Before the video starts, uh wanted to let everybody know that i do have the large extra large hats back in stock. I was out for a while, and a lot of people were asking okay. So if you're interested in the large extra large hats check out hvacrvideos.com my website, we got shirts hats all that stuff um. As far as the hats go.

I've talked about them before, but i purposely had these hats designed without my logo. Okay, they just say hvacr, and that way i was hoping that it wouldn't interfere with people's uniforms right because it's not promoting my brand. It's just promoting hvacr, which the acronym is pretty broad right, so um. The other thing about the hats, too, is they're a breathable material and they have a black underbill.

I put a lot of thought into the design of these hats because when we work you know the underbill on the hats. They always got really dirty and i never liked that so black under brill, so it still gets dirty, but it's not as noticeable and then the hats are made with like a breathable material, so they are a flex fit but they're, not um. I don't know it's hard to explain: they're, not a traditional style like you're, not gon na, be able to see this, but i can see light through the top of the hat, because it's totally breathable so check them out at hvacres.com and let's go ahead and get On with the video now, this video is brought to you by sportlin quality, integrity and tradition. All right, we've got a complaint of an office, slash kitchen ac, not working.

That's this guy right here, so we're going to uh, go ahead and open it up and see what we can figure out all right. We've got our control box here. You can see it's really dusty because we're out in the coachella valley very sandy out here we're going to start by checking incoming power. I don't need to open up the disconnect switch if i can simply check right here so one to two 208.

This is a three phase system, one two three two ten two to three 209 and just to make sure yeah. So we have three-phase power coming into this guy uh. Just out of curiosity, we're checking the transformer to see if it's tapped right and it is because we've got 208 volts, so we're going to need to go ahead and come on over here to our thermostat wiring and see if we can figure something out here. So let's go from r to see 24 volts, so the control transformer is working and then we're gon na go from c to y one and it looks like 13 volts or something funky there and then let's go c to y 2, 7 volts c to w Nothing all right, so there's something funky there and uh looks like maybe we're going to need to figure out what's going on with the thermostat, possibly um yeah.

This looks like a smoke detector right here and it looks like it's breaking what that's weird. It's only breaking one wire what's going on here, this might be disconnected. I don't know, what's going on there, um yeah, oh no smoke, detector, yeah, that's weird i'll figure that out all right. Well, let's look at the thermostat.

This one has an interesting, thermostat and i'll show you guys, so our filters are really dirty um. This unit has an energy management system, and the energy management system hasn't worked for a long time on this ac, and then we had installed a temporary thermostat many years ago and the customer hasn't approved the quote: to fix the energy management system. So at this point in time, right now the thermostat is actually not calling so we're gon na go ahead and turn it on set it way down and uh. Let's see it says, cool on now, so things junk huh.

Sometimes you got to do what you got to do to get them running, especially when ems systems are in the mix, because it's getting approvals and it's a mess, so we should be calling. So let's go back over to the electrical panel. It's weird we're still getting a crappy connection. 13 volts! That's weird! If i go from c to g, because the indoor fan's running we get 26 volts, okay right from c to y1, we get 13 volts.

Alright, i tell you what let's throw a jumper wire on there and see how that changes things all right. We're going to clip a jumper wire from r to y1 looks like it came off. Sometimes jumper wires can be fun r to y1. Obviously, the unit did not start up, let's test r to y1.

So what kind of voltage reading we're getting? Now that we've done that, oh r, to y1 we're not going to get anything! Let's go there! We go so now we're getting a 24 volt voltage reading, which makes me think. Maybe we've got multiple things going on here, like the the thermostat's, not allowing proper power to go through, but i don't know if that's the only problem. You know what i'm saying, because the jumper wires are kind of being a pain but um. When i put the jumper wires on there, we get 24 volts from y1 to c c is being our common terminal.

So um. Let me put that back on there better and then we'll continue on all right. I got a much better connection and still y1 to c gives me 26 volts now so with the jumper, i get better voltage at the terminal board, but the unit's still not turning on um. Let's take a look at this schematic here, real quick, so they are seriously trying way too hard.

