This video is brought to you by sportlin quality integrity and tradition. Well, we got a call on a walk-in freezer today and i got ta say i have a feeling that bungie has something to do with it. I hate those bungees because it's totally iced up this is a fairly new box or fairly new coil and condensing unit that i put in on this guy, so we're gon na throw it into defrost. It's been icing up for a while, throw it into defrost check the heaters and then we'll get in here and defrost it all right um.

This is our condensing unit right here. We need to get into there interesting, it's satisfied. Was it satisfied or is it in defrost huh? I'm intrigued, um! It's in defrost, that's alarming, because the fans were running unless it literally just turned off when i walked up here. Let's get a meter out.

So this is a standard walk-in freezer, where the defrost clocks on the roof, the power controls up here - controls the evaporator. I've got my field piece, sc 480 here. So what we're going to do is check between one and in to make sure that we have 208 volts and we do now we're gon na check between n and three, we have 208 volts, that's the heater circuit and then let's check between four and in. We should have no power and we have no power, so i think this thing might have just turned into defrost: that's odd huh! So let's turn our meter on current and go right here.

Yeah we're running 8.9 amps. So, let's run back downstairs. I think it's just a coincidence that this thing literally just turned into defrost when i came up here, but let's go downstairs, make sure the evaporator fan motors are not running and uh see. If the heaters are working.

That's so funny that it literally just went in defrost, but look at how iced up it is inside there super iced up, that's crazy! This thing is jam-packed, so we're going to open up the sides, see if we can hear the heaters popping and sizzling in there see if we can get a current draw on them. This is my top heater. It's currently running 2 amps. This is my bottom heater.

Currently running 2 amps - and this is my drain - pan heater currently running three amps, so i think there's only three heaters in this guy and it looks like they're all working, so i'm gon na go ahead and let it run and defrost while i'm getting my hoses And getting this guy disassembled, i went ahead and made it a really long, defrost and then we'll uh we'll turn it off when we're ready to get the water hose in here. When i'm running my hose, i always leave a loop in here because oftentimes these will come loose and start leaking water and it'll make a giant puddle on the ground. So i always leave a little loop in here and then try to run it very nicely over into here. Got it just sitting there and then up in here by me, putting i put it into a really long, defrost like two hours right.

It's never gon na. Do that, but what i'm actually doing is testing the limit switches. So i may not say this all the time, but before i start defrosting things, i'm always checking the heaters while it's iced up and checking the limit switches. So it's been running in defrost now for about 10 minutes.

What i'm checking is the defrost termination switch which, if the defrost termination switch, fails, it'll time itself out of a defrost too fast. So it's important that we always check that while it's still iced up but so far it's looking like all the heaters are working and the defrost clock is working, so we're just going to keep de-icing it and then we'll finish our diagnosis once we get it all. Defrosted, yeah, to say it's iced up is an understatement. Right, um.

Unfortunately, the motors are going to get wet, there's nothing. We can do about it, so these ecm motors can usually handle it, but still it sucks. I hate getting stuff wet, but we've got to because there's no other way to defrost it using my shower one. We're gon na work our way through it, nice and slow, trying not to get water on the floor or anything like that.

Just defrost it a little bit at a time we're using hot water getting up in here again sucks, but the motors are getting wet. It is what it is, we're all put back together. So there's one heater down below on the back one heater up top right there and then a drain pan heater, and i believe i checked all those all right - we're all defrosted we're gon na turn it on. It should pop out a defrost because the coil's so hot and it did the green light's on, but it's in defrost - that's normal yeah.

There's nothing wrong with that. That's doing what it's supposed to be doing so we'll go ahead and turn it there. You go and um we're gon na. Let it run for a little bit.

The evaporator family is going to take a minute to kick on the side. Glass should clear up, then we'll let the coil get cold enough. Once the coil gets cold enough, then we'll throw it back in the defrost and check the heaters one more time, all right, so we're back up in here this guy's in defrost right now it's been running for a little bit. So, let's test all the heaters one more time drain, pan heaters, three amps bottom coil heater is 2.87 amps and top coil heaters 2.88 amps.

So we're good on that the unit's getting the proper voltage. I don't see any problems with the limit switches. They don't look. Deformed or broken so we're going to go ahead and pop it out of defrost.

