Hundred thousand subscribers on what on on youtube? That's what this video is about. Oh really, this is my top top tips for a hundred thousand subscribers. How did you not know that? That's like five dollars a month minimum? You know, i know, i know i'm not even subscribed yet i got ta go do that we are celebrating 100 000 subscribers. So big thanks to you and everybody who watches and subscribes to our channel and wants to learn more about the trade and i tossed around a few ideas of what to do for a hundred thousand.

But i think what we'll do is. I will make this. The video that gives the top 10 things that i think technicians would benefit from right away things that you can implement. Basically, my top 10 tech tips and uh.

We may get a few guests to weigh in as well we'll see what we can get along the way, so number 10 is to make sure that you pay attention to the way that equipment is wired from the factory, but also how it's set up common example. Would be variable, speed, equipment and residential? Do you have the proper pin settings? Is it set for the proper tonnage in the dip switches or within the control? I've done a lot of videos on the carrier. Infinity control, which is sort of a modern, ecm 3.0 variable speed setup where the actual wall controller is what tells the variable speed, blower motor, how to run and are those settings set up properly for your climate for the design of the equipment? Are you setting it up with proper dehumidification? Are you wiring up that dh terminal and pulling the pin all those sorts of things you got to know how to set those up so again, some pieces of equipment have dip switches. Some have pins another one is if you're working in commercial, a lot of commercial equipment comes shipped with the transformer tapped to 240 volts rather than 208.

So, if you're on 208 - and you don't re-tap it down to 208 rather than 240 you're going to have a lower low voltage in your circuits, your low voltage going to your controls are going to be lower than it should be, resulting in potential problems with the Equipment, we see it all the time people failing to retap those transformers, so don't trust that the equipment is set up properly for your application out of the box, you got to read the manual and you have to look at your particular design application in order to Make sure everything is set up properly? I just called uh - i just called eric here, so this is eric. Melly he's pretty good at this air conditioning stuff, and he just commented that this is pretty spur at the moment. But that's what this is. You know this is our 100k subscribers video, and so i want eric to give me some feedback on my list.

What are some of the most common settings and uh control? Wiring mistakes that you see well, of course it would be transformers that are not tapped for the proper voltage, usually they're set for 230, and you have 208 power. That's one of them and have you seen actual problems occur because of that it can. If there's like a really long run of thermostat wire uh, it's rare, but it can happen, definitely can avoid some nuisance. Calls by correcting that and just other simple things like some thermostats aren't coming with jumpers from r to rc and they won't work in heating mode or cooling mode.

If you don't have the jumper there, which also not too important for florida. Luckily, we have people who are in florida listening viewing or you see the good old. You know there's two or three float switches in a unit instead of for whatever external switches and instead of wiring them in series they're wired parallel, so that literally every switch would have to open before the unit would shut off. Yes, yes, yes, i'm holding my fingers on that.

You want to wire them like this, not like this, i'm doing the w versus the versus the uh tent or condensate pumps that aren't hooked up at all. Ah, yes, the switches in the condensate pumps, you mean, i mean, i guess it's not necessarily completely improper, but i hate where people hardwire them to units and there's you have to unwire them to like take them out and clean them, get a piece of sjo cord And put a put out put a receptacle or a plug, but that's just getting nitpicky right, yeah a little bit hold on. I'm almost done with this popsicle, oh god, i'm just down to the stick right now. Does that have a joke? Does it have a joke on it? No, no! It's a yasuo bar! Oh okay, are you familiar with yasso bars? It is a greek yogurt, chocolate, ice cream popsicle with 80 calories and six grams of protein.

Okay, you got yourself a little meat stick just about there. Huh, i sure, do well, okay! No! No! I don't not when you put it that way. It's it's a little more specific than i would have imagined to be on the list because i feel like that could go into a little bit of a broader category. Uh! You could go very broad with it, but no it's good.

The the core principle of that is sounded like, which is which is, which is to truly take the time to read about the equipment you're. Putting in assume everything is a bespoke custom-made piece of equipment. Every time number nine check static pressure more often and don't just check total external static. Total external static is great to check.

