Latest / The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast / Episode 363. A Look Ahead to 2026 in Refrigeration

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Episode 363. A Look Ahead to 2026 in Refrigeration · The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast

• 0:00
  Trevor: Welcome to another community meetup. So, super excited to talk today, diving into some coffee here. We just went through the holidays, which was great, so hopefully you guys all had good holidays. And we're gonna talk today a little bit about reflection on 2025.
• 0:01
  Oh, I'm waiting for January 1st to start the gym. I'm waiting for January 1st to start my New Year's resolution. It doesn't matter if it's the middle of July. You should be working on these as well. But we're gonna want to talk about 2026. What we got Paul, Andrew, how you doing, brother?
• 0:02
  I did my biggest keynote this year and talked in front of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, and that's one of many things. I've talked at dozens of events. I've talked to I've done dozens and dozens of podcasts. I've trained thousands of technicians all around the world, which is huge for me.
• 0:03
  Really, I, I knew I liked it. And then now that I'm, where I'm at now, talking with the boss, switching bosses, really moving locations. It was a big, I don't it, it was scary. I'm not gonna lie. I, I just like, well, let's do this. And it was honestly like two, three weeks later that we, I made that move.
• 0:04
  So I'm doing all of that. And I just got told a couple, probably a couple months ago that I'm gonna actually gonna do my first startup brand new store for a, for a store. So I'm really excited for that one. That's, that's, they're building the store right now. I'm, I'm ready. So I'm really looking forward to that one.
• 0:05
  You just keep plugging away. You, you've seen the goals that you want. You told people the goals you want. It didn't happen right away. You know what I mean? It didn't happen. It wasn't like, oh, okay, here's the job, Andrew. You just kept working for it, proving yourself, doing the hard work. And even when you probably did, deserved it a long time ago, you still just plugged away.
• 0:06
  So I don't see that being an issue. But the issue when I first started was I had a problem, I guess, saying exactly what I wanted. I, I don't know, I was nervous. I don't know what the whole reason was. Maybe I was just worried about I wasn't ready for it, so I didn't really speak up. But now I know today if I want something, I'm gonna say it.
• 0:07
  Trevor: but that's a big thing though. Like, you wrote this stuff down. You said it, you wrote it down, you planned, and it's not, it, it doesn't, it is like, I remember when I used to work at Copeland and I took a massive pay cut to get the job, and then every year, like I wanted a bigger pay raise and, they're a corporation. They're not just gonna fork out a, they just can't, it's, but it's like, I just kept asking for it and asking for it, and I was proving it, and then I was asking for it and proving it, and. At the end of it, when, when I left it, they offered me what I wanted. They finally, I got, finally got the point.
• 0:08
  It's taking too long. 'cause it's instant gratification, but sometimes it takes a long time. And seven years is not a, honestly is not that long. Because it goes by just like this, like, it goes by, it's gonna go by anyway. If you're working towards the things that you want, that's where things will happen, and, and make sure it's, well, I try to make sure that I'm working towards the things that I want. Does things change along the way? 100%. But when you have those goals written down, like, I wanted to train tens of thousands of people. I wanna be one of the top speakers in the world on refrigeration. This stuff is happening.
• 0:09
  So I'm gonna be bouncing around kind of all over the place as far as CO2 goes. So yeah, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna probably be that startup tech right now. I got the, like I said, I got the drive and that's what I want, and I made it known that that's what I want. So I've been kind of going around all the other CO2 locations and, and pulling up graphs and seeing things and smoothing things out.
• 0:10
  And the more more he can help and share that knowledge, the more it helps him grow. And it is just like Eric sharing his knowledge with all of us. 'cause he's been doing CO2 for decades now and has, epic amount of knowledge on CO2, but just sharing those little tips and then you get to hear it over and over and over again.
• 0:11
  So, so we're doing a full school for technicians and now this is gonna take a technician really to the next level of their career or if they're just starting out in their career to take them to where they, it's not gonna take them 10 years to get where it took me to get 10 years. And this is, this is one of my goals is to help technicians, to help companies fast track.
• 0:12
  You walk around, you're not even on that call. And you 14 of, there's probably, I don't know how many cases in the store, maybe 50 or a hundred, but 14 of them were plugged. They're like, well, this is a suspect. This is a suspect. This is a suspect, and that there is lack of maintenance, lack of. Intuition, not intuition, but lack of that over and above, going above and beyond and what you really need to do because you had nothing to do with that service call.
