This video is brought to you by Sportlin. Quality Integrity and tradition. We have a call today on an AC that's leaking water. They showed me a general area and it's funny as I'm walking by.

don't know if you guys can hear that. We got a condenser fan motor going bad on this. AC Yep, it's locked up I Could hear it trying to start but uh, from what they're telling me. shoot I don't know what JC it is.

actually to be honest with you, it could be this one or it could be this one. They're saying water leak issue so let's open up over here. have a look if we see a bunch of water. I don't see a bunch of water in there drain pan you guys can't see but it's it's dry.

Yeah, you can't see that. Um okay now let's go look at this other. AC this one right here. Maybe this is our problem.

This one looks to be more realistic because it looks like maybe there's all water right here. Oh I don't know I don't really see water in here either. overflowing. So yeah, that's a good question, huh? What is going on here? It's not gonna be this one because it's in the area specific area of the dining room.

Nice. Oh that's that's filters are plugged. Solid metal mesh filters are missing. They look like they're broken down there.

Huh? Okay, well I don't know where to start. Open this guy up I Guess I can try to climb in the Attic see I Could see a little bit of calcium Stained on the roof. um in the general vicinity where they say it was Dripping So I mean I guess I'm gonna start there I Don't see any active error codes on either of these two ACS What about belts? Thank you! Seems like a tight belt just from opening the door, but obviously we have to shut it off to be a hundred percent sure to open this guy up. See what this guy's doing? Spider webs everywhere.

seems like a tight belt. Okay, all right. well I don't know if I just got bit by a spider or what? huh? Um, let's go downstairs and try to investigate in the attic and see if we can see the water leak. Oh, they're saying that it's right in this area and what? I can see right here is what looks to be some calcium right in that area and you can see some drips where it was possibly dripping.

That's the only thing I could see. Check this out though. You come over here. Return is plugged solid.

That's lovely. Well I can't get in their attic because it's all tongue and groove and there's no access panel. So the next thing I'm doing with those plugged up returns down there. It makes me wonder if we're icing the unit up.

So I'm coming up here and I'm going through the error codes. 58 that's a gas heating one. That's the most recent code on this. AC that's not really a code I'm worried about.

So we're going to come over here and check this unit out looking for signs of of water because I don't know if this is a plumbing issue or or My Issue The likely answer is that it's my issue. but I don't know for sure. So we're gonna go to Recall right here. We go for the first error code that pops up.

Six Dirty Filter switch. That's an odd one. I've never seen that code I Didn't even know these units had a dirty filter switch. I Don't think they do.

That's odd. This is an old old unit. The next code is six. This: This unit doesn't have a dirty filter switch that I've ever seen before.

Okay, let's go over here. let's look in here. We're condensating like crazy. it.

it's got no return air because I can tell by the the pull that this door has on it and that's because the plugged up return grills. Now next thing is I'm going to look down here in this section. I'm looking for signs of water and I'm not seeing any. like if it was freezing up now.

I Know that that return needs to be cleaned, but I'm still trying to get to the root of what their actual problem is before. I Just start fixing other random stuff, trying to figure out why this unit would potentially be leaking water on the tongue and groove ceiling. I Found it. They have a roof leak.

I bet you that's what it is. look at this. I I Ramped all the ACs on and let them run for a while. now.

this guy had a dry drain pan but all of a sudden now it's dripping all over the roof and I don't see any signs of it leaking inside the unit. So I bet you it's a roof leak and just a plugged up drain. Let's look right here. Oh, you want to know something even more interesting: the drain pan is not full of water.

I Think what's Happening Here is they have a main drain that's plugged up. Oftentimes on these restaurants, several of the ACs will be piped together. It's because this drain pan in this unit doesn't even have much water in it. So I think it's another AC draining into a common drain and this is the low spot right here.

So I pulled the drain line over here and this indicates to me that it is actually not coming from the main drain and it's just from this unit because we have no condensation coming from the main and it's just coming from the unit. It must just have a dirty trap is all. So I'll go ahead and clean the drain right here. Um I don't have time today.

we're in the middle of a heat wave so I don't have time to clean every AC on this roof but I'll get someone else out here. so yeah, look at that pretty grody. let me get it wet and then I'll rinse it from the other side, but that's a complete blockage. No airflow through that.

Surprised we didn't see. uh, low pressure codes in the unit or anything. It's nasty. Yeah, that's pretty epic, huh? All came out as one sheet.

I'm gonna give it another rinse and that one's much better too. So now those units can breathe. And what the problem is? where do you stop? because their other returns are plugged up too? This one's pretty plugged up and so is this one. Not as bad, but pretty bad.

All right. I Had mentioned before that we're super busy right now because we're in the middle. It's not even really hot yet. This is just our first heat wave.

It's hitting about 100 105. and um, we've got plenty more to go. But uh, I don't have time to spend all day here. so I just took the side panel off.

I'm gonna get this drain pan cleared out real quick, get the drain blown out, and then I'll just do a quick rinse on the condensers. No coil cleaner, just make sure the drains are clear and then that's it for today. We'll be coming back because that unit right there has a bad condenser fan motor and all of these units need coil cleanings, metal mesh, filters, regular filters, everything. So when we have crazy busy times and stuff I have another guy like I have a guy that'll go around just doing PM stuff and filters and things like that and the service techs have to, you know, keep moving putting out fires.

basically all right. I blew out the drains. but I want to talk about this because I can't get to the Attic So I can't physically see where the water leak is coming from. So I'm going to use some deductive reasoning, right process of elimination kind of a thing now.