The total external static is based on some prerequisites. Is your blower wheel clean? Is your filter clean? Is your evaporator coil clean, depending on where you're measuring also measure things like static pressure drop across your coil, see what the static pressure drop is there? You can use that to estimate airflow on certain pieces of equipment when you have that manufactured data check your static pressure drop across your filter if you've got a brand new filter and you're already seeing a static pressure drop of 0.25.3.4. Generally, that's going to be no bueno in residential, so make sure that you're looking at that, you can also use static pressure to see if you have a problem with your return or potentially your supply, which side of the system has the higher static pressure. So total external static, knowing how to do that, based on the type of equipment that you're working on very valuable, but also use that manometer regularly in order to measure your static pressure in some other areas.

Look for those pressure drops on the equipment in order to find problems with air flow. Remember static. Pressure is not a measurement of air flow, but it is a measurement that we can use in order to find air flow problems if you're paying attention. What is your take on measuring static? Maybe you don't do that too much given the type of equipment you work on yeah, it's definitely more important.

When you have a more complex duct system, i mean right now a lot of the cause, i'm doing don't, but definitely at the minimum. A you know, basic external static pressure at the unit allows you to set up the fan correctly so that your unit will operate correctly. So you have to at least have that which i know is you know not done a lot of times and it's pretty easy to do nowadays. You know it's always everything's getting much easier to do so.

It'd definitely be a good idea as far as the rest of the duct system, i've not played with taking more than external static pressure or, of course, you're taking it for like gas pressure valves too right like setting those up is probably pretty important yeah. I don't think much of that yeah. I know i'm not doing much gas in my in my list here, but i was saying more things like um measuring pressure drop across air filters, especially if you have media filters and that sort of thing to help diagnose particular problems. You know measuring return versus supply to see if it air flow issues, potentially more return than supply, etc.

Yeah, for sure i mean you definitely don't want to have. What i found too is people throwing one and one-inch filters in the bottom of units like fleeted ones. You can start off with like 0.6 pressure drop right there, like that leaves, you know 0.4 for the entire rest of your duck system and that's pushing it because a lot of this equipment's not really set up to run at one inch. You know that's kind of worst case, but you know you're already, starting it over half inch.

I would say that's you know. Air testing in general is probably one of the most underutilized tools and technicians, tool, bag and and um. It's usually the you know juxtapose that against how often it's actually the source or culprit of issues, there's a big gap there that we need to close, and i think, a lot of these chronic system problems and real problem units that technicians come back and replace parts On all the time, uh would finally be able to catch number eight start to read. Schematics i get the request all the time from people.

I want more training on how to read schematics guess what the way you learn how to read. Schematics every person i know who's good at reading schematics the way they got good was by reading schematics, and so until you actually start to pull that quarter panel off or pull that guide out of the inside of the unit or look at that interior panel. On that rtu, in order to find that schematic and start to trace your way through it, you go through the hard work of doing that, even when it doesn't make complete sense to you, you're not going to get good at reading schematics because it doesn't happen overnight. It's not like a bell goes off in your head that all of a sudden it becomes easy if it's hard it's a matter of doing it start at the key start by reading the notes for those of you who are newer to it, because you may not Know what all the symbols are, but that key is going to lay out the symbols, for you read the notes, because a lot of times there's going to be great information down at the bottom.

That gives you kind of a guide for what you're working on and then start to work your way through that schematic or diagram who taught you to read, schematics and and ladder diagrams self-taught. So i got to do everything the hardest way possible. I wouldn't recommend it. There is some basic videos on on the symbols and all of that and just tying it all together, but learning how to read.

Schematics is great and then two once you've seen enough schematic you kind of know what are the ways of going about stuff. So if you don't have a schematic, you can still work on stuff. So it's really really nice to understand them thoroughly and different types of circuits and that way, if you're missing a schematic or if you have to add something to the unit yeah. And i guess my point was that i think that the way to learn schematics is to just fight your way through them.

I don't i mean somebody can kind of show you the basic ropes of the symbols and how they're laid out, but i think once you have that down, you just have to do it a bunch of times until you get better at it. I don't know. I don't think there's any shortcut, but yeah i mean i agree. That's definitely you could be showing the basics, but you, like you, know, like anything else, you're going to have to look at them and scratch your head and get a deep understanding.

