In this video, i'm hanging out again with my new buddy craig miguel from acservicetech.com and we're talking about leak detection craig is an unashamed fan of ultrasonic. So i talked to him about that, a little bit and in general we just have a talk about some of our best practices that we've learned in the field. Craig has a whole bunch of these types of practices and more on his website acservicetech.com and in his book that he's written for ac service technicians. So take a look at that when you get a chance but hope you enjoy this video craig and i talking about leak, detection leak, detection and specifically, i want to get your take on ultrasonic leak detection.

But first i'm going to give my experience and have you diagnose my experience because i've never been able to make ultrasonic leak, detection work like when i try to find an evaporator coil leak. You know your typica typical formic leak on an evaporator coil. I just never got a result, but i also didn't ever put the work in you know. So i take the you know the little the parabolic pro, not the parabolic, the little probe, and i just never pick up anything.

Let's start there. Why do you think i suck so bad at ultrasonic extension, ultrasonic leak, detection works really well, when you have the oil that has been slung through the whole system, if there's oil on the inside of the tubing, so it works best right after you shut the system Off and it's equalizing, and so you have that wheel over the the leak location, and so it makes a squealing noise as it exits through the the tube interesting also on the outside of the tube it works. In my experience, work has worked great on evaporator coils, because they're already wet you know for during air conditioning mode between the oil on the inside of the tube and the the water on the outside of the tube. It makes a distinct squealing noise, and sometimes i can hear it as soon as i open the door to an evaporator coil.

Sometimes i have to get the tube close enough to where the leak is. But what i do like about it is that i feel - and i have confidence to where, if i go past, where the leak is, it doesn't matter how fast i go doesn't matter if there's like wind, pushing the chemicals away from my sniffing tool, and i feel Like i just go right past it and i pick it up immediately and then i can just kind of go into it. I just i feel, like i have confidence going past the leaked spot locations. However, it's not going to make as good of a sound if the.

If all the tubing is completely 100 dry on the inside and the outside. I don't know why. Uh you haven't been picking up a leak. You can say it, you can say it.

Lack of talent use your error, earphones on your ears or with somebody else. I didn't plug the earphones in i'm like this thing, isn't doing a thing: it's funny. It's just one, i've only and so backup. I've only tried it a few times and i actually had uh one of them sent to me at one point early on in htc school they're like here test this out, see how you, like it and i'll admit.

I got really impatient with it. I had a it was a coil that was sitting out here in the shop that had a known leak and i was able to pick it up with an electronic and i couldn't notice anything. But it's an interesting point that you make so it sounds like the squealing noise is largely the vapor passing over liquid. Then right, yes, absolutely yeah! I mean it makes the noise become so loud.

You know once once that happens, the ultrasonic noise, so maybe in that instance, there was no refrigerant wheel near the leak on that evaporator coil. Potentially, if i had an evaporator coil out of the system before, i would even start searching it, i would probably hit it with a spray bottle spray spray water all over or just hit it with a hose quick if it was literally outside - and i had a Pressure test on it, that's exactly what i would do before using the ultrasonic leak detector. You may not want to do that. You know, and so you're just trying to sniff with the you know something uh, a heated, diode or infrared, or something like that.

You're trying to pass by the leak location, so everybody has their own methods and it's helped me to find leaks. I couldn't find before and that's what kind of pushed me over the edge on evaporator coils, where it had like, say three tubes deep and the leak was so tiny that you're not going to get enough chemical out to smell it with a detector. Now i've seen you know you, you have some videos out there that that the sniffing tool uh reacts to an extremely extremely small amount of chemical and, and that might be the solution feeling on the whole thing. Do you, as a technician, have three leak detectors in the truck? If you have three, you have two too many.

