What did we do today?

[chilliwilly]

Today?

25°C at lunchtime, BBQ going, outdoor A/C running...

4" of snow and took 2 & 1/2 hours to go 5 miles there and back.

[SeanB]

When has any government department closed? They just get bigger and costlier........ No colonies left but British Colonial office is bigger than ever. Close half of them, lose the overpaid staff and all can live better.

[frank]

I've moved the posts regarding energy assessments into a new thread http://www.refrigeration-engineer.co...gy-Assessments

[monkey spanners]

Got called to a farm with three Desco milk tanks, they were installed in 1972!!! Still running but with a few control box issues.

Been up in the loft hunting out my old wiring diagrams for the Desco power saver control box.

Looks like the ice bank control works by using the water as a neutral for the 110v pulse relay! Wonder i never got a shock off one before now

[1mikeefc1]

Got called to a walk in fridge found comp seized left off finished my very nicely given bacon butty and brew got signed up and travelled back home all on double time. I do love Sundays.

[Frikkie]

Repairing fences today, I walked about 14KM with tools and I am feeling old and pap this evening.

[bigspee]

Started off from Birmingham to a VRV not working in a supermarket in Cheltenham, condenser fan motor faulty... New on ordered. Call from the office " beings as you are down that way there is a call for water leaking from ac unit in a comms at the same supermarket chain in Barry island" off to Wales I go! Hour into the journey another call "after Barry can you go to western super mare, they got no hot water" so I get to Barry. The condensate pump is faulty and the lines are blocked! On a mr slim wall cassette, Cleaned out the drip tray and lines and fitted a new aspen pump job done! Off to western s mare! Get there at half 6! Everything working ok! Controls company issue! Had some dinner and drove back to brummyland. Not long got in! Call for tomorrow morning in cirencester for a daikin showing a u4 fault which if I'm correct is LP switch activated, and going to rugby for another no cooling call!

[install monkey]

mr slim wall cassette!!-

[bigspee]

mr slim wall cassette!!-

Well it was a mistsi electric anyway lol Today had a daikin in Cirencester with no gas left in it at all Leaking from the the flair! Re done the flair and charged, got a shock off the casing of the unit next to it, no earth to the unit so, isolated and locked it off to attend sometime next week! and Nice day to be out on the roof lol

[chillerman2006]

taken the weekend off as constantly doing others recalls and finding leaks at 10 paces that others cant becomes a little tedious .... joys of supermarket fridge ay

[glenn1340]

Removed an intercooler out of a 750kw oil free air compressor. Two days hard graft. And I thought FM was supposed to be an easy life.008.jpg

[monkey spanners]

I'm talking some liberties with the title as this in fact happened yesterday.

Called to a new customer, i say new customer but i'm sure they had been a customer before, to look at why his unit wasn't running.

It turned out to be a tripped mcb which i reset, which at 10A i felt was too close to the units max run of 9A. After it had run for a bit i opined that one of the two fan motors appeared to be in the mid stages of bearing failure and turned the unit off again to poke the blade with a screwdriver as i sometimes like to do.
The results were inconclusive so i again turned the unit on but this time was met with the various sounds of a machine suffering a mechanical failure so thought it best to turn it off again. When the dust had settled we discovered that the fan blade had fallen off the shaft...

I have seen these Leroy Somer fan motors in use for over fifteen years on more sites than i have had things i've had a lot of and this is the second one i have ever seen do this and the second one this week! What are the chances?

[Grizzly]

It's a case of CBS Monkey!
Chinese Bearing Syndrome.

Until this year, I had never noticed premature failures with many of the manufacturers kit that I am seeing now.
Zeihl Abegg, Danfoss, grundfoss, Panasonic motors, Baltimore water pumps. etc.etc.

So I would say the chances of a repeat performance are high!
Personally I blame the accountants.
Cheers Grizzly

[monkey spanners]

I've seen a lot of new stuff fail in warranty with bad bearings, or just poor manufacturing standards recently, and like you say a lot can be traced to the country of origin.

But the odd thing is both these motors were 15 years old or there abouts and the bearings seemed ok, it was the bolt holding the blade on that came loose! Similar design to shaded pole motors but on a 150w 350mm combo.