With this schematic, i'm not going to be able to explain it to you, but on the schematic, it's not a super easy one to read, but essentially what's happening. Power from the transformer is coming into the board. The board is getting a thermostat reading and deciding what to do. You've got a bunch of different options on this guy.

You can have an economizer all that crap in our situation. We don't so when we go through y1, it's going to go through your low pressure. Switch then your high pressure switch. So if we go across our low pressure switch we get 26 volts, meaning that the low pressure switch is open.

That low pressure switch is our problem. Now, are we out of gas or do we have a bad low pressure? Switch for that we're going to need to put service gauges on this guy, to figure it out our compressor's in here, and we have trying to see if i can depress this with my finger. Oh yeah, i don't think there's any gas in there. I think we're out of gas um.

Looking for anything obvious, there's all kinds of wire rub outs, nothing there, all sorts of stuff that are almost potentially going to rub out that right there. I don't see anything down there: um, okay, oh, let's get some gauges on it, so i went ahead and pulled the top off the unit. I still haven't put service gauges on it, but i think just from investigating the leak is gon na, be there's oil around the dryer and around that suction line drip loop right there or discharge line, so i think we're gon na have a cracked line somewhere. Maybe on that dryer or something like that, it's hard to say, but we're gon na get some gas on this guy, hey this guy's completely flat, like i said, we're gon na open up some nitrogen, this guy on test and purge a little gas in here, see What happens looks like my nitrogen might be a little bit low.

We just have a really big leak. No, it doesn't seem like it's pissing out all right. Let's keep going we'll keep putting some gas in there. I was hearing a hissing sound, but i think it just might be the gas passing through my hoses.

I think i might be running out of nitrogen here. Oh yeah, we're definitely low, that's cool, we'll get what we can out of it, get 100 psi or so in there all right. If i or some viper big blue on there right down in here, it's got a cracked liquid line, it's just spraying out, so we need to change that dryer and uh, get it up and running. So i'm trying to make my life easier here so super simple.

I just unsweat the discharge line going into the header and the liquid line coming out of the condenser. I got another person here. We're going to lift this condenser over here, make the repair clean. The condenser put it back in got the condenser pulled out and went ahead and unsweat very carefully that little piece right there and i'm currently redoing it.

So i just made the bottom piece right here: approximately it's kind of close and then we're going to make the top piece and try to mimic it and then i'll do whatever i have to do to make sure that dryer gets screwed into that condenser. So this way, maybe we don't have another cracked line. I believe it was cracked right up in here kind of cool. If i can take this, we can pressure test it and play with it later, but um yeah getting there and the condenser itself is not even that bad.

I thought you know the inside of it, i'm looking at it. It's just. This other side needs a rinse, but we'll do that all right. We got this guy put in it's all one piece now um a little ugly right here, but it's all good.

It worked out. I ended up having some solder drip down here, so i ended up heating up this joint too um. You got to be careful when you're doing these right here it ended up splitting on me. It happens.

The copper is really thin on these condensers, where they swage it. So that's why there's so much solder, because i had to fill up the crack but yeah it's good. I think we can lift this guy in now, so i'm holding it because i'm waiting for the solder to bond before i let it go. So i'm waiting for the ultimate color change and then i'll.

Let it go like that. So now there's no real easy way to do this. I got to get this bottom one in here, which is going to be tricky to push up, see how it popped out. Okay, now this guy's under a weird bind.

So it's going to want to pop on me like that dang it that's awkward, so that kind of sucks because it keeps popping off so i'm gon na - have to figure something out here. This dang thing wants to be a pain, gosh darn it. It keeps popping off, i'm gon na, have to do something to get pressure underneath that dryer, so that way it doesn't pop off anymore yeah. This is really awkward in here.