• 0:13
  And now I realize like, man, we're not doing us justice. We're not doing the on call, on-call person justice. We're not doing the customer justice. So it just makes me like rethink everything. And then again, that just comes with the experience. At that time I was just trying to figure out maybe what a TXV actually truly does, so there's those levels, but as you start to level up, man, level yourself up too level, what can make you a better technician, right? So that's kind of how I took that, and that's kind of been my theme, I guess, is like, how can I do better than what I am now? And that's one of the reasons that I keep pushing because I know I can, I just, what, what, you know?
• 0:14
  Maybe it's a smell. I, I recently, I, I think I posted it on a community. I was, I was helping a, one of my fellow technicians out and he was like, man, there's no refrigerant in, in here. And he threw nitrogen in it, and he's like, I can't find the leak. And I was looking and I thought I saw it, so I stuck my head down there and I could actually smell it.
• 0:15
  Okay. It could be giving an advice of how to use it, put the meter on a compressor to properly own it out. Not doing it, doing it for it, but just coaching them along the way. And I think this is one of the big things that is missing in the industry ver teaching versus coaching versus mentoring. And there's different avenues about it.
• 0:16
  To actually coach them. Andrew, I want to talk just a little bit about that. 'cause there's quite a few videos. For example, the, the CO2 Western Meyer video where you teach how to change the oil separate. What, how do you, what, what's the difference when you're doing coaching to an apprentice? 'cause you don't just do it and get it done and just over with.
• 0:17
  And then if it's and then I let them do it, and I'm just there just to make sure, I guess everything goes smoothly safely. So really that's all that I do. But I, I want them really, to me, what's important is I want to know what they're thinking and then I could guide them from there. So as far as when I first started out, and I, that support that you talked about, that's huge.
• 0:18
  But I also learned a lot too. And I can't take that for, for granted either. So, but going back to your question, as far as getting the the apprentice more involved in it, I already know how to do it. I want them to learn because if they know how to do it now I don't have to be going back or questioning or wondering.
• 0:19
  And I know tons of people in the industry, it could name countless different manufacturer, countless different contractors, countless different technicians who are willing to spend that extra 10 minutes because they, they care, they care about teaching that they're looking for people who want to learn.
• 0:20
  That's, that's right there is ask, ask those questions. I guarantee that that person that you're following or you're with or whatever, had those same exact questions back when they first started. It's not just ask, ask the question. That's the, that's to me is kind of a struggle point with my apprentices now, is that, and it's not necessarily that they don't ask the question.
• 0:21
  And that's how we continue to evolve and, and grow, is investing in our stuff. And I think 2026, if you spend that 15 minutes, like Andrew says, 20 minutes a day, which is not a lot of time, that's less time than you're spending just scrolling through your phone or Instagram feed or Facebook or LinkedIn or whatever, Netflix, 15 minutes a day specific topics that you wanna learn.
• 0:22
  Go on online. I got tons of these videos. You could just go on the refrigeration method, YouTube channel, and probably find tons of them to get you started. But that's, that's it. And then write it down. Make that list, because you're gonna forget. If you don't make the list, you're going to forget.
• 0:23
  So, there's been plenty of times where the day's done and I just sit inside a machine room and just watch, pull up graphs. Especially right now with me going into that EMS and trying to smooth everything out as far as the graphs go, there's been countless of hours where I just sit in the machine room and just tweak or just turn things or slow things down, or speed things up just to follow it and watch it.
• 0:24
  And that's just barely mo doing it right there. So,
• 0:25
  And investing in myself, putting the time in and doing the podcast here and talking about refrigeration, this is kind of where I learned like this isn't normal. And anything ramping up and down, up and down should, that should, be like a, Hey, there's something might be wrong here. Let's, let's figure out what's going on.
• 0:26
  But. It was just overshooting and undershooting because the fans were reacting too fast. So I just slowed those fans down and man, and then it just smoothed right out almost instantly too. It was the craziest part on, okay, so let's, let's dive
• 0:27
  But yeah, the, the one that was there was 2000, but through my career I've seen it all the way up to 5,000 before.
• 0:28
  Trevor: So all of a sudden they're all ramping up and down together. So all of a sudden they turn. The pressure temperature goes up in your drop leg temperature.
