L 21. god damn it oh good morning it's me Mikey Pipes
today is tuesday may 17 2022 and i'd like to give a special shout out to
my amazing and beautiful wife happy birthday happy birthday and thank you for putting
up with my shit. really appreciate it anyway ladies and gentlemen this morning we are
heading to a service call in oceanside new york we installed this ream prestige system
about 10 years ago after hurricane sandy and we also did a lot of other work in this
house we did the boiler we did bathrooms we sadly our house was inundated with flood waters it was not pretty and um the whole neighborhood
got wiped out and she's one of the many houses we worked on but she's calling because she has
no central air conditioning it's not working and we haven't done a tune up yet this year but
we're gonna go there and fix her up all right guys stay tuned let's get going now one of the
things i like to do especially when first greeting a customer and this should be standard
practice when you're standing at the front door you want to be a step down and you
want to be like on a 45 degree angle to the door if you're like this right right
against that front door you kind of like become very intrusive you know and it's
like take a step back a step down and be a little bit an angle see step down a little
bit of an angle and we're going to say hi my hero i'm just doing my job good morning i see
your cape i see your cake good morning how are you here i'm fine thank you i must you know what came
in the mail yesterday and i can't thank you enough you wrote a letter yeah to the south
carolina building commission right thank you so much the recommendation
line i really really appreciate it very thoughtful and it went overboard i
need to go overboard but it's put plenty of that's how i felt i tried to reel it
back i tried to make it housewifey and now but thank you oh if you want anything changed no no that was perfect right from the heart it was
i was only afraid that you were going to move but you told me you're not moving no no no no no i
wouldn't leave you terrified me i wouldn't leave my goal is to conquer the east coast anything
i can do that's fine thank you my manicurist is going to call you don't worry about it you saw me
i like my socks so it's red socks i like colors you know okay you know you can be masculine still
wear my grandson wears two different socks very interesting different animals different it's great
i have to check his socks every time he comes but you saw my house when it was a salt water swimming
pool so don't worry about a few steps oh but now it's beautiful wow is the air conditioning broken
yeah so what happens when you turn it on nothing i get the fan but no cooling but no cooling no
cool air comes out the phantom there's warm air no it fee i think it feels cool in the
den i'll feel a little coolness it doesn't make the temperature go down but the breeze is
good but the fan is on and the filter is clean and the filter is clean double check is clean yeah it's clean let's look at the units i'm so sorry i broke two toes and oh i'm sorry
really damaged so i can't go down the steps so i can't take the things out of there that's
fine it's fine no worries no worries just gonna take a peek okay there's the condensate pump
let's see why the outdoor unit isn't going on it's a tight spot here the ream a little
compact one rb hp runs on 110 volts all right here it is the ring prestige rapm back in the days we installed the filter dryers
outside i don't do that anymore so i know there's a control board in here let me get my tool
bag and hopefully we're not on uh error 27 which is low pressure all right my primary go-to
tool bag is the veto the pro pack this is the tp xxl and i got a lot of stuff in here and i got
a full description of everything that's in here exception of this in the description
box so and i even got my hik micro b20 thermal imaging camera in there right i got
my digital manometer my field piece in there i have my portable carbon monoxide alarm
my meter a whole bunch of stuff you know switcheroo this is where it went peter god damn
you peter i just bought a new one of these right because it wasn't where it normally is which is
there and now look it's in there ah damn it peter all right let's get the uh the quarter
inch oh no it's wrong let's get the 5 16. see that's a quarter inch i knew i wasn't
[ __ ] let's go see what's going on just take a quick little visual of the condensing
coil not terrible but we were here last year and this is one year's worth of dirt you know
we're smack up against the grass on a pad right we have good clearance there it's about 10 inches
there so the moment of truth the rheem prestige back in the days they had this icc board right and
here's all the error codes and we don't want it to be 27 which is abnormally low or no line voltage
oh no sorry 23 23 21 sorry 21.
