Wow was i way off on this diagnosis. This video is brought to you by sportlin quality, integrity and tradition. Please forgive the mess i got going on in here. We got some merch and stuff that needs to be shipped out.

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If you finish school, i'd potentially be willing to train you from that point forward, so send your resumes to hvacrvideos.com and let's go ahead and get on with the video right. This is the office ac and the customer's complaining that it's not working at all. I was actually here late last night working on their beer walking. I don't know when you'll see that video but um uh, and i noticed it was kind of weird because their kitchen ac was running all day for the entire time.

I was here, but i never saw this one running and it kind of concerned me because uh as i left you know i can't my brain is working and it's like man. I hope someone didn't leave the unit off. You know - and i missed something that obvious, because i didn't look at it, but you know right when i come up on the roof no disconnect switch is on so we definitely have a problem uh. The only troubleshooting i've done is just looked at the thermostat and the thermostat is blank, so we're gon na go ahead and open up the control section and dive into it all right.

I open up the control cabinet. Nothing looks crazy in here other than just a rat's nest. A wiring. The first thing i'm going to do is come over here to the thermostat wiring and test thermostat 24 volts, and i have 24 volts 26 to be exact, so that thermostat should have a display.

Already, just because r and c have power, but let's go ahead and look a little bit further. Do we have three phase power coming into the unit? Now this is a carrier. You do that weird crap, there's line one there's line two and then there's line three. So we have three phase power carrier.

Does this a lot of people ask i used to think it was because it was like a crankcase heater thing where they would just do. You know, leave one leg energized all the time, but i've since been corrected. It's just a money-saving thing, so you've got one leg of power, two lake of power and then the third lake is up here. They just split it, so the compressor always has one leg of power going to it: um anyways, so we've got three phase power and we have 24 volts going to the thermostat.

So, let's uh we'll go downstairs, we'll verify that the thermostat has 24 volts at the the board and then more than likely have to change a thermostat for them. Um these carrier units a lot of people hook them up this way. You know uh, but there's a problem here, so i'm just kind of looking. I was getting ready to go downstairs and i looked down and if you notice these wire nuts are cracked.

So that's main power coming in and the wire nuts are cracked and uh. You know: there's a coil cleaning access right here, people spray that without paying much attention. Well, that's random. Randomly this thing just turned on.

I didn't do anything: go figure, huh, yeah! That's weird! Very erratic, but anyways we need to address this issue, um we're going to and there we go it just shut off. Yeah, there's probably a bad thermostat, but we need to address this issue. And what i'd like to do is eliminate these wire nuts and go with the direct feed from the disconnect switch right into the contactors and not have this um would be ideal and then not have those giant wire nuts right there. I usually like to reroute the wiring too, so it looks a little bit better um.

I want to point out something else too. A lot of people say: hey look they're running wires through through a you know, a hole or whatever without a chase nipple. If you look at these carefully, the back one which is meant for wires is tapered because it's meant to have wires run through it. This one right here is not tapered, so this you would not want to run wires through.

So while it's still not ideal, it's not incorrect. It's specifically made that way. So that way, it's rounded out so that way the wires. Don't rub! Okay, all right, so we had no power at the thermostat.

So that leads me up to look to see if we have a broken wire somewhere. So here's our plenum, we have a duct detector. That could be it, but as far as i can tell that's the thermostat wiring and then it's going somewhere else, so we need to figure out where we might have a potential short. I got ta show you something too.

If you look right here huh, i always think that's funny, that's like a a vent pipe, but it looks like it's like red hot, but it's not it's. Just like the sunlight coming through it or whatever. Actually that's a drain, it's not a vent pipe yeah. That's definitely a drain right there, but it's just funny because the sunlight is making it look like it's red hot all right, so we need to look into that right there.

I will say something: this area used to be crazy, crowded with crap. So i think they've been up here cleaning and more than likely, they busted something. It looks like. Maybe the thermostat wires come down from there and go to this right here.

Maybe so we could have an electrical short almost anywhere, so i'm just kind of investigating these wires um. It doesn't look like they're broken. You know little places like oh no right here, but no, it's actually not even gotten through the jacket but from the looks of it the electrical runs into the duct detector and then out of the duct detector, so they're, probably just breaking r at the duct detector. So i'm thinking that that might be our problem, judging by the wiring.

