Massive Walk-In Freezer Leak - Attic Hell

Oh, 150 something. Look at that. 300 and something. So, we're blowing juice. Well, look at that. Really? Let's go into that. Oh, look at that. 4,000. There's your freak. That was hard. That was real hard. The DTEK Pro from Infacon. Do you have what it takes to be a great service technician? Only if you have the best. Make sure you check out Infocon's DTEK Pro. Just a measly $4,600. But with discount code survival, you can save 6% at checkout when you purchase it through True Tech Tools. No, I was not a DJ ever. Besides, you never want to talk like that. Radio personalities told me never do that cuz then you have to do it forever. >> This video is brought to you in part by True Tech Tools. Quality tools, essential support. All right, guys. So, I'm on call. Great weather. It's raining. So, grocery store here has got issues. This is one I've worked on in the past. It's got leaks. All the equipment is very, very old and a lot of line sets are leaking. Some of the guys were here this week. Found some leaks, fixed some leaks, replaced some parts. So, let's go in here and see what we can do with it to see if we can get this thing going. His walk-in freezer is like at 25° and it's got ice cream in there. And it's well over almost an hour drive to get over here. So, let's get get it and see what we can do. Here we are at 21°. Enough. Oh my gosh. Okay, the fans just came on. That's not feeling that great. Oh my goodness. This That's This old old old thing, ain't it? Holy cow. All right, let's get out of here and go upstairs. See what we got going on up there. Everything's up there. We got this new pressure switch on here. They just replaced that. It was leaking on one of these tubes, I guess. Usually we like to do that in plastic, which they ain't been doing on any of the other ones. So oil level looks okay. One of the worries I had was, okay, it's short cycling right now. Pressure switch comes on barely at 10 PSI. That's really low. So the fan's not coming on. So we are hot on our bottom of our compressor. a bad sign. And this was just replaced back in December of 24. What can happen is if you lose a valve plate, you could actually get recirculation, hot gas. This is just asking for more leaks way this crap is. Oh man. Wow. Is this even the walk-in walk-in freezer? So, I made a bunch of repairs on this heat reclaim on the Esumer. I did a bunch of work on this one on my jobs. I forget when. Let's look at the evapor or the condenser. Looks like it ain't too horribly bad. Let's put a pressure gauge on this thing. See where we're at. That's usually about 20 22 23 lb is about where you would want that to come on at. Right now it's short cycling. So it's either really low, which looks like it's massively low. That's not good. So it's low as heck. And so it's got a big big look at that's not even in the bottom of the of the thing. That's so flipping low. Watch as the cloud in here go bigger, right? So we got problems, bro. My question is where's it leaking at? Cuz from what I'm seeing, if you look at it, okay, suction line comes across here. See the green laser? Comes across here, goes across down, and essentially goes right down there, down underneath here, and goes to that freezer. So, we are massively low and we must have a pretty dog on big leak. Problem you run into is they got heat reclaim on this crap and it could be leaking out in front. That's my worry. So, discharge gas or that's suction. discharge comes off the back, goes in, and instead of going right into the condenser, goes up, skips out of that, goes out to that unit out there in the uh for free heating, comes back, then comes up, and then goes through the condenser, out of the condenser, into the receiver, out of the receiver, up, and then over and then down to the walk-in freezer. So, I would say our leak could either be in here or it could be out there. And that kind of sucks. I'm not even going to fool around. Let's get the big boy out. The DTEK Pro from Infod. I mean, it's obviously going off soon as I walk in the building. >> One is right there. And one looks just like that. Go up by that compressor. >> I mean, it's weaker back here. Let's I can get to that one pretty quick. Let's scan that real quick to see. >> No, they went up. They were all in the attic the other day. Clayton and his buddy, they were all through that attic. They went up through there and then to get to that other put a ladder there to go up and then you scoot scoot down. >> That's it. >> Sorry. >> You're fine. Okay, we're going to go back here and see if we can get to it. It's just really great spot and [clears throat] dirty. So, let me get my brand new detector all nasty and dirty. All right, so when we go up above here like this up here where this where the line sets are at, look what's going on. 35. Yeah, that's great. So, leak's probably up there. I have a feeling it's in multiple places. