I can feel makeup air coming down. Oh there's something in there. What are they doing? I think they might have filled these with cardboard, there's cardboard in there, what the heck! Well, that's cute: someone decided to try to make their own baffle or something this video is brought to you by sportlin quality, integrity and tradition. Today, we've got a call on uh exhaust, not working, don't know which one they're saying in the middle of their broiler area area, so um looks like we've got a belt on the ground right here.

So, let's just see what we got running running running they're all running. I wonder what they're tripping about. I don't like these belts on the ground, though, but yeah all the exhaust fans are running what the heck hmm interesting! Well, i'm just pulling them apart. Looking at them, but this is a newer exhaust fan.

We installed this not too long ago and it's vibrating to all hell. I don't know if that's coming through on the camera but uh. I have a feeling there's, there's grease, built up on the wheel or something because that's that's not good to vibrate that bad. I don't see anything stuck on the wheel.

I mean there's a little bit of grease on there, though i'm gon na recommend they have it cleaned but uh yeah. That's that's not a good vibration, but we're just gon na keep checking the rest of them they're all running though so i don't know what they're talking about. I mean so far. The units are fine, pulleys are good belts, are snug, don't say anything wrong.

I i don't know what to tell them all the exhaust fans are running they're all running in the right direction. The makeup air unit was running. The belt is nice and snug, don't see any problems there um i'm gon na fire this guy back up, but i guess again, the make-up air unit can be part of a smoke issue. Uh.

These filters are plugged, so maybe we're having a we're, not delivering makeup air. Maybe that's a problem. Huh. These uh hood filters look to be plugged to me.

I'm gon na have to have them pull them down, but these ones right here, they're they're, pretty built up. So i'm wondering if that might be the problem i can feel make a pair coming down. Oh there's something in there. What are they doing? I think they might have filled these with cardboard, there's cardboard in there, what the heck! Well, that's cute.

Someone decided to try to make their own baffle or something those filters are definitely dirty, but again it's hard to get them out right now because they all come out together. So look at the inside of these filters, yeah they're plugged for sure they're not cleaning these properly. I could notice a huge, sound change. When i pulled the one filter out, i was able to get them out safely, so the problem is they got stuff cooking already.

So so this is a tricky one, because everything is working when i got here so i have to do my best to just kind of troubleshoot everything. So these are the four motor starters they're all fairly new. I can't see there really being a problem with them, but when the hood switch gets turned on, these are the contactor coils that open and close so just to see if there's something funky going on, i'm going to stop them and make sure they re-engage as if, Like a coil was failing or something you know, but i don't see any problems. I mean they're, all re-engaged they're, all pulling back on.

So, okay, let's jump back up on the roof, so these are tricky ones because it could either be an intermittent problem and or um. It's one of the issues that i already found like the plugged up hood filters and or the the cardboard in the makeup air screens. Now i have a guess on why that cardboard was there, but i'll explain that in a minute also the plugged up filters on the make-a-bear unit, the make-up air unit blows through those perforated screens. That was on that, where that cardboard was at and um.

For some reason, there's a when i opened up and showed you guys up into the hood vent right there there's supposed to be another perforated screen up higher and if you have all those perforated screens in there theoretically, it creates even airflow and air distribution. Now, in the past, i've had to talk with this customer before because they think that those makeup air units are air conditioning, and my, i guess, because i didn't put the cardboard there. My guess is that they put that cardboard there thinking that they could control the airflow and slow it down, probably because they were cold in the winter time um here in california, we don't have very cold winters and the make-up air unit runs all the time. So i bet you anything: they were cold, so they put that cardboard up there because there's no direct fire uh supplement or uh.

You know, there's no heat. Basically, in the makeup air there's only cooling because there's an evaporative cooler, so i have a feeling that they did that over the winter, just because they were cold. We get stuff like that happening, and this is why you got to look at the big picture. I don't know that that was the problem, but it's things like that.

That can go missed for a long time and then you know, then you find them years later or something like that and kitchen staff will do that kind of stuff. Thinking that you know this is this is too cold? It can't be that cold. It's like well, you know we have to address it another way, because that's the make-up air. We need it anyway.