Some people have five of them and they're all like two 300 dollar models. Every time that you take one out, if you don't have confidence in that one or don't know how to try to find leaks with whatever one that you choose to to use, you have to figure out a way to have complete confidence in that tool and know How to to orient yourself to have the best results, yeah, and so that's really all it comes down to, regardless of which leak detector, you you use, and you can't just use bubble leak detector. You know because you'll be sitting there forever. I've done it when i started out in the field i had, i had a leaks and i would take the evaporator coil cover off.

I would soap up all that soap, all the joints and the lines everything after all that time, and then i just wouldn't find the leak um. Now, that's great because you know in the in the essence of the the bubbly detector was. It was easy for me to find leaks that are that are obvious on the the 90 joints and things like that on evaporator coils, but you got to have some way of and some confidence in the tool that you're using yeah. No, that's absolutely i mean i use the h10 for most of my early career, because it's what old dave barefoot taught me on you know, that's what he had and that's what i used, but you pointed out, you know like the challenge is: is that even the Older models, they wouldn't react with uh your modern hfc refrigerants.

Not some of them wouldn't react at all and regardless with modern hfc refrigerants, you don't get the the level of reaction that you used to get and now look at what the manufacturer says. It is i'm not disputing uh with their findings, but from an experience standpoint. Technicians know that when we were looking for r22, it was a lot easier than it is nowadays. It just is, and so i think, finding some different tools to to have in the toolbox to use it sounds like you would probably still be pro.

You know having a heated diode or of a sudden. My mind went blank in the other infrared infrared. That's right! Heated diode and infrared, in addition to an ultrasonic, though right or would you only or would you potentially only use ultrasonic what it comes down to? Is the company buying the tools or is a technician, buying the tools and it comes down to a lot of that type of thing, because a lot of technicians say they're not willing to buy an expensive leak, detecting tool, so they just want to have a leak. Detecting tool that's under 300, whatever that may be, and some of those, unfortunately, no matter which way you go heated, diode or ultrasonic.

It's just not good enough of a tool. Potentially, maybe you know hey, maybe somebody's going to come into the market that has a lower cost tool that you know it works every time, i'm not against having multiple ones. I have a heated diode and i have ultrasonic and i i like to have both of them. But here's.

What i want to get across is no matter what you use. You want to find the tool, that's most well versed for all refrigerants and nitrogen pressure test, or whatever you're going to do. You want to have one tool that you can go across. You know the whole system, because every time you go across the whole system as wasted time and then, if you find yourself at any point with any tool.

Second, guessing yourself did i capture it the way it should be captured, meaning the chemicals or whatever it may be. That's what i don't like right, the second guessing yeah. I don't like. Second guessing myself, i don't care what tool you use right.

Just make sure that you're so well versed in it that you have confidence and are able to find the leak quickly effectively. The first time in your experience, you've you're pretty much able to do that with ultrasonic every time. Would you say i feel like i can? Yes, uh but, like i mentioned before, you know, if you're, installing a new system uh from scratch and everything's completely dry you're gon na wan na soak the joints down on the outside. In order to try to find the leak, i wouldn't start looking for it without doing that, because i want to make sure that there's going to be some type of squealing, that's going to happen while i'm leak checking you do know if there's a leak, at least In the system, with a nitrogen pressure test and one of the things that we used to do, is you pump the unit down? If you, if you had a existing system, you pumped that unit down you'd fill it up with nitrogen, and then you start cutting sections apart and pressure testing those sections individually in the off season.

All these laborious and time-consuming things we used to to do or put dye in it and come back and and look around, but you want to have some way of finding it the the first time so on an existing system that has refrigerant oil slung through the Whole system yeah, i would, i would probably go for that ultrasonic detector - pretty much right away, just because i'm at that point with that tool that i have confidence and, like i said that doesn't mean everybody needs to go that way. You know you may have confidence in a heated diode leak detector that you know picks up r22 or for tonight or whatever other refrigerants, that you're looking for as long as you have confidence in it, i'm for you yeah. How long have you used it about? Uh? Probably about four years i think uh yeah, so i i'm using that accutrack vpe gn pro, so it has that flexible neck on it and that's made by superior signal company. So that's the one that i find the most useful.

