HVAC GUY Q and A

Well guys, I'm waiting for a couple of people to show up so we can do this live stream. I told you in my last video that we might be doing a Q&A. Y'all do let me know if anybody shows up. I do see we have somebody here. Finally, we got a couple of viewers. I figured I would do a Q&A today. Hey guys, Juan de Colombia. No, there's not an HVAC Nights episode tonight. That's why I'm doing this little live stream. Y'all forgive me, some of this is a little bit hard to read. Hello from Canada. Estoy bien, Marlon. You know I'm in the house. Hey, just leaving the last job. I'm glad to see some people showing up in the chats here. Actually, a lot of people showing up. Well, Chris, how'd you like that last video? Pascagoula. Hey, Jerry from Tennessee. Chris, I figured I'd do just a little bit of question and answers. Just kind of go off what's going on in the chats and y'all can help lead the conversation. There's not going to be an HVAC Nights tonight. No, I'm not going to Gwinnett. Any advice going from commercial to residential? Everything you've learned is applicable to residential. There's some stuff that they have purposely made much more complicated than it should be. You would think residential should be simpler, It's a little simpler, but... There are companies that try to make things just as complicated as possible. Lots of little things can make something go wrong, like a sensor can shut down a whole system. But you'll get used to it real quick. Do you have family that lives in Augusta? What did I miss on that? I actually lived in North Augusta for a short while. Oh, you're welcome for the videos. That's the guy, JT, from South Texas. Some of South Texas is getting beat with some rain right now. What is my training background? Well, I had a lot of different jobs and I started in HVAC doing duct work. I was a helper, worked my way up. I didn't stay in that very long. I became a technician and within, honestly, about five years, I was running somebody else's company. And... But I started my college career in engineering. I even went into nursing one time. I was an EMT. I was a truck driver, a welder. I've done lots of stuff. Good evening from Las Vegas. Thanks. The main difference between TXV and piston when charging in 410A, well, it's whatever refrigerant you're charging. TXV controls the superheat, so you can't charge by superheat. You charge by subcooling. In a piston, you charge by superheat, depending on temperatures outside and inside. It don't matter what refrigerant, that's the rule. I don't use R22 anymore. Only, I kind of like MO99. I use 422B. I've used 407C. I've used, I just like the MO99. It seems to do better. We have a lot of heat pumps down here, and the MO99 does better when it swaps over to heat. You'll find that some of them. It'll be doing fine in AC, but when it swaps over to heat, it starts to go out on high head pressure. So you got to be careful how you charge. You don't want to have to go back out every season to add or subtract some. So Chris says, no MO99. Why not? R32 and R454B are replacing 410. They're not selling new equipment with 410 starting the beginning of next year. Forgive me, I'm reading y'all's comments. Oh, you've had problems with oil on larger stuff. I understand the MO-99 may not transport the oil throughout the system on larger systems. Yeah, I tried the 422B for a long time, and I kept having that same problem. When it would swap over to heat, it would have head pressure problems to the point that you feel like you've got to take some out, and then when you take it out and swap it I'll be back over to cool. It's not going to cool right. So I had that problem with, I think they call that new 22 or 422B. Y'all just heard that pup. I think that's Mark Cotter. He's in here wanting me to, hey boy, he's coming in here looking at me and whining because he wants me to go in there and watch TV. No, I've never had the honor of being in the military. I've come from a family that nearly everybody was. But I came out of high school in a time when there were no conflicts and there was no need to go into military. I didn't, I just didn't go. I kind of wish that early part of my life I had, but I didn't. Adrian's in the house. Adrian and Jake are up to something pretty cool. Each one of them, I kind of wish I could be in their shoes. I hope Adrian is not driving through pouring rain. Might seem militant because of the way I carry myself. I have never been in the military. I've been highly influenced by people who were in the military, but no, I have not been. Are you asking about the AccuTrack ultrasonic detector? So far, that has been the only one that I know is going to work dependably. I just need to learn how to use it better, like squirting water on a coil when I'm searching a coil. Forgive me, guys. I'm still reading your comments. Yeah, apparently Adrian's watching. Jake might be busy. Somebody wants some of this Florida heat down here. How hot's it getting in Florida? Because it's been getting up above 95 up here. Oh, you saw Riley. Come here, Riley. Come