After operating a commercial hvac-r business for 45 years, I have learned the following. 1. No restaurant employee (including managers and owners) knows what the walk-in freezer/cooler temperature is supposed to be until one of them turns into a sauna. 2. There is no problem with the ice machine until the 1000 pound storage bin is empty. 3. All major equipment problems occur at 4:30 on any Friday. 4. You will never have the necessary components for a temporary fix on your truck after driving 60 miles to the service call at 2:30 in the morning. 5. The equipment needing repairs is right next to the deep fryers during dinner service. Cheers.
I remember a walk-in cooler being converted into a storage closet at a convenience store where they didn't even bother to disconnect the temperature alarm. I'd imagine that gave some of the maintenance people a headache as it would beep all day and night.
As a restaurant employee with a bit more common sense than most of my coworkers... 1. Walk-in cooler should be roughly 34-36 degrees, give or take a few as outlined by people in the cushy offices that have never worked the front line. Walk-in freezer should be -4 to -10. 2. If I've filled the ice caddies and haven't seen fresh ice in an hour, I get concerned and immediately check if the ice machine's Bin Full lever is sticking, and I pop the front cover off to check the internal circuit breaker and power switch. I do NOT want that bin to be SLIGHTLY empty, since Iced Coffee is a thing. 3. Most equipment failures occur with plenty of notice, but it takes the store manager to actually be there in order to be informed, and then they have to contact their District Manager, who then has to contact the single maintenance guy in charge of nearly 40 stores in two states; said maintenance person will eventually arrive, pretend like they weren't given PRECISE descriptions of the problem and the troubleshooting steps already taken, then pretend that whichever employee on site is the direct cause of the problem, even if they weren't there at the time, shoot the parts cannon at the offending equipment, set their tools (USB flash drive and programming key card with Smart Chip) down in a wet spot on the counter and then accuse the employee of deliberately moving their tools to the puddle (I was literally screamed at on Aug 11 for this, to which I replied, "that puddle has been there for at least twenty minutes, you set your own s--t in the puddle right before you called Schaerer Tech Support"), before getting fed up that the parts cannon didn't work, providing 4-5 different diagnoses that were all wrong, and leaving after a few hours completely disgusted, only to return the next day with a few more changing diagnoses and a few more parts cannon solutions in the hopes that a repair can actually be performed. 4. See above, re: parts cannon. Throw all the parts into the machine that you have on the truck, even if it's not the issue at all or even remotely connected to the issue. 5. The equipment will always be next to deep fryers, or some other unit that needs constant access. Circling back to the "blame the employee" game, it usually comes down to the "you're not cleaning it enough" excuse, especially when the unit fails DURING ITS SELF-CLEANING PROCEDURE. I strongly dislike our maintenance person. Especially since the toilet has been leaking from the shutoff valve for three months, the three-bay sink has a drain that has been leaking onto the floor for almost as long, and the Navien -CO generator- water heater has been leaking onto the floor for several YEARS. Heck, I had to raise holy hell over the water filters that hadn't been changed in over THREE YEARS (and then the guy argued with me that we don't have high iron content in the well water, despite my home's well pulling from the same source, despite every resident in town having iron issues, and less than a month after changing the filters finally they're clogged with iron again, but we can't replace them now because it's earlier than the recommended interval). This is how he diagnoses an intermittent problem: operate the unit once, if it doesn't fail, we "made it up," and he leaves. One time he did that, the equipment failed while he was still in the parking lot. He refused to come and look at it, demanding our manager open up a new repair ticket; he'd be back "eventually" to take a look at it - we waited three months. And we were told to "just do without," until we had a random Corporate inspection where I may have "accidentally" told them all about the problem and how it all went down, including the refusal to repair when the issue presented itself, so Corporate got involved, and I got a verbal warning in my employee file for "creating a hostile work environment." Our store is in a strip mall that was built in the 80s. One household well pump & tank supports 3 restaurants, a liquor store, a pawn shop, and a music instrument store. If one of the restaurants starts washing dishes while I'm trying to fill my sink, it could easily take 20 minutes to fill it. Our BEST water pressure is 18-20 psi, which is hilariously-bad considering my HOME has 45-55 psi. Time to make the donuts!