Some of them have some of them. I used to have like address lines, really good legends, but some of them aren't. How did you learn how to read schematics and ladder diagrams yeah? I did plenty of try. I tried to you, know, read textbooks.

You know. I did go through a schooling program and you know some things click some things didn't from doing that. So you may learn how to do it out of a book on literally the a to z on on what you're looking for, but it won't click. I think for most technicians until they spend the time to read them through, even if they're doing a quick check on a unit, even if it's not something they have to repair necessarily pop the cover off and take a look through it and see what you can Pull from it each time and you'll slowly build up it's one of the things.

That's incremental it's going to build over time, yeah extremely important, especially commercial. So you don't think it's very important in residential. No, it is it's just commercial! You have a lot of uh. You know with with the compressors and how they're all how are set up with the multiple multiple motors, knowing the wire informatics is pretty important, especially with the safeties that you have on those as well.

How did you learn how to read schematics? That's the thing: there wasn't really a spot that i could even tell you how to reach schematics, because you don't really need that expression, except on like high efficiency equipment. Most of the time you know the only schematics you're gon na really run into is like if you're on a condenser, for instance. Even then you have two pressure switches and the rest of it is pretty much self-explanatory. So the schematic reading is more so the more complicated systems or commercials are, but you still feel pretty comfortable reading a schematic, oh yeah, not for sure - and nobody taught you that's the point that i'm trying to get to because everybody's everybody wants to be taught.

But every good schematic reader, i know just learned by doing it - yeah yeah. I thought it might be more of a self-talking number. Seven use isolation, diagnosis, isolation, diagnosis simply means that you isolate the problem, so you you're paring down what the problem is. Some of the most common cases, where we use isolation, diagnosis would be things like a compressor.

So if you have a compressor that you suspect is grounded, but your meter's having a hard time finding that grounding condition and there's some reasons why that can happen. You isolate by unhooking the compressor, leave everything else in the circuit and then reset power and see if anything else, trips, if you have a breaker tripping or it's drawing high current when the compressor's in the circuit and it's not when the compressor's, not in the circuit. You likely have a grounded compressor. You can do the same thing with low voltage diagnosis by isolating your wires working through the circuit and disconnecting them.

You can, through process of elimination, find your problem now again. You know if you've got proper tools to do this. A lot of times you don't have to do it that simply there's things like the short pro tool that we've talked about, that you use in place the fuse to make isolation diagnosis easier, but at its root, you're isolating down until the problem goes away and now You've found the point at which the problem exists, so that's isolation, diagnosis, uh in its simplest form. So when i say isolation diagnosis, what does that make you think of? Can isolate different components to more easily identify your problem, whether we're talking electrical mechanical or whatever, isolation? Right, like you, could even do isolation, diagnosis for static pressure on some units by removing panels and seeing what happens.

One thing i like to do a lot too is isolate the equipment from the field wiring. If you're having a problem, then you know really quick. It's my problem in the unit or not in the unit yeah. A good example of this is when you have communicating controls.

A version of isolation. Diagnosis is to remove the communicating control from the wall where it is and take it and wire it up right at the unit, because a lot of times there's issues with the conductors, whether it's interference or maybe a shielding issue or an issue with one of the Conductors and if you take it and remove that completely wired up right at the unit, that's a version of that, but there's so many versions of it and i think every good technician uses isolation. Diagnosis. I had to do that on a communicating system from the air handler to the condenser, and i just ran the wire across the floor out the door to the unit and it worked, and so i found a permanent route didn't take too terribly long yeah, it's the Old toss, the stat wire out the window in order to wire the air handler to the condenser technique, it's to take the system and break it into separate components or systems within the system.

We're going to compartmentalize it as much as we can and um tackle one at a time, but not at the expense of going too far and then turning it into a tunnel vision scenario. I guess you could lung processes on there under that, under that blanket process of the process of where you start, like you said, not jumping the tools right away, it's knowing where to start. You know what's not running it's the visual, it's the visual cues that are, you know if you're thinking about knocking out a service call looking at things and getting to the root of the problem as fast as possible is extremely beneficial. So when i'm training a guy, it's always don't pull out any tools think about it logically have a process of where you're starting.