I did a bunch of research on that tool on ultrasonic lead detection, because i was looking for an answer. I was looking for an answer because i was so frustrated right uh, with with trying to find leaks that i wanted to find one that that i could gain confidence, and once i got it, i started finding the leaks i couldn't find before, because they were so Small, that's what i guess. That's what impressed me with. It was just the very, very, very tiny leak that would just barely bubble just barely okay yeah and i couldn't find it no drive me crazy, because every year you're having to go back and recharge the system, you feel like a failure, because you can't find this Leak, no matter what tool you put across this and all the time you spend on that so frustrating you know, and so that's what made me switch over to that nice.

Well, i guess i need to give it another try. Then it sounds like and now i feel like a failure. You know: okay, fair enough, i know you know, hey i've, seen some of the videos that you put out and and uh some of the tools that you're using and and and those ones work. You know so it's whatever you have confidence in.

So, let's talk through just some of the technologies, really quick for somebody who isn't familiar with just the options that are on the table and we'll kind of just talk through um, positives and potentially negatives for each one or not even tools but just processes in general. First off for people who are newer, sometimes people don't get the difference between a pressurization test that you would do with nitrogen and doing a leak search with an electronic uh detection. So, let's, let's hit that quickly in reference to a pressure test. If you have an existing system, you can't put nitrogen in it because you have the refrigerant in there.

You would need to pump that system down if it has a reciprocating compressor or you're going to have to just close the valves and recover the refrigerant out of that system. If it has a scroll compressor and once you pull the refrigerant out, you just have uh refrigerant lines that are empty and at atmospheric pressure at that point, you're going to add inert gas such as nitrogen and you're, going to put that into the system. But here's one thing: that's a big thing for me: when i'm teaching in the classroom is you don't want to over pressurize the system? I feel like there's a lot of leaks that are made by over pressurization on older systems. Yeah and what's funny is a lot of those older evaporator coils.

They used to be made for heat pumps, some were made for heat pumps and some were made for air conditioning systems right well, the ones that were made for heat pumps were designed for a max design pressure that was much higher than these older ones were. So in the case of an old r22 evaporator coil, it may have had a max pressure design pressure of 125 psig right, and you know here you're there on an existing system. That has you know, rusted galvanized, touching the copper and it's prone to leaks. And here you go pressurizing it up to 350., all right psi and you you make a leak.

Oh, i found the leak, but you just made it. You know you just made a bunch of leaks. Actually right. That's no good! That's the old saying! If there isn't a leak, i'm gon na make one i've heard far too many technicians say that um as a joke, hopefully so yeah exactly uh, nitrogen pressure can be overdone um, obviously you're not going to have any leak detector that is actually sampling the gas.

That's going to work with nitrogen and that's something that i think a lot of newer technicians miss you can't just use a heated diode or an infrared or really any of those types of sampling, um designs with nitrogen alone, because most of our atmosphere is made of Nitrogen uh - and i always forget what the number is: it's like around 80 yeah right about right about that. So so, if you had uh something that would sample on nitrogen, it would be going off all the time because our atmosphere is made of nitrogen. The air is made of nitrogen, but nitrogen can be used because it's inert and it's not going to react inside the system because it doesn't have that oxygen content. It's dry, it doesn't have a it, has very low level of moisture content.

So it allows us to boost up that pressure so that we can do one of two things we can either do a bubble test. We can do a standing pressure test or you can potentially do an ultrasonic test with with nitrogen as well. So you have those options afforded to you, but what you don't do, because i've seen newer technicians who sometimes maybe they come out of school and they start to get ideas mixed up. You know they're, like okay, well, this system's leaking.