Don't see refrigeration problems, uh side glass was clear. I don't see a need to put service gauges on it, so we're gon na tell them to keep an eye on it. We're gon na come back in about a day or two follow up, make sure everything's working on it properly. I have a feeling they're propping, that door open with that bungee.

These are never super accurate, but it's showing a temperature difference because before it was in the high 30s, i believe or somewhere in the middle, so it's actually dropping in temp it's running and, like i said, we'll follow up another day, but it's already significantly dropping in Temperature in here all right, we are back today just to do a follow-up, make sure everything's good come in here. It is colder than you know. What in here, let's uh back of the coil, like maybe they're, still doing something with the door a little frosty we're gon na. Look into that, because it's kind of weird with the frost pattern.

But honestly, it looks like they're leaving the door open because it's right there, but we're just gon na double check everything um the bungee is not there anymore, but again these guys in their doors. You can well look at this. Look at this see how you can see this looks like maybe the door gas gets bad too yeah. So maybe i have to get a new door gasket, for it that's going to bring infiltration in, but no more bungee.

So that's a plus and the door actually shuts, but let's go on to the roof check the defrost all right. So we're probing up on the system, but i also threw it into a defrost and we're going to check the heaters one more time. But i can clearly hear them and that little bit of frost is already gone, but we're gon na double check them just to make sure and then we'll turn it back on. But clearly, with this frost right here, there there's moisture coming into the box, but that door gasket is a problem too.

So these restaurants, a lot of them, have started using gasket companies. They don't use us very much anymore for the gaskets, and this is what they get. They get the wrong gaskets being pushed into. That's not a traditional dart and they're too narrow, and they just don't last they're junk um.

Obviously, this door is trashed too, but i mean it could take a gasket and it would be fine, but you got to get the right gasket in there there's a lot of factors that go into sizing and gasket as i'm falling right now. There's a lot of factors that go into size in a gasket, the width, the depth and the length, and then also the dart, and if you just shove, something in there, this is what you get the door heater i can is hot. I can feel the heat strip it's hot, but the air is just going right around the door gasket because it's the wrong style gasket, all right. So we checked the defrost.

The defrost was fine, no problem same thing, so we came back up onto the roof and we're probing up right now. Um we're just looking at the tablet seeing what's going on here. I literally just turned it on so it's going to take a minute, but the sight glass is clear. I can see it from here.

This is our sight glass right here. Okay, the side glass is just a window into the system, so we're probed up on the liquid line: pressure port, the suction port down at the evaporator. We have liquid line temperature now, because this unit has a sub cooler circuit. It's a new awef compliant unit you're.

Actually going to see measurable, sub cooling on these units in the past on receiver systems or systems that have receivers and txvs you'd see one to two degrees, sub cooling, you know very minimal, but on these new systems they have an added sub cooling loop loop, where, After it comes out of the receiver, it goes back through the condenser for another pass. You actually get rather uh very measurable sub cooling. So it's still building up right now, but we have five degrees right now, so we're gon na give it some time. Um we're just gon na watch it uh and then we'll check, evaporator superheat and go look at the feed of the expansion valve to make sure we're evenly feeding and everything everything's still stabilizing.

But my evap td is kind of high. But i don't remember what i left it at the last time, so i don't have it written down, but um. I'm concern, though, so we're gon na go into here. Probe manager see our battery's almost dead on the low pressure probe, so i send someone down there to change it because that can mess things up so we got ta.

Have you know a good battery in it? These probes can degrade when the batteries get really low. So we're gon na do that real, quick and then we'll finish, uh analyzing the system system's getting there stabilizing out. You can clearly see that the uh dtc valve discharge temperature control valve has a sensing bulb in the top whenever the compressor head gets too hot. It opens up it's essentially just an expansion valve um for it's trying to reduce high discharge temperatures help to save the life of the compressor.

You see it on low temp. When you have high compression ratios, but anyways, it's clearly working. You can see it feeding. I'm looking at my system right now, it's still stabilizing about nine degrees.

Superheat, that's looking good everything's, still kind of moving around discharge temperature looks good. Evaporator temperature is negative. Three we're going to give it a few more minutes. It looks like we do run a little bit higher evaporator td, on this system.