You know for me, i'm starting at the customer because they're going to give you the most information, the process is start with a customer from there. You can really nail down and find the issue pretty quick, so you're not double dabbling anywhere else. How does the phrase a technician is only as good as his tools? How does that phrase strike? You yeah see you'll, take someone like burt who just doesn't have anything but he's like he's top-notch um, then there's myself, who i get super bored once i buy a tool at least once a week, and i feel like looking at myself, i feel like. If i don't have the proper tools, then i'm gon na i'm actually sort of going back and forth.

If i don't have the proper tools, i feel like i'm ill-equipped and i'm not going to be able to. You know perform as well, because you know that, like 99 of at least residential problems, most good technicians could show up with a six in one screwdriver and needle nose, pliers and a multimeter. You can figure anything out, but even a multimeter, even a multimeter. You can use isolation, diagnosis and generally, you probably wouldn't even need that right.

You can diagnose anything yo motor's, not running all right, throw the capacitor in there. Oh look you got it, you know you don't really need anything for that again. Looking for those cues and having a process down over a repetition is really all it is number six is to pull better vacuums or evacuate better whatever you prefer - and this is something we've talked about a whole lot. A couple really big things are use larger, hoses test, your vacuum, pumps change the oil more regularly, use a micro, engage at the system and pull the cores, probably better off, watching the full complete evacuation video.

If you want to understand how to do that better, but we've created a bunch of diagrams we've created a lot of information on how to do that, and we've shown time and time again that you can pull much more consistent vacuums and get down to that below 500 micron range and hold where you're supposed to hold when you are using larger hoses, a pump that you know to be working micro, engage in the right position, core tools removed using those proper processes. How long did it take you just to kind of move more towards the larger hoses and removing cores, and all that i've been doing it for a long time on my channel, so somebody probably have to look back at my youtube channel to see when i started And i'm trying to remember the first couple: people that were talking about it on youtube was probably i don't know it was. It was a while ago, before, like a lot of people, even now, people aren't doing it and it just doesn't make sense to me like why waste so much time, evacuating, yeah i've been doing it for a long time and it works. So it works with the stuff we have now it works really good.

You know, i don't know about tools that we had 30 years ago, whether it was as good, but you know because we have pretty decent core remover tools. Now. No, that's good! That's really good! It should be on the list. You know, there's some tiller stuff in between that that you know probably would clean it up a little bit and and make it a little bit more digestible and more for the technician to yield from it.

So we you talked about using core removal tools. Large diameter hoses make sure the exterior of the pump is actually orange and black before you get started, and then we are going to want to make sure that the micron gauge is affixed at some point. Far from the pump, if possible, and by navic, okay, okay right when i started off as a new tech, i was so afraid of taking two vacuums, because i listened to your podcast and i read your tech tips. There was like a serious importance.

You know getting below 500 microns passing the decay test, so any evaporator. I replaced that i could only get down to 700 microns. I thought the system was gon na explode. If i didn't do it right or else i wasn't gon na get a call back.

The next day, and then you know years past and you find out, you can just release refrigerant without pulling the vacuum and probably be fine for the most part. But no, i know i know and in light of doing things correct, i think it's definitely at least four you know up there was that six or yeah. No, that was six okay number five look for wire. Abrasions! Look for rub! Outs! Look for areas that wires are rubbing on tubing or on the casing or on the cabinet.

This is a really common thing that service technicians can do whether you're a maintenance technician all the way up to a service deck. Where you can prevent a lot of heartache. You can prevent a lot of problems when that wiring is running through the casing. You have to make sure that there's a grommet in place that it's not going to cause an abrasion short there make sure that, when it's running through around the compressor that one of those compressor leads isn't rubbing on one of the lines or one of maybe the The feeder tubes inside of that condensing unit always be looking at the wires in your terminals and do a good, solid, visual inspection that you're not going to have problems down the road because of how things are routed.

Also, when you're making connections and crimps use the proper crimper use the proper connection type, i see so many crimps that are made that when you pull on them, they just pop right off or the terminal spade isn't tight enough on the terminal, always make sure that Anytime, you make a connection say: you're, disconnecting wires off a capacitor to test it when you put it back on, it needs to be tight. If it's not pinch it down a little bit when you put it back on and when you are making a crimp connection. Use the proper crimping tool use the ratcheting crimpers that we always show in our videos that are designed for insulated terminals and use the proper terminal size and give it a nice tug before you're done. And if you want to add in a little extra use.