So we have two thermostat wires coming up, one going to the thermostat terminal board right there and then the other one would be our smoke detector and it's running over here and it's actually bypassed they're, not even doing anything with the smoke detector. It's just going back to itself, so the smoke detector is not in the picture, so we've still got 24 volts right here and we have nothing down at the thermostat, which means that we've got a broken wire in between here and the thermostat and there's nothing right Here making sure it's not a short right here, i don't see anything, don't see anything so with that being said, we're gon na have to run a new thermostat wire more than likely to the office um. I don't think i'm gon na do that right now, because it's saturday, i don't think i want to deal with that plus i'll, probably need another person to properly run it. So what i'll do is install a temporary thermostat in here put a zone sensor and then let it run off of this for now.

So i was thinking about something you know. I could probably use these extra wires and just run power and common on a different color, but the wire's still broken somewhere and inevitably, even if it's just the red or the common, that's broken at the moment, the other ones are gon na break too. So that's why i'm not gon na do that and we're just gon na install the thermostat temporarily and then we'll bring another tech back. It's really not gon na be that hard to run um, but with a second tech.

It'll be super easy. So so this is just temporary, because the thermostat actually doesn't even use a zone sensor, so we just drop that down into the duct. We set the fan to run all the time that way it's circulating air and that way the sensor gets a true reading. Now, if the fan wasn't running, then that sensor would be a problem, because the ducts would heat up up here and it wouldn't be the true temperature downstairs and you might ice up the unit or who knows but um all right.

We're gon na put this back together and then see if this guy turns on wow was i way off on this diagnosis so put this guy in and it still wouldn't work, and it was weird because now i don't have any voltage here and i'm like what The heck is going on. Why don't i have voltage, you know so, then i'm tracing it back. Looking at the economizer, i come over here to the uh to the transformer and i've got 24 volts, but i noticed that one of the legs of the transformer is going into this red wire, which is going over here. And then i open this up and the indoor blower assembly completely disintegrated and it's probably going off on overload on the motor and there's an overload inside this motor that breaks 24 volts.

So this thing's trashed, so yeah, that's a mess, so their thermostat downstairs might be good, might be fine, but there's nothing. I could do about this we're going to have to order a blower assembly. Once we order a blower assembly, then we can also we'll go ahead and order a blower motor too, because that's probably locked up or we'll talk to the customer, but holy moly. That thing disintegrated, i'm still kind of dumbfounded as to why i had voltage here, but no voltage downstairs.

That's really bizarre, i don't know if it was just like a a weak overload like it was allowing some voltage through. I that's. That's still bizarre. I'm not completely incorrect in the way that i diagnosed a bad thermostat because i clearly had voltage here, but no voltage there, i'm sorry a bad uh, bad, broken wire, but yeah.

That was very bizarre. You know, and the more i think about it as i was working on this unit like the first time you know when i was sitting here and it just randomly turned on. I did hear a weird humming noise, but i didn't really think too much about it and i probably should have like you know, thought more - that humming noise was a locked up, blower motor um. I would love for the customer to replace this unit.

It's a piece of junk really is, but i don't know i mean it all in all: it needs a heat. Exchanger needs a blower assembly, we're gon na change the motor and we're gon na change that blower bracket um. But you know we're gon na fix that wiring. But i don't know you know the customer honestly does never use heat on this unit, so they can probably get away without doing the heat exchanger, and in that case it's just going to be a blower assembly, and if this is the one, i think it is.

You get that whole blower assembly as one complete package. It's really not that big of a deal so all right. Well we're going to talk to the customer. I'm going to put my tools away, there's nothing i can do about it today.

Well, they approved the quote. I'm surprised, but you know i do what i'm told so we're going to replace the blower assembly, the motor, the motor bracket, we're going to pull the top on the unit clean the condenser if needed, yeah and go through everything i'm about to pop the top on This guy, so i'm just making, i took a picture of where the wires are going because i'm going to unhook all this stuff pull the condenser fan motor out man. This thing is beat down it's dirty, but it doesn't look horrible, but we'll still give it a rinse. I mean i could see dirt down there.

Um the evaporator is decent yeah very decent evaporator looks good. Blower assembly is trashed yeah. All right. We got our work cut out for us all right, just unscrewing everything and really important when you're doing these jobs is right.