I blame accountants for most things, they know the cost of everything but don't have any concept of value...

[cadwaladr]

finished off replacement of a 5hp r body [prestcold],drove another 40 miles to find a contactor sticking causing evaps to ice up,left got 10 minutes from home got called back the lights gone off in main fridge replaced burnt isolator got home thru 4 chicken legs in the oven,peace peace!

[r.bartlett]

Busy time atm. All day first fixing duct and pipe runs then off to a hotel to look at an under counter not cooling.

GENFROST what a load of ****e. Quite possibly, err no scrub that absolutely the worst cabinet I have ever worked on. Garbage. Before I even started Chef said they were rubbish and he regretted head office buying the things as they were so poor...

This unit has a pizza well on top and they had spilt a tray of sauce. No protection to the crappy 100mm sq PC fans below and one got gunged up. To change it meant the whole thing needs to be dismantled. Chef said "pass me the front cover I'll wash it as we can't get to some of the parts we think need to be cleaned on a regular basis" proceeded to slice his hand open on the thing. Oh how he praised the manufacturer for the poorly finished edges.

If you ever see one in the field and need to change a fan -let me know how you got on :-)

[chilliwilly]

Leak tested plenty of brand new cabinets that were delivered short of gas, or because the charge weight on the label were wrong?

But yes, Chinese manufacturing at its worst! And folk buy them with no warranty???

But yet they're CE marked?

I think it take a few years before Joe public get the message and stay clear of them.

[chemi-cool]

China's mision is to destroy the western economy by flooding our markets with cheap, very low quality, shiny products.
if we were smart enough to notice it and go back to support our manufacturers, it will destroy their economy but give us back pride and life.

[monkey spanners]

China's mision is to destroy the western economy by flooding our markets with cheap, very low quality, shiny products.
if we were smart enough to notice it and go back to support our manufacturers, it will destroy their economy but give us back pride and life.

Couldn't agree more. No need to fight wars when you can conquer a country (or continent) while it sleeps and pays you to do it....

[r.bartlett]

China's mision is to destroy the western economy by flooding our markets with cheap, very low quality, shiny products.
if we were smart enough to notice it and go back to support our manufacturers, it will destroy their economy but give us back pride and life.

An an American recently said "we have lots of new goods, what do they have: lots of pieces of paper...It's them who should be more concerned than us"

[RusBuka]

1к post tru)

[cadwaladr]

brazed a leaking condensor on a transport unit absolute bitch!

[chilliwilly]

Replaced a dryer and a condensate tank high side loop on a foster under counter 3 door fridge, neither part was the right size but made them fit anyway. Put on 220 psi tightness test at 14:30 no drop, left on vac at 15:30, returned at 19:45 and still only down to 2500 micron with ballast open.

Closed ballast and pulled down to 270 micron in about an hour, but rose back up to 1500 micron and rising, carried out triple vac but still not holding below 1500 micron.

Left on deep vac from 22:00 for over night vacking, hopefully by tomorrow lunchtime it will be right down and hold.

Suprised they bothered to have it repaired due to the state and condition of it. Must be cheaper to replace it for new.

[mikeref]

Two weeks ago, State government run "Parks and Wildlife" called as one of their tractors a/c lost gas. Discharge line is obviously loose with locking clamp in place. Aluminium manifold and steel connection from the discharge hose.... Change both of them as a new "O" ring made no difference. Now the parts are here.
Fitted them today and now removing the suction valve cap to connect my adaptor and....damn that's screwed on tight.....use pliers..... aaaand SNAP! Connection port snapped off from years of rust.
FAARK YOU!!...

[chilliwilly]

Well it turned out a disaster, I went back at 16:30 and checked the pull down and was at 120 mic. Switched pump off and it rose up to 400 mic in 1/2 hour, so bomb charged high side and switched on. And the low side pulled straight into a vacuum and there was about 1 & 1/2" of ice on the high side of the capillary?

Assumed there had to be a blockage that caused the low side vacuum, but when tightness tested and triple vacked it. Charged OFN on low side and both sides balanced with no problem, and released it from high side, high side pressure was only reading 80 psi, (134a). Then realised the pot must have bad valves to give readings and effects like that. And I'm not too sure but the time it took to vac down must have been moisture trapped in the oil?

