The customer was complaining about too much smoke in the Kitchen but it wasn't the exhaust fan they thought it was.
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This video is brought to you by Sporland quality, integrity and tradition. Well, I'm getting ready to go up onto the roof. Um, got some exhaust fans not working. Got a couple belts just in case.

I Don't know if those are the right size or not. I Wanted to talk about the whole backpack thing right? I Don't care what brand you buy, but when you're climbing extension or roof ladders, you know your best bet is to rope equipment up or use a backpack as long as it's not too heavy. So that way you can use both hands to climb the roof. It's really important that you do that you don't want to get hurt.

Trust me from experience I've fallen off ladders. It's not a fun thing. So let's get up top and see what's going on. We come up onto the roof.

They called late last night saying the exhaust fan over there flat top was not working. Look at that. The grease is disintegrating or deteriorating the roof. It's nasty.

This is their flat top fan right here. I Know them. but we're going to check every fan because big picture stuff, right? So we're gonna open this guy up. These fans are pretty greasy.

I'm definitely going to be emailing some people sending them pictures of the roof damage. I Took off I Carry rubber gloves with me everywhere. like Nitro gloves so that way I could just throw them away and don't ruin my other gloves. Also, at any given moment, all their exhaust fans are going to turn on and scare the you know what out of me.

As usual, cold grease makes it a nightmare. Well, that's interesting. Belt Doesn't look bad at all. Let's go ahead and turn off the fan.

Oh oh, that's not good because they said it wasn't pulling smoke. Uh. I Don't see anything going on here. Belt's pretty snug.

Let's change this guy. Look at that grease. that is disgusting. They need to clean that fan bad.

Look at that. All right. Well, that's interesting I mean what is that noise? though? foreign? That's interesting. Better go downstairs and turn on all their exhaust fans and see what's going on here.

I Wonder yeah, they said flat top? That's not bad at all, huh? So this guy's running I Opened up the motor starter panel and everything's fine in there. minus there's an overload missing but it was on 115 volt fan so it's not as critical but should be there. Um, the fan has a interesting vibration to it, but that's going to be the amount of Grease built up in there. That's interesting I Don't know what to tell them.

We better make sure this is running in the right direction. There's an arrow right there and it's it's running in the right direction. They said it's just not pulling up smoke very well. All right.

I'm gonna go through and look at every fan while I was downstairs. The grease filters look to be in pretty good shape. Didn't see a problem with that. There's a couple things going on.

The vibration caused that conduit to break. That's one thing. but it's interesting because this is what they were complaining about. But again, like I said, we'll go.
We'll check that one out too, because it's right across. Maybe that's the problem? Um, but we're looking at everything. So this one right here. That pulleys toast those little lines you see I could feel them.

They're definitive and they're eating the belts up. So we're going to get them new pulleys for this guy. This guy's doing the same thing. So I got the information.

Motor pulleys a 1vp 50 by 7, 8 this guy and then this one. The driven pulleys a four and three quarters by inch and three sixteenths. it has an Ax 59 belt. We'll get new pulleys for this guy and I'm gonna go through and look at every other fan.

Let's jump onto that one now. Okay, so this one is their fryer and this one looks to be loose to me, so let's let it slow down and the bearings sound bad. Yeah, this one's definitely loose. so this one is right across from that one.

More than likely, this is the problem. I Mean, it's not horrible, but yeah, it's loose, so we'll definitely tighten that up. Um, and then we're going to investigate all these. Oh, this pulley's trash too.

Got a bunch of pulleys here. I Did a video changing these exhaust fans a couple years back. We changed them all at the same time. This pulley's fine.

This one needs to be changed. It's got a nice little notch in it, so we're gonna go around looking at every single one and tightening them up as needed. Look at that. that's going to be a electrical short.

When it rains. it's broken. So um, and then this had vibrated off. A lot of this.

I bet you anything is because they're not cleaning these things and they're just sitting here vibrating. so we'll bring that up to them too. Put a new disconnect switch. See sometimes it's worth it to come out on a Sunday it's Sunday about 8 A.M right now.

Uh, May 7th I think I think that's what it is May 6 May 7th Something like that. Um, okay, cool. Well let's keep on going. So the one that I thought was the problem.

the flat top I the belt was just I mean ever so slightly loose. but I noticed that I'm tightening it like because you have a tensioner bolt right here and it's not doing anything because the belt is too big. it's an Ax21 and it's touching this so when you're trying to tighten it, it's not doing anything. Um, it just so happened that I brought up some Ax20 belts.

So I'm gonna put the Ax20s on there, take the 21s off, and then that way we can tension it appropriately. It wasn't bad, but it was just a little bit loose. so loosen that up. It's possible that an AF fine and that they're not doing on there on there.

We got a spare to drop in there. that's much better. Almost there. Oh yeah, good job.