Let's see, if i got this, i just need to heat up around the back side. I don't know if you can see, but i had to prop my drill and the dryer box down there kind of silly kind of an awkward location. I think that took i still got ta find a way to secure the dryer too. All right, we're gon na we're gon na inspect that guy, with a mirror now make sure that the brace joint was good kind of popped a few times, but i think we're okay, that's not too bad.

I kind of had to finagle my way out of there but yeah. It's actually going to work, fine i'll be able to take some plumbing, strap, wrap it around and screw it to the condenser right there so and the dryer turned out really nice right there. What i'm going to do now? We decided not to wash it outside, because it's only dirty in that one spot, so we're gon na go down, get the vacuum, pump, get the vacuum pump running and then we'll start working on securing the dryer and rinsing the condenser. But i want to get that vacuum pump running on this guy um.

So that way, that part is done. We still got to secure these guys in here, so we still got a little moving around to do all right. We passed our pressure test. Um we've gone up 0.8 psi in pressure because it started off when we got here.

It started in like the high 70s low 80s and it's pushing 90s right now. So as the temperature rises, the pressure increases - and this further proves that nitrogen does change pressure. Okay - and it is changing pressure in this system right now, so i'm confident we don't have any refrigerant leaks. Okay, um and we've been running for about 22 minutes too.

By the way. So i'm confident we don't have any pressure, leaks, we're going to go ahead and let the nitrogen out now because this guy has the cormax high flow schraders right here. We cannot take the schraders out, so we're going to use a schrader depressor. Okay, this is going to depress the schrader so that way we can get good flow through it, but i'm going to tell you right now: these things are not 100 percent leak free.

So keep that in mind as we're doing our evacuation. I guarantee we're not going to pass a decay test because these things are probably going to leak, but i'm confident we don't have any refrigerant leaks or you know, system leaks, it's just going to be either moisture and or these guys right here that are leaking. So i've still got a little pressure in here, but we've got these core depressors on here now and trust me from experience. You do not need to torque these things down really hard, just mid seat them and that's plenty.

Okay, you'll end up ruining the high flow schraders, so just finger loose just like that. Don't got ta go twerking on them. Once that's done bleeding out the remaining nitrogen, we're going to hook up the vacuum hoses and let this guy get going. So we've got the gas ballast open, so we're trying not to contaminate the oil for the initial pull down we're about 3 230, three thousand microns.

So once i typically like to see it get to about two thousand to fifteen hundred microns, and then i close the gas ballast now, if you notice something i'm actually pulling only on one side, i ended up not using this hose. I hooked it up just in case i needed it, but i don't think i'm going to need it so we're getting a true evacuation reading, because this is valved off and this is in the system right now, so we're about 2 000 microns. So here in just a second i'll go ahead and close the gas ballast, so the evacuation's doing good we're at about 600 something microns um, i'm just uh vacuuming the evaporator out we're going to clean this guy, and then i'm also going to pull the blower assembly. So, just working on it right now.

I really like this cordless milwaukee vacuum for this kind of stuff. This blower assembly is caped with grease all in the veins all inside, so we're gon na go super heavy duty with the cleaner. We got the viper brightener, which is really gon na, get that grease off of there, but it's super strong, so you got ta, be careful and i got the foam sprayer here too um. Now someone had recently asked me: is it bad to get the cleaner in the bearings, and i would imagine so yes, but what can you do? I mean i'm going to do my best to try to keep it out of the bearings, but you can only do so much when you have a greasy blower assembly.

You know i can change all the components instead of degreasing it or we can degrease it and then, if we lose a bearing, you know change all the components then so i don't know, but in this case i'm gon na do my best to keep the the Cleaner out of the bearing, but you know you can only do so much every time i use this new foam sprayer. I'm blown away. Look at this crap that is badass, nice and good in there gets all inside that thing. That stuff is awesome.

You guys can get this from true tech tools. If you guys use the offer code, big picture get a discount on it. I get a small commission. You help me out.