• 0:29
  So, but then you went from this very large range, and we talked about this many times in the podcast with CO2, you wanna slow things down. It's not, you don't wanna speed things up. You want to slow things down. Electron valves, slow them down. High pressure valves, slow them down. You wanna slow this stuff.
• 0:30
  Andrew: Yep. For this one, there's another, so that's gonna be either, that's gonna be either the, I think this is gonna be your high pressure valve. Here's the other one. So this
• 0:31
  And you can see here it goes all the way up and then all the way down and then all the way up. And like if you've seen this, you'd be like, oh man, there's something wrong with the high pressure valve. You know what I mean? Over here it's a little bit different, but you're still, I would say this is still hunting too, because we're going from almost 15% all the way up past 40%.
• 0:32
  Trevor: And, and this is within, spending. 15, 20 minutes taking a look at that, yeah. You, and we, we'd love love to see the graphs today. You know what I mean? And then you can even fine tune this more because one of the things you said, the first thing that you said before, all of this, well, is the, the coils clean, is the fans all running?
• 0:33
  so you have fans not working properly, that fans affects your high pressure valve then, which affects your flash net gas bypass valve or that receiver pressure valve. This is so key because these all work together.
• 0:34
  And then when you did that set point change on the, on that gas. Cool. Here we go. We're about, say 10% open and close, not even. So if we actually go from here to here to top and the bottom on the standard one, not from the maximum, we're probably less than a 10%.
• 0:35
  So figuring out just one place you can make stable in the, in this case, with the CO2 system. The easiest part to make stable is, is the condenser gas cooler, because you could just set the fan to fixed speed.
• 0:36
  'cause if we got a constant airflow at that same temperature for say, 10 minutes, that that valve should, that high pressure valve shouldn't be bouncing all over the place or the flash gas bypass valve, unless. Potentially there's something going on with them or something else in the system, like an EEV running into an issue where it opens up and it closes open ups and it closes are multiple ones.
• 0:37
  What does that do to your drop leg temperature? Drop leg pressure going into your A eight or your, your whole back valve then going into your receiver and then that receiver pressure going up and down, up and down, up and down. And so now my liquid pressure going out to all my T EVs, now that pressure goes up and down, up and down the, the valve's not gonna know what to do.
• 0:38
  'cause it was, it was too slow to react. So just for you guys listening make sure that you gotta, you gotta fine tune it and that's where you kind of just sit there and play with it until you do. So I noticed that as well when I was messing around with the pan speeds.
• 0:39
  Erik: You get a really quick response on, on the system, and, and you will, you will have a feeling if it's the right direction. Because all you have to do is put it back. If, if it, yeah, if you double it and it get worse, then you just put it back again and, and half the value from there and see, okay, now we've got more stability.
• 0:40
  There's so many different dynamics of a refrigeration system that we really need to know. And I've, I, I had a post out on Facebook, I think, I think it was Facebook where talked about defrost issues and find a wiring diagram, take the wiring diagram, take a look at it, and there were so many people wiring diagram.
• 0:41
  Andrew: I was, I kind of struggled finding case wire diagrams for the longest time. Or if I did, it just took a long time. You know what truly was a game changer of finding any PDF on any case manufacturer. It doesn't matter what it is, what's been the biggest game changer for me,
• 0:42
  Trevor: Yeah. And I so for the last 10, 10, 12 years, I've been learning how to be resourceful. Learning how to research and find, doing research is not. Not easy. It's so, it's something you need to learn. And after you learn it, it's easy. Like, for years I had trouble finding documents, finding wiring diagrams.
• 0:43
  So sometimes just understanding how to do research for finding wiring diagram is so, so important to find a wiring and if you can't find it, you need to learn how to draw one out or really understand how wiring diagrams work. Okay. Andrew, do you wanna kind of go through this one here? We JI just pulled a random one up.
• 0:44
  And there's probably something going on there, but you need to know what the incoming power is. So definitely look, knowing what you're supposed to have is gonna be key on figuring out what type of electrical issue you may be having at the time. Then going through there, noticing that on the terminal blocks there's a black line going across it.
• 0:45
  So that's gonna be your one 20 side of your one 20 volt circuit. And then on the other side where you circled the wt, that's gonna be your. Neutral side of that same circuit. So you going across that you should receive one 20 volts or roughly about that. And then going through, and then that's where you're going to check I guess we'll go to that very first one off of 13.