I have to look at the um, the sizing of everything i can't remember what we went with and why we went with it. Uh this the equipment could be slightly mismatched, causing that it's hard to say, uh, condenser td, looking good so yeah we're just gon na watch it for a little bit longer. But i'm not seeing anything too scary that evaporator superheat is going to drop about. Six to eight degrees is what i'm looking for on a low temp situation.

I like to see the lower, especially since we have a suction line accumulator to protect the compressor, but it is a thermostatic expansion valve. So you tend to go a little conservative on the super heat settings because those valves they tend to have a wide swing. Open closed open closed, so the suction line. Accumulator is an extra protection in case it feeds uh too much liquid refrigerant and it doesn't uh.

You know you don't want it coming back to the compressor. Basically, but so far so good sight, glass is uh. Still looking clear, that should be good all right, so i went ahead just out of curiosity and pumped the system down uh and we heated up the receiver just to see if it's where i left it. When i did my install - and it is, the liquid level - is right about at the three-quarter mark, so we know that the system has the amount of refrigerant that i put into it from the beginning.

So in this situation, when i did my install in startup, i calculated the flooded charge and the flooded charge is 6.8 pounds. So we cleared the sight glass above the bypass pressure of the head pressure control valve. Then we added the extra 6.8 pounds which mind you. The manufacturer calculated using sporlin's 90-30-1 method, where you essentially measure the condenser figure out the internal volume.

How much liquid you need at what temperature and then we fill it up. Okay, so i cleared the sight glass above the bypass pressure, so the head pressure was above the bypass pressure cleared the glass. Then i added the extra winter charge so that way when and if the head pressure control valve does bypass, we know that it has the extra refrigerant in the system. So i marked it when i did the install and then we just checked it by pumping it down heating up the receiver, taking a thermal imaging camera or you can take your fingers and you can literally just feel where the temperature difference happens.

But the thermal imaging camera gives it a cool picture thing you know, so we check to make sure that it's still at the level that i left it at so we know our charge is good um, so we're just going to keep watching the system come down To temp, but i'm liking everything i'm seeing so my box was uh just about down to temperature and i just wanted to see that superheat drop just a little bit because it was hovering right around the 10 degree range. So we turned the expansion valve. Two quarter turns and now we're just letting the system stabilize out watching it checking everything out. It's still coming down, so it's going to take time.

Every time you make a super heat adjustment also too make sure that you understand that there can't be any restrictions in the system right. I didn't pull the strainer on the expansion valve, but i don't see any signs of the strainer being plugged up. But before you start adjusting superheat, you want to make sure that you don't have a plugged up strainer because you'll just be wasting your time. Um but yeah it's going to take some time.

The box. We brought the temperature up, but the expansion valve's still stabilizing out it's at negative six right now, so we'll give it a few minutes. Superheat should drop just a little bit, but guys everything is looking good on this. I'm going to talk to them about ordering a new door gasket, whether or not they have me do it.

They'll probably have their gasket company. Do it that's a big thing. We got to get that door gasket replaced, but everything else on this system is checking out. Um refrigerant charge is good, which i didn't suspect it wasn't, but we checked it: anyways expansion valves working uh.

You know everything's good right, so i really think that their problem was the door being propped open with that rubber bungee cord with these restaurants. They have a lot of new employees right now and they even have new managers and it's hard to get them trained on how this equipment works right. The restaurant industry as a whole right now is just completely bogged down with employee shortages, so they're having to hire people that aren't trained properly, that don't understand how to operate restaurants and they don't take care of the equipment correctly. So you know, i know a lot of people say: install door switches.

Do all this different stuff. That's a great thought and i've tried to propose that to restaurant management on a corporate level, but they know - and i know that door switches while they do shut the equipment down. They lead to more nuisance. Calls with these restaurants, where they're constantly leaving the doors open.

So there's going to be constant truck rolls to go out there and not find anything wrong, so it's kind of a fine line between install a door switch or not and most of the time these restaurants don't want to same reason why they don't want curtain strips On there, too, because the cooks just rip them off and then they just spend a bunch of money putting curtains on - and i realize the flip side to that is more service calls right. But if you look at the grand scheme of it, while it frustrates me on a restaurant level at each individual restaurant, if they get an iced up freezer call once a month, i mean that's even excessive. Probably once every two months is what really happens at a restaurant, the cost? To that? Let's just say you know, let's just say it's a thousand bucks. It's not, but let's just say it's a thousand dollar service call.