Heat shrink connectors that when you're done, you heat strength them and then that adds a little extra support to that connection. To make sure that it's not going to come apart on you, i've gotten accused of using the turbo out too much, but that's something that i'm always looking for. Who isn't looking for an easy rub out? You know oh boy, this one hits home personally to me. I just can't tell you how many times early on - and you know hell even later in my service career - that that ended up being the source of an issue that you know drove me crazy until you know that point.

So it's really easy to say: you're going to do that and it's another thing when you spend all day going from call to call and you've got just these gigantic rats nests and you know millions of components and so there's a discipline there. But if you can get the hang of it and get a process down on how you go through it in a way that you can maybe mark or label things as you go as well, there's there's lots of reasons to go through the wiring of every unit. Beyond just the abrasions and necks, so it's a good practice to get into and in residential. I encourage people to make that part of the things that you offer to the customer.

If you have a mess on your hands, quote the customer to make it right make it. You know visually look right, but then also just prevent a lot of those problems in commercial. I think that's a big part of maintenance and regular service. If you have a contract site and you're there to do maintenance, part of that, you know that one trip you're there if you have a system that isn't well wired, meaning in terms of just how things are routed, and you know whether they're you know rubbing off On on other wires or tubing or whatever just or panels or you know, somebody took it and just jammed it in the corner of a panel rather than actually putting a grommet in and making a proper hole or whatever the case may be just make.

That part of a good service practice number four is inspect for common airflow problems. Everybody talks about measuring airflow time. We need to measure airflow well. Measuring airflow is extremely tricky for a service technician to do when you're commissioning equipment.

Yes, absolutely you want to measure air flow, you want to do test and balance all that, but when a service technician shows up, it's really important that you just look for the obvious problems. If you work in commercial, it could be things like you know, pulley wear or somebody messing around with one of the shivs or a belt. That is in poor condition. That needs to be replaced, or maybe the attention needs to be adjusted a little bit, although generally it just needs to be replaced in residential.

It would be things again like those pin settings making sure that everything is set up properly for the right airflow. To begin with things like your evaporator coil, is it dirty look on that underside, your blower wheel, look in your returns to make sure that somebody didn't jam a filter back into a return that wasn't supposed to ever have a filter in it, which happens. Surprisingly, a lot somebody just takes the screws off because they formerly had a filter back return grille, and they just think that that's where filters always go and they jam one back in there. So look for all those obvious signs check.

If you can access your ductwork check physically to make sure that it isn't damaged or crushed to make sure that it doesn't have improper sags in it. Those are all things that a technician can do visually where you can find a lot of problems. So i would not ever as much as i believe in testing and measuring. I would never downplay the importance of visual inspection.

I think everybody gets too hung up on. I mean i i'm a fan of measurement if anybody is, but i think common airflow problems can often be found just by doing visual inspection, regardless of the type of equipment. It is whether it's refrigeration, all the way up through large air conditioning. Exactly like look at the easiest things first right, air filter is usually pretty easy to look at.

Coils may not be especially if they're after a furnace, but you know you can at least look look at the easiest things. First right, easiest things is usually the most likely to be the problem, the risk of being redundant from from the last airflow tip on the list. Again, it's the airflow issues that are well well more often than not the core issue of a system problem. If you have a whole system problem or equipment, that's not performing the way it should in cooling or heating that space and if we've eliminated improper equipment sizing a lot of times.

It's going to be in that duct work and you know an issue that directly points back to that air flow. So, yes, it's incredibly incredibly important to be testing clean drain lines and drain pans properly clean them thoroughly. Do not just clean drain lines from the tee. Do not just blow it out and leave do not just suck it out and leave clean it thoroughly until it's clean, so we're talking about getting underneath that evaporator coil.