Back here, you've got to note how the blower assembly goes under this flange. So when you put it in, you got to make sure you get it right it like tucks in there, and then this flange right here goes on top just got to remember all that you get a good look as to why i disabled the heat on this Unit a long time ago, because this is all grease - it's heat exchanger is covered in grease and i didn't want that to start up and catch on fire. So i turned off the heat like a year and a half ago, or something like that because of that, when i talked to the customer about the heat exchanger they're not concerned on this unit, because it's a kitchen slash office, they don't want heat in there. So they're not going to fix the heat exchanger at this time.

I didn't go crazy, but i did a quick vacuum of everything. Got it cleaned out as best as possible same over here did a quick vacuum. Again, it's not going to be perfect. I'm going to clean the economizer assembly, even though the economizer doesn't work, it hasn't been hooked up for a long time we're going to go ahead and uh just to eliminate any electrical shorts.

I pulled all the economizer wiring too, and we're gon na disconnect it. If they ever chose to replace the economizer, we could run the proper wiring, so they don't give you any instructions on how to put these brackets together. I fumbled it through it before, though it just takes a few minutes of staring at it and rearranging it. But i decided to go ahead and rewire the motor we're going to use a new wire because the other stuff was just all beat up and had a bunch of wire nuts.

So i'm pre-wiring it following the schematic right here: we're using low voltage, 208. 230. So 4 five and six get wire, nutted together and then nine and three go to a line. Eight and two go to a line and seven and one go to a line.

So we got that all wired in. We also got the overload wired in right here and we're gon na start. Putting this thing back together. Everything moves so trying to get this straight, even though we're starting from scratch like the whole assembly and stuff is just all cattywampus, so it's gon na be fun.

Trying to make it perfect, you got piles of wire left over all this stuff, taking out the economizer, i'm currently working on wiring it back up. It's you can only polish a turd so much it's not going to be perfect, but we're getting there. I tied in the freeze stat into the low pressure control circuit, so i'm just going to clean up my messes now and probably get ready to rinse this guy out. I'm really liking using this pump sprayer versus the the normal coil gun, because when you're just doing small stuff, i'm going to be doing a lot.

That's why i put so much cleaner in there, because i'm going to clean this guy right here too so um but uh um. I really like this because you can control the waste a lot better. All right, we've already pre-wet everything, and this really isn't that bad. You can look down inside there, it's not a big deal, but the cool thing about this gun right here.

Is it foams up really good, so we're just gon na spray, the condenser coil cleaner in there, let it sit and then we'll uh rinse it off here. In a little bit try to get as much as we can from the inside out. It's not always that we get to really get at it like this, but when we have the opportunity i try, you know yeah it's coming nice and good over there. I always try to rinse the area down around the condenser so that way the dirt doesn't get stuck back up.

You know so, just all the whole area around rinse it off. I mean you can only do so much, i mean you know, there's going to be natural dirt, but i don't know i just like to take the time and clean up the work area got the uh evaporator coil cleaner out we're gon na put some of that On the evap, that's again another thing that this foam gun the hand pump. One is perfect for because you're really not gon na burn through it start from the bottom up now. Technically this is the evaporator coil cleaner.

You don't technically have to rinse this. I still do, but it is self-rinsing if you're going to have condensation from the evaporator coil, so anytime cleaners say no rinse. It typically means for the evaporator and it's because they assume that natural condensation is going to happen. But again, i'm using it to actually clean right now, so i want to put you know: give it a good rinse.

All right we are just about to put the top on the unit, got everything kind of organized as best as possible. I went ahead and got rid of that rat's nest of wires secured the wires all up into there got new wire went with a solid connection, all the way in so that's nice and good hooked up the thermostat back uh we're not going to change the thermostat. If it doesn't need to be changed and yeah we're going to throw the top on and then test fire everything all right, so i have the indoor fan jumped out uh we're running under current. I set the pulleys back the same way as the other one.

So it's allowed to run 5.2 amps and we're running 4.6, so we have room to speed it up if need be, but i don't want to try to reinvent the wheel if i don't have to um we're going to put the compressor into operation here in a Minute and then test the unit's operation overall, all right, we just started up the total uh unit. Current is about 19 amps, which is fine. Let's see what the compress well we'll go over here and see how my compressor is doing. Everything's running sounds good.

Refrigerant pressures are a little low, but we're gon na give it some time to stabilize out and see what happens all right. So here's the deal we're looking pretty darn good guys. I'm not gon na try to go crazy with this one head pressure's a little bit high superheats a hair on the high side. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't have a slight restriction in this guy um.

