The Static Pressure Test for HVAC Techs to Improve Diagnostics and Airflow with John Anderson Part 1

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John Anderson on the podcast, we talked about manifold gauges versus probes, and one of the videos

we put out on that got a lot of engagement, a lot of back and forth controversial stuff, right? Because

we're talking about not using a manifold. But anyway, we got him back. We're going to talk about

spring maintenance, and we get into topics of airflow and static pressure, checking electrical,

using your senses, the refrigeration side, when and where, and how to check it. So this is a good

conversation. This is part one guys with John Anderson. This is the HVAC Know-it-All podcast,

and I'm your host Gary McCready. Welcome to the HVAC Know-it-All podcast.

Recorded from a basement somewhere into Toronto, Canada. Your host and HVAC tech, Gary McCready

will take you on a deep dive into the industry, discussing all things HVAC. From storytelling to

technical discussion. Enjoy the show. Welcome back, John. And I got to say the last podcast we did,

I posted a clip on social media about not using gauges, and I think the caption. I sent my

podcast out to a production company that basically produces the, does the edits, they put it out on

the channels, and they come up with the, it was like a little caption at first, and it's something

like hoses are ruining the industry, or killing the units, or it was something along those lines.

And a lot of the comments, tons of engagement, that clip got tons and tons of used, thousands of

use. And I mean, there's text hating on us for mentioning that manifold gauges are not the

greatest or best way to go. Text agreeing, I think text probably on the fence, and just reading

all the, the stuff we were talking about. But this conversation is not that. It's spring maintenance

because we are upon spring. Some places, uh, warm state of probably already started to do their

maintenance on the air conditioning side of things where I am. I mean, it's right now it's

snow storm outside. This is our march. We can have a day that's, let's say, 40 degrees outside.

The next day, it's snow storms. We had exactly that here, man. It was 87 degrees on Wednesday,

on Thursday. It was snowing for four hours. Yeah, it's not so shoulder season. Yeah, man. I have a

lot of experience in the commercial side. You have a lot of experience on the residential side.

I think talking about both sides of the equation is really important because we're going to have

both sides of the equation listening. So I'll let you start it off. Like when it comes to maintenance

in the spring, what are some of the things that we should be focusing on when it comes to air

conditioning? Nowadays, a lot of heat pump installs are in place and we got to service those too.

So where are we going to start? How are we going to tackle this? First off, whenever I was asked to

come up with what the standard would be for seal services, whenever I created that for maintenance,

you know, I started looking. I didn't want it to be John's way of doing things, right? It didn't

need to be that. I needed to have some sort of backing on it. And anytime that we do a load calculation,

we're going to look for a acumenule J, right? If we're looking at duck work or acumenule D,

where is we move throughout? There's all these manuals for how to do stuff during the

replacement process. And I wondered if there was something similar to that in the maintenance process.

And I found one actually. It's called the Akka Standard 4QM. It's a free download. If you

down, if you go to Google and Google that, you can download the PDF. And it actually has an entire

book that goes through all the different pieces of equipment that you'd have for maintenance.

Just like we've talked about in the last podcast we did, our main job there is to look for dirt.

You know, we're trying to look for dirt, look on filters, look for dirt on coils, look for any

sort of dirt in a condensate line. The main point whenever I'm looking at something is I want to

make sure that everything is clean and everything is running to the best with the ability.

Before I start jumping in to try and take any kind of readings, that's my first step. How's that

work on the commercial world? Start with visual inspections. I mean, in the commercial world,

where I come from, the maintenance packages were sold that you're going to be doing filters

probably every quarter. That's usually where it begins. We open up the filter panel, take all the

filters out, slide them all in. While we're doing the filters, we'll take off the blower panel,

we'll inspect, we'll pull the belts off, we'll inspect the belt for cracks, tears, anything like

that, belts. If they're aligned properly, they're tension-right, they can last quite some time.

