz actually there are some cases where people do it for a reason.

like they were trying to pass an air tightness test. There was actually some municipalities for a while uh, in the late '90s early 2000s that would actually require you to tape the cabinets. um, in order to whatever, just somebody got a you know, crazy idea. So if that is the case, I would strongly suggest that they use masking tape.

uh, and not silver tape. or you know, whatever duct tape or whatever else. um, makes it a lot easier. The silver tape.

I've seen it a lot on the carriers. When you take it off, you peel a little bit of the tape off the corners and then that you put it back. The tape holds moisture and then it's resting. Mhm.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. anything. and again just to kind of back up to the broad view on the air handler furnace. Anything that is a fundamental problem like a sagging platform or like a supply Plum that's probably going to have to be rebuilt in order to keep it from being a problem.

Um, these are things that you do need to quote the client for. Now, Are you going to bring it up the first second when you show up? Probably not. At that point, it's like, all right, this is going to be kind of a big deal. You know, like, and again, if if it's one of these ones that we've never been to before, it looks like it hasn't been maintained for 15 years.

Um, you may want to kind of make a list and start there before you even do the maintenance. like, hey, before. I Do the maintenance just want to point out some things to you? And so that's going to be you using your judgment because especially something that's probably going to fall apart in your hands as you start to work on it. You kind of want to have that preemptive conversation, uh, with the client, and maybe even uh, with your supervisor or dispatch just to make sure that everybody's kind of in the loop on it.

All right. Safely disconnect Power One One question is what is the what is the right way to safety check? Um, to make sure that you don't have high voltage test. Actually Did I Ever? Uh, have I ever read to this group the line from that um, old electrical manual from the 20s? Yeah, yeah. in that manual it says that most men and it says men.

Specifically, most men can handle up to 250 volts without too much discomfort. That's that's what it says by touching the wires. Capacitor? Yeah, 20? Yeah, right. Bell Circuits: They recommend you using putting it on your tongue.

Uh, and and if you don't get the full effect, it tells you to take your shoes off. Um, it literally does. It literally does. This is not a joke.

This is how the people they just were made different back then. I Guess this is why women live longer. Well that's that's actually the yeah, that's kind of the joke is it's like it's it's a it's like back then they were challenging your manliness if you couldn't handle 250 volts. Anyway, the right way to do a safety check is to check from leg to ground.

Okay, and the reason is is because you know there are cases where you will measure zero volts but there will still be voltage to ground. So we see this a lot. Actually, if you know whenever you have a breaker that's failed and you only have one leg and you measure and you're like oh yeah, I got zero? You know that sort of thing. So um yeah, that's the right way to do a safety check is to ground.

Now Is that still? still? Is that still? uh, a fail safe way of doing a safety check? No. Why have issues with your meter? Your meter, lead connections, battery level could be that you don't have a good enough ground. So if it's ungrounded then you're not necessarily going to see a measurement. So so it's nothing is going to be completely perfect.

But you want to go through kind of a standard set of tests and one of the easiest things to do is to use a non-c contct voltage detector. One that you know is working. Um so you you you check it against an outlet and it goes off and then you check it. That's a good way of doing it.

Um again a lot of people say well that's not sufficient but again there's nothing that's going to be 100% Uh, but anytime you are going to use a meter for a safety test, first thing you do is what check across make sure. first thing you do is you confirm that it's working in the first place. So you either check it using the voltage scale on a known power supply or what I generally do which is imperfect. but it's next best thing.

Put it in Ohm scale and just ring it out. make sure that you've got a path and then switch it to volts and then go leg to ground, leg to ground. So again, safety first. as Chris Johnson would say.

Um, actually, what does Chris Johnson say? He says uh, safety is a burden. He doesn't say that it's a value. That's right. Safety is a value That is true.

He does actually list it as a burden in his orientation as a burden. That's his first Mhm call. I should sit through orientation at some point. there is I I I Do eat the food all right.

Um, this is one of my biggest pet peeves and this is. This is probably where we're going to end today's people working on the unit by tilting the top up it. It does bother me. Um, I am a big fan of completely removing the top and taking it and setting it in the grass.

Okay, completely remove the top and go set it in the grass. Uh, I know I know. but I'm not I'm not saying this. I'm not being idealistic.

I'm not one of these guys who's telling you to do something that I didn't do. That is how whenever I would do a maintenance, that's how I would do it. They're not that hard to unwire. They're not that hard to rewire.

But when you take it and you put it in the grass, you don't have to mess with it. It's just like now, you can just do your work. If you want to clean the leaves out, you can get in there and clean them out. You can you? just you can just do your work.

Um, because when you have it tilted up, you're always worried that this thing is going to slam down on you. um or you do a thing like Nathan did one time where he completely disconnected, it had it sideways and then real realized that he didn't have the disconnect off and the thing took off on him. While it was yeah, I'm just impressed. Top off a good I mean not a well.

He's actually unwiring it right now it in the ground say off isn't the problem H is so I See people bend fan blades a lot and again like what what happens when you bend a fan blade? It's not like the thing just just breaks instantaneously. This is this. Goes back to the to the whole thing that Old-Timers always say which is some version of well I've done it that way for 20 years and I never had a problem. It's like they never pulled a vacuum.