So let's do a nitrogen test. It's like all right. Well, first, like you said decide do we have refrigerant still in this system, because if you do then go ahead and do a leak search before you even go doing any of that other stuff, you only go to doing nitrogen once you don't have refrigerant in the System, if you're starting off in the first place, for example, yeah, so i mean you're, hitting uh great points, because i i remember that myself, you know with uh students in the classroom. They would get confused on.

How do you leak check yeah? So if if the system has refrigerant in it and it's leaking, don't don't take any steps. Yet just look. Look for that leak with your with your leak detection methods, uh, whether that's a heated, diode, infrared, ultrasonic or even just anti-corrosive bubble leak. Detector.

Make sure you don't use soap and water bubble leak detector, because i've seen that stuff eat through yeah, uh, tubing and and just not good, and you can't get it seemingly. You can't get it off, but you have a new installation and you just got done brazing and you were you're flowing nitrogen. Hopefully, while you were brazing and now you're going to put a pressure test on that you're going to look at the max design pressure at the evaporator coil, as well as the outdoor unit, the indoor coil, which is also known as the evaporator coil for at least Air conditioning mode that one will have a lower max design pressure, so you're going to go, buy that now you don't have to put it up that high, because some of them are rated for 550 psi and - and you may be working with compound gauges that only Have 325 psi max on the on the compound gauge that which will be the say, the low side, the blue gauge? And so you can't really you utilize that. But what is really good is if you use a digital manifold, because you can see that incremental change.

Real easily that tiny pressure drop, yeah yep, that's real important to use a digital manifold you're just going to wait. Do it do a standing test and just to see if that nitrogen pressure is going to fall, and you also have to monitor your temperature as well. You know if the temperature changes, your nitrogen will change. A lot of people think that it doesn't change, but it actually does not as much as say a air pressure test on a propane or natural gas line like when you're first installing it it doesn't jump as much, but it does move.

That's you just want to see if you're going to be losing your your nitrogen pressure and if, if you don't, then you can go ahead and release that nitrogen pressure and then start your start. Your vacuum procedure yeah - and you pointed out some really good things here, because i recently did a nitrogen pressure test procedure. Illustration that i did not remember to point out the evaporator test. You know observing the evaporator test pressure, so you've uh you've.

Given me an edit that i need to make now and that's a really good one, but also keep in mind that it's really when you're nitrogen pressurizing just look to the lowest number and make that your maximum number you got ta hit because in some cases, um And this is something a lot of people forget if you are pressurizing inside of your condensing unit, your compressor shell and therefore your fusi terminals are on the low side of that system and a lot of people miss that, because they think of the compressor being on The high side, but actually most of the compressor, is on the low side. The entire shell of most of the compressors we work on is on the low side, so you definitely want to be careful with not over pressurizing, and in fact, if, if you're like me, when i started in the trade, we would often pressurize systems to 60 70. 80 psi i mean again, this was on the r22 days, but that was pretty standard um for for pressurizations, especially when you're looking for a hisser as we call it. You know you know it's a big leak, um you're, probably not gon na - have to use any real advanced techniques you're just getting enough pressure in there.

So you can hear where it's leaking out. Your first leak detection procedure is your senses. You know your ears, your eyes. Is there signs of oil that sort of thing yeah? You hit it on a good point right there anytime, when i was doing an installation, you know you're you're, installing the system and then you're thinking hey.

Did i tighten down the piston chamber, you know or whatever or the the txv uh the the nut there with the teflon ring that i did? I tighten that down. Did i did i tighten down the the flare connection on the external equalizer for the txv. You want to first when you're doing your nitrogen pressure test. You want to make sure that you don't have a hisser.

You know you're going to just pressurize it to even 25 50 psi and stop and then just wait and see. Is the pressure going down immediately because you're say outside and you may not have tightened something inside there's no sense in going much higher until you you make sure that you're past your first point, you know, maybe you just pressurize it to 25 or 50.. So yeah don't waste your your nitrogen bottle on something that you have you braise all your joints, but you forgot to tighten that one connection together or you completely forgot to braise an entire joint um. I did that the other day i've been.

