Latest / The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast / Episode 213. Supermarket Refrigeration Preventative Maintenance with Andrew Freeburg

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Episode 213. Supermarket Refrigeration Preventative Maintenance with Andrew Freeburg · The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast

• 0:00
  Trevor: Welcome, welcome everyone. Hanging out with my good friend, Andrew Freeberg from RUI. He's willing to share his time, share some of his knowledge with us.
• 0:01
  Really trying to help the industry and help you guys that are here coming to hang out for half an hour, 45 minutes. And this is it. You know, you learn a little bit of a knowledge, a little bit here, a little bit there, and it continues to grow. And you continue to get better and you continue to learn and you share that knowledge, the more you share that knowledge, the better you get.
• 0:02
  Andrew, how you doing, brother?
• 0:03
  Andrew: Good. Trevor, how are you? Thanks guys for showing up. I'm re I'm ready to do this. It's going to be great. This is a good one. I love it.
• 0:04
  Trevor: Yeah, no. So we're going to dive into maintenance, you know, preventative maintenance, something, a lot of people are like, I don't like maintenance.
• 0:05
  I don't do maintenance. Maintenance is probably the most important thing we should do. We would have less call on call. If maintenance was done correctly and a lot of places, and I know in certain places when it is done correctly, because they're like, I don't get it. Many on call calls because I know I've been in training sessions where I'm teaching people how to make more money as a technician One way is take on call The more on call you take, the more money you're going to make when you get calls.
• 0:06
  But I've talked to some people where like, I'm only getting one call a week, Trevor on call. Like, so it's not like I'm just getting all these calls and we have lots of stores, but we maintain them really well. So there's not a lot of calls. And that's, that's what I see, especially with new CO2 stores are new or even new stores that are set up properly from day one.
• 0:07
  What are your thoughts on that, Andrew?
• 0:08
  Andrew: Yeah. If you have stores that are well maintained maintenance wise, and they're actually doing a real thorough job of it, it's going to be a game changer for those late night calls. That means there's going to be hardly any late night calls. And that's what we all want.
• 0:09
  That's what the customer wants. That's what we want. We don't want to be getting called out two, three, four o'clock in the morning to go and fix a, let's say a compressor or whatever. So yeah, absolutely. Maintenance is the really the number one important thing that we all can do and honestly, I could do better to
• 0:10
  Trevor: one of the things, though, that I hear from a lot of people they they and and sometimes it's true.
• 0:11
  It's like, well, The end user doesn't want to pay for maintenance. They don't believe in maintenance They'd rather pay for service which there are some customers like that But I know and i've seen it firsthand that the people do not do not have the either how to sell it properly Or how to do it properly and that's why they don't see value in it and i've seen it time and time again while they don't want to do maintenance because there's they're not seeing the value in it But the thing is, is that well maintained stores will have less and less breakdowns than stores that aren't well maintained.
• 0:12
  Okay, let's go. Go ahead, Andrew. No, no, don't, don't. Yeah.
• 0:13
  Andrew: No, absolutely. When coming to a manager and say, Hey, we got to do a maintenance program. You got to sell it to them. Like they know. So you could say bag of groceries. If you go in and you're like, I can save you and I have, have you save like 150 bags of groceries.
• 0:14
  And, you know, in a week they're going to ask, well, how are you going to sell bag of groceries? Yeah. And that brings them to attention. So you can sell it a way that they understand that's going to go a long way. A lot of how I kind of do it also is with a car, talk to them about your old car. You know, when you do regular maintenance on your car, right?
• 0:15
  And if you don't, what happens? So, just bringing, bringing it to them the way that they understand, that's the game right there. And if you could figure that out,
• 0:16
  Trevor: Oh yeah, you're making money, you're making money. The thing is, is that I like how you brought that up. Mike, They'll take their car, they'll physically drive their car to a car place to get the filters changed, leave their car there, and get them to drive them somewhere else, or someone has to come pick them up, and then they'll come back and pay, or they'll get a phone call where they have to do more maintenance on it, so it costs a lot more than that oil change, where we will actually drive out To their location with our tools and fix their equipment on site.
• 0:17
  So if you sell it properly and you got to do it, it's ethically, you, you don't just sell the maintenance that they don't need. It's it's proper maintenance too. And maintenance is not just the checklist. That's what a lot of people think. Oh, it's a checklist. Well, I'm just checking all the boxes.
• 0:18
  Maintenance is more than that. It's re looking at trend graphs, it's going in and checking centers and superheats and so many things. It A really good PM takes a long time. It's not a four hour job in a big supermarket. It doesn't matter what anyone says. It's a week job of half the time if you're doing it right.