• 0:46
  If I don't have 120 volts. Between 13 and 12. That means something's open and as we can see, there's a one of the doorframe switch heaters. Hopefully it's not a wire broken in there, but you never know. So it could be a burnt wire or whatever it may be, but that, that really just, narrows it down.
• 0:47
  That was one thing I had to go do to back to school and pass when I went to Australia because their, their black wire is neutral. Where here in Canada, in, in North America, it is power. So it's your, your voltage. So just remember when you're traveling, you wanna understand the, the, the different country colored codes for electrical wiring voltages may be a little bit different as well.
• 0:48
  When I first started though, if I had a problem with the lights, I'd be going directly to the transformer. So I'm pulling off the ends on the frame to find this transformer or where whatever it was just, it was like, man, there has to be a better way. Experience getting taught, training myself, whatever it may be.
• 0:49
  That makes a difference. If five ever frozen up versus one, there's a totally different problem. If this one's frozen up where would you start if just say you have a frozen up cases and you want to check electrically, instead of ripping everything apart after you washed out the case. Andrew, what are some of the things that you would check to see if what the problem could be?
• 0:50
  So, you could check air flow, like, yeah, there's obviously a problem here. Plus it's temping high, so there's that. But that's what I, that's where I would start. Once I diagnose, saying that it is a pan that's frozen, and the coil, typically the drain has froze up because tags or whatever may have fallen down in there, caused a jam, and then ice starts to build up, build up, and then freezes the coil.
• 0:51
  So I'll be going five to two, hitting that in the, with my meter and seeing what type of voltage I have. I should be reading 2 8 2 40 according to this electrical wire diagram. And if I don't, then I gotta figure out where does that go. So there, then that could be in a defrost panel. There's usually a contactor involved as a contacted coil have power.
• 0:52
  But if you get resistance through the two of them, we know the heater's not broken for an example. And same thing with the drain heater. In this example, sometimes there's drain heater, sometimes there's not. So we go from 11 to the normally open. 'cause that's where a rate in that harness, we can check when the power's off the resistance, does that drain heater have resistance or not?
• 0:53
  And then using this electrical diagram, pulling up and understanding what numbers one through 16 is, is key on, on speeding up, diagnosing and making life a lot easier. 'cause you're not trying to tear apart the whole case. Trying to find each individual component.
• 0:54
  And like it says right here, suitcase plate QR code. So that QR code on a lot of these newer systems within the last, I say 10 years, five to 10 years, there's a lot of QR codes out there. And some of you might be like, what's a QR code? If you have an Android or if you have an iPhone, just go to your photos.
• 0:55
  Trevor: that. Here's an example of a media and temperature case. As you can see, there's a lot less to it. You got a frame heater in this one. You got a, a door switch, doorframe switch and you get the fans. So even if you didn't have the wiring diagram, you should be able to draw this out within minutes, not hours.
• 0:56
  Erik: And Trevor, just a quick note, if you could just jump back to the previous diagram. This one here? Yeah. Oh no. The electrical diagram. Yeah, the freezer thing. From here, it is the same philosophy when you fall seeking this one, as with the gas cooler, take a look, take a step back and, and look what is actually controlling what.
• 0:57
  Erik: D first limit. Yeah, the difference limit. So you have to do those two temperature switches, and if one of those are failing or just always connected, you will also have an issue here.
• 0:58
  Erik: really, really simple system. This, we don't even have controllers and anything in this case here.
• 0:59
  Trevor: Yeah. And I think that's a great, a great place to, to, to end is because there's only so many components or only so many things that could be at the issue at hand.
• 1:00
  Okay. This is the same thing that's in a controller only looks a little bit different. Right, right. Awesome. Andrew, any final thoughts?
• 1:01
  And I think today, if I had to choose, my strongest asset is gonna be electrical. And I think, and I have to credit, what you said there is actually drawing out the ladder diagrams. There's been, I, there's countless a number of ladder diagrams floating around the, that I've done just by my personally doing that.
• 1:02
  'cause when I went back to that store, I couldn't remember three months later what I did. And then having a notepad. I remember so many times I had stacks and stacks of notepads from my, my, my pocket. And then, then I would go back and I'd remember stuff and important phone numbers for an example, need to call someone.