If I had have got there first to originally diagnose the problem, I would have condemened it due to its condition and age, like I had to. An old Fosters PRO approximately 17 years plus and absolutely minging.

[monkey spanners]

Job last week was this milk cooler that pulled in moisture due to an incorrectly set LP switch and a leak on the suction line,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v8rRjTQ4QE

and the fix,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_Eqh-DLqQA

I'm trying out R407F to replace the R422D the system had in it. Haven't heard from the customer over the weekend so hopefully no news is good news!

[THE DUDE]

Just finished a R-22 to R-407F conversion on a Supermarket Rack. It went very smooth. Why cant they all go Smooth!? Its Beer time now..Cheers

[THE DUDE]

On Call this weekend (-15f ambient). I had 4 Service Calls at 2 different Cold Storage buildings....and I thought the Cold ambient was a good thing.....

[frank]

Went to a customers property to look at the chillers and saw this in the plantroom.....I know times are hard for everyone at the moment but this is a classic roof leak repair

[frank]

Went to the pub....

[FreezerGeezer]

I like that!

[al]

rain water harvesting?)

[mikeref]

Spent the afternoon at a distant Roadhouse. A Coldroom with 6 double glazed doors wasn't holding temperature.
Had a heads up as they said 2 Evap fan motors weren't working, so i take 2 EBM's 300MM with me.

Find out that 4 of the 5 evap fans are faulty. 2 are dead and the other 2 had faulty caps causing fans to run slow. Change the capacitors and see the fans run up to speed BUT they are now squealing... Replace one noisy and one dead EBM. Meh...and the gas charge is low. Flare on TX valve outlet as usual but wait... An R12 expansion valve?

Compliance sticker has worn away years ago and NO markings to indicate the old Dorin semihermetic had any other gas type introduced. (135 KPA suction.) Sat down on a milk crate and considered my options.

[stoljc05]

What option did you go with Mike? Uneventful day today. Changed a thermistor on a semi-hermetic for a walk in freezer and found a gas leak on the local hotels coolroom. One of the evap fan motors had been hit by something causing the whole unit to vibrate and we have a hole in the distributor. What seemed like a year of evacuating and 10kg of R22 later she is all good.

[frank]

Went to the van after lunch to fetch the laptop bag containing my service checker only to find that some nice person had helped themselves to it, probably thinking that it contained my laptop. But it didn't.

Quotes so far for a replacement vary between £1300 and £1500. One supplier quoting next day delivery the other quoting 4 weeks.

Keep your eyes and ears tuned for some sh*tbag selling one cheap

[marc5180]

Went to the van after lunch to fetch the laptop bag containing my service checker only to find that some nice person had helped themselves to it, probably thinking that it contained my laptop. But it didn't.

Quotes so far for a replacement vary between £1300 and £1500. One supplier quoting next day delivery the other quoting 4 weeks.

Keep your eyes and ears tuned for some sh*tbag selling one cheap

Sorry to hear that Frank, i feel your pain!!

If they don't know what it is then i bet they will look on ebay to see what they are worth.

I'd keep an eye out there.

[frank]

Sorry to hear that Frank, i feel your pain!!

If they don't know what it is then i bet they will look on ebay to see what they are worth.

I'd keep an eye out there.

Got my eye on that Marc....thanks

[FreezerGeezer]

Good luck Frank.

[r.bartlett]

Went to the van after lunch to fetch the laptop bag containing my service checker only to find that some nice person had helped themselves to it, probably thinking that it contained my laptop. But it didn't.

Quotes so far for a replacement vary between £1300 and £1500. One supplier quoting next day delivery the other quoting 4 weeks.

Keep your eyes and ears tuned for some sh*tbag selling one cheap

jeezus we had our office broken into a couple of years back and my checker was under my desk. I keep an old laptop in the bag so it's all there good to go. luckily for me he opened the bag and just took the laptop. It was about 10 years old and worth eff all..

