HVAC GIY AND BRETT FROM ADVANCED REFRIGERATION PODCAST

Alright, we are live. How we doing? We're doing good, man. I'm glad to get you on. I had another, let's say, educator on earlier. Okay. That was Craig Migliaccio. Yeah. He's a great guy. I mean, it seems like he's dedicated his life to teaching people about HVAC. He's a good guy. To break into this, let me start off by asking you, Tell me your story about how you got into the trades, maybe before you got into the trades, and then how you got into, aren't you teaching now to some degree? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all I do. I mean, well, okay, that's not all I do, but I'll get into that. So long story, I basically, you know, I moved out of my house really young. I moved out of my house when I was 16, was homeless for a while, had two jobs while I was going to high school. Um, ended up doing, getting, uh, going to school for electrical engineering and, you know, I graduated, I, I, I liked it. Um, I mean, I, I had a good job, but I like really didn't dig it as much as what I think I probably would have. Um, I got laid off from a job and I was looking for a job in the, you know, when you, when you're on unemployment, they're like, Hey, you gotta, you know, keep applying for jobs. I was like, okay. So I did. And I ended up getting a job. doing water, water treatment for industrial cooling towers and boilers. And I knew nothing about refrigeration, nothing at all. And, you know, I met, met some guys like myself and I was like, what do you do? And they're like, we make ---- cold. I'm like, how does that work? So they, you know, they got me interested and I was like, well, how do I get into it? And they're like, well, you can either go and go to the, uh, go to the union, which I tried, or you could, you know, just, you know, go to school, you know, at a local community college. And that's what I ended up And I went for, I think, a full semester. Go ahead. I want to ask you a question. You said you tried Union. Where are you located? When I was trying Union, I tried the local 420, which is the Philadelphia steamfitters. That's the only Union. Okay, so Pennsylvania is a big state, but you can drive eight hours through it. You know what I mean? So you got the Pittsburgh Union. I The number is, they're going to hate me for it. forget But then you have the 420, the pipe fitters in Philadelphia. And it's, you know, Philadelphia is like, you got to know someone to know someone. what You know what I mean? And I didn't know anyone in this. Like, it's usually, you know, second, third, fourth generations, you know, that went through you. the steam fitters or whatever, right? So that's where I tried, in the Philadelphia Union. Then, so like I said, I went to community college. I went there for about a semester. And I talked to the instructor. I was like, how am I doing? He's like, you're doing great. I said, I'm going to come back next semester. He's like, no, you don't have to. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, well, you got, you know, electronics in this trade is probably 75 to 85% of what we deal with. I'm like, okay, so what should I do? He's like, you got the theory down, just go and get a job. So the first job I ever got was residential. I worked for a guy, you know, for a bit. And, you know, first three weeks working for the guy, you know, I was the biggest piece of S that he ever met. And I was never going to amount to nothing. And normally when someone tells me that, I get real petty. And I'm like, you know what, I'm going to show you. So I basically just kept fighting and fighting. And, you know, went through residential, then did commercial HVAC, you know, rooftop units and stuff like that. Got interested in market. And just worked my way up. I even, I made a pit stop and doing air compressors for a little bit, like industrial air compressors or anything from like a five horse up to like a thousand horsepower. Um, So I learned, I learned the high voltage side. So like, you know, cause a lot of big motors that big, they have like Y-Delta start. So like three contactors, you know, you've probably seen split, split winding, part winding start, right? Where you have two contactors, one pulls in and then the other one pulls in after the other one, just to give it a little boost. So it doesn't have as much in rush. No, I haven't seen that. Oh, okay. Okay, well, in big industrial stuff, you know, big, big motors, when they're just using 460, they use Y-Deltas. So you have M1, S1, and M2. So M1 and S1 pulling at the same time, and then it sounds like it switches gears, kicks out S2, or S1, and then kicks in M2, and then freaking, and then gets up to full speed. That way it reduces the amount of inrush. Part winding start is used a lot in cities. Where they have, like, voltage problems. Like, when I used to work down in, like, Philadelphia and stuff, your voltage in the summertime could be, like, 183. You know, so the voltage goes down really, really nasty. But anyway, I worked my way up, did some industrial stuff. My mother passed away when I was in Pennsylvania, which, you know, I didn't want to live there anymore. So I moved up to Connecticut. I did commercial up there for about five years. And then I realized how much I hated snow. No. I mean, so it's, like, this is the thing. Like, I grew up in Pennsylvania, right? And, like, snow stuck around until, like, February. In Connecticut, it sticks around until April. Like, it's just... It's just miserable. I found out a really important lesson my first year there. You have to snowblow on four feet of your driveway, like on the grass, because typically by about January, there's nowhere to go with it anymore because you'll get 36 inches at a shot. I walked out one morning. I stuck my level in there. It was 32 inches tall where the snow over the overnight. So I moved where there was no snow or if there is snow, it's gone by noon. So I moved down to Texas. I've been down here for 11 years now, about. I started with Cool Assist. I started just a regular service technician, moved my way up to, you know, service supervisor, ended up doing, you know, teaching people how to, like, resolve issues rather than just Band-Aids. And I did that for a branch. We grew the branch from 14 people. We had 53 sites, and we were working 85, 120 hours a week. And I'm lazy, like, like, like not to the point where I'm just like, Oh, I'm not doing this job, but like it rather works smarter, not harder. Right. So I taught the guys on how I was diagnosing stuff. They were bringing my balls. Cause it was the same issue. And they, then they realized that the compressors were lasting longer. The stores were running smoother and they're like, well, we want to learn. So anyway, so we, we ended up doing that. We, within two years, We got the branch up to 53 technicians. 