That's a lot less than having to replace curtain strips nationwide consistently over and over and over again or the nuisance calls, because my walk-in freezer is at 30 degrees and then you go out there and you can't find anything wrong because the door was open and then Someone shut it and it's coming down to temp, but you're going to do your best to watch it come down to temp when you're out there on the service call, so they lead the nuisance. Calls and really the only solution in my eyes to these problems is get management and get employees trained properly and corporations are working on that restaurant owners are working on that. It's just. This is a a bumpy road coming out of all this craziness from the last couple years and the employee shortages, it's gon na take time to get back into the groove of things, and you know i can be frustrated when i have to go out to do These service calls - or i can just uh - you know - understand like while it is frustrating.

This is just part of the game so uh it is what it is, but we're still waiting that super heat is coming down. So i want to watch it a little bit longer, but we're gon na call this one done and uh tell them to keep an eye on it. There is nothing worse than being on site working on a reach-in cooler you're, getting ready to walk out the door. You put your tools away and oh since you're here, can you take a look at my walk-in freezer, there's a little bit of ice on it come on.

You know that one always gets you right and i get it. You know people are going to say. Oh man but you're making money, so you need to shut your mouth. It's something about putting your tools away, it's something about being in the mindset of all right.

We're done. You know and you're wrapping it up and then they're like oh yeah um. You know there's a little bit of frost over here you mind just taking a look at this real quick, you know and then it's like okey-dokey here we go. You know um, but anyways.

It was an iced up, walk-in freezer, obviously right when i showed it. In the beginning, there was a bungee holding the door open, i'm pretty confident that was the cause of it all um, but the box temperature was so high that it was hard for me to see the infiltration from the door gasket. Now, of course, i could have taken thermal imaging cameras and pieces of paper and slid things in the door, but i knew i was going to be coming back, so it's just easier when the box is down to temperature. You come back in.

You know it's like negative whatever and there's obviously frost all around the door. There's a problem. You know it clearly leads to it now. I don't think that the door having the the air leakage really caused the the freeze up.

I think it added to it, but that amount of ice that was on there, in my opinion, was caused by them, propping that door open for extended periods of time with that silly bungee cord - and you know it's frustrating right now with these managers because what's happening Is these restaurants, you know you're you're, just running into all new hires everywhere and it's having to retrain them like i said so, it gets frustrating. You know it's just one of those things we're having to deal with right now until things get better, you know, but i did my due diligence. I went through everything as best as possible, tried to verify, make sure the defrost checked it multiple times all that good stuff, though this equipment is like only a year old, if that um, ironically, i don't i, i know i made a video on this one and I think i talked about the install video, but this one i got this service called like christmas eve or something it was either christmas eve or christmas day. I got this service call, but then i put them off till the next day or something like that, and it was just like.

Oh, my gosh, i remember being just bummed out like this, is going to be a miserable change out because yeah but anyways they ended up getting a freezer truck. If you guys don't remember and then the freezer truck wasn't working right like i went out there one day to check on it and i'm like this, isn't freezing and the the company that delivered it's like yeah, it's like 32 degrees, it's freezing and i'm like. That's not a freezer truck and then the guy's like yo dudes, all right. Whatever just do your thing, it's not my problem, you know, but it was the whole thing and then the freezer truck broke down yeah.

That was a hole, but that's why i don't deal with that stuff customers. Ask me: can you get me a freezer truck nope, not gon na? Do it not gon na deal with that stuff, because that just adds one more layer of responsibility on me and yes, it is money, but it's one more lay of responsibility and i just don't need the drama because then, if the freezer trucks breaks, you know - and I supplied it and i'm charging them for it. Then they want me to take care of all the problems. No, i don't want to deal with that call.

Someone else they'll deal with the freezer truck. You know, but it's just a whole pain in the butt but anyways as usual. I went off on tangent. I really really appreciate you guys making it to the end of the video.

As usual, you guys are amazing. Okay, thank you. So very much for all the support you give this channel. I've said it many times.

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