So that's something that we take into account. I also, I'm a big pulley slash sheave guy,

like inspect them. If there's wear on them, you take both of them, like the motor and blower pulleys,

give them a side to side wiggle. Make sure there's no play in the bearings. You spin them,

make sure there's no, like a grinding sound in the blower or motor bearings. If there are grease

ports, like zerk fittings and maybe some of that is due to the fact that they're dry and they

need some grease. So you go pump some grease in and sometimes that sound kind of minimizes,

sometimes it alleviates, sometimes it doesn't. Then it's like, hey, on the work order,

bearings are grinding a touch, sound a little noisy. Maybe best to replace them before it causes

a chaotic accident. I'm going to tell you a story that relates to that. Was that a restaurant

in the summer? They're having some issues and I got to go and, but the blower motor,

it sounded terrible. And I said to the guy, your blower motor is going to fail at some point.

I said, it sounds terrible. The bearings are bad. It's sealed bearings because it was a sealed

motor. There's no way to add grease to them. And he's like, no, no, no, don't worry, it's running

now. He's like, he, and he even said it. He's like, I know this is going to come bite me on

the ass one day, but right now and on. So I ended up changing the motor in a blizzard,

because that's when it died. It died in a blizzard. We never did die in a blizzard, right?

Yeah, there was a blizzard and it had an overload, like a starter contact or an overload. So

and that happened in a snowstorm because the power went out. So I went up to the roof, reset it.

And the thing was just, it sounded chaotic and it was having trouble even trying to spin. And I'm like,

remember that motor we talked about in the summertime because he came on the roof with me,

and I'm glad he was there. And he's like, oh, he's like, we got to replace that. And I said,

yeah, we should have done it when it was hot out here. Now I got to change this in a blizzard.

And I did. It was agonizing. It was chaotic, but it's almost like the word preventative maintenance

means you're supposed to prevent something from happening bad, right? That's our job. Weird.

You hit something that I wanted to touch on a little bit more about the visual inspection.

Whenever I'm teaching technicians to do the maintenance, I tell them to use four senses.

All right. We know we got five of them, but I'm not really going to get into taste for that much.

But I'll tell them to, you know, first visually check out the system as it as it's running.

We've already turned on the thermostat. We're going to visualize it because I don't know if this

happens in the commercial world, but there's so many times in the residential world that people

have a broken system. They know it isn't working. And then they'll think that us coming to do the

maintenance is going to fix it all up for, right? So I want this to verify that, hey, that unit's

running before I start touching and doing any kind of measurements or anything, right? So I'll have

them turn on the equipment at thermostat, not jumping anything out. I wanted to work from the thermostat.

Go down to the equipment and just use your senses. I want you to look at the system, verify that,

everything looks like it's installed somewhat correctly, right? We can't control everything that

happened before we get there. Look at it. See if you see any signs of water damage. If any sort of

issues electrical like sparking or anything crazy, you've got one on, all right? So I'm just

looking at all that kind of stuff. I'm listening. You talked about your listening for the sound of

that blower motor, right? I'm listening as that's going on. I can sometimes hear from the

refrigeration cycle going through the refrigerator lines. You can kind of hear some sort of noises

everyone's about. Hear from vibrations or anything like that. Smell, right? We're going to be down in

the at these equipment, this equipment, and you know, it may be connected to a gas or an oil furnace

or something, right? If we're there and we're doing an air conditioner maintenance and there's

a gas leak, our job is safety experts is to verify that, you know, hey, there's not a huge gas leak

down here, right? We got to be aware of all that. Then the, you know, what do we do? We did vision,

we did we did hearing, we did smells. I don't want you to taste anything though. Let's talk about

blowing out a condosate line or something like that, right? Oh, feel it. It's all the sweet part.

As far as taste goes, I've tasted quite a few things. I've tasted, I've gotten a big

splash of glycol in my face several times, but it's actually kind of sweet. It doesn't actually

taste that good. Well, hey, guy, I used to blow out my, my bleeder line all the time. I probably

thought it was really discussing, but after a while, I didn't hurt them. Feel, feel is very important

that I want them to do. You know, I don't want them downstairs at an air handler or furnace,

running that, you know, checking out that system, doing all this stuff down there for

however long it's going to be, and then they go outside and now that outdoor unit's not running,

right? And, you know, you go to the customer and say, hey, your outdoor unit's not running. We've

been here for half hour by what, what's the deal? So what I tell them with feel is during that

observation, go ahead and grab ahold of that line set. When you grab out of that line set, you could

feel the refrigerator coming through. You could feel the vibration of the compressor. That way,

you at least know the compressor's running. I don't know if the, if the outdoor fans running,

but at least I know that compressor started. So that's, that's my initial portion. Before we start

doing anything, that part of that visual inspection, it's really visual. I'm listening. I'm smelling,

and I'm going to feel it, right? And then again, like I said, if I need to take something,