Most relatable comment I've ever read. The amount of services calls I get on Friday nights is astonishing. I don't know why, but walk in freezer txvs love to go bad on the Friday nights I'm on call 😂
I have my doubts about 1. as HACCP requires them to write it down every day, so they should know a average range of acceptable temperatures.. For the rest, so true. Particularly at 2. Call the technician because the bin is empty, who then asked when was it was last cleaned, they check the records and it was THAT morning. 6. Supervisors in training are great at writing accurate fault descriptions. Making your entire visit a useless headache..
My blood pressure went up immediately when it said "we tried keeping the door shut" in the email. Like you're not supposed to be doing that already 🙄 That door needs an alarm with a train horn hooked to it.
I run into stupid stuff like this all the time. The solution: laugh, smile and educate. The owner of the equipment/manager will enjoy the experience more and it justifies the bill. Just don't let them realize you're laughing and smiling at how dumb they are for doing what they did while you're passively aggressively informing them of how things should work (; tee hee
But that's the thing, this is not their technical prowess. If anything, what they need are instructions on a big sign in big letters right on the door of freezer or where ever. So for next time, they are a little more educated & prepared, just like with anything else in the cosmos. And a sign(s) is a little more of a reminder than verbally, which can get lost in the head a few minutes later.
@@SpudderRail ... A lot of this responsibility falls on the management of the establishment to get their employees to be aware of these things. However if management doesn't mind paying for the service call every time stuff breaks, then perhaps this is good for the maintenance & repair service(s) industry as they are getting income, no matter how frustrating it is, whether it's HVAC, plumbing, electrical, computer, building structure, etc. If the repair service doesn't like getting called on emergencies, then why have an emergency line in the 1st place? And you guessed it, it's for income & clout. Management could also put a meeting together with employees & have a repair person there as the guest speaker so as to how to take better care of equipment, such as the walk-in freezer here in the clip.
Maybe the freezing was because the Heater was intermittently failing, and you finally caught it. Software Engineer here, see that kind of stuff happen all the time in code, I suppose hardware it'd happen more often.
I think you are right with that. It was very suspicious that he was seeing a 12 amp draw for the heaters on the roof, but only ~9 amps total between the 2 heaters when he was measuring in the box (which I assume would be at least several minutes later). This power consumption drop might have been the heater already showing that is had a failure...
I came to a realisation years ago that if I am being paid really really well (your ridiculously high bills to the customer) I will be extremely helpful and can control my frustration without much problem. You will be amazed at the power of thinking for example, “I am being paid $3~$6+ per minute to be here” to lower your frustration level and ability to be positive and polite, of course you don’t take more time than is required and you try to educate your customers so they don’t get charged so much. It’s not the money, but charge enough so that you don’t get upset and enough that the customers will take the time to avoid emergency calls if they can, that way you both win.
"Oh, our freezer hasn't been temping right for five days, NOW it's an emergency!" NEWP, if it's not temping right for _HALF A DAY_ it's an issue and should have been called in right away!
If its warm for more than an hour there is a problem whether its intermittent and drops back down or not. It wont be in defrost for any more than 45 minutes hour at very max so any longer than that theres some sort of issue
When I was a supervisor in a government organization many people would always wait until Friday afternoon to call to fix their refrigeration systems, like I wanted the weekend off like they do.
Same thing in IT. Person has an issue on their PC all week and waits until Friday afternoon to mention it. Or they call and say”I have been having this issue for the last two weeks!”
@@randalljoslin4582 I used to work in IT. I always told people “well we’re going to look at this first thing Monday!” It was a small company and I was the one man help desk so I could do that lol
Some of us don't have a thing called 'Weekend'.. And our biggest balls of assets; Tuesday and Wednesday are our day's off.. And they curse and they complain about the high overtime bills on those days, until we emergency call them up on Saterday and Sunday to let us into there office because WE are here to work!
