Right sometimes this stuff just dumbfounds me i'm up in top of the box. Box. We're doing electrical and refrigeration lines and i'm like what is going here. What is this this is a walk in cooler and walk in freezer.

And this is the lid of the box. The top that drain line. That is a pvc drain line. They must have cut the hole too low and they were too lazy to raise the pvc drain line.

So instead they cut into the insulation of the whole top of the box. They cut down four inches and then filled it with spray foam. But the spray foam is already settling down. So they literally notched out the whole top of the box.

So that way that pvc drain line. Didn't have to be raised up that is just a roof drain like look at those ones over there those ones are up high. This one though they were too lazy and someone spent all that time this video is brought to you by sportlin quality integrity and tradition so we got a walk in cooler that's all iced up the customer called and said. It wasn't working right so we're defrosting right now.

But it kind of sucks because they've got so much ice that you can't get the motor out so we're trying to do that at the same time. It's dripping down. This is a dual coil unit. So this one over here is all iced up too.

So we're gonna get both of them we got two people jumping on this right now we're gonna defrost it and then we'll try to figure out why and what's going on all right. So a little more context here. What happened was i i we got the service call. And i was two and a half hours away so i sent um.

Another tech here that i knew i was gonna have to probably come and help. But he got here and started defrosting everything and then i have an apprentice riding with me so we got here. So now i have the first tech that got here de icing one coil. My apprentice de icing the other coil and i'm just kind of waiting for them to finish that up so i came up on here into the roof.

And i'm gonna go and put service gauges on it because we're gonna fully go through it and i'm just poking my nose around like little things like i go to take this off and it there's pressure. There what the heck there shouldn't be pressure. There there should be a schrader in there so i'll have to investigate that luckily i have a valve i can actuate. But then i'm looking over here and i'm like hey what the heck is this there's a broken wire to the crankcase heater and the other side of it's just sitting right here what the heck man so we're gonna fix that too that's kind of crazy um.

But yeah get some service gauges on it and i know that this system has refrigerant leaks. We've actually got brand new equipment for all of this for a new walk in both evaporators and condensing unit. We just don't have time to deal with it right now. It's just sitting at our shop so uh.

I know that we're probably gonna have to add gas for now to get them operational. I don't understand why but there is no schrader in there so i back seated the valve and there's no schrader. So i'm gonna put a schrader in there i don't know what maybe someone didn't have one or something i don't understand. But oh well and then i'm gonna get some uh electrical fittings to fix that guy too so this uh coil is completely impacted with grease once we got all the ice off so unfortunately we had to put like legit coil cleaner on here to break it all down i don't like using coil cleaner on these things.

But sometimes you got to do what you got to do so we're going to rinse. It right now that is much better still kind of dirty. But oh my gosh a million times better so we'll see if the other coils is bad. I this coil is insanely dirty holy moly.

The camera's not doing it justice. It's plugged solid snap well. I bet. You they haven't been able to breathe like this in a long time.

But check this out us doing all this work caused this pinhole to really jump out so now. It's leaking water everywhere. It's just gonna have to speed up the whole us changing this thing. It's gonna drive me nuts.

But yeah. These things are actually moving air now which they haven't done in a long time wow all right we're gonna go on to the roof. Both coils are kicking. Now this one over here too so moving good air.

So we'll go up under the roof turn on the condensing unit and check. The charge. We got the condensing unit running um. Sight.

Glass is clear. It's definitely under a heavy load right now. So we're gonna give it some time and then we're going to check the liquid level in the receiver. You can see the expansion valves are like opening wide refrigerant levels fine.

We check the liquid level. Um. Sight. Glass is clear system is going to take a long time to come down to temp customer told.

Me. It's been this way like off and on for the last two to three days. It's been temping high. So i think it's been iced up for three days.

So that box is a good 55 degrees in there so it's going to take some time to bring all that food down to temp. So yeah. We're just gonna tell them keep an eye on it like i said. We are replacing all this equipment too because this is our 22 those coils are rotted out so that'll come in the next couple months.