We use real thin bottle brushes to run underneath the edges of that coil. To make sure you get everything out of that tray, we've had so many cases where other companies have said that somebody had a crack drain pan or some other significant problem where they tell the customer. They need a whole new system or a whole new coil. When it's just a matter of some rust corrosion sludge, whatever got into the section of the drain, pan that runs underneath the evaporator coil and caused a clog, so make sure that you're cleaning everything thoroughly as part of your service calls and as part of your maintenance.

Now, i'm not telling you have to do it for free, but always make sure that you are at least addressing it if it needs addressing and you're communicating that to the customer. It's the most common call around us anyway is slimed up drain lines. You know i mean have little have all the little tricks in your bag to deal with any of the silly drain situations. You find you know from little pieces of clear tubing to stick under a coils, or you can even get under there with a brazing rod to clean up those channels to get stuff moving.

You can pull a blower and slide the coil forward a little to get to the back track without pulling the whole evaporator. You know all the little tricks you know, jamming that clear tubing down in a trap and getting the slime out flowing water through. If you can, nitrogen really doesn't do as great of a job as people like to think, and they have those little co2 guns which they're really not that great. If you can flow water through there at a high at a high volume like out of a garden hose, that's the best bet, but i know that's not always practical.

I i don't have a problem with that being on the list. I don't think it needs to be in the top three. Oh really i mean no okay top ten, a top ten sure sure, but i put it up here between eight and ten. Frankly, i think the other things that we've gone through so far are far more uh important and again, maybe that's a geographical ignorance.

It sounds like probably it's much more of an issue where you're at given some of the pictures i've seen you put on facebook. Yes, yes seems to be the case. Okay, so that's in dispute. So, if what do you think is the very best way to clean a drain line like if you, if you don't, have any barriers what's the best way, and this is having all the tools necessary for the tools necessary, so the best way is going to be.

Obviously, cleaning the side pans is going to be a big one, having the necessary brushes to get into the sides all the way in the front flushing the water through, but also the the drain line in front of the air handler, which is normally not super accessible. I even i'd even throw in to that tip during pitch, unless you have that on something else. So, okay, making sure the drain is pitched properly as well right, drainage, pitch plenty of people will go and clean a drain line, but a pitch of the drain mixed with heart buildup. In that horizontal drain exiting the air hammer right is actually causing enough issue to you know not painting on your warranty the drink cream.

It was that the whole time but um cleaning, horizontal portions of drain near the coil or air handler and the pitch of that section being just as important as cleaning the drain. In your mind, right, like you, can do a basic. You can do a basic drain. Cleaning and that's defined, but unless the water is actually making it to that section of the drain line, so you can do a really good job within the first three feet of the air handler and basically the rest is not really i'm not really interested in that Number two test: all modes of operation.

Now again, if it's in the middle of summer, it's going to be hard to test heat and if it's in the middle of winter, it's going to be hard to test cooling fully. But you can at least make sure if you're doing any changes to the system. That it at least operates in the other mode at least turns on, especially when you're doing something like changing a control board or changing a thermostat that could potentially affect those other modes. Don't just fire it up in the mode that you're going to run it in and walk away, especially with things like auxiliary heat strips that could potentially be on and run up a power bill.

You always want to make sure that all of the different modes work properly, if you have multi-stage equipment, make sure that it stages up and stages down. If you have some sort of humidifier or dehumidification control make sure that those operate properly as well. Don't just trust whenever you make a significant change, especially to controls that it's going to work properly in that other mode. Indeed, there was a compressor.

I replaced that had went bad like twice previous people had replaced the compressor and they didn't check to make sure that the unit shut off when the call for cooling ended and as it turns out the way the system was wired, it was wired to a building Automation system - and it was just a little standard air conditioner, but it would shut off, had a pump down solenoid and that's the only thing that the building automation would shut off. So the condensing unit would literally just run forever trying to pump down anytime that it wasn't a copper cool and that's what was causing them to go bad yeah, that'll, take them out for sure yeah, so heat cool, dehumidification pump down any anything. That applies to that. You know staging up and down uh high stage low stage, whatever make sure that that all works.