This is confession time. For me. I installed a new system at my own house with my 16 year old son, who has already you know, learned how to braze and some other things, and i went outside and started pressurizing it and he just came down laughing at me because it was a you Know it was quite a history seeing as how it was not braced at all so anyway, remember to braise your joints. That's another good reminder, absolutely all right! So that's kind of the distance.

I don't want to make that distinction between nitrogen pressurization leak detection and now, let's talk about if refrigerants, in the system, some of the different technologies. So let's first talk about heated diode because that's one of the most common um out there. What are in your mind, what are some of maybe the advantages disadvantage of the technology and maybe some of the techniques with the heated diode. I was always concerned about how quickly i'm going across all the joints you're going across to the fins and everything else.

You know you got to monitor when the the sensor in the in the front, if it's getting older, if it's not picking it up as well as it used to so those are things you want to keep on top of no matter what tool you're using make Sure you have a a good battery. Some of the some of the tools. Don't tell you when it has a new, an old battery. I was actually just talking with an electrician friend of mine the other day and he switched the batteries out in his thermostat twice with brand new batteries, and then he got a new thermostat and long behold.

The new batteries he was installing were no good from the package, so make sure that you even test your battery before putting it into whatever leak detector you're using, but the heated diode, depending on what model and the type and brand you get you know are pretty Good at smelling the leak so whether it's a r22 hcfc or a r410a hfc detector, you know you're just going to want to make sure you make your passes over everything and if it's real windy, you know you're going to want to maybe block off the section. So it's not pushing the chemical away from the the sniffing point. You know the end of the tool. It's common sense, stuff, interesting thing about different designs is you'll, get some designs where they place the sensor all the way at the end.

So that way, it doesn't have to go as far and then you have some designs like the h10, where that that gas has to snake all the way down that tube. And you got to know that about your device, because if it has to snake all the way down that tube, you may get a hit. Oh, i got ta hit here. Well, that may have actually, you know, come well earlier right in the process.

Um. Another thing is recognize with heated diode that the sensors they do uh start to drop in sensitivity, and some of them will allow you to adjust up the temperature on the heated diode in order to get your sensitivity back. But then you have to dial that temperature back whenever you replace the sensor. So the thing is: sensor's got to be matched for the refrigerant you're testing, um, to make sure that it's actually going to react with the gas that you're measuring and keep in mind that those sensors over time are going to weaken uh and to the point that They become completely ineffective and that's where i think a lot of people who use heated diode, who uh aren't getting good results, often don't recognize that you know, maybe at one time they were able to find leaks now they can't find them anymore.

Often it's because you got to swap that sensor out and you hit it on a good point right there. You know, depending on where the sensor placement is yeah, you really got to know your tool, so whatever tool you're using you have to have an intimate knowledge about that tool and have confidence in it, and that even goes all the way to like. Even your vacuum set up or whatever you use that same setup every time, because you know it's able to pull a deep vacuum. Well same thing with your your elite detector.

You know you got to know how to use it because you'll go right, past the leak and and then when your device is, is getting triggered. Hey. You know it smells the chemical. You know the same thing with the the infrared you have to pass it.

You know you have to make multiple passes and then you have to kind of uh once it goes off, go back to where you were and kind of keep keep dialing in back and forth back and forth until you hit the target area. So you just really really need to know how your tool works and how the different model differentiates between another model, another manufacturer, so yeah, absolutely yeah. Infrared is a really interesting technology. Moving right onto that, and you mentioned it, you have to keep moving it interesting distinction.

If you take a heated diode and you stick it right on a leak right, it'll just sit there and scream until the battery dies. Right, you take an infrared, you stick it on a leak, it'll go and then it'll just stop, and it's like, oh well. Maybe that isn't the leak, but it's because it's constantly doing this comparative analysis of the concentrations that it's measuring versus its previous measurements. Now, not all of them work that way.