here, boy. Come here, boy. Now he's focused on mama because she's in the kitchen. Let me see. Hi, question. Installing hard ducts and wrapping with R5 duct wrap. Do I need the outward clenching staple gun to secure the wrap or is foil tape good enough? I want to staple it myself. Around here, we almost always use R8, but I want to staple it because I'm afraid that foil tape, if it gets wet, it's just going to fall off. Colorado, you're hitting 90 and 100 and a heat wave coming. Adrian says, sup, fellas? Apparently, he's not driving. Eddie's on vacation. Forgive me, that's a lot of comments coming fast. Maintenance on a window unit. Clean the filters. Lightly wash off the coil outside, but that's about all you can do. This morning for us didn't start out so hot. We had overcasts and a slight drizzle. I had a job planned to clean coils underneath the trailer, but I was going to have to work in a mud puddle, so I told them I'll come back when it dries out. So the early part of my day I didn't, I didn't do a whole lot. Wait a minute, is Kraus in here? I don't see him. Well, I do think the staples are kind of important to me. I mean, that's just my opinion. I've seen some of the depth guys that work for me. They just want to use the tape. To me, I don't feel like that's enough. No, I did not grow up in Albany. I grew up in North Augusta, South Carolina. Almost all my family lives around the Columbia area, except for a few of them. So I grew up in North Augusta, right on the border of Augusta, Georgia. There are some whole house dehumidifiers here but most of the people who are interested in something like that we end up selling them a higher efficiency system or something that's communicating where they can control the humidity through their thermostat or user interface. Interesting hobbies outside of HVAC. Y'all know one of them and that's YouTube. Small engines, generators, There's... I think I could have been a happy electrician. I enjoy that kind of work. I do live on a river, so spending time out looking out over the river, we have a couple resident alligators and catfish out there, and it's just fun to be out there. So that's my pastimes. Let me see. Let me see. Y'all are commenting real fast. I can't pause them. Marcos Triana just got his rally. That was Riley. That's our puppy. He's not really a puppy. He's an 80-pound Weimaraner with long legs. So Kraus is in the house. We need to drop those losers on night. Right. Kraus is the one that makes it fun. Fresh out of HVAC school in Michigan, any advice for me, please? Just be willing to learn. Do your best. Try to take pride in your work and learn everything you can as fast as you can. The more you know, the more you're going to make. Are prices going up on the new systems in the next year? That's a possibility. They've been going up ever since COVID, like 10%, 15%. It seems like every quarter. So I'm frustrated with the prices. A change out today now costs twice, if not more than twice, as much as it did pre-COVID. This is not my first live stream, but it's the first one I've done in a long time. Yes, Joel Ramirez has a good point. Take pride in your work. Acknowledge when you make a mistake and learn from it. We all make mistakes. Lord knows I do. So how did I learn to speak Spanish? I happened to be working in a way that I could live with and socialize with Hispanics that I was working with. So I just jumped in with both feet and submerged myself in the culture. And I was studying dictionaries and grammar books all at the same time. And then when I was going to. Ohio University, I just, you know how you can take a test to show that you know the knowledge of the course without having to take the test? I went through three years of Spanish that way just by coursing my way through it, but most of the people who helped me learn were Mexican. I also learned from some Cubans, some Central Americans, some people from South America. I can probably fake an accent from Colombia and Cuba. I'm pretty good with the Cubans. But most of them were Mexicans and they helped me a lot. Why am I wearing a sweatshirt in 90 degree heat? Yes, it's cold in my house. Yes, it's cold. We keep it cold in here. Portable heating AC systems competing with central air system mainly due to pricing. I guess that's a possibility. My Spanish is better than yours. With parents from Mexico. Dude, you just got a tennis cap. You need to talk about it all the time, you need to talk. Puppy's still here. Does everybody want to see the puppy? He's not a puppy anymore. Mechanical environments is in the house. Yeah, there's no HVAC nights. I kind of wish I was in the shoes of either one of those guys doing what they're doing. Either a small vacation or I don't want to reveal what Jake's up to, but he's got. A cool situation right now. So maybe we'll be with you next week. That's the plan. What should be the first thing I learned going into the trade? There's a lot of things to learn. A lot of things to learn. Just keep an open mind and try to learn it all. Even if you're at a bad company, learn everything