193 sites at least, and we were only working 65, 85 hours a week. So what I do works. That's better. That's a hell of a lot better. Well, commercial refrigeration is as nasty as it is, you know, as far as hours. So then since I did that with the branch, they were like, you know, the boss would complain about the other regions. I'm like, why don't I do the same thing? But I'll do it, like, every other week I'll travel. So then I started going to Oklahoma, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Rio Grande Valley, you know, all over the region. So I did that, and then it became really repetitious, and then I quit. But they didn't let me quit. They were, like, they were freaked out at the fact that I was quitting. And then they brought me into a meeting. They were like, well, what are you doing? I was like, well, I'm bored. Well, why didn't you come to me? I was like, what was I supposed to say? I'm bored. I need cooler stuff to do. So basically then I became what I was doing there, but I did it on a national scale. So I'd fly out to Georgia, I'd fly out to wherever and, you know, fix other things and then educate the people. Cause we'd engineer this awesome stuff, but like maybe the support in that region didn't know what was going on with that support, that stuff. So I go out there, teach him how to work on it. Well, fix it, fix it first. So I get my nugget around it and then teach them how to work on it. And then one day after COVID, they're like, you're in charge of training. I'm like, okay. Okay, so... I've got a team of subject matter experts. I've got an instructional designer to do stuff in some of the Canvas stuff. Um, and After that, I kind of had my fill of that, and I was like, you know what, I think it's time for me to go independent because by doing what I do on the podcast, I can hit a lot of different people. It doesn't matter what color shirt you have on, what color hat you have on. It doesn't matter. I can hit a broader scope of people. Well, do you enjoy the teaching or do you like getting your hands out there and fixing stuff? Well, so both. So, so usually what I'll do is, um, I do two different things, uh, depending on what, what the need is. Like I also do commissioning, also do startup, but Like for teaching wise, what I'll do is we do two days of theory on the one thing. And then we do two days FAFO, like basically take the theory that we just did and then basically put the rubber to the road on the equipment that I actually taught on. Because like, I don't do a broad training. Like I pull the programs back. I look at all the electrical diagrams. I look at the manufacturers of parts they have in there. And that's what you get taught. You learn everything about that damn piece of equipment. So it's not like you're randomly like just learning, Oh, this is a booster rack. And you're just talking about random ---- about it. You're learning the nuts and bolts. You're learning the program. You're learning everything about it. And then two days we. screw around with it. So like, okay, let's do a PM. Let's, let's change some filter dryers. I never pumped down a CO2 reg for it. All right, let's do it. Cause then I'm there, you know, we got 13, you know, eight, 13 technicians, whatever. If it breaks, we got enough bodies here. We can fix it quickly, you know? Um, and then, uh, then the other thing that I've been doing is, is with the greener guys. Um, I'm actually going to Colorado this week to do this, where I take, uh, eight guys in a mechanical room. Usually have a lead with me. I teach them the way that I diagnose, because it's proven to work, right? And then basically just build off of that. And so the first day I get there Monday, I'm just doing a meet and greet with the managers and see what we're going to do and what technicians, what store. Print out all the material that I want, and then basically we go to the store. And the first day, the rack room is loud as hell because things are short-cycling, things aren't working right, whatever. And then I just teach them the way that I diagnose things and tune things out. So literally, usually by Friday, it's great because the room is actually quieted down. Because from yelling over the mechanical room, I sound like that lady from the casino that just, oh, I'm going to need one more Marlboro and one more nickel slot, and I'm gonna win. That's what I sound like at the end of the freaking week. But those are the two different things that I do as far as training-wise. Like I said, refrigeration mechanics are falling out of the sky. And most schools out there don't cover commercial refrigeration. They cover HVAC. They cover residential HVAC. So all the rest of the stuff, commercial HVAC and all this other stuff, they don't really teach, you know what I mean? Unless you go to a specific... school. That's like a two or three year program. So I basically, I take, cause like, here's the problem. You'll have a guy from ice machines, a guy that's done residential HVAC. You'll have a guy that's done commercial HVAC. You'll have a guy that's worked on self-containers. Well, here's the problem. They all diagnose everything the same, or I'm sorry, differently. So what I do is I give them a direct methodology on how I do things. So then everyone's diagnosing the same. So it doesn't matter if Jimmy calls Billy, which is called Mike, which is called Mark. It doesn't matter. Everyone's diagnosing the same thing. So everyone's learning the same damn way. I also enforce this with having a team lead on site. The reason why, like a manager, because, you know, one that actually manages their group of guys, because I can teach all these guys how to do what I'm, how I'm teaching, but the manager might not be privy to how I'm doing things. So he has to be there as well. So one, so he knows how I'm diagnosing things, but also two, then what I can do is then break off the guys in groups. So these cases need, like, first thing we do is typically go to the rack and tune out the rack, make sure the rack is full charge. Pressures are good. Temperatures are good. You know, we're not flooding back. We got good oil. Great. We got enough refrigerant. It's sub-cooled, whatever. Then we go to the cases. Okay, these cases are five degrees of difference. You're talking about refrigeration racks like in? Supermarkets. Supermarkets, yeah. Yep, yep. That's what all my toys are behind me. Those are all supermarket rack controllers. I've only seen a few of them, and most of those that I have seen have been in videos. I don't work on big refrigeration racks. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, so like I said, so then the other thing is like, because electrical is one of those hard things for technicians to do and learn, I usually break... I did say electrical, right? I didn't ADHD there. Okay, good. You looked at me like, I thought it was like, did I say refrigeration? Well, because electrical to me is the easy part. So, 208 controls can be a bear, right? Because, you know, people will check stuff to ground and like, no, that's not right. So, and the schematics can be kind of, you know, cantankerous, right? So, anyway, so I'll spend three hours with a group of two guys basically working on electrical where we'll follow through everything, the sequence of operation, then I'll be like, you leave, and then I'll... Screw something up. I'll move a wire over on a stay con that doesn't exist. You know, something, you know, cause like the first thing people usually do is they're like, I'm just going to hit reset. So it's just cause something will turn back on, but then, you know, but then they'll see they're like, oh, well I got electric going through the wire, but it's not going anywhere else. So like when you pull wires off and like move it somewhere, like if you have a spade connector right here and usually the spade goes around top, I'll just move it over. So it looks like it's on the spade, but it's not. Um, but then they're, they're forced to use their meter and follow, you know, follow. I teach them hopscotch, right? So if you start from L1 over to L2, you'll get 208. And then when you lose the 208, you're like, Oh, there it is. Where, you know, cause basically remember a meter measures the difference in potential, right? So if you measure nothing, then you're on the same damn wire. Yeah, exactly. You know, um, I always tell people before they change the motor, always make sure it's getting voltage. Make sure it's getting the voltage that you want it to get. It gets funky now, though, with inverters and stuff. So like VFDs, first time I ever hooked a meter up to the output of a frequency drive, I'm like, wait a minute, this thing's supposed to be getting 460, and I'm only getting 230. And it's because the voltage actually changes with the frequency. Yeah, a lot of that stuff's proprietary, and they don't want you to know exactly what they're putting out, so it's hard to tell if it's doing the right thing or not. Well, so on our, on our frequency drives, it's not proprietary. Like it, it, it's, it's, it's, um, it's linear. Like, so if you're running, if you're running 30 Hertz, cause you know, most, most ---- that we deal with in the U S is 60 Hertz, right? Unless we overdrive it. So 60 Hertz, if the motor is four 60 and it's out, it should be outputting four 60. If it's running 30 Hertz or 50%, then it would, should be running 230 volts. So it's linear. The problem is with your ----, you don't know the signal that you're giving it, right? Because the board internally does it. That's the logic they don't freaking tell you because they're all about, oh, it's about mass flow. I'm giving it a 0 to 10 signal, brother. So at 5 volts, it should be running 50% or 30 hertz. Well, that makes sense. You know, some of the newer stuff coming out is allowing us to use a 24-volt control. And at least with that, we can tell it's getting a call. Yeah. You know what I mean? At least we know it's supposed to be running. But with some of the communicating stuff, all you can tell is that, hey, it's putting out 16 volts DC, so it's supposed to be communicating. You don't know what it's telling, and it's real frustrating trying to diagnose that stuff. That's why I like commercial, because there's no ifs, ands, or buts. You know what I mean? I'm giving it, because in order to make a VFD work, like our VFDs, right, we have to have power. We can't have an alarm. We have to have an enable, which is usually a closed set of contacts that's saying, hey, you're good to run. And then the last thing we need is basically a signal. And if we have those things, basically it should run. Let me... It sounds similar to the VFDs on carrier blower motors on some of their commercial rooftop units. Yeah, like the ABBs and stuff, yeah. That sounds similar to what those are like. Yeah, um... And they fail all the time. Most of them I come across are bypassed. Yeah. I think personally, I think it's the humidity. I think it's just way too much humidity in that damn thing. Um, where it's just, it's, it, you know, cause if you look at every VFD, right, there's going to be a, there's going to be a, uh, like, uh, what it's allowed, right? Like what it's allotted to be as far as the temperature and the relative humidity. You know what I mean? So a lot of times you'll have ice ups and then the thing will start, you know, blowing water towards the drive. Cause I know where they're talking about your, you know, it's usually mounted fairly, you know, it can be close, you know, fairly close to the, to the, to the coil and where the blower motor is. I'm like, why? You know, they don't, they don't want to, they don't want to mount it on the, on the outskirts. It's in the compartment. Oh, a hundred percent. The only bitch, the only bitches about our drives, there's like, there could be potentially like 200 different parameters. Like there's only like, honestly, like. 20 that really matter, but like you could change something else. Like I've had people fiddle screw around with, with a drive. And all of a sudden I can't get it to work. Even though I have all the parameters set and then sure as ----, like the guy from the factory is like, reset it, just reset it to factory. Or the other option is with a lot of our drives, you know, you can, you can like on that ABB, when you're talking about it, you can actually take the program that you, that you put in the drive, you know, transfer it to the fascia. Right. And what's nice with a rooftop unit, you might have, Five, five ton rooftop units. So if you have one that, you know, shits the bed, you can basically take, take the program from that, put it to the fascia, take the fascia off, go over the other rooftop unit that you're putting in the new drive in and throw the parameters in. I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know the fascia was removable. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Cause usually, usually it's, it's sometimes they have it like a little remote and it's actually just a, on the ABBs, I think it's an ethernet, ethernet cord. That you can extend it out. So you don't have to be up in the drive. You could actually, if it's the one that I'm thinking of, because I used to work in a lot of carriers, you can actually put an Ethernet cable. And on one of those, you know, on a lot of the rooftop units, they have like a plastic pop out so you can put your gauges and ---- through. You can do the same thing with that thing. So like then you could sit outside the drive and **** with the programming instead of being right in there, you know, messing with the drive right in front of it. Yeah. Well, let me ask you one thing. You told us how you got into the trades and your path of getting into it. Yeah. I feel like many times I would like to be able to tell high school graduates that college may not be the right choice for a lot of them. So I'll ask you if you could give advice to that group of people and maybe people looking to get into the trades, what's the best way to do it? So, you know, there are some companies now that are doing their own programs, right? you know some commercial you know some commercial places are doing their own programs as far as getting into the trade um you know which is better for them it's better for you too if you're working on that type of equipment um there are some trade schools out there um be mindful and do your research um there are some schools out there that are just i just care about numbers I just keep, you know, I just, I want, I want to get, I need, I need a quota of 30 technicians going through here and like, you know, contractors are left holding the bag because they taught you