Let's see what else we got yeah we're looking good there, temperature splits, pretty good airflow's, pretty darn good, btu, outputs, ah hair on the low side. I'm not gon na really worry too much about this one guys. Let's see i'm gon na go ahead and force measure quick. It says there may be a restriction in the liquid line.

It's always possible. Oh, it's funny, though, because now it's given cancel yeah it's going back and forth between giving the green flag and not it's so close, though again, i'm i'm happy with this one we're gon na. Let this one go and uh the customer's gon na be happy now. So thermostat's working fine, we got it to turn on from that, so we're going to leave it be no need to change it if it doesn't need to be changed.

I wasn't incorrect with my diagnosis, but there was something funky going on there. The best that i could understand and think after looking at everything, is that the internal overload on the indoor blower motor was going off and that's what was disconnecting power to the thermostat, because if you follow the schematic r from the transformer runs through the blower motor's Thermal overload and then it runs to the thermostat. But what was weird was when i tested voltage, we had voltage there. I think it was intermittently making contact um that or the the thermal overload inside the blower motor was worn out and just barely making contact to the point that i had voltage at the terminal board.

But then, when i went downstairs, i didn't have it now. I kind of did go down a rabbit hole of diagnosing a bad thermostat wire, which was not incorrect. I mean my diagnosis was correct. We had voltage at point a up on the roof and it then ran down to the thermostat and we didn't have voltage so something was funky there, but it was one of those intermittent shorts.

It was just kind of a trip right, but it's okay. I i found the problem, you know i put in the temporary thermostat, it didn't work and i was like wait a minute. You know so i dove into it found the indoor blower motor was bad. You know, of course it would have been better if i would have opened up the indoor blower assembly, but i mean i wasn't at that point in my diagnosis.

Yet so again i wouldn't fault anybody else for making the diagnosis that i did it's just a matter of coming back from that, you know realizing hey that diagnosis was incorrect or there was more to it. You know and then, being honest and saying: hey, we don't need to put this thermostat in here. Let's go ahead and do this first, you know yeah granted. I will tell you that the store manager wanted a new thermostat he's like you know, he he wanted it, but i can't sell them something: that's not broken.

You know the corporate office doesn't want me just selling people things like that. So obviously so i gave the customer all the information gave them a quote and in the quote i said hey, i don't know if this unit unit's worth it to you. That unit was from 2004, so it was old and you know it's r22. It's a piece of junk.

You know i gave them, everything gave them a big picture, diagnosis and they didn't approve it or the big picture quote right, but they didn't approve it and that's. Okay, again, i'm okay! If the customer doesn't appear approve the big picture quote, you know, i mean - or i shouldn't say if they don't take my big picture, um opinion kind of a thing right because i told them they should change the unit and they're like no. We want to go ahead and fix it, so they approved the quote to go ahead and replace the blower assembly dial. Everything in i was given the green light to change the thermostat if necessary, but i didn't see the need.

Okay and it's important to understand something. I'm the business owner right. Of course i want to sell the customer things, but this just proves my example. I do not want to sell them things that are unnecessary.

I want to keep working for this customer for another 20 years. So if i make a quick buck off of them now it won't benefit me in the future theory i mean possibly right. Let's say i i try to rip the customer off. I make my quick buck, they may never know.

I would know, though, might you know i would i wouldn't be able to sleep at night, knowing that i ripped someone off, but i mean you know it's not worth that whole trying to make a little bit of money now because to you know extra money right, Uh, the the not honest way. Basically so we got to be honest, we got to be up front. We've got to treat the customer like they're our own right. We got to treat them like they're, our our close family.

We've got to be honest with them because, in my opinion, that goes a long way and um. I can sleep at night if i lose that customer, but i'm honest with them. The entire time where i wouldn't be able to sleep is, if i was you know, ripping them off charging them too much money here and there yeah. That would bother me.

I would have a hard time sleeping. So we we found the correct diagnosis. The indoor blower motor was going off on thermal overload because it was locked up, it couldn't move um, the unit was trashed, i went ahead and changed the blower assembly, the bracket and the motor and then cleaned the unit up and everything was good. The pressures were pretty much on point.

I would not be the lead, i mean it was a little bit restricted, i think, in the metering device, but that's the fixed, orifice metering device, there's not a whole lot. You can do about that. It is what it is. Um, the unit's working fine, it's been about a week or so since i fixed it, customers happy all is well okay.

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