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I didn't pe out down here, so I'm thinking we're probably all right for now on this one. Coming up through this hatchway. See if I can get up here without breaking my leg. Okay, we're already at 19. I'll go ahead and turn that back on. People probably don't want to hear that. Oh, 150 something. Look at that. 300 and something. So, we're blowing juice. Well, look at that. Look at that right there, bro. That big ass hunk of oil right there. That sure looks like a leak for God's sakes. Really? Really? Let's go into that. Oh, look at that. 4,000. There's your leak. That was hard. That was real hard. Compared down to here, nothing. Every one of these damn clamps have taken a Well, they don't even have no damn rubber rubbers on half of them. See, we're getting stuff up in here, too. Yeah, these lines are just plain And then look at these damn electrical lines they got right above my head. Literally tube and knob. few people that like are old young wires used to be just ran with it wasn't Romax back in the day. They usually used to run one wire and but yeah, this bad boy here's my monster. I got to fix that one like pronto. My guesstimation is it's got to be the freezer right there. Got to be. There's so many leaks in here though. I mean it's like where do you start at? See, look. I'm picking stuff up over here. The line sets are junk. That's all there is to it. He knows we need to replace them. He's probably going to watch this video. He can see that we're telling him the truth. It's not like we get great pleasure out of having somebody have to replace something. This is going to be a job. This ain't going to be fun. Stratus easily would have done that. Tell any of them would have done that. I can't tell if there's a freaking truss right there. Hopefully. Yeah. So, I I moved it. The whole dang thing fell off, which is awesome. And that's hot gas, I think. Yeah, that's hot. So, so chances are it's going in hot gas here on the big one. Coming back on liquid on the small one cuz you condense it. It's in a liquid. You don't need a big big freaking uh Yeah, this this crap is like just falling the hell apart. Look at that. Look at Look at that. Look at it. just fall off. I mean, that that insulation shot to Cutting this off so I can get it with the uh That's fantastic right there, bro. Bro, just totally fantastic, bro. Yep. Big old rub. Oh my god. Yeah, I feel it. Look at that. Get that. Get you some. Get you some of that. There's some right there on the backside, dude. That's That's just pathetic. What's bad is Can't pump it down. Can't pump it down. And you can pump it down some. Problem is this is on the condenser side. You know what I'm saying? Can't pump it down. We're just going to do what we got to do. So, like I said, if we can get over here without falling to the roof, it' be great. So, the very top one on that green unit strut, which is right there. And that's this one. Yes. Okay, man. That crap is just dangling, rattling away. Look at this one. jig jinking. But yeah, that's that's the top one. See if we can try not to fall through the floor here or through the ceiling. Safety last. All right, got my little bitty torches here, which is the Ambro. We got the Ambro torch system here. Here's where I think it pays off cuz getting up here was very difficult. We'll just let that sucker hang right there. That one's nice and tight. Kind of sucks that it's metal to metal. And that's the liquid all jack did dd that needs replaced. We said that unfortunately time frame of getting that done probably ain't quick. There's just 110 different things where it's going down. And what sucks is the dang freezer right below you ain't that bad. The problem is if I disconnect this just bypass it cuz I know that's what you're probably saying. And I contemplated that but that reheat actually gives air to the store in the area where the chin freezers and stuff are at. And if you don't, then it's going to be colder and crap back here cuz they're open cases. Very inefficient old stuff. I am going to skim coat it. I'm not going to cut it and all this other crap cuz I'm telling you, this needs replace. We'll get something to wedge in there. Both them off. Found a piece of the EMT around here. We really need a uh paramedic. Haha. Bad joke. And so, not too bad on that. I may give it a little coat, but come back here on the back where I cleaned it up. And