you can. Everything is a learning opportunity. And just have an open mind. Admit when you're wrong. Don't be afraid to ask a question. Don't ever feel like you have to know it all and don't act like you know it all because there's always going to be someone who's going to let you know you don't. Let me see. Yes, one of my degrees is from Ohio University. Not Ohio State, but Ohio University. That's where I took some of my business courses. Riley's over there putting on a show for my wife. That's what's got my attention over here. Forgive me, Riley's going nuts. I thought he was going to jump through the screen here just a little while ago. Yes, so that's a bobcat in the house with mechanical environments. Yes, I do have a degree from Ohio University. I've got one from, oh, my God, where did that associate degree come from? I forget, a little small school here in Georgia. Nope, I've forgotten. But that right there is my Ohio University diploma. I have a technical diploma right above it from Albany Tech here back when they had a good HVAC program. Metusalem Herrera from Brazil. Thanks for watching the videos. No, my wife don't want to come on camera. She keeps trying to get the dog to come in here so y'all can see the dog, but she don't want to come on camera. Yes, I have worked on communicating systems with the shielded wire. I'm not so sure the shield actually does any good. But yes, I have, and there's, when you have a communication problem, it seems like I end up just disconnecting things until I can find out which one is creating the communication problem. Like the TM9 air handlers and stuff like that, they might have three boards in them. I'm not sure if they still have three boards. It might be one. But if one of those boards is creating a problem, I just unplug the communicating part on it. Until I find out which one causes the communication error to go away or unplug the condenser or, you know, it's not easy troubleshooting a communication problem if it's not an obvious thermostat wire or something like that. Forgive me, I'm still reading your coastal refrigeration heating air. What brand of evaporator coils do you install with your AC systems? All right. That sounds like the question is coming from somebody who usually installs a furnace and then a coil on top of it. Most of our stuff around here is heat pumps. And if I'm doing a coil, just a coil, I'm probably going to do a Rude coil because that's who my main distributor is that I use. I get great customer service out of that company, but I would say only about 40% of our Systems are furnaces, and half of those are going to be package units. Teddy Bear from Myrtle Beach. I've been to Myrtle Beach several times. You don't want to go during bike week. No, don't go. They started replacing R22. They started replacing R22. I think they stopped selling new equipment with R22 in 2009, which is what they're fixing to do with 410 starting next year. So I started my business in 2010 and I have never bought or sold an R22 system. Buenas noches. True results, HTX. Thanks for the compliment on the Spanish channel. That Spanish channel of mine, it doesn't seem to, it's hard to get that thing to take off like my English channel has. I'm putting a lot of work and effort into it, but I'm trying. It's currently 113 degrees here in Phoenix, and my AC is blowing hot air. Oh, in Phoenix, don't most people use the evaporator coolers? It seems like that would be the way to go, a lot simpler. You know, 113 degrees, but that's without humidity. I got a bunch of 9-volt batteries on my truck for this. But, you know, there's something about it. If someone doesn't have the... If they can't change their own smoke detector, something about me is like, you know, why am I doing this for them? You know, I hear the smoke detectors, but I hear them so often that it's just, I tune it out. All right, this guy, this keeps asking, should he replace the duct board inside his air handler because it has mold on it? If you go replacing it. You need to secure it to the cabinet very well and you're going to need stick pins, you're going to need glue. It's probably not worth the effort as long as it's not pulling into the blower motor. Spray some anti-algae stuff on it, maybe some bleach or something and leave it alone. I agree they deserve to live with the beep. Yes, they have permanent crickets. Right. Permanent crickets in their house. Yes, I'm doing a stream. Of course your window unit is going to be way cooler than the AC unit over your head. A window unit doesn't have duct work. You can get sometimes up to a 40 degree temperature difference on a window unit. See you later, Chris. I'm probably not going to be on very long. Netflix is calling me. Mario, that's a tough decision to make. You're making good money, but you're thinking about starting your own business from scratch. Starting from scratch is rough. My first three years, I could not have made it without the help of my wife working at the time. There's just no way I could have done it. I was paying myself, I think the first year, like $4,000 the whole year. That's what I paid myself. And in the whole first three years, that might be $20,000 I paid myself in three years. So you got to be prepared to not make any money. The reward is great. Once you get established and you get built up and you can start making good money, the reward is great. You'll make more money than you're making now, but it takes time and a lot of hard work. That's a hard decision. I mean, if you've got health care and you're making six figures now, that's a hard one. to answer. Because if you start your business, you're probably going to be doing whatever you can, which means emergency calls, middle of the night, on weekends. And I'll tell you something, when you start a business like that, you got a small business, you are always on call. Always. Even if you build it up where you got 20 employees and you don't have to work in a truck anymore, you're still on call. Every time somebody goes out, you're responsible. It's a completely different lifestyle. I've kept it really small. I built it up to where we have four or five employees. I had a problem with people doing drugs, stealing from me, wrecking vehicles, doing jobs behind my back, and taking my materials to do their jobs or just taking my jobs and getting paid cash and not telling me about it. And then my dispatcher was in on it with them. So I had a real bad experience. I've decided to keep it small, and I have been able to work my company so that I don't work very much after 5 o'clock. I work on weekends when I want to, and normally I work on weekends because Monday is going to be hectic if I don't. So I feel like I've got it pretty good too, but it has taken me, what is it now, close to 15 years to get there. Yeah, I'm being more selective in the customers I'm taking. Recently, I dropped the home warranties. That helped fill in the slow times, but I'm tired of begging for my money. I'm tired of agreeing to a price and then getting paid something else, and they're hoping you don't even say anything about it or somebody on the phone. Some 18-year-old on the phone who's acting like he knows more about HVAC than you, telling you that you can't charge this much, or why do you need a liquid line dryer? There's nothing wrong with the one in it. I got tired of that. So I'm being more selective with my customers, which means I'm not as crazily busy, but I'm still making good money. I'm able to spend more time on the calls, the good paying customers that I have. Instead of having to rush through in an hour, I can spend two hours on a call. And oftentimes, I end up billing out just as much as I would within two hours on two calls anyway. I did find a couple of home warranties that did pay, but it was like one of the best ones that I had. They give me a $750 limit before I even got out there. But if I called in for authorization, let's say to change an evaporator coil, we would agree on a price that the customer would need to pay because not everything would be covered. And then we would agree on a price that they would need to pay. And I would document all that in my estimate. And then I'd finish the job, collect from the customer, and I would go to bill out on their website. And suddenly the amount that is approved that I can bill out for is not the amount that we had agreed for. And that was over and over and over again, which means I need to either accept that or Or call in. reauthorized which is another 45 minutes to an hour on the phone and that gets old real fast. I'm trying not to call them out by name. Let me see. Did I miss stuff in the comments? I was busy talking. Fieldpiece valve core removal tool any update? I've had a couple problems with mine. It's a solid tool. I have found that a couple times when I'm pulling the vacuum and The valve that turns your vacuum on or off, it can sometimes leak around the valve. So you turn it on or off real fast. Yes, I'm doing a lot of trailer jobs lately. So I've been just turning it off or turning it back on real fast to keep it from leaking. That's one problem I had. And grabbing a hold of the valve core can be tricky. Sometimes it works and sometimes it don't. But they're very solidly made. I think I need to play around with them a little bit more to figure out how to grab that valve core. Yes, I've got a lot of trailer jobs lately. I just, I told you I dropped on home warranties, but I picked up a rental company that has like four trailer parks and I'm doing these four trailer parks. So I'm taking care of close to 350 mobile homes. So yeah, you're going to see more of those, but it's a good paying customer. I might be working in the slums sometimes, but I'm getting paid just as much as some commercial techs to work in the slums because nobody wants to do it. Oh, the worst trailer job I've ever done, and it wasn't when I was working for myself. I was working for somebody out in Dawson, Georgia, and I was sent to go diagnose the electric heat on a trailer. And when I walked in, the lady had 27 chihuahuas. That never went outside. There was piss and poop all over the place, even