• 0:19
  Andrew: Yeah, there's just so much going on in the grocery store from cases to the machines to the condenser. And really to dive deep into that and really truly go through it. It's going to take you like what you said, it's going to take you days to go through that properly.
• 0:20
  Trevor: Yeah.
• 0:21
  Andrew: But that's how important these maintenance are.
• 0:22
  I mean, it's, it's a, it's to go in and figure out a problem before it even exists before, you know, you have a compressor, you know breakdown, you know, you you know, You could save them 10, 000 because you know that a circuit is flooding back just by you know Just by taking temperatures on the suction line
• 0:23
  Trevor: and there's quicker ways to quick ways to do it as well It takes a while because there's just so many things you need to look at check and verify But that's one right there because they, they understand what it costs to change a compressor.
• 0:24
  They know, they see those bills, which are half the time aren't wrote up properly. People don't explain why it failed. And some of the time they don't know why it failed either, which is just puzzling them. Oh, this is a 20, 000 bill. And they don't know what they're really paying for. They're just paying for a compressor.
• 0:25
  So this is why different, different end users and even different contractors are coming up with different ways to go about it. And this is why it's important because you're the relationship builder, you're the salesperson, you're the fixer of the equipment. So you have to do it right. And there is always a process with it.
• 0:26
  What are some of the things when you are building either a maintenance checklist, or you're going to do a maintenance, because a lot of times and Tell me if it's any different for you, Andrew, when I did maintenance in the back in the past, here's a sheet from the office and it's a checklist and it has like 40 lines on it and you just go through this, Oh, go look at the oil levels and go look at that, but it wasn't, there was no meat and potatoes.
• 0:27
  On how to really do the maintenance. It was just, and they were sending out, and I was a second year. I was a lot of times going to do these maintenance and never went with anyone before. What are your thoughts on some of the checklists you've seen over the years?
• 0:28
  Andrew: Yeah, some of the checklists are generic, not going to lie.
• 0:29
  And sometimes depending on the customer, they're going to have their own checklist. I'm like, you need to check this, this, and this. And then but some of them really are. Beneficial. And they ask for certain numbers. Those are the checklists that you want to do or implement on your other ones. So I've seen where they, where it says, you know, compressor and draw actual compressor, compressor and draw.
• 0:30
  Yeah, you know, the nameplate voltage on the compressor, actual voltage on the compression that there, that's a maintenance right there. You really are digging deep into what that machine or that unit is taking, and you're able to pinpoint any issues right then and there.
• 0:31
  Trevor: Yeah, and I like that because just a compressor maintenance on a rack, there's so many compressors.
• 0:32
  A lot of people just go to the E2 or the microtherm, they'll look at the suction pressure, they'll look at the discharge pressure. And okay, well that's what it is. That doesn't mean compressor three is running at that suction addition. It might have a blown cylinder on it on a six cylinder compressor and you don't even notice.
• 0:33
  Oh yeah. Go ahead.
• 0:34
  Andrew: Yeah, exactly. You don't even notice that it is a compressor that has failed. Okay. And it's bypassing and because the other compressors could handle it, you have no idea. So then there's, you know, the temperature readings on the compressor. What's the, the bell housing? What's the, you know, three inches below the head?
• 0:35
  What temperature is that? That is a maintenance right there. If you could get to the level of knowing what is a good maintenance. So first you got to know what those numbers are, right? What is a good number? And then once you go in and say, okay, I'm going to go in, temp gun this. And of course, temp gunning is not the actual temperature.
• 0:36
  It just gives you a ballpark of what you need. So you can go in, temp it. You're like, okay, so I got, you know, 50 degrees. Coil, excuse me, coil, that would be bad system super heat here to this compressor and then all of a sudden go, go, go, go, and you see that you got like a hundred, you have a hundred degrees on this compressor and it's running but my, I got my pressures are fine.
• 0:37
  Everything, nothing's tempting high. It doesn't matter. You got something wrong with that compressor. Go find it. Yeah. Figure out why.
• 0:38
  Trevor: Yeah. And that's a big thing. You need a, you need to step up because a lot of people think PMs are a joke. I've seen it, you know, and then that's it. It's just like, Oh, I'm just going in.
• 0:39
  And so the same thing as a leak check. Oh, I got an eight hour leak check. It's just a joke. Well, is it a joke? Could you be going to do other stuff in that store to bring more value? Because the biggest thing is a massive amount of leaks in, in our industry. And lots of people just, Oh, well, it's an eight hour day.
• 0:40
  I'm just gonna. Play on my phone for a few hours and walk around a little bit, beep, beep, beep. But actually going in to do a real maintenance is important. Let's talk about doing a case maintenance. Let's get into the, get into it and how you would tackle a case maintenance, because there's so many things we can talk about.
