This video is brought to you by Sporland. Quality, integrity and tradition. All right. Yesterday I was at this location working on the walk-in freezer.

That's a whole nother video. Um, while I was here I Just kind of did a walk around made sure all their ACS were running. You could see them right there right there. They got three of them and I noticed they were all running.

It was like 116 degrees outside. All the compressors in this unit right here were running, but only three of the fan motors. and there's four fan motors. Now that wasn't right.

On 116 degree day, all the fan motors should have been running. Now it's early in the morning. it's not that hot out yet. This motor and this motor are not running yet.

They are controlled by pressure controls I if I remember right I Thought it was this motor that wasn't running, but it's running right now. So I did bring a motor with me because I haven't at the shop I didn't have them at my location I had them at the shop I did bring a motor with me. Don't know for sure if we're going to change it yet. I need to figure out what's going on.

We need to be thorough. We can't just, uh, you know, change a motor just because it wasn't running. We need to make sure that it's actually there's a problem with it now. I Will say that this particular location has a lot of blowing sand.

It gets extremely hot. we're out in the Southern California desert. Um Motors Go bad. They go bad once a year.

It just happens. Okay, they just overheat the bearings, just cook. the oil goes away. you know.

I mean they just. they just go bad. Capacitors fail a lot. All kinds of stuff.

Okay, so we're going to investigate what's going on now. I've had this unit running like I said for about 20-25 minutes. all three compressors are pumping. Um, I'm gonna go ahead and probe up I've got my full uh jobling probe set in there.

We're going to probe up. We're gonna see why those other two Motors aren't running yet, which I would think they should be. But we're going to dig into this. We're going to try to figure things out.

Big picture stuff, right? We always want to make sure that we're taking care of the customer. Now in this situation. this particular customer is about an hour and a half to two hours away from my shop. We're literally out in the middle of the desert.

It's an hour away from the nearest supply house. so we want to make sure that we go through everything because I don't like coming back here unless I absolutely have to because it kind of ruins my day. You got to figure if I drive an hour and a half out here and then I a typical service calls three to four hours if it's an easy one, right and then you have an hour and a half back. You've literally spent your entire day out here and then to get a call back or to have something else go wrong.

So that's why when I was working on the walk-in freezer, this guy I went and I checked all the ACs because it's like hey, you know what I'm out here before this becomes an emergency I'm going to look into things right now I did not get my meter out I did not start diagnosing the fan motor yesterday because I knew I was going to come back. So we're gonna probe up. We're gonna see what's going on with everything. All right I got all the Job Link probes on.

Now you don't have to have as many probes as me. You don't have to probe up on all three compressors at the same time, but I like to makes my job easier. So we've got suction, liquid pressures, discharge temp, suction line temp, and liquid line temp on each compressor. so all three then I have outside air right there and then I have return and Supply Air and for this test, I closed my outside air damper so we're getting building air.

So I imagine the building's pretty cool right now because they don't have a huge demand so we're going to see some things because of that. Okay, so let's go in here and see what's going on. Now this is the first stage. Super Heats Really low.

Sub cooling is really low which is odd. Okay, let's scroll through approach temperatures: high. outdoor air temperature is just about 100 degrees. it's 98.

I mean temperature split seems decent. Airflow seems decent. All right. let's go back and let's scroll to the next compressor.

Okay, now I have it in test mode so circuit two, see what that does. It's interesting that my suction line temperature was so low for that first stage. That was interesting. This guy's looking a lot better for superheat, but my sub cooling is still low.

That's odd. I Wonder if the other fan motors are running yet though? Let's go ahead and go to the third stage. Oh, third stage. look at that.

Hello suction temp. Decent high side temp. no sub cooling, really high superheat. so there's a problem with that third stage for sure.

So an odd thing happened I Went to go put my probe, my charging hose on the smart probe or the Joplin probe and I had I always. Uh, but when I put it on I always Purge from the system out like this. Okay and then I connect it while it's pressure so that way we don't get air in the system and there was nothing there. And what I actually found was this wasn't depressing the Schrader So once I got it to depress the Schrader the pressures are a lot better, but they're still kind of low.

We're running a 30 to 32 Degree saturation temp. That seems a bit odd, but superheat's not 67 degrees anymore. Let's scroll through and look at the rest of them. So first stage it's got no or zero degree Super Eight which is odd.

Second stage I mean I Guess there's no load on the system though. Second stage has 12 degrees super heat, third stage has 35. no sub cooling and my condenser fan motor still aren't on. So we're going to attempt to add a little bit of refrigerant to the third stage.