So um we're gon na pull these uh filters on this guy check. These guys out real quick all right. These filters are plugged um. This is looking up to the sunlight.

I mean you could barely see anything through. So we're going to give these guys a rinse. I don't think they would need coil cleaner. They probably just need water.

Good rinse, the cell deck media pad, does need to be replaced, it's disintegrating, but it's also falling out and not sitting in correctly, but i don't think it's restricted. I mean i could feel plenty of air moving through the cell deck pad. So we're going to start by cleaning these first all right. These things are bad um, and you know this is starting to happen as restaurants are starting to open up here in california, they're really starting to realize the severity.

But i mean look at the stuff and i'm rinsing from the inside out, but look at all that stuff just coming out of there right now, that is nasty, so got ta, make sure that we are thoroughly doing our job. You know the exhaust fan system. Again, i still don't know what their problem was because everything's working - and it's not smoky in the kitchen right now. But we got to do the best to look at the big picture and evaluate everything and understand that an exhaust fan is part of a system.

And it's not just a fan, so you don't just: oh the fans are working and call it a day. You know: we've got to um, be thorough and understand how the system works. So, with an exhaust fan, you have multiple exhaust fans, usually in a hood and then there's some sort of makeup air. There should be at least you know other things that can happen, and i will check before i leave there's uh.

Sometimes there's dampers, i mean uh access panels that grease cleaners will take off to clean the hood system and uh. You know, they've i've had service calls where the access panels were left off. I mean there's so many things to check so big picture diagnosis as usual. Guys you don't just come in and say: well, the fans are working.

I don't know you know we go look at everything, hood filters, something as simple as that: they're plugged yeah. I don't clean hood filters. That's not my job, but these are makeup. Air filters by the way, but i shouldn't even say, filter well yeah, they're filtered but grease filters.

I guess we call them for the hood they're meant to capture the grease before it gets up to the fan but um. You know you got ta, look at everything and give the customer the best bang for their buck. When you come out here, you can see the difference now i mean you can see right through it. So so these are pre-filters to filter the air before it gets to the cell deck media, which is the evaporative cooling media.

So on the cell deck media, you've got a water pump right here and a temperature controller right there when it gets above the set point. Sensors right there turns on the water pump, starts flowing water across the cell deck pads and it's an evaporative cooler. So it brings air across that cell deck pad. That's wet evaporates.

The water drops the temperature of the air, it does add humidity, though so you got ta be cautious about that, so um all right, we're gon na put this guy together. I am gon na quote new cell deck pad because it is falling apart and disintegrating and when we do something like that, we'll quote all new spray rails on the top new hose new water pump new float, the temp control should be fine. We might change the sensor on it, but yeah. We should be good on the control all right.

We got that back up and running since i'm up here. I'm just checking all their other exhaust fans and i come over to this one and there was cobwebs on it and it's not running and i thought maybe we had left it off or something you know, turn it on nope, it's locked up and when you try To spin it you can hear the bearings bearings are bad in that motor, so uh we'll go ahead and make them aware of this. Guy too. Let them know their restroom.

Exhaust fan is not working properly and to save myself some headaches here, it could be something as simple as replacing the motor, but what happens if it's cheaper to buy an exhaust fan as a whole instead of just a motor? I don't know so with that being said: whenever i work on this stuff, i take down the curb dimensions. I take down the wheel dimensions of the fan, also take down the motor information and the pulley dimensions. That way i have power to go anywhere. I can change the whole fan with the information i have today, or maybe just the motor it's.

You know completely up to the customer, and it also depends on how much, because sometimes on some of these small fans, it's cheaper, just to replace it. So we'll see you know, sometimes we get these calls and we don't know what was going on because it's working when you got there. So when i got to this restaurant, the exhaust fans were working, everything was fine, but again the whole big picture. Diagnosis thing: okay, got to step back, got to try to recreate the problem.

Look into it. Ask questions try to figure things out, so i did find some stuff going on here and what i found is is that all the exhaust fans were running all the belts were fine, you know no access doors or anything could come off. We tested the control system as best as we could to make sure that contactors were re-engaging. You know by by hitting the stop button and stuff, but i found that the hood filters were plugged up.