• 0:41
  And we only have so much time, but let's say we were working on, five deck case, you know and it's, it's a dairy case. We'll say, what is your steps on the maintenance and what would approach would you take?
• 0:42
  Andrew: Yeah. I just want to go back one on the maintenance side before we. Get to the end of this case.
• 0:43
  First off, any maintenance that you have, you're going to find something. If you are looking and you know what you're doing, you're going to find something wrong and boom, you just get, you just got another service call. You're making the company money. And that's what those maintenances are really for.
• 0:44
  The maintenance is, are just for paying the technician to get out there and get an eyes on the system and really going through, that's what those maintenances are for, so I've always stressed you. There's always something wrong. You just have to know what you're looking for and find it.
• 0:45
  Trevor: No, and that is, you're right, that is key for continued work.
• 0:46
  This is bringing value to the end user because you're preventing a problem. You're being proactive. This is called proactive work versus reactive work. Proactive work always saves customers money in the long run, even if they think, don't think it or not. And you can see, I've talked to, to companies where they see the data and even the end users, they see the data in areas where they have good, you know maintenance is being done versus areas that are doing great maintenances.
• 0:47
  Andrew: Yeah, 100%. Can't stress it enough. So diving into the cases, what I would like to do is first, just a visual. Lights on, doors, if it's on a door, I know we talked about the, the 5W, well they might have doors now, right? So make sure, yeah, yeah. Make sure that all that's working correctly. You got one that the door's stuck open?
• 0:48
  Well, you know, that's, that's obviously not a good thing to have on a, on a maintenance and especially if you don't say nothing, so, you know, visual inspection, lights make sure I got airflow and then really diving into, is it good airflow?
• 0:49
  Trevor: Yeah. What do you check in for that? What are you using when you're checking the airflow and what are you matching it to?
• 0:50
  That's the question.
• 0:51
  Andrew: Oh, what you match it to is the manufacturer specs. So just cannot remember the name of that tool.
• 0:52
  Trevor: Volumeter and
• 0:53
  Andrew: Anometer. Yeah, yeah. Volumeter. So you just go in and it gives you a an airflow reading of how fast air is moving through the honeycomb, and then you go to the manufacturer specs, luckily they should be all the same ones, so you only have to do it once.
• 0:54
  You go in and you're like, Oh, you need 200 feet per second through the honeycomb and then you should be, you know, within that range of 200 feet per sec. So there's that, if you're not take the honeycomb off, clean it if it's dirty, or, you know, there's a grid up on top. So visually inspect the grid go to the, the computer or go on to the actual connection and hook up your gauges and check your saturation suction temperature.
• 0:55
  That's also a really good one. Make sure that we are at design case set points or suction pressure. Going beyond that if you really dive in deep into it making sure that, you know, the drains are plugged. Shoot. I almost forgot about that, but yeah, blade blades are on correctly and spinning the right way.
• 0:56
  So that's always good. Having the correct, all the correct fan motors. Yeah, make sure the drain is clear and no water is backing up. And Supereats you double check your Supereats and that, I mean, if you could get every case in that lineup dialed in within, you know, two degrees from each other, whatever the manufacturer says, if it's six degrees of coiled Supereat, you can get it right around six to eight degrees.
• 0:57
  You just nailed that whole line.
• 0:58
  Trevor: And that's a, Patrick says a good thing in the chat. He loves when they have blocked baffles. So there's different cases I'm showing a screen. I just screen share like really dirty honeycombs that could catch you, but there's a lot of different cases out there. We're just talking about one.
• 0:59
  I remember the old G5, G6 is I don't even know how many are left out there, but there's three air curtains. And there's fans on the top, there's fans in the back, there's fans underneath, there's two drain pans, you'd wash out one drain pan, there's still another one full frozen and still need to wash it out, like these, these cases.
• 1:00
  So, getting an understanding of the case itself is very, very important. Another thing, though, If yep. The ambient fans are always dead to, I've seen people, Patrick, change fans in the in the unit to bigger ones because they said, oh, we need more airflow. We don't get enough airflow is because they don't have fans in the background.
• 1:01
  'cause people didn't even know. But another thing, if you ever come across and you're doing like your airflow check and it's double the speed of what it should be, what do you think's the problem, Andrew?
• 1:02
  Andrew: Well, it's either you got a bigger fan motor that's running at a different RPM or the pitch of that blade is either out of whack or someone put the wrong blade in.
• 1:03
  There's something that is not at the manufacturer's specs and that's where our job is to figure that out.
• 1:04
  Trevor: Yeah. And that should be concerning for you. Be like, Oh, like, man, I'm double my fan speed that breaks the curtain. So the whole purpose of that, that air curtain coming down is to protect, protect that system, protect.