by golly, look at that freaking thing right there. See that hole right there? That hole is there. That hole is there. There's a little rub. A little rub there. I got 15% braise. We're going to hit that pad turkey. And uh roll on. I am not feeling anything right now, so it must be done being recovered. This is all goodter. All goodter. I got that tiny little tiny little torch which I the only reason why I don't like using this thing that much is the torch selection head selection kind of sucks. It's other than that it's a great torch and I have tried switching the heads. It does not work. This is a weird combination of gas and stuff like that and it just does not work right. Look at that. That bag was one of my favorites for the longest time even though it's one of their cheapest. Yeah, this is fantastic insulation everywhere. freak. No place to stand. No place. No place. One place for one foot. That's it. This ain't too hot. So, it's literally holding on there like a TIG weld. Let it cool for a second. We'll build a little more bead up on it. That one. The other one over here ain't looking so good. Some people may not agree with this. I've done it on racks or on the discharge gas of the racks before and never let go. Everybody's like, "Oh, you can't do that. Can't do that." Guess what? It's all about whether or not you know what you're doing. The biggest thing is seeing what you're doing. That's one thing my dad always taught me. He was a welder for like 40ome years. Used to work in top secret on the Abrams tank. And uh he had to weld some crazy And one of the things he always said was if you can't see what you're doing, you can't weld it. So get comfortable and be sure you can see what you're doing. So that's why it's always important to get comfortable and be able to see what you're doing. I'm looking happy in my hood here, bro. Yep. I'm I'm feeling pretty good there. I don't know if we really need to waste a lot of time on that. We can if we want. There we go. Built that one in. A little bitty one on this 5/8. There you go. All right. You want to take a look at it cuz I'm sweating my ass off here. All right. Come on. Come on. Come here. Went ahead and built a bead on it just like you would with welding. Went ahead and built the bead across it. Way bigger than we need. While the strength is in the bead back here on the back, same thing. I've got I went a little bit. We were nice and smooth on the one. The other one I went to hit it again. It's a little built up, but as I just I want plenty of shoulder, but the vibration on this thing is just absolutely atrocious. Honestly, this thing could probably support itself without being strapped. This needs to be replaced right away. Uh we'll put some new clamps on it. Let's get evacuating and get this turkey charged back up. As they say [snorts] in the rap song, hold up. Wait a minute. Look here. This one here is loose as a goose. That's it. Same line. You can see the oil plane as day. Guess what? We've got screw marks right through that right there. That's really fantastic. Bottom side's got some real bad ones. That's just freaking awesome, man. That is freaking awesome. So, let's put this up in the air like we just don't care. Throw your conduit underneath of it. Make it happen. And what's bad is look at all those oil stains. Those are all probably leaking, too. You know what? Like I said, you can chop them out. Do whatever you want to do, but that's how we're going to do it. It's Saturday, and this is a freaking mess. What's bad is that's discharged gas, so it leaks out fast. Not to mention, the whole system's probably fractionated. So, yeah. Let's see if I can climb over that danger zone again. See if I can show you that. See that? Got it right there and there. Uh, it's hard to tell, but it's definitely really bad. So, we're going to get both those spots. Don't know if it was leaking here or not, but guess what? I'm going to do it while I can. Need a little more light there, bro. Freaking glasses fogging up. A little more heat. There. My tip look a little better. You guys probably complain about the other one. Vertical upside down. How you like that? Get it to follow it. See that sucker moving. There we go. Got it. Get a little bit better. Never happy. I think I'm about putting that on my Jeep. Never satisfied. That would probably be about the best definition for me. See if we can get these bolt things here. There we go. I think we got them pretty. Yeah. I'm use my my bra, my torch as a light. We got it. So, we got that one right there. If you can see it through the freaking head lamp. I got it all up underneath there. It's kind of hard to see. I know. And then, like