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CMPX Show is upon us. It's March 25th, 26th and 27th in Toronto at the Metro Toronto Convention Center.
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I mean, the trade changes so quickly. We're going to see all the modernizations,
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in equipment and tools and methods. We have the social hub, activations, all three days of
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tool demos and compressor tear downs, and there's going to be a full-on 18 van, which is going to
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be pretty cool guys. So if you use code, know what all. That's K-N-O-W-I-T-A-L-L. When you go to
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the CMPX website and register, you get a free pass for all three days. Come check us out.
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I mean, today's world, it's hard to find good talent and keep them retained within your company.
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So little perks and stuff could help with that. So Sintas, they provide high-quality professional
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to check them out. And when we do that, it's spelled C-I-N-T-A-S, that's Sintas.com forward slash HVAC,
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know what all. What's up guys? Welcome back to the podcast. Now, I put it a podcast not too long ago
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about changing capacitors on a regular basis rather than waiting for them to fail. And I bring that
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up in this conversation with John, as we talk about our spring maintenance, as if we have this
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conversation. And John and I kind of go deeper on the subject. I explain why and he kind of agrees
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after we have the chat that yeah, maybe it could be part of a maintenance schedule to change a
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capacitor every three years or five years, whatever it may be on a schedule depending on where you live
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and how hot it is and how often they fail. So that is going to be part of this conversation here.
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This is the HVAC, know what all podcasts and I'm your host, Gary McCree.
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Welcome to the HVAC, know what all podcasts.
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Recorded from a basement somewhere in Toronto, Canada. Your host and HVAC tech, Gary McCree,
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will take you on a deep dive into the industry discussing all things HVAC.
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From storytelling to technical discussion, enjoy the show.
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I don't want to spend the whole podcast on that, but I do want to state one thing.
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I found that when you do the proper load calc and you take out like someone's 80,000 BTU furnace
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and now you put the right size in, maybe you put a 50 in, maybe it's a 60 or whatever it is,
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I found that it almost instantly fixes your static pressure issues, right? Because now,
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you're putting the equipment in that size for the home and it wasn't the duck work that was
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undersized at all. It was the equipment that was oversized trying to push too much air into the
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duck, ballooning it out and creating that higher pressure. As soon as you reduce the equipment size,
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you have the right air flow, then your static pressure falls in line and the house is a lot more
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comfortable. When I hear that big boom, every time the unit starts up or stops, huh?
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Let's leave the whole static pressure thing alone for now. We're continuing this discussion
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about maintenance. So, cleanliness, visual inspections, listening, using all your senses, HVAC,
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and air flow before gauging up. Let's talk about the refrigeration side of it because we've
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talked about like we'll change the filter, we'll clean the coils, we'll clean the drain, we'll do
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all that kind of stuff when we're on our maintenance. On the refrigeration side, a lot of guys will
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gauge up on every maintenance and some of the guys are gauging up, not because they want to,
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it's because their company enforces it. It's policy to write down the pressures
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every single PM. Now, I know you're a big measure, quick guy, but not everybody uses it or has it.
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We need to, we need to incorporate other ways to check a system to ensure it's running properly
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without putting a probe or a gauge on it. Maybe let's talk about that for a second.
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Yeah, so I mean, there's, in order to get into that, you get into design,
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temperature difference of the coil. I can nerd out on this for a little bit, but essentially what
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it is is the return air temperature versus the saturation temperature of the evaporator coil.
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You can do a bunch of math, but what it really boils down to is if I look at the return
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air temperature, my suction line should be about 20 degrees below that. There's a 35 degree temperature
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design temperature difference. So if I had 75 degree return air, then I should have about a 40 degree
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saturated coil in the evaporator coil. Sounds normal, right? Sort of 40 degree saturation. I add 15
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degrees of super heat to that. That means I'm back up to, you know, I went from 40. Now it should
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be about 55. That'd be 55 degrees. Plus or minus five degrees is what my suction line should be.
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That's how you can do a non-invasive without having pretty much anything. I can eliminate that whole
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15 degrees of super heat thing just by saying return air minus 20 degrees. And that's about what your
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suction line temperature should be. It's kind of like going back to beer can cold, but just with
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the actual data behind it. Now, what bugs me is I've been on PMs with people. It's the hottest
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week of the summer. The space is satisfied. It's comfortable. There is all kinds of water running
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out of the drain, all kinds of condensate running out of the drain. The suction line is cold and sweating.