Well. It's been a long time coming it took a while to get all this stuff orchestrated. But we've got a new condensing unit now this is customer supplied equipment. We're also going to be changing the evaporators.

But we're going to go in with just the condensing unit. Today. Now this is an r22 system. The new condensing unit is 448a.

So we're able to use the old evaporators temporarily with the new condensing unit. Because they have the right size txvs. Now. The new evaporators are going to be a bit oversized.

But it'll be fine for now and then sometime next week. We're going to come back in and change the evaporators so for now we're going to start recovering the refrigerant start disassembling the unit and then we'll figure out re piping and all that good stuff all right we're working on using uh getting the recovery done um. We're pulling out the r22. We've got a tank over there we figured out the max fill weight.

So we're pulling that this is my apprentices stuff um. We're gonna turn off power isolate. It and disconnect that too and then uh get this guy yanked out of here. So figuring out this electrical is a mess look at this ground's not even hooked up it just had a wire nut on it just sitting in the disconnect switch like come on man this is crazy um.

But i don't know how far i'm gonna go with this they're coming up with a three quarter conduit running over to that condensed unit. So they're using one conduit for the power for both units. And then they're branching it off at that box and coming over with half inch into this one so i'm going to try to find a way to clean this up i'm not going to redo that entire condensing unit. I don't know i have to figure this out all right we are not changing the line set on this one customer wanted to use the existing line set.

Now. It is a little bit big. But i think we're going to be okay. But there is the potential for oil return problems um.

Because you know i don't think this one's too too big. But you do have to be careful because if you oversize the pipe. Then you don't have the proper velocity to carry the oil back to the compressor. Okay.

So this is the general idea of what we're gonna do we'll straighten everything out. And we'll insulate before we make that final braze joint um. But we're just gonna clean things up i just prepped it i had to do some creative stuff right here. It's not the prettiest in the world.

But it's going to have to go over the suction line. Because of where it was piped. We're also having to add a defrost clock to this guy so we robbed that unit of the defrost clock. And we're going to temporarily put it in here because when we change the evaporators.

They have a temperature controller that has defrost built into it so they didn't ship a defrost clock with the unit. But in the meantime. Which could be a week or two depending on how busy we are next week. We need some sort of defrost so we're just going to wire in the existing defrost clock from the other unit um and get it you know operational.

So i'm gonna hook up some nitrogen clean up the copper and stuff and then we'll get ready to braise these all right we're trying to be as efficient as possible so we're brazing everything in we've got the nitrogen flowing. We did this braze joint right here the reducing fitting we're going to now slide well actually then we're going to do this 3 8. To half inch fitting and we're going to do this. And then we're going to pull this one off slide.

The insulation on hold it back and then do this joint right here last. But yeah everything's going good so far this one's nice and good and inspected got the heat blocking compound pushed on here. I'm letting someone else braise. So just want to be 100.

Sure um. We pulled this one out so that way the nitrogen can purge downstairs through the solenoid valves and come back up on this guy. So yeah. It's looking good so far all right you can clearly see we've got the heat blocking compound off there and you need to get it off as soon as possible then just throw a towel on there.

But you can see where the heat stopped you can you know this still looks shiny brass and this you know so it protected it we got a nice good brace joint. But it doesn't matter how good it looks when we're brazing. We still want to inspect it make sure it's a hundred percent and i like to fill the gaps. I know what they teach you in brazing school.

But for me i don't care. If you use too much solder. I mean as long as it's not big old boogers hanging off you know. But i mean i'd rather be a hundred percent sure and that looks good that looks good yeah we're good so now we're gonna cap this guy and slide the insulin.

We are braised in insulation's there we'll kind of straighten stuff out and tweak stuff and you know make it look pretty as we get going here we're currently doing a pressure test now i don't have my s man so we don't have the tightness test feature. But we basically just equalized out the pressures. 93 psi now it's important we don't want to overcome the system pressure because these valves are never 100 leak free. And this is a pre charged unit.