There's a nut I'll show you right now that backs it up so it doesn't come loose. So this nut you tighten that when you're done, you loosen it and then you move this in and out to put tension on it. That's much better. You can see it's nowhere near here.
it's not bottoming out on that and we got a spare in there now. so the pulley on this one looks okay I can feel the slightest bit of something in there, but I think they've got a little more life out of it. They definitely need to clean the fan though. so we're going to turn this guy on again going in the right direction.

So this is their flat top area. Let's go ahead and get onto this fryer one now. so the pulleys are messed up, but they're not that bad so this one's doing the same. I'm kind of thinking we need to change these all the ax20s like I can't tighten it really anymore.

so I'm gonna go ahead and loosen it Slide the old one off. Let's hope that this other one is a good belt. It doesn't I don't think it's warm I Don't know though now we're going to tighten it. we might have to grab that Ax20 out of the other one.

Oh yeah, we're gonna have to grab the Ax20. This one's doing the same thing. What to bring back some Ax20 spares? Come back so that 21 that was. Uh, I'm pretty confident that when I installed these fans a couple years ago, they came with 21s because we wouldn't have put bigger belts on there.

I Don't usually carry belts in my truck except for the Emergency one. I just still happen to have two Ax 20s. So lucky for them. The thing about belts, you know I Made a video a while back using an emergency belt and a lot of people were criticizing me because I should have all the belts in my truck.

The problem is is that I don't change belts that often. A lot of these customers don't have me do maintenance for them. I just do emergency maintenance. and uh, you know you've got to draw a line somewhere because all the parts that I keep in my truck I'm essentially paying for those and they're just sitting there in my truck and I've already paid for them and they're not making me money until they do.

So you know you've got to draw a line somewhere and be like, you know what? I'm not going to stock those in my truck because the more truck stock you have, the more money you have out on the line. So it's one of those things. That's why we keep emergency belts to get us going and then we come back with the right parts. It just so happened that today I have these 21 people Okay, got that nice and snug.

Now we're going to open the fan up and look at the inside. It's okay, let's make sure it's going in the right direction. It is. It's moving in the right direction and obviously it's spinning faster now because there's shot stuff out of it.

Someone lost the wing nuts. There was no Wing nuts on this one. so I'll have to bring some of those back with me. They have filter Changers that come up here so I can see one of the washers and look around.

Maybe they're on the ground? Nope, nothing on the ground. so we'll get some Wing nuts and bring them back. Let's start going through the rest of these fans. Oh, this fan wasn't changed a couple years ago.
This is an original fan. It's not too bad, but I'm going to tighten it a little bit. The belt is really hot though, but probably because it's loose so we'll tighten it up. There happens to be an ax20 in this one, so the cool thing is that now we'll change every belt to the to the same size except for the big giant fan so they'll all have the same so they have to so we don't have to keep as many spares up here.

Basically, that's one good thing. Yes, that's guys good. Make sure it's going. they all go the same direction.

Yep, going in the right direction. so we're good on that one. We got one more fan to go now. this one is vibrating to all hell toast.

so we'll be quoting a couple new stands for them too. When you're dealing with exhaust issues, don't ever forget about the makeup Pro units because the makeuper units are a critical part of the exhaust system. They make up for the air that's being lost but a good majority of the time. They also create an air curtain to try to help contain the smoke, the way that they're designed, and the way that they drop down in most hoods not all hoods, but most hoods.

so always want to make sure makeup bare belts are tight because they could be part of the reason why things are Smoky why things are rolling out that belt. There's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes you have to know. like certain: Motors In certain situations, you can get tighter than other ones that have, you know, really cheesy brackets and everything.

Notice that when I push on that, the whole motor flexes because it's in a resilient mount. Don't really care for those. Mount I Like a rigid Mount Much better, but you don't want to go too tight on something like this. This one's fine.

Let's make sure it's going in the right direction and it is. That's good. The filter doesn't look too bad I can see light through it I'm going to put this together and we're just going to look at everything else while we're up here. This condenser is plugged.

Look at this micro Channel too. so we'll talk to them about that. We'll bring that up to them. And then when I came up earlier I noticed that only one of these condenser fan motors was running on this now.

I made a video on this couple years back I have two fan Cycles which is one for each motor. But what I found odd was the left motor was running. The right motor wasn't even moving a tiny bit like it hasn't moved at all. So I want to make sure that it's not locked up.

We haven't even gotten hot yet. So if I find a motor that's failed and we eliminate a service call, that'll save me a Saturday night Friday night service call kind of a thing. This one right here looks to be okay, so we'll look at everything all right. So I saw this motor running over here but this one I did not.
Let's get in here and see if it spins I don't know how well you guys can see it. Oh yeah, it's spinning. It's not locked up now. That doesn't mean it's not bad, but it's cold outside right now so I'm not surprised if it's not running I Just would have expected it to be coasting kind of a little bit or something.