how to put on a set of gauges and told you you're going to make 40 bucks an hour. Um, you know, unions, unions are a good way to go to, um, you know, um, the, the days of the days of you having like a guy like you, right. You know, having an apprentice for, you know, for, you know, six months to a year, those days are way over. Um, everything's all about profit. You got to pay, pay, you know, pay your stuff. Um, so it's, it's, it's hard to get that kind of education anymore. And I think the more I teach, the more and more I teach, I, I, I had come to the realization that it's not, it's not so much the, um, the book stuff. Um, that's that, that people are missing. It's the, you know, some people call it tribal knowledge. Some people call it street knowledge, the stuff that, you know, you know, people like you and I have worked our way up and learn this ---- either from another person or learn from experiences. Right. Um, you know, you working with someone, um, It, you know, I mean, first off, find a place that you can get educated. A little bit of two is, is do your own damn research. As far as like, I read all the time, all the time and I'm dyslexic as hell. So like sometimes if I read a book on one subject, it doesn't make any sense. Then I'm like, Oh, I'm going to read this book. And it's about the same subject, but it's just worded just a little bit different. I'm like, Oh, I get it now. And that means I got how the other one was. Um, but if you can, if you do finally get in somewhere, um, make sure that you get someone Um, you know, some, someone that you're working with, ask questions, ask questions. Um, don't be afraid to ask, you know, I'm going to ask a stupid question, question that you add that you don't ask is the stupid one. Um, you know, um, one of the places I worked at, they just didn't have a really good culture of the guys getting along with each other. It was more like we were pitted against each other competing with each other. So nobody wanted to ask anybody for help. People are I eventually, I mean, that was really like my second job as a technician, and I got to the point where I was competent, and people were friendly with me, so they would call me for help, and I enjoyed helping other people, and some of those guys I still have a good relationship with. I became friends with them, but not all workplaces kind of encourage that environment where you can ask for help. So, so one of the things is like, when I, when I was at, when I was at the Dallas branch, like, you know, I ended up being a leader and like you show being a leader by, you know, pick up that phone, like pick up that phone. I don't know how many times I scared the ---- out of poor guy. Like, cause he wasn't expecting me to show up. I'm like, I'm, my wife's already mad at me. I'm already late. You know, I'm already late going home. It's 10, 11 o'clock. And I was like. You know, hey, this guy's on, like, a five-time callback. Let me just show up. And I'd freaking pop up in the motor room, like, what are you doing here? I was like, man, just checking to make sure you're all right. You know what I mean? It's all about building the culture from the upward, you know, from the upward down. A lot of times, people were like, man, that guy has been doing this ---- 20, 30 years. And he still works as hard as I do. And, like, he's willing to help me. And a lot of times, like, that breeds, man. Like, you get a couple guys like that, like, you know, the guys that you're bringing up. And those guys have that same, like, you know, one guy called me, he's like, how do you, how do you get people like interested in being, it's like, and I'm like, it's just you, it's, it's you just, you know, showing that you're going to pull, you know, you're putting your weight in as far as like, you know, helping out everyone. And it's usually like, it's, it's, it's contagious. Like, you know, you get a good culture going and you'll get a good company going. Well, my problem when I was trying to grow my business, I had trouble just attracting Good people and keeping them. There were a couple of good people that, I mean, I'm competing with big, big companies that have 401ks and retirement plans and healthcare, and that's hard to compete with. So I felt like all the really good ones were taken and I'm left with the bottom half of the labor pool. So it was, it was difficult. It was difficult. Let's put it that way. This is when you started your, your own business or when you were working? When I was trying to grow the current business I have, I got up five employees, two technicians and an installer. There was always a technician with the installer when they would go out and do a job. He was basically like a metal man and somebody answering the phone. So I was trying to grow it. I was trying to do the right thing, but it's just hard to get those good people who you can trust and build your company around the right people. It's hard. It's hard to do that. It really, it's, you know, but like I said, it's, it's trying to build that. We're trying to build that culture up. You know what I mean? So like, if you take, you know, take guys that don't, you know, that, that don't know anything, you know, you invest in them and, you know, they're like, wow, this guy's willing to, to give me a shot, you know, and investing that time into that person. A lot of times it just, like I said, it breeds, it breeds, you know, good culture throughout the company. Well, let me ask you about your podcast. How was... The social media and the podcast, how is it affecting how you work? And do you use it as part of your work? Not, uh, sometimes like, I mean, like, cause I honestly, like, I don't, it's going to sound so shitty. We never know what we're going to do until about 10 or 15 minutes before. Like, we're like, what are we like, like, what time are you going to be home? I'll be at home four 30. What do you want to do? know. We'll figure it out later. I'm talking about your podcast. I'm talking about the podcast. I have no idea what the hell we're going to do. And then we just riff. So, like, well, like... We'll have the conversation like, what did you work on this week? Or what did you train? And then Kevin will ask me, what did you train on? Or what did you work on? I was like, well, I was working on this guys are Warren FTE blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, okay, let's do that. And that's what we'll end up doing. And like, you know, I. So a lot of times I use the stuff that I do during the week into the podcast. Yes, like, you know, it's. It's not a, you know, it's like we never, man, we never really like kind of set out to be like, we're going to be awesome at commercial refrigeration podcasting. You know, like it was just like, we were just trying to get people educated. So no one died, man. There was so much bad information out there. You know what I mean? Um, you know, just from the comments on my videos, I know there's a lot of bad information out there and I correct some of the people and sometimes some of my viewers correct them, but there's a lot of. Misguided comments. Let's put it that way. Yeah, we never pull vacuums. There's