It's still looking low to me and we're gonna see how it does. Um, this is liquid gold R22 Everybody's going to ask. Oh, and see, this guy does have zero degree superheat. Look at this guy.

it's flooding back. Um, why am I using R22 Why not use something else? Because these are mineral oil and I don't want to bother with removing all the refrigerant to add another gas. It's just easier the customer. This is what they want me to do.

Typically put a little gas in there, get it running, and they'll schedule for replacement of this unit and or repair of this unit. But repair on this unit is going to be 407c with either a polyester oil conversion or a compressor replacement. I'm not playing games, adding other refrigerants and weird stuff. We're doing it by the book.

So and this is interesting I Just heard a click which I thought was the relay for the condenser fan motor. And it was. And now my head pressure for the third stage dropped down. And what's interesting is the condenser fan motor that I saw being turned off turned off.

that was yesterday, this one wasn't running and now both of these are running. So yeah, I'm thinking that this is well, let's see. this is how this goes. It goes first stage, top of the condenser, second stage top of the condenser.

third stage is the bottom two sides. so I guess that could be controlled by the third stage fan cycle switch. possibly So now that I know we're looking a little low on some of the stages, what I did was I gave the system a false load now because with the outside air damper closed, it was like 68 degrees in the building and we were flooding back to this guy. So I went ahead and opened up the outside air damper.

So now we're pulling in 100 degree air. 100 outside air is what we're using on this guy. So um, it's not designed that way. but long story because of the Air Balance we have to.

So um, now we have a load on the system and our pressure should be coming up on everything. and I'm going to add a little bit of refrigerant to the second set or third stage too. All the condenser fan motors are working. no need to change it I am when I shut it down I'm going to check the capacitors but I went ahead and put some gas in the third stage.

It's not perfect, but I don't want to try to reinvent the wheel. We got the approach temperature much better. Okay, it's still kind of moving around. Third stage: Um, subcoins about six degrees super heat.

still kind of ranging. Let's go to the first stage. First stage: Super Eats really low. Sub cooling's low, but I'm not going to put any gas on that one right now.

Second stage: Super eats where it should be. Subcoins are here on the low side again. I Think that it has leaks too, but it's working I've also operating with a really low indoor load right now, so if you come right here I shut the outside air damper at 65 degrees in that building right now. like I'm freezing them out of that building.

so it's a little difficult now. Something to understand. Uh, the expansion valves on these systems are pressure limiting. So even though my target is really high, sometimes on your suction in your your high side, the expansion valve is going to limit the suction pressure.

Uh, that way it doesn't overload itself so you want to understand that. So sometimes your targets can be skewed, especially when you pull 100 outside air right now I'm not. but when you pull 100 outside air, you'll see your targets go really high. but then your suction pressure won't And that's because the pressure limiting expansion mounts.

So I'm going to do a quick Leak search on this guy. check the capacitors. We're going to talk to the customer about doing leak repairs and all that good stuff. but I think that's going to be it on this one for now.

we got it operational. Let me see. Uh I don't think I put that much gas in there. Maybe three pounds.

Two pounds we'll see. Oh I weighed it downstairs so it was 22 pounds and it feels 15 to 18 right now. but I'll have to measure it I'm not that good. So all right, cool, we're gonna do that.

Um, the one thing I do have to be careful is when I shut it off, the heater is going to turn on because I've got that building so cold. So all right. Well, I'm gonna button this up and then we'll uh, we'll come back when I check the caps and stuff. You know when I make these videos they're not necessarily meant to be like a how-to tutorial.

It's more or less just how my brain works. You know when I check things and stuff. and oftentimes I'll check things out of order or do it without getting it on camera. And one of the things that I just thought about right now was I was adding refrigerant to the system and everything and I never showed you guys that the belt was tight.

It's very important to check the belt because with improper airflow, there's no point in adding refrigerant to the system. Okay, so the belt on this guy is in fact tight. It's in decent shape, good, everything's cool. No issues.

Okay, so now I'm just going to do a quick Leak search on this guy. I'm going to tell you right now that this customer this particular customer, they're gonna change this unit like they they're They're very proactive. The only thing holding them back right now is the equipment shortages. So um, I'm just gonna do a quick Leak search see if I find anything obvious.

Uh, I'm not going to be fixing anything today. It's too dang hot to be up on this roof for the rest of the day. It's it's not even that hot yet. Yesterday it was 116 I think it was the highest that I saw on the roof.