Sorry let's see l 21. god damn it all right l 21 is low refrigerant pressure and that means ladies and
gentlemen that she's got a leak now this system is manufactured 10 years ago exactly 10 years there goes our warranty that really sucks actually no manufactured it was june 2012 so if
there's a 10 year warranty on the condenser i wonder what the warranty
is on the air handler evaporator coil that rb hp and guess what it's probably gonna be
outside of warranty so first things we're gonna do we're gonna grab the testos and we're gonna
check our pressures all right i got my testo hooked up these are 557s i don't remember yep 557s
and we have pressure in the system so let's see okay now 21. let's reset that again we
may have a defective pressure switch interesting all right let's
pull power this thing will die i could have swore there was a reset switch
on this thing but i guess i was mistaken okay so let's put that back in okay a little
c all right now it's going to do a compressor um wait period a compressor start delay
little c flashing i'll show you little c see y one first stage or second stage
operation unit operation when it flashes uh we're in that delay mode so now
another thing with the low pressure switch the um the low pressure condition is that
if the filter was dirty and the system froze up and we're also going to get that lockout of
l21 so as you saw the filter was clean in there and i didn't ask her if she just changed it i
don't think she did but maybe the intermittent failure with the indoor blower but something
because i got pressure in there and it's it's 63 degrees right so a little bit low on
that temperature which normally reads the ambient temperature of the outdoor condition but let's
see what happens when this bad boy starts up we may be slightly undercharged uh and that's all
again all due to a leak or lack of proper charge while i'm waiting for a little seat to go
away and stop flashing i hooked up my uh wireless testo 115s this is going to measure
the temperature of the suction and liquid line we do have a slight variation there which is
kind of interesting in temperature all right slight variation in temperature i
wonder why still flashing little c make sure that's nice and clean okay capacitor just got to wait now inside
okay yeah we have power oh i'm an idiot i'm just an idiot yeah we are under charged it's my uh suction pressure 30 psi with
a saturation temperature of 12 degrees negative 12 degrees so we definitely have a
leak in the system i'm just gonna pull that all right i don't want to go with an
error again this is 24 volts and we have y1 and y2 if it was wired and then common because
this control board gets 24 volts for operation all right let's talk about
refrigerant leaks i have a page on my invoice um air conditioning invoice that
outlines basically it's like a disclaimer but it's all about liability at the end of the day
but it forces the technician myself included to make the customer aware of options when there
is a system refrigerant link and i'm going to show it to you real quick so feel free to pause and if
you want to use it for your own business feel free if you want the pdf feel free to email me mike
mikeypipes.com but it basically outlines a few things and let's go over right now real quick
as you can see this page applies to systems needing refrigerant and it gives you basically
a little summary there your system is low on refrigerant there is a leak in the system the
leak will not go away will only get worse and you have five options a number one do nothing yep
you can do nothing and there's a section dedicated to that number two we can add refrigerant and
there's a section dedicated dedicated to that as well number three we can attempt to repair the
leak with a sealant there's a section on that number four we can perform a leak search and then
repair or replace the leaking part and that's that section right there and number five replace the
entire system which is right there okay so let's go head on inside we'll explain the diagnosis to
my customer and see how she wants to proceed now a lot of you're going to say listen mikey pipes his
system is 10 years old and you know find the leak except that labor is one of the most expensive
components of the service call and the repair so i'm not going to sell her a new system
absolutely not unless she really wants that but the objective here is to make the problem go away
and the only way it's going to go away permanently until another leak develops is replacing that
component or making the repair of that component so one of the first things you're going to
look for is you see if you see any oil residue around you know connections around fittings and
things like that but based on my experience and you guys could back me up on this who are in
the hvac industry you guys know that rheem has just and and they inherit leaks from birth kind of
like navy and you know navy and leaks from day one i'm not saying rheem does but they have a
problem and back in the days about you know eight nine ten years ago there was a
class action lawsuit against rheem because evaporator coil evaporated coils leaked and one
in my particular case brand new out of the box and the next day i was up in the attic replacing
the evaporator coil so i guess kind of like navy and because those south koreans don't know
how to make great products for us americans so let me stop and hey be edk sit on this and
rotate i will give you the diagnosis oh god what yeah it's a good idea to sit down yeah okay um so
the system is not cooling because it's the unit is not coming on outside the unit is not coming on