I Am very familiar with this restaurant I've been servicing it for over 20 years. I'm really familiar and they have. This is a restaurant chain. They have multiple locations that have this exact same footprint.

so again, I'm very familiar with it. There's always a chance that something's different here, but the odds are it's not I come up onto the roof. The first thing I'm doing is looking in the returns around the floor of the unit to see if I see existing water and I don't see it in any units. If a drain in the unit was plugged up and it was overflowing to the point that it was Dripping in the ductwork, there would be remnants of water inside the unit.

Okay, so that's one first thing. So then I start looking and I know there's no water lines in that area dripping. and if it was a water line, logic would tell you that it would consistently drip if it was a high pressure Plumbing line it would consistently drip. So it should theoretically be dripping When I got here and it wasn't okay, you can just see calcium from it dripping for a long time.

This customer does not do routine maintenance so after ramping all the units, the first thing I did when I got here was set them all to like 53 degrees right. It's never going to get that cold but I just want them running their hearts away and all the drain pans were dry you guys saw in the beginning but then this one started to overflow. Okay, once it started condensating. So then it starts telling me okay, it's dripping on the roof and the area that the water leak is at is actually right right in this area right here.

Okay, but there's nothing here besides a drain line in the Attic but the drain was plugged up. So my theory is that it was Dripping on the roof running down here. and there's a roof leak somewhere in this roof membrane right here. Okay, you can see like water damage right here.

So I think we have a roof leak in the membrane and it's just condensate dripping on the roof. So I went around and blew out every drain, pulled the drain pans, made sure you know again, looked at every unit quickly. rinse the condensers I'm not doing a thorough cleaning today. kind of rinse the roof down I rinse the walking cooler because the condenser was dirty I Got to put this one back together.

but other than that I see no other reason to cause a water leak I Also got to put this Union back together because I was blowing this drain out. so I see nothing else that would be causing a water leak besides plugged up condensate drains. So that's the theory and that's my logic working through this problem because anytime there's a leak I don't want to just go on the roof and assume I try to prove my theory if I can pop my head in the attic and look at the leak. okay, find it, actually see it physically leaking even if it like even if we think it's a plumbing line.

I Always tell my employees too take pictures of the leaking Plumbing line to make it easier for the plumber. that kind of stuff. So we're always looking to prove our theory of what the problem might be Whenever I run into these problems. I'm always trying my best to recreate the existing problem so that way it can prove that I'm able to solve it.

Okay, so you know I Walked up and there was no Active water leaking but I could see remnants of water leaking. Okay, so I went up there I turned on every AC I was trying to get my head in the attic to see it I couldn't get my head above that tongue and groove ceiling that they had. This particular location has not had access holes cut at a lot of the other locations for this restaurant chain. I've had access holes cut so I can get up on top of it this one I wasn't able to get up there to see where the water was leaking from so I went to all the thermostats, ramped them all on I went through all the drain pans, all the drain pans were dry.

so I started to get suspect. Is it possible there was a plumbing Light in the Attic but I know this restaurant really well and there's no Plumbing lines in that area. Okay, so I'm always trying to find the problem I don't want to go off of a theory as much as possible I want to try to recreate it to see it happening I ramped all the thermostats down and then after a little bit of them running I found the problem. Well, I found the symptom right.

it was leaking out of the unit, but that's not where the water was entering the building because there was no trace of water inside the return air cabinet like it was leaking down into the curb adapter. No, that wasn't the case. this was leaking onto the roof and they have a roof leak in the general vicinity of where I circled on there right. So whenever possible again, I'm trying to recreate the problem So that way it can prove whatever Theory I come up with unless I just have a dead giveaway.

this is the problem in this situation. It wasn't there, so had I just gone up onto the roof and just blown out a drain. I may or may not have solved the problem. You get where I'm going with that I Always tell my employees that whenever we go out like let's say, we found out that this was a plumbing line problem.

I Still tell my guys. Just because we know it's not our problem doesn't mean that I want you to stop I Want you to go take pictures I Want you to identify the plumbing line that's leaking. Mark it, Take a picture, show it to the Man manager. Make it easier for the plumber.

Same thing when we have electrical issues. you know there's a circuit breaker that's bad or or you know we think that something's going on with a broken line. or who knows. Do your best to research and dig into the problem and make it easier for the next guy.

So if you have a circuit breaker breaker that's bad What? I typically do when it's safe to do so. Don't ever open up circuit breaker panels if you're not allowed to do that. In my situation, I'll open up a circuit breaker panel. I'll take a picture of the circuit breaker.

What amperage is it? What size wire is going to it? So that way I can tell the manager hey, you need to call the electrician we need a circuit breaker, but tell the electrician to call me and then I'll give all the information to the electrician so that way he can be prepared. So same thing when it comes to a plumbing issue when it comes to whatever issues. I'm going to do my customer a service. they're calling me out there and if I find that it's not my problem, I'm still going to charge them for my time, but I'm going to make that worth their while I'm gonna do my best to make it easier for the next guy.

Okay, I can't stress that enough in this situation. I Just tried to, you know, find and recreate the problem and it. and eventually I was able to. right? So it's just.

it's all about the big picture. the big picture diagnosis, right? You're always trying to do the best. And remember, try to make it easier for the next guy. That's my two cents on that.

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Remember it's warm all over the country. We're in the middle of summer in the United States It's super warm outside. Make sure you're paying attention into your body, don't get overheated, drink plenty of fluids, and stop drinking sodas and Gatorades and sugar crap and drink water. Okay, my personal preference is four to five waters for one.

Gatorade If I'm gonna drink a Gatorade get some electrolytes and stuff, it's four to five waters for one. Gatorade Make sure you're eating food, keeping nutrients in your body, and remember the moment you start to feel the effects of a heat stroke or heat exhaustion. It's pretty much too late, so don't let your body get to that point. I Really appreciate you and we will catch you on the next one.