Um, but again, doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. What we can do is I can turn it on. Uh, and we can. Yeah, I'll check on it when I come back.

I'm not going to get too involved in it because it's satisfied right now. Let's pop our heads over here. Just open up the ACs see if anything jumps out at us. No active codes that says fan only.

Nothing too crazy. Nothing too scary in here. Looks like maybe some, uh, carbon buildup in the contactors I can see some white powdery residue. Let's keep going.

check the belt. Definitely a loose belt and those all look like junk. So we're gonna bring back some belts that I'll get the belt information off of that guy. Yeah, it looks like they've been tightening on that thing a lot.

I'll get information off that. Let's look at the other ones. Yeah, so they use a national filter changing company here. That one's got a loose belt too.

You can tell that it's loose on the bottom so we got lots of so all you got to do is open your eyes. Look, these customers don't do routine maintenance, but if I'm here, I'm gonna look now. I'm not gonna spend my day here maintaining all their equipment I'm not doing anything with the ACs but I'm getting all the information. So that way when I come back.

yep, loose belt too. I can tell the bottom of it's flopping. So when I come back, we'll bring belts with us. So again, they don't do maintenance.

so I'll bring it to their attention I know that I'm allowed to do this stuff so this Fan's working. The restroom fan should be on and it's not that restroom fan should be running. So when I come back, we'll dig into that too. Uh, let's open this guy up.

So like I said, just because they don't do routine maintenance, you know when I'm here I Look, that one doesn't have any active codes. Nothing too crazy. Let's check this one out. see what we got going on.

No active codes. looks fine, just a lot of loose belts. So we'll definitely be bringing back some AC belts too. That's all that I'm doing today again.

not gonna waste my Sunday to do routine maintenance besides what I was called for. So I'll get all the information off the belts and we'll come back out with uh, pulleys for this one. pulleys for I know pulleys for this one. Uh, and then we'll bring spares for the other fans.

We'll size up that fan for replacement when we come back and we'll size up this fan for replacement when we come back because they're vibrating. You can see the covers are completely rotted out, they're old, they're beat down, and then this fan was replaced. a couple years ago. So we'll just change the pulleys.
This fan just needs to be cleaned. We'll tell the customer they need to get their cleaning company out here. and then I'll also document the roof damage from the grease. that grease.

Uh it. It will eat the roof away. clearly. You can see it's like paint stripper.

It's stripping away the paint that they have on the roof. They put some like white epoxy coating or something on there. So uh, they're gonna need to solve that problem. So we'll bring all this information up.

We'll bring back the spare belts and we'll go from there. good morning. I am back. it is.

Uh Tuesday May 9th about 7 23 A.M Got here first thing and we are going to be shutting this guy down right now replacing the disconnect switch, the pulleys and then we'll be putting a couple extra belts and the other exhaust fans get them going and then I'll be sizing up this exhaust fan and this exhaust sample replacement. But got to get on. This guy got to go downstairs and turn off the power and then we'll go from there and get it all finished up. Hopefully all right.

So I About a month or so ago and I kind of broke the internet because I didn't install the electrical on the bottom and I came out the top I Get it, Everybody wants to ride I Mean if you know Best case scenario: I bring both electricals in the bottom and come out the top. I Really don't think it's that big of a deal if you seal it right. but I will on this one, go ahead and bring both electricals out the bottom. so I better verify there's no power which I Just went and shut it out and locked it out.

but I'll verify real quick. Nothing Nothing Nothing nothing and then we'll go to ground. That's everything to ground too. Three, one, Two three, no power.

We're good to go. Let's get pulled apart on this guy. So color wise: red, red, blue, blue, black, black so that should be easy color to color. I'm not always perfect I don't always do everything right.

but also you know the disconnect switch issue like on the last one where I came out the top as long as like you know the uh stuff is done right. it has a gasket, it's a water type thing I Don't think it's the end of the world, but I do appreciate the fact that yeah, you should be doing it the other way. so it's all good and I'm not perfect. This is a DIN rail clip that holds it in on the bottom and then you pull it out like that.

You can tell that this guy had been getting wet because it's cracked on the top. Black blue and red, black, blue, red I Prefer these style of switches because they don't have fuses in them. If your Breakers are sized appropriately and your motor starters are sized appropriately on three-phase equipment, especially exhaust fans, it's best to not have fuses because if you move one fuse, you single phase it. So I prefer to have a properly sized breaker so that way you can, uh, have to break her trip instead of the fuses trip.
I Keep these cheapy screwdrivers from Home Depot they're like six seven bucks. maybe 10 bucks at the most. You just keep a couple extra in my van and they are my beater screwdrivers. if I have to hit on something I Don't ever hit on these ones because I don't want to break the electrical existence that the insulated screwdriver has hard.

you jam the screwdriver in there. it doesn't work anymore. Try not to do that. Okie dokie, Thank you.