around in front of the furnace. And I told that lady, I can't work like this. You got to clean this up. So she cleaned up around the back door so I could come in the back door and it was nice and clean. And I was able to work right there. Yeah, I had to leave and come back like two days later when she had it nice and clean, but that was disgusting. It smelled like dog poop and dog pee everywhere. Well, I appreciate the thanks for making the videos. I enjoy making them. Yeah, the airborne bacteria in that trailer was terrible, and the lady living there looked like she was over 400 pounds. HVAC UV filters. I mean, it's not really a filter, is it? It's a UV light. It's an antibacterial treatment. Riley's fine. Oh, he was just behind me. I don't know if y'all saw him. Why did I switch from Makita to Milwaukee? I switched from Makita to Milwaukee because I was wanting my tools to get smaller. And Makita was going from 18 volt to 40 volt. So their tools were actually getting bigger. I didn't want a bigger tool. I wanted something smaller. And so I tried out the M18, excuse me, the M12 Impact. I liked it. I like that line. And I haven't completely quit on the Makita 18-volt stuff. I still have a lot of it. A lot of my 18-volt tools are still Makita. I'm just not buying many new Makita tools. The most recent Makita tool I bought was the multi-tool, the oscillating tool. the one that used the star lock thing and um i really like it it's almost no vibration a dying breed that's funny milwaukee is the best i'll say milwaukee is one of the best um well i found another thing if you wanted the top of the line makita you're not going to find it at home depot or something you got to stay on top of things and order it and Makita brushless flashlights are nice hmm i hope that's a joke i was going to try to show y'all riley but He's more interested in getting in the toilet. You know, that's like the third question about tips about getting out in the field. Some of them from people about to graduate from tech school. Just try to use common sense. Learn everything you can. I'm still running across systems that I learned something from, and it might be a nine-year-old. communicating system that's been out for nine years and yeah I'm still learning something about it. You just got to learn something. Continue to learn no matter how long you've been in the field. Wait a second I think I missed a question a little while back. What did you do with the hidden pool under your deck? That is the question isn't it? What did I do with it or what am I doing with it? Maybe one day when I'm done I'll show you. Let me see. No my portable table has become I've become permanent in my own... in my shed. oh charles what? well thank you i appreciate that. i wasn't expecting that. let me see what happens when the coil is bigger than the condenser. well a coil can be a half a ton larger than a condenser. it'll just make it a little more efficient but it can't be the other way around. you can't have a condenser that's bigger than the coil. oh it's gonna it's not gonna operate If I don't operate right, I might start to freeze up. Well, thank you, Alan. Good luck fishing. We got some good fishing in our backyard. In fact, we go out there and feed the fish, and we got these great big old catfish that come up and eat, but we stop feeding the fish when the alligators start coming around. Let me see. I'm trying to read your comments so I can respond to them. I use the RLS fittings because they are very widely available. I also have the I have the jaws for the streamline muellers and I have some of those fittings as well. I've had good luck with the RLS. There's been one person in my comments who's always telling me that I'm prepping it wrong, but they still seem to be doing fine. I mean, I go back months later, and in a couple cases now about a year later, and the RLS fittings are doing just fine, no leaks. I think as long as you prep them, you've got a nice round pipe, it's going to do fine. You flow nitrogen when flaring a mini-split? No. I mean, is this another joke? What made me get into HVAC? Let me see. My first HVAC job was actually on vehicles, and I was working on car air conditioners, and I was having to work in such tight little spaces, I didn't like it. So I picked up a book at Books a Million and read about commercial and residential HVAC, It sounds better than what I'm doing. So I actually took a cut in pay and started doing duct work for a company and worked my way up. The most recent Stratus, I gave away. I didn't have any faith in it anymore, and it might be a great piece of equipment, but I'll let somebody else figure that out. Why don't I use Wago? I don't know if you're speaking to someone else. I don't use Wago because they don't sell the ones with the little levers on them around here. Are you convinced that the new refrigerants will be as efficient as R-22? No. When R-410 came out, everybody was saying that it's just less efficient. It's going to be close. They're probably going to get it just as close as they can. Paul talking about