Phew.. if it doesn't turn up keep asking for one as they often come up s/h

[mikeref]

High humidity coldroom set for 5 Degrees C, running at 11 C. Room is only used during Avocado picking season. (A new customer )

Evaporators iced and so was the semi-hermetic...right up to the heads.
This room had concealed evaporators with independent belt drive barrel fans...a right bugger to access. Shut off the liquid line and pump down to allow evap fans to de-ice coils.

The 3 Phase condenser fans wound down... running the wrong way.
Remove panels to access one evap barrel fan and sure enough, fan is also running the wrong way.
Swap 2 feeds and problem solved.
Sometime earlier, a sparky had rewired this farm's sorting and packing facility.

[NewmanRef]

Well it's Good Friday and I'm on call now until next Friday. So... No plans for this hot Easter weekend. Just sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring! Just trying to decide whether I'm happy that it's quiet so far or if I would rather be out there fixing things? Not sure. The a alcohol withdrawal has already kicked in... I'm far from an alcoholic but the definite knowing that not a drop can pass my lips now until next Friday is playing havoc with my mind and will do for the rest of the week. When next Friday does come around I probably won't even have a beer... Wierd.

Shall I go and tidy my van out while I'm waiting? It does seem like a good opportunity... No, can't be bothered. I dare say il regret that later, probably in the middle of the night scrambling around through install returns looking for parts.

I could build that flat pack wardrobe that's been in its box in the spare room for 6 months, that would pass some time and get me some brownie points from the misses.... No, I hate building flat pack furniture!

And...... The phones just rung! Chilled Meat case freezing chickens! Well it's started, I'm off in the van, when will I be back, who knows....

Maybe il continue this later on...

........and I'm back home. Long drive for half hours work this time. Manager been playing with settings.

[monkey spanners]

Drove 2 hours to blow out a condenser that was full of dust from the cow barn, so mostly sh!t and straw dust, i have gone a sort of green colour, not helped by the lack of working tap on site...

[MikeHolm]

Drove 2 hours to blow out a condenser that was full of dust from the cow barn, so mostly sh!t and straw dust, i have gone a sort of green colour, not helped by the lack of working tap on site...

Dunk yourself in beer.

[mikeref]

Thursday and Friday this week were booked in 7 days ago. Phone call this morning ( Thursday)...sparky's can't make it. Gee thanks fellas for letting me know 5 minutes in advance.
I've got 2 days spare now. Guess i could go and help Monkey Spanners...shoot a short video of him blowing out a crap clogged condenser.

[FreezerGeezer]

Mike, come & lend me a hand doing supermarket maintenance if you like. I can probably stretch to $30/ hour for you.

[MikeHolm]

Ohhh, big spender. Mike, come over here and help me change my transmission, haha

Bought a used drill press today, trying to make nice bespoke wiring diagrams for a HP I installed. Not so easy to make them look good. (no, I am not using the drill press to make wiring diagrams, haha)

[mikeref]

Freezer G. Too many hours spent hosing condensers, cleaning various supermarket butcher shop's greasy air-con coils, re-lagging suction lines, replacing 4 and 5 drive belts per set, polishing compressors etc.

I'd best not go any further as there may come a time when i might have to return to the supermarkets schedules.
Meh...this would be better than getting involved in Mike Holm's vehicle dramas.

[mikeref]

Weather forecasts predict a low of +2 for the Gold and Sunshine coasts of Queensland tonight.

It was +4 here this morning and -8 C in the higher regions of the Atherton Tablelands. Brrrrr.

[MikeHolm]

Weather forecasts predict a low of +2 for the Gold and Sunshine coasts of Queensland tonight.

It was +4 here this morning and -8 C in the higher regions of the Atherton Tablelands. Brrrrr.

Loverly outdoor working weather Mike.

[FreezerGeezer]

The iphone weather thingo claimed -2 @ Coolangatta last week.

Mikeref, yes it's $30/hr tax free for me - I'm not paying it, you are! lol

I spent this week cleaning plant rooms, condensers & c/rm evap's. Leak testing & look-listen-smell-touch fault finding. No fix as you go, it all has to be reported & quoted. Give me chillers any day!
MikeHolm, yes it is. Much better for physical work than 30°C+ & 80%+ RH!