So it has 448a sitting on the other side so really what you should do is figure out what the pressure is on the other side. So you could put your receiver on or you can just know the ambient temperature and find 448a and look at the saturation temperature too. But if you look at this right now the saturation temperature at which we're at right now is about 50 degrees. And it's warmer than 50 degrees outside so we it's safe to assume that the system pressure is higher than 93 psi at the moment um.

But you just want to make sure that you don't overcome that because if the valves do leak you could push nitrogen into the system. So just be very careful about that so we're just doing a pressure test. We're going to start getting ready to figure out some electrical work and stuff all right so. Here's how i'm going to do this i'm going to take that junction box.

We're going to move it down into here. We're going to cut the three quarter make it short make. The junction pulse. Stay in there and then two half inch conduits.

One go into here. And i put the four by fours down to strap it to one go into here and then we'll try to clean up this this is their communication wire for the walk in freezer going down to the evaporators. I'm not going to redo that but we'll just kind of straighten it up as best as possible and then we'll eliminate this junction point right here all right we've turned this one off. We're still running the evacuation on that one right there and the cool thing is is you go through this walk in cooler to get into this walk in freezer.

So the entire day. We just go down there about every hour and open. The walk in freezer door for about 20 minutes. Then close it and it's maintaining temperature.

So it's still like 35 degrees in the walk in cooler. And it's been off for about four hours um. So we're just kind of maintaining that but we disconnected that big box right there we ran the conduit. We're actually going to fix the straps because those straps were too big.

I just put them there temporarily shorten that three quarter inch conduit hooked in the two half inches. We're gonna make some splice connections in there then we'll drop it down in there and then uh yeah all right we are in our decay right now. It's at about 672 microns and slowly rising. That's fine.

You know we'll just let it go for a little bit. We did a pressure test. We passed the pressure test. And then pulled an evacuation down below 500 and then now it's slowly and it's decay so it's natural that it's going to rise.

So we got this guy turned back on power applied the conduit strapped. We still need to try our best to strap that communication conduit that runs the evaporator coil um. We'll do whatever we got to do we'll figure that out and then we've applied power to both disconnects. We made sure because we didn't want to mix them up because all the wires were in the same thing.

So we made sure not to cross them up we double checked that's all good so we still got to wire in that time clock put the fuses in release. The refrigerant and then start the walking cooler up and then we gotta check the evaporator superheat because we are using um r22 valves. But we've got to verify that the superheat is correct. Because the nozzle may not necessarily be correct in the coil.

So we still have to adjust and make sure everything's going to be okay and then again these coils are just temporary the old ones until maybe next week or something worst case. The week after that we'll just see how everything goes. I've got an ac change. First thing monday morning a package unit and then we'll see maybe we'll do it wednesday.

Micron gauge is still on there it's about 716 microns and that's for me like playing opening the king valve on the receiver. Now i haven't opened this service valve yet. I'm going to open the liquid line service valve. We're going to let the refrigerant come back up and build up on the low side and then we'll take the micron gauge off so we do have high side pressure.

I've got my little service adapter here. It's building up on the micron gauge that's normal it's coming up that micron gauge can handle slight positive pressure. So it's okay so we're just opening. This guy up now.

The pressure is coming all the way back up because the solenoid valves are open downstairs. This is good enough. It's got high pressure. So now we've got pressure on high and low side of our system.

And we're basically ready to turn this on we still got to wire in the time clock. But we got to check the rotation of the compressor. Too so and this guy was pre charged with refrigerant so one second and uh. Yeah.

We're doing pretty good so far. We've got to put our low side hose on that so we do all that because when we have the micron gauge on there. We don't want to break the vacuum and introduce air or moisture into the system. So you gotta let the pressure come back up slow.

So i turned it on i have not wired in the time clock. Yet. I just wanted to see the compressor is running in the right direction. You'll know but look at these wires man just that there's nothing i mean we gotta because these units are just not my favorite.

The quality control is not the greatest just wires everywhere. There's only so much i can do because they're only so long. But i'll try to strap them up. I mean look can potentially rub against the discharge line.