There you go. Disconnects off. Got the new one right here. We're going back with the Euro style disconnect safety switch.

You want to call it all right? Boom Boom I'm gonna go just like that. foreign now this guy. I'm gonna have to shorten a little bit, but that's good though because it'll make my wires longer. I Can go to the top of the disconnect and then come out the bottom.

Well actually no, this one is set up to come in this site according to their switch right here. Well I mean it really doesn't matter, it's just a switch. So now cutting conduit with wire in it can be kind of tricky. Some tin snips to be your best friend.

Do it like that. We'll break it and then we'll cut it with either 10 Snips or wire cutters. We're going to do a few things here. all right.

Shoot, I might even cut it smaller right down here. Maybe that'll work. but I try to use my wire cutters because I don't have my tin snips up here. So being lazy at the moment, if I can get it with wire cutters, I'll do it.

If not, I'll go get them. Thank you There we go. If I can clean this up, then the new fitting will go right on it and we'll be good to go. And you take these apart, Be careful, they come the way that they should go.

A lot of people get confused on how they go together, so if you don't know, pay attention when you take it apart, the bushing and everything is in a particular place. Perfect here. We go there, We go there, We go now. I Need to go get a regular drill.

We'll drill this guy in, put it right there, and then we'll bring the other one over and then down here and we have to make sure it's long enough for it to hinge which will be fine. Good to go. I Don't even go get a drill. Now What we're going to need to do.

Pull this guy out. Pull this guy out. We're gonna have to drill these holes real quick on the bottom. I'm gonna pop this guy out.

so that way the little plastic shavings don't get in there and you can drill these guys foreign. They don't put a torque spec on here. Interesting. Oh wait, maybe right here.

No, that's interesting. They don't put a torch back on it. Oh well. I Like to make all three wires the same length.

so that way if you ever needed to switch them, you can. So I make them all go to the last hole and then that way we have all the room we need to when you're dealing with stranded wire. tight, loose, tight, loose, set the wire in place. kind of.
Smash It Down and I realize a lot of people say I should be using barrels. It's not pretty common here, so see I got them all tucked in there. Nice and good. Out of the way.

So now we'll work on doing this condo. We're going to make a new conduit up to this motor right there when you're dealing with metallic liquid. tight. Again, a band saw is your best too.

but I like using the bandsaw. Thank you thank you. We need to get a new blade. Make sure you make it long enough for the exhaust fan to be hinged but not too long.

Let the porridge be just right. like. Little Red Riding Okay, I'm gonna hinge it real quick. plenty long enough now.

I Just measure it. one foot, two foot, three foot, four foot so we'll get a little bit extra and I'll run down and go get the three-phase wire black, red, blue, and the ground. For a run this small, there's no need for a fish tape. I'll be able to push the wires through.

The trick is to just pull off one of the ends. Sometimes you can get it through, but most of the time you'll have to pull off the end. we'll try. Sometimes you get lucky.

if it doesn't come through, then just pull off one of the little bushings and it'll come. They'll pop through. usually it gets caught up. Okay, we're gonna check the phase rotation going in the right direction and all is well.

So I'm going to close it up and then we're going to work on the pulley now. I Use an impact every day. but I know how to let go of the trigger. Sad to say that a lot of people don't.

They strip everything out. You also have little settings on here too. Personally, I don't use the settings I Just know trigger control. I'm going to clean up my messes and then we'll do the pulleys.

all right. First and foremost: I'm gonna go ahead and take a little penetrating oil, set it on there. let it sit, let it get down into there. Okay, that way, these things come apart easier.

Okay, so this one's a cool one. This fan is level. Therefore, we should be able to see that pulleys level. that pulley's almost level.

We should be able to level this out I Can look at it and tell that it's not aligned properly. so we are going to fix that. So I need to verify that all my pulleys are the same. Those are the same.

We're going to set the diameter the same as this one opening wise and then we're going to put them on there and level them out. Wire cutters will be your best friends when pulling out keys. Leverage Okay, Bottom one, Try not to drop the set screw. I'm going to pull it out completely though, because we're gonna have to work to get this removed.

Sometimes you can get lucky, but I may have to go get my puller. Nope. Hold right off. No puller necessary.
That's cool. Okay, now we're going to set these two the same foreign. These are not identical pulleys. We do have to be careful.

That's it right there for this guy. You just need to remove it's uh, it's got a taper bushing. So remove these nuts or bolts and put them in the other holes and it'll separate the taper from the pulley. Yeah, they're snug and then just tighten them down evenly and it'll separate.

you. Don't really want to use an impact very much I'll use it to thread, but you can bend stuff and you don't want to do that. It's separated. now.

we can use the pulley. Here we go. Thank you! We got this new one. We got a new taper, new screws so the threaded holes on the top of the taper are for removing the taper.