• 1:05
  That's what I think of it as like a shield. You know what I mean? It's a shield for the case to keep, to keep all the cold, cold in the heat out. Right. But if you break it too much, you know, you have the wrong shelves in you, that you put the, they put pegs on and they don't put the shelves in at all. And the air just drops down, freezes up the coil really quick.
• 1:06
  These are the things that you can see in the maintenance and catch in the maintenance when you really understand the case itself, have you ever came across any of that stuff, Andrew?
• 1:07
  Andrew: Where the shelves are too long or too long or stick in halfway out. Yeah, a time or two. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good visual too, just by looking at it.
• 1:08
  So when you look at these cases, the top shelves are a little smaller, you know, depending on how many you have, but they get larger and larger and larger. There's a, there's a line on the edge, if there's an end cap on it and that line actually is a product line. A lot of grocery store, you know, people that stock these cases, they don't pay attention to it.
• 1:09
  So just making them aware of that is also a game changer too.
• 1:10
  Trevor: Yeah, and this is, talk to, because a lot of people complain about, oh, they don't know, they, what are they doing? But. Nobody ever told this person that makes 10 or 12 an hour, that you shouldn't be putting it over there. And like, you know, a lot of times that sometimes they do and they just don't care and that's, that's fine, but a lot of people do care about doing a good job.
• 1:11
  You know? So if you just explain it, explain it to them, why get them to understand it. They, They usually want to do a good job. Couple of people
• 1:12
  Andrew: return air, they block the return air on those cases, especially the produce, right?
• 1:13
  Trevor: And so a lot of this can be done even with just having good conversations with the people that work there, right?
• 1:14
  You build that relationship with the deli or the produce manager or whoever, and give them some advice on, on how, how it could save them from having to call you to come out. You know, like a dirty case, you know, it's not awesome to clean. I'll show you some pictures that I've had a clean before. And it's nasty.
• 1:15
  I know I've been there. A lot of you've been there as well, but if you don't let it get that bad, if you work at stores and there are some good stores out there that have been in there for decades and they're spotless because the store store managers cared about it, the produce or whoever managers cared about, they had their team come in or they had you come in to do the maintenance consistently to keep it up up to speed because They know if they, you lose one 60 foot line of a product that pays for 50 maintenances, you know what I mean?
• 1:16
  Because they're talking about sometimes tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars that could be lost. Few people threw in the chat here unsecured plenums, vibrate, loose effect. 100 percent seen that before, not putting the screws back up. It's like you take something apart at home or in your car. And all of a sudden you get three screws left.
• 1:17
  Oh, there that's okay. Then you don't need three screws. You can't, you know, they go, they go somewhere. So there's a reason a couple more people said smoke candles. 100%. If you really want to know, that's the flow. You know, you do a smoke test and go online. Like just say, well, if you can't visualize this, go online and say, listen smoke test case.
• 1:18
  Right. And you're going to use the proper stuff. Don't just don't, don't just take a big piece of cardboard paper and start burning with a bunch of customers around and just stick it in the case, get the proper tools and you can get them from the local supply house and the wholesalers for sure. But it's important to make sure another person said, check the temperature across the coil.
• 1:19
  That's a good one. You know, what's your in and out, out temperature. But this is just one example on maintenance. There's a lot of other things that you need to check. For example, oil maintenance on a system. What are your thoughts on oil? Because this is something that people, Oh, Well, the oil can stay the same for 10 years while the oil in your car, do you have to replace it?
• 1:20
  Oil in your refrigeration rack. You don't have to replace it. If you don't overheat the oil, if you don't open the system, if you don't put gauges on it. Yeah. You don't need an oil change, but when we're messing around with it day in day out that, that compressor or sorry, that, yeah, the compressor probably needs an oil change because that the quality.
• 1:21
  Of the viscosity of the oil will change over time, especially when that oil's heated. What are some of your thoughts and tips on oil maintenance for Iraq?
• 1:22
  Andrew: Yeah. I mean, oil maintenance is huge. And I think a lot, there's a lot of misconceptions on it with oil management, you got to start from the very beginning compressors.
• 1:23
  Let's just start there because it's easy. Inside the compressor, we all know it has oil. Make sure it's the right LL. Make sure it's actually clear because a lot of the times that I've seen is where like all the oil's just is good and then you go look at the oil and it's brown. If it's brown, that's, it's kind.
• 1:24
  It's it's been used, it's dirty. Right? So it's definitely important it goes through the oil management system of that rack and make sure that it is working correctly from the oil separator to the event, you know, the reservoir to, the filter dryer going to the floats and depending on if you have a.