no reason to pull vacuums. You can just purge it real good. I've seen a YouTube video on that. It'll work fine. Oh, you can do it. No, I'm... No. You can do it. I'm not saying it's going to work out great, but you can do it. But that's, but that's the kind of stuff, like people will misconstrue, like, you know, what people say, or like, I mean, I saw some guys like, I don't have to pull it. I got this MrCool system. All I did was have to just open up the one valve and just purge it out until I started the spritz spritz. And then once I got the spritz spritz, then I stopped. All right. I had a comment. I had a dryer on the inside of the condenser and I changed it and I put the dryer on the outside. And one of my comments was, why are you changing the dryer? Why don't you just pump it down and leave it on the inside. I guess technically if you pump it down it's going to maybe stay dry but I've been taught anytime you open the system you change the dryer. I feel like that's the right thing to do. So that's why I'm doing it. It depends. Yeah. Like, like on the stuff, like a commercial rooftop. Absolutely. Totally, totally, totally agree with you, but you're not going to change all the filter dryers on a rack. Every single time you open up that system, you know what I mean? You have your ball valves and isolation, you know, isolation parts of the system. You know what I mean? So you can isolate the, you know, isolate a part of the system. It's not like you're. You know, we're like, you're very critical on most of your charges. And when I say critical charge, I'm talking like 5, 10, 15 pounds. You know what I mean? Because we'll throw 800 pounds in something, 1,200 pounds of one of the racks I worked on the other week had 4,600 pounds of CO2. I do. Deal. That's high pressure stuff, isn't it? Yeah, only on the high, only on the one section of it, literally from the one discharge line up to what we call the high pressure valve. Operating pressure is usually like 1,300, well, when it's hot outside, it can work as high as like 1,450. The high pressure usually shuts off the compressors at 1,550, and the relief goes off at 1,740. And that pressure using steel line sets? So there is a stainless steel line set, or you can use, you know, black iron, but also they have this material that's called XHP. Uh, we're not really original in the United States. It stands for extreme high pressure, um, on the piping. It actually has, um, Unlike on copper fittings, you'll see, uh, F E C U and F E C U is the periodic table for iron and copper. So it's actually, it's, it's iron, iron smelted copper. It actually has iron in it. And the, huh? To give it strength. Correct. So the working pressure and it's like 1885. So that's why you can do the pressure of, of 1740 or whatever for your relief. Cause typically field piping has to be, you know, through, is it MZ or I don't know. It's one of those. One of those things with the International Mechanical Code where usually fuel piping needs to be 10% rated. It needs to be able to run 10% higher than what the working pressure is. You know what I mean? So if you do a leak check on it, like if you're pressurizing the system for the first run and the relief is 1740, then you better push it up to like 1885. So that would be essentially 10% or whatever on the fuel piping anyway. But like I said, usually that high side, everything else on commercial refrigeration for CO2, They're using not L-copper, is what we're typically used to, ACRL. We use K-copper, a little bit higher of a burst rating. Because it's basically anything from the liquid side on is basically 410A pressures. Well, is it a thicker copper? Because most of our copper is just a 16th of an inch thick. Yeah, a little bit, yeah. A little bit thicker. I don't know the actual dimensions. I'd be lying to you. I just know that there's L, L, well, there's M, L, K, and then you have this XHV stuff. Well, I don't want to get into what you've been working on today. So we just start. What were you working on today? I actually, I kind of didn't work. I had a lot of doctor's appointments. I donated some blood today. And then. That's why you were able to join the cast today. Well, I mean, I, like, I mean, I had ---- I have to do, but I just, I had to, I was doing a lot of doctor's appointments and stuff today. And then I bought, I bought lemons, lemons and pomegranates. And I was just, I would actually, when you called, cause like you told me 645 and I was like, oh, I got time. It was 613 and I was just finishing making, but it was, I was time, time change. Because I'm on Central, you're on Eastern, right? And I was like, when you're like, where are you? I'm like, I'm coming, I'm coming. Like, I just finished cleaning up the, because I just finished the pomegranate juice. Oh, and then I was making, I got a touch of the pancreatitis, so I'm nursing some chicken broth here. Oh, no, take care of that. That's, look on. Yeah, I know, I know. My mom died from pancreatic cancer from chronic inflammation. Really? Yeah, we want to stay away from that. So that's what I'm saying. So this week I'm like, yeah, I'm going to hit the chicken broth and the beef broth and the veggie broth this week pretty hard. I'm trying to eat a little bit better. Because I was doing good for a while, and then I didn't. Then I ballooned up a little bit. When I went to AHR last year, I was. Kind of, kind of heavy, a little bit heavy. And so I just, I had to buy a bigger suit. I had to buy a fat man suit. I was like, I tried to put on my one from the year before. I look like Chris Farley, that guy. I am a little goat. So, yeah. So then I had to buy a new suit and I was like, yep, time for a diet. So I'm currently sitting around two 40. I was up to like two 60. So I look like a linebacker. Are you going back this year? I have to. I won Best Podcast last year, so I've got to give away the award. Oh, that's right. So you've got to present. Yeah. Well, has anybody reached out to you about presenting? Uh... No, actually. Nobody's reached out to me either. Really? Uh-uh. I spoke with Rachel. She's got Ladies of the Trade. Nobody's talked to her either. Shit, we're already in September, too. I didn't even think about that. I mean, I'll be in AHR. You know what I mean? Um, but I don't want to, I don't want to be that guy. Cause I mean, like it was, it was cool. Cause I was the first guy to move to, to get two awards, you know? Cause like I, dude, I didn't prepare a speech at all. Cause I'm like, cause you know, Ben's like, I was, I was, you know, when I found out I was nominated, um, You know, cause they have, you know, they call you and be like, well, are you going to be there? I'm like, yeah, I'll be there. You know, whatever. Cause I had to present for, for the mentor one that I got, you know, the year before. And, uh, and so when I found out I was, I was, you know, nominated, I'm like, and Ben's like, I was like, can I win twice? He's like, it's never happened. Like he made it seem like it was just this impossible thing. And I'm like, I guess I'm not going to win. I was like, I'm not going to ******* write a speech, whatever. And then I'm like, Advanced refrigeration