The non-threaded holes are for tightening it. You don't want to have threaded going into threaded because it won't Titan right? Just gonna snug nothing tight so that way we can still go up and down. We got to set our pulley now and I got to go get some belts. All right, Somewhat tension.

go up on this side. There we go. So we're going to use that as our guide. now.

this pole. This shaft is dead level. This one is a little funky so we do have to compensate for that. That'll get us in the ballpark.

Yeah, so we kind of want this to go up just a hair more. Now when we tighten it there we go. Pretty darn good. You have a look, it's pretty good.

Looks pretty darn good to me. So we're gonna slowly tighten these. Just get them snug. Okay, now we're gonna go tight with a wrench one evenly and everything's gonna change when we do that because when you tighten this taper, the pulley is going to pull up into it and the taper is going to go down a little bit too.

It's going to lock everything in. You want to tighten them evenly. Returns, it's getting pretty snug. Pretty darn good.

Pick it again. pretty darn good. We're doing good. Pretty darn good.

Okay, so now we're gonna final fine tune everything with this guy. which it doesn't look bad at all. I think I'm going to tighten it. That's the top.

Make sure this set screw or the key is going down into it. You want the key as far down as it'll go. Now the set screw on this one goes up at an angle, so it's going to be hitting the key. If you're concerned, pull the set screw out and have a look in there.

Make sure you actually engaging with the key I'm going to do that right now. Okay, I got the set screw out the up. It's going right into the key. Perfect.

All right. Everything is tightened snugged. I've got a spare belt down below. We're going to turn it on super quiet, not making a grinding belt noise.

There's a little bit of a vibration to it, but again, they need to clean every one of these fans. but it's a lot quieter. We're not hearing belt noise anymore, It's not slapping anything and it's not going to prematurely wear down the pulley. So I'm going to throw a spare belt in there and then we're going to move on to the other ones again.
I'm going to talk to them about all this grease on the roof. Okay, this fan right here is back on and running. Um, got all the information Now one thing I Wanted to point out. this is all the information I need.

Okay, but there's more information that could be gotten. What about the RPM of the motor? Now I happen to know that every one of these motors on this roof, or at least on these small fans is 17 25 RPMs I Know that so I'm not really writing it down, but that is also good information to get when you're trying to. Source a new exhaust fan. Okay, if you're trying to Source a new motor, then you need horsepower voltage, the Rla of the motor, the frame of the motor, the RPM of the motor, the size of the motor.

You need to take that all into consideration. but for me, this is all that I Need to convert this fan? All right? I Got new belts put on all ACS spare belts where needed. Exhaust fans are all good spare belts. Got all the information off these two exhaust fans.

We're gonna give them a price to replace them and all as well. They are good to go. So we are going to write up the invoice and tell them to keep an eye on it. So when it comes to the exhaust fans, this particular restaurant, you know they obviously have cooking appliances down in the building.

The cooking appliances produce heat, and when they cook the food, there's smoke and other unwanted things in the air. Okay, so you have exhaust fans extractors, whatever you want to call them, but they essentially pull out the unwanted air out of the building. Okay, once they pull out the unwanted air, it goes up to the roof. It's supposed to go through some grease filters.

The grease filters help to catch as much of the grease as possible in a perfect world. If the grease filters do their actual job and they're the right style of filters, there shouldn't be very much grease making it out of the actual exhaust fan, But that's not very practical And it happens. It ends up on the roof okay, or ends up stuck inside of the fan. Restaurants should be doing normal routine cleaning on the exhaust fans, too.

They actually required by law to have companies come in. A majority of the restaurants out there only do the minimum requirement when it comes to cleaning of their exhaust fans. Certainly, if they had them cleaned more often, they would have less issues. but there's a fine line between too much maintenance.

Okay, and this is just something that's in my head. I've never seen any real statistics on this, but in my head what I tend to notice is that if we go out and we do a lot of routine maintenance on the equipment, we're opening and closing doors. We're taking panels on and off. We're getting our fingers in things.
You're gonna have things that wear out just simply because you're opening and closing those doors all the time. You're taking screws out, you're putting them back in. You have more odds of stripping out screws. you know, taking covers off the covers will start getting bent.

So there's a fine line between doing routine maintenance and doing too much routine maintenance again. Assuming that humans are doing the work and humans are not perfect right, we always make mistakes. So of course I want my customers to do more maintenance Okay, but realistically, they need to be doing more as far as grease cleaning for sure, because once the exhaust fans start to get thrown off balance because the grease will settle and what can actually happen is when the exhaust fans are running, it's hot most of the time okay, and the grease is warm, but when the exhaust fans get turned off at night time, that grease cools and sometimes it'll drip off of the wheel and then as it's cooling, it'll cool uneven and then when the exhaust fan gets running in the morning, it'll be out of balance right when it turns on and it'll vibrate until it heats up enough to where the grease can kind of spread out and evenly. you know, set itself on the fan.