I recently had a call about a AAON that wasnt turning on for the last two days. When I got there it was running fine and doing its thing. They didnt bother calling two days before when it wasnt working....
Chris- it doesn't matter if the customer called you Tuesday or Saturday, or if the manager decided to rewired a compressor himself and failed, you as a professional have 2 choices, to attend the call or not, regardless of the situation , a professional never breaks character, anger management classes are always available.
@@lobehold2263 This guy is right - you should not project your anger issues at the customer. You don't know their situation - they are managing a restaurant!! Have some damn sympathy/understand for crying out loud. Do your best to explain to them the best practices, but understand that nothing is ever perfect!!
Ahhh yes, the life of a commercial refrigeration man! When the freezer call is “all my product is defrosted the ice cream is soft” it’s been down a few days Ice machine is empty I think it’s not working Outside of bad timing and some frustration you go do what you can it your bread and butter. There is an independent ice house where I’m at and when an ice machine is not easily or timely repaired for lack of parts on a Friday night or weekend I would tell customers to Order ice. Some would say “that’s expensive” My reply “ not as expensive as my invoice will be. Actually I loved my work and my customers and responded in kind This is a great example video to show what goes on. Thanks.
3 года назад
Callouts in any industry are frustrating especially when you go through the issue with the manager and they have been having issues for days or even weeks. Things don't magically fix themselves, although some people think that they do. We all have to bite our tongues and work through the issue & try and educate the manager or managers that calling as soon as they see an issue is the best policy. However, in some cases, it may be that they are being told to not call unless they really have to which in the long run costs more so it's a false economy. Thanks for the video really appreciate your excellent content.
Same all over the world I'm afraid. "If I leave it long enough it'll work again"The self fixing fridge.. The other one is "the fan has been making a loud noise for several days , then it went quiet so I thought it was ok but now it won't hold temperature".. I actually walked off a job yesterday for the first time in ever. Customer talked to me as if I was dirt on his shoe.. years ago I would have just got my head down and fixed it. Now I walk...
You the man Chris! I had one of those this winter. 10pm friday crappy snowy, icy night. Customer calls for furnace that hasnt been working right since wednesday............
Had a therapist once tell me. Temper is the only thing you can’t get rid of by losing it. And it’s true. You lose your control and there can negative consequences.
I wonder if he gave them a small discount on the new unit? or at least not charge parts/materials on the old evap i.e. the fans... Sounds like something I would do, especially for repeat customers
The way the boxes were stacked up on the shelves will drastically reduce airflow and will ice the coil. I think one of the issues is poor air flow. We started mounting the defrost clock near the box door. That way, the customer can put the unit in defrost while they are putting the stores away….ultimately leaving the door wide open….
Always the same in the restaurant business. Calling in the weekend and then telling you it wasn't good since monday..... And after getting the bill complaining it is all so expensive...
Some of the terminals in the evap. has corrosion of them. Hope that wasn't a connection issue on the heater. The ground also looked bad. Thanks for the video.
Sounds like a nightmare that one bud. The staffing issues are the exact same here in Northern Ireland, busy restaurants, stressed staff due to lack of staff. I,ve had deforest heater wires break in below the insulation at the ends before, could be why you got the funny readings. I,ve done ghetto things before with them on weekends heat shrinking a block connector onto the heater 🤐
I wish I could hire him for MY hvac work, and I live in Spain. Oh, and I also don't have any HVAC equipment, but I still want to call him just to have him teach me stuff. Perhaps he could overhaul my portable AC :D
Why don't you have someone permanently scheduled to work 8 hours Friday and Monday, 12 Sat/Sunday. That's standard 40 hours a week and they get 3 days off every week.
Yeah our walk in freezer quit but since it's the weekend I'll just get some portable room air conditioners to get by till Monday. That should work right?