a compressor cooled off and then it sounds like it wouldn't pump. That may be a mechanical failure. Best brand of AC units? There's a bunch of good ones. There really are. Comparatively, they all have their problems. There are some companies that are really good at marketing. I'll give you that. But they're not significantly better than, I'll say, Trane and Carrier are really good at marketing. They sell some really nice, expensive equipment, but they break down at the same rate as other good equipment. They're not necessarily better. They're just good at marketing. But there are some brands I would say. You might want to stay away from, and I don't want nobody to say to me, but everybody knows I don't like Goodman. And recently I've been having trouble with Linux stuff. And part of the trouble with Linux is they're unable to fulfill their warranties because they can't get parts for their own equipment. At least that was the case a couple of years ago. Yes, the quality of stuff is bad. I'll admit that. I installed, y'all know I install Ruud. I installed GREE systems. I installed a brand new Ruud a couple of years ago. And within less than a week, the dual capacitor failed. I was furious. I called up my distributor. I said, I don't know if y'all can influence Ruud in any way or not, but please quit putting these Chinese capacitors in these systems. I mean, I'm getting a call back a week after I put it in, and that's just not. That's not good. The chief, yeah, there's been problems with Lennox. We don't have a ton of Linux around here because we don't have a distributor here. And nobody's dying to be their sole representative. Unlike Trane, we don't have a Trane distributor around here either. But people love to install Trane because of the marketing. My dog's going over there in the bathroom. The bathroom has two doors. And he's getting himself locked in the bathroom and scratching on the door. Well, I would rather have a capacitor made in Mexico than one made in China. Do I have an install crew or do I hire subcontractors? I hire subcontractors. There's two subcontractors that I hire that do good work. And I have another company that has about 20 to 30 employees that is willing to do my installs for a price. So I have options. Thank you Jonathan. Current AC system is an old like a nine-year-old Carrier. I am in talks with a company y'all may have heard of with Bosch and they may supply me with one for my house so if they do of course I'll be making a video of it so I may be upgrading that in the near future. Go-to brand of capacitor all I really look for My preference is is that it's made in the United States. I don't I don't care about what brand. I will preferably, there's Riley, I'll preferably buy one made in the United States any day over any other any other country made capacitor. Yes, I'm hoping I can close the deal with Bosch. That's not a done deal. But maybe, maybe I would look forward to that if I can. People keep talking about the pool under the back deck. Oh, my God. Pool under the back deck is not causing wood rotting. The wood out there was rotten because it's been, I just bought this house, and the house had been left with no maintenance, no kind of care for years and years and years, and it had leaves built up all over the top of it. The first thing I did was just blow all that stuff off. And I'm just slowly replacing the stuff that did rot from those leaves. And it was holding moisture on top of the wood. But y'all don't know what I'm doing with that down there. So I don't want to say right now. I might surprise y'all with it one day. I'll just say this. It's dry. There's nothing down there. My thoughts on American Standard, about the same as any other reputable company. Not better, not worse. Same fail rates. It's just... Just another one of the good ones. Hello from Nova Scotia. You're not going to believe what thermostat I have. It came with the house. It's one of those, oh my God, I can't even think what they're called. The Google ones, the hockey pucks. That's what I've got. I haven't changed it yet. It's a nest. Yes, it's a nest. Can you cook? I know how to make shrimp and grits. No, I have no help answering the phone when I'm out on the job. A lot of my customers know that if I'm working, I'm not going to answer the phone, and they leave me a message. And in my message, I specifically say I might be with another customer, so please leave a message. I don't hire anybody. I let it go to voicemail. And if somebody calls me and they don't leave a message, well, they may not be hearing from me. Thank you, Kevin. Well, guys, let me see what time it is. It's a little bit after eight, so I'm going to go ahead and sign off. I've already been on here for about an hour. I appreciate y'all tuning in. I did want to check in because we're not having HVAC nights this week. I appreciate all the support and all the comments. And y'all know that I enjoy making them. I enjoy the community. I learn as much from y'all sometimes as y'all do from me. So let me sign off, and I'll catch y'all on the next one.