Um, and I was here until like six o'clock last night. Uh, it's only 10 39 in the morning. so the hottest part of the day is going to be between 2 and 5 p.m here and it's gonna get every bit of 115 116 for sure. So I don't really want to be on the roof too much longer.

So we're going to do a quick Leak search on the condenser, the evaporator see if we see anything popping up. All right. I'm using the field piece Dr-82 and I keep picking up a trace of a leak right up in here. right up in that.

TXV Let's pick it up. It just yeah. See, every once in a while I'm getting it right in here and then also every once in a while a little spot in the condenser now I went through the evaporator and I'm not really getting anything back in here, which is surprising because usually you get them back in here, but nothing but every once in a blue moon. I'm getting it right in here.

It's just like a little dip dip every once in a while. So we're going to talk to him about that and then we'll come over here and look at this. uh, condenser, the condenser every once in a while. I'm getting a hit right down in here, right? I Don't know if it's going to do it or not.

it's like right down in the bottom I Don't think it's going to show itself, but it's oh there it is. It's very tiny, just barely flashing I like that lighted tip because it helps you to see what's going on right down there. So I think uh, this typically can be repaired down in the bottom of the condenser. Also looks like there might be a little bit of oil down there too.

It's ever so slightly, so let's see if we can. It's kind of hard for the camera to focus right now. something something going on. So I'll talk to the customer and see what they want to repair or you know what they're going to do about this.

But I went ahead and changed all the capacitors. all three of them. Well, three of them were tested really bad. one of them was marginal.

Um, but like if I get this one right here. This one is testing at three microfarads. You had like three, six, eight, and like 9.4 and they're plus or minus plus or minus. ten percent on these guys.

So just went ahead and change them all new caps in there so that'll help the motors last a little bit longer. I turned the unit back on, talk to the customer about the refrigerant leaks and the condenser, and on that distributor and see where they want to go. But that's it for this one. All right.

This video, like I said in the beginning, was actually recorded July of 2022. All right, I've just been sitting on this footage. Uh, it is currently February of 2023. It is not 115 degrees outside right now.

Okay, so hence why you can see. um I've been slowly kind of going through a backlog of footage just trying to edit some of it down. Oftentimes what happens when I'm going through the summer times is I'll repetitively work on the same stuff over and over and over again. like I'll do package units every day and it's like sometimes I just don't want to post the same videos all the time.

so I'll sit on the footage until I deem it necessary or I'm running out of footage or whatever and that's what happened in this situation. So anyways, when it came to this video, I was there working on the walk-in freezer the night before I was there late at night and I just happened to notice that the bar AC just didn't seem right. like I you know it was hot outside and all the condenser fan motors weren't running when they should have been when all the compressors were running. So talk to the customer and they went in and had me come out the next day.

gave me an opportunity to check up on the walk-in freezer and then uh, went ahead and um, went through the AC Okay in this situation, the AC had some problems, had some refrigerant leaks, and oh my gosh I know I know I put R22 in it I'm a horrible person. Um, you know it's it's ridiculous. uh I get it. I get it.

I know all the comments that are going to come through but like, look, let's look at it like this: This is what the customer wants. Okay here in the United States we're allowed to use R22 Okay, yeah, it's probably not the greatest thing that we're putting R22 into a unit and yeah, it is leaking refrigerant so you know that's not the greatest thing. but this is how everything happens here. Okay, I cannot be the only contractor to stand up and say I'm never going to put gas in a leaking system again.

Okay, if they pass laws and rules and stuff that says we can't do that well, then sure I'll jump on board with that I would love to do that, but I have to stay in business too. In this situation, the customer needs the equipment running. It was the middle of the summer and they just needed it working. Okay, so I got the system up and running what I originally thought was going to be bad condenser fan motors I went out there and actually found we just had bad capacitors.

Okay, so there was no need to change the motors I tested the capacitors they weren't reading where they should be changed All four of them then went through and did current tests on all the condenser fan motors while they were running and everything was fine. So I didn't see a problem there, didn't really see the coils needing to be cleaned they had actually I remember this call, but it's weird I can remember these random things but the coils had been recently cleaned so they weren't That wasn't the issue. Okay, the system just had some refrigerant charge issues I found a couple small leaks, brought it to the customer's attention and if I remember right, that unit hasn't been replaced yet. but I'm almost positive that it actually is on order, but it's been a while.