• 1:25
  a low pressure oil system or a high pressure oil system, solenoids, very, very important. There's tests that you could actually get and test the oil to see if it's even in spec. I mean, we're not there 24 seven. So it's hard to say that, yeah, I know this unit has been running perfectly, right? So it, it's really, really hard to say that, yeah, I got perfect oil in the system.
• 1:26
  So, unfortunately, yeah, we have to change oil in these racks. Or fortunately, right? Depending on how you look at it. Yeah. But I think it's very important.
• 1:27
  Trevor: Yeah, I don't think you the, the, once again, we are, we are, Remember, you're a salesperson. You're the number one salesperson for your organization. You don't want to just go out to the customer and say, okay, you need an oil change at 7, 000.
• 1:28
  You got to talk about the process. What needs to be done? Why did they need this oil change? You'll look in, I read bits are manual the other day and inside or their service guide again, cause I, I give this to people in the, the training programs we do. And then one of the assignments is going through like the bits are to Copeland, all these different guides.
• 1:29
  And then it says oil needs to be changed in the compressors every three years or 10, 000 hours of runtime. That's what, you know, that's what it says in this manual. So I'm not saying you got to check what the manufacturer suggests. If the manufacturer of the rack. Doesn't give you a suggestion. Then you go to the component manufacturer and try to find out the answers for yourself.
• 1:30
  This is that it can be very expensive. Oil is not cheap when you're looking at like a hundred dollars a gallon sometimes for some oil. So you want to do it, right? We've got a picture that I'm just showing here. This is a, a blown filter out of an oil separator. So the thing is, is that this can be prevented.
• 1:31
  The big thing is, is that are you able to spend the time to do the maintenance properly? How would you have two things, Andrew? Yeah, I guess, I think you can see the picture first off. How would you figure out that oil separator filter to coalesce and filter is busted. What is the. The quickest way to tell that you're on mute.
• 1:32
  Andrew: I apologize. The first first thing is you're, you got an emergency on your hands. You got a compressor that is not running because it pumped out all of its oil. That oil, that coalescent filter there, that what separates the refrigerant and oil mixture. In the oil separator, when it blows, it bypasses.
• 1:33
  So now all that oil that it should be separating is now is all out in your cases or wherever it's at, you know, where it shouldn't be. I mean, it's not where it shouldn't be, but not that amount. Yeah. Right. So I think if I'm right I think they separate about 98 percent of that oil.
• 1:34
  Trevor: Yeah. Depending on the test too.
• 1:35
  True,
• 1:36
  Andrew: true, true. So with that, that all 98 percent of that oil should stay within, you know, your oil management system. So that is definitely a blown filter. So anyways, it just bypasses it. You got an emergency on your hands cause you're probably not holding suction temp. So you get there, you look, you got no oil in your compressor, you got no oil in your reservoir, and you're like, I need, hopefully I got some oil in my van to get this thing running while I go away and fix it.
• 1:37
  But you just trace it back, right? If you, if you've got no oil in the compressor, check your reservoir. You got no oil in your reservoir, where else can it be? In this case, it's going to be your separator. So yeah, right there. So it's easy. It's really, as long as you know how the order of operations of your oil mitt is, Oil management system, it makes it so much easier to diagnose it, but it, you got to take the time to understand it.
• 1:38
  Trevor: Yeah. And that's the big thing. You got to use your tools, maintenance. You would see something like this. This may get by, like, just say you're coming to a maintenance and you put your, your gauges on before and after. And we'll talk about low pressure systems, CO2 systems, make sure you have transcribed gauges, or you have you're looking at the micro thermal because you're running in access pressures of sometimes 1400 PSI.
• 1:39
  So, but if you had this set, this situation, could it Potentially been prevented by proper maintenance. And it's the things that we do out there that makes a difference in the industry. Lots of times filters are plugged up and i've seen i've seen so many videos and i've seen it out there You know, you've got a 35 psi Pressure drop, you know, two or three bar pressure drop across a liquid line filter.
• 1:40
  Like that's, that's some serious pressure drop happening there.
• 1:41
  Andrew: Yeah. That is one of the maintenance is that I did was there, there was a horizontal pressure drop. Protocol and to get to the oil filter, you have to kind of do this crazy acrobatic act to get to it. Excuse me. Liquid filter dryer.
• 1:42
  Anyways, I had to remove a panel and you could barely get your hands in there and check it. I had a 60 pound differential across it. I was blown away.
• 1:43
  Trevor: I was blown away. Nobody wanted to check it. If they were able to check it, they were like, I'll not fix it. But that's part of our, it's. But you did it. So you put the work.
• 1:44
  I did. Yeah.
• 1:45
  Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:46
  Trevor: Yeah. Cause of course,
• 1:47
  Andrew: yeah, you get it all changed out and no, you got your cases over feeding, we can, like, you're compensating for the, you know, the blacked off of course, across the filter. So it was a fire, it was fun.