I said, I got those there. It uh this is hodge podgey. That's what we got. So, we got it. Got that. I mean, like I said, there's still stuff there. I ain't got time to kill that down. That's what we're talking about. That needs done. And the problem is you don't want to do this to all of them. This is This is fine for a while and it'll last probably a year or two, but that's not an excuse. it needs replaced or it's going to bleed you dry. That's what we got going on here. So, I've got the unit on a vacuum. I've got some clamps here. Got a new one on that. And I got a new one on this. We got something else leaking so bad that I can see the smoke coming out because it looks like fire of some sort. Unbelievable. Tell you what, this enough piss you off. Piss you the Get this crap right off. I mean, it's just freaking garbage. Ain't got no insulation value at all on it. Oh, you can see the freaking oil on that one. Plain as day. You can see little bubbles there. Fantastic. Thank you so much. So glad everyone else just and waited. I'm glad Rick got into this as usual. Right there it is. Plain as day. All right. So, like since it was never into a vacuum and all that happy jazz, I just wanted to get any air out of it cuz God knows this was fractionated. I'm sure a couple times. Brand new bottles here. Just going to dump them in, get it up and going. God knows it's like ice cream's probably ruined. Is ruined before I got here. You know, what do you do? was going on all damn week. This is awesome. Some jackass that built this piece of didn't uh overtighten it so damn tight. I can't get the freaking thing to turn. So, it's probably going to snap off. Oh, I got damn lucky. Got damn lucky. Freaking worthless junk. Unflipping believable, bro. Unbelievable. Okay, we're going to dump that right into the liquid. See it going right in. That sight glass had tons of oil in it. Yeah, this is going to take quite a few pounds. I'm sure of it. Let it boil off. Should be the third one. Third liquid down. So, one, two, and three. It comes up to this one. Comes across on this outside header. Comes down to the wiggly goat here. Comes down to this 12 door frozen food. Imagine that. I think that was just what was worked on. Well, surprisingly, cuz these are big ass receivers. Um, it's got pretty solid sight glass right now. And ain't much left in there. Too much effort to wrap right in here what the hell it holds. But I have to do stickers for this. So, I got the walk-in freezer. It's labeled, but stands out and tells you that it has a reheat coil. You're a rookie. You don't know. You ain't looking anything. This ain't something you normally see a reheat coil on. These didn't come like this. They added it. You know, I I I label this trap. It's obviously coming down. Uh, got a little flashing going on there. More in there. It's going to do it as this thing's coming down its tail. I speculate probably I was figuring it will probably need about 45 lb something like that with a big receiver maybe 50 something. Having problems with my probes not wanting to connect. I'm searching but it's not happening. Uh we got a plan for the leak. So it's going to involve that's this one. It's going to involve a piece of hose and some clamps wrapped around it. Had to go pick them up. So let's take a look at that. That's generic, but you know, it's not leaking so fast that it's drained that down. We're making sure that our super heat, I mean, we're not really coming back quite right on that. Not for a greaser. We got 46° on the suction line, - 20 - 21 on my liquid or for God's sake. We have 46 suction temperature on the clamp, -21 for saturated. We have about 1.5 on my liquid here. Uh, so that kind of corresponds. Usually you never get height when you got a receiver. Um but yeah, we are not real super high over for what we are in this room. All right, so we got some hose clamps from Loves. I got a piece of hose that I split. Going to lift this up. This is really generic. This ain't how I usually would do it. Surely ain't something I would normally show. But you know what? If I do this, I would say this repair is going to take another six or seven hours at least to do. And I don't want to be here all night. Sorry. Worked my 47 hours this week already or 49, whatever. And I've already been here for God knows how long. So, see if I can get this freaking thing undone. I figured this wouldn't work. So, I've never tried it before, but I thought, hey, we'll give it a shot just for dizzles. Right there on the crevice. Let's see if we can do this. I mean, it really ain't much different than those generic suction saddle taps. I think we'll try it. See what happens. I don't