Obviously, if you're dealing with a you know a variable frequency drive or something like that, you have to make sure that ramps up and down based on the various parameters that a variable frequency drive can operate under um. Don't just assume it's going to do what it's supposed to do: um yeah! If i could see the merit to that um, if you have the means to compensate or the the technical know-how - and you know the equations, you would need to know or you have the instrumentation, you need to have to compensate for the ambient conditions right to just Flip something into heat mode in the middle of july, as long as you know what you're doing and are able to truly determine and walk away, knowing that it was running well, even though it's not going to display what it should and it's given. You know in its intended climate um, then that's then that's fine and i would also go one little step further, that that would make sense for the most part in in residential scenarios. Maybe some light commercial scenarios, but obviously you may have situations in commercial settings where one you can't just turn a whole building around.

No, you need to just fire up the boilers. You know any of our. You know hydronic systems and you know larger equipment. Vrf stuff, like that, you may not want to throw things back and forth from you know unless you've definitely cleared that with your customer and then finally, my number one tip and the one that i think will save the most call backs and the most heartache is Leave the equipment running when you walk away from it.

So i want you to know from just without a shadow of a doubt that when you go back into that house to set that thermostat back to what it was all the settings that it was when you got there that the very last thing you checked was That equipment was all running if it's in the summer make sure it's running and draining if the drain line is draining, if it's in winter make sure everything's operating safely. If it's a gas furnace, obviously make sure that you don't have any spillage of co and again, most of my tips are more kilted towards the air conditioning and refrigeration side. If you're, working primarily with furnaces, this list would probably be different. I'll get jim bergman's quick list to append to this.

But again my number one tip is to make sure that you don't rush away from that job without knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that there is nothing else wrong with it, a lot of technicians. They want to get out of the job as quickly as possible because they don't want that customer to ask them any more questions, they're, tired of being on the job, but the last thing you want to do is rush away from that job without being 100. Confident that there is nothing wrong, if you do the thing where you walk away from the house, you hear the unit running and, as you get into the van you hear it shut off, stop what you're doing and go in and double check that there wasn't. Maybe a breaker tripped or a float, switch trip, or something like that that caused the system to cycle off and that it was indeed just the thermostat shutting it off.

You want to be 100 sure that you have an operating system. Definitely a good idea to leave it running in whatever mode it needs to be in and verify that it is doing that before you leave. Even if you're talking about, like you know, put it in cool, stick a k-type thermocouple at the supply duct and make sure you see, like a supply temperature that you'd expect the silliest callback creators guys rush away from a call and leave a disconnect off because they're, Like oh well, i'm it's a capacitor put one in and you know maybe test it and not strap it in and then they're like all right. It runs and then they strap the capacitor in and walk away and it disconnects off.

You know something silly like that. Can really come back to get you and it just doesn't make anybody happy with you. Absolutely that's the list anything else you want to add to the list before i let you go pretty good list there i mean. I don't think i really need to add anything to that.

I'm sure people that work on gas equipment more might i don't know, i think we kind of went over that though, but people in different markets might add different things, but pretty good use your eyes more use your eyes more because people, everybody loves to go to The tools - and it's like that saying when you, when you have a hammer everything becomes a nail, so i like to use my eyes as much as possible before i start turning tools, i'm in use your other senses, like multiple fans, run your hand in front of Them make sure they're all spinning and moving air, because i've seen where one will look like it's pushing air, but it's really just spinning backwards because the other fans are doing that to it. So you know especially rooftop units too, where they're really high up, and you can't see the condenser fans and there's multiple fans. I've definitely been the victim and almost been the victim of that of not you know reaching my hand up on top of the unit and feeling that all the fans are pushing air in the direction they're supposed to so use. Your senses use your your sight and your feel to check all the easy stuff.

First, as far as things missing from the list, i'd have nothing about furnaces or gas. Just because that's not really what this list is, let's be honest, and then i also don't have anything on the refrigerant side, conspicuously missing. Well, no, i i think that at least half the things on the list would apply to heating equipment, just as fine as the cooling right or, if we're doing you know any repairs on a furnace in the winter up north or something you'd still want to go Ahead and run it run it in heat before you leave it's a stretch to say airflow category, but if you're doing combus combustion analysis on every gas-fired piece of equipment, you come across that that could fit into the always testing airflow. You know if you were to maybe reword the airflow part of the list a little bit, and also, i think part of leaving the system running would be more like make sure that it's operating before you leave and part of ensuring that a system is operating is Some sort of quantitative measure of operation, it's more than just throwing your hand over the proverbial uh condenser fan it's right, you're, taking some measurements to confirm that that is happening.