• 1:48
  Trevor: Yeah. And this is it about maintenance. Okay. You come in and you have a plug drain and you clean that drain out and it's a lineup of five cases.
• 1:49
  You got to do all the drains. Just, just saying. Don't just do that one drain if it's plugged, do all of them, because most likely the rest of them is plugged. Because if that's the one at the end of the line, we'll say, That one's plugged for a while. That's probably been backing up all the other ones and you didn't clean that one out.
• 1:50
  I've seen this time and time again. I even did it in the past cause I didn't know the difference, but if you're doing a maintenance, do it right. You know, spend the time to, to clean all of them out. Yeah,
• 1:51
  Andrew: yeah. Speaking of plug drains my favorite thing is, is that any grocery store I go into, I go down the frozen food aisle and I look down at the bottom to see if I have ice filled up.
• 1:52
  Because I don't know how many times I walked by and I see ice starting to back up into the case and all that's just is going to be an emergency call. I have saved. Countless numbers of emergency hours, late night hours just by walking down and just having a flashlight as we walk down and check every single case.
• 1:53
  Trevor: Yeah, easy, easy, just easy stuff to do, but we just got to do it. Talking about drains, this is from my good buddy Rob Stewart. He owns a company called BioPipe and this is drainage for supermarkets refrigeration cases that will not grow slime. It will not grow any bacteria in it because it's a patented design.
• 1:54
  And you can see, this is one quick example after six months, look at all that slime inside this. PVC pipe and same, same system, different different piping and there's nothing in it. Game changing stuff. Like this stuff here is the stuff where you can help grow your business, make a pot, help your customer out as well, because nobody likes.
• 1:55
  Out there cleaning drains all the time. And that's one of part of our jobs. A lot of our calls are just going out and cleaning out drains. A lot of the times it's from customers throwing stuff, coins and stuff down, down into the drains. But the big thing is, is that just if you're cleaning out one, try to clean out all of them.
• 1:56
  We have some a question here from Demetrius. Usually when technicians have a problem with ice in the cabinets, cause we were talking about cabinets early, they tend to add defrost to specific cabinets. I've seen that. All of a sudden you ate 10 defrost in a case like that's way too much. It's so bad for the, for the, for the product.
• 1:57
  Yeah, I seen it up to eight defrost a day. What do you think should be the way to fix this problem? Also in order to melt the ice, it needs to empty the cabinets and use water to do it. But store managers almost never allow this. Is there any way around it? Prolonged defrost on site. Okay. So one of the things is you have to do it, right?
• 1:58
  You have to get up to empty that case realistically, or at least pull the bottom and washing it out. Because if you just leave one little speck of ice on there, or it doesn't defrost, what's going to happen? It's going to grow. It's just going to continue to grow. And this is why it's very, very important to do it.
• 1:59
  So what can you do is maybe you come up with a plan on when to have it empty. A strategy with that produce manager or whoever it is to empty it. And I've seen, I've emptied so many cases. I just did it so I could help the customer. Even there, I don't have staff to do it for you. And I did it. Is it our job or not?
• 2:00
  I was still getting paid 45 an hour. And they wanted me to do it. So I just did it. It's better if they did it, to have someone to do it, but don't cry and complain about it. It's part of our job. If they're going to pay you 45 an hour to pull some product, just do it and fix the thing. And you know what to that maybe that store manager doesn't, is not.
• 2:01
  Super happy about it or not. Super doesn't matter to them that you fix it or not, but their next level up will, when they start to see the numbers and all of a sudden my refrigeration bills going down month over month, because you're crushing the maintenance, you're bringing value to them. So I think that's a, that can be a tough one, depending on the manager.
• 2:02
  You can't always win them, but you're. The thing that will really be around is building a relationship with them. You build a relationship with that person, and then you start to talk, talk about it and tell them the value that if you have them pull it and I can come in here, I can do it in two hours instead of six hours and we can do it right.
• 2:03
  We can find the problem because actually. The problem hasn't been found. Whatever the problem is, is the relay is the heaters is the hot gas, defrost, too many defrost, whatever it is, is that, and build a relationship with them. Because that's it. That they're looking, they're looking for that. They'll, they, I see it and I've seen it time and time again, manager will pay more for Andrew to come to the site than other people because he cares and they want to see people who care into their into their facility thoughts on having too many defrosts in a case.
• 2:04
  Andrew
• 2:05
  Andrew: So I always revert back to manufacturer specs. They have countless of number of hours of setting up this case to work properly. If you're adding defrost, that means there's something wrong and something's out of whack of what's happening with. The the manufacturer specs. So I would dive deep into what the manufacturer specs are and make sure that everything's working correctly.