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There's all kinds of heat coming off the top of the condenser. And I'll see people throwing their
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gauges on. I'm like, dude, this thing's running perfectly. It's comfortable inside. The stat
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it's the hottest day of the year, guys. Remember that it's like thermostat satisfied. It's comfortable
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indoors. We've got all kinds of heat coming off the top of the condenser. Our drain is pouring out
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water. We're doing some good work here. Our suction line is nice and cold and sweating. Yeah,
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beer can cold stuff. But if all of those things are happening on the hottest day of the year,
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the space being satisfied. One of the biggest ones is like, this thing is running at peak performance.
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There's no need to throw your gauges on this. There really is no need for it. I mean, yes,
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maybe once in a while there is. But I think after you have enough experience using your visuals and
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senses and common sense, you'll come to the conclusion that if my system is clean, my coils are
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clean. My filter is clean. My drain is clean. My blower wheel is clean. It's moving the correct
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amount of air. My static is not too high. And everything checks out on the other side. Like your
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temp drop across the coil and all the other things I just mentioned. Why in the world am I putting
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gauges on a system just for fun to write down the number? It doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.
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I completely agree with that, especially whenever you get towards the end of the summer,
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I guess you'd say, or even if you're doing in heater manises, if you're doing, and you know,
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after it's already been cold, you know, I would always tell my techs like, guys,
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they've made it through the hardest part of this summer already or hardest part of this winter.
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You don't need to go in there and try to make a billion changes on here. It's obviously
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doing the thing it needs to be doing. So I completely agree with that. I mean, we're able to assess and
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say, hey, the system's working. Let's let it keep going. Our main job, like we've talked about before,
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make sure that it is dirt free. We need to make sure that we're getting as much dirt and
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removed and that that system is running cleanly. Now, we can get into another debate on here
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on a 20 degree delta T. 20 degrees is not the delta T that we're all looking for. You mentioned
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that it was removing a lot of water. People were comfortable in the house, but, you know, I could
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have a 10 degree delta T and still be moving the exact amount of air and refrigeration charge
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and everything to be fine. Depends on that latent load. How much humidity is in the air? You know,
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it's probably not a big, you know, I can't imagine, I don't know, never been there, but not a bit,
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humidity might not be a big issue in your neck of the woods up there. But, you know, I'm originally
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from Tennessee and there's quite a bit of a humidity down there, right? So if I'm removing a
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huge latent load out of a home, I could see a 15 degree delta T and that's perfectly fine.
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You know, I keep going back to it, but that's what I know. If I'm using something like
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magic, it'll show me what the sensible capacity that I'm removing and as well as the latent
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capacity, you know, that hidden heat, that latent heat, it's actually being able to show it through
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the enthalpy that you're using with your psychometers. We've got to the point where all of this
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information is really good and we can utilize it quickly and get a lot of information that is
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going to put us down the right tracker. Is there a problem? Is there not a problem? And we can do
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this with a strategy knowing that what we're using, like these apps that have all got the calculations
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in the background, it prevents human error, user error, if you've got the probes in the right spot.
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So what I wanted to move on to next was the electrical section of a system. Now, I will open up
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the electrical panel on a commercial. Sometimes the panels are, there's panels where I've actually
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needed a ladder to get up and get to the contactors that are literally like eight inches high.
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I think we're building contactors and stuff. We just throw them away when we get that.
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Sometimes, yeah, a contactor gets rebuilt in the field if it's a big enough one. Now,
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visual inspection of these things is really important. So I take all the covers off of my contactors.
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I look for pitting and I will push the contactor with the power off, push the contactor and
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making sure like it's not stuck or caught because a lot of times, especially on like a startup,
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you can push the contactor and it won't budge, it won't move. Or sometimes you go to push it in
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and it's already in, it's already stuck and welded. So these are things that you need to find on a
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PM and rectify it. The other thing that I'm a big proponent of is checking for dust and carbon
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in a commercial setting, even in residential, I've seen this too, where the dust and carbon that's
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resting on the top of the line side of the contactor, any type of moisture in the air will embed
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inside of that that dust or carbon and it will track back to the panel to ground and it will blow a
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fuse and or pop a breaker and when the person shows up on the dry day, yeah, and then when the person
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shows up on the dry day, they change the fuse or reset the breaker, everything runs and then the
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next time it rains or snows, it goes pop again and are like, what's going on here? Look at the top
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of those contactors and see if you can pick up a track back to ground because let's face it,
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let's say even light commercial residential contactors cheap, it protects the compressor
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from failing prematurely if we're finding contactors that are pitted and have these issues
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and we get them replaced because a $20 contactor can take out a $4 or $5,000 compressor just like
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that, it's amazing, but you got to look for this kind of stuff, right? It can cause all kinds of
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other issues too, I mean, you know, a couple of things I always make sure that and the technicians
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are aware of whenever they're going on that pertains to contactors, I don't know if it's as big a deal
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in the commercial world, but these 24 volt coils that they have on contactors are just made like
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crap nowadays, they used to never have a problem, you never had issues, we're finding shorts all the
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time, you know, internal shorts, the fuses blown inside and we're searching for a short all around
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come to find out it's the coil outside on the contactor, you know, so I have them start to actually
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owe them out these contactors whenever they're the contactor coil whenever they're on a regular
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maintenance and they should be looking for that 12 to 18 ohms on that on that contactor coil.