outside because it senses a low pressure condition what that means is there's not enough
refrigerant in the system so when it runs you know the pressures get lower and then there's
sensors inside that sense that uh basically design these sensors are designed to protect the
system the compressor and things like that what this means is you have a link okay um
and what do we do okay so it's five options and i mean i i'm gonna give you all five of
them but uh whatever tell me what you would do if it was yours let me give you the five
options first okay so option number one you do nothing you can't do nothing because you have
no air conditioning right okay option number two no because in some cases like i go to some houses
that don't have a system like yours where there's a computer sensing things right and this is
america's system it's not cooling anymore and it's frozen right and you need some refrigerant
to make it make it not freeze up anymore so no it is correct okay it isn't it you do need
more more free on the pure on yeah you know it's not free on your system uses pure on but that at
the end is what you need but in some systems it'll still run it's just not going to do anything
or cool efficiently or effectively anymore so that's why option number one exists option
number two we add the refrigerant that you need keep in mind it's like a having a what's going
on right now is like having a nail or multiple nails in your car tire you keep adding air
to it but until you actually plug it or seal it or replace the tire it's going to keep going
number three we could add a sealant to the system um your system is not new new but it's 10 years
old almost so it's a very it's a very gray area they're they're designed to work but
there's no guarantee it will work the ceiling does it's kind of like adding you
know back in the days the car radiator would fail and you you know yeah the mechanic would
have the irradiator or sealant into it and you know it travels throughout the whole system
and you know it'll work maybe but it's not you know good for a brand new car for example right
you don't have a brand new car you have a 10 year old car and it's life expectancy you know and
close to the ocean you know 15 20 years okay number four we look for the leak it is very time
consuming yeah and it's a needle in a haystack you hit the nail on the head you have three pieces
of a puzzle theoretically we have an indoor unit which has like a car radiator in it right we have
an outdoor unit similar but much bigger that's why the unit's so big outside and then you have
the copper lines that go from point a to point b right the leak could be at or leaks could be
indoor unit outdoor unit copper lines right yes knowing knowing the manufacturer that you
have um you know listen any no this is going to last forever some like listen those from the 60s
and 70s there's some of them are still chugging along but most are not so but then anything
man-made is subject to failure and the um it everything has a life expectancy to it so we
can look for a leak it becomes time consuming but if you want to go that route we add nitrogen to
the system and we add gauges and then we we wait 24 hours come back the next day or two days later
and see where the pressure dropped yes number five we replace the entire system which is what you
would suggest you would no i'm not saying that um i don't think that that's what no not really no
so what's the best option i trust whatever you say okay so right technically speaking the
system is nine years old right because we didn't put it i think we put it right after
sandy but it was like before the following summer time so i was like that was 2013.
okay so the system is nine years old i am not suggesting replacing at
all i'm just giving you the option if you were to replace it will you get more
an efficient system absolutely will you have the same quality of air yes will you save much
a lot of money electric bill not really so it's it's a little i think it still
has a lot of life left into it i would i would do one of two things number
one if it was in my own house and i've done this so i it's not like i'm just giving you
the loaded answer right because before i raided my house i was dumping pounds and pounds and
pounds every year of refrigerant to my systems i added the leak seal which slowed it down a lot
but the end of the day i replaced it because that was just due for replacement you have you know a
more of an expensive system and it's not that time i personally if this is my house or even if it
was a rental for example like because that's even better example right because that's what you
absolutely scrape in the bottom of the barrel right i would i would add a refrigerant and add a
sealant and have a nice day that's what i would do but i'm also in the business yeah all right but at
the end of the day let's say we add this sealant and we top you off and let's say what happens
if it doesn't work great great question so if sealant doesn't work if a sealant doesn't
work the sealant also has an ultraviolet dye which is like a chemical it's in the system and
when it leaks out we'll be able to see it so for example let's say it's leaking in the indoor
unit we could we'll take a light and we would find a leak and if it's in the indoor unit we
replace the entire coil or like the car radiator and as long as there's no other leaks you replace
the coil have a nice day but these replacements of those kind of components are in the thousands
of dollars range and a big component of it is the cost of refrigerant which is 70 i think
77.