But i i'm careful so i did intentionally exclude like your typical refrigerant readings, because i just don't think in terms of broad list that covers everything from maintenance to service that that's actually something that i do always want people doing yeah. Absolutely i'm trying to think on the spot of of other things that i wanted a list like this. Maybe you know it's not as hands-on with the tools or anything like that, but um. The idea of always taking tons of pictures when we're working on a piece of equipment particular ones that we've never maybe um, experienced before it's a good way to track.

What you're doing, if you do need to reach out to somebody for assistance. You've got some photos on hand to share and indicate what may be the issue also taking you know, including in that picture, album always a shot of the name plate as well capturing the model, cereal of the equipment, and that's that's, i think, good practice for everybody. Whether they're senior or uh, you know an apprentice. You can also spread that into just the general note-taking as well.

I think having a notepad um in addition to your phone is good practice. That's the final roundup! Now there wasn't anything refrigerant related to any of those tips. I know, and you deliberately stayed away from that yeah i i so do you think you? Where would you think it belongs? What would you say about refrigerator? The problem with the refrigerant is: there's no rule of thumb. For anything, so i mean there's so many variables that go into that.

So having just three things to check for is not really, i mean so like. What would you? What would you add? Like throw your hand over the condenser and make sure she was blowing hot, i don't know, could you fill your your five pillars in there i mean that could be a tip. Okay, i mean there's so much just in that. So we'll add we'll make that tip.

Number 1.1 is part of leaving the system running is verifying its operation, which is using the appropriate five pillars or non-invasive testing. So that's part of making sure that the system is running and operating right. We're really stacking a lot into one. Now that's kind of cheating anything else that i missed.

I even want to. I even want to throw on make sure it's draining at some point in one of the steps, because that's a big one. Well, that's that's! Maybe the drain cleaning one yeah leave it running and draining i mean. That's that's so that's one dot two is also draining in the summer but see you can't always you know like it doesn't always drain.

You know it's something it doesn't always drain, but, like i make a habit of my even though left system, cooling and draining you know, even if it's not just to cover my own butt, you know i'm saying. Okay, i didn't say anything about capacitors: either. Did that belong somewhere in here? Do you think no capacity i mean if you don't know how to test the capacitors on the first pump, you probably shouldn't be doing the stuff. So it's like one of those things where just like it's the first thing you learn and it's like wiring, which you already have on.

There is probably the biggest thing as far as hooking up a capacitor, but the actual you know science behind what a capacitor does. I don't really care about obviously testing, it's extremely easy. So so that is my list review, wiring settings and transformer tapping review, control, wire settings, pin settings dip, switch settings, thermostat settings transformer tapping, never just assume that a system comes out of the box, set up properly check your static pressure more often and in more ways Total external static, yes, but also pressure drop across coils pressure drop across filters. Return versus supply to isolate potential problems, read schematics if you're not comfortable with them.

That's when you need to read them the most, even when you aren't doing something that requires electrical, get used to just reading them and tracing your way through them, identifying the different components that they represent and the wires that run between those components by using the schematic Use isolation: diagnosis, isolate until you are certain that you know which component is the field component, evacuate better, pull better vacuum by using some of these modern tools and techniques watch out for wires that are poorly connected or could potentially be rubbing out on metal that could Create a short circuit or a grounded condition inspect for common airflow problems, use visual inspection to find common airflow problems. While you are walking around the home and around the air handler or furnace clean drains and drain pans better. However, you're doing it now double down on it, you can solve so many problems and prevent so many issues by cleaning drain lines and drain pans, better test, all modes of operation, anytime, you're, making a change to the controls at all and leave the system running and Do not rush away again. I could add 30 more tech tips to this, but i'm trying to keep it basic for you.

Big thanks to andrew grieves, eric melly and sam banky for coming on and kind of adding in their flavor, and thank you for subscribing and keeping the gears a turning. We're going to have a really good 2021. Hopefully, hopefully it'll be better than 2020 and we got a lot of great videos that are going to be coming out soon. So appreciate you and we'll see on the next.

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