Hey, you make quality content and you are certainly the best HVAC guy on youtube, most are typical run of the mill hacks. I would really like to advise you against voicing your political views - saying things like it's already hard owning a business in California only hurts your case - if it wasn't for all these people in California (40M) you'd have no business. You can certainly move to Alabama but there will not be that many units to service or anyone to pay top dollar you like to earn. It's the cost of doing business and you better believe if it wasn't for these regulations your income would not increase but suffer.
You don't wait days. I would be calling you the day I have a problem. I would know I have a problem because I put 3 Thermometers in the Every Cooler and Freezer. Always check on.
Honest question: why get upset for late night call outs? I understand the personal inconvenience it brings but it should be a HUGE money maker for you and your employee who was called out. It’s a nice idea to educate your customer but in an “emergency” they’ll pay whatever to fix it. If they caused the emergency by waiting, so be it. If their equipment is damaged because they waited, so be it. Both are keeping your business flourishing.
Yep had plenty of call outs (in a different industry) at antisocial times, but always peace of mind to focus on the problem and do it right. Your empathy for the customer is admirable - just hope they dont take the piss, but if its a larger chain, no point burning those bridges.
If it makes you feel any better its the same across the pond 20:30 on a Sunday night, "I've been watching my walk in freezer for the last couple of days and it's still struggling, we need you out please" just why!!!
Chris trust me on that : just get a boxing heavy bag and hang it in the garden or garage or whatever. When you get frustrated just take it out on the bag . Then if you're still pissed off just vent it at your windshield on the way to the job site . You'll save so much on therapy bruv you'll kick yourself ✌
I tried that once and my venting ended with punching the windshield a few times in short order. yeah, I broke and bubbled the windshield outwards, my knuckles too, then had glass shards and blood all over. so it only cost me a $700 windshield, a month of healing hand and blood stained clothing/vehicle and as luck would have it, it rained the next week and wipers were useless going over a big bump. lesson learned go off into the middle of back yard, woods or sandy beach before going full berserkers
@@throttlebottle5906 I never understood how people can bring themselves to damage property/equipment/whatever... Thanks to my roots, I always ended up turning to the bottle..... there were periods where I would down a 750ml bottle of vodka a night, actually many hundreds of these times over the years.... frankly not sure how I'm still alive
I hope you charge an ungodly amount for these call outs. I wonder if you put a sign on the door that said “The normal temperature of this fridge/freezer is xx degrees. If the temperature remains above xx degrees for xx hours call xxx-xxx-xxxx IMMEDIATELY.” I also wonder if you could install a wifi sensor to alert you and them to this condition as well as to a door open condition.
HEY, I just noticed a Simpson Meter on the top shelf behind you at your merch shelving. I still have mine and I like it better that most of the other elect testers I have. That's old school, neat!!
@Chief T33 Yeah, I've noticed that Simpson also, I bet's a 260. This is what I learned electronics on back in the 1960s, along with a Weller Junior. We did a lot with vacuum tubes, and a bit on those new fangled transistors, things changed a bit.
I have 2 simpsons still one in leather case one in plastic with roll up front one still new in box. Don’t use them much. I have a Beclman for some things regular meters won’t do and three fieldpiece units like the one he shows that served me very well.The field puce meters do pretty much everything for refrigeration and HVAC work
@@james4582 I go back a long way also. Most of the use my Simpson got was on jet engines and engine nacelle's wiring. I needed a reliable unit to troubleshoot electrical problems.
Chris... you're funny!!! You had dinner plans when you were on call?? Wife and I NEVER make plans when I'm on call. It amazes me how you find the time to pump out theses great videos.
Chris, love your videos, question comment from the peanut gallery where I'm sitting, do you see an outside chance that the seal around the entire door may not be sealing completely anywhere around the door bleeding ever so little moisture into the cabinet, even though you changed the self closing hinges.