Everything do you know that for the first i i don't like to speak politics but i think we're
on the same wavelength today for the first time ever in my life right first time ever in my life
i filled up my truck and it was over 100 bucks it was a 120 it stopped at 125 that's
unbelievable for the first time in my life oh my god this has saved me a fortune because
i can't drive i the only time i have been out times i've been out since december 10th is when
jeffrey comes to take me to the doctor okay so yes the refrigerant is 77 a pound
the labor you know you have a service contract you don't pay for labor but
on the replacement of a coil you would yeah but a discounted rate though so 225 an
hour you pay one i think 155 an hour or 115 we have to look it up because you've had
your grandfather from the old school days um but and the sealant is 175. so will it work
you asked what i would do that's what i would do it when that does not work anymore we look for
the die and if we see the die in the outdoor unit unfortunately i'm going to tell you to replace
the outdoor unit if i see it in the indoor unit i'm going to tell you to replace the coil in
the android i say replace the whole outdoor unit because it's weathered it's sitting outside
it's by the time we it gets replaced it may be a couple more years from now but it just it just
get rid of it and it is what it is if it's in the indoor unit it's a coil it's like a park we
could just take it out put it back put a new one in and half day later your job is done but that's
what i would do that's what i would do what should you do listen if you have money to burn replace
the system but i'm not taking your money yeah and and and that's really not that's really not like
what how much would it be to replace the system so the problem with yours is that your
original system had you know you oh actually the only thing the only issue i have with your
system is the voltage your system uses 110 volts like um like the outlet and you're in the the on
the wall wall outlet newer systems use 240 volts now i already know what's gonna happen i'm gonna
get the people it's like listen mike that's exactly what i would have done done and there's
gonna be others that are going to say something stupid and and i am going to end up blocking
them at the end of the day you give those five options let the customer make up their mind in
this particular case listen she trusts me i've been this i've worked in this house for 10 over
10 years and i leave no stone unturned but she trusts me and she asked me what would i do and
that's exactly what i would do i would just add the sealant at the refrigerant have a nice day so
let's go get that done i got a brand new 25 pound container 410a there's the wrapper and hooked
up to hoses we're going to open up the valve i guess that was open okay open up the valve
and then we're going to purge the air out okay good that's good too a little oily
there okay let's zero out our scale i'm just gonna dump a little bit into it with
the system off while i'm waiting for a little okay let's drop probably about a
pound in there if it'll take it yeah it's definitely going to take a pound minimum
i'm bet i'm wagering on two pounds actually let's have a little contest i will give
a brand new pipe doctor flex fit hat and the let's go bosch summer t-shirt to
the person who's closest without going over on how much pounds or how much refrigerant the
system is going to need to be properly charged to 10 degrees of sub cooling right
because right now it's 64 degrees we could charge with sub cooling so the closest
without going over to 10 degrees of sub cooling all right down in the comments section down below
don't cheat if you cheat you're a loser all right before i reveal how many pounds we took to get to 10 degrees of sub cooling there
is there are the pressures okay all right i got that number in my
head let's take a look at the total system charge amount of refrigerator
that this unit came with 146 ounces 146 ounces so a little under that nine pounds nine pounds total system charge all right we'll
talk about how much i added in a minute but i'm gonna say this you need to
have place your vote in already okay these are the yellow jacket low loss hoses we're gonna put the super
seal i'm gonna thread that on i'm trying to do this
one-handed and it's not working all right now we're gonna take
the other side stick that there and how i like to charge is we're gonna close this okay i'll charge them how i like to inject
it i'm going to close my source all right and then i'm going to open my low side
service port right after disconnecting this all right let's disconnect my high
side again i got the low loss fittings here all right so i have 102 psi of refrigerant