There's so many things but we're all cleaned up for today um. We left this up here for now when we come back. We'll disassemble it and take it down. But i didn't want to shut it down or throw it away or tear.

It apart just yet i want to make sure. There's no issues with this guy before we just trash that one because it technically is still operating um this guy's in there for now uh. We'll clean some stuff up that bag is like spray foam and different things like that so uh. The unit's already satisfied everything's good for now like i said we'll clean up i'm gonna mastic underneath the wood when i come back i just don't want to do it.

Because i'm going to be coming back up here to pump it down and i hate mastic. So yeah. That's it so we're going to wrap it up for now and uh. We'll be back uh another day all right we are back today so we are going to go ahead and change.

The evaporator coil. So i went ahead and applied the service gauges here very specific reason and then i pumped it down. I closed the king valve on the receiver. So the refrigerant flow will stop we're waiting for the low pressure to keep going down lower and lower and the high pressure is going down too because of the way.

The valves are set up and then we will shut the system down and i will isolate these valves right here. When i do that the way that this is set up. We're not going to be changing the dryer today. Because we just installed this condensing unit a couple days ago.

It'll be fine. We're going to purge with nitrogen the entire time we're putting in the evaporator coils and then we'll open it up just like we did when we did the condensing. It'll be just like a pre charged condensing unit. Again so we're just waiting for that and then we'll get into the attic.

And start fixing the line set. And making do with what we got all right sometimes this stuff just dumbfounds. Me. I'm up on top of the box.

We're doing electrical and refrigeration lines and i'm like what is going on here. What is this this is a walk in cooler and walk in freezer. And this is the lid of the box. The top that drain line.

That is a pvc drain line. They must have cut the hole too low and they were too lazy to raise the pvc drain line. So instead they cut into the insulation of the whole top of the box. They cut down four inches and then filled it with spray foam.

But the spray foam is already settling down. So they literally notched out the whole top of the box. So that way that pvc drain line. Didn't have to be raised up that is just a roof drain like look at those ones over there those ones are up high.

This one though they were too lazy and someone spent all that time all right we got the new coils installed the drain lines um. They are electrically wired. We're just currently finishing up the electrical. Now we got to run the line sets.

But then they gave me extra work these are pre made coils and they have the wrong txv's in them they're supposed to have 448a because it's 448a in the condenser unit. They got 404 valves. So now we're going to change the valves. Too so it's just more work for us.

But oh well um. So we're getting there we just got to get up in the attic. And do the line set. Now and finish these valves.

It has been a long day currently running the evacuation right now 10 000. Microns. I just turned it on so it's going to be a minute and i'm only doing a one hose pull so it's going to take a little bit longer. But everything's good moving along all right we are started up and running.

We pulled the defrost clock out and because the temperature controller that this unit has has defrost built into it so we're going to put the cover back on we're running. I'm just roping uh cleaning our stuff up and then we'll be uh going downstairs to do a final inspection. All right my box is at about 41 degrees. It's just about down to temp they've still got uh.

We gotta let it run for a bit. We'll come back another day dial in the super heat. Um. Everything's good here.

We're foamed going up. We use the metal tape. Now so that way we don't have to return. Although they did go a little crazy with that spray foam um all good check out the other coil.

We'll get over to that one so i set the defrost clock. I'm sorry the temperature controller set up properly the other coils over here installed same thing drains hooked up going up right there nice and good. All is well. I'm glad to be done with this one finally.

It's amazing how dirty those evaporators were right. It's crazy with these customers that don't do maintenance it just seems to be getting worse and worse this particular customer. I don't think they've done maintenance for at least five or six years now so it's more reactive maintenance. You know you come out for a service call.

And it's like ugh you got to spend two and a half three hours cleaning sometimes sometimes longer you know um using a condenser coil cleaner on evaporators especially the blue stuff you got to be careful because that stuff's not necessarily meant to be dripping in food or anything like that so you got to take extra precautions to make sure you cover stuff up they do make evaporator cleaner. I mean nothing's really supposed to be dripping in food though right. But when you have grease this bad you got to do something you got to break it down and that grease just i mean you know it's never going to be perfect right so we got them operational and like i had mentioned in the beginning of the video. We already knew we had new equipment ordered.