podcast. I'm like, uh, I didn't do anything. I didn't really prepare anything either. I just said, what was it on my mind? Oh, and the first year, the first year, like I had everything planned. I'm like, I'm like, hopefully I'll win this mentor of the year thing. I had something written down on my, in my tablet. I had something written down on my, on my little book. Um, and I forgot both those things when I went running up to the freaking table, up to the, up to the podium. What the **** did I write down? I have no idea. Off the dome it goes. Dude, I'm going to tell you a true story about, all right, I wasn't really, I didn't know if I was going to win or not. I don't think any of us who were nominated knew who was going to win. And when I stood up after they called my name, I felt like there was a breeze in my pants and I wanted to look down to make sure my fly wasn't unzipped. Yeah. Did your pants split? But I was too embarrassed to look down. So I walked all the way up there, not knowing if my fly was unzipped. That's what we call Southern air conditioning. Thank you. I did, but luckily it was. No, it was, it was weird. Cause like it was, it was the first time I got up there, like I lost all, I don't know what happened. I don't, I don't remember everything I said. I had to go back and like, watch what I said. I'm like, remember what I said? Cause like, I mean like the first time you go up there, like, I mean like, listen, I've taught in front of like, like. The max I've probably ever taught in front of is probably, like, 125 people. You know what I mean? Like, big, like, auditorium style where, like, you're set up front. It's, like, almost like auditorium seating or whatever. And, like, even then, like, you're just going off the dome, like, you know, when you're doing a presentation about stuff because you've taught it a bunch of times. I mean, but, like, I was like, I don't know what I said. And I had to go back. And I was like, you know, am I getting canceled for something I said? I don't know. You know? Well, it was a fun event. Most of the people there were like Instagrammers, though, and I'm not real big on Instagram. I'm trying, like, if y'all are listening, there's a link to our Instagram pages scrolling underneath. I'm trying to grow the Instagram, but my main platform is YouTube, always has been. So I felt a little bit out of place because most of the people there were Instagram influencers. Like I said, everyone's like, well, how, you know, how do you grow in your thing? How are you growing your, your, your social media? I was like, I'm not. Like, I mean, if people want to listen, people can listen. You know what I mean? Like, I don't, I'm not like, I never have set out to be like, yeah, we're going to, we're going to build this big, you know, brand name and do this and do that. I'm just like, I mean, we, we do it cause it's, it's, it's a little bit of therapy for me. Um, cause we just get to bullshit about the problems that we deal with and stuff like that. And like, and the other thing is too, man, it's cool. Cause like, I get a lot of people that are like, man, I, you don't even understand like how much your podcast actually helps or like. I've had people from schools be like, hey, do you mind if I use your stuff to teach stuff? I'm like, I don't care. I That's what it's there for. You know what I mean? Like, you know, we make a little bit of bread off it, don't but it's enough to keep it rolling. And, you know, my time that I put into it, you know, as far as the recordings and the editing and ---- like that, but like my main job is my main job. You know what I mean? care. Like I write curriculum for other people and stuff. And, you know, I mean, I got so much stuff going on, like, and I should probably invest more time in the podcast, but I just don't. Well, I'm going to tell you, the YouTube, for me, got to the point where it generates enough of an income for me to wake up and focus on it a little bit. Oh, really? You know what I mean? Instead of just kind of haphazardly throwing out videos when I can to make it a point to edit and produce something and try to do a good job of it. I don't know, cultivate that because... It does, it does pay and it does help out. Yeah. I see some of the stuff like that, that I do, I gotta be careful with though. Like, like, you know, I, I work, you know, if Future Green now is, is an engineering firm for first and foremost, right? Like they brought me on because, you know, I, I could, you know, help, help build as far as clientele, as far as, you know, what I do as far as field services and stuff like that. So like a lot of the stuff that we deal with currently, I'm, I'm, there's a lot of NDAs. Like, I can't talk about a lot of this stuff that we do, you know, I'd be in violation Of breaking said NDAs. When I teach, it's a different story because all the, all the information for a lot of that equipment is out there publicly, whatever, but like, you know, some of the stuff that we've engineered and that we've designed, man, is, is like specially ---- that we, you know, that, that we, you know, we built, we've designed, you know what I mean? So, you know, we're not a mechanical contractor. We're an engineering slash commissioning slash we'll figure out something that no one else can figure out with your system wrong. You know what I mean? Essentially what the company is. That reminds me, when I went to, I recently went to the Milwaukee Pipeline event, and part of it was a tour of some of their facilities, and they made us sign an NDA before we went in there. And I'm thinking, we're going to see some really cool ---- now. Yeah. And, uh, And it wasn't groundbreaking, is what you would think. They basically told us why their batteries and whatnot are better than the others, but they don't want us telling you why. And just, I mean, just a little stuff like that. Well, everyone, you know, in anything like this, like everyone has their own sauce that makes their brand or, you know, their devices better than everybody else's, right? And they don't want that getting out. Cause a lot of times it's a marketing thing too. Like I called a manufacturer the other day, manufacturer. I'm just going to call them Voldemort. That's what I usually jokingly refer to people that I can't name the actual manufacturer. I'm like, it's Voldemort. Um, he who cannot be named. Um, but anyway, so I, I called them and I was like, I can't find any information on your watering system. And they're like, yeah, we do that on purpose. I'm like, why? It was like, well, cause you called, didn't you? I'm like, it worked. It worked. It's good marketing. I'm Because there's some, so we use in the hotter climates starting that are less humid, we use what are called adiabatic. Uh, gas coolers for CO2. It's basically a condenser, but the only difference is it's in, to in your, in your, you know, something that I can put particular to you. speak It's basically a ******* swamp cooler. So what we do is we basically put a, you know, like a humidifier pad, drip the water across the humidifier pad, drops a wet bulb and, now. you know, and it makes it cool, humid air. And then you get