here right now i'm gonna open that side i'm going to open up this side and you're going to
see it dump into the suction side the sealant died and again the most amount of pressure
i'm gonna have here is 150 psi which is a little high i don't know why that went
up like that but we're good so let's take off ah i can't do it one-handed yeah i got it okay and i always like to wear gloves and
i keep a rag nearby in case i get any of that die on me or in the system i
can wipe it up but as you can see here the easy seal has been injected into
the system now if you guessed 4.7 pounds you won a free pipe doctor flex fit hat and
a brand new short sleeve let's go bosch pipe doctor t-shirt they're available in medium
large and extra large only okay so if you won and you didn't cheat email me a screenshot to
mike mikeypipes.com congratulations to the winner another thing that i do for documentation purposes
is that we are going to mark on the 410a container how much i used i don't put the date
on that this is 4.7 and also with my sharpie on the inside cover today's date 4.7
pounds of 410a the sealant with ultraviolet uv yes uh what temperature you'd like
to set to and what mode thermostat don't change please remember no moment just the way it is okay so
whenever i turn it on it stays there okay what time would you
like a set to 70 please okay 70 it is thank you hold okay oh what would you get why hold the temperature there no i don't want to
he said you want to keep it at 70 degrees not all the time oh okay unhold it please okay you fixed
it last time somebody came they screwed it up and you came and you're the only one who can fix
it so whatever you know whatever temperature you put it on so you'll manually change the
temperature okay so i need to press hold okay you just adjust the temperature and it'll
stay there it won't just as long as you adjust the temperature it's going to stay there okay
okay that's what hold this for it'll hold the temperature of what you set it to indefinitely
what does that mean and now if i put it on 68 it'll stay 16 until you change it again
okay great thank you um we added uh 80 gallons i added the sealant i added 4.7 pounds the total system charge is roughly 10
pounds so it's yeah so it's a big leak we'll see we'll see if it's a smaller leak then
the sealant will probably work but again the only way to permanently make it go away is make
a repair replace the component that's leaking but even then eventually something else
will leak so it's just it is what it is but just keep that in mind you know just
we'll see that it's a ticking timeline yes correct all right so we finished up that
service call spent about an hour hour and ten there all together uh got him up and running
i am a little disappointed that it needed 4.7 pounds of r410a um that's a considerable
amount of the total system charge so i am not confident 100 that i will not be back
here this season to address this issue again i have a funny feeling that we will be back here
again this season to address the uh l 21 issue because i think it's that's significant that's
significant but as you hear me as you heard me explain to the homeowner gave me options and then
she asked like listen i don't want to be you know go out on a hot day and i said there's a worst
case scenario i'll fill you back up with some 410a again and you'll be good again you know until
the leak gets significantly worse so we'll see i'm shooting myself in the foot for asking this
but let me get your feedback down in the comment section down below i know that a lot of you would
have taken this approach i also know that a lot of you also would have taken the time and looked for
the leak and then fixing the leak and making the repair or replace a component and as you heard as
you heard into the conversation with the homeowner i could have i could have pushed option number
five if i really wanted to but that's not really in my opinion it's not ethical i think that system
has a lot more life into it until the compressor is dead we can always replace components on
that system so that being said let me get your thoughts and feedback down in the comments section
down below until next time ladies and gentlemen thank you so much for watching if this is
the first time watching my channel watching a video on my channel if you found this
somewhat entertaining and or educational and you haven't subscribed to the channel hit
that subscribe button and that alarm bell to get post notifications i try to drop a video at
least five six days a week monday through friday because i believe in promoting great
professional business practices as how i operate as an hvac and plumbing contractor owner
thank you so much for watching be well god bless stay safe you're not calling mikey pipes you're
getting screwed there you go that's right