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If they don't have that, then it's it's probably going to fail if it hasn't already and it's going
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to cause that short that's going to you're going to be there for hours looking for it. You talk about
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pitting and things like that, we can we can also eliminate the you know, the guesswork on pitting,
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we can we can push in the contacts manually while the power is off and we can ohm out across,
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we should see zero ohms or while the unit is live, we could look for a voltage drop across, you
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know, if I see a voltage drop, yeah, it's pitted and it makes a good contact, if I'm seeing any
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any for any more resistance, then then zero, then that means it's probably pitted, right?
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So just a mechanical way of looking at this and actually like measuring it stuff, but yeah,
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nothing beats the eyes you can look at it and say, hey, it's all burned up pitted and discussing,
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so just different ways of looking at it. For sure, there was a call that I went on in the summer,
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just in my neighborhood, somebody walked by my house, seen my van, they're like, hey, we put our
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our own thermostat on, it's not working. And I get this all the time, people are buying their own
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thermostats and installing them themselves and I've gone to about five to six calls in my own
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neighborhood for this exact reason over the last year and most of the time they've wired it wrong.
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So I'm I'm thinking, hey, they probably wired this wrong, but the guy actually wired it right,
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but what was that? Because they were having issues with the previous thermostat. He's like, oh,
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I'll just change it. Same issues, cooling, not working. And what I saw in front of me, I think it was,
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I think they bought an ECOB, I think it was. So when it would go to cool, it would you'd see it go
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to cool and then about five to 10 seconds later, it would shut off and turn back on the thermostat.
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So what it ended up being is what you were describing. It was a short in the contactor coil. So it
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would try to pull in, it would buzz. And I guess it would overamp the thermostat somehow protected itself,
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shut down, stop the call from happening. And then it would come back on it, it would just keep
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going through the same cycle over and over and over again. Right. And then I used, I had a
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sure switch in my van, you know, the Emerson, or not Emerson, the Copeland sure switch. So I had one
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of those in my van. And all I did was take the coil wires off of the contactor, put them into the
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sure switch, just the coil wires, nothing else. And I went through the same thing, the same, the
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thermostat didn't go blank. It didn't reset. It just stayed on cooling. I'm like, okay, so the coil
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and this thing is bad. Took it out, ohm did out. And it was like one or two ohms. So
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you got, you got, I don't know what it is with these newer thermostats. Maybe they have a way to
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protect themselves. I have, I have pretty that far yet. But no, that's awesome. Instead of going
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through like an instant death from a short in a unit. But yeah, that's, that's what it was. So
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you're right. Check these contactor coils for shorts. The other thing that I'm going to say here,
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and I did a podcast on it a few months ago, just me solo, just kind of talking about it, is
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in certain applications, certain times, I think it's, it's warranted to just change a capacitor
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just because it's been in a, in service for so long. Because I've been beat up on this before,
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where I'll go to a call, a capacitor or a contactor capacitor, okay, or even both. But here's,
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here's my, here's my justification on that. So I'll go to a call, I'll get it going,
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everything's fine, whatever, whatever, and I check the capacitor, it's good. And then like three
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months later, I'm back as the capacitors filled. You know what I mean? I, I, now I'm under the,
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now I'm under, especially in residential, now I'm under the, the mindset, as if you're going
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on a call, the capacitor is five, six years old. You know what I mean? What's the harm in replacing it
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and avoiding a potential issue that same summer or the summer after or even two years down the line?
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And now you're good for another bunch of years because it, it could look bad on you that you were
15:29
there. Even though you checked the capacitor while you were there, and it, and it resorts back to
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a call three months later, like it happened to me. And the, the guy is, the guy was my friends,
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so he didn't, he wasn't like, he was just bugging me. He's just like, you know,
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it bullshit with me. Ah, you didn't check that when you, I said, yeah, I did. You're supposed to know
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it all. Yeah. So I am under the mindset that you could probably change these things on a schedule,
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depending on where you live. If you have a pattern, okay, I live in a hot, hot place every three years,
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I'm changing the capacitor on these units. Why not put it into a schedule to change it every two
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and a half years on a PM and avoid the service call? I'm under that impression now.
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I think that works great in the, in the commercial world. It would all, you know, go ahead.