know. This is really generic. Oh, look how bad that is. See how bad that is? Anything I do is got to be better than that. I just hope these Chinese clamps are good. I got them, like I said, at the truck stop. I've done this, seen this done on steam lines before with Fern Codes and they've worked. I mean, you're cramming that with some massive pressure around it. I think for just extra precautions, I'm going to go ahead and put this other one on there with it. Like I said, big thing I think here is make sure you don't have the actual clamp part on the part where you're trying to seal it because we need to squeeze that rubber up in there. Good faith attempt, bro. This what it's called. Good faith attempt. We ain't got the big blue. probably don't want to know the results, but here we go. You're not a hack if it works. And this is temporary, too. Dirt bags. Dirt bag bitchers and complainers. Bro, I don't see nothing leaking. And it feels Oh, it's hot. That's that beside it is hot. Holy cow. Congratulations, boys and girls. You just you see somebody else already made a repair right there. God knows this probably freaking leaking. So guess what? I think I got it. All right. So we got that. You can see what kind of mess we got. Got this over here. Got all these over here going that way. Got these down through here, through here, over there, across there, up there. It's Yeah. Good stuff. All right. So, the 12 door case that we were jerryrigging, it's staying solid. It just shut off. It Clayton said it actually had a little bit of bubbles in it. This cool condenser hooked together. I think all this stuff's homemade, but I had to tap this off a couple more times, but right there is happening a little more again. But we're just about ready to roll. I'm making sure this defrost clock works, which so far it hasn't moved. 200 206 volts, 28 volts. They only got three defrosts and they're not even equal. That's great cuz eventually the time gets off and then not accurate. I'll tell you what, the K hits just keep coming. This thing hasn't moved yet. I'm going to see if this thing will pump down. Shut off. Get it off close to zero. Look at that. Holy cow. Selenoid is I think in the case holding right in there about four. That's the way we like it. Now I always like to bring it on about 20 22ish for 44. That way when you want to run really cold it doesn't have to get really warm before it can come up. I got it set for about 20 cuz I thought well just in case. Boom. About 20 18 20. Looking good there. Yeah. I have a bad feeling that's shot. Um, I'm going to pull that off to see if the clock's turning on the back side. Uh, let's go ahead and pump it down and then we'll shut it off and that way I don't have all that refrigerant starting in the compressor when we take off. Okay, everything should be dead. Should be able to get in there and look at that. Live at the top, not live at the bottom. Notice I tested it on a known live circuit first. All right. So, if we look at the back side, don't grab a hold of anything big time. Should be able to see this clock doing some checking and tracking. It's clock. It's tracking there. It's running. I don't know if the clock part mechanism is junk or not, but I don't know. It just really seemed like it was taking forever. Tell you what, we'll try it again, but chances are it seems like it's tracking time. The gears look like they're okay. Not really sure what to tell you. I'm going to say something to him. Maybe we can do that on the other go round. It wasn't froze up. That's the whole thing I'm looking at. So, let's set this for 430 cuz I mean, I never wanted to go home. There we go. Just using my 101. Using the quarter inch. It works out really good for that. Okay. Go. Pressure comes up. Boom. There she goes. It's time to call it a day till I get another flipping call. But I needed a call for this week. So, guess what? You get this one. Was doing a lot of startups again. Of course, they were acting up again. So, yeah. There you go. At this time, I've added a little bit more. A little bit more. A little bit more. I got to reweigh this tank. Uh, I got to reweigh that tank. But as of right now, everything is working. We've got that temporarily held in there and I've got, you know, things set up so that they can come quote a, uh, repair on those lines. He understands what's going on. That defrost clock is working. Uh, just so you know, uh, didn't mark it on the 60 mark. So, it was on 60. Right now we are on the uh 65. So it's working good. All right guys, it's Saturday. Hope you guys had a great time. I didn't. So till next time, subscribe, tell your grandma about it, and uh be nice to your dog. Later.