You know a lot of this stuff takes forever to get to because this was back in July of 2022 when we were in the middle of the equipment shortage issue. I Mean we're still in the middle of the equipment shortage issues, but we've definitely gotten some package units now. but that's not one of them that we ordered or that we replaced yet. I'm sure it'll be coming this summer.

Um, but you know, and and I addressed something in the video too that you know oftentimes and that this is the important thing to understand. these videos are more or less the inner workings of my brain. Okay, you know I don't go into these videos and say okay, I'm gonna educate everybody on how this particular piece of equipment works now. Yes, there's part of that's in my brain when I'm going through these calls.

but majority of the time you guys are hearing how my brain works. Okay, uh, if I wasn't filming these calls, I would still be talking to myself I'm crazy everybody. Okay I talk to myself. That's how I troubleshoot I Go go through the steps and I'm talking out loud.

Oftentimes you can talk to a good majority of actually pretty much every one of my employees will tell you that they're constantly saying what? what? huh? What are you saying because I'm not talking to them I talk to myself when I work Okay, so what you guys are doing is you guys are hearing the inner workings of my brain and I happen to be just holding my phone for a minute while I'm walking through my troubleshooting steps. Okay, but when I do that sometimes, right? my brain doesn't operate the way that it's supposed to. It's not like a Hvacr textbook that just goes boom boom boom following every step perfectly. Okay.

Sometimes I may look at something and maybe I didn't get it on film. For instance, I address the fact that don't go adding refrigerant to a system until you know that everything is working on it. The belts are tied, it has proper airflow, the filters are clean, condensers clean. that kind of stuff.

Okay, you don't want to just Jam refrigerant into a system that has a loose belt that has poor airflow that's going to lead to low superheat readings. but you wouldn't add refresh refrigerant on this system just because of low superheat. Anyways, Okay, this is a TXV system. So we're looking at sub cooling and we're looking at the approach temperature because this is a Linux unit.

Now in a perfect world, the best thing to do is to recover all the refrigerant and weigh the proper charge back in the system. But oftentimes you got to get equipment running and that's what I did I got it back up and running. Okay, um, hopefully you know I know this was a short one, but hopefully you got something out of it Okay, I really do appreciate you guys making it to the end as usual. remember that I try to do live streams Monday evening about 5 PM Pacific time work permitting of course.

Okay, I've been kind of changing things up lately. Last week I did a live stream with Adrian from reliable Hvacr and I'm going to try to start doing that a little bit more having friends on and people that maybe I don't even know you know and we'll kind of go through some questions and different things like that. and I'm still going to do my Q a live streams but I want to kind of mix it up a little bit. Okay, if you're interested in supporting the channel, there's a couple different ways that you can do so.

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It's a great way to support the channel because when you use that discount code I actually get a small commission from that so it's just an affiliate link. Okay, so true. Tech Tools That's a great way. but again, like I said, the easiest way is just simply watch the videos from beginning to end.

One last thing, if you go to my website Hvacrvideos.com we have merchandise available on the website. The hats are the number one seller on the website I Talk about these often. But the biggest thing about these hats is the black under. Bill Now I designed these hats.

Also, these hats are see-through It's hard for you guys to see this right now. It's not a trucker hat. It's not mesh like a trucker hat, but it's a breathable fabric. So you're able to wear these hats in the middle of the summer and you sweat a lot less.

You know in you don't ruin the inside of the hat. but still, that's why I wanted the black underbill because when I'm out there working, last thing I want to do is rub my dirty fingers on a white underbill and then ruin the hat right now. Another thing about these hats, they are Flex Fit Okay, there's two different sizes. there's large, extra large and small medium, but you can see they're black all the way around now.

I Specifically designed these hats to not have my logo on them. Okay, the whole idea behind the hats is that Hvacr is just the acronym for what we do and my my idea was that you guys can all wear these hats at work and potentially not violate your uniform policy because they literally just say Hvacr. Okay, so if you're interested, check out the website I Try not to step on my merch too much, you know I mean I just make a couple bucks off of each item. I'm not trying to get rich off of it or anything like that, so you know we try to make everything as affordable as possible.

Okay, I really do appreciate you. Please, please, please remember to be kind to one another like you know. I've said this a million times, but there's so much craziness going on, you never know what the other person is going through. I'm not justifying them being a work or being rude or anything like that, but just sometimes just kill him with kindness.

You know, sometimes just being kind to someone even if they're being a jerk to you can just make their day so much better and who knows. Okay, just just remember to be kind to one another. Okay again, thank you so very much I Really appreciate you and we will catch you on the next one. Okay.