If they clean them more often, they really wouldn't have those problems. Okay, so now that we've gotten the air moving right and the smoke, and The Unwanted air out of the building, then it's blown onto the roof wherever it needs to be out into the air. Whatever that is. Okay, Um, so that's the typical operation of the exhaust fans, right? But then you have to have makeup there.

I Kind of talked about it a little bit. Makeup Air balances out the building. Think of a paper bag. If you put a paper bag around your mouth and you breathe in, the bag is going to collapse.

Okay, but if you cut a hole in the bottom of the bag, the air will pass through the back. If you cut the perfect size hole for the breath that you are taking in, the bag will not collapse at all, but you'll just pass the air through. That's the theory of Makeup Air. Okay, I showed the makeup per unit and I said that it has a couple purposes: Number one: to balance out the building.

Number two. In most cases, not always. but in most cases, the makeup air also creates an air curtain. Okay, the way that the makeup air is diffused across the front of the hood.

In most cases, the air kind of slowly trickles down in front of the hood and it actually creates an invisible curtain That helps to keep that smoke inside the hood. So it's very important that we don't ignore Makeup Air Units when we are diagnosing smoke rollout issues and things like that in exhaust systems. Okay, but with exhaust systems I can't stress enough? Routine maintenance is a must. Okay, um, loose belts.

Especially in uh, high volume restaurants. Even the slightly loose belt can cause problems, right? Because these buildings oftentimes are set up and air balanced to maintain the most energy efficient building. Okay, and if that belt starts to slip or even becomes loose ever so slightly, then that exhaust fan doesn't perform anymore and the building as a whole starts to suffer. And we got to think about that too.
When you're thinking about a restaurant, it's not just the exhaust fans. It's not just the makeup air, right? Because we get fresh air from the ACs too. Now, we're typically going to get more from the Makeup Air unit if the building actually has a makeup or unit, and then we're going to pull a little bit from the air conditioning units too. And that's going to just start affecting everything, right? If, uh, if you're not exhausting all the smoke in The Unwanted air out of the building, then the air conditioners are going to have a hard time keeping up because there's going to be added heat load to the building.

So the building operates as a whole just like your house does too, with air within regards to air movement and different things. Okay, so it's really important that you have a general understanding of how exhaust systems work when you're going out to work on them. In this situation, they said the flat top wasn't working so I went out there and the flat top. Everything was going good except for the fan had some grease build up so I didn't just say hey, it's working I'm out I Looked at the other fans and I found a lot of work on that roof I got to spend uh, two days the the original service call and then a second day going out there changing the disconnect switch and replacing all the other belts.

and then on top of that, I'm quoting to replace three exhaust fans. I didn't show you guys but the restroom exhaust fan has a bad motor, it's really beat up, the fan is trashed, and then they have those other two exhaust fans. So I'm not doing anything shady I'm doing what the customer wants and I'm just observing looking at the big picture. Came back a second day I didn't have to waste my Sunday I did the the problem at hand I addressed it on Sunday and then I came back the following Tuesday and and went through everything else.

So you don't have to just go into this call with blinders on. you know, look around. Pay attention. Use your senses.

Generate more money for for your company. Ethically right? You're not ripping anybody off, but you're ethically generating more money. You're keeping yourself busy, You're getting yourself hours. You're making the company happy, right? You're helping the customer, right? So there's so many different positive things that can come from you just looking at the big picture.

It's so important. I Really, really appreciate you making it to the end of the video. If you haven't already, please consider subscribing to the channel and check out my website Hvacrvideos.com I Talked about the new hats that we have available. We have the um, the two new hats that I added to the line are the flat bill hat right here.
that's a snapback Flex fit and then we have the relaxed dad hat uh with the adjustable back right there. So uh, check them out on my website Hvacrvideos.com We obviously still have my favorite hat, the original cool and Dry fit standard Flex fit hat. but anyways. Uh, if you're interested in helping to support the channel, the easiest way to do so is simply watch the videos from beginning to end.

It's it's that easy. Okay, uh, if you want to financially support the channel PayPal Patreon YouTube Channel memberships There's links in the show notes of this video. You can find out more about those. Uh, remember that myself and my friends try to go live Friday evenings on the HVAC overtime YouTube channel Uh, this last week, uh, yesterday.

actually today is Saturday May 13th. So on May 12th we had Ryan Hughes from the Huseman HVAC YouTube channel and the Misfits of HVAC podcast. So it was a really cool hangout interview with Ryan Uh, definitely go check that out and then work permitting I Try to go live on my YouTube channel Monday evenings 5 p.m Pacific Uh, work permitting again I Keep saying that but sometimes I have to cancel it so I really do appreciate you all, thank you very much and we will catch you on the next one. Okay.