more efficiency out of the condenser or what we refer to in CO2 world as a gas cooler. And that's what we use. Well, some have pumps. Some have a pump, and they control the flow of the water off of the humidity sensor to try to maintain 100% humidity. And this other brand, Voldemort, basically uses a Venturi. So they put X amount of water in, you know, to pump it up to, you know, to let it feed up into these feeders across these humidity pads. But any water that's left behind... They can't have a pump because a pump is, there's a patent on a pump. So basically they take the water that's left behind and run it to a side port on a Venturi. So as you're filling up fresh new water, it pulls up the water that's sitting in that little bit of a drain up in the side of this thing to reuse it. You can't use a pump? Yeah, so there's a dumb patent out there. There's one manufacturer that uses a recirc pump. It only has a 20-gallon sump, so it doesn't use a lot of water. And they have the patent on the technology to use the pump, which is asinine to me because we've been using pumps for cooling towers forever. So I've never looked at that. But, like, I... They just don't want to pay the rights to use their pump. To use their idea of what they have for the pump, yes. So, like, there's three or four different manufacturers, like, we're going to do it this way because then it's not, and then we don't have to pay for the patent rights. Oh, God. You know, first time I saw a swamp cooler, it was on one of these guys that makes videos out west, and I just thought that was crazy. Because down here, the relative humidity is almost always high. Even in the middle of winter, it can be 50%. Can I share? Can I share my screen? Yeah. Nothing bad, I promise. Let me see if I can... Sharing without sharing goods. There we go. So that's an adiabatic gas cooler. So essentially what happens is the water gets dripped across these pads right up top here, like through either a trough or a piece of PVC. The water drips down along these pads, saturates the pads, and then basically right here you can see where the actual coil is. You know what I mean? Where the actual, what would be a normal condenser would be. And so all you're doing is basically taking water, dripping it across these pads, making these pads saturated and basically, you know, causing the wet bulb temperature to get, you know, low. So you're getting cool, humid air going across there. So you get a little bit more efficiency. So, so instead of having like, you know, typical condensers can have like a five degree TD. So what does that mean? Five degree TD basically means if the ambient is 90 degrees outside, I will maintain a saturated condensing temperature of 95. So is this a condenser or is it like a chiller coal? It is. So in CO2, it's essentially the equivalent to a condenser, right? The problem is CO2 has a very low critical point, okay? The critical point of CO2 is 87 degrees saturated. It's like 88 degrees saturated. So if it's 82 degrees outside and we're using that adiabatic thing, then we're running what's called transcritical. You cannot condense the refrigerant back into a liquid state. So you can do the same thing with R22. R22 has a critical point, but it's 205 degrees saturated, which is like 741 PSI. Our 404 has a, has a critical point of 205 degrees or no, I'm sorry. 165 degrees saturation, which is like, uh, 541 pounds. So if you got, if you ran R22 or 404 in those, in those pressures, the, the, the *******, the condenser couldn't condenser like it wouldn't be a condenser anymore. It would just cool the gas. So with CO2, that's what makes CO2 awesome for heat reclaim. Cause typically like, Um, so you, you know what a heat reclaim is, right? Where you take a little bit of the vapor off the discharge line and basically run it through a coil to, to reheat a store, right. To, to keep the air conditioning running. Yeah. With, with CO2, you could actually get a hundred percent total heat reclaim. So you, you know, you can. All the heat that you're putting into it, it makes it amazing for chillers because you're basically using electrical energy to chill down whatever process you're doing, you know, beer, wineries, whatever. But then all the heat that you're generating that goes to the gas cooler, you can use that for reheat. There's some places that have lowered their LP consumption by 91 liters of LP a day because of all the heat that you're generating off that ----. Where like with a normal HFC, You can only use about 20% of the total heat rejection because here's a problem. Once you remove the sensible heat, now you're ******* condensing, right? Now you're basically condensing the refrigerant into a liquid, right? With CO2, if I keep it above the critical point, I can't condense, which means all that heat that I'm using is basically all the total heat rejection. So it almost sounds like you're adding a different heat reclaim. It's like a separate condenser where you actually lower the temperature even more and then bring it back and try to condense it. Is that what you're doing? No, no. We use heat reclaim for a bunch of different processes, right? So we use the discharge gas of the CO2 to either heat up water or heat up space. So eventually, we've got to get it down to a liquid, right? Yeah. So we do that with other valves that I haven't talked about. It's a high-pressure valve. Because if we drop the pressure down below the critical point, then we can reconstitute that refrigerant back into a liquid. It's all about the enthalpy. If you look at a P-h diagram, you'll be able to figure it out. But like I said, we'd have to drop the pressure in order to get it to convert back into. Uh back into a liquid and we do that with there's a high pressure valve in the system that we do that with But but that's you know, like I said with with HFCs we can only get about 20 percent um Heat reclaim out of like the total the total load of the unit where you can use the whole condensing load To heat up water up to like steam steam temperatures. We've heated up water to 240 degrees Fahrenheit And this is all in big applications like at a supermarket or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, or industrial facilities. I mean, ----, dude, they make CO2 residential water heaters now, right? Not that I've seen. I've seen. You were at HR last year. You didn't see them? They're all over the place. Damn, there were like 2,000 exhibitions there. I didn't see them all. What were you doing? I was cherry-picking the ones that I wanted to go see, and I would go visit them. And then try to peruse as I'm walking through and see what was there. There's just a lot there. Yeah. And there's even heat pump water heaters now. Well, that's what I'm saying. That's what these are. Those are CO2? Some of them are, yeah. And tell me, what plumber's going to be working on a CO2 heat pump? They're not. They're just going to replace it. I'm not. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. I mean, it's, you got to remember too, Curtis, like we have to use, we have to use this XHP copper because of the, because of the size of the copper that we use. Right. But you got to remember every time you go down a diameter in piping, the piping tensile strength, like strengthens up. Right. So you could use, you know, three eighths pipe on CO2 and on even for the high side, probably I'd have to look at the, I'd have to look at like the, the, the chart, but I mean, you might not even have to use the extreme high pressure piping. Because the three-eighths line, the burst rating might be high enough. It's bad enough we got to deal with A2L refrigerants, and now they're talking about going. How's it going? How's it going? Why do you say that? Man, so, like, there's this event that I'm definitely going to next year. Hell or high water, I'm freaking going next year. There's a thing called Chilvanta. It's a, it's a, it's like. Like, uh... You're it's, it's in, it's in Nuremberg, Germany. So I'm definitely going next year. Cause that's where my family's from. My last name is Wetzel. Um... And so basically it's, it's like a big HR, but like all the new technologies, every, all the new technologies usually come out from your, from Europe. The Chilvanta only happens once every two years. So it happened in 2024. I missed it. I was pissed. And then I'm going you know 2026. But they didn't have any A2Ls there because Europe's like, oh, parabens bad, you know I'm going for the forever chemicals because A2Ls actually have it. So a lot of places are getting away from A2L. All right. Dude, there was just a thing in ACR News, An A2L, it's not much different than a... It isn't different. The thing is with me, they just retrofitted. All the prices went up, and you're telling me it's fixing to happen again? Until they find something else. No. That's why Europe's like, **** it, we're going propane, we're going ammonia, and we're going CO2. I've heard that they're going to start using propane. Oh, dude, I worked on a... It's called a monoblock system. So it says you can't have more than 150 grams per system, right? So what they did was they put four compressors in a system that has one evaporator that work in unison that hold 150 grams apiece. So you're actually up to 600 grams of propane, but it's not. Is it one system or is it four tiny systems? It's four tiny systems with one common evaporator. But it's like a walk-in. So this is what a monoblock is. So basically, it's one single evaporator for a walk-in freezer, a walk-in cooler. So the bitch is with A2Ls, right? So we're all under, or I'm sorry, not A2Ls, but propane. You're under a charge mitigation, right? So you can only have this on 150 grams. So you can have a coil. That's one ton. That's, let's just say, I don't know, I'm just going to take guesses at ----. Maybe it's ******* 24 inches long, right? But I can reduce the size of that coil by putting more fins per inch. Normally, a walk-in cooler usually has about eight or six fins per inch. Um, for the, or I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Six or four fins per inch. Maybe it is eight. I don't know. I forget now. I think it is eight. It's eight, eight and six. Um, so you can shorten that coil by putting more fins in there. Problem is that if you put more fins in there, it's going to collect more frost, more moisture. You know what I mean? Iced up quicker, right? Right. All right. That's why we don't run a freaking air conditioning system down below 38 degrees saturated or 36 degrees saturated, right? Because then it's going to start to freeze up. So because of the charge mitigation, they were like, we need to put more fins in there because by reducing it, you got to remember an evaporator has a bunch of ******* liquid in it and a little tiny bit, a little, a little tiny bit of vapor. So if we can make the coil smaller and put more surface area on it, then it reduces our charge mitigation. Problem is if it's in a high humidity area, um, good ******* luck. And then you just have to do more defrost. So that's one thing that they're having problems with. It was like, Oh, it's icing up a bunch. We've got to keep under the 150 grams, so we've got to put more fins in there to mitigate that. You know what I mean? It's not like a freaking air conditioning coil. I mean, I don't even know what the fin per inch is. They're pretty tight. They're pretty tight. It's probably like, I don't know, the 12 or 14 fins per inch. Like, it's fine. It's tight, man. You guys have the fin combs that you guys use to straighten your ---- out. Yeah, they're pretty tight, and they get clogged up real easy. And so, like, on walk-in freezers, you know, they usually use... like four fins per inch you know what i mean like it's it's you know four or even even six um depends on how much humidity and how much you know the how much how much uh walking in like you because you have these um we call them pos uh pos coolers and freezers it doesn't mean piece of that's point of sale so like you'll have a main walk-in that has a whole bunch of doors and they'll have shelves right in the front where they stock the product from the walk-in Around these little shelves, and basically, you know, you can open up the door, grab your milk, grab your ice cream, whatever, but people still leave the door open. They're like, I can't see through the glass, so I got to open up the door in order to check out what I want. You know, and then they have the door open real, real long, and then it sucks in a whole bunch of humidity. You know, so one of my first introductions to a real big walk-in freezer, we let the door open because we were stocking it, and it started snowing in there. Yeah. I couldn't believe it. I guess just bringing in all that humidity, and it just started freezing, and it started snowing. I had never seen that in a walk-in freezer before. If it's a high, yeah, yeah. I mean, if it's super, super, super high, yeah, you'll have that. So when I worked on air compressors for a little itty-bitty bit, because they went into someone that worked on refrigeration for their air dryers. So they use pneumatics a lot of times, like in... Walk-ins, you know, big, big packing places that have a lot of refrigeration going through. And so they run the doors off in pneumatics. So you have to keep the air dry in order to use it. Otherwise, water moisture will freeze out and, you know, fall out. Yeah. And when I worked on air compressors, they were using these things called Centex. They're centrifugal air compressors. And they use them to freaking make snow on the mountain that I grew up near. Yeah, they use copious amounts of water and then air, and then it basically ******* creates snow. That's how they make snow. Well, Brett, I think I'm going to go ahead and call it. I still have to... Get in the shower before I go to bed. All right. Well, man, I appreciate you having me on. I'm sorry. Like I said, you got to be more specific because you're like, oh, yeah, 645 Central Time. And then I was looking, it was like 613. And then I saw you text me like, where are you? I'm like, but you said 645 my time. Hey, well, I hope you'll come back on. Oh, for sure. Curtis, I appreciate you having me on, man. Thank you so much. No problem. And y'all stay tuned for the next episode. Thank you for coming on, Brett. Yep. Stick around.