So there are infrared leak, detectors that you can spend a lot of money on like the stratus or the pgmir, that do it a little differently. The pgmir is actually constantly measuring against kind of a pure sample that goes through a filter, but it also has to kind of do this recalibration every periodically now not knocking the tool we love it. We have a ton of them in our grocery uh segment because it actually shows concentrations of refrigerants and ppm, which is interesting once again, like my uh, my son who's, you know a new technician. A young technician got the stratus because i told her he's like.

What's the best leak detector out there, i'm like well go ahead and get the strat. I said it was mostly just having fun to see if he would buy it and he did and he used his tool fund money because we have tool funds, he uses to fund money to buy the the stratus and when he first got it, he hated it He's like this thing doesn't work at all. I can't figure out these i'm like well. Did you read the manual by any chance like? Did you actually, because it's not the same at all as your h10 or your testosterone ever using before and now he likes it and is used to it, but but to your point exactly they almost couldn't be more different in terms of how you use them.

I mean they, they both sample gas and work in that way, but that you they really are different practices and you have to just be confident and comfortable with your own link, detector, yeah, absolutely uh. You know, questions come in on the youtube channel about leak, detection and a lot of times it comes down to. I find the uh, the pdf of the uh, the manual for the tool. You know it may be ultrasonic or it could be heated, diode or whatever it may be, and they just got to know how the tool works.

That's it, and so i point back to the manual of that particular tool. Hey. This is how it works. You know, and that could even come to like a furnace or an air conditioning system.

I end up going back point the manual and saying line blah blah blah right there. It says this yeah and that's it. You know what i mean and so just read the manual yeah a lot. If you just go around and read all the manuals you're going to be you're, going to be awesome within your company everybody's going to come to you and ask you questions, you know why? Because nobody ends up reading the manuals.

That is absolutely 100 true, it was hilarious. You know i was you know, 19 years old working in this very large company and people would always say some version of how do you know that? How do you know all this? It's like um, i hate to break it to you yeah. I literally just read the manual. That's all i did.

It is funny how that works. I was talking with eric melly who's. One of our senior techs he's been on the podcast a lot uh. He was over for dinner and we were just talking through that he's.

Like you know, people are always like. Oh you're such an amazing technician or but mostly it's to what you're saying you don't even have to know everything right. You just have to know your own stuff. You have to know your own, your own tools, um.

If you work in a market, for example, where you never work on heat pumps. Well, then, maybe you don't need to worry about heat pumps. Maybe then, if you're working on high efficiency, gas just really know the furnaces that you work on all the time, it's not that there isn't value in learning, heat pumps and all that, if you're interested in it. But what you see is people who will do the same mistake over and over and over again, because they don't just take the time to understand their own tools and understand the equipment that they're working on you know.

If it takes you an hour to read through the manual, but now you know a lot about this equipment, and now every time you go back to it, you're going to be that much better, it's uh! It really is that simple, like i get why people? Don't you get a lot of people who will make fun of people you know like? Oh you know, don't you know how to read all that i you know we're all busy. Most of us are overworked in the trade and you get impatient and i get it but yeah you got especially with your tools. It drives me nuts, when guys will, because we have so many h10s over the years and they'll come and say: oh, it's broken, and can you send it in for me, it's like what have you done so far? Have you checked the filter in the tip? Have you replaced that? Have you checked to see if the pump is you know, moving the little red uh bead inside the probe uh? Have you replaced the sensor any time you know? Have you looked to see if it's even heating up almost? Never it's always just it's broke, send it in it's just such a waste. You know these things are designed to.