48 thoughts on “There is too much smoke in the kitchen”
  1. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Luis Diaz says:

    Good afternoon bro. I have a question about a hoshizaki ice machine I’m working on at work. It slowly started making less and less ice till this morning it was empty. I turned it off and turned it back on just to see what it does. So it starts compressor kicks on and after 20 seconds it completely stops. Any input would gladly appreciate it. Thanks!!!!

  2. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars big g tate says:

    Brother , I have a question, I had a carrier 2 stage 15 ton , 2 compressors, first stage works fine , sec stage cycles on and of, I throw my guages and find out that suction goes to 37psig , there is restriction, the system is 2 years old, no txv , I recover and took the dryer out and it was fine , pumped nitrogen threw suction while dryer is out and noticed the restriction, blew threw the liquid line and it was fine , dose that mean the evap is bad? Or those orifice headears needs replacement? If they do, how could I change those ? Or just swap with txv? I appreciate your hard work and help .

  3. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Vasileios Bakas says:

    I was wondering on those fans if you want to amp the motor afterwards can you do it from the service switch or there is a more efficient way? Good job man i like your videos i have been learning from you!!

  4. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars m daddy says:

    Those are supply fans and exhaust fans for the hoods and not mau units for my area. MAU units are to be used for conditioned air in the kitchen and to produce a constant air velocity wether it be positive or negative. Thanks for making vids.

  5. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars FLYINGHIGH55 says:

    I stopped carrying belts also. To many sizes and there’s plenty of other common parts that go out. And if your customers take care of their equipment, you can usually tighten it to get by or have spares. Thanks for the video!

  6. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Sean Taray says:

    another thing about the extra stock on your truck.. is the extra weight you are paying in fuel to haul around.

  7. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Liam says:

    Also if the MUA not working, the building will sit in negative pressure. The fans will not move much air.

  8. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Shaun Tate says:

    This sounds like the noisiest job you have done on YouTube.

  9. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars John Walker says:

    Good job Chris, not going to criticize, but your getting better at motor repair.

  10. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Dave Wood says:

    I'm not an HVAC guy but I think of your videos when I go into a restaurant and you have to wrestle the door open because the balance is all jacked up. Usually Indian joints.

  11. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Andy Berreondo says:

    Those building colors remind me of a yard house restaurant

  12. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars JAMES AZBELL says:

    That trigger control on the impact driver is called SKILL. Everyone needs to build skills. Are you in Nepean ?

  13. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Coffreek says:

    Torque spec?!

    Tighten till you hear the "crack", then call the apprentice.

    Neat trick with the Seal-Tite. Thank you.

  14. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Richard Cranium says:

    One issue with gov't requiring TOO much maintenance is that it reaches a point they can't afford to comply so they stop entirely because they can't get someone to do it halfway so they don't do it at all. Where as a less stringent requirement would be affordable enough for someone to at least do something.

    I'm of course talking about govt overregulation.

  15. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Paul A says:

    What happened with the restroom exhaust fan? What was the issue?

  16. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Vincent Farias says:

    Autozone or any auto parts store sell belts

  17. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Infidellic says:

    Question to anyone: these mostly appear to be roughly 1:1 pulley sizes so why don't manufacturers eliminate a point of failure/maintenance and direct drive the shafts from the motors with couplers? Service area Orleans??

  18. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars ZE KENZY says:

    Great Video. Thank you for sharing

  19. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Farm_fab says:

    Chris, that link belt on your backpack, Harbor Freight carries them, and oddly enough, they are made in USA. Service area Ottawa??

  20. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Silas Marner says:

    The powers that be will see your carefully photographed grease nightmare and hit DELETE!!!!

  21. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Nyarly Rylyeh says:

    – may 6th or 7th..
    – to hell with the details, what year is it?

  22. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Tam says:

    Hey that was BIG picture stuff there.

  23. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars retro zmachine says:

    Two cents worth of comment, so you know it's going to be good quality and yes, do realise it's yet another anonymous person on youtube saying 'do this', but …

    Consider putting a weep hole in the bottom of the enclosures if they don't come with one. Water always manages to find its way in and then get lost and never find its way out again and pools in the box. It may not fill up the box but it makes for a very humid environment in the box and things will then rust / corrode at a much higher rate.

    When it comes to ferrules if the terminal is a clamp type rather than a piercing screw type ferrules aren't necessary. What we'd do in Australia with stranded is twist the strands into a solid mass then put that in the clamp terminal and go from there.

    Again, only two cents worth so everyone can take this with the proverbial grain of salt.

  24. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars DocNo27 says:

    Good grief – that whole roof was a raging fire just waiting to emerge. Service area Barrhaven??