• 2:06
  The only thing that I, I do know that sometimes happens and that's kind of our fault is make sure that the, you know, with the panels that we take off, we have to de ice, make sure all panels are put back correctly. Sometimes we don't do that. That's causing the air to recirculate inside there. Causes it to freeze up.
• 2:07
  So that's another thing. And then check for air penetration from the HVAC coming into the case. I've seen where that we have discharge air blown right in the case and washing the air right out. That could also be another reason, but definitely dive deep into what is the manufacturer's recommendation.
• 2:08
  Get everything to those specs. I don't know if it's on a rack or a single system, but just get everything to those specs.
• 2:09
  Trevor: And the big thing is, it could be something that you don't even think about. Could be the humidity in the store.
• 2:10
  Andrew: Yes.
• 2:11
  Trevor: You know, it could be, could be the, cause those cases are designed for specific humidity and maybe it's the HVAC that's not working.
• 2:12
  And you got a problem with that and this is what's causing more of the freeze up. Not necessarily, it doesn't happen all the time, but this is, this is something that I didn't even know about until I, until I learned about it, right? So it's something that you need to think about and cause it might not even be the refrigeration system causing it up.
• 2:13
  It could be actually someone in the store that pours water down into the drain. And what it does, it goes all the way. They pour so much at one time, it goes up and freezes onto the coil. And then things that you don't think about. You know, that, that it could happen and cause that I really enjoyed this conversation.
• 2:14
  We're already at 35 minutes and let's, let's give them a few more tips. What what are a couple more of your top tips, Andrew, for preventative maintenance,
• 2:15
  Andrew: Checking pressure transducers and temperature sensors, make sure that those are reading correctly. I can't express that enough. That could totally change.
• 2:16
  Five, five pound differential could, could save you so much energy, just knowing that it's, well, I guess plus or minus, right? But usually it's below. So it's, it's running five pounds lower than it actually is reading. So you're just burning energy left and right. And, and, but all the cases are pulled down to 10.
• 2:17
  Right. But we don't need to drop down to negative 25. We need a negative 20 saturation temperature. So double checking all pressure transducers and temperatures, making sure that they are reading correctly. It's very, very important.
• 2:18
  Trevor: We've got a couple of things here when we're talking about oil. Nate says a great, great, great thing that he says, you know, I thought a hundred dollars A gallon was cheap compared to after hours service call or fail compressors.
• 2:19
  So just think about it. If you don't change that oil and it just say it is 7, 000, if you have a six cylinder compressor fails, you know, you're looking at 000. I don't know what the price, I can't remember what the prices are anymore, but you know, that you're going to have two guys, at least two guys for a few hours, picking it up, pulling the old one out.
• 2:20
  Like you're, you're talking dollars to where maybe you could have did the oil change and protected all of them. Because if that one failed, most likely. Knock some years off the other one. So, so that's a, that's a great one there. And then I totally
• 2:21
  Andrew: agree with that one.
• 2:22
  Trevor: Patrick also said adding temporary deer defrost during extreme extreme storm conditions due to HVAC failures.
• 2:23
  This is something that we have to do. We have to sometimes put a bandaid on before we can fix something because we need our customers up and running. If you're a smart technician and a good technician, when you're on calls, you're not always out there to work all night. Sometimes you have to don't get me wrong, but if you can get through the night so you can come back in the morning to fix a problem that is the smarter way to do it because you're not burning yourself out and then you're able to save the customer money instead of you staying there for six hours because there are times that you can dial into a store and you see The walk in box, again, you look, the defrost just went at midnight, the door opened, if you have a door open, at one o'clock, and it stayed open until 2.
• 2:24
  30, and now you're getting an alarm and a call. So, understanding how to, to manage that stuff will help save you time especially on calls. So, some of your thoughts on that, Andrew.
• 2:25
  Andrew: Yeah. Sometimes you do have to go and change things. But the important is why do we have to do that outside the manufacturing recommendation?
• 2:26
  Don't just do it because you think this is a better idea. I'm you're just looking for trouble. Trust me. I've done that before. That's what I, that's why I'm saying that thought I had a better way. Right. But if you have to add extra defrost, make sure after you actually fix the issue, that's causing that.
• 2:27
  Change it back to where, where it was at.
• 2:28
  Trevor: That's exactly
• 2:29
  Andrew: 100%. Yeah. So yeah, no, Patrick is right on when he says that.
• 2:30
  Trevor: Yeah. So, and these are some of the, these are just the, the, the, the tip of it. There is a lot more to, to maintenance and preventative maintenance, because really what we're trying to do is redo, save the customer money at the end of the day.