Some of them are designed to be serviced. Like the h10, i mean you can literally fix almost anything on that leak, detector and they're. Not all that way, let's talk about the limitations of leak, reactant, which i need to stop, calling it soap bubbles. I because when i call it soap bubbles, then sometimes people get the idea that you're literally taking dish soap and mixing it with water and using that and that's like you said, not a good idea, i mean, and to that point you know, i had the different Um manufacturer reps in the classroom with corrugated stainless steel tubing like gas lines, and they would always tell you stories and show you pictures of where somebody used soapy, soapy bubbles, meaning like soap and water, on corrugated, stainless steel tubing and it just ate a hole through And they have a huge gas leak and all these gas leaks all over the place.

You know and the same thing with galvanized, pipe or black iron and then also copper. You know so so we got to make sure we stay away from that, even though the answer to the test you know in the in the epa 608, it's oh, you know. Soapy bubbles yeah, but it's it's anti-corrosive, bubbly detector, but yeah yeah. It's it's but you're right.

If people get confused by that, what are we talking about? Now we were talking about how big blue is the best leak. Today i should use this big. Blue. Big blue is really good.

I got to give john pasterello. He did make up some really good stuff. He did like i've used that since i started in the trade way back when you know, and it makes the best bubbles and and when i'm doing leak, detection on uh the schrader valve. You know the valve core in the port uh i put the cap on and drill a little hole and i put just a little bit of their big blue on it and just you have a huge bubble form.

You know if you have a leak and that's awesome yeah that is actually, and i don't know why. I never thought of that because i recently talked about how what i'll typically do is i'll pull the seal out of the cap and then i'll put the cap over and then i'll bubble it and it'll bubble around the edges. But your way is even better leave the seal in it just have one, that's basically, for that purpose, drill a little hole in it. Absolutely now, it'll make really nice bubbles out of that little port.

So yeah really good. You should patent that you know. I thought about it, but it's just a hole. That's what the patent application would say right, it's a hole.

Yeah take a cap put hole in it, uh invention, yeah. I think that's it yeah, so soap bubbles are are great, especially if you see signs of oil um. Yes, i i i don't know if you do this, but when i see signs of oil i pretty much go straight to straight to bubbles and if you're using the right kind of again leak, reactant you're using big blue. Basically, right you don't have to worry about it, setting off your leak detector, although i've heard some people say that it does.

I think there must be some sort of secondary reaction. That's happening there, because i've never had it set off my leak detector. I haven't either with the tools that i've used in the past now no, i haven't had any issue with that and, like you said, with the bubbles on micro channel, that big blue works pretty well, because you can get on both sides. If you get inside the unit with a micro channel, you get one side and you get to the other side.

It's going to force a bubble to grow because you're closing off the cavity, whereas with a a regular coil, it's a little bit harder because you have to get your bubbly detector kind of in through the fin. You know to that to that leak, but it still works. You know and uh that's. The kind of you want to put the bubble leak that they're, especially on all of those 90s, a lot of times.

It's right near the compressor. You know with the vibrations - and you see that wheel and i always love when you go up to a system and it has zero pressure in it. You're like yeah, because you know it's gon na be history. You put the nitrogen pressure in there and boom and you can just here and find a leak.

It's real, quick, that's great, but a lot of times, it's more in-depth cool, uh final one that i wanted to mention for companies. This really isn't so much for technicians. This is for companies, because i've done this a few times and it isn't a good practice. I actually set up a whole policy and procedure on doing it every time and that hasn't happened.

I know that may be a shock to some people, but uh. Sometimes people don't listen to me even in my own company. Would love companies to do more of is to have a water tank out back yes, and when your technicians condemn evaporator coils, because evaporator coils get condemned incorrectly a lot i mean i know. I know it's hard to believe, but they do pinch them off seal them, pressurize them and dunk them in the tank, because that is sort of a that's the best way to leak detect anything pretty much yeah.

I i had one of those in the in the classroom. I just built a tank and uh. We just dunked the the evaporator coils in and it was interesting to see that it wasn't just one or two leaks, and so that's the issue as well, because and even when i was out in the when i was on the field full time. I would say they say to the customer now: look.