I guess I can blow out a condosate line or something. So what you're describing there, the senses,

I've talked about that lots of times too, and I've even just put a play on words on it, like the HVAC

6 cents. Just when you get up onto a, like for instance, I've talked about this before, like,

there's buildings I've been servicing for so long, I pop the hatch, and as soon as I stick my

head up through the hatch, I can tell if there's something wrong with something by the sounds that

are going on on the roof. Just walking through the roof, you can hear, listen, you can hear like

squealing of belts and grinding of bearings. Wait a minute, that compressor sounds like it's like

30% short of refrigerant. And when you put your gauges on it, yeah, it is because you can hear it.

I'm never heard of it say don't push in contact. That's awesome. Yeah, people say don't push in

contact. I'm not going to tell people to start pushing in contact as a way, but I've done it

before. I'm not going to say, you may have done that myself of time or two. Yeah, and sometimes you

can push them and you can be like, that compressor is completely out of refrigerant because you can

just hear it sounds hollow and empty inside of it. And then sometimes you push them and you wait

30 seconds and you can hear it kind of like loading up as like the rush of refrigerant

from the system comes back into that compressor and it starts. So after a while, you get good at

sort of the the HVAC six cents and using your senses to to come across issues. And that's when

hey, my sense is detect something. That's when you pull out your your test tools, a manometer or

a set of probes or the the manifold for the guys that still use the manifold, right? That's when you

pull out your diagnostic tools and get a little bit deep and heavier into it. But if you can get

good with your senses, you're like, you're more than halfway there at figuring out where the problems

lie. And then you've got to figure out what the actual problem is afterwards if you agree with that.

100% agree with that. Yeah, I mean, that's that's the part of us that AI can't replace, right?

Is the way that we can sense this kind of stuff and we can hear things. We know when things aren't

working right, you know, that before we're even putting tools or anything on, I highly recommend

doing that. Yeah, you work in boilers and you're going to you're going to know just by going down

there, listening and just observing the area for a while, you'll figure out whether things are

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That's promo code hk i a five at supplyhouse real people real service. Cool. So I want to get your

take on static pressure because it is something that tech should do, especially on the day one,

the first day that they're ever at a building or on commissioning or startup of a new piece of

equipment. But how are you feeling on static pressure on quarterly PMs once you know what it what

it is. Are you still checking this? I'm 100% still checking that. Yes. All all the time. Yes, okay.

Because I mean what's going to happen when I mean can anything change between the last time I was

there to this time? I know that in the residential world all the customers like to think that during

the air conditioning season they're going to close off all the vents downstairs to push more cold

air upstairs, right? I'm not going to know they did that or not unless I'm checking things out,

right? And if I don't know you know what's going on, I'm not really doing my job. AVC, air flow

for charge and you know static pressure isn't an airflow measurement. It's part of the part of

the deal to get me close to that airflow measurement. And when we're talking about things like I'm

big on measure quick as you know. So that's part of the essential nine probes that you're going to

you're going to put out there in order to to get your full diagnostics that system. I mean you

wouldn't go to the doctor without getting them taking your blood pressure, right? So getting your

static pressure checked every maintenance is something you do. And I mean that's justifiable because

that you could change a filter but you could still have a dirty coil that could affect your

your measurement, right? Yeah and I mean but most people are just hesitant to take static pressure

readings. Honestly and this is probably going to offend people because they're scared to do it

because they don't know where they're supposed to put it. When you know where to put the static

pressure probes, it's not that big of a deal. I mean if you're using a program like magic brake

you push the button and it literally shows you a picture of here's after the filter before the coil

here's top and bottom of the air handler. It's really not that big the deal. There's lots of ways

and when I've teach a class on static pressure I usually will go through a lot of scenarios where

you'll say oh but in my area we always put the filter here and there's no way to get it. There's

always a way around it. We're going to be able to get a static pressure reading 99.9999

percent of the time. Now if we could talk to some of the manufacturers of equipment out there

and maybe they could give us some pre-made static pressure test ports like they got the 15,000