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Capacitors are one of those things that in the residential world, that's where, that's where
16:21
used, there's a lot of profitability in capacitors. We're going to just say that. A lot of the
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companies when you look at it, that's, that's what they're, when you sell one, it's, it's, it's marked
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up to, to compensate for all the other time that we, time wasting that we have throughout other
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times. It all balances out. But, you know, giving those things away free, I don't know if that's,
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if that's just what you're talking about as far as the maintenance every few years, is,
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no, no, not for, not for, not for free at all. Yeah, and I've noticed it. I think if you,
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you could work into like a contract, if you to differentiate yourself from some of the other
16:57
contractors out there that said that, you know, part of our regular maintenance is every three years,
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we're going to go ahead and change out your, your, your capacitor, right? And it's just built,
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the price is built in, spread out across that point in time, across those three years or whatnot,
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can build some loyalty to, to the contract as well. Maybe it's, you know, hey, you know,
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I'm going to stick with these guys for at least three years because, you know, I'm going to get
17:20
another capacitor out of the deal. I don't know. Yeah, that, that's a, that's an interesting point
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to kind of schedule these as a, as a, as a time thing, right? I honestly don't see this pattern
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in commercial. That's also the commercial equipment I work on. The compressors are three phase.
17:35
Yeah, yeah, they're not single phase, right? And it's usually just the fans that maybe that
17:40
condenser fan will take a capacitor on some of these three phase units. It's, it's weird they do
17:45
it that way, but I've noticed this pattern in residential specifically, I mean, it also has a lot
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to do with the main, again, when we talk about the manufacturing of contact or coils, but the
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manufacturers of capacitors are awful. If they're not coming from this half of the world, then they're
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usually even worse than what that, you know what I'm saying? A good capacitor should last you at
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least five years, but we're seeing them that are bad a year later. And that is just unacceptable.
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And that just, that has nothing to do with anything other than manufacturing I'm going to assume,
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unless you had just loose contacts on there, on your stacons, keeping on there, that's, I just
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can't understand why in the world is happening. I even started cutting some in half to try to see
18:22
what in the world is going on, a bunch of goo and, you know, silver tape looking stuff. That's that
18:26
that's like, well, I guess there's not much to it. Anyway, I just thought I'd bring that up because
18:29
just a pattern I noticed and I'd be a big proponent of it. If I was running a large residential
18:34
business, it would be something that I would try to push on a customer because there is value there.
18:40
Especially the value they may not see it until you go there. This happens all the time. Remember
18:46
my story about the motor dying and then changing it into Blizzard. Yep. So now that customer when I
18:51
recommend something, he'll be like, we should probably do it, right? Sometimes it takes that to happen.
18:56
And sometimes it takes, okay, it's May. I'm at the unit. I think I should change the capacitor
19:02
because I notice it's about five years old. It's got some corrosion on it and the homeowner be like,
19:07
no, it's okay. It's working right now. And then on their son's birthday party, when they have
19:11
30 people over in the AC goes out and nobody can get there. The next day someone shows up,
19:17
hey, it's the capacitor. Remember I told you to change this three months ago? It would avoid it all
19:21
of your problems. And that's when people start to go, okay, maybe he's onto something here. Maybe
19:26
does actually know what he's talking. I got to run in a few minutes. But last thoughts on, we touched
19:31
on cleanliness. We touched on refrigeration side, electrical side. Is there anything else that we
19:37
didn't touch on or you feel is important to end this conversation? All the companies that I've worked
19:41
for we cleaned condenser coils. We pulled the top, cleaned actual condenser coil. I'm not sure if
19:46
everybody does that or not across, you know, I'm sure not everybody does it. But I think that's a very,
19:50
you know, if we're adding value to our maintenance and actually doing a good job, I think cleaning that
19:55
outdoor condenser coil is easy thing that we can do to try to build value and it's going to help
19:59
that's just to be able to breathe better and work better. That's one of the big things out there.
20:02
Again, we're looking for dirt and cleaning everything out. I know in my neck that was here in just a
20:07
couple of weeks, there's going to be all kinds of pollen and everything going everywhere and that's
20:10
going to be sucked into every single one of these units. And you might not even be able to see it.
20:14
So just wash off that outdoor coil. Let's get those things clean so that they can breathe and
20:19
they can, uh, systems can run a little bit better. All right. John, again, I really appreciate this man
20:24
and we'll probably do another one of these before the summers out, I would imagine. Maybe we can
20:29
pick a different topic, but it's always good chatting with you because you are passionate,
20:33
you're knowledgeable. I mean, it's just two guys talking shop and that's what I love.
20:36
All right, brother. I appreciate it. All right, brother. So much. I look forward to the next time.
20:39
Yeah. Thank you. All right. Thanks a lot.