So this thing is awesome, though: it's from refrigeration technologies you're not really supposed to do this, but i'm having to use that brightener cleaner on the evaporator too, because it's so greased up. That's not just lint! That's all grease! So you know you just got to rinse. It off real, quick and you've got to be careful about the fumes things nasty stuff coming out of. It is pretty crazy, that's downright greasy and nasty, but it's coming clean, that's doing a good job! All this stuff was the stuff stuck in the little veins.

It's definitely coming clean. It's still got some goobers in it, but i mean it's a million times better than it was, and it's actually going to move air now, so we're going to give it another good rinse and then i'm still working on this evaporator right now. Just giving it rinses got the bottom. Half kind of clean still got a little bit of crap on the bottom, still going to work on the top too.

Well, it's much better than it was it's not absolutely perfect, but it's never gon na be there's grease in the ducts and stuff. So i'm gon na go ahead and slap the filters back in put some sanitizer on it and we're gon na continue with putting this unit back together. My evacuation's doing really good 540.. That's pretty awesome! 547.! So again, i'm telling you those those core depressors are leaking.

So i'm not going to be too worried about it. I'm going to take the strike back, sanitizer, just kind of cover. Everything and again you don't rinse this stuff spray, it all over the coil blower wheel inside panels, just some peace of mind. I got a copper, strap on that dryer down there, just some plumber's tape and we're looking for 14.2 pounds we're at three pounds right now, i'm charging in through the high side.

I dig how the scale i think it's the srs3 scale. I think uh communicates with the s man 480 manifold. There we go we're done close this guy off. It already took it all right, so um we're going to start this guy up and uh hope that there's nothing else wrong with it.

So this guy's still jumped out, so it should start right up. Everything should be good there we go and we're gon na. Let it run see how it operates, give it a little bit to stabilize out. This is what we're looking at measure quick's, actually giving me the green flag, like all, is good um numbers are all looking good.

I'm not seeing any issues here. Temperature split looks good, airflow looks decent guys, i'm happy with this extremely happy. So you know this unit, is you know not in the greatest of shape, but it's not horrible. I think it has plenty of life left.

The condenser fan motor certainly looks a little rough, but it's still operating the condenser is in decent shape. We didn't need to chemically clean it because all was well. I still need to kind of look at this thermostat issue. Well, let's see i pulled this off yeah thermostat's working, so i don't know why i was getting that weird low voltage reading or something earlier, but it's giving me a good reading.

It's pulling in. I looked at the contactors earlier. I didn't see any problems with those. I did go ahead and rinse in here, so we've got a nice clean, condenser all the way around.

So i noticed this thing wasn't coming on. All of a sudden. The thermostat doesn't have a display anymore, but the indoor blower motor is running so this therm uh. Now just shut off this thermostat's out of whack, i got it all dirty, but it's not gon na make a difference.

I threw in a thermostat in here set it up. It's reading 99 degrees right now, but have it all set up and programmed so we're gon na drop it down into the duct. Now, of course, i will say this that i want them to fix their automation system, but they don't so. This is what i have to do to make this equipment work until they approve the automation system replacement.

Essentially, they have an antiquated or not an antiquated, but they have a system that they don't want to use anymore. Um it's a siemens system and in order to change over, they have like nine ac's or something like that. It's just a huge project, and they just haven't wanted to attack that so we've got like three ac's that have these thermostats dropped into the duct temporarily. So hey, i can only do what i can do all right, they're, not always the most difficult calls sometimes they're just time consuming, but you still have to go through everything: okay, um, it's starting to get warm! This call was actually out in the coachella valley um.

It's a little ways away from my shop, but it was about 95 degrees throughout the day. So you know it was warm on the roof, but i have to say it was super nice and i'm liking the warmer weather. Now, where my shop is at, it's not quite 95 degrees, it's in the 80s, but it's still warming up and the service calls are starting to come in. So i'm super stoked for that, because we have been so slow for the longest time.

So it'd be nice. If we get a nice little pick-me-up and couple heat waves coming through that way, we can generate some service calls for sure. I'm sure you guys are probably dealing with some of the similar stuff or hoping for the service calls and stuff, so anyways um, but we started with the basics. Okay, uh, you know, i saw the weird electrical issue with the control wiring and you know then i diagnosed the low pressure control issue worked my way to the refrigerant leak, but still followed up in the end.