Do you have a video explaining superheat on these walk ins? Me being a residential guy. Its either sub cool or super heat depending the MD. So it confuses me to understand the super heat on the adjustable expansion valves, do you not charge with sub cool on these? I have very little commercial ref experience.
I will discuss the on my livestream this evening 9/13/21 @ 5:PM (pacific) on RU-vid , come over and check it out ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-jyfQ49s2Lm8.html
I temporarily replaced a heater threaded through the coil on a similar unit cooler about five years ago by obtaining the correct heater and tying it tightly to the rear surface of the coil with old capillary tubing. It is still running today.
We had a kitchen manager who pressure washed the floor on a raised floor walk-in. Couldn't figure out why the diamond plate curled up at the joints! Lol!
You also got to understand that if they’re walk out freezer stays out they could be losing thousands of dollars in products. But you do have a right to be frustrated. Great video
Pay me $65/hr and I'll cook. And I'm 100 % legit and legal. I understand you have to bite your tongue - but make no mistake - you're work is excellent and eithical and transparent. Great work!
You nailed it EXACTLY!!! Here in Michigan our restaurants and mom and pop stores are struggling to stay afloat.. an regardless how we feel they only have x amount of cash flowing in an sadly pm an problems are taking a backseat… We have a customer that has three locations and the mirror something acts strange?? He is right on the phone giving us a heads up to work him in.. most times is super small problems… but for the last 6 months ?? He don’t call UNTILL. It’s a emergency end it all stems from cash flow it sucks for us but it also sucks for them specially if they’re used to staying on top of their equipment and now they have to overlook problems in order to pay the bills.. so yea I understand your frustration.. But as my old boss always told me (( Try the customer shoes on for a while an in can understand their position… an he was right but These middle of the night and late weekends is very irritating especially when they know they had problems for four days
Cris all right! Do you install the cold rooms too or do you just do the repairs? I mean build the walls, understand?! Thank you, I'm a refrigeration technician in Brazil and I really like your videos!!!
I have to say, this "no one wants to work" line is getting old. I've applied to several dozen HVAC companies, many I have to applied multiple times as they just relist their applications the following week. I don't have any training in HVAC but a lot of the knowledge I have crosses over. It sure seems like companies don't want to hire anyone despite their "urgently hiring" tags on applications and just use "high unemployment checks" as their scapegoat.
When I started out in 2011, also with no training, I was getting CAN$15/hr And it was part-time Depends how flexible you are, and how willing to work I was prepared to "shadow" for free, just to pick up on some training
Friday at 2:30 I was on my way home. Got a call for a fancy hotel, the entire 4th floor has not cooling. Daikon VRV. Thinking it was low on charge after troubleshooting. Talked with tech support and they agreed. Start of along night last night.
I think you missed what was at fault. The termination is at bottom of evap. When you first arrived, did you notice that the bottom ¼ of coil was not frozen. So either your not feeding whole coil properly or the drain pan heaters and coil heaters are prematurely terminating defrost because of the extra heat at the bottom. Also if you measure 3 to and H it would read voltage if the high limit is open which that model evap usually has
Hey Chris how do you change heaters when you dont have enough space to slide it in? You won't believe once we took the evap down to change all the heaters. Brand new evap all heaters shorted to ground an other time we cut the side panel of cold room and open a window to the wall. Most of times we install them on the back of evap with clips. All that in case we don't have space to slide the heater
God i am so sick of the bluon ad with the guy who is stroking out as he makes a video. Yeah that is what i’d do with my final moments is talk about some dumb company.
How come you don't see commercial units taking advantage of reverse-cycling to defrost their coils? To me that seems like a far simpler and more efficient design.
Had the same question. They sometimes use hot gas defrost but that's not reverse cycle. Potentially because the reversing valve would be in the condensing unit, and there's not always an electrical connection there. You also have to deal with putting flow backwards through what are usually TXV's, likely needing some manner of one way valves to allow refrigerant backwards past it. It should be doable but adds cost to units so manufacturers wouldn't include it as standard.