But it was just a matter of how busy. I was i was short staffed at the time. I just had a technician you know quit. It was just crazy.

This was a couple months back this happened over a probably about a month period. This whole change out process actually more than a month. Because the original service called then like two months later we changed. The condenser then a week later we changed the evaporator so.

But you know we just get busy sometimes and it's hard we on a regular basis have equipment sitting at our shop. That's you know more of a proactive replacement and then we just don't have time because we have a lot of reactive emergency service calls that we got to get to so sometimes things get put off you know i've got a condensed unit and two evaporators sitting at the shop at the moment that i've had for at least a month and uh you know we'll get to it when we get to it because it was more of a reactive replacement or a proactive replacement. So you know it is what it is but when it comes time to doing the installations and stuff even though. I'm busy i still like to make sure i do my best i'm not perfect.

I'm not you know i i i know that there's flaws in my installations. I know that you know it's not perfectly straight. It's not perfectly whatever i'm sure someone can find a code book and say i didn't do something right i try my best okay with the with the the tools that i have and the knowledge that i have and and i'm always looking to improve. So if you have improvements if you have ideas on things that you think i could have done better share.

It with me i love constructive criticism. I'm totally open to it so please help me better myself. Okay maybe i can share some knowledge with you maybe you can share some knowledge with me so drop it in the. Comments let me know send me an email hvacr.

Videos gmailcom. Like anyway just let me know if you have ideas constructive criticism. I'm i'm down with it let's do it so uh you know this wasn't too difficult. It was more time consuming a little frustrating.

Though you know you've had equipment sitting at your shop for a while and you go to install it and you find out that this is wrong you know the wrong expansion valves are in the evaporators. I didn't order any of this stuff it just literally gets shipped to me so yeah. That's a little frustrating you have to be ready for that kind of stuff. Luckily i stay stocked up with uh spoiling expansion valves dryers all that good stuff so i had a spoiling bq kit in my van.

I was able to build those two expansion valves and replace them get them to the 448a valves now if you follow um refrigerant manufacturers guidelines they you know if you read what they have to say they're like well you can use 404a valves. You just have to make adjustments. It's like no no i don't want to play any of those games. I want to try to make it as easy as possible so i'm going to use 448a valves.

Which are our r22 ports with r22 power heads. Okay. Uh 404a valves have different ports inside of them. So.

Yes. You may be able to depending on the size of the valve and how if it was a balance port you may be able to get away with a 404a valve. But again let's just make it easy for the next guy think about it if i put a 404 valve in there. The next guy is going to come in without knowing that i made it work properly.

And he's gonna say this person doesn't know what they're doing whenever i do work i try my best to not give the next technician. Any ammunition to shoot at me basically okay you know i mean just take it easy okay. And and do your best to make yourself look you know like you're doing things properly. I guess if that makes sense.

I think i kind of butchered that analogy. But still you know just just try not to give anybody any fuel to you know to add to the fire or anything like that so so we got that done um. Then we ended up coming back again and replacing the condensing unit and then i ran into that weird wiring situation right i'm sorry then we came back and replaced the evaporators and then i ran into that weird situation. Where i noticed on the top of that box that they notched out the whole top of the box.

What the heck the stuff that we find i didn't have time. But if i take a thermal imaging camera and look at that box. I bet you anything. There's a huge spot of heat infiltration on top of that uh walking cooler like that's just nuts that they notched out the whole top of that box just for that pvc drain line that very very easily could have been moved up like that that would have been so easy when they were doing new construction to move that pvc drain line up.

But they didn't they just notched out the whole top of the box like whoa ca. N't believe that that's nuts um. But you know you run into this stuff. Sometimes you have to learn how to work with the weird crap you have right you know when you're working in the attic.

Too it can be frustrating. It can be tight so try to be prepared the best advice. I have for everybody is when you go up into an attic. You want to try to think how that entire job is going to.