• 2:31
  This is what we want to do. Our, our job should be to help that customer make more money. Because if that customer makes more money, that means you as a contractor are going to make more money because when they build a new store, they're going to hire you now, when they build a new store, you need service team.
• 2:32
  They hire you, they build, they get more peep. They need maintenance. They hire you. So this is why it's so important. If you can help them. Win at the game of refrigeration that helps everybody win then your company makes more money And then imagine if you locked in a contract that prevent a maintenance contract because you're crushing it With a chain and all of a sudden there's 400 stores like that's huge, you know It's going to, you're going to go, your company's going to definitely help you out in that.
• 2:33
  And if you did the work, you're going to make money from that. And I talk about this in lots of different programs. You can make a difference in the refrigeration industry by helping your customers out. But the biggest thing I think at the end of the day is building a relationship with the customer.
• 2:34
  If you can do that, you'll be able to sell maintenances for them, but it got to be the right one for them. Not every store needs the same maintenance. Just remember that, like you go to a 40, 000 square foot refrigeration, cold warehouse. It's not going to be the same as an 18 case, seven 11, whatever, you know what I mean?
• 2:35
  It's going to be different maintenance. Will some of the stuff be the same for sure? Some may have a leak detector. Some may not have a leak detector. And that's another one I should talk and bring up is I've seen so many leak detectors in store just turned off because people didn't understand them or the filters were plugged or they just keep beeping because the something has failed.
• 2:36
  And nobody knows how to change their well, any thoughts of that? Have you dealt with that in the past before? Yeah.
• 2:37
  Andrew: None or some that are off. Yeah. Unfortunately I have, and that's that could just save so much refrigerant. Just having one working correctly obviously has to work, but it's, that's important.
• 2:38
  And guess what? That means maintenance too. Everything needs maintenance. Going back to talking with the customers, communication and trust is going to take you to a whole different level with that customer. Just communicate what's happening, what's going on, break it down to their level. They're going to start trusting you more and more and more.
• 2:39
  And that's when you could go in with those maintenance stuff and those ideas, what Trevor is saying. But you got to build that relationship first. You got to. And it's very, very important.
• 2:40
  Trevor: And, and you know what, and you, you started now and one, two years down the road, you build that relationship. They're, they want you, they want you all the time.
• 2:41
  And I've seen it. I've seen it time and time again, Andrew, I want to thank you so much for taking the time and everyone to come and hang out. I really appreciate Patrick and Nate and everybody, Demetrios, Jacob, everyone who puts some stuff in the chat to share their knowledge, to help other people out.
• 2:42
  Patrick fantastic saving a customer 12, 000 a month in utilities from just doing maintenance. Like that's huge, huge, that customer wants you back at all their stores, you know, and that's just the way it is. I'm going to throw something in the chat here. This is the upcoming supermarket program on Friday.
• 2:43
  We dive into all this stuff. If you know someone who's looking to get better than the supermarket game, how to service, how to troubleshoot, how to really take their game to that next level. Share that, that link that I just sent to you because this is important. We need to help grow the industry and diving in and spending the time on doing this stuff and learning.
• 2:44
  That's how you're going to get better. That's how you're going to grow. Andrew, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to share some of your extensive knowledge with us again. And the refrigeration mentor community. I really appreciate that. Any final thoughts, Andrew?
• 2:45
  Andrew: Final thoughts. Just, you know, with the maintenances that you guys got to do, if you go in, do them, but do a good job, anything that you guys do, make sure you do the best job of you, what you can do take the time to learn the systems while you're there.
• 2:46
  Cause that's what you're doing. You're checking things out you know, and have fun. That's what this is all about. This is, this is a fun trade to be in. So no, I want to thank you, Trevor, and thanks for everyone joining in. This was fun.
• 2:47
  Trevor: Yeah, no, I appreciate it. And once again, I see tons of people that's been in, in my programs.
• 2:48
  I appreciate you still continue to Joe, Michaela, Patrick, all, all of you. I really appreciate taking the time to continue to invest in yourself and that's it, and then you're here depending on what time zone you're in, you're here to learn a little bit. I appreciate that. I see Jacob. He's, he's out there still even working and he's out there and he's here listening and learning.
• 2:49
  and this is what it's about. Learn a little bit each day. It's going to make you a bit better. And as you continue to grow, share that knowledge with more people. And as you share, you're going to learn. This is why I am so good at what I do is because I share so much knowledge. And then I learn from the questions you all ask.
• 2:50
  And you come back and ask more questions. And I ask questions and I'm curious how to learn how to get better. And this is what it's all about. This is what it's all about. Andrew, I want to thank you so much. I want to thank everyone for listening. We'll see you at the next next session. We do Andrew.
• 2:51
  Andrew: All right. Sounds great. Thank you.