I can fix the leaks that i'm finding. I don't know if there's some other one somewhere else. There may be two three leaks on on an evaporator coil a lot of times. It's a lot of leaks right and you can't just go and fix every one of them in that case, it's better to just replace that evaporator coil with a new one, but that that tank is is beautiful.

To tell if somebody is is correct: in their diagnosis with your employee, you know or not, and it just kind of gives them that real life application is. It are the leaks happening on the back of these evaporator coils. This particular model of coil right, you know, is this coil failing, because the the tube is too thin and that's happening because they're trying to the manufacturers, maybe try to make it too energy efficient. So it gets you to know the real life application of where the leaks are occurring and it lets.

You know why they're occurring and that's you know the more knowledge you have the more you can apply it on the next job and you know where to look. Even if it's for that particular model, evaporator coil, you know hey, these are susceptible in this area. Yeah and from a business insight standpoint, it's great, i think a lot of people think when i say things like this: it's about showing up a technician and it really isn't it's about um. Maybe they said the leak was in the front right and it's actually in the back left.

You know and just saying okay, you know, let's look at, let's look at iodine leaks detection, everything in the air conditioning business - and this is more of a business side of things - is an iterative growing process. It's like you know your pricing. The way you quote jobs all this stuff, you learn from previous jobs, but only if you have enough data like if you are just pushing on to the next job - and you don't know how you did on the last job you're going to keep making the same Mistake - and this is an example of this leak detection - there's a lot of mistakes made, and it is an area that, if, when you make mistakes, they can be very costly um, because now you got ta, give that customer refrigerant for free and then repair. What actually is the cost, and maybe you have to refund them? The previous thing you can get really costly, quick, refrigerant leak.

Detection is one of the biggest problems say that is not an easy solution. It happens and and say a building owner or manager is used to you being able to go in, find a leak and fix it and and be out. You know whether that's a natural gas propane leak or a water leak, but those are, i mean i feel like a lot easier to find than a refrigerant leak, and then you have the problem with the the evaporator coil. You can't even get to the back.

You know unless you try to cut a hole or you, depending on how the evaporator coil is is facing. You can't get access to certain parts, and it's just one of these things that i mean. All i can say is the same thing i said over and over, which is to get uh very experienced with the tool that you have and know that you can find a leak, be used to figuring out how to find them, because you can't there's only so Long that you're going to be able to dance around and play. Oh, you know the leak is over here in the evaporator cool or it's in the line set or it's in the outdoor unit.

And it's not fair. It's not right to say the building owner that you're just guessing and i think a lot of that happens in the field. I mean a lot happens because there's a lot of companies may not buy some type of electronic leak detector or they you know they they're. Just relying on so last time the leak was there.

So this time, i'm going to say the leak is there. You know in that same spot, and it's just it's just not right. I think we've covered it remind people how they can find. All your all.

Your great stuff, your books and all that other stuff. So we have our uh our book on refrigerant charging over at our website at acservicetech.com and we have the full outline there. So you can see all the topics that are included in that book and we have a thousand question workbook as well, and it comes with an answer key, so you can self check. You can check to make sure that you're answering them properly.

You can go to our our website at acservicetech.com. We have some powerpoints for teachers there and we've got posters for teachers and we have our book our workbook, and so you know we're excited to find out when they're being used in the classrooms, and so you know that's awesome, uh. I i really love that and i'd love to see those posters hung up in classrooms across the nation, canada. You know everywhere, and we also have our physical products available over at amazon.

We have our e-book over at our website at acservicestick.com and also on google play and itunes. We have it there as well nice, but make sure to also take advantage of all the free resources over to websites such as the the articles, the quizzes calculators, the podcasts and things there yeah and never to forget the youtube channel. Yes, the youtube channel youtube channel. The thing that started it all yeah all right thanks brother.

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