They never did this. They they never Flo nitrogen. They never did all these things. It's like because what they imagine I guess is that if you do it the wrong way, the thing's going to explode in like two days.

That's not how it works. What happens is is you bend the blades, you put it back together and it's not like it's not like it's even that noticeable. It's just a little more wobbly than it was, and now over time it's not. It wears out the motor, it's it's noisier.

It's just not. It's not great. So um, that's one of the main reasons I don't like it. Also, you can scratch the top very easily.

You see that happen a lot. There's just a lot of reasons I don't like us just tilting them up. Um, again. there are cases that you can argue if it's a really clean unit and you're really not doing much in there and you're just going to be kind of in and out.

Okay, maybe I'm not. I'm not going to be super dogmatic about it, but I really do want us pulling the tops and setting in the grass clean the base out. This is one of the things that you can do that's really dramatic for the client to see uh, and really makes you feel good about doing a maintenance. Never underestimate the psychological value of uh, the cleaning steps in maintenance.

Um, if you start to drift in your practices where you get kind of slack on cleaning, you'll notice that you become slack in a lot of areas in your work. I I I've done this in the past, whereas if you are somebody who takes maintenance very seriously um, it's similar to like commissioning, uh, or the startup process on an install. Um, when you take that final, those final steps really seriously and you're very rigorous about it and you're very technical about it. Um, you walk away from the job feeling really good about what you accomplished because you know that you did something like you know and not only you know you did something, but you know that what you did um, was, uh, was well done and well thought through.

And the same thing is true of cleaning. So this is even true in cases where you have, um, a lot of dirt that's kind of building up into the condenser. Now when you have cases where the condenser is literally below grade, um, that's where we need to quote to get it up out of grade and that's not generally that hard of a thing to do. Usually if you get two guys and get a get a separate pad and slide it under, pick it up, slide it under.

A lot of times you can do that, you got to look at the situation obviously. um, but in most cases that's not necessary in most cases is you just have to kind of you. I I call it my Army shovel I used to have or my Martha Stewart Spade U my little tiny shovels. uh and just kind of clear clear around it.

you know, just get get the debris around the base before you start putting water on it because if you start putting water on it when there's big mountains of dirt all over the place, it's just going to keep washing in and driving you crazy. Um, and when the client can see that you've taken that care. Um, they feel very confident in the maintenance that we've done. and again, the same thing is true of yourself.

You feel very good about what you've accomplished. A lot of people will say, well, what good does does it actually do Some people make fun of the way that I like to see these cleaned, but it does actually make a difference because even if the base pan is plastic um, which we see an increased number of plastic base pans um, a lot of them are still metal. but even if the base pan isn't going to be damaged, the bottom of the compressor is still, um, can be compromised and especially where the compressors have crank case heaters. Um, it can easily damage crank case heaters.

Um, there's a lot of accumulators. Uh, definitely will get rusted out. uh more if they have a lot of dirt around the bottom. So there is value in doing a good thorough cleaning um of the inside of the condenser.

Mice and rats will make nests and then chew the wiring, then chew the wiring. Yeah, say making sure the drain channels are clear too so you like. A lot of them are sitting on the pad, but you have the train Chan to spray under there so that it can't build up water and keep doing the rest of. Yep, yep and that's that's part of the practice is that you kind of go around the base and you shoot water around it so you're kind of getting that whole pad area cleaned off.

Um, there's only a couple things in maintenance that are like really impactful to the operation and we're going to obviously talk about drain cleaning. Um, you know, looking at a a coils, washing condensers, those sorts of things. Those are all really important, but on the cleaning side of things. it's the same principle with the condenser that we have for the drain, which is clean it till it's clean.

right? Clean it until it's clean. You don't clean it like a lot of people like to use. uh, costic chemicals and all that because the the foam makes them feel like it's clean. That's the foam is not.

That's not necessary, right? I mean is in the sense that I mean again. I I I Realize if John Pastella ever sees this and he hears me talking about about foam, he's going to, you know, come come after me and beat me up. Um, foam is important for cleaning. but but we don't just foam clean coils in order to feel good about cleaning coils, right? We don't want to use cleaners when we don't need to use cleaners.

However, when something does need to be cleaned when it's visibly dirty, um, if a base Pan's visibly dirty, if a drain pan, uh, as part of our cleaning needs to be cleaned, we need to wash it and clean it until everything is clean. And that includes the channels under the coil. That includes the the trays that includes, you know, Like you said, the channels for drainage underneath the bottom of the condenser. And when you get to where you just start to do these things, intuitively, it's just part of your process.

It doesn't take that long. Um, it's not that big of a deal. It might take 5 minutes extra, some cases 10 minutes extra. even in a really dirty situation.

But the psychological effect that it has with you and the impact it has on the client is definitely worth it. Anything else you all want to add? All right, So that is part one. We're going to probably end up doing two or three parts on this. Thanks for your time, thanks for watching.

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