You know cleaning everything up. It's also important to know the limitations of your tools. Now i talked about those high flow schrader cord depressors leaking. Unfortunately, that's just what they do so they're, not a hundred percent leak free.

Now, if you use a normal vacuum core removal tool, they're much better at uh, you know being used in a vacuum. Essentially they work a lot better. Okay, but those high flow depressors. I don't know just my opinion: they just i i've bought several of them and in the beginning, they're great, but eventually they start leaking.

So it's just one of those things that we probably i need to go ahead and replace mine probably and get a new set, but you have to understand the limitations of your tools. So in this situation i knew i wasn't going to pass a perfect decay test, but i knew that the leak wasn't really going to be. You know it in my system right because i did a pressure test with nitrogen and everything was good. So once i hit the evacuation, i went ahead and just pulled those things off as quick as i could and then ended up putting normal service gauges on there, evacuating the service gauges and then charging the system.

Up after that now i didn't get the putting the normal service gauges on video, but you guys get the point. So we went ahead and started the system up, of course, and let me preface everything with saying that i had the customer in the loop the entire time. They were aware of everything, okay, so from the initial find, even though i don't say it on the video all the time, i'm holding the customer's hand the entire way saying hey. This is what i'm finding, but i'm very cautious to say you know it's low on gas or it's out of gas, but i don't know if that's the only problem.

Okay. So that way, when i ran into the thermostat issue, it's not a big deal since i had the unit apart to do the leak repair. I took it upon myself to go ahead and clean the unit up too now i get a lot of questions and feedback on why the units are greasy. Just dealing with kitchens kitchen acs are always greasy this one's like an office, slash kitchen ac, but it still just sucks up the grease and you know yeah.

I know that's not right yeah. I know that you know this and that and this and that, but inevitably this is what we have to deal with occasionally when we deal with restaurants, okay, so you just got to learn to roll with the punches and degrease the units as best as possible. I can't control all the ductwork. All i can do is make the customer aware that they've got grease, build up in their ductwork, and you know it's kind of on them.

Of course, i was noted on the invoices and everything kind of to cover my butt, but um also using the coil cleaner. Now i use the refrigeration technologies viper bright, coil, cleaner, okay, um. You got to be so careful and you got to understand how these cleaners work. Okay, that cleaner is a highly corrosive it etches, the coil, but it strips anything off the coil, along with the first couple layers of metal, essentially okay, so you know you can only do so much when you have something that's this greasy.

Sometimes you got to do what you got to do, okay, but you need to understand using that cleaner. It does have some fumes, so you don't want to spray it. If there's air moving across the evaporator to where it would potentially get down to the occupied space or the customers, you know you don't want to scare clear a building out because of coil cleaner fumes or something okay. So you want to be aware of your surroundings.

Make sure the customer understands everything, that's going on. You know in this situation. I didn't have to worry about it, but sometimes i could be brazing in the airstream right. I could be fixing a leak on the evaporator and then because the building's negative or something i i'll go warn the customer.

Hey, there's gon na be smoke coming down through the ductwork. It's me don't freak out. You know that kind of stuff so always be aware of your surroundings. Keep the customer in the loop, okay, um.

I really really appreciate you guys making it to the end of the video. If you haven't already, please check out my website hvacres.com, i said in the beginning. The hats are available. Those just got back in stock.

We have plenty of stock of everything else. So if you're interested help to support the channel check it out, okay, hvacr videos.com, remember i do live streams monday evening. 5 p.m: pacific on youtube, um work permitting, of course, and then also go live on the hvac overtime channel friday evenings, usually around 605 pm pacific time with the overtime guys - and we usually just kind of recap the week and talk about everything so definitely come check. It out um yeah, i think that's pretty much it.

I really really appreciate you guys and we will catch you on the next one. Okay.