Okay - and you know you can't always judge the hood filters by the look, but i just kind of get this feeling that you know when some of these places haven't been doing preventative maintenance. They probably haven't been cleaning their filters properly either. So i was able to you know, inform the customer that they needed to have their hood filters clean. Now, that's on them.

They got to do that. But in looking at that, i noticed that the makeup air just didn't quite feel right and then i realized that there was cardboard in the perforated grills and then on top of that i don't know if you guys caught it. But when i pulled down that first grill and i looked up into that makeup, air diffuser or whatever you want to call it there's supposed to be a second perforated grill up there, there's supposed to be two perforated grills and what they do is by having two Perforated grills: it allows that whole entire cavity to load evenly and distribute evenly, even though the ducts only come down in three places right. So the duct opening is only in three places, but because they have those double perforated grills, it allows for a nice, even distribution.

So couple things number one that second perforated grill was missing inside that diffuser, okay and then i found the cardboard and i did talk to the manager actually, the kitchen manager because uh he he was the one he goes yeah. I did that, and you know - and i had to explain to the general manager and the kitchen manager - explain how the makeup air works and i explained to them, because the reason why they put that cardboard there was because the hottest part of the kitchen you know When they're standing in front of their grill, you know flipping burgers or whatever they're doing he said. My cooks are always sweating and they're getting hotter, they're really really cold. You know, and he goes in and we don't get even air coming out of that thing and he goes and it's you know the guys get hot and i go okay, but i had to explain to them that that is not air conditioning and that is not There for the cooks, that is there for the building balance and to be a makeup air right so between the hood filters being plugged up and the makeup air not being distributed properly because they had all that cardboard in there and those perforated grills are missing.

My best guess is that's why they were having smoke issues in the kitchen. Now i couldn't recreate the smoke issues that they were talking about, and i will say something too that when i saw the general manager and the kitchen manager, both of them did not seem too concerned with the amount of smoke that they heard was there and what I mean by herd, is there was a new manager that was working and that manager was the one that said it was too smoky in the kitchen. So i think there's a couple things actually going on here. I think someone was overreacting a little bit thinking that the kitchen was too smoky, but then we had some issues too the hood filters being plugged up and then blocking off those makeup - air grills.

Okay, so i did bring up to the facilities department that we need to get those perforated grills replaced. I've got to reach out to greenheck because i believe they're, the manufacturer of the hood, i think, but anyways i have to go back through my stuff. I have to reach out to greenheck, and i'm going to quote that appropriately. Now, i'm also going to be quoting to repair that makeup air unit, as i mentioned too, because we need to get the new cell deck media replaced the cell deck pads.

Are you know rotting out and we need to go ahead and do a rebuild on the cooling system of that evaporative cooler because come summertime. You know, even though i said that that's not an air conditioner, it still tempers the air, and you know if we're bringing in that ridiculous amount of air into that kitchen and we're just pumping in 120 degree air. Well, that is going to affect the building temperatures too right. Now, it's not as hot, yet we're like 85 ish.

You know 90, i think, was the hottest day, but that was only for a day. It's currently right now april 10th of 21, okay, so um. But here in about a month or two we're going to be 95 to 115 for the rest of the summer, so we definitely want to get this addressed, but the cooling issue you know in the evaporative cooler you know as far as the the cell deck pads And stuff that i don't think had much to do with the smoke per se, i guess it could have had a little bit with the plugged up pre-filters. But again the point i'm trying to make is is you've got to look at the big picture.

You cannot just go in with that fixation on everything's working, i'm out in bounds right because you know there's more to be found. You just got to open your eyes and then, while i was up there, you know found an exhaust fan for the restrooms, not working. So it's all stuff that i can bring up and i'm being observant and because i have access to the roof, i'm up there doing something else. I can poke my nose around and say and bring up to the customer.

Hey you got an exhaust fan, not working and i'm generating work for myself too legit, not being you know, not ripping them off or anything like that, i'm just observing and bringing to their attention and saying hey. Do you want me to address these other issues that i found while i was there okay, so it is so so important to take a step back and look at the big picture. Okay, hey! I really appreciate you guys making it to the end of this video. If you haven't already, please go check out my website.

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