  25. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars deineroehre2012 says:

    OK, so you really get to a customer with no maintenancy contract on Sundays? Must be something specific for your trade. In IT there is one rule: no maintenance contract means, the IT is considered worthless by the customer so they can wait. It is that simple.
    I am glad we got mostly rid of these customers without maintenance contract. No maintenance contract = no service after hours or after thursdays, for live threatening outages without service contract on weekends: 250€/h instead of normal fee of 90€/h with the contract. Not live threatening? We will get back to you after every maintenance customer is done on Monday.
    Believe me, the money loss is basically not worth mentioning, but having much more time to deliver perfect service to the maintenance customers or even free time with wife or friends is the counterpart to all the stress the job brings in. OK, it helps that we are rather good at our jobs so every customer keeps coming back. If they can't afford a maintenance contract, they are not our customers, there are many other companys who like to deal with chepskates – we have no time for this, we have the focus on satisfied customers who pay gladly the premium for perfect service and it works well for us.

    As in your HVACR Trade maintenance means you can detect possible outages BEFORE the can disturb or even stop your business. In the end, most maintence contracts are cheaper, due to the reduces hourly rate or due to less outages.

    Do good work, make good money with satisfied customers.
    That is for all trades, but some technicians or their managers don't get it, they do sloppy work and the customer thinks this is the normal way to work – it makes no fun to clean up a mess several companys before made. Service area Nepean??

  26. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Ralph Woodard says:

    Hello again. May I suggest that on these customers that do not do regular maintenance that you start charging them every visit that includes regular maintenance to solve a lot of these problems. If they don’t wanna pay for it, then they’re not worth having as a customer. Make your life Easier.
    On the pulleys wouldn’t it be better to measure with a tool instead of eyeballing it? Just saying.

  27. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Chess Time says:

    I am residential maintenance technician but as always I like your videos

  28. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Ivory Johnson says:

    People are happy to point out others faults but how are they when the finger is pointing the other way

  29. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars bonjour franco says:

    you should have all of the belts in your van???…..well i know what i would be telling that person and its not allowed on youtube. Like should we carry every refrigerant known to mankind. Should we carry every part for every rtu out there. You do the best ya can end of story.

  30. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Joe A says:

    Please help me understand why not try to clean the vibrating fan before replacing? Or why not try rebuilding it?

  31. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Steve Blake says:

    600 thumbs uP

  32. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Scorchzzz says:

    Hey there Chris, great video sir, I was able to consume my entire sunday dinner AND a beer on top – kudos, and thanks, peace out 🙂

  33. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars fvfgx says:

    Yeah that's my biggest pet peeve man it's phenomenal that how many people out there have no finger control

  34. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars baboo says:

    Question: You say you don't keep belts in your truck because that'd be tied-up money.. OTOH, you put spares about everywhere belts are used.. That's tied-up money, too, and lot of it, because I bet you have way more customers than trucks.. 😁 Also, those belts don't get better being exposed to temperatures that are common on your areas' rooftops.. Are you in Barrhaven ?

  35. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Greg Dennis says:

    Wonder if you could build a database of all the parts you change to see the most common. Then, stock your truck accordingly. Are you in Kanata ?

  36. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Pippy says:

    Also more you clean more it cost but you need to find that balance for cost and longevity. Sometimes it’s cheaper to do minimum cleaning on fans due to replacement cost and cleaning costs.

  37. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Der Deutsche says:

    U should learn how to say "interesting" in different languages 🤣🤣🤣

  38. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars asbestosfiber says:

    Someone should make a jig to sand down those pulleys and sell them. Seem like a waste to toss an entire pully because of a tiny ridge

  39. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars jr helms says:

    Great Job Chris has always.

  40. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Bas BlasterXP says:

    How many years can you store an spare belt on a hot roof? I can image they get old to

  41. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars springws14lbss says:

    Nice job! But did you fix the restroom fan??? 😉

  42. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars David Vargas says:

    Fairytale reference fail. Gotta pay attention to the details, man.😆
    Love all the content man.

  43. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars JP HVAC says:

    Any certain reason you use metallic liquid-tite vs non metallic? Assuming I just don’t know the code for it.

  44. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Tho mas says:

    The poor performance on the flat top fan might also be due to fat build up.
    Amazed that there still is airflow

  45. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Joe Harry says:

    Berring knock on flat top?? An a 21 on new pulleys would work fine, but on warn shive pulleys will be loose my experience….

  46. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Brian Hartley says:

    I really injoy your videos you maintenance in perspective in owning a restaurant

  47. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Steven Cossaboon says:

    Nice job Chris. Thank you for the knowledge. Are you in Orleans ?

  48. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Jeff Montalvo says:

    Anyone criticizing not carrying all the belts is someone who doesn't work on a lot of equipment. I can see several dozen different sized belts a week. The amount of room you'd have to dedicate to belts would be insane. Then you run into the fact that belts have a shelf life. Over time they dry out and crack easy. Wasting money on the off chance you need a specific size when a few feet of power twist in A and B size will get you through any emergency belt break is insane from a business standpoint. 100ft of A or B belt power twist around $1200. give each guy 20ft and it pays for itself really quick

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