different knockouts for electrical outlets and things like that on the side. That'd be awesome

but until then we're going to have to make our own test ports and it's really not that hard

once you know what it is. Once those test ports are in place all you got to do is put the probes

back in there the next time you show up. So I'd like to for the audience it's not aware of this

we're talking about it but we should spend a couple of minutes just letting them know what it is

and how to check and where to put the probes and I would start by saying that static pressure is a

is a measurement of the pressure in the duct. It's not an airflow measurement because some people go

oh you don't check air flow you don't check static like well static is not really checking

air flow is checking the duct pressure. Now some people say oh you got to check it in the duct

and I've seen some people go like four feet down down the supply duct and stick the probe in

there well that's not really the the place to do it. It's supposed to be done at the air handler

and the reason for that is the reason it's called total external static pressure is because you're

checking everything external to the air handler. So imagine the air handler sitting there or the furnace

whatever you call it. A furnace is even an air handler it's got a fan in it it handles air and if

I've had this fight before well that's not that's a furnace not an air handler well it's got an

air handling component to it so it's essentially it can be called an air handler. Anyway so

yeah so coming in where where the air enters and where the air leaves that air handler is where

you should be checking so everything external return external supply external and everything that's

in the ductwork like a filter a damper maybe like a UV lighter or something that is somehow

creating pressure or or stopping you from having an an ideal static pressure then it all

needs to be included in in there. So when I set it up I just go right into the side of a furnace

usually that there's the knockouts and the rubber knockouts I just try to shove it through there

into the return side of the furnace if there's not a hole like I don't want I don't like drilling holes

if I don't have to so it's after the filter but before the fan is where your first probe goes

and then if you have a furnace that has a coil that's external mounted above it you want to go before

the coil but after the furnace and get your other probe in there and you got to use static pressure

tips basically what they are like these tips that are on a 90 that the tips don't actually have any

holes in them it's the sides of the probes that have the holes in them so if you use static pressure

tips tubes dual port monometer and you put it in the correct places you will get the total external

static pressure and it's usually written right on the air handler what the maximum total external

static pressure is and if you're within that range then you're good if you're outside that range

what's going on is we have high supply do we have high static do we have high high on both then we

got to go and dig what's causing this maybe it's too much airflow in the duct maybe the fans set

to by maybe the equipment's too big maybe the duct is too small so now it's your chance to go figure

out what's wrong and now you found a legit problem that you can sell us a legit solution to rather

than just saying hey you need an air purifier or you need a smart stat but why why do I need those

things but no I found this prob with air distribution in your duct system and it's related to this

let's solve it and maybe the customer will I always explain it when I'm teaching where you know

the probe placement of it just think about how that box came from the manufacturer you know if you

look at a furnace air handler whatever if I have a furnace then the manufacturer has no clue what

filter you're gonna attach to that they have no clue what return ductwork they have no clue what

return grills or anything you're gonna use they don't know what evaporator coil you're gonna use

they don't know what ductwork they don't know registers you're gonna use they have no clue about

that so you got to measure everything external to that furnace itself just think about how it comes

from box we look at an air handler we go to the top and bottom of that right something if you're not

using an app and you are just using just a dual port monometer something to keep in mind is

that could use a lot of people they're doing static pressure is that you know you're going to see

one number that's negative and one number that's positive and because we think of numbers as it's

like money right if I have negative two dollars and then I get positive two dollars now I'm broke

even right but that's not how the static pressure thing works that's a negative pressure because

it's on the return positive pressure on the supply you add those two numbers together without

being concerned about the negative positive portion so negative point two and positive point two is

point four right so that's kind of the idea and and a lot of people get fixated on that it has to be

point five or half-inch of water column on the residential world but with the higher efficiency

variable speed blower motors that we have out there we're seeing it more and more common that

there'll be anywhere from point five to point nine or point eight a lot of times is what you'll see

on the higher end variable speed units so you do have to look at that and verify that that is correct

lower static pressure doesn't always mean that you have better airflow a lot of people will say that

if I have a really low static pressure I might be on low speed of my fan because that fan speed

as I make you go up and down is going to increase or decrease the static pressure quite a bit too

just because it's low doesn't mean it's good so we do have to be able to think about this holistically